The Codfish Dream

by David Giblin

  I finally had to interrupt him.

  “What did you decide?”

  Lenny looked a little glum as I put the question to him. He paused for a moment before he continued.

  “Well, actually, it was disappointing. It was rather inconclusive. We asked the computer to find any one pattern that kept repeating itself. A common thread. The question itself was simple. Nothing happened for the longest time. Then the computer started to draw on the rest of the network. It called for more and more memory. It called up the memory from the other computers linked to the system. Computers in FBI offices all over the States started freezing up. It was kind of scary. It seemed almost to develop a mind of its own and was starting to take over. We finally had to force the program to shut down and withdraw the question.”

  “Were you able to get anything out of it at all?”

  I knew how long Lenny had worked on this, how much time and energy he had expended on his quest.

  “Well, there was something, just gibberish really.”

  “So, what was it?”

  “We tried to warn the computer we were going to shut down the program if it took over other systems. We told it not to interfere with the other functions, to stop overriding other programs, or we would have to shut it down and go for lunch. That was when it gave us a printout. It made no sense at all and we hadn’t even asked for it.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it said?”

  “Like I said, it was really weird. It printed out the plans and specifications for the high-speed train that runs between Tokyo and Osaka. The one they call the Bullet Train.”

  I smiled inwardly and said aloud, “That’s weird all right. What do you think it meant?”

  “Like I said, it’s just gibberish. It could have been from another file the agent was working on. Who knows? I do know we’ll be seeing those guys again next summer.”

  “They’re coming up here again? What the hell for?”

  “There’s a new case they’re working on. Apparently, some time this summer a US customs officer was doing a routine check on an American businessman’s luggage and found a document or papers of some sort that implicated him in selling secrets—industrial secrets—to the Russian government.”

  “What does that have to do with us up here?”

  “The guy was on his way back from a fishing trip to the island when they found this stuff in his briefcase. He got really indignant, said he had never seen it before and didn’t know where it came from. He created such a fuss that it only made them more suspicious. They did a complete body search, if you know what I mean. They got a translator in to read the document. It was written in Russian.”

  “I didn’t realize we were becoming such a hub of international activity. You think those guys were just looking for an excuse to get back up here?”

  “I think this is the last place those guys wanted to come back to. Thing is, I can’t say as I blame them. I’m not planning on being here next summer.”

  “But Lenny, what are you going to do instead?”

  Lenny became quiet and started to fiddle with his mustache. He mumbled something I didn’t quite hear.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Breland offered me a job.”

  “A job? You’re quitting? Won’t you miss going fishing, Lenny?”

  “I don’t know, man, I’m not like you guys. I can’t handle all this uncertainty. You and Vop and most of the other guides seem to revel in it. It drives me crazy.”

  “Nobody expects you to fish in the rapids, if that’s what you mean. It scares the hell out of me most of the time.”

  “It’s not that, even. I just can’t go from day to day not knowing what’s going to happen next. I get two guys in my boat looking at me expectantly. They want to catch fish, and I honestly can’t tell them if we’re going to catch a salmon, a cod, a dogfish, or even a twelve-inch LP record. I need something I can count on, where I can reasonably know what’s going to happen next. I told Mr. Breland I would come and work for him.”

  It was sad, really, but I couldn’t blame Lenny. Ever since humans climbed down out of the trees we’ve been looking for that kind of security—to be able to let go, to let down the guard for a time. It made me sad. I saw it as a source of much evil in the world, of mediocrity and sameness. It was the reason for “Weed Tree Eradication Programs.” It was the reason for fast-food restaurants and strip malls, each one exactly the same as the other no surprises possible. The system designed for people who have become too timid to take a chance, to risk something and accept the consequences. Vop and the other guides were, unfortunately, an aberration. They were the exception that proved the rule.

  Of course, I wasn’t about to feel sorry for Wet Lenny. He was made for life.

  forty-seven THE BLOOD KNOT

  THE DERBY WAS by invitation only and they didn’t use any outside guides. That was the way the Carringtons wanted it, and not even Troutbreath could do anything about that. All the guides in the area wanted to get in on the sizable tips that came with winning the derby.

  Vop and I didn’t pay too much attention to what was going on; we were happy for the winners, but as independent guides we were excluded. There was no point in getting exercised over being left out. In the fishing holes we tried to stay out of the way of someone playing a big fish, but we did that anyway. One thing the derby did mean to us was the chance to use the laundry machines at the marina without having to wait in line.

  On the last day of the event Vop collected all his dirty clothes for the purpose. It was before lunch and he had the laundromat to himself. He soon had all the machines working and wandered over to the lounge—a cold glass of beer would help pass the time waiting for the machines to finish. He got his beer and found a seat by an open window to enjoy a cool breeze.

  He was engrossed in reading a two-year-old magazine when a face appeared in the window beside him. Vop was startled, and it took him a minute to recognize the face as belonging to Big Jake. Jake didn’t look too good. Vop had seen dead cod floating past in the rapids that didn’t look as bad. Jake’s eyes bulged and lacked sparkle, his cheeks were puffy, and his lips looked like something found on the bottom of a herring pen.

  “Jeez, Jake, you don’t look so good.”

  “You should see what I look like from in here.”

  “Whatcha been doing to yourself?”

  Jake burped and looked thoughtful; he was having a hard time forming words. His brain was occupied elsewhere.

  “My guests and I caught the big fish yesterday.” Big Jake burped again. He looked like a squid out of water. “We kind of partied it up last night. My guys were buying me drinks and then all the others started. It was just beer to begin with, then we switched to Scotch. Someone bought a round of sambuca and then they all started shooting tequila. After that I don’t remember too good.”

  Jake’s face worked. It had taken all his concentration to get the words out, now other areas of his body wanted his attention. A fierce internal struggle was being waged. He burped and made a face.

  “You gotta go fishing for me this afternoon, I’m not going to make it. It’s the last tide and I’m not even sure they’ll want to go back out. They don’t look much better than me. You’ll get paid for four hours no matter what happens, and I’ll give you a piece of my tip if we win.”

  “How big is your fish?”

  Vop was thinking about clean laundry more than going fishing.

  “It’s just over twenty-eight pounds. The closest to it is only twenty-three.”

  The look of distress on Jake’s face was intensifying.

  “What kind of a tip are we talking about?”

  Vop knew how to take advantage of the situation.

  “They said they’d give me twenty percent.”

  Vop didn’t look impressed.

  Jake looked like something was welling up inside.

  “I’ll give you twenty-five percent of that.”

  Vop made a quick mental calculatio
n. If these guys didn’t go fishing, he stood to make four hours of guiding and twenty-five percent of a $2,000 tip just by saying yes.

  Vop said yes.

  Vop threw his clothes into the dryers and went back to the house to get some lunch. If he had to go fishing, he wanted to be ready. He organized his boat and took it over to the gas dock to fill up and get some bait. When he arrived, most of the resort boats had already left for the afternoon tide. One lone customer leaned against the wall of the gas shed, puffing on a large cigar. The weigh scale beside him was still set to the winning weight. The way he kept glancing at it, Vop guessed he must be one of Big Jake’s fishing partners.

  Vop went over and introduced himself.

  “Yeah, Jake wanted me to take you guys out this afternoon. He wasn’t feeling too well.”

  The man laughed. “You don’t have to tell me. He was puking over the side all morning.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “I’m afraid he won’t be coming with us either. After watching Big Jake he went off to do the same thing. The poor bastard couldn’t even eat lunch.”

  The man was clearly enjoying their discomfort. He had the look of a more practised drinker.

  “I’ve still got to get some gas and fill up my bait tank.”

  “Oh, take your time, take your time.”

  The man didn’t seem to care if he ever left that spot or if the sun came up the next morning.

  Vop busied himself with the gas and bait. He had a relaxed conversation with Troutbreath, who was watching the proceedings with immense delight. The man stood and smoked his cigar. Vop wondered if they would go out at all; the man seemed to be counting his winnings already. Vop could see himself spending the rest of the afternoon in the lounge. Then one of the other guide boats pulled into the dock.

  As they tied up, the man with the cigar began giving them a hard time.

  “You keeners didn’t even come in for lunch. Were you stuck on the bottom the whole time?”

  “We’ll show you what the bottom looks like! We got you, you sonofabitch.”

  The men were red faced and beaming with excitement. They were both drinking beer and even the guide was smiling widely. He reached into the fish box and hauled out a large spring salmon. Its slab sides flashed silver and green. Its tail dragged on the dock as the guide carried it to the weigh scales. He dropped it on the hook and stepped back so Troutbreath could give it the official weigh-in. Troutbreath steadied the balance beam and adjusted the counterweight. He took his hands off the scale and watched intently as it settled.

  “This is the bigger fish,” he announced. “They’ve beaten you by half a pound.”

  The man took the cigar out of his mouth and inspected the scale closely. His demeanour underwent a transformation. He looked at his watch.

  “What time is the derby officially over?” he asked Troutbreath.

  “All the fish have to be weighed in by 5:30 to be legal.”

  Troutbreath was revelling in his official capacity.

  The man looked at his watch again.

  “Shit, are you finished screwing around?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Well, then, what are we doing standing around here? Let’s go fishing.”

  Vop left the dock to the jeers of the man’s rivals and steered the boat for the Second Hole. The flood tide was just starting to run, and they had learned from the guide that the fish had been caught there on the change. Even though the run out to the fishing hole was less than five minutes, the man chomped at his cigar, impatient the boat couldn’t move any faster. He fretted while Vop baited his hook, and Vop had to remind him to let the line out slowly so it wouldn’t get tangled on the way down.

  I’ve always found it’s impossible to hurry fishing. A fish will bite when it wants. There is nothing a person can do to make a fish pick up the pace. If there were, the guy in Vop’s boat would have found it that afternoon. He chomped and fidgeted, reeled his line up and let it back down again. He reeled up so often Vop reminded him that the bait needed to be in the water to catch the fish.

  Vop didn’t want to say it out loud, but he was pessimistic about their chances. Twenty-eight pounds was tough to beat; you don’t catch fish that big on demand. However, the man’s decline from cocky assurance to nervous insecurity was pitiful to watch. Vop wanted to reassure him. When the rod began to twitch Vop became more than usually excited.

  “Hey, you’re getting something!”

  The man jerked the rod and began reeling so fast he scared off whatever it was and came up empty. Vop chided him about missing the strike as he put new bait on the line. The man watched from the edge of his seat, the cigar travelling from one side of his mouth to the other.

  The fishing wasn’t bad that afternoon. They watched as other boats went round the hole with a fish on or chased one out into the tide. The man would always inquire how big the fish was. If the boat went down the tide and didn’t return, the cigar would get an extra workout.

  After an hour on the water they hooked a big coho. It jumped several times and raced around the hole on top of the water. It tangled up with a couple of other guides and they spent precious minutes sorting out the snarled lines. When they finally got the fish to the side of the boat, the man, rather than being excited, was relieved to let it go and get back to fishing.

  The good fishing attracted more boats and the hole became busy and chaotic. They had to get out of the way of the big fish being played past them, and Vop’s guest was getting peevish about having to reel up all the time.

  “Well, just try to put yourself in their place,” Vop cajoled him, but it was like talking to a stump.

  The rod tip jumped again. The fish on the line pulled hard and the man was immediately convinced he had the Big One. The fish took off across the hole. The guide beside them had to lift both his rods up in the air so Vop could duck under them as he steered. As they got past the guide, a tourist fishing in his own boat trolled over the man’s fish. The man began shaking his fist and cursing. Vop took the rod out of his hands and passed it under one line, then cut off the other. The tourist shook his fist and cursed back at them.

  Their fish headed directly for another guide who was also playing a salmon. He was tangled with Wet Lenny, who might have a fish of his own—the lines were so badly tangled it was hard to tell. All three boats came together in a jumble of lines, fishing rods, nets, and cursing guests. Vop backed the drag off on his reel so that the extra strain of the other lines wouldn’t break off his fish.

  A coho swam up beside Vop’s boat and he quickly netted it and cut the line that trailed out of its mouth. He passed his rod to Wet Lenny, who managed to unwrap it from one of his guests’ lines and pass the freed line back to Vop. Vop came out the other side of the mess with his fish still on. The man reeled in the line and the fish came to the side of the boat easily. The man looked down at it with obvious disappointment. It was not much more than twelve pounds.

  They motored back to the other two boats in order to find the owner of the coho. Wet Lenny signalled it was his fish. He still had another fish wrapped up with the boat beside him, and was busy sorting out lines. Vop came up beside the other boat. He yelled to the guide to take the coho and flip it into Lenny’s boat. Vop picked the fish up off the floor and held it in one hand while he steered with the other. The hooks had caught in the gills of the fish and blood poured out, making it even more slippery to handle. As the guide in the other boat reached out and took the fish by its tail, Vop noticed the woman in Wet Lenny’s boat. She was an older woman and she was wearing a familiar-looking fluffy white angora sweater.

  As the guide leaned into Wet Lenny’s boat to drop the fish, a sudden surge of the tide caught the three boats. They lurched and clashed together. The guide momentarily lost his footing. The coho squirted out of his hands like a wet bar of soap. It landed with a slap high on the older woman’s chest and slid down the length of the white sweater, leaving behind a thick smear of slimy red as
it went. The surge pushed Vop away at the same time, and Lenny and Mr. Breland’s mother were soon lost in the crowd of boats.

  Time was running out and the man had chewed through his last cigar. The tide was at peak and the surges made it difficult to hold proper position. Vop had to start up his big motor at one point to power over the top of a boil that suddenly appeared in front of them. The man’s line was caught by the foaming water, thrown to the surface, and dragged off by the tide. Vop had him reel in once more as he let the back eddy carry them toward the shore and into the calmer water of the Second Hole.

  The outside of the back eddy was clogged with boats. Before Vop could start another pass down the rip, he had to wait for them to clear. Vop dropped a line in the shallow water while he waited. He wasn’t expecting any result other than keeping his difficult customer occupied; then his guest’s rod bounced once and pulled down hard.

  Vop cursed, thinking a rock cod had come off the bottom and spoiled the bait. The line came to the surface of the water, running out taut across it. Drops of water glistened on the line like a string of pearls. Vop realized the fish had to be a salmon. He cursed again. It was going right for the kelp bed along the shore. He reached over and tightened the drag a little to put more pressure on the fish and slow it down. He steered the boat away from the shore and told the man to keep a steady pressure on the rod.

  “It’s just like turning a horse with a bit in its mouth,” Vop said, hoping the man had gone horseback riding before.

  The line curved and the fish turned back toward them. The man had to reel as fast as he could, taking in the slack line as it piled up in front of them. The fish passed under the boat. Vop grabbed the man and made him stuff the rod into the water almost as far as the reel, allowing the line to miss the propellers and engine shafts. While the man kept the rod in the water, Vop pivoted the boat around it. The fish was headed right for the pack of boats Vop had tried to avoid earlier.

  Vop gunned the small engine and raced after the fish. He shouted and waved his free hand in the direction the fish was taking. The other guides understood immediately and moved out of the way. The same tourist, however, trolled blindly in front of them. The salmon went under the lines streaming off the back of the boat. Vop simply gathered them up like a sheaf of wheat in his arms.