Mitchell John - Deep Water Blues

Praise for the Writing of Fred Waitzkin

Deep Water Blues

Since I was a child, the desolate out islands of the Bahamas have been a home, none more dear than the shark-infested, storm-ravaged, cursed utopia of Rum Cay. Deep Water Blues churns with the beauty, desperation, violence, and yearning of those fighting to survive on a speck of land in an eternal sea. As a reader, I am on fire. As a son, I could not be more proud. Josh Waitzkin

Fred Waitzkin effortlessly recreates a singular world with uncanny insight and humor. His language is remarkable for its clarity and simplicity. Yet his themes are profound. This is like sitting by a fire with a master storyteller whose true power is in the realm of imagination and magic. Gabriel Byrne

Loved this book. I could not put it down. A lifetime of memories of my own fishing these same waters. Mark Messier, hockey legend

Deep Water Blues does what all fine literature aspires forit transports readers to another time and place, in this case, to a sleepy, lush island deep in the Bahamas. Fred Waitzkin writes about life, sex, and violence with aplomb, and Bobby Little is a tragic hero fit for the Greek myths. Hope to see everyone on Rum Cay soon. Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood

Deep Water Blues has the ease and compelling charm of a yarn spun late in the evening, the sun gone down and the shadows gathering in. Colin Barret, author of Young Skins

The Dream Merchant

Waitzkin offers a singular and haunting morality tale, sophisticated, literary and intelligent. Thoroughly entertaining. Deeply imaginative. Highly recommended. Kirkus Reviews , starred review

Fred Waitzkin took me into a world of risk and violence and salvation that I was loath to relinquish. Its a great novel. Sebastian Junger

The Dream Merchant is a masterpiece. A cross between Death of a Salesman and Heart of Darkness . I believe that in the not-too-distant future we will be referring to Waitzkins novel as a classic. Anita Shreve

Searching for Bobby Fischer

[A] gem of a book [its] quest is beautifully resolved. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

A vivid, passionate, and disquieting book. Martin Amis, The Times Literary Supplement

Ive seldom been so captivated by a book. Tom Stoppard

Under the spreading chess-nut tree there have been many chess books. To my mind this is the best. Cleveland Amory

Mortal Games

Waitzkin captures better than anyoneincluding Kasparov himself in his own memoirthe various sides of this elusive genius. The Observer

Compelling. GQ

The Last Marlin

A remarkably ambitious and satisfying memoir. The New York Times Book Review

When Fred Waitzkin was younger, he thought he had it in him to be a good writer. He was right. This memoir of growing up is passionate, often very funny, very tender, and thoroughly engrossing. Peter Jennings

Finding purity in the rarefied world of big-game fishing was Ernest Hemingways forte, and he imbued it with transcendent significance. Fred does the same in The Last Marlin , but in far more human terms. John Clemans, editor, Motor Boating & Sailing

Though there is much sorrow and confusion on these pages there is great beautya nearly profligate amount of italmost everywhere you look clearly one of of a kind and deeply moving. Jewish Exponent

Deep Water Blues

A Novel

Fred Waitzkin

Illustrated by John Mitchell

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction based in some respects on actual events. Most names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales except in limited circumstances is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2019 by Fred Waitzkin

Cover design by Mauricio Daz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-5773-8

Published in 2019 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com

Part I

Ive visited Rum Cay many times on my old boat, the Ebb Tide , trolled for months of my life off the southeast corner of the remote Bahamian island where the ocean is a rich cobalt blue reminding me of a color my artist mother favored in her abstract canvases. Stellas dark blues were thickly textured like roiling ocean with intimations of agony rising from below like the cries of drowning sailors. My mother hated my fishing life, the legacy of my father, whom she abhorred, but still, I think of her fervent canvases whenever I troll the edges of dark storms, which is often a good place to find wahoo and marlin.

Coming into Rum Cays south side after fishing, with the sun behind us, the reefs close to the island were natural stepping stones into Bobbys tiny harbor, each of them with a resident population of colorful grouper, snappers, jacks, and crawfish. In calm weather, following the string of reefs marked by red buoys was like a game I played on my way home from school, stepping around one flagstone to the next but never touching. Just that fifteen-minute cruise from the blue water past the reefs into the quaint, dreamy marina was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for meeach time I did it.

Then in the late afternoon, after tying the boat, while the sun was still up, you might be lucky enough to hear the lush singing voice of Flo, the daughter of Rosie, Rastas ex-girlfriend, who had a little pig farm just outside of town. Flo was a savvy, spirited lady with a love of jazz standards, particularly those of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. She played a collection of their music on her little tape recorder while walking the sandy road to work each morning from the village of about sixty souls, while holding hands with her little girl. In the afternoon, Flo took down billowing sheets from a line beside the clubhouse maybe a hundred feet from the feeble docks. Many afternoons I watched and listened as she folded laundry from Bobbys cottages and sang wind-tossed ballads about lost love and regret. Whenever she sang God Bless the Child or Summertime to her baby, I had to wipe my eyes. All the boat owners looked up when Flo began singing. Then shed suddenly stop mid-verse to give a hug to her three-year-old daughter who played nearby, next to one of Bobbys fish sculptures, and sometimes the little girl handed her mommy clothespins or stuffed the sweet-smelling sheets into Flos straw basket.

Many times, Ive made the long ocean voyage to Rum Cay to troll off the southeast corner of the island. But my fishing ardor has often been dwarfed by surprises onshore, where breezy sensuous nights plunge me back into the yearnings of a younger man and where Ive met maimed and beautiful people on the dock and a few that were evil beyond redemption.

~

In the spring and early summer, the best fishing months in the southern Bahamas, a dozen custom sportfishing boats and several opulent yachts are tied up in the tiny marina, each of them owned by a successful businessperson, usually an older man. In the evening, before dinner, music blasts from big speakers on the boatsa bedlam of soundscrews exchange marlin shoptalk while carefully washing and chamoising the boats to an immortal glow. As the sky darkens, powerful underwater lights snap on from the stern of each boat showing off an aquarium of sharks, snappers, and tarpon swimming in the harbor. Also, on many of the boats, young women in G-strings and little or nothing else bend over the stern pointing and oohing and aahing at man-eater bull and tiger sharks.