Kenny joined the Army the same way he did most things—without ceremony and without alternatives. There was no farewell party, no sense of arrival. It was simply the next place that would take him. The base he was sent to was landlocked, surrounded by dust and straight roads that went nowhere he wanted to go. There was no water to watch, no lake to imagine himself into.
The routine suited him more than he expected. Wake up. Do the work. Keep your head down. Follow instructions. Discipline was something he understood instinctively. It felt familiar, almost comforting, to be told exactly where to stand and what to carry. The Army didn’t ask him to explain who he was—it only cared that he showed up.
When he wasn’t on duty, Kenny watched the Fishing Channel obsessively. Not casually—religiously. He learned patterns, seasonal movements, lure choices. He knew the habits of bass in lakes he’d never touch. Other soldiers laughed about it, but Kenny didn’t mind. This was preparation. This was accumulation. He was building something quietly, the same way he always had.
There was a strange tension in knowing so much and being able to do nothing with it. He could visualize casts, feel fights in his hands, imagine water temperature changes based on the calendar. But there was no lake. No river. No place to test any of it. Discipline without release sharpened the desire instead of dulling it.
Sometimes at night, after lights out, he’d lie awake thinking about Lake Livingston and the Trinity River that fed it. He thought about backwaters and eddies, about places big fish hid when the pressure changed. The distance made the dream more precise. It wasn’t vague anymore. It was technical. Earned.
By the time his four years were up, Kenny didn’t feel impatient. He felt ready. The Army had given him structure, savings, and a tolerance for waiting. Whatever came next would be on his terms. Water would return to his life eventually. And when it did, he would meet it not as a dreamer, but as someone who had prepared quietly for years without anyone noticing.