Family Trip, 2002 by Daniel Lamb

Jim lit a Camel Wide, and leaned back on the bench. He turned his attention to his paperback, and ran his fingers over the cover. First mate to Uri, a wiry Ukrainian, Jim looked like an old Indian sadhu, renounced of everything beyond his paperback, Camels, and thrift store quality jean shorts. A dirty baseball cap topped his sunbaked head. Jim lost more than a few teeth over the years and deep ravines lined his face, his laugh baring the evidence of both. His wiry little muscles outlined his lanky profile; he body folded like a paper cup as he crossed his legs and puffed on his cigarette, one arm over the other, book in hand.

Key West is like Mecca for old sadhus like Jim, poor pilgrims that linger spellbound by the island’s queer charm. They come to believe that it is the only place, with its boats and bars and trailer parks and tourists and sun. They are the little Hemingways: drinking and dreaming and fucking and swapping lies.

I sat by my rod, watching the waves move under the boat as we rocked up and down in the trough. When the guard clicked off, I pulled up to set the hook and started reeling. Jim put down his paperback and came over with the bite belt. He wrapped the belt around me and moved the rod in place. “Here we go,” he said. What came up from the sea water was a barracuda. The ugly fish contorted and flopped around, making a croaking sound.

“God damn barracudas. Nasty Fuckers,” said Jim. He took the rod and grabbed the line above the barracuda’s mouth. He grabbed the fish by its eyes and cut the line. He squeezed the fish’s eyes with a grip that startled me.

“What are you gonna do with him?” I asked and looked over at my mother. She just shrugged.

“We ain’t keepin’ this sonuvabitch,” he said, and with that he tossed the fish overboard.

He looked over at me with his canyoned grimace in what I assumed was disgust, and said “Barracudas ain’t good for nuthin, boy. Hook you a grouper, and then you’ll have you something.”

Jim rigged up another rod and cast it out. I sat back down by my rod, listening for the snap of the guard. The fish weren’t biting.

I left my post at the rod and went up to see Uri on the bridge. Uri was eating some nonfat yogurt and basking. He was about 30. He worked for Griffith Charters when he wasn’t fishing commercially. “I prefer working charters over the commercial fishing” he told me. “Fishing wears you down. Breaks down muscle,” he said, rotating his right arm at the shoulder. I asked him how long Jim had been a mate.

“Jim has been here 12 years. We’re headed for the reef. There’s good fishing there.”

I looked out onto the water and saw nothing, sea stretching out in all directions. After a little while on the bridge, I went back down to the first level common area. Jim was reading his paperback. Jim lit a Camel Wide, and sighed. My mom sat opposite Jim, looking out the window onto the water. The boat sailed on towards the reef near the Dry Tortugas.

“Jim, when are we gonna catch the big one?”, she asked him.

“I reckon we’re on our way now, ma'am”, he said.

Jim turned back to his paperback and slipped away into someone else’s world.

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