A lot of stuff happened leading up to the end of this unfulfilling dream, but all I'm left with is the frustration that I get when some well-intentioned friend of mine pulls a bonehead move, and it winds up costing me. In this case, it was Silva, and the cost was two Fishing Poles.

I was a Friday night, and there was a multiple family group who liked to hang out together. We'd go to movies, walk around the town afterward, get ice cream, maybe look for parties to crash. We were all pretty spontaneous, and sometimes we'd all stick together, other times we'd splinter off for a bit and regroup afterward.

One day, after having spent the previous night out on the town, I was chilling on a nice comfy sofa reading a book. I came across a quote that I felt would be memorable, but of course I can't remember it right now. Something nice, about helping people and it being beneficial to all parties involved. I bookmarked the page to read to one of the children. Kids always need to hear shit like that. 

The group was busy making plans for the evening, and everyone was getting antsy to go. Aunt Carol (not my real aunt, but a composite of a lady I used to work with and Alice from the Brady Bunch) was going to go on a hike. She laced up her construction boots and donned an orange down vest over her flannel shirt. 

"I'm going to see the wildflowers," she said enthusiastically.

"Do we need to order pizza before we go?" I asked my mom. I wanted to buy some more time  before we headed out for whatever activities she had planned for the night. "This couch is feeling really comfortable at the moment."

"I don't think we have time," she said. She was right. The kids were already waiting in the car.

I dragged myself off the couch and went downstairs to find the whole group loaded into two vehicles. My mom was driving her red VW camper van, and inside I could see all the kids taunting me, their mouths open in contorted grimaces as they pressed their faces up against the window glass. My mom smiled broadly.

"So that's how it is," I said grumpily. "One only need suggest that it's time to go out, and the whole lot of you are already loaded up, engines running?" I felt bad about being the stick in the mud, however, so I got on board with the idea that we were all going to go out and see a movie, perhaps get some dinner at a restaurant, then who knows what.

Just as I was getting ready to get in the van, I saw Silva talking with a couple on the Santa Monica pier, which was just a stone's throw from our apartment. He'd borrowed two of my fishing poles and then lent them to a couple of strangers. The guy was a ringer for Danny Trejo, and his lady was a plump little thing about two feet shorter than him. This was Silva in a nutshell, always generously accommodating everyone, even when the resources weren't his to give out.

I wanted to get my poles back, so I approached the couple just as they were casting out. They didn't look pleased to see me, knowing that I was about to spoil their fishing party.

"There's better fishing down at the end of the pier," I told them. "You can rent some poles down there, too. But I'm going to need my poles back for now."

"We just baited up," he said with defiance in his voice. "Maybe we don't want to fish down there. We like it here. And we like these poles."

"But there are different fish down at the end," I pleaded. "You'll like it. And these poles aren't that good, really."

He must have bought my story about the bigger and better fish, because they reeled in and began walking toward the end of the pier. They didn't relinquish the poles, however, and soon they disappeared into the crowd. I just knew that was the last I'd be seeing of my fishing poles.