by Pat Conroy
Capers’ harpoon had proved a symbolic but useless gift. During a flounder gigging trip on a moonless night, he had tried to use the harpoon to gig the flounder exposed in the soft mud flats and sandbars by the light of a lantern on a johnboat. We would let the boat drift over shallow water and take turns gigging flounder that had buried themselves in sand to await prey passing overhead. The flounder’s silhouette was as distinctive as a pretty woman’s profile in a cameo. A three-pronged gig brought the flounder into the boat cleanly. Capers’ harpoon was so large that the fish was mutilated and its flesh ruined by the blow. Once Capers used the harpoon to land a fifty-pound sand shark, but even then it proved too much weapon for not enough fish. And so it lay unused that summer in the gunwale of the boat tied to a hundred feet of thick marine rope. From time to time Capers would justify its remaining there by reminding Jordan that the descendants of William Elliott never went to sea unprepared for any emergency. But there were too many fish to catch with regular tackle and we even landed a cobia weighing over forty pounds. I cooked those cobia steaks over a campfire with corn oil, butter, and lemon juice, and that became the first recipe I ever sold to a newspaper.
In the first week of August, Mike hit a triple off the wall at College Park in Charleston, driving in three runs and winning the Lower State Championship for the Waterford American Legion Team. Capers had been on third, I was on second, and Jordan on first when Mike teed off on the first pitch by the Conway relief pitcher. The four of us were growing strong together, coming into our season as athletes at the same time. When Jordan pitched, nothing was safe if the ball went to the outfield where Mike played a swift left field and Capers covered an amazing amount of ground in center and no one dared test my now-legendary throwing arm in right. Jordan knew we played a cunning outfield; little got by us, nothing through us, and we always hit the cutoff man.
After the baseball season was over, we moved into my family’s fishing camp on the southwest side of the Isle of Orion for the rest of the summer.
During the first week, we loaded the Middletons’ eighteen-foot Renken with extra tanks of gas, chose a day of superb calm and a weather report that called for nothing but clear skies, then struck out with our seventy-five horsepower motor for the Gulf Stream. The older fishermen spoke of the Gulf Stream in reverential tones as a great secret indigo river born in the South bringing a warm current and the traffic of marlin and whales toward the North Star and England. Out there the waters were silver or cobalt blue and the fish weighed as much as automobiles. All fishermen who returned from the Gulf Stream told stories of wonder and exhaustion about the strength of the great fish coaxed up from the depths.
It took us an hour to get to the open sea and we had told no one of our plans because no adult would have allowed such a long trip in such a small boat. Before sunrise, we had passed the last buoy marking the channel opening. The sea was lakelike as the first light hit it and the bow of our boat was pointed in the direction of Africa. We felt as adventurous as though our destination actually was Cameroon or the Ivory Coast. In a cooler, we had packed enough food and drink to last for two days. We were averaging twenty knots as we got farther and farther away from the sight of land.
“My mama would kill my Jewish ass if she knew where I was right this minute,” Mike said, as he scanned the horizon and saw only an endless circle of water. “She thinks that I’m crabbing for my dinner with chicken necks as we speak.”
“We should’ve brought a radio,” Jordan said.
“Low country boys don’t need no radios,” Capers said, keeping his eye on the compass and the boat pointed due east. “We were born in the pluff mud with gills and flippers. Man, I was born to go out to the Gulf Stream.”
“We don’t need radios, California boy,” I teased, “because we’ve got gonads big as Goodyear blimps.”
“You’ve got brains the size of houseflies,” said Jordan, surveying the ocean around him. “Lucky this is such a pussy ocean. You wouldn’t stick your big toe in the Pacific without a radio.”
“They didn’t have any radios on the Mayflower,” Capers said. “Columbus couldn’t call back to chat with Ferdinand. Nothing to fear, the master mariner’s here.”
“Nobody knows we’re out here,” Jordan said.
“The guy at the marina knows we’re going on a trip,” I said. “We filled up six tankfuls of fuel.”
“We couldn’t go if we told our parents,” Capers said.
“My folks would have a cow if they knew I was out here,” I said.
Capers called over the sound of the engine, “It might drive your father to drink.”
I ignored the remark and looked back at where land was supposed to be.
“I could never be wild enough for my father,” Jordan said. “I could drive up to Spartanburg, impregnate every girl at Converse College, and my father would still think I was a faggot.”
Before we reached the Gulf Stream, we arrived at a vast acreage of sargassum, the grasslands of the North Atlantic that formed a drifting archipelago of brown seaweed, which was more chlorophyll-rich than Kansas. It was the first sign that we were nearing the Gulf Stream itself. In earth science class, our teacher, Walter Gnann, had drawn a chart of the Gulf Stream as it flowed out of the Gulf of Mexico and went up the coast of Florida. Mr. Gnann was one of those introspective scientists who believed that nature simply proved the amplitude and mathematical genius of God. With the Gulf Stream, Mr. Gnann could talk about weather patterns, the movement of fish and plant life from the Caribbean to the coast of South Carolina, and a natural application of the Coriolis force, the curved angle of lines drawn straight across a spinning surface. The earth spun on its axis, the moon pulled the waters with its puppeteer hands, and the Gulf Stream moved like a secret, warm-water Nile through the heart of the Atlantic keeping England from being a snow-bound kingdom. The Gulf Stream brought good news from the South to the cold, inhospitable countries of Europe, a love letter sent out of Southern waters to melt icebergs in the shipping lanes near Greenland.
The water changed when we entered the Gulf Stream itself, becoming a jewel-like blue that looked as if it flowed out of the heart of some stone not native to the region. The water was clean-looking and moving swiftly as a mountain river. As low country boys we found clear water to be deeply disturbing. As soon as the Renken entered the stream itself the color of the water went from dark to light blue. Once Capers looked down to see we were floating in two hundred feet of water. Glancing down at the depth-finder a few minutes later, Capers was stunned to find the ocean’s depth had plummeted to a thousand feet. He reported this fact to the rest of us and we whistled in disbelief.
“You can drown in three feet of water as easy as a thousand,” said Jordan, trying to relieve the sense of awe that had seized everyone on the boat. All of us hovered around the depth-finder, thumping it with our fingers to see if it were giving a false reading.
Mike said, “Yeh, but they’ve got a better chance of finding you in three feet of water. What kind of fish grows in water that deep?”
“Big mothers,” Capers said.
“Anything that wants to,” Jordan added. “You’ve got to be able to kick some ass when you hitch a ride north on the Gulf Stream.”
“We might see some whales,” I said.
Jordan said, “We should’ve brought a radio.”
Capers laughed and said, “Radios are for pussies. Let’s bait up.”
I took over the wheel and turned the bow of the boat northward, adjusting it to trolling speed after taking the flow of the current into account. I loved the business of fishing, the beauty and efficiency of the tackle, the tying of elegant knots, the testing of the line, and the selection of the proper bait for the right conditions. It pleased me to watch my friends as they studied the contents of their well-organized tackle boxes before they made their choices for the moment they would cast their lines into these fabled waters. A half-moon rested in the western sky, a pale watermark left by the night before. I
thought I saw birds skimming low across the water and then realized I was seeing my first flying fish. Their faces were doglike, earnest, and they had the wings of bad angels. Though I knew nothing of their habits, I guessed these fish flew because they were being pursued by something huge and deadly beneath them.
“Hell, let’s get some baitfish,” Mike said. “I’m not sure these artificial lures will attract the big fish out here worth a damn.”
“Good idea,” I said and turned the boat back toward shore, going a couple of miles before we found a spot near a great expanse of sargassum that looked promising. We anchored the boat, then dropped our lines deep, baited with cut mullet and shrimp. Floating in that perfectly still ocean, it was as though we were trapped in the reflection of the earth’s image of itself. The gardens of sargassum were alive with fish and we used our smaller rods with twenty-pound test lines. Within twenty minutes Capers had put a hook through a small dolphin fish, while Mike and Jordan caught the more pedestrian mullet. In low voices we talked about the depth each one of us would fish once we returned to deep waters. It was agreed that Capers would fish deepest and that Jordan and Mike would troll from the side of the boat, one at fifty feet, the other at the surface. We checked the gaffe, the resiliency of our bigger rods, and discussed protocol if someone tied into a fish. I gave them the word when we entered the Gulf Stream once again and began calling out the depth as we entered deeper and deeper water.
“You’ve got too much line there,” Mike said to Capers, who always came with more expensive equipment than the rest of us. His Plano tackle box overflowed with hooks and lures he had never used, but Capers was a flamboyant, competitive fisherman. He measured success by size and number. Since he was on his first trip to the Gulf Stream, he wanted to come back with a game fish and nothing less would do.
“Fifty-pound test line,” Capers announced proudly.
“You could pull up an alligator with that,” I yelled back to him.
“I’m putting my peanut dolphin down deep.”
“What’re we fishing for?” Mike asked. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to catch.”
“We’re trading up,” said Jordan.
“Trophies,” Capers said. “Things to put on our walls.” For a half-hour I cruised along, mesmerized by the circle of water around me and the circle of sky above that seemed made of one color and one substance. Only the sound of the boat seemed incongruent and unwelcome. I felt the wordless ingathering of harmony that comes when you strike out alone and enter into the cathedral-like silence of nature far removed from cities. For a brief moment, the noise of the motor had disappeared, expunged by the vastness and silkiness of an Atlantic that was initiating us to its depths with a perfect stillness. My three friends disappeared from my consciousness as I was sure I had disappeared from theirs.
Then, something took the dolphin, something large, something running far below. Jordan and Mike reeled in their lines, I cut the motor, and the three of us took up positions to watch Capers test his inland water skills as a fisherman of the Gulf Stream. Though Capers was always accused of using too much rod, he was not using too much for this fish. The fish had taken the hook and almost took the rod away from him as it made its first run, but Capers played it beautifully. The line sang off his reel and Capers let it go, enjoying the fact that he was onstage performing for his friends. We all watched the line playing out at an alarming rate as Capers began applying the slightest, most delicate bit of drag.
“What does it feel like?” Mike asked.
“Like I’ve hooked a locomotive,” Capers answered.
He played the fish well, but it was a fish of great strength and heart and fighting spirit.
“I want to see this fish,” Jordan said, after fifteen minutes of the contest had passed by without bringing it near the surface. By now the sweat glistened on Capers’ face and chest and on the hairs on his legs.
“You’ll have plenty of time to see it,” Capers said. “I’m going to catch the son of a bitch.”
“It might be too big to bring into the boat,” I said. “Who knows what it is. It could be a mako or a great white.”
“You forgot about my harpoon,” Capers said, his voice strained as he fought the fish standing straight up. “Get it ready.”
I pulled the harpoon out from under the bow of the boat and lifted the leather protective cover from the blade. Taking a whetstone from Capers’ tackle box I sharpened its edges until I saw a wicked smile of new silver running the length of the blade. I touched the blade and drew a line of blood on my thumb. Mike brought out a rope and tied one end to the harpoon and the other to a stanchion in the boat.
Then we saw the fish. All of us had caught large fish during our careers on the water. But none of us were prepared for the size of the blue marlin that came leaping out of the water fifty yards behind the boat. I felt a sudden rush of joy and clarity as the marlin, in the full extension of its soaring leap into sunshine, took us into new realms. It was our first encounter with fish as myth, as nightmare, as beast.
We whooped in amazement, but Capers was too exhausted to make any noise at all. A surge of adrenaline must have coursed through his body, easing a terrible aching of the muscles in his back, shoulders, and arms. His whole body fought the fish with all the cunning of a low country boy who had spent a lifetime landing spottail bass, king mackerel, and migrating blues. But I doubt whether all the fish Capers had ever caught would equal the astonishing weight of this one fierce and acrobatic marlin. It leapt again and danced across the still water on its great forked tail, agile as a ballerina, then fell into the sea like a small plane crashing near our boat.
We all whistled in awe.
“We can’t bring him on the boat,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Capers cried out in a voice that did not sound like his own.
“It’s bigger than the boat,” I explained.
“We’ll kill it with the harpoon,” Mike said.
“Jack’s right,” Jordan said. “It could sink us.”
“We’ll tie it to the boat,” Capers whispered.
“I’ve already read that book, man,” Mike said. “That’s Old Man and the Sea shit. We’ll be fighting off the sharks all night.”
“We’ve got a motor,” I said. “We could make it back okay, I guess.”
“Capers ain’t caught it yet,” said Jordan. “That fish isn’t looking tired. It’s just warming up.”
“Want one of us to take over, pal?” Mike asked.
“It’s my fish,” Capers said. “I’m bringing it in by myself.”
“That’s the spirit that made our country great,” I said sarcastically.
“You look like you’re dying,” Jordan said. “Mike was just trying to help.”
“This could be a record,” Capers gasped. “It won’t count if anyone helps land the fish.”
“We’ll lie,” I suggested. “We’ll all swear on a stack of Bibles that you brought it in yourself.”
“I believe in rules,” Capers said, his shirt drenched in sweat. “Rules are a form of discipline. They have their own reason for existing.”
The three of us broke out in mock applause for Capers’ speech.
“Laugh now, losers,” Capers said. “But you’ll read my name in Sports Illustrated after they weigh this baby back at the marina.”
“Because you were so nasty about it,” Mike said, “I’m gonna claim I helped reel in this fish.”
“Me too.”
“Same here,” I agreed.
“You can all kiss my ass,” Capers said. “My word’s good in Waterford. I’ve got three hundred years of Middleton honesty backing me up.”
Then the marlin made another long, deep run and the line sang off the reel again. It suddenly went slack and Capers began reeling in madly, his right hand moving in a blur as the fish shot up out of the depths for what would be another spectacular leap into the air. I could see the pain lining Capers’ face and how he had lost his concentration because o
f it. The muscles in his hands and fingers were cramping and Capers shook one hand into the air, trying to get the circulation flowing again to put out the fiery spasms that were spreading along the nerves and muscles leading up his arm. As he once more frantically reeled in the line the marlin reversed its course and dove with all its mighty strength toward the bottom of the sea. When the line broke, the four of us groaned in one voice.
“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch,” Capers cried out feebly, as he reeled in the weightless line. His voice was despairing and he screamed out at the calm ocean, then hurled his rod and reel as far as he could throw it into the sea. It landed with a splash that seemed meaningless after the marlin’s spectacular reentry into the water.
Watching Capers’ bereft expression I waited breathlessly for him to break down and weep in sheer frustration, but instead he dove straight down off the stern of the boat into the water. He was underwater for a full twenty seconds before he emerged, took a breath, then plunged downward toward the bottom again.
When he returned to the surface, Jordan said, “I don’t think you can catch him that way, Capers. He’s probably halfway to Africa by now.”
“I’ll never hook another fish like that again in my life,” Capers said as he treaded water. “A man only gets one chance in his life to catch a fish that big.”
“What fish?” Mike said. “I didn’t see a fish.”
“You sorry son of a bitch,” Capers said.
“Why don’t you get in the boat?” I asked.