Grinder Read Free Page B

directions up the stairs to the fish finder beside the wheel of the boat. The screen showed a scattering of yellow dots; below the yellow spatter were two large red dots. “What am I looking at?” I yelled back to Jeff.
    “The yellow dots are a school of mackerel. Those fishes are running for their lives down there for sure.”
    I walked back down the stairs to find Jeff looking over the side of the boat at the dark water. “Are the red dots tuna then?”
    He smiled at me and put one gloved finger to his nose, closing a nostril. He pushed air hard through his nose, shooting snot over the side. “Those red dots, city boy, are giant bluefin tuna. Not your canned tuna. Big fuckin' monsters for those Japanese fellows to have with rice and sake. Godzillas with gills, for sure.”
    “How big?”
    “Anywhere between two hundred and a thousand pounds. I told you it's no goldfish; it's a bull. It runs fast and it doesn't get tired. This thing will fight you like nothing else.”
    “How do we catch it?”
    “You stand over there and you hold that rod tight. You paid for the experience so you can go mano-a-fisho for a little while. You can let it beat your ass until you're ready to hand it over.”
    I put a hand on the pole and watched the water lap the boat while Jeff threw bait over the side. The chunks sank fast, leaving no trace they ever existed until Jeff threw more on top of them.
    “I want the fish to swim figure eights around the boat. If he's into the bait he'll stick around for more.”
    On the third toss, I saw a dark shape streak by the boat under the splash of the raw fish. Jeff saw the streak and laughed under his breath. He baited the large metal hook with something white before spearing a large chunk of bait.
    “What is the white stuff?”
    “Styrofoam, city boy; it came with the new TV. The hook is heavy. The foam gives it a bit of lift so it won't sink before Godzilla gets a chance to pass it by. Secure the pole, city boy.”
    I grabbed the pole, anchored in the metal holster, with two hands while Jeff threw the baited hook over. Even though the pole was propped up by the holster, I could still feel its heavy weight; it was nothing like the fibreglass rods I used as a kid. I breathed deep and cleared my mind while I waited for the giant below to grab the loaded bait. Jeff and I sat quiet in the boat. No more questions or sarcastic remarks passed between us. I stared at the line, happy for the calm minutes on the ocean. As if the giant below sensed my happiness, the line began to run out, yard after yard, away from the
Wendy
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    “He can run fast and deep for almost three hundred yards. Problem is he swims with his mouth closed. Eventually he's gonna have to slow down to open his mouth and breathe.”
    The line ran from the pole as though I had shot something into the water, the reel releasing its heavy line as though there were no drag at all. After a long minute, the rapidly fleeing line began to slow, and that's when the real fight began. I stood, heaving against the rod, for what felt like hours. I followed every instruction the suddenly serious captain gave me. Jeff never asked me to turn over the pole; he just guided me in killing the giant.
    After an hour of endless fighting, I began to see the head of my foe. My left arm burned with the effort of fighting the bluefin, but I never let go. I was up against my first real test and I was not going to blink. Little by little I began to see more of the head of my enemy; it was heavy and fierce, its eyes alive with fear and the marine equivalent of adrenaline.
    As I dragged the fish closer and closer to the boat, Jeff stopped watching me with his hawk eyes and turned to retrieve a huge pole off the a rack at from the stern. The pole was old and worn and had a large black hook on the end. The tool didn't match the many technological advancements on the boat — it was a relic from harder times. It was a grim instrument, one I later learned to call a gaff, and