Multiplex Fandango (16 page)

Greg, treading water, began to alternately scream and gurgle as he panicked, trying to kick the fish and swim back to the boat, simultaneously.

“Trey… Trey… gggg… Help me.”

Trey, picked himself up from the cramped floor of the boat, now covered in fish guts and soaked with the bloody mixture from his earlier cutting.
The rod forgotten, he grabbed the paddle and held it out towards his struggling friend.
Within seconds, Greg was back in the boat, hyperventilating and crying.

“Jesus H. Christ.
Did you see the size of that thing?”

“Did I see it?
It almost ate me!” screamed back Greg.

Trey was about to tell him how stupid that was, then stopped.
It had been the biggest fish he had ever seen.
Too many times he had swum in the deep water, the ‘Jaws’ soundtrack playing in his mind.
Even though no one had ever heard of a person being eaten in a freshwater lake by a shark or a fish and even though no one had ever been chewed up by a catfish, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Trey glanced around and noticed his rod had disappeared, surely, on the bottom of the lake being drug around by his own Moby Dick.
He maneuvered Greg into the seat and noticed the young boy was beginning so shiver uncontrollably.
Trey jerked of
f
his shirt and ordered his friend to remove his shoes.
He massaged the boy’s arms and shoulders until he could see the blood return.
Both of them were crying, their chance at greatness, twice removed.

“I wanna go home,” said Greg, trying real hard to stop crying.
“I don’t want to fish anymore.”

“Okay.
Okay,” said Trey, wanting to stay and try again.
The lure of all fishermen who had just lost the big one was upon him, but he had lost his rod.
There was only Greg’s and there was an unwritten rule never to fish with anyone else’s pole.
His grandfather had said that ‘if you caught something on someone else’s rig, it wouldn’t really be your own.’
The great fish, if it could be recaught, would belong to Greg.

Trey eyed the sky and saw a storm moving in, hard grey clouds pushing aside the day quickly.
They probably had only fifteen minutes before it hit; just long enough for Greg to dry off before he became soaked again.
It would take twice that to make it back across the inlet to the community dock. Trey eyed the immense TNT dock and thought about taking shelter beneath.
He had no idea how long it would last however, and Greg really needed to get home and into dry clothes.

“Shit,” said Trey, accepting his fate.

It was then he saw his fishing pole, about five feet under the water and wrapped around one of the pilings.
It had snapped and the line appeared to be all that was holding it in place.

“Look! There’s my pole,” he said, pointing into the water.

Greg turned slowly to where Trey pointed, then sat straight when he saw the unmistakable lines of the rod.
“Maybe you can save the reel.”

“Sure,” said Trey, brightening.
He had thought it lost forever.
Then he noticed the tip, it thrashed once, twice, then a series of hard jerks, creating bubbles that rose to the surface.
“Holy Cow.
Look at that!
The fish.
It’s still on.”

Instead of being thrilled, Greg got a worried look on his face.

“Don’t go in there.
Don’t go into the water.”
Greg shook his head hard and stared into the bottom of the boat.
“It’s just too big.
Too damn big.”

Trey watched his friend for a second and then glanced back at the fishing pole.
He let his eyes drift along the piling and for the first time, noticed there were bars jutting out from the sides; like those on telephone poles, but previously camouflaged by bits of seaweed and moss.
It was a huge fish, but ‘Jaws’ could never happen here.
All he had to do was climb down, cut the line and then get his reel back.
His dad was going to wonder where it was anyway, considering it was a Christmas present and Trey’s favorite gift.
If they went to the mountains next week, he would never be able to explain it away.

“Naw.
It’s okay.
The fish is gone.
I know that.
I’m just going to get the pole.
My father would kill me if I lost the whole rig.
Anyway, if he finds out it’s missing my parents will know what we did today.
And my parents will tell your parents and then we’ll be grounded from the lake all summer.”

At the threat of grounding, Greg brought his head up sharply.
The lake was their life.
Trey watched as the emotions moved through his friend’s face.
Finally, his friend sighed and nodded his head slowly.

“Okay, but hurry up,” said Greg in sotto voice.
“And be careful.”

‘Hurry up and be careful,’ thought Trey.
Those were two things that shouldn’t go together.
He wasn’t going to hurry, but he would certainly be careful.

Trey paddled the canoe back up to the piling, the shadow of the dock placing them in darkness.
The smell of decay was strongest here.
He noticed the eddies of black oil and multicolored gasoline slick mixed with trash and the brown bubbles of pollution.
If the lake was Heaven, this was Hell.
Trey leaned past Greg and used the short length of rope attached to the front of the boat to tie it firmly into place.
He removed his tennis shoes and folded them, placing them on the seat.
He stood up and stared at the disgusting water, not wanting to enter, but needing the big catch.

“Alright.
Watch me, man.
Everything is gonna be okay.
I’m just going to get the rod and I’ll be right back up.”
Trey placed a hand on Greg’s shoulder.
“Stay cool.”

With that, he placed a foot on the metal edge of the canoe and pushed off.
The water embraced him as he, feet first, sliced deeply from hot to cool water.
He pushed himself back to the surface and side-armed his way over to the piling.
Counting to three by thousands, hyperventilating, until his lungs were full, he descended pulling himself down using the slippery spikes.
The rod was deeper than he though, probably fifteen feet, but it was only seconds before he reached it.
Through the murky water, he saw the rod and the line wrapped around the piling six or seven times.
It was the heaviness of the line that had saved his reel.

The tugging had stopped, but he doubted the fish was entirely gone.
Maybe he still had a chance to catch it.
He really didn’t need to cut the line.
He could deceive the fish.
After all, he was human and he had superior brains.
Trey depressed the reel and let out about five feet of slack. Careful, as not to tug on the line still attached to the fish, he began to unwind the rod from the piling.
He was almost finished when he paused and returned to the surface.

“What the hell are you doing, Trey?
I thought you were gonna cut the line.”

Trey breathed heavily across the water and grinned.
“I got everything under control.
When I come back up, I’m gonna hand you the rod.
Hold onto it tight until I get back into the boat.”

“Don’t do it, Trey,” begged Greg, his eyes beginning to tear up again.
“It’s too big.
It’s gonna eat you.”

Trey watched his friend and almost called him a crybaby, but then he laughed.
“It’s not gonna eat me, Greg.
Don’t get your panties in a wad.
I got everything under control.”
He reached up and punched his friend in the shoulder.
“Hey.
Trust me.”

By the look in the smaller boy’s eyes, he could tell that any sense of trust was being smothered by fear.
Trey cocked his head, winked hard, then, after another count of three, descended back down the piling.

In no time, he had the rod and line unattached from the piling.
He was about to ascend to the surface when he was jerked impossibly hard.
Trey flew through the water plunging deeper and deeper.
He had gone fifty feet by the time he thought to let go of the rod.
Even after he released it, the incredible momentum continued his propulsion towards the bottom.
The pressure on his head was becoming incredible, feeling like a knife being thrust into the center of his brain.
Something within his mind, however, kept him from screaming and releasing the precious air he needed to survive.

Finally, his descent slowed.
Trey glanced upwards and like a lighter darkness, could glimpse the faraway surface. Or what he thought was the surface.
He was too deep, deeper than he had ever been before.
Trying hard not to panic, he began to ascend, as slowly as possible because of the immense pressure being exerted upon his body.
He achieved only a few feet before he felt his ascent halt as something gripped each ankle painfully.

Trey stared down and watched in horror as the viney weeds wrapped around his ankle.
In the almost darkness, he watched as two more moved for him like tentacles from some great beast, encircling his wrists and pulling his arms out hard.
Many more waved below, as if beckoning him deeper.
The decaying corpses of a hundred fish stared back at him, as did the skulls, picked clean and gleaming.

Trey thrashed, attempting to free himself from the living weed, realizing he was quickly running out of air.
Yet as his air depleted, instead of his vision dimming, he saw the water brightening.
Although he was very deep, he could now see through the water like it was near the surface and clear.
A figure came into his vision, rising gradually from the depths beneath him.
The only movement was the minute openings and closings of the mouth and the almost intelligent wavings of its long whiskers.
When the catfish was even with his head and staring straight into his eyes, it opened its mouth wide revealing a mouthful of smallish teeth and rows of pulsating gills. Trey slammed his eyes shut, jerking at his bonds.
He refused to see what was about to eat him and felt the warmth of urine seep from his water-shriveled penis.
When the first of the whiskers brushed against his face, he screamed, releasing all of his air, condemning him to death.

He finally even lost enough strength to scream and his body reflexively went to suck in the brackish water of the lake, filling his lungs with what he could never breathe… but it didn’t happen that way.
Trey felt a warmth along his face and neck, flowing into his chest.
A calmness filled him, stilling his panic and his need to breathe.
Slowly, Trey opened his eyes to stare into the bottomless eyes of the catfish.
His fear had left him and he watched as the whiskers, dozens of them, caressed his skin.
The mouth opened and closed and he couldn’t help but admire the synchronicity of the gills.

Trey hung in the water, held fast by the weeds, staring into the huge maw of a fish that he had wanted to catch.
The need to breathe had departed him and he wondered if he had drowned.
He wondered if he was dead.

Perhaps

The voice was in his head and filled him with the fullness of love.
It was the same feeling as when Guinn had told him she loved him for the first time.
Every part of his body had been filled with the heavy electric feeling of happiness.
If this was death, he wanted more of it.

Love is a wonderful thing.
It is life.

‘Yes, it is,’ he felt himself thinking. ‘It transcends death. Makes life good living’, as his grandfather had said.
He realized, without panic and as if it was utterly sane, that the fish was speaking to him.

‘Am I dead?’ he asked.

Perhaps
, came the same reply.

‘How am I breathing?’

You are not.

‘Then I am dead.’
Although he said it, the thought held no terror for him.

Perhaps.

‘Why do you keep saying that?
Why do you keep saying
perhaps
?’

The choice is yours
.

The answer confused Trey.
Maybe the fish was mad for his attempts to catch him.
Even with the love pervading his body, he laughed at the insanity of the concept.
How could a fish be mad?
How could it have feelings?
Still…

‘Are you angry?’

No.
It is the way of the world.