Basketball Fishing

I cast a fishing rod for the first time today.  At dusk, on a balcony, in the rain.  Aimed for the basketball hoop across the gravel road.  I'd been sitting there for awhile, near the two guys who invented Basketball-Fishing, reading a book of poems my friend sent me, glancing up every time I heard the whir of the line.  Then finally one of them made it.  We all laughed, delighted.  Then finally I said, "All right, let me try."  I didn't make it into the hoop but I got damn close.  

I gave the fishing pole back and watched as one of them got the hook stuck in the wooden beam above our heads.  He bit it, broke it, retied it, and was about to cast again when an old man who works in maintenance, whose room we were in front of, opened his door and came outside, also holding a fishing pole.  

The two guys scattered.  One shut the music off and disappeared into his room, another took the fishing pole downstairs to the common room.  Zoom, gone.  I sat there with my poetry book wondering if the old man had gotten them in trouble for playing this game before.  But the old man - he held a fishing pole too.  I watched him cast it off the balcony same as we'd been doing, only he didn't cast it across the road, but off to one side.  He looked over his shoulder at me.  "Gotta make sure this is working right."  

"You should aim for the basketball hoop," I offered.  He ignored me.