Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

There were at least two sets of brothers in Torstein’s motley crew. There was me and Peter, and then there was Jack and Jazz. We had known their family slightly back in the day; their dad owned some fishing boats and had been one of our dad’s vendors at the fish market. Actually, Jack was too young; I didn’t remember him, but Jazz was close to my age. We’d helped him unload fish some cold mornings from his dad’s truck into the back of the fish market. It happened that not long after we’d taken up with Torstein, we ran into Jack and Jazz — delivering fish. They still worked for their dad. We’d told them about this crazy guy in the green coat and invited them to come and meet him sometime.

They had shown up that afternoon, and then they never went back to the docks. I guess they squared it with their dad somehow, but they hadn’t delivered another fish for his business after they met Torstein. What they would do, if we needed some money, was take their dad’s old boat out in the early morning and catch a few fish. Pete and I had gone with them a few times. We were all good hands at fishing, and we could bring in a big tuna or mahi-mahi that we could sell for a few bucks a pound easy.

One morning when we’d just moored with a pretty good haul of halibut and grouper, their mom came down to the dock. She was a fish wife for sure, a little fat lady with curly gray hair pulled back in a bandana. She gave Jack and Jazz affectionate pecks on the cheek and then kissed me and Pete, too. We’d never met her back in the fish market days, but apparently her good will for her boys flowed onto whoever they were with.

We threw the fish into a big cooler in the back of their dad’s truck, and their mom told us she would go with us into the city and drive the truck back. They said OK; I imagined she had shopping or something she wanted to do in the city, but no, after we’d sold our fish and were going to get coffee and then down to find Torstein, she said she’d some with us. She wanted to meet Torstein.

“My boys meet this miracle man, and suddenly they’re too busy to work for their daddy no more,” she said. “I want to see this man.”

Torstein was delighted to meet her, and offered her some sunflower seeds right away, which she declined. Diverticulitis, she said. The seeds didn’t sit well with her. But despite refusing the seeds, she seemed to look on Torstein with kindly eyes. She said to him, “My sons are fishermen. I don’t know how they can be any help to you, young man. From what they say, you’re trying to start some kind of revolution.”

Torstein laughed.

“Is that what they told you, ma’am?”

“Not in so many words,” she said. “But they say you have new ideas, new ways of thinking, better ways.”

“I think maybe my ideas are old ideas. Better than new ones.”

“When my boys were young, I didn’t want them to go fishing. I wanted them to go to school. With an education I thought they could get out of the boats and get into an office, make some money, have a better life. So their own children wouldn’t have callused hands and tales of friends washed away in the storms.”

“There’s nothing wrong with calluses. And someone has to do the fishing if we want to eat seafood,” Torstein said.

“Someone does, but not my boys, maybe,” she said. “Maybe if you’re really doing something worthwhile, you can use them to help you. They’re strong boys, and even if they wouldn’t go to school, they’re smart. They can be your right-hand men. They say you’re starting a movement here. If you’re at the head of the movement, maybe they can be your second-in-command. They can be a big help to you.”

“Ma!” Jack said. “There’s no second-in-command!”

But Torstein laughed again. He reached out and wrapped his arms around the shoulders of Jack and Jazz, hanging between them, grinning.

“If they want to follow where I’ll go, if they can march into hell for a heavenly cause, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have beside me,” he said. “But I don’t always get my own way. And I’d have to be in command in order to have a second-in-command.”

Jack and Jazz laughed, but their mom nodded, all seriousness.

“I understand,” she said. “Well, they’re good boys. I hope they don’t let you down.”

“What about you, ma’am?” Torstein said. “Why don’t you come and join us?”

“Revolutions are for the young,” she said. She kissed the boys and gave me and Pete a hug before she left. She waved to Torstein and said, “Come and see me sometime. You should meet my husband.”

“I will!” Torstein called. “I’d like to get out on the boat.”

“You’ll be welcome.”