from Chapter 14
Get fishermen and get fishermen. Oh yeah, and get fishermen, too.
You see, get fishermen who just like go to say they go fishing. They get the right poles, the right spinners, the right lines. They bring the beer and the flashlights and what not. And they talk about this bait and this place and that and all that stuff so that people who don’t know fishing think that they real good fishermen.
And that’s really what they like. They like people think they good.
Then get the kind fishermen who just like get the fish. All business, these guys. They just go do their business and fill the buckets full. Sometimes these guys fish with dynamite or use bleach for get tako. They no care about the water or nothing. They no like talk about what they do, where to go or nothing. No like give away secrets these guys. Someday no going have fish, and they going look for something else for get. But whatever they get, never going be enough.
And the other kind fishermen?
They the ones that can fish the ocean for generations, yet always still going get fish in the sea. The kind that catch ‘em not by the pound for sell, but for the good times and stories they can tell, with one Tupperware full chicken or styrofoam plate lunches, one soda sitting next to them on the rocks...
They the ones that know where the fish are, during what phase of the moon they going come out, whether the tide stay high or low or in between. What the air is smells like, how thick it feels between one’s fingers and on the tongue.
But more than that, they know the fish themselves, beyond pounds and inches...they know what the fish is—to the smaller fish it devours, as well as to the larger fish beyond. They know what it means to a proud father coming home with one heavy plastic bucket dangling from one bamboo pole to that rascal hanabata kid.
They know the laughter of birthday parties when get plenty sashimi and ahi poke to go with the poi. The taste of dried aku washed down with one cold bottle Miller.
And they know that the fish color is brightest when it courses through the water, and that it quickly fades as the fish gasps and quivers the last life from its gills. Sad, yeah? But from sadness come good times, too.
You know the type.
