Solitary Souls September 5
Rain or shine, the Japanese gentleman can be found fishing on the sea wall an hour before sunset. He changes out of his embassy clothes before grabbing a water bottle, three rods with bobbers and lead weights, a tin of fish bait, and his characteristic bucket hat. If there are showers, he throws on a rain jacket. Then the lines are in the water to catch some dinner. This guy must eat fish every night, despite warnings from local biologists.
Today he is catching small yellow-tailed jackfish, one after another. He pins each specimen beneath his sensible all-weather shoe, removing the hook, trimming the dorsal fins with kitchen shears, and then he tosses it in his plastic shopping bag, leaving nothing to waste. When he has enough of the little ones for a meal, he will head home.
Not far from the fishing lines, the Hawksbill sea turtle makes his regular visit, intermittently raising a head to draw breath and take in the familiar scene. I worry that an errant cast and misjudgment might lead to tragedy, but heartache seems far away for now. The placid bay shimmers pink with the fading light. A dozen big ships sprinkle the broad horizon. Among them, four petroleum derricks stand idle like lighthouses. Egrets and herons zoom by to make their nighttime curfew, even as Ray, the precocious macaw, shouts for them not to leave so soon.
Each inhabits a collective solitude—the bird, the turtle, the man—like a constellation of stars in the frigid vacuum, like the current-swept archipelago of tiny islands that dot a line to Venezuela, together but alone.
Without warning, the contemplative fisherman emits a shrill whoop worthy of the macaw. His pole is bent like Bo-Peep’s, and he is quickly releasing the drag so as not to snap the line. He has hooked a whopper! My first instinct is to scan for signs of the turtle, but it is nowhere to be seen, and I fear that my initial worry has become prophesy. Then a huge fin shows, and my spirits lift. The beast breaks the surface with desperate fury, again and again, but the gentleman proves as patient as a diplomatic negotiator, which he probably is. He will wait for the fish—a tarpon, maybe 5 pounds, at least two feet in length—to exhaust itself in the shallows.
When the time is right, the prey is landed and placed underfoot. It is shedding scales the size of white rose petals, its coke-bottle eyes bulging with some realization that the end is nigh. The fisherman tenderly removes the hook and strains to raise the tarpon, marveling at this beautiful thing. His hands are dripping with petals.
With a sigh, he places his catch back in the sea, and it swims away, escaping fate yet again. The man sees that I am stunned by this act of mercy, and, for once, he acknowledges my presence. “My wife no like the taste. She be mad if I take it home.“
I had not considered a picky wife.