by Boyd Craven
“Yes, I did, Mrs. Vegetarian, because it’s healthy for you,” I teased.
“How did your first two days fishing go then?” she asked.
“The first day was pretty fun. We limited out on grouper and snapper. It more than filled the coolers I had, so we called it a day so I could load everything up and come up this way. The second day I got skunked a bit. We ended up fishing for ourselves. Some sheepshead and snook.”
“You’re starting to sound like you fit in around here,” she said.
I grinned, feeling like it. Dinner tonight was being paid for with my first two days’ worth of sales. It wasn’t retire-on-it type of money, but it covered my costs, and I was able to put some away after I figured out what fuel and ice had cost me for an average week. This was icing on the cake.
“I hope so. I kind of like the area,” I told her.
“Wine?” a waiter asked, coming up.
“No thank you,” I said softly.
“I don’t drink, sorry,” Carly told him.
“Ahhh, it’s just the lady at table three ordered drinks for you two,” he said, turning.
He had brought a bottle and two glasses with him, and when he turned and nodded, we both looked. Mina waved sweetly from across the restaurant.
“Oh wow,” Carly said.
“This can’t be good,” I murmured back.
“What would you like me to tell her, if anything?” the waiter asked.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said at once.
“Very well, thank you.”
He headed back, and I turned to look into Carly’s eyes. I could see the anger there, and she looked over her shoulder again, seeing Mina who was sipping something through a straw. She saw us looking again and waved once more. I waved back quickly and tried not to look at her any more.
“What’s her deal?” Carly asked.
“I don’t know. She lived up state near Tallahassee,” I told her.
“Maybe she recognized your name on the news?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, though. We’re here to have a good time. I can’t stay out too late, though, because I promised Irish I would pick him up tomorrow after he paddled to me two days in a row. He hasn’t even asked for money yet, and refused to take any yesterday.”
“Sounds like you’re changing the subject,” Carly said, a smile tilting the side of her mouth.
“You caught that, did you?”
“Yes, how about we get the rest of this to-go, and you can have dessert back at my place?”
“That sounds like the best offer I could get,” I told her.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” She headed toward the restroom.
“Is everyone good, refills?” the waiter, who had been by before, asked.
“Check please, and can we get a couple boxes?” I asked him.
“Sure, everything okay?” He noticed our half-eaten plates, probably wondering if us cutting out early had to do with table three.
“Sounds like my night got a lot more interesting,” I told him, giving him a wry smile, and he nodded back, a grin of his own.
“I understand. I’ll be right back.”
I took another couple of bites while I was waiting and had pulled my phone out to check on the weather for tomorrow when somebody sat down across from me. Expecting Carly, I looked up, a goofy smile on my face. It wasn’t Carly.
“So you’ve been avoiding my phone calls,” Mina said.
“I’ve been avoiding everyone’s phone calls,” I told her. “But if I knew which number was yours, I’d be avoiding it for sure.”
“Ouch. Such bitterness.”
“Bitterness is moping around after the fact. I didn’t do that; I did my time and moved on. How’s your boyfriend by the way?” I asked her, loving the way she flinched at the word boyfriend.
“Mike got a slap on the wrist. After you broke his arm, then his jaw, they said he was responding with justified force when you compare your size differences. Besides, he wasn’t my boyfriend.”
“Sure looked like it,” I told her.
“You’re not only big, but you’re as stupid as you look.”
“This is getting good; don’t stop now,” I said as the waiter put the bill and two foam boxes down and scurried away, probably to tell the Fowlers there might be a slight issue happening.
“I did that on purpose, so you’d see him. I was trying to make you jealous.”
“Well, it half worked,” I told her. “And for the record, kissing another man who isn’t your boyfriend is called cheating. Not a move any decent human being would set out to deliberately do; not that I’m calling you decent or human.”
I saw the slap coming, and I caught her wrist before she could make it and held her hand there. The table next to us had seen the motion and caught the movement, so I held her hand still, letting everyone see what she had tried to do. It was petty, but I wasn’t going to hurt her. She pulled on her arm, and after a couple more seconds she made a frustrated sound. I let her hand go, and she rubbed her wrist.
“It’s time for you to go,” I told her. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I just wanted to tell you that I had some of your stuff still.”
“I thought the letter you sent me said you tossed all of it?” I asked her, suddenly interested.
“I guess you’ll have to find out.”
“Hi,” Carly said, walking up behind her.
“Hi yourself,” Mina said, turning, but not getting out of Carly’s chair.
“You’re in my spot.” Carly looked from Mina then to me.
“I’ll be done in a moment,” she said, then turned to me. “Let me see your phone.”
I pulled it out and handed it to her. She punched some things in then hit the call button. Her phone rang in her purse, and she hit the button to end the call and handed it back to me.
“I saved my number for you, so you know who not to ignore,” she said, and then stood up. “You two have a wonderful time.”
I watched her go back to her table and drop some bills on the top then turn to walk out. I knew Carly was watching me watch her, but I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to circle back around and surprise me again.
“So… What was that about?” Carly said and sat down.
“She says she has some of my old stuff from before I got locked up,” I told her, not holding back.
“You believe that?” she started boxing her food.
“I don’t know.” I pulled my wallet out and put enough in the bill holder to cover the bill, plus tip. “The only thing I really cared about was an old picture album I brought with me from Chicago,” I told her, before starting to box my food up.
“Old memories?” she asked.
“It’s all I have left of my family,” I told her. “It was my dad’s picture album. It’s got stuff from me growing up, him and mom, my grandparents.”
“Well, maybe you should find out what she’s got, then.”
“Maybe,” I told her. “You ready?”
“I’m suddenly not feeling all that great,” she said, her hand rubbing her stomach.
“I’m sorry, can I…?”
“Naw, food didn’t settle right. Maybe we should…”
“You want to call me later?” I asked, feeling like things were suddenly slipping out of control.
“I’d like that.”
Dammit.
I had tried to call later that night and again the next day when I wasn’t on the water, but I wasn’t able to get ahold of her. What I was able to do was land some fish. No records were shattered, but I found myself with a lot of time to think. Irish had refused payment again, insisting on teaching me, but the last night I’d dropped him off at Deadman’s Cay, I had slipped him a tiny bottle of Johnny Walker. He had taken it and told me he was taking the next couple of days off to clean up his island and do some projects.
I was more than happy with the help he gave, but I was missing him a bit. I was almost
at the mouth of Crystal River, near the north shore when I tied into two sea trout, cast after cast. I had been using bait fish I had caught with the cast net and letting the current give the shad some movement. I decided to drop anchor and fished that stretch for a good hour. I had just put a fresh baitfish on my hook and cast it when my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t called me yet.”
“Hi, Mina,” I said, putting the phone between my shoulder and ear, wishing I had one of those hands-free sets.
“So I still have some of your stuff.”
“Okay. What did you keep, or was having my car towed and impounded the highlight of you torturing me?”
“I never set out to torture you. Like I said, I was just trying to make you jealous. Our relationship wasn’t moving along, and I was sure if I prodded you enough—”
“Yes!” I screamed, nearly dropping the phone as my rod bent over.
“Really? I thought I was just a phase with you?”
“Not you, the fish,” I told her. “Hold on, I have to land it,”
“Don’t you dare—”
I put the phone down and got the net out and muscled the fish to the side of the boat. A scoop later I had it landed. I removed the hook and put it on ice and then picked my phone back up. I needed to get my gaffe out, but so far, I hadn’t had to use anything other than the large net I’d bought from the pawn shop.
“…and I don’t understand what the hell…”
“Mina?”
“You’re there?”
“Yeah, I had to land a fish,” I told her.
“So that’s more important than talking to me?”
“No, it’s not that it’s… This is part of my job now,” I told her. “Do you have my father’s picture book?”
“I don’t know. I saved three boxes of your stuff. Clothing, old shoes. I just want to get rid of it.”
“That’s fine. Where and when can I get whatever it is of mine you have?”
“I could stop by your place when you’re done fishing?”
And let her see that I lived in a junkyard? No, she would humiliate me and use it against me. No dice.
“How about somewhere more public,” I suggested, hoping to curtail any shenanigans.
“Why not?” she whined. “How about the restaurant I finally talked to you at?”
“How about the market. I have some fish I’ll need to drop off. Say, two hours from now?”
“I’ll see you then,” she said and hung up. I shook my head and then decided to cast for another hour. That would give me time to catch a couple more, and then clean up before I went out in public.
Chapter Twelve
I decided to clean up at the marina. They didn’t mind if I parked my boat to load ice or offload stuff and I was starting to get to know some of the regulars in the area. A couple of the guys called to me asking how the fishing had been going. Since I was serving a smaller niche and market, they didn’t see me as competition. Heck, I really wasn’t any sort of competition, not to them. I was barely bringing in enough to cover my costs and put some money back. It still left me enough to pay my bills, but getting the cube van insured and plated had taken a little more cash than I had been expecting.
Still, any port in a storm, right?
“Hey, you going to be long?” Marty called down to me.
“Naw, I was going to see if I could offload a cooler full at the market instead of doing the delivery circuit. Maybe an hour, tops?”
“Good deal. You can stay right there, I’ve got a charter that’s coming back later and didn’t want to make them dock out in BFE if I didn’t have to.”
“I can move my boat if it’s—”
“Oh, it’s no biggie. If you were going to be more than a few hours I might have asked you to move down there or tie up behind my speedboat, but they aren’t coming back until after dark.”
“Well, you’ve got my number in case something comes up and you need me to move it?”
“I sure do, thanks for understanding Tony.”
I gave them a wave, appreciative of them letting me come in and use the docks. I knew that Franklin did, and they knew I worked for him, but maybe they were just doing this because they thought I was still working for him? No, I was overthinking this. He knew I was coming to offload a cooler or two. I tied off and hoisted the first cooler, then the second I fished under the bench seat for the furniture dolly. I put first one cooler and then the other on the dolly, and then got two lengths of rope I stored under the front seat just for this purpose.
I tied both coolers together on the furniture dolly and used the excess rope to make sure the handles on one side of the cooler were tied together. It kept the two long white coolers from sliding back-and-forth or end-to-end. Without taking up very much time or space, the furniture dolly turned my little enterprise into a mobile cooled fish delivery service. I almost kicked myself when I realized I could have probably avoided buying the box truck, but I needed a vehicle and it would provide a write off. Its usefulness would be hard to discount anyway.
I started toward the market, where I knew a couple of people usually hung out by wholesale. I was only two blocks away, and considering my life and my choices as I walked. I was barely getting by selling fish, but it was honest work and I really liked it. I also kicked around the idea of going to the Copart auctions and buying some of my own boats, jet skis, and motors to fix up and sell while Franklin was out of town. In all honesty, that might be more worth my time than fishing. But I was finding out that I really loved to fish.
“Hey Anthony, what have you got for me today?” Was commonly what I heard.
I had only been at this a few days now, and mostly selling to the restaurants, but apparently my willingness to fish for specific things folks wanted intrigued the people at the market. I considered them more brokers, then wholesalers. They were the middlemen who bought up fresh fish to be shipped all over the area. They usually had a small team with them, and with their certified scales there was no question whether you are getting a fair deal or not. They always paid in cash, and there was never a receipt. A dishonest person could probably make quite the living off the books doing this.
With my incarceration, I had been off the books for far too long. I needed to be on the books as much as possible. I was haggling for the last few fish in my cooler, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around slowly, anticipating a sucker punch, and instead felt like I should suck on a lemon instead.
“Anthony, I’ve been waiting.”
Mina.
“I’ve been here a little bit, I didn’t see you around.” My voice was a lot rougher than I had intended it to be.
“No, I mean… I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, and to get your stuff to you. I’m just…” Her words trailed off and she chewed on her bottom lip, and I pretended like it didn’t distract me.
“Well, where’s my stuff?” I asked her, not wanting to piss her off, but if she had my father’s picture album, I really wanted it.
“I’ve got it in the trunk of my car,” Mina said softly, “but I don’t have anything to carry it around with. Where is your truck at? I can pull up next to you and have you unload it.”
“I didn’t drive my truck here,” I said looking at the cooler, not wanting to tell her where I’d actually parked it. “I brought my boat. How about you pull up by the docks over there, and I’ll get the stuff so you can be done with me.”
“Who said I wanted to be done with you?” She blinked her eyes a couple of times quickly, and I tried not to stare.
Dammit, she always had this effect on me. Emotionally I hated her guts, I hated everything about her. My body on the other hand, had different ideas than I did. I savagely fought back, hoping I was smarter than I looked. She seemed oblivious to my inner struggles though, and just nodded.
“Pull up to dock seven,” I told her, “I’ll hoof the rest of it from there,” then I started talking to the one whole
saler I hadn’t talked to yet.
I had a few Bonito, otherwise known as a Florida skipjack, and not really anything else I thought the wholesaler would be interested in. I walked toward him anyway, so Mina would see my back and that I was busy. I had let her think she was just one more thing I had to accomplish for the day, getting my stuff from her. She’d looked vulnerable earlier, and I didn’t want her to know that I had even noticed.
I had three fish in the cooler, having struck out with the last wholesaler. Once in a while you could sell a skipjack or two, but a lot of people thought they were trash fish. The meat wasn’t the same as a blackfin tuna, and unless you had a larger fish, trimming the bloodlines out of a small skipjack was not worth it on a commercial level. That was fine with me, I could probably eat the whole thing myself once it had been trimmed up. I would fry it up after I had rolled it in sesame seed and seasoned it with a lemon.
“It took you long enough,” Mina said as I approached the pier.
I’d told her it was a dock, but I didn’t think she would know any difference. She was standing just by the big number seven, her little black car sitting there with the trunk open. I walked up, pushing the coolers, being careful not to tip them over on the pitted asphalt.
“I had things to do, my whole world doesn’t just stop and revolve around you. Not any more.” That felt really good saying that, but part of me hated myself for saying it as her face scrunched up in the way that told me she was trying hard not to cry.
“Would you be nice to me, if I promise to apologize some day?” she asked after a long moment.
“Sure, I’ll pretend to like you right now. Hi Mina, how are you doing? Do you have my shit? I would like to get my shit from you, and then get you the fuck out of my life.” My voice had been steady, even clipped right up until the end when the anger took hold in my voice rose in volume.
I walked to the back of her car and saw three boxes nestled there. Right on top of the box that seemed full of shoes, was my father’s picture album. I picked that box up right away and put it on my coolers. I turned and grabbed the second and saw that Mina had grabbed the third. I loaded my box, then she loaded hers. I slammed her trunk and looked at her for a second.