Beach Music (72 page)

“You can drown in three feet of water as easy as a thousand,” said Jordan, trying to relieve the sense of awe that had seized everyone on the boat. All of us hovered around the depth-finder, thumping it with our fingers to see if it were giving a false reading.

Mike said, “Yeh, but they’ve got a better chance of finding you in three feet of water. What kind of fish grows in water that deep?”

“Big mothers,” Capers said.

“Anything that wants to,” Jordan added. “You’ve got to be able to kick some ass when you hitch a ride north on the Gulf Stream.”

“We might see some whales,” I said.

Jordan said, “We should’ve brought a radio.”

Capers laughed and said, “Radios are for pussies. Let’s bait up.”

I took over the wheel and turned the bow of the boat northward, adjusting it to trolling speed after taking the flow of the current into account. I loved the business of fishing, the beauty and efficiency of the tackle, the tying of elegant knots, the testing of the line, and the selection of the proper bait for the right conditions. It
pleased me to watch my friends as they studied the contents of their well-organized tackle boxes before they made their choices for the moment they would cast their lines into these fabled waters. A half-moon rested in the western sky, a pale watermark left by the night before. I thought I saw birds skimming low across the water and then realized I was seeing my first flying fish. Their faces were doglike, earnest, and they had the wings of bad angels. Though I knew nothing of their habits, I guessed these fish flew because they were being pursued by something huge and deadly beneath them.

“Hell, let’s get some baitfish,” Mike said. “I’m not sure these artificial lures will attract the big fish out here worth a damn.”

“Good idea,” I said and turned the boat back toward shore, going a couple of miles before we found a spot near a great expanse of sargassum that looked promising. We anchored the boat, then dropped our lines deep, baited with cut mullet and shrimp. Floating in that perfectly still ocean, it was as though we were trapped in the reflection of the earth’s image of itself. The gardens of sargassum were alive with fish and we used our smaller rods with twenty-pound test lines. Within twenty minutes Capers had put a hook through a small dolphin fish, while Mike and Jordan caught the more pedestrian mullet. In low voices we talked about the depth each one of us would fish once we returned to deep waters. It was agreed that Capers would fish deepest and that Jordan and Mike would troll from the side of the boat, one at fifty feet, the other at the surface. We checked the gaffe, the resiliency of our bigger rods, and discussed protocol if someone tied into a fish. I gave them the word when we entered the Gulf Stream once again and began calling out the depth as we entered deeper and deeper water.

“You’ve got too much line there,” Mike said to Capers, who always came with more expensive equipment than the rest of us. His Plano tackle box overflowed with hooks and lures he had never used, but Capers was a flamboyant, competitive fisherman. He measured success by size and number. Since he was on his first trip to the Gulf Stream, he wanted to come back with a game fish and nothing less would do.

“Fifty-pound test line,” Capers announced proudly.

“You could pull up an alligator with that,” I yelled back to him.

“I’m putting my peanut dolphin down deep.”

“What’re we fishing for?” Mike asked. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to catch.”

“We’re trading up,” said Jordan.

“Trophies,” Capers said. “Things to put on our walls.” For a half-hour I cruised along, mesmerized by the circle of water around me and the circle of sky above that seemed made of one color and one substance. Only the sound of the boat seemed incongruent and unwelcome. I felt the wordless ingathering of harmony that comes when you strike out alone and enter into the cathedral-like silence of nature far removed from cities. For a brief moment, the noise of the motor had disappeared, expunged by the vastness and silkiness of an Atlantic that was initiating us to its depths with a perfect stillness. My three friends disappeared from my consciousness as I was sure I had disappeared from theirs.

Then, something took the dolphin, something large, something running far below. Jordan and Mike reeled in their lines, I cut the motor, and the three of us took up positions to watch Capers test his inland water skills as a fisherman of the Gulf Stream. Though Capers was always accused of using too much rod, he was not using too much for this fish. The fish had taken the hook and almost took the rod away from him as it made its first run, but Capers played it beautifully. The line sang off his reel and Capers let it go, enjoying the fact that he was onstage performing for his friends. We all watched the line playing out at an alarming rate as Capers began applying the slightest, most delicate bit of drag.

“What does it feel like?” Mike asked.

“Like I’ve hooked a locomotive,” Capers answered.

He played the fish well, but it was a fish of great strength and heart and fighting spirit.

“I want to see this fish,” Jordan said, after fifteen minutes of the contest had passed by without bringing it near the surface. By now the sweat glistened on Capers’ face and chest and on the hairs on his legs.

“You’ll have plenty of time to see it,” Capers said. “I’m going to catch the son of a bitch.”

“It might be too big to bring into the boat,” I said. “Who knows what it is. It could be a mako or a great white.”

“You forgot about my harpoon,” Capers said, his voice strained as he fought the fish standing straight up. “Get it ready.”

I pulled the harpoon out from under the bow of the boat and lifted the leather protective cover from the blade. Taking a whetstone from Capers’ tackle box I sharpened its edges until I saw a wicked smile of new silver running the length of the blade. I touched the blade and drew a line of blood on my thumb. Mike brought out a rope and tied one end to the harpoon and the other to a stanchion in the boat.

Then we saw the fish. All of us had caught large fish during our careers on the water. But none of us were prepared for the size of the blue marlin that came leaping out of the water fifty yards behind the boat. I felt a sudden rush of joy and clarity as the marlin, in the full extension of its soaring leap into sunshine, took us into new realms. It was our first encounter with fish as myth, as nightmare, as beast.

We whooped in amazement, but Capers was too exhausted to make any noise at all. A surge of adrenaline must have coursed through his body, easing a terrible aching of the muscles in his back, shoulders, and arms. His whole body fought the fish with all the cunning of a low country boy who had spent a lifetime landing spottail bass, king mackerel, and migrating blues. But I doubt whether all the fish Capers had ever caught would equal the astonishing weight of this one fierce and acrobatic marlin. It leapt again and danced across the still water on its great forked tail, agile as a ballerina, then fell into the sea like a small plane crashing near our boat.

We all whistled in awe.

“We can’t bring him on the boat,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Capers cried out in a voice that did not sound like his own.

“It’s bigger than the boat,” I explained.

“We’ll kill it with the harpoon,” Mike said.

“Jack’s right,” Jordan said. “It could sink us.”

“We’ll tie it to the boat,” Capers whispered.

“I’ve already read that book, man,” Mike said. “That’s
Old Man and the Sea
shit. We’ll be fighting off the sharks all night.”

“We’ve got a motor,” I said. “We could make it back okay, I guess.”

“Capers ain’t caught it yet,” said Jordan. “That fish isn’t looking tired. It’s just warming up.”

“Want one of us to take over, pal?” Mike asked.

“It’s my fish,” Capers said. “I’m bringing it in by myself.”

“That’s the spirit that made our country great,” I said sarcastically.

“You look like you’re dying,” Jordan said. “Mike was just trying to help.”

“This could be a record,” Capers gasped. “It won’t count if anyone helps land the fish.”

“We’ll lie,” I suggested. “We’ll all swear on a stack of Bibles that you brought it in yourself.”

“I believe in rules,” Capers said, his shirt drenched in sweat. “Rules are a form of discipline. They have their own reason for existing.”

The three of us broke out in mock applause for Capers’ speech.

“Laugh now, losers,” Capers said. “But you’ll read my name in
Sports Illustrated
after they weigh this baby back at the marina.”

“Because you were so nasty about it,” Mike said, “I’m gonna claim I helped reel in this fish.”

“Me too.”

“Same here,” I agreed.

“You can all kiss my ass,” Capers said. “My word’s good in Waterford. I’ve got three hundred years of Middleton honesty backing me up.”

Then the marlin made another long, deep run and the line sang off the reel again. It suddenly went slack and Capers began reeling in madly, his right hand moving in a blur as the fish shot up out of the depths for what would be another spectacular leap into the air. I could see the pain lining Capers’ face and how he had lost his concentration because of it. The muscles in his hands and fingers were cramping and Capers shook one hand into the air, trying to get the circulation flowing again to put out the fiery spasms that were
spreading along the nerves and muscles leading up his arm. As he once more frantically reeled in the line the marlin reversed its course and dove with all its mighty strength toward the bottom of the sea. When the line broke, the four of us groaned in one voice.

“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch,” Capers cried out feebly, as he reeled in the weightless line. His voice was despairing and he screamed out at the calm ocean, then hurled his rod and reel as far as he could throw it into the sea. It landed with a splash that seemed meaningless after the marlin’s spectacular reentry into the water.

Watching Capers’ bereft expression I waited breathlessly for him to break down and weep in sheer frustration, but instead he dove straight down off the stern of the boat into the water. He was underwater for a full twenty seconds before he emerged, took a breath, then plunged downward toward the bottom again.

When he returned to the surface, Jordan said, “I don’t think you can catch him that way, Capers. He’s probably halfway to Africa by now.”

“I’ll never hook another fish like that again in my life,” Capers said as he treaded water. “A man only gets one chance in his life to catch a fish that big.”

“What fish?” Mike said. “I didn’t see a fish.”

“You sorry son of a bitch,” Capers said.

“Why don’t you get in the boat?” I asked.

Capers shook his head and said, “I can’t lift my arms.”

“No wonder that fish got away,” Mike said, extending a hand to Capers in the water. But Capers was too tired to even reach up to Mike, who leaned way down to the water and grabbed him under the armpits and motioned to me for help. As Capers moaned in pain, we lifted him out of the Atlantic.

Capers slumped into a seat, spent, worn-out, limp.

“All my life I’ve gotten everything I’ve wanted,” he said. “Everything. Great parents, perfect grades. I’m the one who gets the hit in the ninth inning, scores the winning touchdown, takes the last shot. The prettiest girls write me notes in school. I’ve been elected class president every year since the third grade. Now this. Lost. Defeated. Fucked. I never wanted anything more than I did to catch that fish.”

“Maybe the fish didn’t know who you were,” Jordan offered. “Hell, if that fish knew about the grades and the pretty girls, he’d have just jumped on into this boat.”

“That was the biggest fish I ever saw,” I said. “How much you think it weighed? I bet a thousand pounds.”

“Naw,” Mike said. “More like a hundred.”

“Not an ounce more than fifty,” Jordan said. “Fish look bigger out here in the Gulf Stream.”

“Sons of bitches,” Capers said, his eyes closed. “The only thing I need in life is a better set of friends.”

For another half-hour we trolled the Gulf Stream before we began to worry about the amount of fuel we were consuming and the small chance we had of making another strike. We decided to head back toward shore, stopping to bottom-fish near some of the heavier concentration of sargassum. Where there was seaweed, there was bound to be a profusion of sea life. When we came to a drop near what appeared to be a canyon wall of sargassum, Jordan threw out the anchor into the seaweed itself and its flanges hooked into the dense undersea jungle. While the rest of us changed tackle and baited hooks, Capers crawled up under the gunwale away from the heat of the sun and instantly fell asleep. His disappointment was still so bitter and recent that we thought it wiser to let Capers sleep off the marlin’s fabulous memory than to coax him into fishing for red snapper.

We took turns rubbing each other’s shoulders and backs with a combination of baby oil and Mercurochrome. Stripping down to our bathing suits, we glistened with sweat and oil as we let our lines out and fished the bottom with cut bait. Before we broke for lunch we had caught a string of fifteen grouper, the largest of which we estimated was twenty pounds.

For lunch we opened bags of potato chips, peanut M&M’s, Hostess cupcakes, and cans of Vienna sausages. We snapped off the tops of Coca-Colas and root beers and talked quietly so as not to disturb the deep sleep of Capers, who had not moved a single muscle of his body. Our lunch was an infallible combination of the worst foods produced in America and it all tasted great. Jordan talked about trolling an artificial lure on the trip home that he heard
had drawn the spirited attention of king mackerel near an artificial reef off the coast of Charleston. We spoke dreamily about fish, sports, girls, yet later could not remember a single specific of that conversation.

Taking our time, we gathered up all the trash and put it into a single bag. Capers was still sleeping too soundly to wake. I was sharpening my hook and Jordan was getting ready to cast when Mike said, “Let’s fish here for just an hour, then head back to shore. We’ll make sure we’ve got plenty of daylight when we head back.”