She finished that, took large sunglasses from her bag and put them on, picked up her beer again and sipped it. I began to feel sleepy. I sat against the side of the boat, leaned against one of the benches, drifted off, thought of home, and Brett.
Brett wasn’t as young as Beatrice. Or quite as firm. Or as brown. But God almighty she had it going. I missed her. I wished she missed me too. I wished I was ten years younger, handsome, had five million dollars and three more inches on my dick and my hair wasn’t thinning. While I was at it, I threw in wishing for a pastrami sandwich on rye and immortality.
Of course, wishes are wishes. As my dad used to say, wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first. The same can be applied to prayer. Shit in one hand and pray in the other. Within moments you can determine the real power of prayer.
I was awakened by the singing of the line. I sat up to see Beatrice drop her beer foaming onto the deck, reach out, and take the rod from the swivel.
“You got something,” Billy said.
“No shit,” Leonard said.
The line went tight and Beatrice jerked the rod, hit the fish, and it jumped. It was long and enormous. A sailfish.
“Goddamn,” Billy said. “Look at that. That’s record size. Don’t you lose him. Hit him again.”
And she did. The line went even tighter. Beatrice was pulled forward against the straps of the fighting chair. I could see one of her nipples peeking over the top of her bikini. It looked brown and friendly.
Beatrice tightened the drag. The line veered to the right, wide. Then back to the left, like a thin saw cutting lumber.
“Loosen the goddamn drag,” Billy said.
“It’s all right,” Beatrice said.
“I know fishing. Loosen the drag.”
“So do I,” said Beatrice. “My father owns a fishing boat.”
“Don’t you talk back to me.”
“Sorry,” Beatrice said, and loosened the drag.
I was suddenly up and standing next to Billy.
“You keep talking to the lady like that, and you’ll be swimming home,” I said.
“Lady?” Billy said. “Look at those tits and ass hanging out. You call that a lady?”
At that moment I tensed to hit him, but Leonard took hold of my arm.
“It’s their show,” he said softly. “For the moment.”
I took a breath, stepped away back to the bench, and sat down.
All right, I told myself. This is her game. Let her play it. She wants it like this. She knows what she’s doing. It sucks. But it’s her game.
Ferdinand worked the controls, reversed the boat and slowed the speed, gave the big fish room to run.
“I have one on my wall that’s a record,” Billy said. “And it’s not near big as that one. I’ve never seen one that big. And a goddamn woman hooks it. Don’t you lose it. You hear?”
“Yes, Billy,” Beatrice said.
Acid boiled around in my stomach. I looked at Ferdinand. He was stoic. My admiration for him was fading. Surely he knew the score. He must, or he wouldn’t let this shit go on. And if he knew the score, then that meant he wanted Beatrice to do what she was doing.
Leonard sat down beside me.
“Just be cool,” Leonard said.
The rod was bending. Billy said, “Loosen the goddamn drag.”
“It will hold,” she said.
“Loosen it.”
She did. The line sang, vibrated like a violin string. The fish went wide to starboard.
“Look at that cocksucker run,” Jason said.
The fish leaped.
I’ve never seen anything so incredible. Up it went. The sunlight hit the fish and it was many colors. Red and blue and gunmetal gray. Its veins appeared to stand out under its flesh. Nothing like it would look the moment it hit the deck, dying. Its color would fade. It would fade even more on the trip to shore. It would lose all of its real color in the taxidermist’s shop. It would end up dead and mounted on someone’s wall over their couch. A living, twisting, multicolored piece of magnificence turned to a hard, leathery, listless shadow of its former self.
The fish struck the water and disappeared.
The line slacked. The pole began to straighten.
“Hit him again,” Billy said.
She did. With a pull and a grunt. Then she hit him again.
Sweat pops were coating her forehead now, running down her chin and chest. The bathing suit was damp with it. A convention of sweat beads gathered in her belly button and made the bits of exposed pubic hair limp. The muscles in her legs and arms coiled and knotted, as if being braided from the inside. She pressed her little feet hard against the footrests.
“It’s too big for her,” Landis said.
“No,” Billy said. “She can land it. It’s the biggest fucking sailfish I’ve ever seen. It’s a goddamn dinosaur.”
Beatrice worked the line, the drag. It was obvious she knew what she was doing, probably better than Billy, but it was just too much fish. It might have been too much fish for anybody.
Billy poured a cold beer down her back.
“Chill out and hang in,” he said.
I looked at Leonard. “Let me just knock a tooth out.”
“Not yet. Don’t fuck her game for your pleasure.”
Beatrice hit the big fish again, solid, and it leaped. Pinned itself against the sky like a brooch on heaven’s chest. Hung there for what seemed way too long to be natural. Then, finally, even it was overcome by the laws of gravity, and down it went, slicing into the water.
“It’s like a goddamn submarine,” Jason said.
The line went solid again, jerked Beatrice against the straps. They were starting to cut into her shoulders, making red lines.
“You take the line,” Beatrice said. “You want him. You fish him.”
“No, honey,” Billy said. “You’re going to bring him in.”
“I cannot,” Beatrice said. “I am much too tired.”
“You’re stronger than you think. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of your power. If you can fuck all night long, you can fish all night long.”
I glanced at Ferdinand. He was red. He gunned the boat’s motor.
“Hey, old man,” Billy yelled up at him. “You’re pulling the line too tight doing that.”
“Sorry,” Ferdinand said, and cut the engine back.
“I want this fish, Beatrice,” Billy said. “You want to give me what I want. What I’m paying you gives me what I want, and then some. You fuck this up, you’ll pay. You know that.”
“Yes, Billy. Oh, God, Billy, please. My back feels like it is breaking.”
“You’re okay.”
“My arms. I cannot hold them up.”
“Sure you can.”
“You want the goddamn fish,” I said. “You take it. She’s hurting.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy,” Billy said. “It’s her fish, and she’ll land it.”
“Please, Billy,” Beatrice said. “You can have it. It could be you caught it in the first place.”
Then I really got it. He was mad Beatrice had caught the big fish instead of him, and he was punishing her with it.
I called to Ferdinand. “Cut it out. Let’s take the boat in.”
He looked at me, his mouth moved at one corner, but he said nothing.
Billy said, “I’m paying ten, no, twenty times … You hear me, old man, twenty times what you get for a charter. So you do it my way. Beatrice will do it my way.”
“It is okay, Hap,” Beatrice said. “I can land him. I can do it.”
“You don’t look like you could hold your leg up,” I said, “let alone land that monster.”
“I can,” she said.
The boat stopped and the great fish sounded, dove way down into the deeps. The rod bent into a bow. Beatrice was beginning to shake. Her face was pale and her eyes looked as if they might roll up into her head. She was stretched forward in the straps so that her back was awa
y from the fighting chair, exposed. I could see the cords of muscle there, knotted like the Gordian knot.
“She can’t take much more of this,” I said. “This is silly. I’ll take the fish if you won’t.”
“You won’t do any such thing,” Billy said. “It’s her fish and she’ll land it. She caught it, she can bring it in.”
“Billy,” Beatrice said. “I feel faint.”
He poured beer over her head. “Here, this’ll freshen you up.”
Beatrice shook the beer from her hair, began to cry silently.
Landis said, “Maybe it is enough, Billy.”
“I say when it’s enough,” Billy said. “You just sit.”
Landis shrugged. He might have a conscience, but it wasn’t a strong one. Jason pulled a fresh beer from the cooler, popped it, looked off in the distance, possibly in search of Atlantis.
The rod began to bob up and down and the line on the reel was running out. The fish was still diving down.
Leonard said, “Lady, anytime you say it’s finished, trust me, it’s finished.”
Billy sneered at Leonard.
Leonard looked at him and smiled. “And I might finish it before it’s finished.”
Ferdinand came out of the cabin. “I have killed the engine. The fish will sound. And will keep sounding. It is too much for her. My daughter cannot take much more. I must ask you to take the fish, señor.”
“Me and Beatrice made a deal,” Billy said. “She does what I say for a while, and you get a whole lot of reward out of it.”
“I know,” said Ferdinand. “But it is not enough. Not for such a thing as this.”
My skin had begun to crawl. Not only because of what Billy was doing, but that her father was allowing, and worse yet, Leonard and I were allowing it. I couldn’t imagine anything being worth this.
Billy slipped his hand beneath her bathing suit and began massaging a breast.
The shears Ferdinand had used on the barracuda lay on the deck behind the chair. I picked them up and cut the line. The rod snapped back like a whip. The line jumped over the side of the boat and the fish was gone.
Billy turned. But before I could hit him, Leonard was there. Leonard stuck the tips of his fingers in Billy’s eyes. Billy’s hands went to his face and Leonard kicked him hard in the balls. Billy went to his knees.
I looked at Landis and Jason. They were both on their feet. Jason dropped his beer onto the deck. It rolled up against the side of the boat and foamed.
I said, “I wouldn’t.”
“Naw,” Leonard said. “Come ahead.”
I was still holding the shears in my hand. Leonard had Billy by the hair, grinding his knuckles into the top of Billy’s skull. He pulled Billy forward onto his face, dropped his knee across Billy’s neck.
“Taste that boat,” Leonard said. “Learn to like it. I plan on feeding it to you.”
Beatrice was crying. “You do not know what you have done,” she said.
“Maybe not,” I said. “But enough is enough. Ferdinand, take this boat back to port. And don’t anyone give me any shit about it.”
“Oh, no,” Leonard said. “Please give me some shit. I’m already sweaty and worked up now. And I’m bleeding again. So I’m mad enough to need some shit. Come on, either of you pussies. I want some shit.”
No one gave him any shit.
Ferdinand gunned us toward shore.
18
THAT NIGHT in our hotel, Leonard, wearing fresh bandages, propped himself up in bed with pillows. He said, “I enjoyed our fishing trip. Didn’t you?”
I was sitting in a chair at the desk, drinking a diet cola. “So much,” I said.
“Just a little rest. A vacation …”
“That’s enough. I was trying to help the old man.”
“You’re always helping someone, Hap. Except yourself. And by the way, what do you think of the old man now?”
“I think he saved our lives, and he’s a good old man, but … I don’t know. That stuff with those dipshits. What’s up with that?”
“She’s a masochist, Hap. Where the fuck have you been all your life? Or maybe she has this big daddy thing goin’ with Billy Boy. Boss me, and I’ll be your slave shit.”
“She seems intelligent.”
“Probably is. She’s just fucked up. Leave it at that.”
“Or she’s in some real deep shit and she and her old man are doing what they need to do to survive.”
“Your idea was we were there to protect her today. We did that. In spite of the fact I’m not so sure she wanted it. We haven’t been invited back tomorrow.”
“At least I won’t have to put those nasty sardines on a hook.”
“Do you know how long I had to shower to get that fish smell off?”
“You mean after we went fishing today, or before?”
“That’s funny, Hap. Real funny. And I give up on the vacation.”
“You talked me into staying.”
“I know, and it was a mistake. We cannot take a vacation, Hap. It is not in the cards. Least not together. I miss John.”
“Admit it. He might be your lover, but is he as much fun as me?”
“Trust me, Hap. You’re not fun. And who knows, you might even call Brett and she might even like you calling.”
“I must admit I think about her.”
“She’s all right, that one. You should try and stick with her.”
“I have.”
“No. When she gives you a little bit of coolness, you bail. Every woman you meet can’t beat a drum all the time and blow a trumpet. They got to have their moments.”
“Like you know anything about women, Leonard. You’re a queer.”
“But a smart queer. Brett, she’s all right. We’ve known each other for a while now, Hap, old buddy, and I finally figured out why you don’t stick with women.”
“You mean besides the ones that double-cross and try to kill me?”
“Besides them.”
“You mean like the one falls in love with a good friend and then goes off and gets killed.”
“Well, besides her too.”
“What’s the answer, O Sage Queer?”
“What you got to do, my man, is give your relationships some breathing space. You’re working so hard to have a relationship, you don’t just let it happen. Hang with the moment, buddy.”
“That’s it? Hang with the moment? What kind of fuckin’ advice is that? You haven’t exactly had the best love life in the world either, if you’ll recall.”
“Got me there, but at least I figured out your problem. You meet a woman, you get that charge of being in love. That romantic, sexual rush, and then it gets everyday, and you don’t know how, or don’t have the character—”
“Watch it.”
“Don’t have the character to make it work when it gets into the everyday. I’m not one of those says a relationship should be a job. That’s the case, get a part-time at the 7-Eleven. I am sayin’, it ain’t all about moony eyes and exchanging body fluids.”
“This from the guy telling me that the size of John’s hammer was what you were really impressed with.”
“It is impressive. But … I been away from him awhile, and, you know, I’m beginning to rethink things. Not about the size of the hammer. I still like that part. But about love and life.”
“Oh, shit. Love and Relationships by Leonard Pine. Save it. Write a column.”
“Hey, listen to me, buddy. That’s how I realized I’d turned a corner with John. I just let things be.”
“You hung with the moment.”
“Exactly. Bottom line. Don’t try so hard. And this one. Beatrice. Let it go. She’s about two dogs short a sled team.”
“I think I’ll go to sleep now, Socrates.”
“Fine. Just when you get in bed, try not to show so much skin. I don’t like seeing you in your underdrawers.”
“I thought queers liked men in their underwear.”
“Not you.”
&n
bsp; “Well, you snore in your sleep.”
“Yeah, and you fart. No wonder you can’t keep a woman.”
I slipped off my pants and shirt, turned off the light, climbed into my bed. I lay there silent for a while. I said, “Do I really fart in my sleep?”
Leonard snickered.
“Do I?”
Leonard snickered again.
“Do I?”
“Sometimes.”
“What times?”
“When you fart. Now sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite. And finally, my good man, shut the fuck up, will you?”
“Leonard?”
“Christ. What?”
“You may be right. It’s tough loving someone and doing it right.”
“Talk about tough, you ought to be a homo. You know me and John we can’t even hold hands without people going bonkers. You, you can hold hands with a woman, no one thinks that’s weird. I hold hands with John, people stand and stare.”
“I’ve seen you hold hands with John. In public.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t do it, but it isn’t comfortable. Our love is ridiculed when folks can’t just accept it. What the fuck harm does it do them?”
“None at all, Leonard. And if it’s any consolation, I think John is a good catch. You done good. I don’t know how. But you did.”
“Good night, Hap.”
“Good night, Leonard.”
Next morning, early, there was a pounding on our door.
I sat up in bed. Leonard was already on his feet, stepping into his pants. “Who is it?” he said.
“Billy. From the boat.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Just the man I don’t want to see.”
I pulled on my pants, was slipping on my shirt when Leonard opened the door.
Billy was standing there fuming, his fist clenched. His bright Hawaiian shirt was almost too much that time of morning.
“She here?”
“Who?” Leonard asked. “Helen of Troy?”
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