Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon

by Cameron Pierce

  Oyster Trout: You know what an oyster is. You know what a trout is. Now imagine the two together and you have yourself an oyster trout. My father used to tell about the one oyster trout he ever caught, fishing Lundy as a boy. He named her Mother Pearl and she was whiter than the snow is cold. He told me that if ever I catch an oyster trout to never let her go. I’m beginning to see what he means.

  The Believer Trout: They call it fishing, not catching. They call it a living, not a life. Nothing will ever be handed to you without a fight, and when the odds are stacked against you there’s only one thing you can do. Believe. Believe. Believe. If you throw your shoulder to the wheel with all of your belief, if you fight past the point of fighting, then the believer trout will come to you, and it might not save you from death or misery or toil, but at least you’ll enjoy a dynamite meal, because the believer trout is the best-eating trout of all.

  Moose Trout: Fishing for moose trout is more like hunting in that you need a gun to do it. Their rainbow antlers are among the most prized possessions of any big game collector lucky enough to bag one. Probably no more than a dozen moose trout are left in Lundy Lake, and even though they’re sighted often—when they feed just beneath the surface at dawn, you’ll see their antlers dance along the surface like ice skaters made of colorful bone—a moose trout has not been caught in years. They’re more elusive even than Big Lundy Brown.

  Big Lundy Brown: Everybody knows brown trout grow big, but none grow bigger than Big Lundy Brown. He’s the size of a sea monster, give or take. In other words, it depends who you ask. Let’s just say when you see his dark spotted back passing beneath your boat, you’ll wet your shorts. Some people think they’ve got what it takes to catch Ol’ Big Lundy. Every year a couple of them even try. They drive cranes down to the lakefront and lower cows impaled on gargantuan hooks into the water. Big Lundy Brown is wise to them, but he’s got a taste for beef too, so this is what he does: Big Lundy Brown swallows the cow and gets himself hooked, then he lets the fisherman haul him up with the crane just enough to get the poor asshole’s hopes up. Once he’s in shallow enough water that his back is showing, he leaps entirely out of the water for the world to see and surges back to the deeps, dragging the crane with him. Big Lundy Brown drags the crane into the lake until he knows the man driving it is just praying for his life. And at that point he clenches his powerful jaws tight, grinding the hook to dust, and swims off, leaving the man free to reverse his crane out of the water and turn away in respect and fear, and from that day forward that man will tell everyone who’ll listen and some who won’t how he came face to face with Big Lundy Brown and lived to tell about it.

  The fish struck hard, and Jim Mulligan was nearly pulled off his feet, into the surf that crashed around his waist. A halibut, or perhaps a small shark. Whatever tugged at his line was certainly larger than the rainbow perch he’d caught all morning. He loosened his drag and let the fish peel off line. Ten, twenty, thirty yards…then seventy, eighty, ninety. Within seconds, the fish nearly stripped his spool bare. It showed no sign of slowing.

  Jim tightened the drag and began to reel. At first the fish resisted, but after several cranks it turned tail and swam in toward the furthest breakers, toward shore.

  Jim’s heart thundered in his chest. His legs had gone numb from many hours taking a beating in the waves. Despite the perpetual gray of the sky, he had still managed to catch a sunburn. The dozen perch he’d landed would make a fine meal or two for himself, Jen, and their four-year-old boy, Jason, but to catch something bigger—that would make this whole vacation one to remember. A trophy lingcod. He licked his lips at the thought of the sweet, buttery meat.

  The fish came in easily now. Maybe it wasn’t as big as he first judged. Even though he loved nothing more than the feel of a fish on the other end of the line, disappointment rose within him as he considered the possibility that it was just another perch. Not that he’d complain. He came out to the beach, ditching his family’s planned visit to Hearst Castle, in order to catch perch. Faced with the prospect of something better, though, he couldn’t help feeling cheated. By who or what, he did not know. He’d felt a similar sensation of being cheated when they learned last year that Jason was autistic. The guilt of entitlement wore heavy on him, and for the moment he felt sorry for this fish, which had made a hell of a run and should be appreciated for what it was, not for what it might have been.

  A black dorsal fin spotted red slashed through the waves breaking closest to Jim. No fish he’d ever seen pictures of, let alone caught, possessed a fin like that.

  He focused on the angle of his rod to the water, the buzzing of the spool sending his heart into his throat every time the fish held ground or fought to earn an extra few feet of line. Even though it feigned struggle, he knew it was gassed. The biggest risks now were it coming unhooked or a seal or shark swooping in for an easy meal.

  He held his breath and prayed to the god all fishermen pray to.

  Then a tail cut through a white-capped wave.

  Holy fish gods in heaven—from the fork of the tail, Jim guessed the whole fish to be at least three feet long. Quite possibly four or five.

  Some exotic type of giant rock bass? He did not have long to find out. The fight was almost finished.

  He stepped backwards, then took another step, careful not to slip on any submerged rocks as he eased out of the sea and back to shore. To lose this fish now, especially after glimpsing that it was indeed something rare and wonderful, would be nothing less than tragic.

  In spite of his cautiousness, his knees turned wobbly and he collapsed to the sand when he saw the thing.

  He was not sure what hideous detail he took in first:

  The fish’s humanoid arms and legs, clawing helplessly at the sand.

  The razor-filled frown that ran like a knife gash across its cantaloupe-sized head.

  The leathery, mottled skin, like that of a moray eel.

  The dorsal fin that flitted open like a sail then shut again, timed to the hoarse breathing of the creature.

  Its eyes, the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, that gazed at him with such despair.

  Or perhaps before taking in any of the innumerable awful details of the creature before him, he registered that it spoke.

  “Help me,” the fish croaked. “Help me.”

  Pity for the creature swept over him, replacing the horror he initially felt. He fumbled about for his pliers and then set to removing the barbed hook from the creature’s jaw. The poor thing whimpered as he ripped out the hook.

  “I’m sorry,” Jim said.

  “Help me,” said the fish.

  “Do you want me to drag you back into the water?”

  The fish shook its head sadly.

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Help me,” it said.

  “Help you how?”

  “Take me home.”

  “But you live in the ocean and I live in a town two hours from here. I’m on vacation with my family. I can’t take you home.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “I’m out here catching dinner, not finding new pets. We already have a dog. And a cat. What am I supposed to do with you?”

  “Eat me if you must.”

  “I’m not going to eat you.” Jim shuddered at the thought. “Just tell me what you want.”

  “Help me.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know that I can help you.”

  “Let’s be friends.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  The creature stared at Jim with its blue eyes and he tried in vain to ward off that nagging sense of pity. Blood trickled from the hook wound in the creature’s lip.

  Jim packed up his fishing gear and hoisted the bucket, heavy with perch and seawater. He turned his back on the fish-thing and marched up the beach to his truck.

  Then, sitting in his truck with his fishy hands clutching the steering wheel, he returned his gaze to the beach, where the sad creatur
e still lay on the sand. Why did it not return to the sea? What the fuck was wrong with it?

  Help me.

  “Oh hell,” Jim said. He climbed out of the truck and marched down the beach. He took the fish in his arms and carried it back to the truck. He plopped it into the half-full bucket with the perch because even though it seemed to breathe air just fine, he figured it might need water. It was a futile gesture. Hardly a quarter of the creature fit inside the bucket. It clutched the sides of the bucket, staring down at the dead perch with a blank expression.

  As Jim pulled back onto the highway and drove toward the Motel 6 in town, it occurred to him that fear should have been his initial response to the creature. Why did he not fear it?

  Because it’s so pitiful, he thought. It’s just so damn pitiful. That’s why I don’t fear it.

  Back at the motel, upon lifting the hatch on the camper shell, Jim discovered that the creature had slunk out of the bucket and now cowered in the furthest corner of the truck bed, covering its blue eyes with its unsettlingly human hands.

  It feels shame, Jim thought.

  He turned his attention to the bucket and realized why. The perch were gone. The damned thing had eaten them.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said, and he dropped the tailgate and started to crawl into the back of the truck, prepared to beat the creature. But as he raised his left fist to pummel the thing, it whimpered and in a meek little voice said, “I’m sorry.”

  Jim lowered his fist and shook his head. “That was dinner.”

  “Eat me instead.”

  “No, I can’t do that. What would my wife think if she saw you? What would you even taste like? What are you, anyway?”

  “I’m a fish,” it said. “Like you.”

  “No,” Jim said. “I’m not a fish. I’m a man.”

  The creature uncovered its eyes as a crooked grin split across its face. A fleshy black tongue lolled out of its mouth and traced the peaks and valleys of its dagger teeth.

  “Well then, I must be mistaken,” it said.

  All at once, the pity Jim had felt for the thing was replaced by a sickening dread that weighed on his chest like a sack of stones.

  But it was too late for him. Too late for all of them. His wife, his son, the motel staff, the residents and vacationers in San Simeon, the state of California, the whole Pacific coast, the country, the continent, the world. They would all meet their doom trying to help this hideous thing from the sea. Jim realized this now, as if the thought were implanted in his mind by the thing itself.

  “W-what do you want with me?” Jim stammered.

  The creature lashed out, crossing the truck bed and locking its clawed hands around Jim’s skull in a lightning flash. It must have weighed less than fifty pounds, and yet it was stronger than him, and it dragged him into the back of the truck with ease.

  Darkness slid into the driver’s seat of his mind and Jim felt his chest collapse beneath the stones that seemed to weigh on him. His body turned out to be disposable, but he was too far gone to care.

  He awoke some time later. The fading orange sunlight beamed through the windows of the truck. He felt cold anyhow. The creature knelt beside him. It smiled. He did not like that it smiled.

  “Since you helped me, I have helped you,” it said.

  “Helped me how?”

  “I have made you beautiful.”

  The creature held out the driver-side mirror for him to take. It must have crawled out of the truck and broken off the mirror. Jim wondered if anyone saw it. He guessed not. They would’ve shit themselves. No, he realized, they wouldn’t have. They would’ve helped it. Like I did.

  “I don’t want to look,” Jim said. Even as he said it, he was snatching up the mirror. He was still human. He was sure of it. He still felt human. Why should he not look human too?

  In the mirror, staring back at him, he saw the unnamable fish he’d pulled from the sea. The wretched creature he’d tried to help, that now sat there grinning at him like a fucking dummy.

  “Help me,” he said. He said it again and again, louder and louder until he was screaming and thrashing about in the back of the truck, throwing himself against the windows and floor and ceiling, hoping to crush his own skeleton or whatever it was inside that made him so hideous to look upon.

  If someone would just fucking help him.

  Hotel staff and guests began to gather in the parking lot, pointing at the truck. Surely they heard his screams and noticed his thrashing. Why did they not help?

  “Help me.”

  All the while, the firstborn, as he thought of it now, remained completely still beside him, its eyes closed and an atonal thrum emanating from its lips, as if it were meditating.

  “Help me!”

  Then he saw her.

  Jen.

  She said something to the crowd and they shook their heads at her, refusing to help. Alone, carrying their son in her arms, she moved toward the truck. Jen, his sweet and tender wife, had come to help.

  As she lifted the hatch of the camper shell, Jim licked his razor-sharp teeth and opened his blue eyes wide, for best effect. “Help me,” he said to his wife.

  He was ready to return home.

  The bass fisherman’s wife was a woman of many social graces. She mounted replicas of his trophy fish, filed the taxes on his tournament winnings, sent Christmas cards to all his sponsors and potential sponsors (and, in an extraordinary display of social grace, also to his competitors), maintained a weekly schedule with her husband’s groomer, tailor, and physical trainer so that he remained viable and appealing to his television show’s audience, hand-fed the bass in their several private ponds treats she home-baked in the shape and texture of lures from his popular lure line so that when he fished the ponds for commercials or live audiences the bass would more readily strike, and yes, it was a lot, and she did so much more. But the bass fisherman’s wife had a secret. When her husband was away for bass fishing tournaments, sometimes going as far as Japan, she would sit in her makeup chair and stare at herself in the wall-sized, three-sided mirror of her private bathroom, in the mansion which had been paid for in full thanks to the extraordinary earnings of her bass fisherman husband’s lure line, which sold well thanks to the voracious appetite of the bass in their private ponds for the baked treats she made in the image of her husband’s lures. She was an accomplished cook—accomplished in everything she had ever attempted—and loved her husband truly. Yet a secret ate at her.

  She sat in her chair now, and she unzipped her human face. Her brown hair and pale bronze skin and perfect teeth and all the softness of her was shed like a snake trading in its old skin as a down payment on new skin so that it might celebrate the forthcoming season in style. But the bass fisherman’s wife wasn’t a snake. No. She was a bass. A Florida strain largemouth, to be exact. That’s why they got along so famously, why they understood each other so well. The bass fisherman had never suspected that beneath his wife’s perfect demeanor and perfect appearance lay anything beyond a normal human woman’s skeleton. Love existed between them and why question a perfect thing? The woman used to feel the same, but now, approaching the end of a bass’s natural lifespan—and sixteen years of marriage to the man—the woman wondered if maybe she ought to tell him that she was not in fact a woman, at least not a human one. They’d had no children and she was going to die soon. In her human life, she pretended at present to be forty-three, a premature age for human death, she understood. This is it, she thought, I must tell him what I am. She could not die knowing that the man she loved more than she loved herself, the man who loved her deeply and devotedly, did not comprehend the true nature of her being. So, sitting in her chair before a mirror with her human skin unzipped around her, misters blasting to keep her scales wet, the bass fisherman’s wife settled on a plan.

  On the night the bass fisherman returned victorious from the latest tournament, he found the mansion candle-lit, each room bedded in the petals of a different flower. Finally, enteri
ng the master bedroom, he heard the shower running in the adjacent bathroom. He understood at once what the wife was wanting, or at least offering, and he stripped out of his sweaty sponsor-issued rags and loped, stiff and hunchbacked from a week sitting in a boat eighteen hours a day, to the shower door.

  “Hell, honey. You never told me you were a bass,” the bass fisherman said.

  The woman breathed a sigh of relief, but she was not out of the woods just yet. Even without her human skin, her husband recognized her. That was the first major, painfully crucial step. Now to explain how—and why—she’d been keeping her identity secret. For sixteen years they’d lived as man and wife. Could they live as man and bass? Surely he’d want to know about her motives. She suspected he’d suspect she was a spy for the bass empire, gleaning information on the secret happenings of bass fishermen everywhere. She suspected a lot of bad things about where this moment would lead and what it would come to, but now that the moment had arrived, she failed to recall the fears and insecurities that’d kept her awake so many nights. Because this was her, standing as a human-sized Florida strain largemouth bass under blossoming pellets of lukewarm water. This was really her.

  Before she had a chance to speak a single word, feeling as if an hour had passed between her husband’s initial response to her unveiling of her true form, to the statement which came next from his stunned lips, the woman felt not only relief, but an entrenchment of their love that exceeded all the previous bonds of their relationship, an already good and healthy one by human standards.