90 Miles to Havana

“This is your big chance,” my father says and then helps me fit the end of the rod into the metal cup in between my knees. He clips the rod to the brass fittings on the arm of the chair. “There. Now if a big fish wants to pull you in, it’ll have to take the chair, too.”
I grip the rod tight and set my feet. “I’m ready.” My father smiles at me. “Good. You know the rule, right?”
“Yell, even if it’s just a nibble,” I say, repeating what he tells everyone that climbs up on the chair.
Papi is staring out at the horizon again but now he’s shaking his head. I know he’s thinking that it’s over for the day for this year, but you never know. If I catch a big one Papi will get a year’s worth of luck, and they’ll take a picture of me standing next to the fish hanging upside down on the dock. Out of respect for the fish I’ll look real serious to show he put up a good fight.
“Don’t worry, Papi. I’ll catch one for us,” I say to cheer him up.
“That would be nice,” he says, and then pats the two cigars in his shirt pocket. He and Bebo always light up on the way home.
Holding the rod firmly in my left hand, I pinch the line between my right thumb and forefinger, just like my father does. The fishing line is slicing into the waves, the green lure spinning beneath the wake, and I can almost see a big silver blue marlin lurking right behind it.
“Julian,” Bebo calls. “Don’t look at the water. You’ll get seasick.”
He must have read my mind. “Sí, Bebo,” I yell and then look up, not at the horizon, but just above it. Bebo taught me that trick and a thousand others.
He used to drive a truck for my father, but when Papi heard he was a great cook, he convinced him to give up the truck and take up the spoon for our house. Now he cooks, takes care of the boat, and teaches me things. Ever since my brothers stopped letting me hang around with them, Bebo makes sure I have something to do. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing, he always lets me help.
If he’s cooking a paella, he’ll show me how to cut the peppers and onions and then leave me alone. Unlike my parents or my brothers, he knows that I’m smart enough to figure out how to do the job without cutting all my fingers off.
My father and Bebo have lit up their cigars, the smoke is billowing around my head, mixing in with the thick exhaust fumes coming from the engine. I hope I get a bite soon.
“You feel anything yet?” Bebo asks as he opens up the engine hatch just below my feet.
“No, the only thing I feel is seasick from your cigar,” I answer.
Bebo sits down next to the ticking engine. Gasoline fumes are wafting out of the open hatch, and my head is starting to spin. I sit up, shake the rod, and set my feet, hoping that’ll make me feel better. Bebo chuckles at me, as he pulls a dime out of his pants pocket and then reaches around the carburetor. “Let’s see if I can make this engine run smoother.”
Bebo takes his trusty paperclip from his shirt pocket, wiggles it inside the carburetor as he turns a hard-to-reach screw with his dime, adjusting the mixture of air to gas the engine runs on.
I’ve watched him take the carburetor apart a hundred times. Now I can see through the greasy metal into the little chambers where the air and gasoline mixture is turned into a vapor, then fed into the piston. When the piston pushes up, it compresses the vapor in the cylinder, the spark plug fires, and the vapor explodes. The explosion pushes the piston down and that turns the crankshaft, which then spins the propeller. It’s simple if you can see through metal.
I like being around Bebo because he’ll explain how to read a compass or how a complicated carburetor works and never once say that I’m too young to understand.
When Bebo climbs out of the hatch, the engine is humming smooth. He holds up the dime and his paper clip. “This is all El Maestro needs,” he says, as he puffs on his cigar then tilts his head to listen to the engine. “It’s idling too slow,” he announces, then stomps back up to the wheel to adjust the throttle.
We have a box full of tools, but he never touches them. Bebo likes to invent. “I have all the tools I need up here,” he always says, pointing at his head.
A cloud of cigar smoke has now settled around my head like a strange gray hat. My stomach is starting to rescramble the eggs I ate for breakfast, when I feel a delicate tug on the rod. I’m not sure if it’s a nibble or just the rocking of the boat. I reel in some line and wait, hoping my head will stop spinning.
Bebo told me that some fish will take the bait in their mouth, then spit it out if they don’t like the taste. I’m about to call my father when there’s another gentle tug on the rod. If the fish has the bait in its mouth and I don’t set the hook, he might just spit it out. Maybe I should say something, but I don’t. I know the second I open my mouth, my brothers or my father will take the rod away from me, then I’ll lose the fish for sure-miss my chance.
Another tug. He’s not just tasting anymore, he likes the bait. I jerk the rod back; it bends and strains against the clips. When I try to reel in some line it feels like I’m caught on an old anchor or a truck. Then as the hooked fish tries to swim away the line flies out and the reel whines.
Gordo is the first to hear it. “Julian hooked one!” he yells.
Gordo and Alquilino are already at my side trying to grab the rod out of my hands, but I don’t want to let go. There’s something big and powerful at the other end of the line. I can feel its strength shooting right through me like electricity, like the time I stuck my finger in the outlet. I want to pull this fish in. I want to be the hero for once! Why should I give it up?
“Julian, it’s too big for you!” Alquilino yells as my father leans in to adjust the drag so that the line will go out easier. Suddenly the fish stops pulling, but the line is still going out.
“Give me the rod,” Gordo yells and then tries to pull the rod out of my hands. Everybody’s yelling at me, but then I hear Bebo’s calm voice. “He’s going to run again, Julian. Take up the slack.”
I wind the crank as fast as I can, but before I’ve taken in all the loose line, the fish starts to run and the line starts going out again.
The reel is spinning blurry fast and making strange crunching noises; I can hear the metal clips straining. If the rod hadn’t been clipped to the chair, I would have been pulled into the water. The tip of the rod is dipping into the waves; little droplets of water are dancing off the line. My arms hurt, but I’m pulling back.
Suddenly the fish explodes out of the water, not more than a boat length away. Its sword is slashing at the blue sky, the black and purple stripes on its back sparkle as it rides its tail across the indigo swells. “He’s longer than our station wagon,” I gasp.
When the fish slaps into the water it sends up a huge splash, the line snaps, and I fly back into the chair.
“I knew you were going to lose him,” Gordo yells as we watch the tangled fishing line disappear into the deep blue chop. “Papi you should have made him give me the rod; I could have caught that fish!”
“It’s gone,” my father says. “Nothing we can do.”
That was the last thing he said to me on the way home. He didn’t even look at me when I crawled into the cabin, and then latched the door.