Pineapple Anthology of Florida Writers by Clark James C.;

Author:Clark, James C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pineapple Press
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

At 8:30 the next morning, Mr. Taylor was waiting on the sea wall near the Gulf Stream Dock. Waiting anxiously. The fifty fishing cruisers were wound with crepe paper, spangled with gold and silver paper stars, and bristling with fishing tackle. A vast throng on the pier yelled, sang, waved, took pictures, and prepared to embark for the flotilla parade. A band struck up “Dixie” aboard the glass-bottom boat, and the fleet pushed off. Once every year, to open its fishing tournament, Miami decks itself in bunting, and sails out on its indigo ocean in everything floatable, from rowboats with kickers to yachts with crews of fifty.

As the crowd thinned and vanished, Mr. Taylor fidgeted. His cameramen drove up and unloaded their equipment.

“The boys’ll be along,” he said convincingly. “Soon. Very soon, now.”

It was 9:15 when the Poseidon appeared, cutting across the bay, both motors roaring, a wave at her bow. Mr. Taylor felt weak with relief.

And Crunch made a bleak apology as he held his boat off the sea wall: “Sand in our gas, friends! We can still make the parade, I hope.” They did, by a narrow margin. They were last in line, but, Mr. Taylor thought, far from least.

It was a peaceful day outside, with wheeling gulls and golden sargasso weed floating on the fantastically blue water. Slow fishing—which is not unprecedented in January—and Mr. Taylor relaxed. It was midafternoon before he bothered to think that his two cameramen had photographed no piscatorial drama worthy of national release. Nothing but the boating of a kingfish, and a long shot of a dolphin shaking out the hook.

He understood the effect of such failure only when Crunch traded places with Desperate at the top controls, and said, “Well, at least she behaves all right.”

“Sure,” Mr. Taylor said. “Best boat in the fleet! You two birds have genius! So why worry about a sailfish? We’ve got plenty of days to get ’em in.”

Crunch gazed into the two blue distances of sea and sky. “Yeah. But it’s a pity, since we have these photographers—”

“We can take ’em again.” Mr. Taylor tried to smile away Crunch’s disappointment.

“I guess so. But it’s the first day of the contest. And our first trip. Besides, nobody has a sail yet.”

“How can you tell that?”

“When we catch one we run up a flag.” He scanned the fleet. “Haven’t seen any.”

Then Mr. Taylor knew chagrin. He shouldn’t have brought the photographers. They interfered with the mysterious thing called “luck.” They were an embarrassment to Crunch. He began praying for a sailfish.

And he was deep in some mystic ritual when Desperate’s voice rang thrillingly from above: “Watch it!”

“Watch it!” eventually became unforgettable to Mr. Taylor. He looked at his bait, trolling under the clear water, occasionally breaking the surface. He looked, and grew tense from head to foot. There was something behind and underneath it. A mere shadow.

Crunch was whispering, “Get ready to drop back when he taps it.”

Then the tap, as the sailfish slapped the bait with his bill.

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