Jimmy and the Musky
At dawn the black shadow in the midnight blue waters becomes a golden platform of cedar wood upon a shimmering background. Each plank nestles peacefully with its neighbor and rides the waves hand in hand as the dock becomes the interstitial meeting place between two realms – the realm of land and the realm of the lake.
On this swaying moorage a young boy lays sleeping, his hands between his knees and his head on the ball of his shoulders. A grating cry lifts Jimmy’s head and his eyes catch hold of a blue heron flying along the shoreline. The great bird reminds him of the age of the dinosaur when pterosaurs swept over the edges of prehistoric lakes. He watches the relic disappear behind the stand of birch and maple trees where the land juts out to delineate the bay.
Jimmy yawns and wipes the slumber pebbles from the corners of his eyes. He rises to his feet and eradicates any of sleep’s remaining embers from his stream of consciousness. He is an aroused three-year old boy embarking on another day of sunshine and dancing waves.
There is a small eddy just beyond the edge of the dock and Jimmy yelps with joy. He runs to the edge of the dock and through the shifting blue waters he espies Fishy. Fishy was his friend. Fishy was bigger than he was. Daddy told him that Fishy is a musky with big teeth that likes to bite off the fingers of little boys.
Jimmy knew better about Fishy. He could go swimming with Fishy any time that he wanted and Fishy would give him a lot of fun swimming along the shoals where the pickerel run away from them. Fishy would take him to the sunken logs where the two would watch the large mouth bass try to bite at everything that swims by them. But the bass would not do this when Jimmy and Fishy came swimming by. They would hide in holes and underneath branches until Fishy led Jimmy elsewhere.
When Jimmy needed air Fishy took him up to the surface. Sometimes Fishy would let the boy ride on his back and the two of them would crisscross the lake with Jimmy pretending that he was Roy Rogers and Fishy pretending to be Trigger. The pair made many happy trails in the lake.
On this morning when Jimmy saw the familiar swelling in the water he knew that Fishy was coming to play. The boy started taking off his clothes in anticipation of the great sport ahead of him.
Fishy broke the surface and rolled over on his side displaying his olive skin that was interspersed with regular brown stripes. His head was like a blunt spear flipping up and down. His gelatin eyes were fixed on Jimmy. Fishy then arced his back and disappeared under a swell of expanding ripples.
Jimmy started running towards the end of the dock and was ready to jump in when an unexpected voice froze him to his spot. “Where are you going little boy?” the resonant voice sounded.
Jimmy turned and saw a man wearing a long, flowing robe that partially concealed his sandals. His hair was long and brown. He had a double tufted beard lying beneath his aquiline nose. His blue eyes appeared to be the focal point where the whole universe inversed upon itself. He wore a Montreal Expos baseball cap. In one of the man’s hands was a Shakespeare fishing rod equipped with a Mitchell 300 reel. On the end of the line was a large sparkling silver Canadian Wiggler fishing bait.
Jimmy did not recognize the man. He was not one of the guests staying at his Dad’s cottage this weekend. Somehow, though, Jimmy got the idea that he knew this man, that everybody knew this man. The boy did not ask the man to identify himself. The man did not ask Jimmy the same either.
“That was a mighty big muskellunge I just saw out there!” the man said to the boy. “Do you mind if I take a few casts to see if I can hook him?”
Jimmy noticed that the man had asked the question in a tone that indicated that it did not matter how he would answer. The man was going to cast any way. Usually Jimmy would succumb to the whims of an adult but now that Fishy’s life was at stake, he knew that he had to stand up against the man. The only way that he knew how to accomplish this was to cry out “No!” and beat his balled up fists against the man.
The man put his hand on Jimmy’s head, his fingers stretched out over the contours of the boy’s cranium. In a soothing voice the man said to him, “Little boy, don’t you know who I am?”
Jimmy tried to suppress his sobs but he couldn’t. This man meant to place a triple-barbed hook into Fishy’s mouth. Jimmy grabbed hold of the arm and dragged it down to where he was able to gnash his teeth into the man’s wrists.
At that moment Fishy exploded out of the water in a dazzling jump before falling back on his dorsal side. A wide-angled spray threw water on both the boy and the man.
The man pushed Jimmy to the side with little effort. He then hurled out a long cast that plopped in the vicinity where Fishy had leapt. The man began reeling in, setting his drag as loose as possible. As he reeled he said to Jimmy who was lying prostrate on the dock, “Little boy, when a man goes out fishing he is hoping to catch some of his ego. To reel in a big one and feel it fight and tug against your line, you know that everything that you are is on that line as well. You are matched against the fish. If the fish makes a run and snaps your line you have lost a part of yourself forever. But if you handle your line with patience and confidence, it does not matter what the fish does for it cannot match what a man can do. In time it becomes yours.”
The Canadian Wiggler returned to the dock without being struck by Fishy or any other fish in the lake even though several yellow perch were chasing after it. The man crouched down, resting his buttocks against his ankles while using his rod for support. He stared intently into Jimmy’s eyes. “You do not approve of what I do. I can see it in you yet I do not know why.”
Jimmy took a few backwards steps to increase the distance between him and this compelling man. Once he achieved a comfortable distance he tried to put together a sentence. “Fishy is my friend. I don’t think that what you are doing is very nice to Fishy.”
The man chuckled. “Well, aren’t I your friend too?”
Jimmy felt ill at ease. He put his hand to his mouth and said with anguish, “I don’t know who you are.”
“Come now, little boy. You know me. You can say my name,” the man said with a reassuring smile.
“Are you Jesus?” Jimmy asked bluntly.
The man gave a slight nod. “I am your friend, aren’t I , little boy?”
Jimmy was not in awe of this man. Although Jesus to him was as real as his mother and father, he still did not feel any overriding respect for him. Jesus had never proven himself to him as of yet. “Mommy and Daddy say that you are everybody’s best friend.”
“And so I am but am I your friend?” The man rose to his feet.
Jimmy did not feel intimidated by the man’s stature that almost tripled his. He was used to seeing eye to thigh with almost everybody that he encountered. He did not answer the question posed to him. He could not confirm with this man that he was his friend.
Fishy chose that moment to leap from the lake. He was only feet away from the end of the dock. Jimmy could see in the musky’s eyes that he was growing impatient in waiting for him to go swimming.
“Man!” the man said. “That sure is one big muskellunge. It must go twenty twenty five pounds! Do you mind if I try another cast?”
The lure had already hit the surface before Jimmy could say anything. Once again the Wiggler returned with only its perch stragglers pursuing it.
“You know,” the man said, “You still haven’t said if I am your friend or not.”
Jimmy felt relieved that Fishy had not gone for the bait. But he knew that the ordeal was not over yet. This man was going to test both Jimmy and the musky to the limits. Something eventually was going to break.
“Well?” The man was crouching once again, carefully adjusting his robe to his new posture.
“Fishy is my friend because he doesn’t hurt anybody. But you are trying to hurt Fishy. I don’t think that that is nice,” Jimmy said with a nervous edge to his voice. He stepped back a few paces.
The man still tried to be soothing as he said, “So you are saying that I am not your friend? Do you know where people go if they refuse to admit that they are my friends? They go to Hell where their flesh is constantly aflame. They could have easily avoided this by just saying that I am their friend. You still have a chance little boy to avoid such perdition. You can still be my friend!”
The threat weighed heavily upon Jimmy’s heart. He was on the verge of tears. He asked, “Will Fishy go there too because he is not your friend?”
The man slapped his thigh in laughter. “Fishy will not go anywhere. There’s no heaven or hell for a fish, just the frying pan!”
The tears now did roll from Jimmy’s eyes while the man continued, “A fish cannot be your friend little boy. Only humans can be your friends. One day you will learn this. And on that day I will still be your friend while Fishy is long gone.”
The man rose to his feet again and handed Jimmy the fishing rod. “Why don’t you try a cast of your own little boy? I will tell you that games with fish can never be as exciting as catching fish as game.”
Jimmy took the fishing rod and for a moment or two he actually was considering casting for Fishy. The man said that it was the right thing to do. And the man said he was his friend and a friend like this man would not lead him astray.
But then Jimmy saw Fishy rise to the surface and shake his head vigorously. Fishy always did this whenever something got caught in his gills. And then it struck Jimmy. Fishy was his real friend while the man was not. Jimmy tossed the fishing rod into the water and watched it sink to the bottom nine feet below.
The man did not show anger or remorse. In a friendly tone he said to Jimmy, “So be it, little boy. But there will be a time when you and I can be true friends and we will not let anything so trivial as an animal’s welfare come between us.”
The man, the robe and sandaled Jesus with the baseball cap, dove into the water. Jimmy watched as he swam down to retrieve the fishing rod. Suddenly Fishy appeared with his back rigid and his mouth opened revealing rows of razor sharp teeth. From the dock Jimmy watched in dismay as Fishy seemed to devour the man bite by bite, sandals, robe and baseball cap.
When there was nothing left of the man, Jimmy jumped into the lake and joined Fishy. But Fishy had somehow changed. He no longer showed any interest in swimming with the boy. Instead he bulleted downward and went after the still shimmering Canadian Wiggler that was half-buried in the mire.
Fishy took the lure into his mouth. Three barbs pierced through his lip and at once he started to race towards the center of the lake. There was the stinging sharp sound of fishline zinging from the reel. Jimmy did not want his friend to disappear forever. He took hold of the reel and rod and swam back to the dock.
Once upon the platform he began to draw the line in. He wanted to bring Fishy back to the dock and be friends with him once more. Fishy fought furiously and would not come back in easily. But the man had placed some powerful test onto his reel and the musky was no match to it.
After a long struggle Fishy could be seen near the dock again. He was spent and the shine in his eye was gone. Suddenly Jimmy realized what he was doing to his friend. He had to let Fishy go. He brought the line to his teeth and was going to bite his way through it.
But before he was all the way through, a huge fishing net splashed through the surface and Fishy was lifted upward to the dock. Behind Jimmy, stood the man with a drenched robe and baseball cap. His long wet hair hung like writhing serpents from his head. He was holding the end of the net.
“That is some fish that you caught!” he smiled, looking at the prize catch flopping in the net.
“I thought that you were dead!” Jimmy cried.
“I rise from death,” the man retorted. “It is what I do.”
“What are you going to do with Fishy?” Jimmy asked. He could barely see his friend through the tears in his eyes.
“I can do nothing with him. You caught him. He is yours. You have dominion over him.”
“Then I will let him go and swim with him again,” Jimmy responded, feeling hope once more return to his life. “Thank you Mister for what you have done!”
“Am I your friend?” The man said as he pulled Fishy from the net and pulled the hooks from his mouth.
“Yes, you are!” Jimmy exclaimed.
The man gently put Fishy back in the water. A moment later Jimmy was swimming with his tired friend. From his underwater vantage, he looked up to the dock and saw that the man was gone. He wondered about the man. Why did he let him and Fishy go through the ordeal only to have everything return back to the way that it was before? What was the purpose of this?
Before he could come up with any answers Fishy nudged him on his shoulder and said that it was time to play.
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