They’re out there, somewhere.
The big fish.
Peering into the calm surface water, you might not see them in our midst. Though deep down, swimming and lurking, they wear the face of a common vertebrate, blending easily into the shoal like a bloodthirsty speck of sand in an ignorant bag of flour.
As I dragged my dinghy along the white sand toward the edge of the water in the searing low-hanging sun, it was easy to believe I was in a fever dream.
The swallowing, gurgling water that ebbed and flowed at my feet, the welcoming blue void that curved away at the horizon - fishing was like reminiscing with an old friend; it was like a warm kiss on a Sunday afternoon.
A greeting beckoned me from somewhere down the beach, a voice that yelled with a slurred mouthful of rotten seaweed. That, or the voice was cracking under smoking two packs a day of vocal fry.
The man came jogging up to me which left great boot prints upon wet sand in his wake. As we shook hands, his flesh was slippery and feverish like brushing the belly of seeping roadkill.
“Name’s Trevor, finest fisherman along the southeastern coast, if ya don’t mind myself saying so.” His eyes were tight lines under his sage bucket hat. “Conqueror of the floridian basins, furthest surfcast out here.”
I flicked him the nervous, tightly pulled line for a smile - the same smile I would have given a hooded passer-by. “Hi there, uh,” I resisted wiping away the gooey slop from his hand out of politeness. “George.”
The falling sun painted the man’s face a blotchy, tanned pink. He had a glint in his wrinkled eyes as he said: “Look over there, chap.”
I followed his finger to the distant skyline over the cliffs. Graphite clouds were beginning to roll in over the horizon like an avalanche of wet boulders.
“Say, I knew a lad like you, George.” He cleared his thick throat. “Name of Rod, real city boy. The last day I done saw him was a day like any other, we were meant to launch off the ramp together. But see, I was a little late. And so, the guy gets restless. He goes out on his own to catch a few,”
I watched Trevor for a while as his eyes became fixed on the crashing peach waves, watching things that were never there.
“The storm came, and took him from me, George-O. Mother sea dragged him down by his limbs, bubbled his lungs until his lips drew blue.”
“He drowned?”
The man shimmied his bucket hat down to the brow with two hands. “You bet. And that’s my vow after that day, I spose’. If I ever caught a city boy fishin’, heading into rough waters, I'd snatch em."
He flicked a thumb over to the metal boat that was floating in the water a hundred paces away.
"Oh, no, I'm quite okay." I said.
"Oh come now, humor a weathered old man. You can darn bet I'll teach ya' some things. My boat is a sure thing studier than a dinghy."
His lonely old eyes yanked me by the wrist all the way across the beach to his rustic metal vessel that floated on the shallow water. When we boarded I was immediately greeted by blunt groans and bubbles beneath us I wasn’t accustomed to.
Before long we were motoring toward the great red lamp in the sky with nothing but a whisper spoken - all thanks to the boat which whirred and splashed beneath us as we thumped along into blue nothingness. I was grateful for the quiet, but as I caught the man's face it was clear he had a growing restlessness I lacked, a yearning for derailing chatter that only came from a finely aged loneliness.
When he stopped the boat and dropped the anchor, I knew I was right when he immediately started:
“You ever seen a big fish, George?”
I gave him an awkward nod. “A few, yeah. Never caught one though. Brother pulled up a sturgeon.”
Trevor was shaking his head as he untangled his line from his rod. “No, I’m talking about the big fish. The ones that don’t have no name.” His hands were passionate and animated as he spoke.
He swiftly snapped up my cracking smile before I could laugh: “They’re smarter than us, you know. The ones below.”
Oh, so it’s even worse. I thought. He’s crazy-crazy. I should have never got on this bo-
“Take these.” He muttered, hurried as he reached into his jacket’s many pouches.
He slipped a few gelatinous cubes the size of a die into my palm. Most were the colour of red-splashed peaches, though some were a deep purple-grey - blocky grapes from an ashen willow.
“You probably won’t believe me yet George-O, but you will soon enough.” He cleared his throat.
The jelly was sweating in my hand, but perhaps it was my nerves - I was breathing quickly, something about the guy simply made my skin crawl.
“What are… these?” I asked him.
He slid one of my hooks through a cube. “Bait for the bigguns’. Now give her a cast.”
I let my line sparkle and soar through the pumpkin-tinged sky before it breached the water with a distant plonk.
We sat there for a while entranced by the sea, but the old man never threw out his line. He was coaching me, at least I should have hoped.
“A bite be coming soon enough, boy.” He nodded toward the ocean. “Keep a firm grip on it.”
I wiped a layer of sweat from my forehead. From my periphery I saw him extend one wrinkled palm, holding some bait. “Try one, tastes like sweet heaven.”
“What?”
Still clutching my fishing rod I turned my neck to give him a raised eyebrow and a shake of the head. “What are they made from?”
“It’s candy, George-O. The big fish love the stuff.” Trevor said before throwing a few into his mouth. “Melts like butter.”
He ushered me to try the bait, and so I reluctantly did. The pieces hit my tongue and slid down my tract.
Maladherence is to spit in the face of the deranged. And so I chewed them. Slowly. Bits of revolting snails that rolled down my throat in lumps, almost coming up as chunks. It was disgusting; it stung with the stench of decay. At first it tasted like chicken, as everything does so of sorts, but after swallowing it might as well have been mouldy crème brûlée the way it settled.
“Bliss, right lad?” He said after I was done chewing.
Two thumbs up.
I was lucky to find peace for a while after that. Just watch the sea and breathe, George. Watch the sea and breathe.
“Shame Rod ain’t here to see this city boy eat these here jellies. What a way to go: struck by lightning no less. A champion ya were, Rodney... Zeus!” He screamed.
Without warning, I was running into a jog across the boat following my line. Something was hooked. Something big.
“Ey, fish on lad!” Trevor called.
Reeling and pulling, reeling and pulling. I threw my spine forward, then backward.
Before long, the fish and I were in rhythm, tugging in waves, pulling and leaning in harmonious turns.
“Trevor,” I huffed.
Pull, release, pull, release.
“I thought you told me that Rod drowned?”
“Whoa-hoa-hoa! She’s a big one, boy! Keep reeling” He boomed, his head hanging overboard.
“Ya see, if you want to catch the big fish, George-O,” He was in my face then, stabbing one lesson-giving finger at me as he spoke each word in short breaths. “You gotta have the special bait. And that, boy, you do.”
The low sun on the horizon felt warm against my skin, but it couldn’t calm my heart which felt like it was going to pop.
“Trevor, you told me that Rod drowned.”
“Keep reeling, George-O!”
My yell cut the sound of the ripples in the water like a hot knife. “Trevor!”
There was silence for a while. Words from me were quiet, unwilling. All that could be heard on the settling boat was my reel spinning and my catch surfacing the water. I hadn’t seen what I had fished up - I was too busy staring at Trevor.
“What’s so special,” My voice faintly trickled from my mouth. “About the bait?”
He held up a handful of the peach cubes, and began talking through rubbery, fishy lips. “Oh, these fine cuts?”
His pocket knife sparkled in the hot sun as he absent-mindedly twirled it; his face occupied by old memories.
“Take a look.” He nodded his head at me to peer at the water.
I slowly strode towards the wall of the boat. When touching the edges I was reluctant to peer over as if he had asked me to touch a hot stove.
My face turned cold as I looked into the blue abyss below. Dozens of pale rocks floated in the deep azure sea which stretched as far as my eye could see. But as I stared longer, if I squinted enough, I could no longer convince myself that they were stones. They were pale, bloated corpses. Holed. So many cubed holes scattered into their bellies, thousands, all etched into their flesh.
“Seems you caught the big fish, boy-o.” The voice tickling my neck was rasp, a tongue never made for speech.
By the time I turned around its flesh began to bloom iridescent scales; what remained of Trevor’s curly grey hair shed away snowflake clumps of hairy scalp. Clothes that no longer fit around his neck slid easily from his wet mucous-dipped gills.
I wanted to scream, in fact I might have.
“No dollary-doos could buy me this bait from nobody. For them to hand these over…”
His bulbous, orange eyes met mine before his mouth contorted into a wide, toothless grin.
“I gotta take em’ out fishing.”
...........................................................
And so,
I am but a warning for future fishermen,
For they might not be as lucky as I to dive and swim to shore.
They're out there somewhere.
The ones you might not see in our midst.
The big fish.
---
Credits
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