The Last Marlin by Waitzkin Fred;

Author:Waitzkin, Fred; [Waitzkin, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

A Fish from My Brother’s Dreams

LATER THAT WINTER, BILL AND BONNIE AND I LEFT NEW YORK for Florida. I was surprised and delighted that my brother had actually agreed to go fishing with us. As I drove through the night I explained over and over to Bonnie the art of the dropback. I was afraid that she would strike too soon. For emphasis I gestured to the big marlin rod in Bill’s lap in the backseat, a couple of feet of which was sticking out the window. Eventually we settled into conversation about couples we knew from college, their infidelities, emotional breakups and fervent returns, and soon we were ardently exploring the rights and wrongs of our relationship, why we had said this or that last week or a month before. Each nuance of agreement or reservation was so important.

My brother found our intimacy cloying. The ongoing need to probe for honesty was insipid to him. It was my brother’s way to be mysterious, to reshape himself behind veils like Mother, to spend the light of day in a darkened bedroom. Bill yawned at my fishing pedantry and glee. I trolled on the surface. In his fishing life my brother was a time traveler, dropped his baits deep for ancient fish. I wanted to understand Bill, to talk. Nothing could interest him less.

Bill’s heavy silences didn’t matter so much. I was rushing south toward the blue water. I believed that my brother was posturing and would come around in time, become a regular guy. I believed this for years.

We arrived on Islamorada around midnight and pulled into a motel with its sign illuminated by a neon sailfish in full leaping curve. I listened to the ocean teeming with large game fish. Beyond the shadows of palm trees I could hear the flapping of their heavy tails. I could feel Dad behind me, nodding.

I was knotted up with anticipation. This was a rite of passage, game fishing without Dad and his captains or the Ebb Tide. I didn’t sleep more than an hour or two. In the morning my stomach hurt. What if I screwed up? What if I couldn’t find my way back in or we hit a storm or the engine stopped? What if, what if?

Down the road from the motel there was a tiny rundown fishing camp called Estes, built into the mangroves, a little operation with a half-dozen skiffs for rent. Old pelicans were sitting on broken pilings and the office was ramshackle and smelled of old bait. The morning sun was already searing and the flies and mosquitoes were thick and kept getting into our ears and mouths. Look how great this is, I said to Bonnie, pointing to yellowing photographs of big barracudas and tarpon pinned to the walls. On my mouth I could feel Abe Waitzkin’s shit-eating grin.

Estes Dock faced the gulf side of Islamorada, offering miles of shallow-water fishing alongside the mangroves and on the flats. There was a chance to catch snappers, ladyfish, bonefish, sea trout, redfish, cobia, possibly tarpon or permit.

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