Teething

At the end of the beach day, it all tarnishes happily from gold to bronze. It gets windier and wider. It's a place for the faithful. The restless have flown. It is left dotted with readers who pulled their shirts back on, sitting removed and huddled, like bookish bedouins. There are few cuddling teens who discover each other's bodies over stares and murmurs. Along the surf, you've always got some middle aged fishermen, casting and reeling and strutting back and forth with solemn industry, proud of their secrets.

I was walking along that surf, to nowhere, but well on my way. 

Then a wide, guttural voice said to me, "Well THIS ain't no dawg fish!" 

I happened to be nearby. A fisherman, beer barrel-chested and a fat grey mustache across his face like a dozing squirrel.

He needed to tell someone. I was on hand.

He clutched a baby Great White shark. It wriggled and snapped it's tail in sharp jabs. It's eye was wary, the gash mouth expanded and the gills flared. The tease of needle teeth were fearsome even in infancy.

The fisherman said that a few days ago in Cape May, a full-grown Great White snapped the chum clean off a fishing boat. He says these sharks are common here, and even this far inland. I took this picture and asked if they leave people alone.

"Usually," he shrugged. 

He went to the water's edge and tossed the flailing shark back where it came from. But it landed wrong. The shark flapped down with it's snout facing inland. Panicked or disoriented, I don't know, but it flailed to swim up onto the beach. Maybe it missed us and didn't know when we'd meet again. Or maybe it wanted it's pound of flesh.

The fisherman swore. He stepped back and hoisted it up, gripping the shark's rough, glistening midsection. It thrashed harder. At times it almost formed an 'S' shape, with a fist at the middle. 

But the fisherman treaded a few feet further into the surf this time, for good measure. With a reached-back toss that would have won him a bowling trophy, the fisherman hurled a snapping, spinning baby Great White shark into the waves. It vanished for good. The water foamed and settled, bottle green and grey, like the shark's back. 

As the fisherman climbed back up the sand to both me and his fishing pole and bait, he laughed. "Nah. They usually don't bother nobody. They're lazy. They'd rather have the bloody chum from a fishing boat. Easier, you know? But you know who should worry?" 

I shrugged no, waiting for him to soak up his emphatic pause. Christ, he'd earned it.

"That guy," he drawled, with a jerked thumb bobbing over his right shoulder. And I looked past his shoulder to see a windsurfer skittering over waves, then lose gust or balance, and splash down about twenty yards offshore.

"Babies have parents," I said, still watching.

"Hey, let me see that pic you took of my shark!," he said, wiping his hands off along his shorts, "'Cause that ain't no dawg fish!"

© Eric Yves Garcia 2014