by Tyler Keevil
‘Let’s get the stock footage of the fish, first.’
While Jake prepared the camera and checked the lenses, I got out our two trout. The guy had folded them up in wax paper and bagged them for us. I unwrapped one of them. In my hands the fish felt slick and sticky, ready to slip free. I left it on a rock and went to get the fishing rod. It was a cheap Shakespeare rod and reel combo we’d picked up at Canadian Tire. There was already a hook tied to the end of the line. Prying open the fish’s mouth, I worked the hook into its jaw – slipping the barb through its lower lip. Then I held the rod and used it to lift up the fish. It dangled there, looking dead. I jiggled it a bit, testing it out.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Jake.
He looked at it like I’d snagged a dead squirrel.
‘It’s pretty small.’
‘It was the biggest they had.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘It’ll look bigger on camera.’
Using rocks as stepping stones, I picked my way to the centre of the stream. It was maybe ten feet across, and moving fairly fast because of the spring run-off. Jake took up position on the bank. He was shooting this bit handheld. Before we started rolling I tried a practice run: letting out some line and dangling the fish in the water. The current flowing past caught it and brought it around like a weathervane, so it faced upstream. I held the line steady while Jake worked the zoom on the camera.
‘How’s it look?’ I asked.
‘The line is in shot.’
‘Try to frame it out.’
‘Whatever. Rolling.’
I jerked the fish along, using it like a one-stringed marionette, trying to instill it with some sense of life. It wasn’t easy. The hook kept bringing the nose up towards the surface, so it was bobbing at an odd and unnatural angle.
‘Let her float downstream,’ Jake said. ‘Then reel it in horizontally. I’ll track it.’
I thumbed the pick up to one side and spooled out more line, watching the trout as it drifted further away. When it was about twenty yards downstream, and barely visible from where we stood, I locked the reel and lowered the rod – so the tip was just above the surface of the water – and began reeling in. As I did I moved the rod back and forth to make it look as if the fish was fighting its way against the currents.
‘That’s better,’ Jake said.
Jake tracked it from the bank, panning as the fish drew level with us. We popped off a few more takes like that, and then Jake went to check Otis’s storyboards. The next shot was supposed to be of the fish jumping, so we moved upstream to a small cataract, where the water cascaded over a series of rocks. Above the rocks was a pool, which we planned to use later on, for the spear-hunting sequence. I stood beside the pool, and swung the fish out in a pendulum arc, plunking it down below the cascade. The water there frothed and burbled. Jake got right in close, checked his frame, and started rolling.
‘Okay. Go for it.’
I tugged on the rod, which bent and then straightened out as the fish sprang free. It flew a few feet before flopping down, belly first, on the rocks. Then, caught in the currents, it sort of barrel-rolled back down into the froth. It looked ridiculous and pathetic and dead.
‘I hope you got that,’ I said.
‘I got it all right.’
‘This isn’t going to work.’
‘Do it again, but make it jump further.’
I straightened the fish in the froth, and waited until Jake gave me the signal. The second time I tugged harder, and the fish made it into the pool, but it still didn’t look very convincing. The third time, I really reefed on it. The rod bent like a bow, and then whipped taut, but the fish didn’t follow. The line had snapped.
‘Fuck,’ I said.
The fish was already floating away, lolling on its side as it drifted out of sight.
‘Nice work,’ Jake said.
‘That’s why I bought two.’
‘You’re lucky you did.’
‘Well, I did.’ I gathered in the loose line. Without the weight of the hook and fish it was light and flimsy as a cobweb. ‘Want me to try again?’
‘Forget it. It looked like shit. Let’s just get you in the water.’
‘Otis was never sure about this part.’
‘Drink your beer and man up.’
While I stripped down it started to rain. The drops slapped loudly on the branches of the trees and pattered against the forest floor and drilled little bullseyes into the surface of the pool. Jake got out a plastic bag to cover the camera, changed the lens, and then set about mounting the camera on the tripod. That took a few minutes. As I waited I played around with the spear, which we’d carved out of an old walking stick. On the tip, using some garden twine, we’d lashed Jake’s Swiss Army knife. It had a locking blade and looked like it would really do the trick. I paraded back and forth on the bank, practicing my spearing motions.
Jake caught me doing that and grinned.
‘Okay, Brando – time to get wet.’
‘Sure thing, Coppola.’
I was only wearing a pair of ginch. I’d asked if it could be boxers but Otis and Jake had insisted on ginch. I picked my way towards the pool. It was about four feet deep in the centre, and shallower around the edges. I stepped in cautiously. The water was meltwater, coming down from the winter snowcap up on Mount Seymour, and so cold that it burned.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘This better not take long.’
‘I’ll need at least twenty takes, maybe thirty.’
‘Thirty my ass.’
I waded deeper, wobbling a bit on the rocks underfoot. When the water reached my groin, I gasped and took a series of rapid breaths, practically hyperventilating. It was that cold. There was already an ache in my thighs, knees, and shins – right in the bones. It felt like an icecream headache but all through my legs.
‘Goddamn,’ I said, my voice high and breathless, ‘Oh goddamn this Jesus.’
Jake was already filming, recording my reactions, and trying not to laugh.
‘Quit swearing. It’s Easter, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Just say action, goddamnit.’
‘Action, goddamnit.’
I stalked about the pool, holding my spear above my head. The rain had let up and the water was clear as a windowpane and I could see to the bottom, which was covered in stones and pebbles, all of them worn smooth and reddish in colour and rounded like eggs. I tried to think about a fish lurking beneath the surface, but all I could really think about was how cold I was.
‘Can I stab, now?’ I asked.
‘Don’t talk. But yeah.’
I stepped forward and lunged dramatically, punching the spear into the water. The impact kicked up a splash that soaked Jake’s jeans and splattered the camera. The plastic bag protected it, but the lens still got covered.
‘That was great,’ Jake said, checking the camera, ‘Otis would have loved that.’
‘Shut up, man.’
‘You covered the camera in water, you clown.’
‘Well clean it off, then! I’m freezing, all right?’
Jake made a big deal about wiping off the wide angle lens with the corner of his shirt. He took his time finishing, too, which was just like him. As he did I waded over to the edge of the pool, where I’d left my beer balanced on a rock. I took a couple of long swigs, draining it, and dropped it into the water. It tumbled over the cataract and bobbled away in the same direction the fish had gone. Below the pool the stream was flat and grey as slate. It snaked back and forth through the trees, as tortuous and twisted as the road we’d driven in on.
Eventually Jake asked, ‘Do you need a break or something?’
By then my feet and legs had gone numb. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it made the cold more tolerable, like a natural anaesthetic.
I shook m
y head. ‘If I get out, I’m not getting back in.’
‘Okay – try it again, but don’t soak the camera. Other than that it was good.’
We shot the same thing, multiple times, from various angles. The plan was to splice them all together in a little montage sequence, which was meant to give the scene a sense of energy. There was nothing quick or energetic about my movements, though. I plodded about the pool, raising and stabbing my spear in a series of mechanical thrusts. After each one I’d stop and look at Jake, waiting for him to adjust the frame and tell me to do it again. It wasn’t working, and both of us knew it wasn’t working, but neither of us admitted that. It was just a matter of getting through it, which we did. Eventually.
‘We need the shot of you with the fish, now. Where is it?’
I pointed with my spear at our pile of gear. ‘In that plastic bag.’
While he rooted through it, I stood and stared at the water. Beneath the surface my legs were white and bent outwards, splayed by refraction. They looked broken and mangled, as if I’d been in some kind of accident. I cupped a handful of water and let it trickle through my fingers. The cold wasn’t too bad, by that point. Not as bad as it had been the day of the funeral, back in February. The service had been so crowded that we couldn’t even fit in the church. We’d huddled outside and gotten slashed with sleet as we listened to the eulogies through these loudspeakers. Near the end we were let in to view the body, but it hadn’t looked like Otis. They’d combed his hair – slicking it all over to one side – and Otis had never combed his hair. Somebody had said it was because of the accident, as a way of covering up the damage to his head, but just then I couldn’t remember who had said that. It might have been Jake. It seemed like the kind of thing Jake would’ve said.
‘Hey!’ Jake called.
I looked up at him. He was cradling the other trout in his hands.
‘You okay?’
‘Sure. It’s not even cold, now.’
‘I was talking to you.’
‘I didn’t hear.’
‘Bring the spear.’
Holding it across my shoulder, like a caveman, I waded towards where Jake stood on the bank. In the shallows the water only came up to my knees. I planted the spear, butt-first, in the gravel, and together we managed to shove the knife-tip into the fish – right behind the gills. The blade pushed the skin out on the other side of the fish, like a tent pole stretching canvas, before it sliced through. The trout hadn’t been cleaned or gutted and blood trickled down over the knife handle. Jake shot a few close-ups of that, and then directed me back to the centre of the pool. He explained that I was going to hold the spear underwater, as if I’d just made a lunge, and then when he called action I’d lift it up, fish and all. We’d match the two shots so that it looked like I’d speared the fish.
‘Does that make sense?’
‘Sure.’
‘You good to do it?’
‘Uh-huh.’
He started rolling. I lowered my spear-tip. The water swirled around it and a ribbon of blood slithered away from the fish. I waited. I was in the moment. I thought maybe if we got this shot – just this one – and if it looked good, then it would have all been worth it and we would have accomplished something and Jake would be happy and we could go home. I heard him call action and I brought my spear up in a shower of water, and I sort of roared as I did it. I roared and I shook the spear. I shook it so hard the fish fell off the end and flopped into the pool, near the edge. I tried to save it. I still had the spear, so I could only reach one-handed. I touched the sleek body but my fingers wouldn’t close and the trout slipped away, drawn down into the cataract by the currents, scooting right through the chute and sliding out into the stream below. The fish disappeared for a second, and then resurfaced, belly-up, bobbing amid the froth as it drifted away, and away, and away from us. I watched it go. I didn’t want to look at Jake, but eventually I had to. He had sat down on the bank, beside the tripod. He had his head in his hands. It was quiet except for the sound of the water warbling.
‘I’m sorry, man,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It just slipped off.’
‘You might as well get out. You’re turning white.’
I looked down. He was right. My torso was pale and waxy, like a corpse. A warmth had spread over my body, diffusing through my limbs, comforting me. Instead of getting out, I lingered in the water. It was nice in there. I found a large flat rock and perched on it, so the water came up to my neck. Jake picked up his beer and stood and sipped at it, ignoring me.
‘You should come on in,’ I said.
‘Quit messing around.’
‘I’m serious. It’s like those guys in Norway. They go ice swimming.’
Jake shook his head and started packing up our gear. He tore the plastic bag off the camera, clipped on the lens cap, and removed the tripod mount from the underside. Then he fitted the mount back on the tripod head and put the camera in its carry case. I was aware of him doing these things, and moving about on the bank, but I didn’t pay him much attention. I stayed where I was. I couldn’t feel my body anymore. I couldn’t feel much of anything. I wasn’t thinking much of anything, either. But I had the vague impression that I’d become part of the water, that I was the water. I sat very still, like a fountain statue, with the spear across my knees, and I stared at the stones on the bottom of the pool and I wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. No feeling, no thoughts. Just this sensation of nothingness.
Then one of the stones seemed to shift. When I saw that, I thought I’d pushed it too far, and had started to hallucinate. I was hypothermic or braindead or something. But the stone moved again. It was long and solid, this tubular-shaped stone, and speckled red so that it blended in with the others. I had no idea where it had come from but it was there all right.
‘Jake,’ I said.
‘Would you get out of the water, asshole?’
‘Do you still have the camera?’
‘I’m cleaning the lens.’
‘There’s a fish in here.’
‘What?’
‘There’s a fucking fish right here in front of me.’
I didn’t turn my head to look at him, but from the corner of my eye I saw him raise the camera, slowly. He removed the lens cap and opened the viewfinder. The red record light flashed on.
‘Where?’ he said.
‘I’m looking right at it.’
It was about ten feet away, in the shallows near Jake’s side of the pool.
‘I see it,’ he said, and I could hear the edge to his voice. ‘Christ it really is a fish.’
‘I told you.’
‘I thought you’d lost it.’
‘Me, too. I thought I was tripping out.’
We were both talking in whispers, as if worried the fish might hear us.
‘You got to spear it, man,’ he said. ‘You got to.’
‘Just keep rolling that camera,’ I said.
I eased myself up to a crouch. I still had my spear. My hand was cramped in a claw around the shaft. I couldn’t do much else but I could hold that spear. And I’d practiced this. I’d practiced it a bunch of times. I took one step forward, slowly, and another. On the third, the fish went still, as if it had sensed me. I could see its fins waving, like silk fans, to keep it balanced. If I went any closer I thought I’d spook it, but I was just within striking distance, now. So I raised my spear, drawing it upwards, arching my whole back with the movement, and then brought it forward in a single furious motion, as if swinging a giant hammer.
I knew right away that I’d hit the fish. I felt the pillow-punch of flesh followed by the impact as the spear-tip struck bottom, and then the shaft started to tremble and quiver in my grip. The fish was thrashing around down there and the water grew cloudy with mud and blood. I leaned on the spear, keepi
ng the fish pinned against the bottom, grinding the knife blade in the pebbles. I started shouting that I’d got it, I’d got it, and Jake was shouting, too, but I was too scared to do anything except keep it pinned, because I figured if I moved the fish would fight its way free. Our spear wasn’t meant for spearing. It didn’t have a barb or anything. I was yelling that I didn’t know what to do, and Jake was still filming and directing me from the bank, and it almost felt like a real film shoot. He kept repeating that I had to scoop the fish up and flip it out of the pond – all at once.
‘It’ll get free,’ I said. ‘It’ll get away.’
‘No, no – just go for it. Fucking go for it, man.’
I grabbed the spear with both hands and hefted up, like a guy digging with a spade, tossing a shovelful of dirt. Something silver and red came up with the spear and cleared the surface, then slipped free and flipped once in the air and landed in the shallow water at Jake’s feet. It started to flap wildly, spraying scales and blood, skittering around and sloshing up mud. It was going so crazy it looked as if it was being electrocuted or fried alive. We were both shouting and hollering at one another and Jake dropped the camera and tackled the fish. He fell on it and grabbed it in a bear-hug, pinning it against his chest as it whipped its tail at him, and I threw my spear aside and sloshed over and dove down on top of him, holding him so the fish was sandwiched between us, trapped, and the whole time I was yelling, ‘Don’t let it go! Whatever you do don’t let it go!’
Afterwards we laid the fish out on the bank and opened a couple more beers and sat staring at it. It was nearly two feet long and hefty, with a girth about the width of a fist. The body was torpedo-shaped, tapering to a wedge of a tail. Our spear had gone through its back and come out its belly, just behind the pelvic fin. Then there was the colouring. Its head had an olive-green hue, but the sides and back glistered a rich, ochre red – the red of fresh lipstick, or a wet tulip. I didn’t know much about fish, but I knew I’d never seen a fish that red before.
‘You figure it’s a salmon?’ I asked.
It was hard to get the words out. I was huddled in a towel, trying to warm up.