ManicWorld Magazine

In the brazen dawn, south-water of the dingy gulf floats to the horizon line. Where the sky merges with the sea. The sight pulls you in like neon night clubs and strobe lit buzz-centric beats. There are deep revelations in that unknown distance. That horizon line holds the allure of the abyss, all the greatness we can achieve. It sucks you in as if God himself was slurping the universe through a straw. It’s the start of the search, and it gets complicated when we ignore the simple things. Often, it’s the small awakenings that relieve us to the greatest degree.

Damn, just more mental utterances of the heavy-duty philosophical hype. When I think ‘bout them gulf-coast days, from a bizarre stretch of my memories, sometimes, I think all that sun fried my brain functions. You’ll just have to excuse my slips of chattery tangents, and before I get lost in the nostalgia of the gulf, again, let me square up the introductions.

I’m Skuzz, your local, too chill of a bro-migo – Skuzz Chillington – and my breaks in flow are just part of my ramblin’ mouth, but that’s how I roll on the livin-grind. I’ll catch ya up on some of the back-beat of this southern scene. It was 08. I had been down in East Biloxi for two years, bout this time. I was down there rebuilding homes in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The season was turnin’ from fall to winter, and the morning took longer to heat up during that time of year.

The sky was clear, and eventually, that rising sun would blaze for some warmth on the water. Sunday and no work, so my bro, Janky – real name, Jacob – took us out on his boat. He had just bought it a few months ago, and it was a sleek hunk of metal; a 32-foot razor blade, making clean slices on the gulf’s surface water like a scalpel. Janky was stoked about the boat. Which, I learned from this experience isn’t a great qualifier for skill – many human sufferings can be traced back to enthusiasm as one would show on the first day of a job.

Of course, at that time, none of us knew any better, and nobody really inquired about his boat credentials – as an operator or mechanic.

Our buddy Pete came along. He was a short and pae, Mass-hole (person from Massachusetts). Rachel was also in the boat. She was Janky’s girlfriend; quite older, tiny, but vicious, like a chihuahua that barks with a southern twang.

Once we passed the final buoy marker – speed limit indicators because just off the shore, and nearly a mile out the gulf has a shallow bottom of sand that’s always shifting – Janky threw the throttle down. The engine roared, our necks succumbed to whiplash from the acceleration, and Janky’s grin was maniacal. He was pushing some edge on this day. After 30, or so minutes, of violent bounces on the top-water chop we stopped, and endless blue water stretched infinitely – which, when you’re not used to those conditions, induces a nervous shock like being in a wild animals cage because you don’t have the normal protective measures to rely on.

“We got fish on the finder! String up the poles and fill the live hull!” Janky bellowed, his chest pumped with pride, and he jittered like a live-wire.

“Hey! Take one of d’ese rye whiskey blasters, ya know, to commemorate the day – shit’s so stiff, it’ll put hair on da shaft of your pecker, Pete said, and held out four wallops of liquor to grab.

“I ain’t gotta shaft, Petey,” Rachel snapped, killin’ the shot – her brand of crass wasn’t intimidated by liquor labels.

Pete said, “eh, let me see dat b’attle.” Rachel handed it to him, Pete scoured the label, then said, “yup, just as I sa’spected – works on tits, too.”

“Shut the hell up,” Rachel muttered and slugged Pete’s arm. Janky and I cracked up. At boat edges, we took position; castin’ weighted lines, hooked with hope, to snag something monstrous from the depths of Davey Jones. I started flipplin’ out the cast net – fishing can be a boring, patient battle – which pissed Janky off, something fierce.

I can’t say what I was goin’ for, but I had a feeling that a barracuda would swim by, and I would be like Hemmingway; nailin’ a beast of a predator fish with an impressive net flip, and then, rippin’ it out of the water with my bare, manly hands.

“Dude! What the Fu…,” Janky said, his brow was furrowed, and his head was about to pop like a tea-kettle whistle, but he stopped short

“Look! Somethings on your line – grab the pole!” Perplexed, I turned my head: my pole was almost completely submerged. I dove in to retrieve it.

I wasn’t about to let the sucker on the line, get away. Janky and Pete caught my legs, before I dove fully in, and pulled me up on the boat like a pop-tart out of the toaster. In the boat, I took a firm grip on the reel handle, set me heels like a paperweight in my sandals, and prepared for tug-o-war with the creature at the other end of the line. The heavy torque on the rod bent the damn pole into a U, something bigger than the tension rating of the pole was trying to escape.

“Reel & let run – fatigue the bastard!” Janky barked. My back ached, and after 15 minutes, my stamina waned, my forearms were burning with cramped over-exertion – this damn fish might fuckin’ beat me, I thought.

“I see it!” Janky hollered, “big fucker! It’s tired, let out a little line, then hit it with one last swoop of a hard reel!”

My eyes stung with sweat. It rushed from my skull like a busted pipeline in the lawn. “Ah, hell! I’m crampin’ and losin’ grip!” I shouted

“Pete! Toss me a towel!” He turned and hopped on his tip toes like a line-backer surveys the play and then moves to lay a punishing hit on the ball carrier. Pete grabbed a towel and rubbed the absorbent cloth over my face so I could see.

“Better than nothin,’” I said, and I shook out tingles of numbness from my fingers. I did as Janky said, let out some line, and then, as the fish made a slow swim away, thinking it was over, I lifted the pole, and made a hard crank of the wheel, to end the struggle. The fish rose with the line, the resistance got lighter.

“Did the line break!?!” I yelled, assuming I lost it.

“Nah! It’s comin’ up! Just worn out and done for,” Janky barked, “almost there – get it up, and I’ll scoop the fucker,” Janky said, net in hand.

Janky leaned, almost out of the boat, and strained to lift the fish. I relaxed; my arms shivered like they were cold, and seized in a 90 degree angle, locked up with lactic acid. It was a beaut-of-a-sail cat; close to three-foot long, and its skin was prominently silver. The fins on those fish are as sharp as Benihana chef knives, and you gotta be careful around those gulf breeds of fish, they’re built like dinosaurs.

The crew cheered because death riles the beast in our carnivorous minds. I flopped on the nearest seat to catch my breath.

“Get that man a victory beer – helluva catch!” Janky hollered, dumping the fish in the hull. Success felt good.

I stretched out my arms, and Rachel walked over. “Here ya go, hun…niiiicce catch…wasn’t sure if you was gonna get it – you appeared drained, at the end,” she said, and handed me a beer.

“Glad, I’m not the only one I could surprise,” I said, and hit some poses to reveal my hunk of buff.

“I think you scared all the fish away, skinny,” Rachel said, unimpressed. I wasn’t mad at that. We cruised to a few other spots. We hucked out line, and nothin’ bit, they were empty. So, we had lunch at one of the barrier islands, off the Mississippi shore. At least, for me, it had been a good day.

“Alright! How about we make one last stop – try our end-of-day luck at the tanker,” Janky said. We agreed, although reluctantly, and made our way. The big tanker. It loomed over us, like the ominous weight of being watched. Huge cement pylons shot out of the salty water, and the operational structure seemed vacant – it emanated a peculiar vibe.

The sky was a pink and yellow mix vibrancy – I didn’t even unpack my pole in the setting sun. I didn’t want to end the day on a note of
failure. They made a few casts, I drank a beer, Rachel gave up first.

Pete quit making pointless casts, Janky made frantic and desperate casts, in every direction, he hated the empty drive back to shore.

Darkness enveloped us, we floated on black water – the night was eeiry.

“How long you think he’s gonna hold us captive, out in this damn boat?” I wondered. “Never can tell,” Rachel said, “his passion can dim the rest of the world.”

Janky was shirtless, sweaty, he turned and saw our bored yawns. “Alright, y’all – guess we’re done,” he said.

We waited for Janky to bring us into shore. I heard the jingle of key turns, a mute motor, he tried again, and grinding, sputtering sounds satisfied my attention. We didn’t budge. Janky looked worried like he pissed his pants. He twisted the key, and nothing, again.

The notion started to set in, and your heart starts to race like your sprinting, even though, you’re paralysed with shocked fear in a damn

boat – it’s a scary thing to realise that you are stuck, out in deep water. The sound of the current lapping almost seemed to be laughing at us – I won’t lie, panic crawled my spine.