Diary of a Witness (3 page)

Will put down the oars and started the motor. Pulling a string, like on a lawn mower engine. He had to do it three or four times. But then it started up, and we went roaring off in the direction of the kelp beds.

“What does he do for six hours while we fish?” I asked Will. I had to yell to be heard over the motor.

“He either goes to the West End bar and plays darts or he goes over to Camozzi’s and plays pool.”

I could see one other little fishing boat sitting out by the kelp beds, and two or three kayaks. I already felt a little seasick bobbing up over the swells.

After a while Will cut the engine and the boat drifted to a stop in front of the kelp.

Will said, “We’ll try here because it’s good fishing by the kelp beds. But there might be a drift, so be careful. Really watch your line and the kelp. If you get hung up, half the time you have to cut the line to get it back. Then you lose
your leader and your jig. Gets expensive. And look behind you to see if the boat is drifting into the kelp, too.”

Sam was tying up his rig. Tying on a swivel and then hooking up a leader that had two big hooks on it, tied up with bright red artificial feathers. I watched him to get the idea of the rig. He looked up and saw me looking. “Thought your dopey friend here already knew how to fish.”

Will reached out and knocked Sam in the head. “He’s a trout fisherman. Show some respect.”

“Ow.” Sam went back to tying up, almost like nothing had ever happened. He put a big spoon-shaped jig with a giant treble hook at the end of the leader.

I’d met Will’s brother, Sam, once before. I didn’t like him. I guess Will didn’t, either. He was about twelve. Or maybe eleven, I don’t know. And he wasn’t an outcast like us. And he wasn’t afraid to show off about that.

I tied up the way they did, pulling gear out of Will’s tackle box. I could hear the wind whistle, and I watched it flip over bits of kelp sitting on the very top of the water. I looked out to the horizon and saw great blue herons perched on top of the kelp on their long legs, which seemed so weird. Who would’ve thought it would hold them?

Will handed me a wooden board with frozen squid on it, and a knife. “Put a squid head on your treble hook. Just on one hook. Go in right between the eyes. It stays on better that way. And then cut some small pieces of the tubes to go on your shrimp jig hooks. Higher up.”

“But it’s frozen solid,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter. Just break off a head. It’ll thaw fast enough in the water. And keep your thumb on the spool when you’re unreeling,” Will said. “Or the reel will get spinning too fast and you’ll have a rat’s nest of line to deal with.”

I looked down at my pole and at the line. The whole thing looked like something from the land of the giants.

We just sat there for a while, watching our reels as they spooled out. Then I felt my jig hit the bottom.

“Come up three or four cranks off the bottom,” Will said, and I did. “Otherwise you’ll get snared up.”

“Gets expensive,” I said.

“Righto,” he said. Will actually said things like righto. It’s just who he was.

We sat for a while, and I noticed that they popped the tips of their poles up and down now and then, so I did, too.

Will said, “This is my lingcod day. I can feel it.”

Sam blew a raspberry. “You’ll never get a legal ling. Never. You’ve got the lingcod curse. He’ll either be short, or he’ll break the line, or he’ll twist off the hook. You’ve always been cursed for lingcod. What makes you think today will be different?”

“You watch,” Will said. “You watch how it’ll be different.”

We sat without talking awhile longer, and I tried not to think about the motion of the boat on the swells. The swells were so big. We could actually feel the boat roll into
the valley after each one. I was scared a big one might break right over the side of the boat. But none did. I was even more afraid to throw up in front of Sam.

Then I saw the tip of Sam’s rod stutter, and he yelled out, “First fish!”

“Damn,” Will said. “Sam always gets first fish.”

He reeled it up and plopped it into the boat at my feet, where it flopped around on my sneakers. It was golden brown, with thick, jagged stripes that were almost flesh-colored, and it had bugged-out eyes.

“It’s just a little gopher rockfish,” Will said. Like he felt better now.

“It’s still first fish.”

Not five minutes later Sam reeled in his twin.

“We’re moving,” Will said.

“But I’m doing good here!” Sam whined back.

“We’re moving.” And he fired up the engine and veered us over closer to the big rock, sitting out in the middle of nowhere. “This is a better spot,” he said when he’d cut the engine and turned the boat to slow it down. “This is where I caught that big ling, right off this rock.”

“Hooked it, you mean,” Sam said. “If you don’t get it up on the boat, you didn’t catch it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I’ve always hated being an only child. I always thought a brother would be the best thing. But, listening to them, I started thinking I might be wrong.

We dropped our jigs in and spooled down. Just sat like that awhile, popping our poles up and down. Then I saw Will pull up on his, but it didn’t come up. It just stopped. It just got stuck and wouldn’t come up.

“Ha-ha,” Sam said. “Will’s stuck on the bottom. Great spot to fish all right, Will.”

Then the next thing we knew, the tip of Will’s rod came down so hard it was curved almost into the water. Like it was trying to get under the boat.

“That ain’t the bottom,” Will said. His voice was all full of panic, but thrilled, too. “That’s a ling.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

Sam said, “Loosen the drag, or he’ll break the line.”

Will said, “I know it! I know how to fish, idiot.”

I said, “How do you know it’s a ling?”

Sam said, “A ling always feels like you caught the bottom. At first.”

Will’s face was set hard, and I could tell he was really working to get that fish up. I could see. Now and then the fish would pull back suddenly, and I could hear the zipping sound of four or five feet of line being pulled back off the reel.

Sam said, “You loosened the drag too much.”

Will said, “Shut up, idiot. He’s coming up.”

I looked over the starboard side of the boat, and he was coming up. I saw him. He was huge. Maybe almost as long as the boat was wide, at least my part of the boat. When he
got higher up and I really saw what he looked like, I was shocked. No, more than shocked. Scared. “What the hell
is
that?” I yelled.

Will said, “It’s a lingcod, what does it look like?”

I didn’t say so, but I was thinking it looked like the devil. It was dark, dark green, with mottled sides and a fin all down its long back that made it look like a dragon. And eyes that slanted in toward each other and looked so fierce it was more like a monster than a fish. And it came up with its mouth open, and it had teeth. Actual sharp, pointy teeth. It was like pure evil, only with fins.

“Sam!” Will yelled. “The net. Get the net.”

Sam jumped for the net, but the long handle was caught under the big loops of the boat’s towrope. He dove down to the boat’s floor and tried to get it untangled.

Will yelled, “If you make me lose this fish, Sam—”

“Swim it back and forth! Don’t let the line slack!”

“I know how to fish, idiot!”

I heard that sound again, of line being pulled out from the spool. “Damn,” Will said. “He’s pulling the boat closer to the kelp. Damn. Damn! Get that damn net, Sam. He’s going to get tied up in the kelp. Oh, damn! Damn it. He’s in the kelp. He’s all wrapped up in the kelp.” I saw Will adjust the drag again. Tighten it this time. He reeled in slowly, and the boat moved over a little closer to the fish.

Sam said, “You’ll break the line!”

Will said, “Shut up, idiot!” He reached into his tackle
box and pulled out a yellow nylon stringer. Then he reeled in a little more and got even closer to the fish. He leaned over the starboard side of the boat, reaching for it. The boat tilted dangerously close to the water. But he couldn’t reach. He reeled in a little bit more.

The fish was holding still, the line wrapped around the kelp just barely under the surface of the water. Only his tail swished back and forth. His mouth still gaped wide open, showing those horrifying teeth.

Will reached over, and he was close enough this time. He reached down and stuck the metal-covered end of the stringer through the fish’s open gills. But it didn’t come out his mouth the way I know Will meant it to. And he damn sure wasn’t going to stick his fingers in with those teeth. So he yelled to Sam to get him the pliers. Meanwhile, I watched the starboard edge of the boat and the surface of the water. They were even more dangerously close together.

“He’s got to be thirty inches, easy,” Will said. Sam said nothing. Which I took to mean he was probably thirty inches, easy.

Sam handed over the pliers, and Will reached them into the ling’s mouth and caught the end of the stringer. Caught it on the second try. He pulled it out with a bragging yell: “Ha-ha!” Threaded it through the ring on the other end. Then he sat back and pulled hard, and it slipped into place. Just like a stringer is supposed to do. Tightened down like a leash, wrapped through the gill and out the
mouth. But this leash would be pretty hard to break. Will sat back and sneered at Sam. Meanwhile, he wrapped the end of the stringer three or four times around his hand.

“Told you this was my lingcod day. Told you my luck was about to change.”

He pulled hard on the stringer, but he still couldn’t pull the fish out of the kelp. He pulled a second time, and the starboard side of the boat rocked disastrously close to the water. He even tried cutting his line, but it was really wrapped around the kelp. It didn’t come free on the fish’s end. Will pulled even harder.

“Hey, watch out, idiot,” Sam yelled. “You’ll sink us.”

“I am
not
losing this fish. Ernie, hand me that knife.”

I grabbed the bait board and handed Will the knife. He used it to point in the direction of his brother’s face. “This never would’ve happened if you’d gotten me the net when I asked for it.”

“It was tangled up.”

“You didn’t try hard enough. Because you don’t
want
my luck to change.” Will pulled as hard as he could on the stringer, then leaned over the starboard side of the boat with the knife, grabbing strands of kelp, pulling them close to the boat, and cutting them. The harder he pulled, the closer the side of the boat got to the water.

Sam started reeling in so his line wouldn’t get snared up in the kelp. I was about to do the same, but I never got that far.

I looked up and saw a really scary swell coming our way. The boat had turned around now, so the starboard side was facing the swells. And the next swell was a really big one. And the side of the boat and the water were only about an inch apart.

“Will, sit up,” I said. “Sit up a minute. There’s a big swell coming.”

“I’ve almost got it.”

Sam looked up and saw what I saw. But he didn’t say anything to Will. He took it out on me instead. “Fat Boy, sit on the port side!”

I did, and it helped a little. But maybe not enough.

Will sat up and hit Sam in the head. “Leave him alone,” he said. Then he leaned over to cut the last piece of kelp.

“Will, sit up! Now!”

“I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ve got it.” He started to sit up. But as he did, he lifted the fish into the boat, and that brought the starboard side down even farther. Right to the waterline.

That’s when the swell hit.

It washed so much water into the boat that it slid me down to the low side, and I just kept going. Right off the boat and into the water. I closed my eyes and held my breath. The water was shockingly cold. I don’t even know how to describe how cold it was. Like being dipped in a glass of ice water. It hurt. It felt almost like being burned. Not exactly, but a little. Really hot and really
cold feel a little bit the same. They both sting almost the same way.

At first I just kept going down, but then I slowed and headed for the surface. There is one thing to be said for fat. It floats. My head bobbed up into air. I still had the rod in my hands. I couldn’t lose Will’s rod.

I looked around. The boat was gone. Nowhere. Worse yet, nobody. No Will, no Sam. Just me and a great blue heron standing on one leg on the kelp bed. Then I saw one of the wooden oars floating near my head, and the blue-and-white bait cooler bobbing on the water. I saw all three bright orange life jackets. I tried to dog-paddle over to one.

Just then Will’s head came up, and he raised his right hand to show me the end of the stringer, still wrapped around it. “It’s okay,” he said. “I still got him.”

My mouth fell open, and a little salt water lapped in, and I had to spit it out again.
“Okay?
It’s
okay
? Dude, we sank your father’s boat!”

We just looked at each other for a minute. Treaded water. The cold was going from painful to numb. Something banged into the back of my head. When I turned around, I saw it was the other oar.

“Oh, this is bad,” Will said. Then his big fish pulled so hard that Will’s head disappeared.

When he bobbed up again, I said, “Yeah. No shit this is bad. Where’s Sam?”

I know it’s weird. But I really hadn’t thought of it until right when I said it.

“I don’t know,” Will said. But he didn’t sound too concerned. “When did you last see him?”

“Before that swell hit. Can he swim?”

“Oh, hell yeah. He can swim circles around both of us. He’s a competition swimmer.” Will turned all around, looking. “Sam!” We just waited. “Messing with us, that’s where he is. Behind that rock, I bet. He’s fine.”

I thought I saw a dark look pass over his face, but I might’ve been wrong. Everything was dark just then. Who could tell one dark thing from another?

I paddled over to one of the life jackets. Slipped it on. Threw another one to Will. It was hard to buckle it, though. I had to hold the pole between my knees and adjust the straps way out, and my fingers didn’t work right. But I got it buckled. Finally. When I looked up, Will had his on, too. He had a look of true panic on his face.