Fish Like Life

We were in Ocean Beach, walking the pier instead of sitting in the marriage counselling session that we had driven miles to attend but that had been cancelled by phone just as we found the parking lot, when I started talking to a young fisherman.

'What sort of fish do you catch here?' I said to the young man who was wearing a big straw hat, shorts, sunglasses and flip-flops.
'There are mackerel today,' he told me, 'and some leopard sharks,'
'Oh, nice,' I told him, 'do you eat them?'
He told me no, he did not eat them, but sometimes he gave them to his father-in-law, who did.
'Usually I throw just catch them and then throw them back,' he said,
'So you just like doing this for the, you know, fun of it,' I said to him, and he nodded.

Then, while Kimberly walked to the end of the pier, I sat on a concrete bench near the young fisherman, put my legs up on railings in front of me, and watched a meaty red-eyed blow fly sucking up fish juice from the green nicked wood on which I rested my feet.

And then, worn out from an earlier episode of crying, I tilted my head back, looked up at a gang of hovering clouds and thought about the activities we take up and call enjoyment, oblivious to the terror they may inflict on other creatures, human or otherwise.

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