Donkey - short story

Another weekend. Nothing happens on weekends. Indeed, at the moment nothing much happens at all except more hollow talk. If anything important did happen the MSM wouldn't tell us about it anyway. We can't handle the truth. So here is another short story to keep you occupied until something, someday, somewhere, somehow, happens.


Alfredo warmed the powerful outboard carefully in the early morning darkness. As we left the pier heading straight to sea the nineteen footer began to pick up speed. We waited for sunrise and the dolphins. Where you found the dolphins you also found tuna.
We never spoke until after sunrise although I don't know why. Mitchell was always the first to see the powerful black and white torpedo shapes weaving so gracefully in and out of the water. He would point, Alfredo would cut the throttle, and we'd begin to troll the artificial squids, little heavy metal cones with colored rubber skirts. As there was only one rod and reel we used a handline on the other side of the businesslike old cruiser. Alfredo would have liked a new boat, or at least another rod and reel, but there wasn't much chance of that.
When the twin lures were following at the appropriate distance Mitchell fastened the lines to the long guide poles with heavy rubber bands. When a fish struck the rubber bands snapped with a loud pop and the action began. On the rod it was exactly like sportfishing. With the handline you had to be careful not to cut your hands. The result was the same, a fine fish you could sell for a good price. Sometimes we received as much as a dollar a pound. Even one or two tuna at a hundred, sometimes two hundred pounds, was a good morning's work. Of course we didn't get fish everyday, but, then, it didn't take much money to live there in the quiet village.
Being otherwise chronically unemployed Alfredo and Mitchell regarded fishing as work. But it was fun, too. They laughed at the tourists who chartered expensive boats to do what we did for free. Of course we didn't get our picture in the paper standing there with a rod in our hands and the fish hanging from the scale to an admiring audience in front of the hotel. We didn't enter the annual fishing derbies either. We didn't care. We thought what we did was better.
Whether the fish came by handline or rod and reel the thrill was the same. The tuna were fighters, and strong. You had to be careful to play them out before bringing them close to the boat. Even then, sometimes with a last desperate effort, one would manage to throw the hook and escape. The best and most beautiful part was seeing the gorgeous creatures coming up out of the deep water all phosphorescent blues and greens, ancient survivors from another time, another world. The colors faded quickly once they were in the boat.
We'd been trolling for two hours with no luck when the CB radio sounded. Alfredo carried on a brief conversation, none of which I could hear from my seat near the outboard. Mitchell must have understood as he immediately began to bring in the lines. Alfredo made a sharp turn to port and accelerated.
"Where we going?" I asked Mitchell.
"You'll see," he said, laughing.
The Pacific was calm and we rode the swells easily. Alfredo stared ahead obviously trying to locate something. We were at least ten miles out to sea. He adjusted our course slightly and then I saw the other boat riding dead in the water. I thought something must be wrong and they had called for help.
"What's wrong?" I asked, walking to Alfredo at the helm.
"Donkey," he said.
"What?"
"A Donkey. They've got a Donkey. You can help. Go forward on the bow and when I bring us close enough jump into their boat."
By then I could see someone with a rod obviously playing a fish. He wore a harness to help hold the rod just like the charter boats used and was holding the heavily bent rod tip up as hard as he could. Another man was standing behind him. Alfredo skillfully brought the bow in close and yelled for me to jump, which I did, successfully, but with little grace. As I approached the two men I recognized them from the village but couldn't remember their names.
"Marlin," the standing man said. "You want to work him for a while?"
"Me?" I said, incredulous.
"He's big, really heavy," he went on. "You can try it." He tapped the younger man on the shoulder, pointed at me, and began to help him out of the harness. They worked quickly and suddenly I was in the chair with the butt of the big rod anchored in the harness. I noticed with relief that a small nylon line fastened both rod and reel to the harness so that if I lost control the expensive outfit would not disappear into the ocean.
At first I couldn't feel anything except how heavy the rod seemed. It took all my strength just to hold it steady. Just when I thought I might be losing it, Alfredo, now standing on my right, reached over and released the drag. The line played out rapidly and then suddenly stopped.
"Put the drag back on," Alfredo ordered. I did as I was told and could feel the heaviness again. Then I felt the line go slack so I began to reel it in, reeling as fast as possible until the tip almost touched the water, then lifting it skyward so as to reel again, and then doing it again and again, trying to retrieve as much line as possible before the big fish decided to run once more.
"Good," Alfredo said. "Keep it up."
I stayed with the fish for forty five minutes. There was no holding him when he decided to run, but there was plenty of line and he would inevitably stop and give me a chance to recover some of it. I noticed the fingers of my right hand were bleeding from the friction of the reel handle and my inexperience. At Alfredo's instructions I slipped out of the harness and he put it on himself. We had still not seen the fish but there was no doubt it was there. Then Alfredo yelled and pointed with his nose and I saw the marlin come out of the water about a hundred yards away. It leaped high in the air shaking its head and crashed back into the blue water. Then it came out shaking again, trying desperately to throw the hook.
"God! It's huge!" I'd never seen such a big fish. Alfredo laughed and began reeling, trying to gain a little more on the creature.
"Come on, you Donkey!" he yelled, and laughed some more.
After Alfredo had worked for a half hour and had the fish a bit closer he motioned me back into the harness. I was eager now but worried about what everyone would think if I lost it just when it ought to be played out. The fight continued. I held him steady for a time and then he ran off to starboard. When he paused I reeled as fast as possible, then we tested each other again, and so it went for another half hour. Finally I sensed weakness. I worked him slowly, carefully, closer and closer to the boat. Then he was there, right alongside, looking like a section of log until he thrashed about banging his head against the side and I could see the wicked sharp sword. A black marlin! I watched, holding my breath, as Alfredo and the skipper of the boat simultaneously sunk sharp gaffs into the monster and held it against the side of the drifting boat. It took four of us to lift it into the cockpit where it stretched out almost touching both fore and aft.
"Four hundred pounds," said Alfredo.
"Bigger," said the skipper. "Maybe five hundred."
We left them with the fish and boarded our own boat to follow them back to the village. It was long past the time we usually stopped fishing. As we approached the island the water turned an increasingly brighter blue, exaggerating the whiteness of the surf as it broke on the grasping volcanic fingers that reached into it as if to hold ocean and land together. Coconut palms grew thick in groves with here and there a dilapidated frame house sitting among them as though it had been there for as long as the trees themselves. Children played on the shingle beach in the cove. From where we were they looked like tiny scurrying amphibians. Behind them the land rose sharply with rocky cliffs and awesome peaks rising up into an almost permanent cloud cover. Jade green gave way to emerald and then to myriad darker shades of green as your eyes were swept upwards to the sharp ridges at the summit. Except for the clouds obscuring the peaks the sky was as blue as the ocean.
"Why did you call the marlin a donkey?" I asked Alfredo. The three of us were standing close together watching the island as it slowly grew larger.
"It takes too long to catch one and they aren't good for anything," he replied.
"Can't you sell it like the tuna?"
"Naw," Mitchell said, "they won't give you anything. Maybe ten cents a pound. It's not worth it. They say they're full of mercury. Poison."
"They're a pain in the butt," Alfredo continued, "we don't like to hook one but sometimes you do; they go for the squid just like the tuna. But they break up your tackle and waste your time. The tourists can have 'em all for all we care. That's what they pay for, so why not?" Mitchell nodded his agreement.
Just then I noticed Glenn's small unpainted boat coming in. He must have fished later than usual also. Although Glenn was part native he didn't belong to the village. He lived with his wife and infant daughter just outside it on the barren lava without even a tree to shade his two small tents and the miscellaneous odds and ends of crates and boxes that made up his home. He was a college dropout who had just appeared one day in an old van with no explanation other than announcing he was going to fish. He was part Asian and part Portuguese and looked more like an islander than anyone else within miles. His parents lived on the coast several miles to the north but there was no easy access to the ocean there. Glenn acquired an old boat from somewhere, with a coughing old outboard we heard regularly every morning. People in the village thought he was crazy. He thought he was going to live the good life, outdoors, close to nature, no pollution, crime, traffic, ulcers; the romantic vision so characteristic of the times. He wasn't a hippy, just a local boy who apparently had had his fill of university requirements, politics, regimentation, and, lately, demonstrations. He fished diligently every day as we did but without much luck, a fact he attributed, perhaps rightly, to his smaller boat which did not allow him sufficient mobility to pursue the widely ranging schools of tuna. He barely caught enough to survive but stubbornly kept on while his wife spent hot lonely days in the small camp taking care of the child, reading and sometimes writing not very good poetry. They rarely visited the village although they were welcome, especially the baby.
We tied up to the huge concrete foundation that served as the village dock. The original structure had disappeared so many years previously no one knew what it had been. Glenn tied up just as we were collectively lifting the huge marlin onto the lower of the two concrete ledges we used for unloading. There was a crowd of women and children including Alfredo's and Mitchell's wives who, wondering why we were late, had come to wait at the dock.
As everyone was admiring the marlin I could see a carload of tourists drive into the village. They noticed the crowd, parked, and, ignoring the large and obvious sign that read "Private Property, Keep Out," traipsed through Auntie Sally's yard and right out onto the dock. Three middle aged couples, from the midwest I guessed, all dressed in his and her outfits. The man in the lead walked up to look at the fish as the crowd parted to make way.
"Wow! he said, "look at that swordfish." He turned to his companions. "Just look at that. I never saw a fish like that before except in pictures." The others made appropriate noises and stood looking at the huge shape oblivious to the quiet stares of the villagers and the hostile silence that surrounded them.
"I've got to have a picture," the man exclaimed. "You," he pointed to Glenn, "stand over there by the fish."
"I didn't catch it," Glenn protested, "I didn't have anything to do with it."
"Aw, that don't matter," the midwesterner said. "Go on, stand over there. Right there." He pointed to a spot where he thought Glenn should stand. Glenn looked at us, shrugged, and took his place. I could see from his expression how badly he wanted to tell them how disgustingly rude they were. I fought back the same temptation. We both knew there were many good reasons the villagers did not want trouble with the tourists. "You kids there, move back a little," the photographer ordered, motioning them away with his left hand while sighting through his camera. "You, take off that hat," he commanded. For some reason no one could understand Glenn always wore a black watch cap while fishing. He dutifully removed it and held it in front of him with both hands. As he did so he turned to the fish and kicked it as hard as he could.
"Roll over donkey," he ordered.