A Whopper !

ON LINE

 

'Wendy, take this. I have another.' Chrissy hands me a a straw hat with a wide red ribbon around the crown, the stem of a white silk rose stuck under it. 'Thanks, Chrissy but I don't need it. I'll be fine. There's plenty of shade aboard.' 'Wendy, take it. You'll thank me.' I don't thank her then and don't expect to later. Now I am cursed, in charge of her hat. My boyfriend, Mort, carries the first ice chest to the car. It looks really heavy. Wally, Chrissy's betrothed, has the other chest that must hold the beer. It leaks a little. 'Everybody ready?', Chrissy asks. Saying 'No' was wasted breath. My neck is almost broken when Mort steps on the gas and the car jumps into action.

 

Milton Blvd. is busy. After less than a mile, Mort slows down, asks Wally if he noticed an Exxon station on the right. Wally hadn't noticed it but replies, 'Yeah, there used to be one here but it's been gone for about two years.' With a definite snarl in his voice, Wally says, 'You already missed our turn. Go down to the next street signal and make a U.' An argument is brewing. Mort's face turns red. 'You want to drive, Wally? Be my guest. I know the way. We'll make it with ease.!' He turns his head halfway to the back seats to tell the girls to keep their eyes open for a big red arrow on the right side. 'It should say Ocean Dr. Just tell me before we pass it.' 'Sorry, Mort,' Wendy says. 'We passed it five minutes ago.' Mort's hot, yells at Chrissy and gets yelled at himself. 'Don't you get so ornery with my Wendy, Mort. I'll clip you one when we get out of this cheese box car of yours.'

 

Mort pulls over, stops the car just as Chrissy sees the red arrow pointing the opposite direction. Turning just his head around he has to stop for traffic. Slowly he drives about 100 yards and there is another arrow and the Exxon gas station. 'See, I told you I knew where we are headed.' We open the car windows, smell the ocean, see the fishing boats, the packed parking lots. Wendy gets their parking tag from her purse and hands it to Mort. We look at the endless rows of piers, the drift boats loading. Our wharf is #12, five from where Mort will try to park. 'Calm down, Everybody.' Drivers honk, are loud, obnoxious. 'I can reach the beer,'Wendy announces. 'Anybody want a cold one?' No one does. ' Let me out. I'll check us in. Mort you and Wally keep looking for a decent parking space. Bring the chest to meet us at 12's boarding gate.' As soon as she starts to get out of the car, Chrissy gives her a dirty look and asks , 'Who made you Queen of the May?' There is nothing else for the girls to do except pay for the reservations. 'Hey, Chrissy, where's my hat?' 'Damn, all the arguments–I guess I left it in the car. Maybe Mort will bring it, if, he finds us.' The girls wait impatiently at the gate and eventually see the big straw hat with the red ribbon coming towards them. Mort looks like a sweating fool.

 

We board the boat, find seats together on long hard benches. The boat workmen are fast, give each person a fishing rod, inadequate instructions on how to use them, put small frozen fish bait on the hooks of the uninitiated newcomers. Lines are not dropped overboard until the captain reaches what he believes to be a good spot to drift, maybe be in a whole school of fish. Only a modicum of hooks have anything. The motor starts as well as a cooling breeze to the next spot where we drift and sweat in the shadeless heat. The old man sitting next to Wally hooks little fish, over and over, throws them back in the sea. Not a nibble do we friends get. Our lines are pulled in, with nothing on the hooks except seaweed. Joe puts another frozen fish on our hooks while we sit like automatons, bored, bitching about our bad luck.

 

Something is up. Fishermen are reeling in their lines. The workers are running back and forth pointing into the water. Somebody had caught something big. 'Look, look! It's jumping. Get your lines in fast so they don't tangle.' Wally and Mort pull in theirs while Wendy and Chrissy barely stir to wind in theirs. Joe runs down the line of benches, stops dead in front of Chrissy, grabs her hand and loudly tells her to hold her rod tight and, 'Wind, Lady, wind.' She tries hard but the line pulls her to the edge of the boat. A stranger holds on to her and tells her to wind, wind. Everybody aboard is on the lee side watching Chrissy trying to wind. Joe has the line in his hand and pulls hand over hand until the fish is seen. Chrissy has to keep winding. Wally holds on to her waist. The monster fish comes closer. Joe lifts as it struggles but it loses the fight. He holds it right in front of Chrissy's face and everyone applauds her catch. Joe starts to hand it to her but she screams, 'Take that ugly thing away from me.' Cameras come out from nowhere. She and her fish are the stars of this drift boat.

 

The captain, who we had never seen, comes out, shakes hands with Chrissy. With his bullhorn he tells the 100 people staring at the fish, 'Ladies and Gentlemen. I have been captain of this boat for twenty years but I have never seen the likes of this fish. It has evidently come from across the Atlantic. It is called a Houndfish.' Addressing Chrissy he asks her what she wants to do with it as it is not an edible species. Calls reach her. 'Can I have it?' 'How much do you want for it?' "Let me have it. I'll mount it on my den wall.' Chrissy talks it over with the Captain, Mort, Wendy and ends up telling Joe to put it in the ice bin until we land.

 

As we approach the pier, Chrissy must decide what to do with it. The very next person who congratulates her and wants the fish may have it.
It happens to be a handsome young man who limps and evidently has an artificial leg. 'You, Sir, may have my Houndfish. Just do me a favor and send me a picture of it when you get it mounted. OK?' She hands him her card.  He is thrilled, Joe gets the fish out of the ice bin, puts it on a cart and wheels it to the car for the injured man.

 

Weeks go by, months go by, but no photo comes from Vermont. It becomes no more than a dream except when Chrissy has the chance to describe her adventure to new friends, strangers the fish has grown larger with each telling. She relishes her semi-fame but never goes drift fishing again.