They Forgot One Thing

The last Wednesday before the first day of school, my 14-year-old son, Paul, brandished his $49 two-piece shiny black fishing pole with shocking pink string, rather shocking pink line, while clutching a five-gallon white plastic bucket in his right hand, a small plastic tackle box surprisingly identical to my toolbox in his left, and proudly proclaimed, “I’m gonna catch me a big one today,” and skirted away on his neon yellow 20-inch Tony Hawk signature mountain bike like he was chasing the wobbling green overly friendly alien in “E.T.,” swiveling left to right, right to left, as he pedaled down Fort Pond Boulevard toward Maidstone Beach.

Undaunted, I hopped in my 2012 four-door gray Civic and roared down the same road as if Riverhead Raceway had relocated to Springs.

Watching Paul delicately pirouette over the huge gray boulders of the jetty toward the last one, reminiscent of Ralph Macchio balanced atop the wooden piling in “The Karate Kid,” I stared in amazement as he defiantly battled five-mile-per-hour northeast gusts and the occasional blast of sea mist, determined to bring home enough marine life to feed our family of six through 10 harsh winters.

Although Paul didn’t catch the big one, he manhandled 27 snappers, “baby bluefish,” he reminds me, about the same size and sparkling gray color as the guppies in our 20-gallon, algae-infested basement fish tank.

“What are you gonna do with all those tiny fish?” I shouted from a comfortable distance, lounging in my blue-and-white-striped sand chair.

“We’re gonna eat them for dinner . . . after you cut ’em up!” he shouted back.

My son forgot one thing. I don’t kill fish.

The 5-foot-by-3-foot-by-2-foot hunter green Rubbermaid storage bin sits inches behind our six-foot-high unpainted stockade front fence, alongside a three-foot-wide, warped pressure-treated walkway. Baseballs, basketballs, a worn leather football, an assortment of golf balls, softballs, and a lone lacrosse ball fight for space with five various-length Louisville Slugger wood bats that call this bin home. An old-time catcher’s mask, a Mike Piazza blemished black leather catcher’s mitt, an ice hockey-type red face mask, shin guards, and a red chest protector are stuffed beneath everything else, requiring an Act of Congress to retrieve my mitt when Paul demands he practice his splitter, a pitch I swear is laced with that green Flubber invented by Robin Williams’s Professor Philip Brainard, forcing it to drop as if Industrial Light and Magic had spent days designing its trajectory.

Sadly though, it’s not what’s inside the storage bin that’s troubling, but rather what’s underneath: A happy family of hundreds of yellow jackets dance around me when I open it. Luckily, they stare, smile, and continue on their merry wasp-like work schedule, only to return to their condo before sunset after a hard day of threatening the likes of my family and me. Only my wife received a three-bite welcome.

“When do you plan to spray those wasps?” my wife yelled from the front porch the other morning as she waved a 20-ounce value-size green aerosol can of wasp and hornet killer that shoots a 27-foot jet spray.

My wife forgot one thing. I don’t kill wasps.

The doe and her two fawns arrive in my backyard promptly at 6:15 every morning, peering over my three-foot-high, lame and useless green-lattice deer fence, anticipating their peanut butter-laden Dutch Country 100-percent whole-wheat sliced bread I’ve handed them since April, a ritual about which my wife always complains I’m giving them the last few pieces of bread reserved for my kids’ school lunches.

“That was our last piece of bread,” she hollers.

“I’m this close to making contact,” I answer, holding my index finger and thumb an inch apart.

The fawns are more daring than their mom and move microns from my hand. I lurch forward as if to chase, but they stare, don’t even flinch, and munch more on their morning breakfast, as if to say, “Are you kidding?”

One Sunday I worked alongside Joe, a master photographer, at a wedding in Great Neck. I related the story of the family of deer coming to my rear door every morning for their fix of peanut butter-laden whole-wheat sliced bread. Unbeknownst to me, Joe owns a hundred-acre farm in Roscoe, N.Y., where he religiously hunts wildlife, preferably deer, and boasts he makes his own jerky from the venison.

“Hey Frankie,” Joe said, as his eyes widened larger than a summer solstice sun. “I just bought a new bow. I would love to perch atop one of your trees and take me home some fresh East Hampton venison. I’ll even grind you up a few pounds of hamburger meat,” he blared.

Joe forgot one thing. I don’t kill friends.

Frank Vespe is a regular “Guestwords” contributor.