Kraszhinski's Odyssey: Chpt 15. A Fishing Trip

Chapter 15. A Fishing Trip

I had to leave the sanctuary of Anna’s studio to pick up my VA check at the Virgin. Spiderman was at the desk holding up a foldout to the light. I slammed the counter’s ringer. He damned near fell out of his chair.

Recovering his composure, he said, “I see you Crash, but I’d rather look at this. What do you think, is she a ten?”

I glanced at it a second. The light from the desk lamp reflected off the sheen of the ceramic glaze on the page. I squinted, pretending to appraise the picture’s most important anatomical features.

I asked, “You got my check yet?”

He took his gaze off his skin mag to eye me, “Say, you been takin’ vitamins or something?”

“I didn’t come here for a date, sweetheart, I just want my check.”

He put the magazine aside, pulled the government envelope out of my old pigeonhole, and slipped it across the counter, “You ain’t drinkin’ are you?”

“It’s only been a week. You think it shows?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“I just have to keep my head clear for a while. At least ‘til a few things get straightened out. Say, I can pay half my bill when I cash this.”

“Forget about it until you’re back in the hack.” Lucas leaned over the counter to damned near whisper, “Crash, I gotta tell you. Some kind of detective was here, an’ he was lookin’ for you. What kinda shit’d you get yourself into?”

I couldn’t be too careful, or I’d end up like Perry, “Was he alone?”

“Yeh, why? What difference does that make?”

It had to be Ryan because, when it’s official business, detectives come with back-up. “Not sure, what did he say?”

“He just asked if you were stayin’ with that Anna chick. I said I didn’t know but you’re a lucky man, Kraszhinski, if you are.”

“Hey, you’re starting to drool.” I stepped back to walk away. “But thanks, Spiderman. You don’t have to tell him I was here.” The thought came to me that Ryan didn’t know where I was hiding out. Anna hadn’t let him know. I supposed she had good reason not to.

---- break ----

I went out to the corner liquor store to cash my check. John had been doing that since I first moved into the Virgin. It was better than direct deposit. I didn’t want a bank account and I liked it that way. It kept me invisible; no debit cards, credit cards, everything was cash and carry. I always paid up on the first of the month. I had John stop my tab at fifty bucks so that I wouldn’t use up my reserves. That was how I budgeted my VA check.

John cashed my check… counted it out and passed it to me. I peeled off fifty bucks

“No Crash. You can get me later… when you’re back on your feet.”

I looked down at my shoes, “Look, I’m on my feet John. Here, take this. I’m okay, really.”

John took the money, “You know; that cop friend of yours? Detective Ryan. He was here first thing this morning… banged on my door before I opened. He says it’s urgent.”

“I know. I’d appreciate it if you don’t know anything… right.” I clacked three quarters on the counter, and he passed back a pack of generic smokes.

Sliding a pint across the counter, he said, “I can’t lie to a cop, Crash, that ain’t my style.”

I pushed the pint back to him, “You’re an honest man, John. You don’t have to lie for me.”

---- break ----

I was at the State Street traffic lights on 101 before I realized that I didn’t take that pint from John. It felt good. The walk-light changed and two steps into it I had a vague urge to turn around and go get it. I didn’t have to struggle much though. It felt like a big hand was on my shoulder guiding me away. It wasn’t long before I was on the breakwater enjoying the surge of the surf pounding away under me. I sat on the concrete bench to take in the morning sun. I knew what the big hand was, and the feeling was vivid… like the way I felt helpless while watching Anna as an adolescent in my cab… how as a young adult she was in this oh-so-fucked-up world fighting. Anna wouldn’t be beaten by the perversity of adults; she wouldn’t be beaten by the arbitrary capriciousness of nature either. It was a feeling of awe, fear, and beauty, compounded by a willingness to fight for it and against it. There was no consideration whatsoever of what it would mean to fight it. That’s when I saw Ryan coming towards me from the Yacht Club.

Ryan stood before me with stout legs planted apart, hammer fists at his waist, day old speckled with grey carrot colored stubble on ruddy cheeks below piercing blue eyes. A wool watch-cap covered a bristled butch-cut on a neckless block of a head that was welded on broad shoulders above a barrel chest under a Navy-blue cable-knit sweater. He had ten years on me and was a head shorter, but I wouldn’t take him on. Hell, I’d rather stand naked without a cape in a bull ring against el Toro than go toe-to-toe with that man.

I patted my hand on the wet spot where the spraying surf from the night before left a puddle, “Don’t sit here unless you want to get your butt wet.”

“Walk with me to Mzz Sherlock, Crash. You in the mood for some fishing?”

“Depends on what we’re fishin’ for, my friend.”

“I’m not asking.”

 Mzz Sherlock was a clean boat of about forty-five feet… nothing fancy about her… a modified Main Lobster Yacht. Called a yacht because it was no longer a working boat but converted for use as a pleasure craft… a sport fishing boat. The stern had been closed off and rigged to mount poles so that she would no longer be hauling lobster traps aboard. The old straight-eight marine engine that powered her could plow through just about any seas. The cabin was large enough to tuck a gateleg table that dropped down for a third berth, and on the other side, a chart table for plotting a course. The most modern features in the cabin were a marine radio, a scanner and a 1950’s radar screen.  Otherwise, a compass, sextant, and clock, were good enough for him. Forward of, and two steps below the cabin, it featured a shower next to the head, and in the forward hold, two more berths.

We boarded and cruised out of the harbor. I knew he was going to fish for something other than marlin and that he would be patient. The sea-air away from the harbor was different… just as fresh and all… but there was something about it.

We baited our lines, set up our poles, and took turns at the helm. Ryan opened a cooler and pulled out two cans… a beer for himself and offered me one.

“You got a soda or something?”

“I heard you quit drinking.”

“No. Just laying off a bit. Who told you that?”

“A little sparrow… ‘sides, you don’t look so shitty,” he laughed a deep roar. I wondered whether I’d ever heard Ryan laugh.

I’d damned near forgotten how to drink a soda. I gulped it down as though it was a beer and tossed the can off the stern. It was a funny thing, but I was embarrassed enough to think I needed to make an excuse for my abstinence. I said, “I didn’t really quit. I’m just putting some time between drinks, if you know what I mean.”

Ryan pushed an empty five-gallon paint bucket next to me and scowled, “Put ‘em in here next time.”

He cut the motor and we just drifted with the current. He continued to look at me with a scrunched rusty brow.

A weight pressed my chest and caught in my craw, so I let it out, “Anna’s in trouble.”

“I know,” he dropped his empty in the bucket as his line went taut and his pole bent some. He yanked the pole from its rod holder and hollered, “It’s fishin’ ya know.”

The pole went back to its previous arc, “You got nothing there, pal.”

“Sometimes the little ones fight harder than the big ones. You don’t know what you’ve got until you pull it in,” he said.

I wasn’t comfortable between these two loyalties. I pounded a cigarette out of the pack but didn’t light it. Anna hadn’t told me enough to know how much Ryan knew or how much I should let him know, “And, like I said, you got nothing.”

 Ryan was staring at my cigarette, “Fortuitous subject though… let’s talk about that.”

“Let me guess, it’s not this smoke? It’s about Anna.”

“You tell me. Anna’s too smart to get big headed. She’s in a trap she got into as a small fry and now the ante has been upped on her.”

Ryan’s eyes were still on my smoke, “Your boss is into some pretty sick shit. Worse than that, he took that bimbo with him and now it’s starting to cave in on all of them.”

“Yes, there’s Jenny, but I’m not sure who else you mean.”

“I mean Perry. Bloody murder and more.”

“Anna told me. You do know I was in jail at the time…?”

“You probably don’t know what’s been going on. I don’t think you even cared until a week ago. Am I right?”

“That I care? Yeah, I suppose I do. Ryan, I think I’m coming alive. I feel it and I’m remembering things. I just didn’t give a shit.” I patted my shirt pocket. Assured that I had a full pack, I took the helm.

“And now you do?”

“Yeah, oh I don’t know. I had a child… a daughter. It just keeps getting scrambled.”

I began cruising just fast enough to create a froth. I watched the foam churning up the ocean astern and, out of a strange compulsion, I tossed the new pack of smokes over Ryan’s head into the roiling wake. I don’t know why I did it, but it felt right. It was letting go of another big chunk of the past.

I looked back in time to see Ryan smile and a Marlin clear the water. It came back down, missing the bait on my line. It was a majestic loop and a good sign the day would be a good one. I shouted over the throbbing motors, “So, Anna’s the live bait? Why are we fishing if you already have a bead on Doc?”

Ryan reeled the squid towards the boat in front of how far astern we saw the jumper and, as an aside, he shouted, “You know, great whites have some sort of instinct. A marine biologist in Monterey told me. If you kill one… well, the old ones… the big ones… they skedaddle and don’t come back for a long-assed time. Maybe they discuss us. All you’ve got to do is kill one. Folks don’t know that.”

I knew lots about great whites and he knew that the breeding grounds at the Farallons were within my bailiwick. I hated it when Ryan went into one of his teaching modes and tried to trick me, “You’re gonna tell me that your fucking marine biologist was Ed Rickets?”

He laughed, “You caught me. Forgot you college boys read Steinbeck. Okay. I lied, it’s an old fisherman’s story.”

I knew that there had to be more, and he was stalling to see how patient I could be. There’s a marlin out there and Ryan’s talking shit about great whites. “You aren’t going to let me know more?”

“About fishing? Crash, you’ll know more when I know more. Try to remember, this crap will take time and patience. Stay close to Anna, she has her secrets and I don’t completely trust her, but I know she can help us out. We don’t want to scare off the big ones. Her story has some holes in it. Her heart’s good but she’s a compulsive liar and is covering her sweet ass… for good reason,” he said.

“Okay, I get it now old man. Are you in love?” If there was a truth I knew up to this point, it was that I hadn’t been paying attention before the other day. “She’s kinda young for you. I take it that you’re not going by the book this time?”

“I am. But the book we’re going by hasn’t been written. Circumstances always warrant an exception. I have to tell you, something smells bad at the station. Might go up near the top of the chain of command in the DA’s office and beyond. Someone’s stepped on my earliest attempts to investigate and I can’t pin it on interdepartmental shenanigans.”

“So, Ryan,” I was intrigued now, Ryan was going rogue. That wasn’t his style, but I’ve seen him do it before. We both did back in Nam when command obstructed. Our loyalties were to the boots on the ground and not the honchoes in the Pentagon.

I probed, “I need to know what we’re getting into.” Still not sure what anything he said was about, I added, “I’ve never liked working with the Embassy back then either. Too much like catch and release.”

Ryan’s rod dipped a couple of times, “Sometimes they tease the crap out of ya.”

I cut the engines as soon as I heard the reel’s shrill r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r’s. He grabbed the pole out of its holder and planted the butt of the rod under his belly. The fight was on. I could see why Hemingway loved fishing for the big ones. It could be compared to a bare-fisted boxing match. The rounds keep going until one of the boxers is knocked out… No TKO’s… Knocked out! And it looked like I had a ringside seat for this bout. The line went straight down, pole bent… keeping the line taught, Ryan reeled and released it… brought it closer and let it go out forever further and reeled it back. The damned thing took a dive down to at least 150 feet. The line changed directions a dozen times before the fish breached in a graceful leap coming back down as sure as a fencer’s parry and lunge. Ryan and that leviathan had been at it at least an hour as I stood by with the gaff.  Several times that fish got almost close enough to gaff but wasn’t tired enough to give up.

It dove further, I shouted, “How deep is it here?”

“About 130 fathoms!”

“Shit, you got that much line, that’s damned near 800 feet!”

“780 to be exact… and no, I’ll have to horse him a bit!”

I was ecstatic even though I’d been at ready for so long. “What do you figure, six hundred pounds?”

Ryan was calm… his eyes towards the horizon, “Maybe more. But look, there’s a great white’s fin… just disappeared out there.”

Another half hour the Marlin had been tiring but found the reserves to turn away as though fleeing. It mustered enough strength to make one more leap when, in mid-air, it happened. That fucking great white breached and sailed in a perfect trajectory to grasp the fish in its teeth at midsection and dove back down into the deep.

“You see that! Fucking robbed us!” I cursed, holding the gaff at-ease, no longer ready to haul in our prize.

Ryan pulled up his line with only the head of that huge Marlin on it. That was all there was left of it. I swear he was off the charts giddy, “Yeah, but didn’t that give you a rush better than any of your damned drugs?”