It’s too exciting for me. What’ll we do if it’s a shark and it jumps right up out of that water and eats us because it’s mad. I don’t know whether to mention my idea of a shark; Dad doesn’t like it when I say sissy things like that. He’s pretty good, usually, that way, hardly ever makes fun of me, but sometimes when he’s excited like this he forgets.
“Gee, Dad! What do you think it is?”
“It’s probably some kind of sand shark. Whatever it is it can sure swim fast. Oh oh! There she goes again.”
The line starts spinning out fast. The ratchet’s practically screaming! Dad’s trying to slow it with his thumb because he can’t hold on to the handle any more. There starts to be blood on the fishing line from his thumb burning and rubbing against it. Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He’s so concentrated on that fish there’s nothing else.
Then when there’s only a little bit left on the reel so we can see the metal part underneath, the fish starts swimming toward us again. Dad reels in as fast as he can; the line is slack in the water. If the fish changes direction suddenly now he can break the line for sure. Dad’s leaning over the pole, with the pole almost straight up to absorb the shock if the fish starts going out again. He’s still turning the handle as fast as he can.
“Dad, I think I just saw something. It looked big as a whale but it was a sort of pinkish brown. See, there it is again.”
I lie down on the boards so I can lean over without falling. Sweat’s dripping from Dad’s forehead now. Then, suddenly, the line goes tight. Dad holds it for a few minutes but the pole’s bent almost to breaking and he lets go of the handle, puts his thumb on the reel again.
This time the fish only runs about twenty yards then slows down. Dad begins reeling him in, lowering the pole, then pulling back, then lowering, reeling in and pulling back. The fish seems to have tired out or given up, or maybe that’s what he wants us to think. I’m afraid of what’s going to come out of that deep green under the pier, but I’m interested at the same time.
“We should be seeing it soon now, Dickie. Too bad we don’t have a gaff. There’s no way we can get this fellow in without breaking our line. It’s about to break now and he’ll be three times as heavy at least when we try lifting him out of the water. If it’s a really good fish, something we might win a contest or fish pool with, I’ll try holding him while you run back to that house down there near the beach and see if you can borrow a gaff, or maybe I can walk along the pier pulling it with me and beach it. I did that with a giant sea turtle once, but this is no turtle.”
Just then we see it. There’s a pointed nose like a shark and white on the underneath turning to pink and then brown on the back. I can see its eyes and its mouth, with sharp needles for teeth. The fishing line’s coming out between those teeth. Then I see it has wings. It’s a gigantic ocean bird, flapping wings that are wider across than my dad’s arms when he spreads them out. I didn’t know there were bird fish swimming in the bottom of the ocean.
“Gadzooks, Dickie!! It’s a stingray. First I thought it was a skate but this is too big. This is one of the biggest stingrays I’ve ever seen or even heard of. It must weigh over two hundred pounds.”
He reels it in a little closer so the snout of this stingray is resting against the rounded skirt of shells on the bottom of the piling. The eyes are looking at us; fierce, mad eyes. That fish is tired but he hasn’t given up yet.
“Do stingrays eat people like sharks?”
“No. But he has a long tail, and on the end of his tail is a stinger that’ll kill you quicker than you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’”
I look down into the water. He’s almost the same color as the lion only not so yellow. But the lion had nice eyes; these eyes are different—cold, wet, ocean eyes.
“What’ll we do, Dad? Do you want me to run for a gaff so we can bring him in?”
“No sir, Dickie. We’re not about to be on the same pier with this fellow. He’s no good to eat, and in a certain way he’s too beautiful to kill. Think what it must be like swimming around in that ocean with those big, strong, muscular wings.”
Dad wedges my pole into a place where two pilings cross. He motions me over and puts my hand on the pole. He’s tied the line through a crack in the piling to hold it so there’s no danger that stingray can pull me or the fishing pole into the water.
“You hold on to the pole, Dickie. I’m going to see if I can save our sinker and our other hook. He’s taken the bottom hook but I hate to lose the whole rig. Besides, he’ll have a better chance to recover if he doesn’t have a sinker and hook trailing after him.”
Dad goes over the edge of the pier, holding on to the boards. He lowers himself into a place where there’s a crossing of poles for support. He slides down the support right close to where the stingray is. Then it happens. Just as he gets his knife out of his mouth and lowers it below the second hook to cut the line, that monster starts thrashing. I see his tail whipping in the water and once actually coming up out in an arch over his back.
But Dad cuts quickly and the stingray settles slowly into the water. He stays there a few minutes looking up at Dad. He seems to be deciding whether to attack or not, then slowly turns and swims away, going deeper, with the thin parts of the backs of his wings fluttering like curtains in the water.
Dad twists around and shimmies back up the pole until he can get hold of the edge, then he pulls himself up onto his stomach and swings his legs back up onto the pier. I never knew my dad could do a thing like that. I’ve watched him do some pretty scary climbing when we were building porches but never anything like that, and there wasn’t an ocean under with a mad stingray swimming around in it, just a hard alley. I’m glad when he stands up.
“Well,” he says, “that was a real adventure. This is something you can tell your grandchildren. I’ll bet that’s the biggest stingray in the Atlantic Ocean. Up close I could actually see into his eyes. The devil himself must have eyes like that. I don’t think that creature likes anybody, not even himself. If he could’ve reached up and pulled me into the water I’ll bet he would’ve. I’ll tell you I was scared when I reached out to cut the line and he started thrashing around. Did you see that stinger?”
I nod my head yes. I’m still too excited to talk.
Dad undoes his own pole and starts reeling it in. The bait on one hook is gone. He puts the pole down and opens his fishing box, a box he usually uses at home for tools, and pulls out a hook. His hands are shaking but he’s smiling.
I reel in my own line, what’s left of it. Dad takes hold of the end.
“A number six should be about right. Maybe you can catch something a little more reasonable-sized this time.”
I watch him tie on the hook. I wonder how Dad learned to do all those things.
“Dad, is that stingray really dangerous?”
“He sure is.”
“Is he more dangerous than a lion?”
“Don’t you worry your head about that lion. I told you he’s probably miles from here now. A lion can’t live long on his own in country like this. He’ll come out and they’ll catch him. Don’t you worry.”
“Sure, but everybody’s so scared and wondering how he escaped, but we just let a stingray go. He must be as dangerous as a lion. He can kill anybody who goes swimming.”
When we were holding that stingray there and Dad was trying to cut the line I almost decided I was never going to swim in the ocean again. There must be thousands of sharks and stingrays and things like octopuses in the ocean. No wonder Mom doesn’t like to swim.
“Now don’t fret about that, Dickie. This feller we just saw, and just about every wild creature, will stay away from a human; they’re afraid of us. It’s only when they’re captured like that lion, or hooked the way we had this stingray, that they’re dangerous. People are the same way.”
He has my pole ready again and new bait on it. I know I’m going to fish the rest of the day hoping nothing bites on my line. I make a cast and it backlashes a little
bit and I only get the line out about half as far as the last time, but it’s O.K. with me. I pull out the line from the reel and Dad helps me wind it on the reel straight again.
Then Dad goes over and reels in his line. The bait on both hooks is gone.
“I think I’m just feeding crabs.”
He kneels down and cuts more bait for his hooks.
“You know, Dickie, sometimes people can be more dangerous than any other animal. There are sharks and lions and stingrays in the hearts of some people. You have to learn to recognize them and stay clear so you won’t get hurt.”
“You mean like the J.I. people and the union people?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty good example. J.I. didn’t want to hurt me, Dick Kettleson, personally, they’re just trying to scare the shop steward, to chase out the union, and I got in the way. They’re business people. They want to make a good profit with their factory the same way that lion or that stingray wants to eat. It’s their nature. If I get in the way I could get eaten and they’d hardly notice. It’s the same way with the unions. It’s like lions fighting tigers or sharks fighting stingrays. They both want to win, and if somebody tries to stop them, they can get hurt.”
We sit down on the edge of the pier again. Dad takes out some sandwiches Mom packed for us before we left. My sandwiches are peanut butter and jelly. Dad’s are Lebanon baloney. He has them packed in the lunch pail he takes to work, and there’s a Thermos bottle. Mom’s put hot cocoa in it. He pours some out for me in the top, and drinks from the bottle himself. It’s still steaming hot.
“But everybody isn’t like that, are they, Dad? Everybody isn’t just trying to beat everybody else, are they?”
“The way I see it, there are three kinds of people, Dickie. There are the ‘get by’ people, who won’t do anything unless you make them do it. They don’t care about anything or anybody except themselves, to me they’re the lower-lower class. Then there are the ‘get along’ people. They get along with others and they want the job to get along, too; they want to get it done right. That’s the upper-lower class. That’s what we are.
“The last bunch is the ‘get ahead’ people. They’re almost worse than the ‘get by’ people. They only look out for themselves, and they don’t care about the job any more than the ‘get-byers’; just so long as they come out ahead and make more money. They’re all the rest of the classes.
“But don’t you worry about it. Just stay away from ‘get-byers’ and ‘get-aheaders’ whenever you can.”
“You aren’t doing it, Dad. You’re working at J.I. and you’re a steward with the union. Why do you stay with these people if they’re so bad?”
Just as I’m saying this, Dad casts his line. He doesn’t wink this time. He shoots that sinker and those hooks straight up and out way over the water. It keeps sailing until it hits almost twice as far as he threw it the first time. He tilts his reel to show me there’s almost no line left. He’s smiling a really big smile.
“Boy, I almost outdid myself. That must be the longest cast I’ve ever made.” He reels in the slack, sits down, takes another bite of his sandwich.
“You’re right, Dickie. But there are other things to think about. We’ve got our family and we’ve got to live. With the Depression and all, we got behind; we couldn’t pull our own weight and fell into debt for the rent and things. Then, J.I. offered me all that money and it was hard to resist. I got back my seniority, too, nine years of it. That means they have to fire other people before they can fire me and I make more money than if I was just starting on the job. I had to think about all that.”
I know he’s looking at me while he’s talking but I can’t look back. This is partly because I still think he was wrong going back to J.I. and partly, too, because my mind has run off again and is thinking about that darned lion.
One part of me feels guilty because a man got killed but another part is glad the lion is free and I’m hoping they don’t catch him, even if he freezes or starves to death; it’d be better than putting him back in a cage.
“Do you understand me, Dickie? I had to go back. I joined the union because I thought I could fight against J.I. that way and be a little bit free from them, but that didn’t work. The union people are only more bosses, ‘get-aheaders.’ You see, your Daddy makes mistakes, too.”
“Why don’t we stay here in Wildwood, Dad? It’d be like vacation all the time. There are plenty of broken porches I see everywhere. You and I could go around fixing them up and just take the money from the people and never worry about anything.”
Dad pulls suddenly as if he has a bite, then reels in slowly. I wonder if he might have something on his line.
“Nothing but a crab nibbling again. They’ll steal your bait every time.
“Dickie, it’s not that simple. During this last while at J.I., what with our rent already paid, we’ve been able to put the money we used for the porches back into our emergency fund and some extra besides. It won’t be long before we’ll be able to buy a better car.”
Now Dad’s looking out over the water. Maybe he’s only feeling if he really has a bite or it’s just crabs again. I think I get a bite but I don’t pull too hard. If some fish wants to bite itself onto my hook that’s O.K. but I’m not going to hook any fish on purpose.
“A married man has to think about security. And, I don’t think anybody gets any security without giving up some freedom. Sure we’d all like more freedom. I’d love working for myself, being my own boss, but then I wouldn’t have any security at all. We can’t afford that. Mom would worry all the time and I’d worry, too.”
“Sure, Dad. But some people do, don’t they? How about Mr. Greene, the paperhanger? He doesn’t work for anybody and he pays his rent all the time; we even built a porch for him. He doesn’t work for any J.I. or anything and I’ll bet he doesn’t belong to any union either. Why can’t we be like him?”
“You’re right, Dickie. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to step out on my own. When I was a kid, I watched my dad lose his farm, then his store. He tried contracting and building houses with us boys helping, but he lost all that in the Depression. It’s hard not to get scared.”
I knew most of those things about Granddad. I never thought about how my dad felt about them. I don’t think enough.
I start looking out over the ocean some more myself. It’s getting to be warmer and warmer. It’s going to be a good day for the beach. I hope Mom and Laurel will want to go, too. Dad starts reeling his line in fast. At first I think he’s caught something, but his pole isn’t bending so he’s just reeling in to check his bait.
“Let’s call it off for the day, Dickie. I don’t think we’re going to catch anything more after that stingray. He was enough to last the whole season for me, maybe my whole life.”
I begin reeling in. It’s only then I realize I do have a fish on my line. I’m not sure, but it’s pulling and swirling back and forth that way. I won’t say anything until I’m sure. Dad pulls his line in; the bait’s still on each hook so the crabs didn’t get it.
“One more idea. The union bosses at the meetings keep talking about the class war, about the working class and all that. Most of the people I work with aren’t workers. They just do something, anything, for money, and they don’t care what they do or how well they do it. They get no pride at all from doing something right. They wouldn’t do a lick if somebody didn’t watch them. It makes me discouraged working with them, locked in that grease-smelling brick cage of a building all day.
“I like to work, even in that stinking, rotten J.I., and I feel good when I’ve done something the way it ought to be done.”
I pull in my line and there is a fish on it. Dad’s all excited. He wiggles it off the hook. It’s a kingfish, about a two-pounder.
“Hey, there, Dickie, you’re quite a fisherman. We can all have a nice little fish dinner from this fellow.”
Dad takes out his knife, scrapes off the scales, cuts off the head, pulls out the insides
, and throws all that stuff over the side. Cut up like this, the fish doesn’t look very big, but Dad hefts it in his hand and hands it to me.
“Feel that, Dickie. That pays our rental fees for the poles and for the bait. We got a whole morning’s fun fishing for nothing. That fish’d cost at least fifty cents in a market.”
I hold it a minute. It feels wet and cold. Dad takes it back, wraps it in one of the sandwich wrappers, the baloney one, and slides it into his lunch box.
“Another thing, Dickie. Most of the people who get to be bosses, whether it’s with the company or with the union, are people who don’t like to work. Now they want me to be shop foreman at J.I. That’s what the union people are worried about. If I quit the union it’ll look as if I’m going over with the company people. To be honest, I don’t think I’d even like being a foreman, telling other people what to do.”
“You tell me what to do when we’re working on the porches. That’s a little bit like being a foreman, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the same, Dickie. You like working the same as I do. We got satisfaction out of building those porches fast and right, getting ahead of the game with our own hands. These people I’d have to boss around wouldn’t be that way. They’d always be trying to duck out of work and I’d be a kind of policeman and slavedriver forcing them to do what has to be done. But we were a team, right?”
He puts his hand on my shoulder from the front not around the back of the neck the way you do with a little boy. He puts his hand on my shoulder the way a king does when he makes a regular soldier into a knight.
“Dad, I still think we could make a better living working for ourselves. We could do all kinds of things. You can fix anything. We could put papers under everybody’s doors telling them about our fix-it business and put an ad in the Upper Darby newspaper. We could call it Kettleson’s Fix-it Shop.”