I didn’t know where his story was headed but I was standing way out there on this jetty and he felt like talking and I felt like listening. Where was I going to go? I was living alone for the week nearby in Westhampton on Dune Road, in a place where my daughter would come with her fellow high school graduates for a post prom bash. My wife was on the prom committee so she wasn’t with me. In 1992 and 1993 strong winter Nor’easters swallowed up a large chunk of the island as the Atlantic Ocean breached the beach and took a few hundred shore houses along with it. It’s all patched up now but I had the distinct feeling that I was spending my time on a small island surrounded by powerful waters on all sides with not a lot of places to go. For me, the end of the jetty was a place to go that afternoon following a leisurely fried clam sandwich for lunch at The Sun Deck Restaurant. The guy’s wife was on the beach far behind us and he was at the tip of the long jetty with me and two other fishermen methodically casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving. Ocean waves crashed into the giant sized breakwater as we spoke. There was an abundance of noisy bird life above our heads and one fisherman nearby pulled in a small catch which distracted both of us momentarily from our conversation. They were maybe twenty-five- feet away, but close enough to distinguish the species of bottom dwelling catch they were going for. “A small black sea bass,” I said. He said it looked more like a bargall, a bony uneatable trash fish. I thought it was a bargall too, but I had wanted to say something positive. These were immigrant guys fishing out there. For all I knew this was a half-day vacation throughout their torturous day labor. I knew they would keep the fish no matter what. They’d make soup out of it. The fisherman quietly slipped the fish into a bag by his feet after removing it from the hook. “My father-in-law,” the guy said continuing with his story, "made me promise that when he died I would make sure he got cremated and his ashes scattered into the ocean right here, his favorite place to fish.” He motioned over his shoulder and behind him to where his wife was sunning herself in a beach chair. My mind was beginning to connect things. She positioned herself at the water’s edge where her husband dumped her father’s ashes, I surmised. Probably where she spiritually feels most connected to her dad. Then the guy did that look over the other shoulder thing like he did before he mentioned his father-in-law the first time. I looked around too. I was beginning to think he was about to lay a secret on me but he had no need to worry. We were surrounded on three sides by fast moving salt water. There were fishing boats out there but we were safe to talk. Nobody else listening. “He died about ten years ago,” he said. “We came down from Massachusetts for the services. He was a big man, 6’ 4’. His ashes were heavy. You know in the urn.” I tried to imagine such a thing. “When the funeral ended, I drove here to the beach with my wife and with, you know, his body. Even back then, I don’t think it was legal to put ashes in the water and into a swimming beach like this. But I made the promise.” I then realized what the big secret was. I didn’t say anything. I was all ears. He was telling me about something that he had done that was illegal, ten years ago. And it bothered him to this day. Nevertheless, he had a promise to keep. Like him, when I give my word, I like to keep it, even if it dances along the edges of illegality -- I m not talking about breaking the ten commandants or robbing a bank. “My father-in-law was a great fisherman. I was never a good fisherman. I’m lucky if I catch one fish a year. He always came back with sacks full whenever he went out.” |
One Fish (continued)