Makoona

by John Morano

  The boy made mistakes. He lost several fish and a fair amount of tackle, which Al noted silently. Yet the older fisherman refrained from criticizing his companion. There were two things that made it easy for Al to hold his tongue. First, regardless of the result, the boy was intent on fishing correctly. He studied Al, trying to mimic everything the American did. Secondly, Kemar rarely made the same mistake twice. He was quite skilled at learning from his experience.

  When the boy asked Al’s advice, the American gave it, briefly, gently. And when Al sensed that Kemar was getting frustrated, he smiled and offered a solution.

  For the first time since he was a small boy, Kemar learned while he fished. He enjoyed the learning as much as the fishing, maybe more. He quizzed Al about the creatures he caught, their habits and habitat. Although Al was no marine biologist, he was very knowledgeable about the sea. It had been a long time since Kemar had been educated about something other than his survival.

  The youngster felt a tug on his line. He’d already taken up the slack in order to feel this type of action. Clumsily, the boy popped the tip of his rod higher, hoping to set the hook firmly into whatever grabbed at his bait. His enthusiasm, however, only served to rip the strip of squid from the fish’s mouth, frightening it off from another strike.

  After a few moments, Al suggested, “Check your bait, buddy.”

  The hook emerged from the water, naked and glistening in the sun.

  Al smiled. “Tough to catch a fish without any bait. I know, I’ve tried.” Then he tossed Kemar a fresh strip.

  When they’d filled a cooler with fish, Al asked Kemar to untie the boat. He fired up the motor and crossed over the massive reef to try his luck beachside. With sandy flats and calmer surf, shielded from the ocean reef, Al hoped to hook a flounder or two, a coral cod, or a couple of sea trout. As they prepared their lines, the American grasped a pair of pliers and squeezed the tip of his hook. When the boy asked if he should do the same, Al explained that he was snipping the barb.

  “It’s too easy,” he said. “A real fisherman can land his catch without the barb.”

  “But it’s much less efficient,” the boy pointed out, wondering if Bao might actually be the superior fisherman. “You only lose fish and waste time.”

  “I certainly lose fish and waste time . . . but not only. Besides, there’s plenty of fish and plenty of time. In the end, the fish has a fair chance to escape, and I get better at fishing. What’s wrong with that?”

  “In the end, you make less money for the same day’s work.”

  “You’ve spent too much time with Bao. It’s not the same day’s work. I do things differently. I go to the hotel before we come out here. I find out what they need, and then I get it. I catch fewer fish, but I get paid more for them. If I catch something they haven’t asked for, I put it back in the ocean so it’ll be there when they do ask for it. And if I’m not using a barb, the creature isn’t all torn up and injured.

  “The way I fish, the stronger, smarter fish don’t wind up in my boat. I probably catch the slower, dumber ones, so in a sense, I’m providing a service by culling the weakest from the gene pool, leaving the strongest . . . Besides, I live on Makoona. How much money do I need?”

  Kemar, who left his barb intact, tossed his line out onto the sandy flats a fair distance from the coral. Al had suggested earlier that dragging it slowly toward the boat, which was moored to yet another jug above the reef, might catch a fish’s attention. Kemar reeled the line slowly along the bottom, pausing now and then, hoping a fish would strike and he would impress Al.

  Though the morning on the sea had ignited conversation, the two fishermen enjoyed an afternoon of relative silence. Hearing only the testy terns, restless swells wafting against the hull, the whine of line peeling off Al’s reel, the click of the bale, the grunt of the fight, and thumping of the catch dancing on the deck, all served to soothe the Cambodian. It was music—a seanota, if you will.

  While fishing the reef, the Khmer Rouge, the boat people, and Bao were all momentarily forgotten. This was a different type of fishing. It was less industrial, less dependent on great numbers of dead. This was less like a harvest and more like a hunt. It was one person seeking one fish at a time. Kemar had to be patient, determined, skillful, and creative—much like the fish he hunted—to be successful.

  The goal wasn’t to destroy or exploit; rather, the pace and the results of rod and reel seemed to complement the harmony of the reef. And so, Kemar was drawn closer to the wildlife, closer to the spirit-fish, even if he did belong to the man-tide.

  At one point, Al reached under a seat and pulled out a tackle box. He opened it carefully and showed the contents to Kemar. There were lures the likes of which no one, not even experienced salts, had ever seen before.

  The American said, “Beautiful, aren’t they? They’re the big guns.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “I made them. Most of them are those reconditioned plugs I found on the beach. But these are special.” Al removed a smaller box tucked inside. He flipped the lid. The lures sparkled like treasure in a pirate’s chest; gold, silver, and bronze, with frayed ribbons of blue, red, white, and yellow.

  “Do they catch fish?”

  “They catch fish.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like these. Are they valuable?”

  “If you’re hungry, they’re priceless. Otherwise, they’re not worth much. They’re really just medals from the war.”

  “Yours?”

  Al nodded. “Medals aren’t very good for anything, but I’ll tell ya, little bro, hang a hook from `em and they catch fish.”

  Al had trimmed, flattened, filed, drilled, and embellished his citations with hooks, swivels, feathers, and beads that he found on the beach. The result resembled some type of pop art fishing icon. Kemar was anxious to see if Al’s creations really worked.

  “Pick one,” Al coaxed. “Go ahead, any one you want. Give it a toss.”

  The boy poked through the box with the tip of his knife. Kemar knew how dangerous a box filled with hooks could be. But when he selected a lure—a reconditioned silver star married to a purple-heart ribbon—and began tying it to his line, the boat rolled on a swell, and the hook lodged in the youngster’s palm between his thumb and index finger. For an instant, the boy tried to pull the hook out. He gave up quickly. The point was imbedded.

  Kemar complained, “I thought you clipped your boobs.”

  Al winced at the image and then explained, “They’re called barbs. Must’ve missed one.” He continued, amused by the situation, “I can help you with that.”

  Kemar slowly, reluctantly presented his hooked hand to Al, who picked up a pair of needle-nose pliers and then grasped the boy’s hand in his own. The colorful lure dangled from Kemar’s palm, spinning slowly, glinting in the sun.

  Al held the pliers near the boy’s face, opening and closing them like a crab’s claw. “Do you trust me?” he asked. Then Al lowered the pliers and clutched Kemar’s wrist firmly. He gripped the shaft of the hook with the pliers. It looked like he was going to yank it out of the boy’s hand. Instead, Al quickly pushed the point through the skin above it and snipped off the barb. The lure fell onto the floor of the boat.

  “Now you know what it’s like to be a fish,” Al said. “Maybe we better stick with baited lines instead of lures today.”

  Later, as they began to pack up, Al said, “Fishing like this might teach you things. You wind up a little more in tune with the sea and the reef.”

  Kemar grimaced. “I’ve already learned what I need to know about fishing like this. You wind up with small meals, small profits, and holes in your hand. I have lived with less long enough. I want more.”

  “Do you want more, or do you want to be more?”

  “ . . . Both.”

  “It’s difficult to have both, buddy.”

  “How do you know?” the boy asked, suggesting that perhaps his ambitions were beyond Al’s.

  “Yeah
, what do I know? But it seems to me, if you first become more as a person, then you might survive getting more afterwards. Getting more and being more are two very different things. Take fishing, for example. All you have in front of you right now are the fish in this cooler. Your arms ache, you’re hungry, and you’re tired. That’s what you have. But what have you become?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning. That’s why this fishing makes no sense.”

  “So you’ve become nothing?”

  “Nothing more than when we began.”

  “That’s because you see these fish, you see this ocean, and it doesn’t touch you. It’s nothing to you, and so you get nothing from it. When you appreciate what’s beneath the surface, what’s happening on the reef, you will become this ocean. And that, little bro, is surely something.”

  Kemar was getting confused, but somehow, Al’s rambling caused him to recall that moment when he dropped his scare line and the fish escaped from the nets of the boat people. He wondered if that was an example of becoming the reef. It was pleasing in the moment, but it didn’t seem like good business to the boy.

  The youngster’s thought was interrupted when Al reached into a bucket, slid his pliers behind the gills of a strange-looking fish that Kemar had caught himself, and lifted it out of the water. It was a stargazer, and it had already regained a little color and life after its exhausting battle with the boy.

  Al said, “This is what you have. And to you, it is next to nothing?” He returned the fish to the bucket.

  “I guess I do have something.” Kemar nodded. “I have a victory. I conquered the fish. It is my fish.”

  “A lot of people would agree with you. Those rich people on the big boats certainly would. But I don’t.”

  “Why not? How am I wrong?”

  “The way I see it, it’s never your fish. It belongs to the reef, now and forever. And you should never be proud that you ended someone’s life.”

  “Someone?”

  “I mean a fish,” Al explained. “Something.”

  “But I am pleased that I will now eat, that I will get paid.”

  “But don’t forget the price. It’s not just about you. Every time you take a fish, this is diminished.” Al moved his head slowly to sweep the horizon. “Even with a fish, a lost life is no small thing.”

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. “I know about lost lives.”

  “I know you do. Can you extend that feeling to the loss of this life?”

  “I think I understand what you say, but I don’t understand you.”

  “Me?”

  “If you truly feel the death of this creature—this stargazer—how can you be a fisherman?”

  Al paused. He stared the boy in the eyes and said, “Who better? Rather than abuse or conquer all of this, I try to be part of it. I kill to eat, just like much of what’s down there. I’m proud of my skill as a fisher-man, but I’m never happy to take something from these waters.”

  “Talk is talk. You sell fish for money. You prepare them for tourists.”

  “So you see me as a hypocrite. Luckily, I live my life based on how I see me. I’m not worried about making sense to everyone else. I’ll tell you what I do know, bro. I know I’m not bigger than this.” Al gestured to include the vast ocean around them. “Are you?”

  Kemar shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I am not.”

  Al reached into a tackle box. He wrote something on a frayed pad, removed a red wire, noted a number, and snapped it onto one of the stargazer’s fins. He picked the fish up once again, saying, “I’ll tell you what, buddy. I learned in the jungle that there’s two ways to take a life. One is from a somewhat safe distance. The other is up close and personal.”

  “Why do you speak to me as if I know nothing of this? I already know more about this subject than I ever want to.”

  “You’re right. My bad. Let me put it another way. If you can hold this fish in your bare hands, then his life is yours, not the ocean’s. But if you can’t, then he belongs to the ocean and must be given back. Want to play?”

  “You think I can’t hold my fish? I have probably caught more pounds of fish in my life than you have.”

  “But I’ll bet I learned more from my experience. As a matter of fact, I’ll sweeten the deal. You hold this half-dead fish for five seconds, and I’ll let you pick any piece of equipment on this boat to keep.”

  Kemar instantly forgot the fish. He scanned the boat with the eye of a practiced scrounger. There were riches to be had. He noted the fillet knife hanging from Al’s belt. He noted the belt. He saw the shiny black pole with the well-oiled reel that Al fished with and wondered how much it could be worth. He admired the tackle box stuffed with lures, hooks, bobbers, rigs, and other riches. And then he saw what he wanted. Now it was Kemar’s turn to test Al’s courage.

  “Anything on this boat?” Kemar repeated.

  “Anything.”

  “The motor.”

  Al looked back at his outboard and winced. It was like someone asking for your dog. But after a moment’s consideration, Al nodded and said, “Sure.” Then he dropped the stargazer into the bucket one last time. Al wanted him slippery and energetic. He turned toward the boy and instructed Kemar to stretch his hands out over the water.

  Smiling broadly, almost giddy at the thought of having his own outboard, the boy did as he was told. Kemar couldn’t remember the last time he’d had fun like this.

  “Ready?” Al asked.

  Kemar smiled, rubbed his hands on his kremar until they were bone dry, spread his fingers, and nodded.

  Al presented the gazer to the boy. “Five seconds for the fish and the motor,” he reminded his young friend. Then he placed the fish onto Kemar’s hands, which were held out over the sea.

  Norton didn’t know what was going on. He’d blacked out for a while and wasn’t sure whether he was dead or alive. However, when he saw nothing but water underneath him and felt those human fingers around him, well, even a conch could see the opportunity. The gazer wriggled like his life depended on it, which it did, hoping that he could scrape a stinging dorsal spine or a sharp gill slit across those soft hands.

  And then it happened. The fish couldn’t believe his luck. The silly human slipped a finger on top of Norton’s head just behind his eyes. It was the stargazer’s last chance, and he was now in a position to use his secret weapon.

  Al began to sweat as he counted, “Three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, fi . . .”

  “AhhhHHH!” Kemar screamed. The cry grew louder as the fish fell into the sea. The boy squeezed his injured hand and tried to shake the pain from his arm.

  “Oh, soooo close,” Al taunted.

  “What was that? You knew he’d do that. My hand feels like it’s on fire.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not . . . This is the difference between having more and being more. Gain insight, not objects. Instead of asking me for an outboard, you should have asked me for information about the fish. You might’ve held on for that extra half-second and won the motor if you knew more. Knowledge is power.”

  “My hand is burning!” the boy bellowed. He slammed his palm on the boat’s rail, hoping to swat the pain from his fingers, but the gesture only ignited a new level of agony. A rogue hook had found its way back into Kemar’s hand. Fortunately, it was one of Al’s and the barb had been clipped, so the boy removed it himself this time.

  Al couldn’t help even if he wanted to. He was bent over the outboard, hugging it, laughing hysterically.

  “What did the fish do to me?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, bro. He just gave you a little shock. If you touch a gazer behind the eyes near the top of its head, it can give you a decent jolt. The one you caught was pretty big. Must’ve been quite a blast.” Al paused, looked at the boy, and started laughing all over again.

  Kemar sat down and began chuckling as well. “You must think you’re pretty funny.”

  “Not half as funny as you. I’ll bet that fish is laughing it up ri
ght now.”

  They untied the boat from the jug line, fired up the motor, and headed back to Makoona.

  “I’ll tell ya,” Al said, “you almost didn’t get zapped. You had me sweating.”

  “Would I have won the motor?”

  “We had a deal.” After a brief silence, Al added, “Sorry I talked so much today, but I’m not used to having company. I thought I liked fishing alone, but I gotta admit, you’re okay. Can I tell you one last thing?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “That fish deserved to go home.”

  “You confuse me like the priests and monks when I was young. Why should I release a fish that I worked so hard to catch?”

  “Two reasons. One, I don’t see many gazers. If something’s scarce, why kill it? That only brings it one step closer to being gone. And then how many will we catch?”

  “That’s a good reason, but you said you had two.”

  “The other one’s a little more personal, but, at least to me, it’s just as valid.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, that fish was a real fighter.”

  “I know. My arms still sting.”

  “Just stop for a second and think how hard that fish fought for its life. I fought that hard. I’ll bet you have too. And when I’ve fought like that against impossible odds, all I wanted was a break.”

  “A break?”

  “A little help, a little luck.”

  “Good fortune?”

  “Yes, exactly. As far as I’m concerned, this fish earned his freedom. I’m a little nuts anyway, but it’s actually an honor for me to put him back in the sea.”

  “You are a crazy American.”

  “No argument there, but we’re in my boat, so I’m entitled. Besides, there’s nothing that says once you go fishing you can’t have honor or mercy. For me, there’s something incredible about anything that’s alive, like the spirit that lives in it isn’t all that different from the spirit that lives in me, in you. So if you fish with a little integrity, you might wind up feeding your own good karma.”