“We keep it light

                the way you keep knives
                           in a drawer.”        
                                                       saltmeridian
         

 
    I caught a pacific blue marlin once,  
         it was so big 
               we couldn’t even get it in the boat. 
 
The marlin has met the forty-two foot boat and 
runs, running, leaping, throwing her thick bill 
attempting to dice the sky, There is nothingness
and there is this fish, and a thick blue-green
vibrating line connecting us. This time, the marlin
is spent. Pull, release, Pull! We will not be chasing 
the fish again. The boat pointed toward Keahou, 
rests. The fish rests and I watch the reel. Click-
TOC-click-toc-Click-TOC. Top of the crank, pull, 
crank. Pull! This fight is over. We have the leader.
After a lot of mini-runs she is exhausted but now 
what? We can’t get it in the boat, too big. So we
tie the tail to a bumper cleat, the bill to the one
on the stern. Then a few minutes of silly and 
dance a few high-fives, and a lot of good cussing. 
We get serious, serious about sharks. It would 
be ridiculously ironic to get back to dock, like
some old story fishermen like to go on and on 
about, nothing to show but shark bites and bones.
It’s too late in the day to take the fish back to the 
pier in Kona for any kind of official weight, we
still have to make it to Papa Bay before dark.
So we head for the Keahou boat ramp.
                                   *

 Uncle Eddie had been listening to everything
on the radio and met us there. On the asphalt
in the bright early afternoon sun we knew it
may not have numbered among the boated or 
measured trophies but this was a full meal. 
He hauled it away then, off to the smokehouse
in the hills above town. So the grandeur of
life, of body, of the spirit in that fish then 
became bone to nourish the earth and flesh
to nourish the bodies of our family and friends.
 
 Keahou didn’t have a dock scales back then. 
We will never know how big that marlin was, 
but I’ve never stepped into a bar with one
leaping on the wall that was bigger and we
know one thing, we are still here. I also know
something else, for one full spin of the globe, 
in a boat, next to a wet map dot, in a big blue 
sky, we won. We caught the biggest fish in the 
world that day, a long time ago on the charter 
vessel that was christened so appropriately.
As we left Keahou harbor and headed south,
the captain turned on the radio and said simply,  
 
                     This is the Sheer Pleasure, One/One/One
  

 
*One strike/One hooked/ One caught 
 
Editor: Jules Unsel