Christina Murphy

TROPHY

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Scott and I work the fishing boats in Bahia-Mar on the east coast of Florida. The tourists come year round for the sun, the beaches, and the sport fishing. That’s a great name, but there isn’t much sport to it. The sport fishermen like to believe they can read the ocean like a book with the large game fish the most important chapters. Scott and I know they don’t understand a thing or they wouldn’t be so proud of the fish they catch as trophies.

So today we are preparing the bait—about four dozen mullets with hooks through their bellies and wire wrapped tightly around their mouths. They were still frozen when we started but began thawing as we worked on them. Their eyes let us know when they’re ready, going from a bright silver to a dull gray and popping out slightly. They look like they’re staring at something, maybe mistaking the sky for the ocean. When we get them all ready we put them in a cooler at the back of the boat and wait for the tourists.

It’s not a long wait—most of them have been ready since early morning. They talk to each other about getting going at the crack of dawn and how they are going to get the big one this time. Mostly they look ridiculous wearing floral shirts in bright flashy colors and khaki shorts. Even that early in the morning they have been drinking, and they come prepared to drink a lot more. They carry their favorites on with them, and the boat captains always have a selection of expensive liquors on hand. Most of what these people do is drink and brag and talk about sex, as if any of them is actually getting any. The fishing is secondary, but they never let on about that. If you listened to them, you would think they had invented fishing and could tell you a thing or two. But neither Scott nor I or our captain, Mike Ryan, ever listens to them much. We do our jobs, plain and simple, and get the tourists in and out as fast as possible—always providing them, of course, with the fish of their dreams. That is our one true job, no matter what.

We usually head out about nine. When we clear the marina, Mike turns the sonar on, and we start tracking the movement of schools of fish as we enter the open ocean. Mike knows the area very well and could find most of the big fish on his own, but the sonar gives him and all the captains an extra edge. Our boat is the Windsong and it is quite a beauty. Like many of the boats in the area, it is painted in a bright pastel—a kind of lavender for us. You can spot each boat for miles off and tell who’s who by their colors and the signal flags they are flying. That’s one of my favorite moments to watch the boats in a parade of colors as they turn toward the ocean. I like to think of them as free spirits heading out, cutting into the wind, and feeling the surge of the ocean against their hulls.

Then I have to come back to reality. The guys want drinks, and I have to get ice for them or some special bottle of scotch we have on board. I’m not crazy about being a waiter, especially for guys like this who don’t know a thing about the ocean, but it’s my job, so I do it. I watch them liquor up for awhile, bring them some snack food—mostly pretzels and nuts—and then disappear for awhile. I go spend some time with Mike. The sonar is blipping, and I can see there are only medium-sized fish making their way through the ocean beneath us. Mike is only occasionally checking the sonar. He knows we have to get further out to the deep water before we can go after what the tourists have come for.

Mike is a nice guy. He always asks me how I’m doing and how my family is. He knows I’m dependable and that I’m good at handling the tourists when they get too drunk and too demanding or they’re bitching about having to wait too long to get a fish on the line. That part drives Mike crazy—if only they knew how much skill and patience it takes to find those fish. But patience is not their strong suit, or mine, even though I do a pretty good job of faking it when I have to.

In a few minutes Mike tells me to go back down and check on our guests. That’s his favorite word for them. So I say okay and head back. Not much has changed. They are drunker now, and they have opened up their shirts or taken them off. Most of them are not much to look at with their clothes on, so this is not the greatest sight to see middle-aged guys with paunches or hairy bellies talking about the women they are banging. But I just refill their drinks and put out more pretzels. If we’re lucky, they won’t get sea sick when we hit the higher waves, but I never take any bets on that as Scott and I have swabbed up our share of vomit from guys who couldn’t make it to the side of the boat.

Pretty soon they’ve eaten all the pretzels they want and had enough liquor to start getting restless about catching the fish they came for. So Mike shifts the boat into a higher gear, and I know we are going after the trophy fish. Scott and I get the mullets out and attach them to the fishing lines, which we start trolling through the water behind the boat as it cuts through the waves. When the rhythm and movement of the mullets are just right, we turn the rods over to the guys, and they start thinking they are fishing.

It doesn’t take too long before something will grab the mullet, the line will go taut and start whirring out rapidly. The guys will be reeling in the line as fast as they can and whooping it up about how big the fish is. It all looks dramatic, but it isn’t. I’ve got the drag set on the line, which adds resistance and makes it harder for the fish to pull the line out. It’s a sad time as the fish is giving it all he’s got and is alone in his struggle, and these guys are cheating with expensive rods with high-end drag locks making it easier for them.

I don’t mind it as much when they snag some of the smaller fish that can’t put up much of a fight but look great in their first few jumps through the water. I mind it like hell when we are going after the beautiful game fish like the marlins and the sailfish. Those fish are such fighters. And they are gorgeous when they leap out of the water and the sunlight catches the blues and silvers along their backs. Some of these fish weigh three hundred pounds or more, and to see them lift themselves from the water that high, as if they could just escape into the clouds and never be caught—the beauty of it grabs your heart right before the cruelty of it breaks it.

It should be a fair fight, those fish are so noble. But it isn’t. The tourists tend to tire out quickly, even with the drag on the line. You cheer them on, telling them to keep going, and for awhile they are into it and reeling for all they are worth. They are no match for these fish. We all know it, but before the tourists figure it out, Mike begins the fatal moves that will defeat the fish even as they are trying with everything in them to get free. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Mike will put the boat in reverse and start backing up toward the fish. He is making it easier for the tourists to reel in the line and harder for the fish to gain any momentum and pull away. The tourists are too drunk to notice all this or to care. It’s getting easier for them to reel in the line faster, and they think it’s them, the powerful conquerors, who are doing all this.

In a few swift moves, Mike is backing up on the fish rather rapidly, and the fish is being dragged back toward the boat, no matter how hard he is struggling and pulling forward. Every now and then, the fish will try to jump, and you can see it lurch in mid air as the boat pulls him back toward the water. Pretty soon the fight goes out of him. Lots of time the fish can’t open his gills against the rush of the water and drowns, but the tourists keep on reeling him in and acting like they have won a great victory. If the fish is still alive when we get him to the side of the boat, Scott and I have to stick a claw hook into him to lift him into the boat. And boy do we ever have to be careful to get that hook into his gills and not anywhere into his body as we don’t want to mess up the fish for the taxidermist or spoil the way the fish will look hanging on some tourist’s wall.

It makes me sick to do this, but I do it. I always feel like I should apologize to the fish and say I wish it wasn’t like this and that he should have won. But I know that’s pointless, it won’t change a thing, so I just do my job.

Once the fish is landed, the cameras come out, and the tourists take pictures of themselves and slap each other on the back. They treat Scott and me like we are heroes or something because we got the fish into the boat. That’s when I want to take a slug or two of the expensive scotch if Mike wouldn’t get mad at me, but he would. “Keep it professional,” he’s always saying. “Live to fight another day.”

We head back in, and as the boat is nearing the marina, we get our tips. The tourists are so drunk and slap happy by now that they tip big, and usually I get a hundred, sometimes two. Today I am lucky. One of the tourists hands me three hundred. Not too bad. Almost worth it.

Scott and I lift the fish from the boat and place him in the cooler on the dock. The tourists fill out the paper work to claim him, and the taxidermist’s truck will pick him up later. Pretty soon he will be rendered beautiful again in a lifeless way, but the tourists will be happy. It’s not important to them if he is dead or alive, just that he belongs to them. The fish will hang on a wall or over a mantel, and some tourist will look at him and relive this day over and over—the memory as powerful to him as the ocean he thinks he mastered in catching his game fish, his forever trophy. For the tourist, it will always be a moment hanging in time, just like the fish, until time itself is all that’s left to fade away.

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Christina Murphy lives and writes in a 100 year-old Arts and Crafts style house located along the Ohio River. If the rebellion of auto workers and others who work with their hands ever occurs, they will feel her soft, uncalloused hands, and she will be dragged out into the streets and killed–or at least be forced to work at some type of manual labor. Independent of all that, though, she has been a waitress and a bartender.