Bonefisher

To them, this is biblical.

He fished with an easy confidence, flicking the lure expertly across the coral flats and into the dark pool at the center. Even before the splash, he was jerking the rod and reeling, his forearms twitching with the ropy muscles I remembered from my childhood.

“They’re in there,” he said. “Casting lots.”

It seemed Carribean—shallow blue water, scorching sun. I loosened my tie and checked the odds on my phone. Two to one Bimini.

He stood barefoot on the casting deck, lean and wiry in khaki shorts and long-sleeved tee, white-toothed grin under wide brimmed hat. “They will choose one,” he said. “To them, this is biblical.” He flexed his knees with the rolling of the boat and tugged down on the brim of the hat.

I took off my suit jacket and sat down on the cooler. Bahamas it was. But how to ask politely? “Da, didn’t we bury you fourteen years ago?”

“I’ll trust your recollection,” he said, “I wasn’t involved.”

“What’s in the cooler,” I asked.

“This is your dream, not mine,” he said. “Make it beer or citrus-infused vodka, make it women and fast cars, make it wealth and fame. Make like these Bonefish and conjure a lust for a shiny piece of plastic.” He flicked the lure to the hole again, jerking and reeling.

“But they’re not buying it,” I said. “They’re not biting.”

“They’re sorting it out,” he said. “Casting lots, like I told you.”

I recalled the last time I had seen him, sick skin draped over bones that jangled when the coughing came. “George and I brought you downstairs for Thanksgiving. You were dead before Christmas.”

“That is not a horse that will carry you far, son,” he said, “if all you have to feed him are small anecdotes of familial duty.”

“We’re tearing the old house down,” I said. “Building condos.”

“You and Georgie,” he said, “Still casting lots.”

He teased the Bonefish, giving them a flash of the lure and jerking it away quickly, making them believe it was something that it wasn’t, something they couldn’t live without. Something they must kill to keep.

“They’re casting pebbles in the sand,” he said. “One of them will spit a red stone or a brown penny and be named the chosen.”

“And then?” I asked.

“They’re not dumb,” he said. “They can learn humility.”

Another flick of the rod and a quick retrieve, a dorsal fin racing across the coral flats, a spectacular flash, a humiliating miss.

“Got him,” he said, as if to himself.

The big fish swam away slowly, not toward the hole from where he had come, but for the deeper, darker water beyond the coral reef.

“No, Da, he swam away.”

“He has been humbled, as have the others bearing witness. They have been taught a valuable lesson.”

“It’s not the way I think of fishing, Da,” I said.

“No,” he said. He turned his gaze out over the flats and spoke into the Bimini breeze; “It’s not the way you think.”