They call me father.
I tell you, the sea was angry that day. Some may call it a lake, perhaps even a large pond. But when the water whips around on Poseidon’s trident and the wind blows like a nor’easter coming off a hangover, it becomes a sea. And the sea is vengeful.
The young man, five-years-old and growing like seaweed, approached the shores. Rod in hand, he surveyed the churning waters, the black depths of which were reflected in his eyes. There was a time where he only cared about what was the next Paw Patrol cartoon, but nay, those days were long ago. Yesterday. Those days were yesterday, but in the mind of our angler, they were at least fourscore gone.
I watched him, curious as to what such a happy go lucky lad could be doing here. Ignoring the fact that I had brought him fishing, there was something about the boy. A certain amount of determination that the fish would be his if only the sea would give up its bounty.
“Father!” he screamed, his voice filled with screaming screams.
“Yes, boy,” I said.
“The fish! The fish are in the sea! They shall be mine, and we shall dine on their sweet meat in the after house!”
“Wait, what? What the hell is an after house?”
“Avast with your foolishness, father! Muster the braces and heed the wind!”
I marveled at his vocabulary, for one so young to be so well versed in 1850’s whaling lingo.
“Bring me the things that slither and mind the tack, damn you! One hand for the boat and one for yourself, or you shall surely meet Davey Jones!”
“Do you mean the worms? And we are not on a boat. I’m sitting in my lawn chair.”
“Yes, you bollard! The worms so that we can begin!”
“You talk in exclamation points a lot, did you know that?” I said.
“The worms, fool!”
Powerless to parent under such a barrage, I retrieved the bait and handed the small tin to the boy. He removed the top, twisting it in such a way that Zeus himself must have paid attention. His finger he stuck in, the dirt churning as the sea. Oh, and his eyes Yeah, the churning depths of his eyes.
“Father!” he bellowed.
“What?”
“I’m not touching those things. No way. They are slimy,” he said.
“You watch way too much Youtube.”
“Bait me, skallard.”
“Skallard is not a real word. What the hell is a Skallard?”
“Look into the reflections of the deep, and you shall see. Now, bait me!”
I did as I was bided. Once our sacrifice to the sea was properly placed on the hook, the boy cackled with all the might of thunder. He cocked his elbow and cast his line toward the water. However, instead of a fish, he caught my forearm.
“Hey, woah. Ouch, Jesus, little dude,” I said. “Let me move out of the way first and be careful.”
“I have caught my first whale!” he exclaimed. Lots of exclaiming in this story.
“Did you just call me fat?” I asked.
“Aye,” he said.
“Fair enough.”
Once I removed myself to a safe hundred yards, the boy cast again. Oh, it was a mighty cast! The young muscles of our lad flexed in such a way that the cloudy sky trembled. A frog croaked out in fright and a caw cackled from the shores. The line arched, looped through the air like a magic ribbon. It danced in the wind, the hook glinting like this eyes. Deadly, determined, and destined for great things. The hook landed in a tree near my head, nowhere near the water.
“Father! I have made my second catch of the day, an even bigger prize than the whale I have hooked previously!” he said.
“Dude, stop calling me a whale. It’s not cool. And you got your line tangled in a tree. Cast into the water next time, ok? I’m trying to drink over here.”
“Stand fast, old man of the sea! Retrieve my line so that we might dance with the devil once more.”
Unhooking the line from the tree proved impossible. I struggled and used every bit of ingenuity that I had. But alas, the line broke and the bait was lost.
“Mind the rigging, fool!” my son said. “Place a new weapon upon my line. Attach the slime monster to it once again so that we may meet our fate.”
“You bait your own hook,” I told my master.
“No.”
“This is fishing. If you want to fish you have to learn to bait your own hook.”
“Whale.”
“Dude!”
I once again baited the boy’s hook, taking care with my own feelings because he’s been calling me a whale all day and I’m starting to get a little self-conscious about the whole thing. It’s kinda mean. Just saying.
The boy again took his special Batman rod and cast the line. It flew true and landed with a mighty plop. He waited, the reflection of the stormy seas in his eyes.
“Hey, son,” I said. “Look at the bird over there, near the water,”
“Hush, old man. Pay no attention to the albatross skimming the waves.”
“Um, pretty sure that isn’t an albatross. It looks like a crow. And isn’t an albatross supposed to mean bad luck?”
“Luck does not exist, not on this ship!” he said.
“We are not on a ship.”
“Determination is our luck! Now stop your gabbing, save it for the whale quilting circle.”
I am so done with this boy.
But then, it happened.
The bobber went under and the line got taught. The end of his pole bent ninety-degrees as the monsters of the deep swallowed his bait.
“Argh!” he said. “And now the battle begins, me hardies!”
“Are we pirates now? I thought we were 1850’s whalers? Your metaphors are confusing.”
But he paid me no heed for he was in battle, and it is in battle that he found his true self. His feet begin to slide toward the water as the beast pulled. His teeth gritted and spittle flew out of his mouth as he screamed in exclamation points some more. And his eyes, they did something too.
The boy went down on one knee, rocks digging into his skin. “Argh!” he said again as the pain traveled. But he did not quit. He stood, and I saw true glory that day.
With a mighty pull, the boy hoisted the pole back. And there, at the end of his line, was a nightmare. A hundred feet long with green scales that looked like teeth. The leviathan flew through the air, it’s blackfin caught the wind so that it almost flew for a second before being swallowed by the angry sea once again.
“Pull, boy!” I said. “Pull! Reel him in!”
“I am pulling!” he said.
“Keep going, son! You got this! It’s your first fish! Bring him in!” I said.
And the boy did pull. For hours and hours, the battle raged. The monster fish dove deep, threatening to take my master with him. But my boy did not yield. With a white-knuckled grip, he held fast to his rod. He would backtrack from the shore, scream obscenities at the gods, and kept pulling.
And at last, after the sun had reached it’s highest point in the sky, that same heat in my son’s eyes, my boy gave one more mighty heave. The fish broke the tension of the water, tail flapping like a mother fanning herself at a picnic, and landed with a mighty thud upon the shore. It was gargantuan. So big that there are no words to describe how big. Certainly, bigger than a mouse. Gigantic and meaty, the fish flopped on the shore.
My son gave a cry, a yell of triumph and his fist burst into the air and displaced all the clouds over the now calm waters.
“You did it! You caught your first fish!” I said.
“I did it! I did it! I did it!” he said although his voice was strained from all the exclaiming that we’ve already been through.
“You did!” I said. “Now hold him up so we can take a picture to send to mom.”
“No way. I’m not touching that.”
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Originally Published on Hossman at-home
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Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash