Lounging at the beach bars had been relaxing when Legion first arrived at Orient Beach, but even paradise becomes monotonous after a year. This fishing trip was just what he needed. He had been looking forward to it for a week. It was just like Paul to drop in out of nowhere and expect everything to stop for him. Sure, he could have rescheduled and made it up to the captain, but—. The tip of a wave over the side of the Anguilla ferry slaps Legion’s face like a wet hand; as if the ocean had been listening to his thoughts and couldn’t take any more of his bullshit. Legion’s face transforms from startle to a fuck-you grin and he shakes a fist at the ocean. “Stay out of my head,” he sputters.
The truth the ocean knows is that Legion had been thankful for the excuse not to continue the spar with Paul today. The life he had run away from a year ago had found him and, being a coward, Legion is running again.
After clearing customs at Blowing Point, Legion steps out into the dusty commotion behind the ferry terminal. As Webb had said on the phone, there are a lot of white vehicles in the line of waiting cabs, but only one driven by a white guy. Webb recognizes Legion by his blue shirt and Panama hat and waves for him to hurry. He holds open the passenger door of the rusty Suzuki Samurai, impatient to get under way.
“The handle on the inside is broken, so if you need out, reach through the window and use the one on the outside,” Webb says as he slams the door. The door window is missing so it won’t be hard to reach through to the outside handle. Webb uses a bungee cord to secure the driver’s door after he gets in.
The vehicles on Anguilla are all left-hand drive, like in the States, but because of the British heritage, it is customary to drive on the left side of the road. Since there is no centerline, Webb takes the center of the road until there is oncoming traffic. Legion feels a flush of panic when vehicles approach from the opposite direction.
After they negotiate a few roundabouts, they are in open country on the road that traverses the spine of the island. Webb’s boat is moored at Island Harbor on the east end.
“Morning,” Webb says reaching his hand across for a shake. “Half day of fishing, right? Big stuff if we can find it. That’s what we talked about. I’ll get you back for the two o’clock ferry.”
Legion returns his wide smile, the business smile they both use. “No, that’s not what we talked about. Half a day means four hours of fishing. Considering the travel, we’ll barely get in three. And if there’s fish to clean––” Legion cuts his sentence short when Webb slows onto the shoulder of the road.
“We won’t be keeping any fish. There won’t be time to clean fish.” Webb looks up the road for a moment longer, then turns to Legion. “Do you know what day this is? The sailboat race starts at two. My boat is the rescue boat. I’ve got to be there. I’m supposed to pick up my cousins at Sandy Ground. As it is, it’ll be after two before I’m there. The race will be started already.”
Webb’s forced smile softens to a plea for Legion to understand, but Legion’s face hardens.
“Look, I’ll do the trip for half price, or we can do a full day trip another day at the half day rate.” When Legion still looks sternly at him, he adds, “Look man, they rescheduled yesterday’s race to today due to weather. It couldn’t be helped.”
“If I insist, will you do the trip as we agreed for the full four hours?”
Webb closes his eyes and lowers his grimacing face to the steering wheel. “Yes.”
“Then I’ve got a proposal. I want to see the race. I’d rather see the race than fish. We fish until the start time, and then you take me with you to the race.”
Webb throws himself back in the seat, his arms locked stiff against the steering wheel as if bracing for a crash. His doleful face transforms as he works through the possibilities. Combined with his sandy hair and freckles, his jubilant smile makes Legion think of Christmas and Paul tearing open presents. Paul’s freckles, like his smile, have faded over time, but Webb is a reminder that pure joy is possible.
They lock onto each other’s eyes and laugh together; not knowing what it means, only that it means something. Two boys, sharing the rush of an adventure, replace the hard-nosed men. In that moment, they bond like brothers.
“Yeah, it will work! We’ll catch fish, you will see. We will go out to the canyon and catch something big; then troll back to Sandy Ground in time for the races. We will get in the full four hours fishing that way. The races will be over by four and we can fish on the way back if you want.”
“As long as you get me back in time for the last ferry, it’s a deal.”
“Sure. Last ferry is at six, no problem,” Webb says as he pulls back on the road.
The highest point of the island is only two hundred feet above sea level, so there are no spectacular vistas, only thorny scrub, and concrete block shanties that crowd the road. As they descend into Island Harbor, Legion is glad to see the water again and feel the breeze.
A narrow beach surrounds the bay on three sides with a rocky island in the center of the fourth side. Gaps between the shore and the island provide access to deep water. Dilapidated buildings indicate the island is deserted, probably abandoned after a hurricane. The road ends at a concrete pier stretching fifty yards out into the harbor. Homemade fishing boats are moored in the turquoise shallows on both sides.
Webb pulls the Suzuki under a sea grape tree behind the beach. Unlike in Saint Martin, where the beaches have been cleared to accommodate more tourists, the sea grape trees here overhang the water.
“Let’s get a beer first,” Webb says as they walk toward a tin-roofed shed.
A charter captain that drinks in the morning? Legion thinks. Or, are my jitters so obvious that he knows I need a drink?
A stand-up bar extends across the entire front of the shack. There is only enough room between the bar and the plank shelf of liquor bottles behind for a bartender to stand. The awning over the bar hinges at the roof so it can be folded down to lock up the bar. The awning is propped up, but nobody is there.
Legion follows Webb around behind. Several elderly barefoot black men in faded T-shirts and tattered shorts sit on the trunk of a fallen palm tree. Their kinky black hair looks dusty and flat in the back from when they were sleeping. They watch a cast iron pot suspended on a tripod over an open fire. The steam smells of rotting fish.
Webb says something to the group in a language Legion does not recognize. He heard his name so he takes it for an introduction.
“Legion, these are my cousins.” He points to each one and gives a name.
“What language is that?” Legion asks.
“English, of course.”
“That’s not English.”
“Yes, yes. Listen.” He says the introduction again slowly. Legion recognized some of the words but the meaning doesn’t come through. The men laugh to each other.
Webb holds up his hands before Legion can ask another question. “Don’t even try. Some words are combined into one word and the words are out of order. I can’t explain it, but it is the island dialect of English. It goes back to the slave days when Negroes were brought in to work the cane fields. The masters spoke English so they picked it up best they could. They teach proper English in school now, but most islanders still speak the dialect among themselves.”
Webb says something to one of the cousins who rushes to the bar.
“I’m not really a beer person,” Legion says. “Does he have vodka?”
Webb smiles and trots around the corner of the bar with his cousin. Legion nods to the remaining cousins. They respond with a perfect “Good morning.”
“Good fishing today,” one says as he gets up to stir the cast iron pot. This seems to be all they have planned for the day.
Legion follows Webb and the cousin as they haul the cooler between them out to a boat tied to the pier. It is an old twenty-three footer that was once white but is now creamy with age. A canvas bikini top stretches back from the windshield to cover two side-by-side captain’s chairs behind the console. A single fighting chair faces rearward looking over two outboards mounted to the transom. Stubby rods stick up out of holders along each side.
“You keep a clean boat,” Legion says.
“It’s my office, my livelihood. I take care of The Little Lady and she takes care of me.”
Webb puts away the bumpers that kept the boat away from the pier while the cousin on the dock unties the lines front and back. They coordinate without the need to talk or even look at each other. Webb starts one motor and steers through the moored boats out of the harbor. He opens a hatch built into the port gunwale and selects several baits that he displays on the fighting chair.
“Which one will catch them today?”
“I thought you were the expert.”
“There is no expert. There is only luck. Sometimes they go for the brightly colored ones and sometimes white. Sometimes they are deep, sometimes by the shore. So you pick; you look like a lucky fellow.”
“I think white and silver ones down deep and the chartreuse at the top. And let’s try deep water.”
“You’ve fished before, I see. You are a serious fisherman.” He pushes the throttle and does a final adjustment on their heading before clipping the baits to the rods. One at a time, he lets out four lines. Two are weighted to go deep and the baits on the other two skip through the waves at the surface. They are all out at different distances to prevent tangles in the turns. After a final adjustment of the reels’ drags, he returns to the wheel to steer toward the canyon thirty minutes farther out. They squint out over the water looking for the birds that will signal a ball of mullet where the game fish will be.
Webb’s sunglasses dangle from a cord around his neck while he slathers a translucent film of zinc oxide cream on his face, rubbing it in except for his lips, which remained a thick smear. With his long-billed cap, a curtain sewn to the back to protect his neck, and long-sleeved shirt, he is well protected from the sun. Legion imagines him walking down Second Avenue back home; even the street people would stop and stare.
“Where are you from, Webb?”
“Right here—born right here. Way back, my ancestors were Scottish. My great-great- whatever was brought over to run a gang of slaves, be an overseer on a sugar cane plantation, back in the seventeen hundreds. He did not like that line of work so he came down to this end of the island to be a fisherman. He learned to fish from a tribe of Arawak Indians living on that island you saw in the harbor. Legend is the Indians used gold fishhooks. My father said he had one when he was a boy and then somebody stole it.
“Don’t know the name of the ancestor from Scotland, but he had a brood of kids with the Indian maidens. His kids inherited webbed toes from the Indians. The English called everybody on the island Webb. That is where my name comes from. My family has been fishing out of Island Harbor ever since. My father taught me and his father taught him.”
“What happened to the Indians?”
“Indian was bred out of them after the English arrived.”
“But what about your black cousins back at the dock?”
Webb laughs, first with his eyes that dance, and then he cackles with his mouth wide open. Legion finds himself laughing also but doesn’t know why.
“Yes, yes. I see what’s bugging you now. Almost everybody on this end of the island is related to me, cousins of some sort, both white and black. My people were not picky about who they mated, only who they married. As far as I know, there are no Negros in my bloodline.”
They reach the canyon, six thousand feet on the depth finder, and troll for another hour with no hits.
“Fishy, fishy, fishy. Come little fishy.” Webb sings like he is calling a hog. “Come on, help me talk to them.”
“If we got a strike right now, I’d think about it. What I really think will help is a drink.”
Out of the cooler, Webb hands Legion two green bottles of soda to open while he sloshes in the ice for the liter bottle of vodka.
“Vodka and Ting are made for each other. You’ll see.”
Webb drinks down his Ting and carefully adds a little vodka. Legion drinks half of his. It is grapefruity, but not sweet, very refreshing. He tops the bottle with the vodka.
One of the reels begins to click.
“I told you a drink would do it,” Legion says as Webb springs to the rod.
The clicking stops and Webb freezes waiting to see if the fish is still there and then jumps back into action when the spool of the reel starts racing.
“Put on the belly strap and get in the fighting chair.”
When Legion is ready, Webb hands him the rod.
“Now lean back and reel fast to set the hook and we’ll see what happens.”
The fish is small. The rigs can handle three-hundred-pound marlin, so they are not sensitive enough to enjoy a small fish. It is just a matter of winching in the five-pound mackerel and hoisting it into the boat. Webb lets it bounce around the bottom until it lies still long enough to clamp it against the deck with his foot.
“Calm down, little buddy,” Webb says to the fish. “It will be over in a minute.”
The fish makes a final shudder before Webb uses pliers to extract the hook.
“It’s too late,” Webb says, then looks at Legion, “I tell you this because you are a fisherman and already know; the sun is too high for marlin. We should have been at the canyon at daybreak for a real chance.”
“Yes, you’re right of course. But this is okay. We’ll go for marlin next time.”
“So how long are you staying at Saint Martin?”
“I live there now…at Orient Beach.”
“But it will never work if you come over by ferry.”
“We’ll figure it out if you want to do it. I can stay on Anguilla the night before.”
“Or I could motor over to Orient while it’s still dark and pick you up. We could be here at the canyon at sunup.”
Webb’s eyes are dancing again. He clearly would rather fish than go on these excursions with the tourists. They discuss the arrangements for the next Sunday when Webb normally doesn’t book charters. He will pick Legion up at the beach in front of La Belle Creole. Legion will pay for the gas and vodka. This then became their routine every Sunday. They would fish with the faith of all fishermen; one morning a school of marlin would await them and all would be made worthwhile in one glorious day.
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