Josh, Kevin and Jill came. Will pulled back, and started taking pictures. Betty got the fish alongside, and Kevin went on the outside of the rail with
the gaff. The fish took a turn, and Jill grabbed his bill. “Help me!” Josh had a hand on the bill. Kevin threw the gaff onto the deck, and pushed up the fish as Josh pulled him into the boat. Jill led the parade, still holding the bill, and they put him on the deck. Chrissie smacked the fish with a piece of steel pipe. The fish quivered. Will shot a lot of pix. His favorite was his lioness bashing the fish with the pipe. They put the fish in the reefer, and went back on deck. Everyone but Betty was up for some more fishing. Betty was more interested in a cup of hot chocolate. She had it with Poquita, who of course called Giuseppe and Betty’s dad to tell them of her success. Betty’s dad was very excited by her catch. Roberta went to the wheelhouse to confer with Ronnie. There were certain places she would like to sample, and there was a place that, given the time of day, tide and the month, might be pretty good to fish. Jill circulated with pieces of fish to put on the jigs to make them a little more attractive. Will took some more pix, of course. The boat ran to some places and dipped the sample net or took bottom samples. Then they came to the fishing spot. The girls let down, and the fishes piled on. Roberta let most of them go to the box, let a few loose, and took a few below decks to the aquarium. She had several fish traps set in the area, each marked by a way point. Will went back in the cabin to get some coffee and take a break. Roberta and Kevin were talking. “Kevin, if this is a private conversation, I could be somewhere else.” “Pull up a chair.” Roberta said. “It’s not for public consumption, but we don’t mind you knowing.” “What have you been up to?” “If only that was it. Kevin, tell him.” “When I got my career going, I got posted to Group San Francisco, which I think is the best assignment you could have. I got a nice little place at the Presidio, and bought a Porsche 911, which was the car my wife always measured the world by. She was really happy with it. One day, she was coming back from Point Reyes, and broke loose on the road on Highway One. The 911 is a rear engine, as I’m sure you know. Even if she knew how to turn into a skid, she probably could not have done it, because once the car starts to rotate, with the rear engine, it’s not coming back. She went over, 100 or 200 feet down, and hit the ocean. I always thought it would be me who would die in the salt water, and I never had any preparation for her to be dead. But she is. Admiral Jacobs discharged me on a bull shit medical. Supposedly I have a bad knee. He said if I was someone who never should have even been in the Navy, I could shoot myself. I would humiliate him. Otherwise, I would take it and go on, like a real Navy guy would. I looked at my .45 a few times, but I couldn’t do it. I’m kind of sort of all right with the whole thing, but I will never be right, really.” “You decided not to give up. None of us will ever be right. You can join our family if you want. We’re malcontents, fuck ups, and misfits. We all understand the need to know. Nobody needs to know what we just didn’t talk about. I think over time, it will get a little easier to take. I don’t think it will ever go away. But if you could take it at full power, then you can live with it as it slowly fades a little.” “I guess you need to get on deck and keep things under control.” “That’s what commanders get paid for. I see you later.” Will went back on deck. There were a lot of fishes being caught. He went to the door, and told Roberta that she might want to see what she wanted to do about fishes. She came out, and let them go into the box. After a bit, she found one small one that should be let go, and then another she took to the aquarium. The boat went back to pick the traps, and Roberta was pleased with her catch. She put some fishes in the aquarium, and flicked some she called ‘nasty’ onto the bait table. She took them to another spot, and the girls let down. They took a few fishes each, and then one of them told Will she had the bottom. Will took her pole. It was not the bottom. “Roll up.” He gave her pole back. “You have a very big fish down there.” Roberta came over. “I think this will be a fish like you call a jewfish or grouper. A big bottom dweller, very good to eat.” “Pauline, it’s your turn to break your tail. Keep the pressure on, but don’t rush. He will tire, and we don’t want him alongside until he does. Keep your line tight all the time. Never let it go slack.” He went into the cabin. Chrissie came up behind Will and put her arms around him. “We’re having some pretty good luck, aren’t we?” “They said we had to have a fish and game observer, and they sent the best fishing guide on the planet.” “Now she will own a piece of equipment everyone wants to use, and she will let them. Everyone will say nice things about her because they wanted to play soccer and she let them use her ball. The Carabiniere will want to run some micro samples on it, and she will say, “Sure!” “But what is the point?” “Who’s point?” Marcie came in. “It’s my point, girl. Will has been trying to figure me out for some 20 years, and he hasn’t managed it. You’re pretty smart but you’re not in Will’s class. What he can’t do in 20 years, you can’t do in all the time God leaves you. I want to sit in the basement and look at fishes. I’m not going to try to seduce your husband. I gave up on that 10 years ago. I would steal him away from you, but I can’t. I’m building that lab because I have money I really don’t need. I already have two jets. I’d like something really cool, but if I bought an SR-71, assuming I could, I’d have to fly it myself. Please! A B-1 is out of even my price range. So every time I get a million bucks I don’t need, I give it to someone who hopes they can do good with it. According to the priests, I am going to hell anyway because I do not repent my sins. Why should I? I’m a lot better than the supercilious people who are sure they are going to heaven. I fuck around. But I don’t lie, cheat and steal. So if God can’t get that, he will do the big number on me.” Chrissie looked a little bit stunned. “If I had any influence, I would say you certainly don’t need to go to hell.” “According to them, that doesn’t matter.” Will said, “If you could create the universe, would you make hell for people who didn’t believe a book full of nonsense? I’ll tell you a Marcie story. When she was making a little bit of money for a shoot, she runs into a runaway girl, maybe 14 or so. She tells this girl that she has to talk to her mom. She buys a Tracfone for her, and calls Mom. Mom and the girl talk, and lots of tears are shed, and then Marcie puts the girl on an airliner back home. “Who do you credit, some psychotic who said he saw a burning bush thousands of years ago, or me, when I can probably find the records for that phone?” “I will believe you, Will. Let’s get on deck.” They went out on deck, and came to the girl with the fish on. “Pauline, what you got?” “Something very heavy. I can feel some wiggling once in a while, but not much. Roberta says a grouper.” “How is it going?” “Not so bad. I’ve gotten up about 40 feet of line, and the crew told me we are in 200, so we’re getting there.” “So you think we will get this fish?” “Well, to the surface. I don’t know what he is.” “Groceries. Should we see if your parents want it mounted if you get it?” “No. Marcie had to…” “OK. You are just as good as the girls who have money. Who is the best in your class?” “Jennie, duh.” “Jennie came from Central America on a freighter. She came here barefoot and broke. So you can see that God, if he exists, has a sense of humor.” “Pauline, what’s going on down there?” “How would I know?” “Use the force, Pauline.” “He’s been trying to go down, but he can’t beat the line, so he will try something else. I think he will come to the surface.” “When he gets here, will he be tired enough for us?” “I don’t think.” “Then what should we do?” “Light up and let him swim around a bit. Keep him off the bottom. But don’t try to pull him up just yet.” “You’re a Jedi Knight. Let him use his energy where it can’t do him any good.” Chrissie came up. “Helm wants to know what we are doing.” “She is keeping him off the bottom, and letting him wear out. We are doing well. We have a real fisherman here. She would have done that without us telling her.” “Why do we catch these big fishes?” “Maybe the Fates.” “Do you believe in them?” “It’s like God. Nobody knows. I’v
e done well on luck. Maybe there is someone up there or out there helping me. For some reason, I think it is Marissica.” In some unimaginable place, an impossibly beautiful woman in a red knit dress stirred her tea with a small silver spoon. She tapped the teacup with the spoon, and set it in the saucer. “We should see how our fisherman is doing.” They went over to the fishing action. Pauline had her fish about halfway up. She thought he was losing energy. Roberta came over, and her opinion was to keep light pressure on the fish,
because he was big, and he would lose a lot of power in a short time. Pauline thought the same, so they kept light pressure on. Will took
hundreds of pix of the covey looking over the rail and rallying behind
Pauline. Then the fish came up. He surfaced alongside the boat so
exhausted that he lay on his side. Kevin jumped the rail and gaffed the fish
from the mouth to the gill covers. He passed the gaff handle to Karl, and
came back aboard. Karl pulled the fish aboard with an assist by Kevin.
When it hit the deck, Chrissie was there with a large piece of pipe. She
bashed it right where you have to, and the fish quivered. Kevin dragged the
fish into the reefer. The rest of the fishing crew put their gear down again.
They caught a lot of fishes. Will filleted a lot of them on the way in. The
girls were pretty amazed at how fast he could do it. Two of them wanted to
learn, and they did, being photographed as they did. One of them, Susan,
had filleted before, and she got much better very quickly in the company of
people who had filleted thousands of fishes. Sassie filmed Susan filleting. She also filmed Will filleting, which you could watch in slow motion to see
what he was doing. Josh took over as the girls got into the giggling and
running around mode. Will photographed them as they did so. They got a
little too exuberant, and one of them fell over the side. Ronnie was quick
on the uptake, and brought Jared about and came up alongside her. Josh
jumped the rail, clipped on a safety belt, and grabbed her flailing hand. He
put her back aboard with all the difficulty he would have had if she had
been a kitten. Chrissie took care of getting her in the shower and getting
into a new outfit, Aurora of course. Some nice wool socks and Phillipa
boots, and a cup of hot chocolate, and she was good to go.
Will brought the covey into the cabin and gave them a stern warning about
how dangerous it was to go over the rail, and suppose it happened when the
captain wasn’t looking, or could not see. He worked the issue hard,
including the bit about how mom and dad would never get over the death of
a child, how hard it might be to find someone who went over the side at
night or even in the day if nobody saw. He threw in a pretty gruesome
description of what a ‘floater’ would look like. They were instructed about
yelling ‘man overboard’. Ronnie gave the boat to Carlo, and came down
and warned all hands that he had lost hands overboard in war, and gave
them an idea what it would be like to die alone in the ocean. Perhaps it made some sort of impression. The giggling stopped, and there were some tears about the long ago dead. Will went back in the cabin to find Chrissie. “Will, you can’t make the whole world safe. They are out there running around the deck. Maybe they learned something or maybe not. They’re kids. If they can’t have fun today, will they ever get to again? Maybe you like the world as you see it, a dark and dangerous place where people get blown away for stepping on the wrong stairway. Any time your brothers might tell you the Clantons and McLouries are down at the OK corral. Fine. I know you’re a gunfighter. I don’t like it. But don’t put it on these girls. When they are 30, it will be different. When they are 14, you can’t tell them about death. You can’t be Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. You probably really are the man Val Kilmer was pretending to be, but you can’t let them see that. I love you for the man who cuddles and caresses, and kisses me 300 times before we make love. The lion scares the shit out of me. You get a phone call, and you leave with nothing in your pockets. I do have some concept of what that means. I know it’s dangerous. I wish you didn’t do that, but I know you are not going to stop. You are always wanting to protect women and I know it isn’t nonsense. But protect these girls from horror for a few years. You can tell girls that getting in a car with a stranger might get her in big trouble, but you don’t show them autopsy photographs. You’ve seen things that you will have in your nightmares for the rest of your life. I wish you hadn’t, because I think you would be nicer and happier if you had not, but it’s done. Don’t share those images with the innocent, Will. Will looked out at the girls, who were still running around the deck. “They do a lot of running, don’t they?” “They do.” “You’re right.” “Will… “You can’t argue after the other person concedes.” “You do care about them.” “God, if you exist, take me whenever you like, but if I take 16 girls out, don’t let me come back with 15. Let someone else take the wheel, bring 16 back, and let me be the one who doesn’t make it.” “You mean that.” “Yes.” “What about me? What about what it would be like to live without you?” “Responsibility comes before everything. Even love.” “Nothing should come before love, Will.” “Yes it should. Mafia guys say they love their kids, so the wrong they do is somehow justified. That doesn’t cut it. You do the right thing first, and then you can get on with your own interests later.” “Your wife and children are your own interests?” “Right. Maybe the top of the list, but they are what you care about, not what your obligations are. Maybe there are obligations there, too, but nothing that outranks the obligation to be virtuous.” “I suppose I agree with that. Let’s get on deck and do our jobs.” They went out, and saw lots of fishes being caught. Roberta had made one more stop. She saw Will and Chrissie. “Could I talk with you guys and Marcie for a bit?” “Sure, if you can find Marcie.” Roberta sent a quail to find Marcie. They went inside. “Will, we need to know what is going on in the local waters, and the legislature won’t give us the money for a research vessel. It’s stupid, because we need to manage our fisheries.” Marcie came in and sat down. “So you want the Jared to run you around a little, put some plankton nets and fish traps in a locker somewhere, Maybe assign a stateroom to you, you could live aboard and do your paperwork and all right here? You could come in when the boat was tied up, and Poquita would send faxes for you and so on? File your mail, and all those things she does so well you can’t even tell she is doing them until she takes a day off, and everything is a mess? And then, would Marcie cover a few thousand a month in fuel and so forth? Is that the wish list?” “Yes.” “I think we could. Marcie?” “I could put in, say, three thousand a month for fuel, another thousand for Jared’s maintenance, another for room and board for Roberta, Some basic services like phone and wireless internet. Let’s make it an even hundred thousand a year.” “As president of Jared, inc. I indicate my agreement in principle. I propose that we make this an agreement cancelable by any party at any time, and forget written contracts.” Marcie gave Will a funny look. “Jared, inc.?” “Marcie, you own two million dollars worth of stock in this corporation, and you don’t know the name of it?” “Oh, the boat.” “The boat. Roberta, does this suit you?” “I’d be the dumbest person ever born to say no. Of course it does.” “Let’s get on deck and see what’s going on.” They went out, and what was going on was Kevin and Josh and Jill untangling lines, and fishes going into the box. Will took Roberta up to the wheelhouse. Ronnie nodded as they came in. “Roberta, tell me what we should do with the rest of the day.” “I have a deep reef we could hit, and then we go in.” “Let’s do it. Two pound balls, Ronnie?” “Or 2 ½. Nothing lighter. 290 to 375 feet, Roberta?” “Yeah. If they have anything more than shrimp fly j
igs, I want to see 3 pounders. If they use live bait, go to five.” Chrissie put in. “I want to put a live bait down, Will.” They went on deck. “Roll up. We’re doing a deep reef. Two or two and a half balls. Shrimp flies. If you want to fish something else, see Roberta in a few minutes.” Roberta found a fish in the live well by the bait table. She had Will tie a dropper loop two feet above the 4 pound lead on the heavy rig, a 6/0 Penn Senator with 125 pound braided Dacron. She rigged the fish on 250 pound monofilament with one hook in the jaw, and another in the tail. Will put a sinker breakaway of 45 pound braided nylon between the sinker and the
main line. The boat came up over the reef, and Ronnie said Rigs Down. Roberta went to see if the covey was happy with their rigs. A few fishes
came up, but nothing much. Half an hour into the drift, nothing was doing,
so they headed up to the top again. A lot of the girls were hanging around
the leeward side chatting. They started another drift. Chrissie was letting down when the spool suddenly spun. She locked it, and her heavy pole folded over. “Will!” He came, and saw the massive reel giving up line like it was hooked to a freight train. “Roll up!” Chrissie moved to the bow where Ronnie could see her. The line continued to go out. Ronnie cautiously moved forward, slowing the loss of line. They were in deep water here, and could lose it all. Kevin came with the harness, and put it on Chrissie without asking if she wanted it. He put the butt of the pole in the pocket, and clipped the reel on. “Keep leaning back a little, so your shoulders take the strain, not your back.” Roberta came. “This is the Marlin you were looking for.” “You sure?” “Not absolutely, but I think you have a white around 250 pounds. Maybe 350. On a wussie boat, you would have a ‘fighting chair’. This being a man’s boat, you do the work yourself.” “They had fighting chairs in the Hemingway stories.” “Hemingway wasn’t a Marine.” “I’m getting a little line in.” “That’s Freddie moving the boat. You’re doing well but you will need to work this fish for a couple of hours to wear him down.” “What do I need to do?” “Keep your line tight. Marlin have hard mouths, and they can slip a hook pretty easily. When he jumps, and he will, you don’t let him make any slack. He might try to sound, and we are going into deep water where that could work. Resist, pump him up inch by inch. Conserve your energy, let him use up his.” “Where is Will?” Will came and fed her a sandwich. “Hang in there, honey. This is going to be real hard, but it’s the fish you wanted. Show everyone that you can do it.” “I don’t know if I can.” “You’re a fucking Marine. No shit you can!” The fish drove hard for the bottom. Ronnie had the line up and down, so there was nothing to help her. The fish ran a little ways, and then softened, and came up. She took in the line. Then he started coming up fast. She rolled up, keeping the line tight. “He’s coming up fast, Will.” “He’s going to jump. Do not leave any slack.” Sassie was on second deck ready to get this scene on disk. The fish came out, flying into the air. Chrissie kept the line tight, and he went into the water with nothing accomplished. He tried it twice more with no luck. Chrissie pulled him to the boat. Josh went over the rail and grabbed the bill. Karl got ahold of it. He lifted the fish right over the rail and threw it on the deck. Josh fell in the water, but he got back aboard with no difficulty. Will gave the fish a nice hit on the head with the pipe. They dragged him into the walk in. Poquita called Giuseppe, and arranged to have the fish mounted. They headed in.
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