It was early summer and the fluke were now biting in and around Montauk, Long Island. These aggressive flat fish were being taken in profusion using sand worms and shiners, on Gosman’s Dock and off shore, for just the last few days. The flounder had disappeared about eight weeks earlier and the offal leftovers had thus been lean for the wharf rats and seagulls. But now things were picking up again. At this news, Bruno Alewife began to smile anew. He loved and lived to fish. He was the town barber only to have something to do in the winter ... and to get enough money to keep his outboard boat, “Avatar,” in decent repair and full of gas in the other seasons. But with clement weather and promising fishing reports, Bruno put his well-worn “Gone Fishin’” sign in his shop’s window in Heather Hills and drove to Gurney’s Marina where he kept his twenty-two foot run-about with its faded blue cabin awning and its 33-horsepower Evenrude.
Bruno’s dream had been to catch a “doormat” fluke, a fish the size of the marlin-embossed sisal rug that lay in front of his tonsorial salon ... or, generally agreed to be a fish of twenty pounds or more. Old-timers often talked about hauling up these trophies on a regular basis before the Moonies had started using their drag nets on George’s Banks. Now the oft-repeated joke was that catching such a fish “would be a fluke.” It was even possible to catch a doormat flounder; but, because it required going out to sea a little further than he liked ... generally in more inclement weather, Bruno kept his chimeras confined to catching a doormat fluke. He had come close twice. Once his line snapped just when he was about to boat at least a thirty pound monster. And the second time, a Mako shark took two-thirds of his prize as soon as it hit the surface about fifteen yards out. Bruno brought back the head and dorsal fin of this almost-doormat, but his buddies only scoffed at his empty boasts as to its pre-Mako dimensions.
This day seemed perfect for prize taking. The waters were generally calm and a sea mist would keep things cool and should pull the fish up from the depths. Bruno left the harbor in good spirits with a cooler full of beer, two wrapped cheese-steak heroes, and his small portable radio tuned to the “oldies” station. He decided to try the bay first and then, if things didn’t work there, the ocean. He fished up and down the Peconic Bay with only a few throw-backs. So, around twelve-thirty, he decided to try his luck on the other side of Montauk Point. He powered up the ‘Rude and pointed his boat toward the fog-horn’s wail on the island’s eastern tip. In route, he leaned on the gunwale and proceeded to devour the heroes while steering the boat and sucking down three ‘Gansetts.
By the time he reached the confluence of the currents coming around both sides of Long Island, Bruno’s senses were a little dulled. He had been through these waters many times before and knew that they could be treacherous. Right off the Montauk Point cliffs and for about a mile off shore, the sea was always roiled, trying to resolve which flow was to prevail. Even on perfectly calm days, the waves in this area suddenly rose to ten feet or more ... and one never knew exactly which way they were going. On this particular day, Bruno was in a hurry to get to his next fishing hole and so cut the point a little too close. He got caught in the worst of the rip currents and had to fight to keep the Avatar on course. One nasty wave lifted his stern completely out of the water which then over-revved his outboard. When the propeller resubmerged, its tremendous torque sheared off its hardened-steel cotter pin like it was a thin pretzel.
Bruno swore and reached for his tool box with one hand while pulling the engine up out of the water with the other. But fate had more bad news in store for this erstwhile Isaac Walton. Just as he was to insert his only replacement cotter pin into the prop shaft, another wave jerked his boat sideways so violently that, in reaching for support, Bruno dropped this critical object into the sea. Some expletives later, Bruno sat pondering his options. The race on the ocean side of this confluence was now pulling him out to sea at about a three knot clip, so his small paddle was of little use. Visibility at this point was only about fifty yards so there was only a small chance that the white towel hung on his outrigger would be spotted by any craft large enough to offer assistance. And since it broke four years before, Bruno did not carry a two-way radio. He was indeed in a real pickle.
The Avatar drifted this way for about three hours ... further and further out into the shipping lanes coming off Sandy Hook. And since the weather was clearing, Bruno was now optimistic that he would be spotted. He dozed for a while, made sleepy by the sun and the three more beers he had imprudently downed. He awoke with a start. There off to the aft was a huge oil tanker, riding high in the water after having disgorged its two million barrels of petroleum into holding tanks near the mouth of Raritan river in New Jersey. The tanker was made in Japan, of Greek registry, flying a Panama flag, with a Romanian captain who was, at this point, snoring in his bunk after spending the previous night boozing and debauching on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. Not that he would have necessarily seen Bruno’s boat had he been at the helm ... for the ship was the length of three football fields and its angle of vision was further obscured by its high draft. Had it been fully loaded, there might have been a minuscule chance that Bruno would have been spotted, but, even then, little could have been done to stop in time. There was an unofficial but sizable betting pool among its polyglot crew as to how many sails they would find wrapped around the propeller shaft at each trip’s end.
When Bruno fully realized his predicament he started shouting at the top of his lungs ... to no avail. The decibels produced by the bow-wake of the tanker were ten times louder than Bruno’s meager protestations. Then for a brief moment Bruno thought that he might be spared. The tanker was clearly not going to hit him head on ... perhaps a glancing blow only. But such is not the fate of doormat seekers. From about a ten foot distance, Bruno’s flimsy outboard was sucked underneath this behemoth ... where it traversed almost the full length of its barnacle-encrusted double hull before being chewed into chum by the huge, twin-opposing, ship’s propellers. After this gauntlet of mayhem, there wasn’t a piece left of the Avatar or its hapless captain that was as big as would have emerged from a ten-second-pulse on a Cuisenart. Everything had been brutally and efficiently pulverized. All was gone ... fishin'.
© Copyright, George W. Potts
