Day 27: Dobject's Fishing Pier

Sands are crooked hands,

wriggling snakes and ladders under a liquid shore,

and a wooden pier is ancient origami

bent and buckled under decades of wash.

Walking is watching 20 years of shifting sands

spread across 45 meters of warped planks

where 25 men of 50 or more to reiterate entirely the

5,000 some years of fisherman wisdom:” good” and “bad.”

First trashed two decades ago,

second crumpled by a tornado on the coast,

and fresh constructions receive the thrice worn name

from desperate parents thrice upheld,

and like a stubborn 5 buck tradition,

we walk the incarnate bridge like a mobius strip,

a bridge to nowhere, the parted sea, the middle finger

stretched into the ocean, connects only to itself

and back to the car.  

Day 23: Lobject’s Fishing Pier

They’ll probably bring him a fishing

pole even though babies don’t fish

a mini rod for him to hold

and take a picture with

something to commemorate

the day with grandpa and dad

the first time he stepped on the pier

wouldn’t be the best memory he had

Day 20: Pobject's Fishing Pier

Taylor hadn’t had to tell that she still wet the bed. And in front of Molly Cates, too! Molly’s mom already let her have sleepovers where they’d do each other’s nails and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. Molly’s birthday was next week, there was no way she’d get an invitation now.

Phoebe looked back at the wide-roofed pavilion at the foot of the pier. Taylor wouldn’t be long, he’d even left his line in the water. He was just going to get a lemon ice with the money Mom had given them that morning. She’d spent hers on a jar of polished shells. “Dumb girl,” Taylor told her. “You’d fill that jar a hundred times over just walking down the beach.”

The fish in Taylor’s bucket made a slapping sound. Phoebe peered inside. It was getting dark but it was still light enough for her to count the fish. Four smallish brown ones and one great big silver fish with a shiny speckled side. They were still alive, all of them. They had a few inches of water, but they couldn’t turn around too much.

No sign of Taylor yet. “Probably talking to girls,” Phoebe muttered to herself. The sun was almost gone.

They’d have to be back soon, Mom had said. “Mrs. Cates and Molly and me are going back to the hotel. You remember the number?” She’d made them both say it five times over. Molly’d stuck her tongue out as they’d walked away.

“Probably talking to girls,” she said again. One of the brown fish flopped over on top of the others, like it was trying to get out. Phoebe watched as its mouth opened and closed desperately.

Without thinking about it she picked up the bucket and lifted it onto the rail that ran all the way around the pier. She tipped it over, mouth down, watching the five fish tumble back into the sea. She smiled.

Day 5: Fishing pier

Bogue Inlet

The etiquette of these huge pieces of lumber over water is specific: look in all directions before you cast, never cheer before you lay eyes on your reel’s pull, remain silent unless you have something imperative to say, but always congratulate another’s rod that is obviously heavy with victory.  At least those were the rules set by my grandfather.

With poles hanging over each side, we can see the foam tops of the waves from behind.  Hear the oscillation that never reaches a peak and the waves that chose to break, white spewing over the green water it is chasing.

My small, black rod comes with instructions:  “The bottom is your grip.  Pull this.  Toss that. Reel.” I follow each step, hear a plunk, and see a small flutter in water below.  We position ourselves on one of the wooden benches, just large enough for two people to sit together without touching.  I sit, anxious for a pull on my line and fighting the possible seasickness this land-bound structure can bring.

My eyes shift, left and right at other’s lines in the water. My grandfather’s eyes only looked out at the water’s horizon.  I feel a subtle tug on my line, the rod dipping a bit with the small click of my reel.  “It’s just the current,” he grumbles, his eyes never leaving the water ahead of him.

That morning my mother had said abruptly, “You are going fishing with Pop.”  It always seemed odd to me that she called him Pop while his own son called him Mr. Bright.  This fact left me unsure of what to call him once we were face to face.  He looked at me for a moment and then gruffed, “You’ve grown.”  I smiled and shook my head in agreement, unsure of what else to do and of last time I had seen him.  My mom jabbered on while he and I just stood there.  Even though he was taller, he somehow seemed smaller.  Next to her slender body, he looked more like Winnie the Pooh than the boogey man.

He shifts his weight on the bench.  I notice the orange booey that marked the No Swimming, No Surfing line and counted the guys on boards, ignoring the warnings as they were perched on their boards closer to the pier than the orange warning indicated.  From the height of the pier, they were only the size of goldfish in a bowl.  One, five, ten in the water and three more hesitating on the water’s edge, boards in hand.  I wondered how they avoided getting caught in the lines from the pier.

The pier’s silence was interrupted by high-pitched squeals of a girl standing next to a ball-capped guy pulling so hard on his reel that it was uncomfortably bent in half.  My grandfather’s mouth went into a straight line of dissatisfaction.  “We caught something!  We caught something!” she yelled.  I peered over the wide wooden rail and saw a sea turtle, so big I could not have fit my nine-year-old arms all the way around it. Two, small silver fish were attached to something growing on the shell.  The turtle’s stubby limbs were struggling to paddle down as the young man continued to pull hard. 

My grandfather got up, walking away from me with no obvious purpose.  His hands, splotched by years of sun exposure and scars, reached for the line from their pole.  The sea turtle hadn’t left the water as my grandpa pulled a well-used knife from his pocket and cut the line without hesitation.  “We don’t pull them in,” he muttered, walking away.  The guy and girl stood silent, unsure of what had happened.  My gaze remained on my grandpa’s hands returning the knife to his pants pocket as he returned to our bench.

We had started out early that day, and I had started to feel a burn across my cheeks by the time he said, “Time now.”  I reeled in my line, carefully tucked my hook under one of the line loops of the rod.  I hadn’t stop thinking of the tradition and respect for the sea that moved my grandpa to not only touch but cut another man’s line.  It felt good; I had not only been allowed but invited into his space.  As we walked down the pier, through the pier store, and down the path to return to my parents, I stood up a little straighter and kept up with his pace.