Fishing Boats, Key West — Winslow Homer
1.
Dry air. Hot breeze off the salt. Lips already chapped. Dammit I forgot the sunscreen. Quick swig of water and then I make my first cast. The line sails off the reel, eager. I’ve done this a million times. The lure hits and I start twitching my wrist left and right to mimic the way a baitfish might move. I’ve done this a million times. The sun comes up. I’m ready to win.
Late morning now. Still no fish. One of the other guys fishing down the pier comes up and asks me if it’s my first time at the fishing contest. “Yeah,” I tell him. He laughs and walks away. I’m not sure why he laughs. Later I will find out. For now I just keep casting and casting and casting.
2.
Evening. At the bar. A little bit drunk but so is everybody else. Somebody gets the confidence to talk to me or I them, not sure. “Nothing today?” he says. He’s smirking. I still can’t tell why. “Nothing today,” I tell him and he nods, happy. I ask him for some intel on the contest.
The thing has been running for fifty years, he says. They give out all kinds of awards when it’s all done. He makes me aware that I am speaking to the Best Fisherman of last year’s competition. I nod and pretend to be impressed. Saw him earlier and he can’t cast for shit. Anyway it seems like it’s a big deal that they give out awards. So I walk around the bar.
Turns out everyone here has won an award. There are a few Best Casters. A few Most Sportsmanlike. There is a fashion award. There is a kind of participation award you get even if you didn’t win everything. People have it pinned on their shirts. Cool, I guess.
3.
“So who gives out the awards?” I ask a few days later.
Well that would be the Council of Fishermen, many people tell me. Spoken like I should have known that. Obviously the Council would be the ones giving out the awards.
They point over to the corner at a group of old guys, their vests littered with award pins. Best Caster and Most Sportsmanlike and Coolest Fishing Rod and all of it. I wonder.
“Do they catch a lot of fish?”
The person I am talking to looks at me like I am crazy. “I have no idea,” they say as they shrug and walk away. I go up to the bar and order another beer or two or three. I go to bed and wonder if the fishing will be better tomorrow morning. It will be the last day of the contest.
4.
Still the final day and still no fish. Starting to doubt myself. Still hot and my lips are cracked and bleeding. Start to wonder what I am even doing here. Why I want to receive an award from some Council of Fishermen who I have not even seen fishing one time.
A few hours before the whole thing is over I move from the pier to the shore to see if I can have better luck there. I meet a young woman, a passerby. I am bored so as she passes I preempt the classic question and say: “I don’t know what I’m fishing for either, before you ask. I haven’t caught anything this whole fishing contest. I am starting to wonder if there are even fish here.”
“Oh,” she says and pauses. “Well there aren’t.”
“What do you mean there aren't?”
“There are no fish in there. They just do the contest because they like the awards.”
I suspect she is pulling my leg but we keep talking and talking and she tells me the story of it. Maybe at one point there were fish in there, she says, but it would have been a long time ago. Now all of them just do it so they can wear the badges on their vests. The fish don’t really matter.
5.
Sun is setting. Ten minutes before the award ceremony. The line sails off my reel one last time. Twitch-twitch-twitch and something hungry hammers my lure. The rod doubles over and I almost drop it. We fight and fight and I pull the thing in. It’s a beautiful fish, silver-and-blue. Big one too. Don’t know the name of it as I don’t fish much in the salt. Some black spots on its sides.
I measure it and take a video so I can show it for the awards ceremony. Then I release the fish and watch it swim away. It swims far and fast until I can’t see it anymore through the sun glare.
6.
At the awards ceremony there are some podiums. A speaker comes up from the Council.
“Now we will issue the awards,” he says. “Best Fisherman goes to…”
I jump up. I want to stop him. I run up to the stage.
“Hold on a minute,” I say. He looks at me like I am insane.
“You never asked any of us if we caught any fish.”
“Well of course not,” he said. “That’s not part of what we do.”
“But I caught one,” I said. There is a mix of confusion and jealousy on his face.
“You caught… a fish?” he asks. I show him the video. He smirks.
“Okay. Well, good for you,” he says with an eyebrow raised like it’s not real, even though it is.
They do the awards ceremony. Best Fisherman goes to some guy who made maybe three casts the entire contest and spent the rest of his time in the bar. Most Sportsmanlike goes to the Councilman himself presenting the awards. Not sure how that works.
I drive back home. Maybe I don’t care much about fishing contests and their prizes.
Maybe I prefer just catching fish.
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