This is the Ocean

5:06 flash essay

Photo by Lukas Robertson on Unsplash

In North Carolina, I meet this local guy, this fisherman. He runs charters with his own boat. Crews on some of the bigger trawlers. He says the land under the water, the ocean floor, is one uninterrupted gentle slope. No reefs, no trenches. Just sand buried by gradually increasing depths of salt water. Sunlight, some light, none. How far out that’d be, I have no idea. All the way to Portugal, Morocco? The sand is brown, the water is blue, blue-gray sometimes, greenish others.

Shrimp boats tip along the horizon and, when they’re dragging, when their outriggers are down, they look like drunk toys fighting to keep their balance. Upright till home. And I suddenly imagine: sirens, police aqua-chariots pulled by dolphins. Poseidon rumbles up. You’ve been drinking, mortal? Walk the line. How, god? This is the ocean.

King mackerel, Spanish mackerel, bonito. When a king hits, the guy says, the line sings off the reel and sometimes the reel smokes. Same for tuna and that’s thousands, thousands of dollars, just for one. But then you have to ice it, pack it, ship it to Japan. A pretty big bite off the profits. But don’t we eat tuna here? Not like there. They have these ceremonies. Do we have ceremonies? Just for food?

At night, I go fishing. Surfcasting, heaving the bait and weight and line beyond the breakers, up to my nuts in seafoam. These boys show up. Out of the dark, ghosts of the swash, young and shirtless, panting and loud. Maybe they’ll slay me and roll me into the black waves, then race back to the beach house, the Jager fount. What are you using for bait? All kinds of things. Sand fleas, crabs. Crabs? With that they’re gone and the beach is dark and the moon goes quiet again.

When they return, and it’s the last thing I’d ever expect, they come with Solo cups full of sand fleas. They’re falling out of the cups, teaming. One kid aprons a huge ghost crab in his t-shirt. Bro, we got you. Hope you catch a fucking porpoise. And they’re off again, flying like kites but somehow into the wind, one with the sand but wholly glass, swallowed and spat at once.