Waitzkin - The Dream Merchant

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For Bonnie, Katya, Josh, Desi, Jack, and Jeff

CONTENTS

PART I

B IMINI , B AHAMAS , 1983

I met Jim in July of 1983 on a tropical island rife with offshore breezes and nights lusty with renewal and reckless hope. I came here to fish in the Gulf Stream each summer, to get time off my back.

We were the only two customers in the tiny End of the World Saloon, but I barely noticed him when I sat down at the sandy weathered bar.

Hello, Ebb Tide, said Cornelius, a heavyset bartender who wore gaudy gold rings from a half-dozen years earlier when hed worked for Colombians off-loading bales of marijuana. I had known him since I was a kid. He always called me Ebb Tide, the name of my fishing boat. Cornelius pulled a Heineken out of a beat-up cooler and set it on the bar in front of me.

The End of the World was an unpainted plywood shack set precariously on the windy south point of Bimini Island in the Bahamas. I loved drinking beer here at night so close to the channel you could hear the tide running and the sound of jacks crashing on schools of baitfish. A hundred nights I drummed on the rough wooden planks to the refrains of Bob Marley coming from Corneliuss rusty boom box. Each time I come back to the island I expect to find the place has been blown into the channel by a hurricane or noreaster. Someday it will be.

I brought you a nice one, I said, lifting a white plastic bucket off the sand floor of the shack. There was a six-pound Nassau grouper curled inside. Cornelius smiled, showing off his two gold front teeth. Grouper was his favorite. The one in the bucket was big enough to feed his wife and kids with enough left over to make a peppery soup the following night.

Whered you catch it? asked the stranger who had pulled up a stool beside me. He stuck out his hand and we shook. He had a strong grip. He was wearing a tight T-shirt and looked battle tested like an aging fighter. On his muscular arm he had the fading tattoo of a full-figured mermaid.

A couple hundred yards off the concrete ship, I lied. Cornelius smiled a little and then walked to the far side of the bar, where he opened the lid of another cooler. He knew there werent any groupers on the sandy bottom near the old wreck.

What kind of bait?

I shrugged.

Whatd you catch it on?

Cornelius was back with my bucket, and scratching around inside there were three small crawfish. That was our deal, fish for crawfish.

Jim caught my eye. In the Bahamas crawfish were out of season and these three were shorts. He glanced back in the bucket.

What bait? he asked again with a naughty grin. Whats the big secret?

Like many fishermen, I feel authorial pride about the wheres and gimmicks of what I do. Three, four times this stranger asked without giving me room to breathe. I didnt want to tell him, but he was in my face bullying and at the same time challenging me to keep my secret. He was a tough guy but also funny.

Why not? Why not? he pushed.

It felt like he was prying himself into my life. I couldnt shut him up.

I caught it with conch slop.

I didnt know they ate conch will you show me?

Show you what?

We could go out together. I love fishing.

Jims salesmanship felt familiar, but I didnt pin it down immediately. I wanted to say no, but turning him down on the spot felt like an opportunity lost. And he knew it.

Jim looked amused. What other fish do you catch off this island?

You can catch anything, almost anything, I said. Thats the beauty of fishing here. The Gulf Stream comes right up to the shore.

What about tuna?

I found myself describing the big schools of black fin that come up at dusk off Picket Rock and Gun Cay. Before long I was telling him what lures I use and how far behind the boat I troll them. He wanted to hear every detail and I fell into a rhythm of giving up hard-won secrets, one after the next. I was saying so much that I felt ridiculous, but I kept talking until we started to laugh. Then he punched me hard on the shoulder. My shoulder throbbed, but I tried not to show it.

Jim was fast and powerful for a fifty-five-year-old, with big appetites, and handsome, with a worn-out toughness.

A sultry offshore wind was rushing through the open windows of the shack. Jim breathed it deeply. It must have been around ten oclock by now and we were still the only two customers at the bar. We had been exchanging memories of our parents, wives, women wed enjoyed. One story opened up the next. We were drinking beer and laughing at ourselves as if we had the truth collared.

* * *

This place is like my backyard, I said, pointing out the rotting window frame of the shack toward the bay with expanses of mangroves to the south and east.

You wouldnt believe the fish you can get right here in the harbor. Big snappers, tarpon, sharks.

Right here in front of this bar?

I pointed to a little jut of sand a hundred feet away.

One night when I was a kid, fourteen or fifteen, I came here with a bucket of bloody tuna scraps. Some local guy told me you could catch big sharks right over there at night. I had brought a hand line and a big hook, the size of my hand. I tossed my bait as far as I could and let it drift out with the tide. There was no End of the World Saloon twenty-five years ago. No one was around. The wind was blowing like tonight and it was the dark of the moon, pitch-black. The tide was racing out of the harbor.

Right over there? Jim asked, pointing at the nearby beach.

I nodded.

For a kid, battling a man-eater seemed like all of the adventure life had to offer, I continued. This was my coming-of-age moment. I was scared to death, also really excited. After a half hour, I hooked something very big that ran back and forth in the black water just beyond the small breakers while I hung on for my life, dug my heels into the sand. I was determined to hold on. After ten minutes I had this big thing tumbling in the surf and then I hauled it up on the beach. I pulled and pulled until the shark was about twenty feet from the water. It was heavy, maybe ten feet long, and sat there for a while stunned while I took it in. Suddenly the shark started jumping and thrashing around. Must have sensed it was no longer in the sea. Soon it was all covered in wet sand like a second skin, a disgusting sight. I was repelled by my shark, but I forced myself to touch it a few times. Then I didnt know what to do. The shark was too far from the water and half-burrowed in the sand. I didnt know how to push it back in. I wanted to show off this prize catch to my dad, but he was asleep in our hotel room up the road. I wanted to show it off, but no one was on the beach but me. Id expected a big celebration from this victory, but now all I had was a sandy shark flopping on the beach. I didnt know what to do. I left it there dying.

Jim took that in. We didnt talk for a bit. I felt like we were buddies, that I could say anything to him. It happened very quickly.

Then, finally, into his sixth or eighth beer, he said, Ive been going through a run of bad luck. Jim was drinking two to my one. I lost my wife, my business, my home, he said. I lost everything I had.