Boys, Men, and Tuna

            by Ben Rubin

 

            John reveled in Ernest Hemmingway’s writing. He pictured the old man braced against the bow as the great fish pulled the boat along from far below. The man pulled day and night until the beast finally submitted to the man’s will. On the way back to land the sharks came. He fought them for as long as he could, but soon only the huge bones were left, pearly white, and he was defeated. The little paperback was hidden behind the big white pages of his Algebra book. The teacher’s eyes locked onto him in the sea of off-task heads as she lectured.

            “So from our reading would you argue that the Revolutionary War was truly a civil war?” The wandering eyes around the classroom attached to him like little sharks waiting hungrily for entertainment. John kept reading obliviously.

“You know you could fake paying attention much better if you had an American History book out.” The teacher began to pace over to him, smirking. John had realized what was happening by now. He fumbled with the two books, but the hand of the teacher grabbed his algebra textbook and threw it down on the table. “Try living in the present for a little while John.” The class burst into laughter and John squirmed in his chair. The teacher went back to the Revolutionary War.

            Finally, the bell rang, the kids jumped onto their feet, swinging their back-packs onto their shoulders as they dashed for the door. For a second, the middle schoolers were one tightly packed group, but the moment was fleeting and they soon segregated into close-knit circles. John made his way into the dark edge of the courtyard. He searched through his backpack. His hand slid by his lunch and felt the smooth paper of a magazine. He grabbed the fishing journal and began reading.

A few kids walked slowly up to him. In the middle was the leader, he was broad- chested and had bowl-cut blond hair ending just before his eyes. He spun a football in his hands. As he approached John, he lifted the football to his shoulder and began a long exaggerated swinging motion. John, who was pretending not to see him, flinched. The three friends laughed too loud so the nearby kids would hear. Bowl-cut spoke in a fake syrupy voice.

            “You looken at pictures of babes, John?” This warranted another group laugh. John kept looking at his fishing magazine, but it was clear that all of his attention was on the three jocks. With one quick motion, Bowl-cut snatched the magazine from John and began to show it to his friends. “Are these the type of chicks you dig?”

            “Hey, that’s really funny, just give it back,” said John, but it was too late and the three jocks had already moved on to another victim.

 Having finished Old Man In The Sea for the fourth time in class, John was left to dream about the fishing trip to Nantucket that his parents had surprised him with. It was with a tinge of pain that he realized it was the only way they knew to how make him happy. They knew he had no friends at school, that he was failing most of his classes, and that the only presents of their’s that he kept were those that involved fishing. They had arranged the trip in desperation, but John couldn’t stop thinking of himself, braced against the boat, his rod curved over a leviathan below.

                                                    ◊◊◊

The little propeller plane flew over the strait between the mainland and Nantucket. The water looked so blue from the air and John imagined tiny dark spots moving restlessly underwater. Beyond the island John could see the open ocean; it was dark green and choppy. The plane dipped down over the landing strip, and taxied to a halt. He spotted his uncle who would be taking John out to sea.

After only a few hours of sleep the alarm rang, and woke John from his restless dreams; the clock read 2:30 a.m.  His body was numb and exhausted, but his mind had never been more excited. Clothes were laid out below him and he rolled over off of the bed and slipped into them. He walked outside. The air was crisp and cool and the opportunities seemed endless. He looked over to see the vague outline of his uncle who was leaning into the wind. A light turned on in the house behind him and the grimace on his uncle’s face was illuminated.

            John approached his uncle and whispered, “I’m ready.”

            “This wind looks bad; there’s going to be too much chop on the ocean. We might not be able to go,” his uncle replied.

            John could not respond, there was a knot in his throat, and he felt horrible. He paced back and forth feeling sick. His uncle apologized, but it made no difference; this fishing trip was the climax of his life and the wind was going to take it away from him. After a few minutes he picked up the phone and dialed in a number. After a short conversation he hung up turned towards John and smiled.

            “The captain thinks differently. Grab the coolers and throw them in the truck.”

John jumped into action and they were soon bouncing along the dirt road towards the dock. A full moon hung in the sky washing the swishing reeds in a sinister luminance. The pickup truck pulled into the empty lot. They stepped to the ground and began lugging the heavy coolers out onto the dock. John’s hairs stood on end because of the cold but all he could feel was the warm excitement that kept washing over his body.

            A man’s silhouette appeared a ways down the dock. He had a bottle in his hand from which he took a sip, sucked in his lips, swallowed and spat. John’s uncle shuffled nervously, which caught John by surprise. His uncle was a big burly man who rarely looked uncomfortable. The man who approached was wiry and had wisps of white hair on his head and chin. John guessed that he was the captain and moved forward in excitement to greet him. The captain walked briskly past him and onto a 25 foot skiff with the name “Ahab” on the stern.

            “Get this crap in the blasted boat,” he said in a gruff voice pointing in the general direction of John and the fishing gear.

            The little white boat bounced over the white caps on the black water. John stood at the bow of the boat getting sprayed by the salt water each time the top of the wave was broken by the skiff. From time to time, a buoy would rise out of the ocean. He knew the boat would have a G.P.S., but navigating through the white washed darkness still created a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. John had been waiting for this trip for his whole life, but he had never before imagined the cold water that was already starting to soak through his sweatshirt. He looked out again to see a lighthouse in the distance and followed the finger of land it sat on towards the boat. Suddenly, moonlit rocks materialized only 20 yards in front of them. John yelped, his uncle followed his gaze out to the rocks and screamed over the engine to the captain.

            “Stop the boat! Land ahead!”

            The captain snapped the boat into reverse and pushed the throttle up all the way. The boat shuddered and John and his uncle were thrown against the front edge of the raft. The captain shined the search light far out over the ocean but the rocks had disappeared.

            “What the fuck are you bloody bastards crying about. The next word I hear and you’re out in the wash.”

            John stared at the deceptive ocean. He wasn’t sure if the captain was joking, but neither he nor his uncle spoke for a long time. John was cold and unhappy. He clenched his fists and gradually found a fitful sleep in the shaking bow of the boat. When he awoke, the sun had escaped the sea and the air was warmer. He looked around the boat. Behind his uncle and the captain was a seam in the ocean; on the other side the water was more choppy. His uncle walked over to him sociably and told John that they had just crossed into the Labrador current. John had read about it before in a fishing magazine, it flowed down from the Artic Ocean, meeting up with the Gulf Stream to create one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. The captain looked at them and contorted his mouth into a grin, “well, what the hell are you land lubbers doing? Get some lines in the water.”

            John’s uncle grabbed poles for both of them and taught John how to let the wire line out slowly so it would not tangle. The line slipped out towards the seam in the ocean. The captain kept the boat at a slow idle to stop Ahab from getting sucked into the turbulence between the currents. Suddenly the tip of John’s pole dipped down far towards the water. Every muscle in his body tensed in the struggle to keep his grasp on the writhing pole. The captain grunted.

            “It’s a bluefish, and keep the fucking tip up, if that wire breaks you’ll be paying for that fish’s meal.”

            John was doing everything he could to keep the pole in his hands. Adrenaline shot through his body. Suddenly the pole went limp, and John reeled in with utter disappointment. He had taken in more then half of line when he saw flickering silver below the water ten feet away. The pole resumed its struggle and John worked at jamming the reel handle forward. Eventually the fight began to leave the fish and he was able to make steady progress, pulling the tip of the rod up and then reeling in as he let the tip down.

When the fish was right below the boat, John heaved the writhing creature out of the water and onto the deck. It was bigger then any fish he had seen at a super market, maybe two feet from tip to tail. John smiled wide, brimming with rapture. The captain came forward and, with great agility, slipped the hook out of the snapping bluefish’s mouth and threw its thrashing body into the a compartment, filled with water, at the bottom of the boat.

            “Looked like that fish nearly broke you. Hope you got some spine in you because that’s bait,” said the captain as he took a sip of beer.

            He was right; John was leaning against the boat’s railing exhausted. How could the biggest fish he had ever seen be bait? The adrenaline was slowly abandoning him and when the captain turned his attention to the boat, John’s out of shape body crumpled to the deck. The boat pitched back and forth, and he felt the contents of his stomach stir. It was about lunch time, and for the first time in his life he wasn’t hungry. After a few minutes his uncle caught a bluefish and battled it to the boat, where it went in the same compartment John’s had. When both of them had secured their lines, the captain accelerated their skiff over the seam of the ocean which they had been fishing on and off into the distance. The same disorganized waves that had made him sick earlier jarred the boat every time they smashed into the side. The expanse of ocean in all directions was dark green with white caps.

 

            Suddenly, about two miles away from the boat, a little spurt of mist shot into the air. More and more followed until there were ten or twenty tiny plumes of water hanging on the horizon. John’s uncle picked it out first. “Whales at three o’clock!”

            “Good eyes mate.” The captain seemed to loosen up the further out at sea they were and the more beer he drank. The plumes disappeared for about ten minutes at a time before materializing a few degrees further starboard and a half mile closer.  John had no idea why they were chasing the whales. After about forty minutes the captain let down the engine to a low grumble. The whales had last disappeared ten minutes ago. John hoped the captain had not gotten it into his head to spear one. His uncle noticed John’s nervous expression.

            “Don’t worry were not trying to catch any, the tuna just like to hang out around the whales. The whales are…” His commentary was cut off by a whale rising up 20 yards off starboard. The captain’s yelling snapped both of them into action.

“Grab the fucking tackle and poles. We’re going fishing!”

John and his uncle scrambled to find the tuna poles. They were fastened to the insides of the boat, each was about 7 feet tall and heavy. On the base of the pole was a weighted piece of metal. His uncle guided him to put the butt of the pole in one of the holes on the side of the skiff. The captain hooked on the tackle while sputtering swear words. The tackle was a huge contraption of metal wires and rubber squid. They soon completed the task and, with all the poles anchored, threw everything else over the side of the boat. The captain then stuck a long knife into the head of the bluefish and began to slice it into pieces and threw those into the water too.

The lines trailed behind them into the afternoon sun. There was nothing to do but watch trawlers in the distance grow from dots to full size. The skiff rose and fell into the growing waves and John and his uncle were soon nauseated. John was the first to go to the side and puke, his uncle soon followed suit. John stared into the horizon trying to resist the waves of nausea, when one of the rods started emitting a hissing sound. The captain quickly gave instructions.

“It’s a big one,” said the captain, “maybe two hundred pounds. I’ll take, it. Watch the boat Tom, and make sure it stays pointing into the waves. Kid, reel in the other rod so they don’t get tangled.”

The captain sat down next to the reel, waiting until the fish stopped pulling line out from the reel. John’s uncle went forward and slowed the boat. To reel the fish in the captain used a gloved hand to pull directly on the line while jamming the reel forward a few inches with the other hand. Water was lapping at the side of the boat in an unusual way, some of it was washing into the stern of the boat and covering their feet with a few inches of water. The captain started screaming instruction and curses at John’s uncle. To get better leverage at the rod, John heaved the heavy butt of the rod out of the hole and started reeling it in like a normal fishing rod. He could see the little rubber squids bouncing on the top of the water; their movements were quick and jarring as if under pursuit. The line tangled and he stopped reeling and reached into the mess of wire to straighten it out. Then, suddenly the lures disappeared underwater; the line went taught, the tip of his pole shot towards the water, and he was pulled by the wire knotted around his hand into the dark green water. The air was knocked out of him and when he screamed for help he couldn’t hear the sound. The tuna at the other end pulled relentlessly and he made desperate attempts to detach the wire from his right hand. Tremors were shooting throughout his body. About fifteen yards in front of him, a blue mass rose towards the top; he could clearly see its yellow-tipped fins and the squids hanging out of its mouth. Then it shot down. John decelerated for a second before he too went down into the green water.     

            It was dark all around him and John thought he was dead until his lungs started to burn. He wasn’t sure which way was up, but his hand wasn’t tangled anymore so he began to swim desperately searching for oxygen. The water above him became brighter and brighter until his head broke the surface and he gulped in long pulls of air. The waves sent water washing over his head. He spun in circles until he saw the boat, but it was shrunk by the distance and he doubted they could see him, with the texture of the ocean and the sun behind him. It wasn’t so hard keeping his head above the salty water, but the cold was draining his energy. He began to think about his home, and his warm bed. He even thought about school, he wished he had listened instead of reading his stupid books about fishing. Even being a victim to Bowl-cut wasn’t nearly as bad as the cruel ocean. The boat was now getting closer and he could hear distant yelling. One thing was for sure, he never wanted to go fishing again.