ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

“Lots of people are irritable with a big fish. This is the first one Dave’s ever had.”

“You’re always polite and Mr. Davis is always polite.”

“We didn’t use to be. When we were learning to fish big fish together we used to be excited and rude and sarcastic. We both used to be terrible.”

“Truly?”

“Sure. Truly. We used to suffer and act as though everybody was against us. That’s the natural way to be. The other’s discipline or good sense when you learn. We started to be polite because we found we couldn’t catch big fish being rude and excited. And if we did, it wasn’t any fun. We were both really awful though; excited and sore and misunderstood and it wasn’t any fun. So now we always fight them politely. We talked it over and decided we’d be polite no matter what.”

“I’ll be polite,” Andrew said. “But it’s hard sometimes with Dave. Papa, do you think he can really get him? That it isn’t just like a dream or something?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Have I said something wrong again?”

“No. Only it always seems bad luck to talk that way. We got it from the old fishermen. I don’t know what started it.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Here’s your drink, papa,” Tom said, handing it up from below. The glass was wrapped in a triple thickness of paper towel with a rubber band around to hold the paper tight against the glass and keep the ice from melting. “I put lime, bitters, and no sugar in it. Is that how you want it? Or can I change it?”

“That’s fine. Did you make it with coconut water?”

“Yes, and I made Eddy a whisky. Mr. Davis didn’t want anything. Are you staying up there, Andy?”

“No. I’m coming down.”

Tom climbed up and Andrew went down.

Looking back over the stern, Thomas Hudson noticed the line starting to slant up in the water.

“Watch it, Roger,” he called. “It looks like he’s coming up.”

“He’s coming up!” Eddy yelled. He had seen the slant in the line too. “Watch your wheel.”

Thomas Hudson looked down at the spool of the reel to see how much line there was to maneuver with. It was not yet a quarter full and as he watched it started to whiz off and Thomas Hudson started backing, turning sharp toward the slant of the line, well under way as Eddy yelled, “Back on him, Tom. The son of a bitch is coming up. We ain’t got no line to turn.”

“Keep your rod up,” Roger said to David. “Don’t let him get it down.” Then to Thomas Hudson, “Back on him all you can, Tom. You’re going right. Give her all she’ll take.”

Then, astern of the boat and off to starboard, the calm of the ocean broke open and the great fish rose out of it, rising, shining dark blue and silver, seeming to come endlessly out of the water, unbelievable as his length and bulk rose out of the sea into the air and seemed to hang there until he fell with a splash that drove the water up high and white.

“Oh, God,” David said. “Did you see him?”

“His sword’s as long as I am,” Andrew said in awe.

“He’s so beautiful,” Tom said. “He’s much better than the one I had in the dream.”

“Keep backing on him,” Roger said to Thomas Hudson. Then to David, “Try and get some line out of that belly. He came up from way down and there’s a big belly of line and you can get some of it.”

Thomas Hudson, backing fast onto the fish, had stopped the line going out and now David was lifting, lowering, and reeling, and the line was coming onto the reel in sweeps as fast as he could turn the reel handle.

“Slow her down,” Roger said. “We don’t want to get over him.

“Son of a bitch’ll weigh a thousand pounds,” Eddy said. “Get that easy line in, Davy boy.”

The ocean was flat and empty where he had jumped but the circle made where the water had been broken was still widening.

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