Catch And Release

People tend to talk to each other out on the pier. It’s just an assembly of pilings and mortar. Walk back out onto Rockaway Ave. and strangers pass with their eyes focused elsewhere. Maybe it’s the horizon or the water itself, or maybe it’s some ancient agreement, like the Canarsies (or whoever) would put their differences aside at the fishing hole. Cuz hey— folks gotta eat.

On summer afternoons it does smell like a battle took place though. Some of these so-called fisherman cut up their catch right on the benches. Gulls beak-deep in bluefish innards. A set of gills mysteriously stranded in the middle of the pier. “What’s that daddy?” and some half-retarded toddler has a new bracelet. It’s just not civilized.

The pier has its drawbacks and its detractors, but I get a kick out of seeing the same faces each evening: Lefty and Big Trini and Pasquale the Sailor—all island people. And maybe that makes a difference too. People who live by the sea are traders—they’re social. It’s the landlocked countries you have to look out for and the mountain people that always cause the problems. They’re too clannish. They don’t know how to get along with the next man.

See—I’m not the type to complain about how the neighborhood has changed. Sure it’s a shame that Abbraciamento closed. On any given day Guliani or the Genovese might be digging into some surf and turf for lunch. Now there’s nowhere in Canarsie to get decent seafood anymore, unless you count salted cod from the roti shops(which I do not). But what can you really do about it? Buildings are made to house people and people come and go—especially island people.

I like to think that I’m a bit of a pier ambassador. I don’t mind striking up conversations with the occasional stranger, but I do get sick of hearing the same questions all the time: “Are they biting?” and “Do you eat what you catch?”

Well— the flounder are always biting if you feel like jigging, but this time of year you got the stripers and the bluefish, so “hell yeah—they’re biting,” and to answer the second question, “No I don’t take them home—do I look retarded?” I’ve already survived prostate cancer. I’m not going to take my chance with mercury poisoning and whatever else is floating around down there.

According to the state, Jamaica Bay has been clean since ’68, but they also said the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe, so I’m going to err on the side of caution. If the fish were any good, there’d be a market at the foot of the pier instead of some poor, impoverished bastard peddling bluefish out of a Styrofoam cooler. And don’t get me started about the crabs. In any polluted environment you have to stay away from the bottom feeders—they’re down there in the murky deep catching contaminants like centerfielders.

            At the risk of getting into Dr. Phil territory, I think that fishing is about the process and not the product. It’s a communal experience—which is rare in this internet era. And I like to imagine that I’m carrying on some tradition. Not that my father liked to fish. He hated anything with gills, but his papa was from an island off the coast of Naples and I like to imagine there’s some cross-time communion going on. Not in the Star Trek sense, but in a Freudian sense. The sea of memory and all that.

            My doctor also told me to stay active. So—there’s that angle. I’m not sure how much exercise I’m getting, and the six-pack I bring surely doesn’t help, but I get some fresh air. I’m casting my line, reeling it in. There’s cardio in it. The bluefish and the stripers put up a good fight. That gets the adrenalin pumping, and if I’m lucky I pull them out of their world and into ours—gape-mouthed, their gills pumping away in the glare of the evening sun. I try not to prolong the moment—pull the treble out quick as a cat. Take as little flesh with me as possible, and send them sky-hooking back to where they came from.

            I don’t believe that they have feelings the way some do, that they flinch every time they see something bright and metallic spinning against the current. In fact I don’t think they even learn. I’ve pulled the same fish in twice before—scars still fresh. Plus—

I keep careful records. No fish stories in my notebook. It’s strictly Joe Friday—just the facts ma’am: length, weight and time of day. It’s good to write things down, to keep a record of things.

            You can’t always trust the stories you hear, but if you check my notebook you can see that I caught an eight pound striper yesterday. He swallowed my favorite lure whole. I probably should have gutted the beauty, but I threw him back with a free souvenir in his gullet. He’s probably down there now, telling war stories to his pals—rubbing his belly to show where the hungry was.

Alexios Moore is a featured fiction contributor on BrooklynTheBorough.com.