The Big Snapper (11 page)

Eddie adjusts his cap and concentrates hard on his line. “Why did you stay?” he asks.

It is the first time he has come out and asked this question. It frightens him to ask it now, because he's not sure he wants to hear the answer.

“When I first went to the mainland,” Dad begins, “I couldn't believe how much there was to see and do. There were stores and restaurants
and theaters. There were huge arenas to watch concerts and sports. I thought if I made enough money I could bring you and your mother over, and we would have a much more exciting life.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Because, six months later, even working two jobs, I could barely afford the little apartment where I was living. I knew it was no place for you or your mom. And despite all the people I'd met, none of them were really part of my life. I had met no Freds to help me carry heavy loads, or Mrs. Greenshaws to give me medicine when I got sick. And no matter how long I worked at that car wash or drove that taxicab, I would never have a chance to battle a great fish. After that I realized what I'd done and I was ashamed to come back.”

Eddie doesn't answer for a while. Finally he says, “You shouldn't be ashamed. You made us sad, but you did come back.”

Dad smiles and ruffles the hair on Eddie's head.

They catch twelve salmon between them. Once the skiff is moored, Eddie walks down the path next to his father. He helps Eddie store the rods and tackle in the shed. He then carries the
baskets of fish to the kitchen door. After setting them down, he says goodbye to Eddie and starts across the yard. Suddenly the door is opened by Eddie's mother.

“Here,” Eddie says, lifting a basket of fish. “Dad and I caught enough to feed the McWilliams.” Eddie holds his breath, hoping she won't refuse it, especially with Dad watching.

But Mom doesn't even seem to think about it when she accepts the fish. “Thank you,” she whispers to Eddie. She then looks at Eddie's father. Eddie hopes she will say it again, loud enough for him to hear this time. She does speak louder but what she says is not what either of them expects.

“Joe,” Mom's voice is not mad or upset. It is soft with worry. “Your father is coming home tomorrow—earlier than expected. They say further treatments won't do much good.”

Through the sitting room window, Eddie watches his mother and father step from the wharf into Granddad's skiff. Dad starts the engine. He skillfully steers the boat through the fishing traffic until it disappears into the mist. Eddie returns to Granddad's bedroom and sits next to the bed where his grandfather lies sleeping. He has been sleeping almost constantly since he arrived home three days before.

Mom says she will not take in any more tourists until Granddad is feeling better, and the cabin is strangely quiet. Eddie whistles a little song to himself simply to hear some noise. He arranges the fishing magazines on the table next to Granddad's bed.

Someone knocks four times on the kitchen door. Eddie recognizes the knock as Jake's, and he runs down the hall to open the door. Jake stands next to the old bike with the big wooden wagon attached.

“Can you go riding yet?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I can't. I'm minding Granddad. Mom and Dad have gone fishing.”

“Oh.” Jake is clearly disappointed. “It's getting boring riding around by myself.”

“I should be able to soon,” Eddie tells him. “He can't sleep forever. I just want to hear him talk.”

Jake nods. He swings a leg over the seat and slowly sets off down the path. When Eddie returns to Granddad's room, this time his grandfather's old gray eyes are open.

“Granddad!” Eddie sits next to him. “I've been waiting for you to wake up.”

Granddad smiles a little, although it doesn't come as easily as Eddie remembers. It doesn't stay on his face long either. When he shifts positions, he grimaces with pain. Not sure what else to do, Eddie offers him a sip of water from a cup through a bent straw. He is placing the straw between his grandfather's dry lips, when he hears Grandma return from shopping in the
village. She sets down the groceries before she appears in the doorway. Eddie leaves her to help Granddad to the bathroom, give him the medicine he's supposed to take and try and get him comfortable again.

This has been the routine of the last three days. By the time Grandma leaves the room and Eddie peeks in, Granddad is always sleeping again.

Eddie is in his own bedroom, turning over a plastic toy left behind by one of the McWilliams, or perhaps it was a Backhouse, when Grandma sticks her head in the doorway an hour later. “Your Granddad would like to see you, Eddie.”

Eddie can hardly believe what he's heard. Dropping the toy, he runs across the hall to his grandfather's room. Granddad is sitting up in bed, at least as high as he can, supported by a mound of pillows. He smiles when he sees Eddie return. Eddie sits next to him and takes his hand. He is surprised at how thin it is.

“How are you, Eddie?” Granddad's voice is coarse, barely a whisper. It does not sound anything like it should.

Eddie answers that he is fine.

“What have you been up to?”

Eddie shrugs. “Hanging around with Jake. Fishing with Dad and helping Mom.”

Granddad smiles again.

“Can you tell me about your trip to the mainland now?”

For many seconds Granddad does not answer, and it seems to Eddie that he is searching. At first Eddie thinks it is for the right words. But when Granddad's face tightens and the furrows in his forehead deepen, Eddie understands that he is searching for some memory of going there at all.

“It's okay, Granddad,” Eddie tells him. “You can tell me another time.”

Eddie pats Granddad's hand. He is trying to be reassuring, but really he wants to cry. He is suddenly remembering Mrs. Greenshaw's words: “As long as he's telling stories there's nothing to worry about. When those stop, that's when we'll get concerned.”

It takes a great deal of effort for Eddie to stop the tears from flowing; he looks down at the floor, bites his lip and squeezes his eyes tight. When he looks up again, he sees the tears welling up in Granddad's own eyes. His heart aches for his old grandfather.

“Granddad.” Eddie pulls his chair closer. “I have something to tell you. It happened while you were away.”

Eddie is nervous. He is not sure how to tell a story, especially to Granddad, but it's the only thing he can think of doing.

“We caught the big snapper.”

Granddad's expression brightens, and suddenly his eyes are shining through the tears. Eddie dabs his grandfather's eyes with a Kleenex.

“It was while you were on the mainland,” he continues. “On a day very much like today. Me and Jake were out with Dad in the skiff. We were anchored right in your very own favorite fishing spot.”

The twinkle in Granddad's eyes encourages Eddie to go on.

“Anyway, we'd caught five or six rock cod altogether. Then Dad got another strike. He was lying in the stern, half asleep, with his hat pulled over his face. He was feeling pretty good since he'd got his knack for fishing back. Jake noticed it first. ‘Hey, Joe, heads up!' he said to Dad. It wasn't much of a bite. It didn't jerk Dad forward or anything, so we didn't think the fish could be very big. But when Dad started reeling it in,
he could tell it wasn't all that small. He said it was a hefty one. It was the weight of the fish that told him that because it wasn't putting up much of a fight. It almost seemed like it took it a while to realize it had even been caught.

“When it did finally start fighting, the boat turned, and it began pulling us out to sea. But it was not very hard and it was not fast. We had barely left the bay when suddenly it was not pulling us at all. Dad was able to bring it in easily after that, a few feet at a time. It was about thirty minutes later that we got our first glimpse of Dad's fish. ‘A snapper,' we all said. ‘And a big one,' added Jake.

“Dad and I looked at each other. Neither of us believed it could be your big snapper and we shook our heads. Your snapper would have pulled us to Alaska and back in that time.

“Dad told us to get the gaff. Jake grabbed it and stood in the boat, waiting to hand it to Dad, when the snapper surfaced again. But when it did, it was already so worn out that Dad waved the gaff away. ‘No need for that. He's all played out.' Dad raised the line as high as he could and all three of us grabbed hold of the fish and hauled him into the boat.”

Granddad is trying to say something. Eddie leans closer so he can hear. He sits back again.

“We didn't know it right away, but yeah, it was your snapper. He was lying on the bottom of the boat, puffing at the gills. He was as pale as a pumpkin and his skin hung off in places like rags. That's how Dad described him. He said he was like a salmon come home to spawn. ‘He's an old guy too,' he said, ‘maybe sixty, seventy years old. Huh, imagine getting caught after all those years.'

“Dad didn't say anything else. He just started the engine and headed for the wharf. He didn't seem all that proud of the snapper he'd caught, maybe because it hadn't been much of a fight. Me and Jake didn't say anything either. We just looked at the snapper where he lay on the floor of the skiff. His head rested in the dent that you got in the boat when you landed on the rocks at Alcatraz.

“Then, somehow, I just knew it was him. I saw where his fin had been sliced by your prop. It hadn't been obvious at first because all of his fins were tattered. His whiskers were gray and his eye was hazy, but by the way he looked at
me, I could tell that at one time it had burned black and bright. Like you said it did.

“When we reached the wharf, the other fishermen crowded around. They slapped Dad on the back and they told him it was ‘a hell of a catch.' ‘That fellow's an old one,' someone said, ‘must be fifty, sixty years old! You did good, Joe!' We moored the boat and between the three of us, we carried the snapper to the cabin and laid it on the filleting table outside the shed. Jake went home. Dad patted the side of the snapper. ‘I'll be right back with the knife,' he said quietly.

“We had so many guests while you were away, Granddad. We had the six McWilliams and the Backhouses, and the Northorpes came back. Mr. McWilliams walked by as I was standing next to the table. He looked at the big snapper. To grab his interest I said, ‘He's sixty years old.' But I could tell he wasn't impressed. ‘Hmm,' he said, ‘is that so? Well the kids are clamoring for supper, so you might tell your mother to get him on the barbecue as soon as she can.'

“Becky Northorpe wandered by next. ‘Take a look at this snapper,' I told her. ‘He's a real old one.' But Becky barely glanced at the snapper before she curled her lip and said, ‘Are we
having fish again? Yuck, I can't stand the slimy things.'

“The snapper struggled in the air. While I waited for Dad to come back, I poured a bucket of water over him so he wouldn't suffer. The Northorpes, the Backhouses and the McWilliams were gathering at the picnic table. The moms and dads tied bibs around their children's necks. They tied napkins around their own necks and sat at the table. After a while they became impatient; they wanted to eat their supper. Clutching their forks and knives, they banged them on the table, yelling, ‘We're hungry!' and ‘Where's our chow?'

“Dad came to the door of the kitchen carrying a big knife. I looked at him, then over at the table where people were bellowing for their supper. They had no appreciation of what they were about to eat. They didn't care that the snapper had stayed alive for sixty years. They didn't know that he'd tricked you and pulled you all the way to Alcatraz. They had no idea how hard he'd worked to keep his own children out of the fishermen's nets. They didn't deserve him. I ran into the boat shed and grabbed my bike. I hooked up the wagon that me and Jake
had rescued from the dump. I lifted the big snapper from the filleting table, loaded him into the wagon and took off. I roared down the path before anyone realized what I had done.

“When they did, the McWilliams and the Northorpes and the Backhouses jumped from the table and came after me. Still wearing their bibs and waving their utensils in the air, they shrieked and hollered all the way down the path. But they couldn't catch me. Vince fell flat on his face when he tripped over a rock, and Becky got slapped in the face by a branch.

“But I didn't stop. I bumped onto the wharf and rode across the deck. The wheels of the old wagon clattered on the rough boards as I made my way to the end. I braked hard. The wagon with its heavy load ran into my leg and almost sent me flying overboard, but I kept my balance. I bent down, wrapped my arms around the big snapper, and with more strength than I ever knew I had, I picked him up and dropped him over the side of the wharf. I watched as he slipped between the fishing boats and disappeared beneath the water. The crowd caught up to me, but it was too late. The big snapper was gone.