Free Forever Never Ends by Scott Nicholson

ring of creek stones. The charred smell of the dead campfire mingled with the mist that drifted off the creek as the sun rose higher.
    His old man had shown him this place. Sylvester was no slouch at playing hooky, either, and that was one of the few qualities Junior had inherited. That, and what his dad called a "kinship with nature." Junior giggled and took another hit.
    Kinship, hell. Kinship was fucked up, that's what it was. Like Gramps, stewing away on that big old farm, sitting on a goddamned fortune. But did he ever give Junior a red penny of it? Hell, no.
    Junior used to hang out up on the farm, especially in the summer when his dad was away on his hunting trips and Mom was staining the sheets with that redneck Jimmy Morris. Junior liked the smell of the hay in the barn and the rich dust from the tobacco that had hung drying in the rafters. He even liked the smell of chicken shit.
    There was lots to do on the farm, playing "fort" in the corncrib with his brother Little Mack or fishing out of season in the branch. Or going up in the briars and eating gooseberries until your belly was about to bust. Even hoeing the garden beat the hell out of hanging around the pool halls in Windshake.
    But then Gramps had caught Junior getting into the white lightning. All he'd taken was half a cupful, and he'd been real careful to mark the level in the jar so he could fill it back with water. But the leathery old bastard had taken one swig, sniffed at the jar like a dog smelling between a girl's legs, then went crazy enough to threaten him with a shotgun.
    Well, fuck him and his liquor .
    Junior sucked down another lungful of marijuana. Junior could go over to Don Oscar's and buy his own moonshine. And Gramps could sit in his chair and rock until his bones came loose before he'd ever set foot on that scraggly-assed side of the mountain again. Crazy old bastard.
    Junior chuckled to himself.
    The dope was starting to work, making his eyelids twitch and the water glitter under the sunlight in a billion little speckled diamonds and the breeze was a whisk broom in the treetops and seven birds were singing different songs but the notes kind of fit together if you listened. And his stomach was clenched and the back of his neck tingled and he stared at the fishing line where it went into the water and at the round ripple that went out from there, and then another little ring inside that one, and then another, perfect circles that would keep spreading forever but never touch the one ahead of it.
    And the water was even laughing with him, lapping up against the creek bank and tickling the muddy ribs of the earth. Stony Creek was RIGHT .
    He snorted a little as smoke snot rolled down his lip. He took a final draw, scorching his fingers as he pinched the roach, but even the pain was funny, kind of dead and faraway, as if it were somebody else's and he was only borrowing it for a second.
    He went back to watching the ripples where his line went into the water. Might have to try some corn. They're not hitting nightcrawlers today. But I sure do like sticking those slimy, squirting bastards on the hook, though. And I'm as fucked up as a football bat and high as a Georgia pine.
    Suddenly the line grew taut, but slackened almost immediately. Junior's hand clenched around the rod.
    Come on, you bastard. Hit it one more time .
    Then he was standing and the pole was quivering and the water erupted in white-silver splashes. Four-pounder, it felt like. It had taken the hook and was trying to wind the line around an old black tree stump that jutted from the creek like an overturned molar.
    Junior tugged and then cranked the reel, pulling in the slack he had gained. He cleared the fish from the stump, but it could dip around a rock just as easily, cutting the line on a sharp edge. Then the fish surfaced again, twitching like a convict in an electric chair, but the fight was over, the bastard was Junior's now, and all that was left was a little show of