The waves are crashing into the pilings under us. They smash, and foam crashes up high or sometimes the waves just roll on by, creeping up the side of the pilings, then rolling on toward shore while the shells and seaweed on the pilings drip water and hiss after they're gone.
I like fishing more for watching the water than catching fish. I peek over at Dad a few times but he's looking out across the water, watching his line. He has one finger pushing against his line above his reel to feel for any bites, and he has his ratchet on so every once in a while it clicks. I put on my ratchet and push my finger on the line the same way; I'd forgotten all about that part.
I stare some more down into the water and think about the lion. The water's something like a lion; awfully strong so nothing can stop it. But the ocean isn't in a cage, it's free; now the lion is too. I wonder if he's happier this way. I guess an ocean is one of the freest things you can think of except the sky. I look over at Dad again; he's looking at me and smiles.
“What in heaven's name are you thinking about, Dickie? You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. You worrying about me and J.I.?”
I don't know what to say. Nobody except Sister Anastasia that time in Religion ever asked me what I was thinking about. I don't think anybody ever even cared what I thought. It's a peculiar thing to feel somebody wants to know what's inside your head. I don't know how to answer. I don't want to lie but I could never tell Dad the truth about the lion, not now anyway, maybe some other time, after they've caught the lion. I wonder if I'll need to tell about letting that lion out when I go to confession. Which one of the capital sins is Mistake?
If I tell, I know darn well Father Lanshee will squeal to my parents. Even Father O'Shea might. But I'd never tell about it in confession anyway. I'm ready to live with this lie, even go to communion without telling it. Letting out a lion to kill somebody is a bigger thing than confession and communion can do anything about. I'm like one of the old pagan Romans putting Christians in to be eaten by lions. I wonder if the motorcycle driver the lion ate was a Catholic.
“I was thinking about that a little bit; but mostly I was thinking about how strong the ocean is, how it keeps doing the same thing over and over but it isn't monotonous like a clock.”
“Dickie, they say each seventh wave is supposed to be bigger than the other ones. I watch every time I've come down here to the ocean but I don't think that's so. People just make up those kinds of ideas.”
We're quiet some more. I try to think about school things or about Cannibal or even about Dad and J.I. and the union, anything except about that lion; so if he asks me again what I'm thinking I won't have to lie. I wonder what
he's
thinking. I wonder what he'd say if I asked him.
Just then, something strikes so hard on my line it almost cuts my finger. There's a sucking pull, then a strong jerk so my pole bends. I grab the pole with both hands; the line starts reeling out fast and I can't catch the handle.
“Holy smokes, Dickie! You've really caught into something there! Try to slow it down before your line runs out.”
I try again to catch the handle but it's spinning too hard, too fast. Dad jumps up, wedges his pole between two boards, and reaches over to me, fast. He's already breathing hard.
“Here, let me give you a hand with that. You must've caught into a whale or something. My goodness. We're liable to lose the pole and everything.”
Dad takes the pole from me, braces the end against his knees held tight together, and manages to slow down the line going out. He can't stop it but he slows it and starts trying to pump the pole up and down the way you do when you're pulling in a big fish, but he can't do it; the pole is practically bent in half. It looks as if it's going to break, and then we'll have to pay for it. Dad's concentrating and sweat is coming on his forehead.
I'm scared. It reminds me of the lock inside the lion's cage. It's something so scary and you're caught into it and there doesn't seem to be any way out.
The line out there starts pulling sideways toward the end of the pier, where there are practically no boards. We can see the fishing line cutting against the water. Then the line begins slackening and Dad reels in as fast as he can. He's slowly working his way out to the end of the pier at the same time. I'm afraid to follow him; sometimes there are as many as four or five boards missing and you have to jump over empty places. Dad's a good swimmer so he could swim in, but I'd have to hold on to one of those big pilings with that strong water and I'd probably get all cut to smithereens.
Just when it looks as if that fish is going to go completely around the pier and get everything all tangled up, he turns back to where he started. Dad's letting out a bit now but pulling in whenever he can. The pole still looks as if it's going to break.
“Watch, Dickie. The important thing is never to let the pole flat down or the fish can break your line for sure. You've got to keep as much drag on him with the pole and pumping as you go without breaking anything and at the same time keep trying to bring him in close. This is some kind of a monster fish and I think he's about ready to make another run. If he goes too far, we run out of line and I'll lose him. We can only hope he'll tire out first. I've never had such a big fish on a line before. Isn't it exciting?”
It's
too
exciting for me. What'll we do if it's a shark and it jumps right up out of that water and eats us because it's mad. I don't know whether to mention my idea of a shark; Dad doesn't like it when I say sissy things like that. He's pretty good, usually, that way, hardly ever makes fun of me, but sometimes when he's excited like this he forgets.
“Gee, Dad! What do you think it is?”
“It's probably some kind of sand shark. Whatever it is it can sure swim fast. Oh oh! There she goes again.”
The line starts spinning out fast. The ratchet's practically screaming! Dad's trying to slow it with his thumb because he can't hold on to the handle any more. There starts to be blood on the fishing line from his thumb burning and rubbing against it. Dad doesn't seem to notice. He's so concentrated on that fish there's nothing else.
Then when there's only a little bit left on the reel so we can see the metal part underneath, the fish starts swimming toward us again. Dad reels in as fast as he can; the line is slack in the water. If the fish changes direction suddenly now he can break the line for sure. Dad's leaning over the pole, with the pole almost straight up to absorb the shock if the fish starts going out again. He's still turning the handle as fast as he can.
“Dad, I think I just saw something. It looked big as a whale but it was a sort of pinkish brown. See, there it is again.”
I lie down on the boards so I can lean over without falling. Sweat's dripping from Dad's forehead now. Then, suddenly, the line goes tight. Dad holds it for a few minutes but the pole's bent almost to breaking and he lets go of the handle, puts his thumb on the reel again.
This time the fish only runs about twenty yards then slows down. Dad begins reeling him in, lowering the pole, then pulling back, then lowering, reeling in and pulling back. The fish seems to have tired out or given up, or maybe that's what he wants us to think. I'm afraid of what's going to come out of that deep green under the pier, but I'm interested at the same time.
“We should be seeing it soon now, Dickie. Too bad we don't have a gaff. There's no way we can get this fellow in without breaking our line. It's about to break now and he'll be three times as heavy at least when we try lifting him out of the water. If it's a really good fish, something we might win a contest or fish pool with, I'll try holding him while you run back to that house down there near the beach and see if you can borrow a gaff, or maybe I can walk along the pier pulling it with me and beach it. I did that with a giant sea turtle once, but this is no turtle.”
Just then we see it. There's a pointed nose like a shark and white on the underneath turning to pink and then brown on the back. I can see its eyes and its mouth, with sharp needles for teeth. The fishing line's coming out between those teeth. Then I see it has wings. It's a gigantic ocean bird, flapping wings that are wider across than my dad's arms when he spreads them out. I didn't know there were bird fish swimming in the bottom of the ocean.
“Gadzooks, Dickie!! It's a stingray. First I thought it was a skate but this is too big. This is one of the biggest stingrays I've ever seen or even heard of. It must weigh over two hundred pounds.”
He reels it in a little closer so the snout of this stingray is resting against the rounded skirt of shells on the bottom of the piling. The eyes are looking at us; fierce, mad eyes. That fish is tired but he hasn't given up yet.
“Do stingrays eat people like sharks?”
“No. But he has a long tail, and on the end of his tail is a stinger that'll kill you quicker than you can say âJack Robinson.'”
I look down into the water. He's almost the same color as the lion only not so yellow. But the lion had nice eyes; these eyes are differentâcold, wet, ocean eyes.
“What'll we do, Dad? Do you want me to run for a gaff so we can bring him in?”
“No sir, Dickie. We're not about to be on the same pier with this fellow. He's no good to eat, and in a certain way he's too beautiful to kill. Think what it must be like swimming around in that ocean with those big, strong, muscular wings.”
Dad wedges my pole into a place where two pilings cross. He motions me over and puts my hand on the pole. He's tied the line through a crack in the piling to hold it so there's no danger that stingray can pull me or the fishing pole into the water.
“You hold on to the pole, Dickie. I'm going to see if I can save our sinker and our other hook. He's taken the bottom hook but I hate to lose the whole rig. Besides, he'll have a better chance to recover if he doesn't have a sinker and hook trailing after him.”
Dad goes over the edge of the pier, holding on to the boards. He lowers himself into a place where there's a crossing of poles for support. He slides down the support right close to where the stingray is. Then it happens. Just as he gets his knife out of his mouth and lowers it below the second hook to cut the line, that monster starts thrashing. I see his tail whipping in the water and once actually coming up out in an arch over his back.
But Dad cuts quickly and the stingray settles slowly into the water. He stays there a few minutes looking up at Dad. He seems to be deciding whether to attack or not, then slowly turns and swims away, going deeper, with the thin parts of the backs of his wings fluttering like curtains in the water.
Dad twists around and shimmies back up the pole until he can get hold of the edge, then he pulls himself up onto his stomach and swings his legs back up onto the pier. I never knew my dad could do a thing like that. I've watched him do some pretty scary climbing when we were building porches but never anything like that, and there wasn't an ocean under with a mad stingray swimming around in it, just a hard alley. I'm glad when he stands up.
“Well,” he says, “that was a real adventure. This is something you can tell your grandchildren. I'll bet that's the biggest stingray in the Atlantic Ocean. Up close I could actually see into his eyes. The devil himself must have eyes like that. I don't think that creature likes anybody, not even himself. If he could've reached up and pulled me into the water I'll bet he would've. I'll tell you I was scared when I reached out to cut the line and he started thrashing around. Did you see that stinger?”
I nod my head yes. I'm still too excited to talk.
Dad undoes his own pole and starts reeling it in. The bait on one hook is gone. He puts the pole down and opens his fishing box, a box he usually uses at home for tools, and pulls out a hook. His hands are shaking but he's smiling.
I reel in my own line, what's left of it. Dad takes hold of the end.
“A number six should be about right. Maybe you can catch something a little more reasonable-sized this time.”
I watch him tie on the hook. I wonder how Dad learned to do all those things.
“Dad, is that stingray really dangerous?”
“He sure is.”
“Is he more dangerous than a lion?”
“Don't you worry your head about that lion. I told you he's probably miles from here now. A lion can't live long on his own in country like this. He'll come out and they'll catch him. Don't you worry.”
“Sure, but everybody's so scared and wondering how he escaped, but
we
just let a stingray go. He must be as dangerous as a lion. He can kill anybody who goes swimming.”
When we were holding that stingray there and Dad was trying to cut the line I almost decided I was never going to swim in the ocean again. There must be thousands of sharks and stingrays and things like octopuses in the ocean. No wonder Mom doesn't like to swim.
“Now don't fret about that, Dickie. This feller we just saw, and just about every wild creature, will stay away from a human; they're afraid of us. It's only when they're captured like that lion, or hooked the way we had this stingray, that they're dangerous. People are the same way.”