Cannibals Of The Deep
All the other persons with rods between their legs were set up wading knee deep in the bay by the bridge, because that's where the Blues were running (giant toothy aggressive rod bending drag screaming yellow eyed Bluefish, who when hungry will attack from the rear any living or dead thing, including their own young, or any shiny or dull piece of metal or wood dragged under or across the top of the water), and reportedly were unusually large this year, for so early in the season.  Warden was pulling nothing from the crashing waves before him because his line was not in the water nor was his rod between his legs. Emasculated by circumstance, he was alone one hundred yards from the surf, squatting slowly before lying back on  a dune with a groan barely audible above the sonorous sea.  Earlier while casting into deep water with a confidence born of no practical experience he had been startled by the staccato screech of a Killdeer flying unseen in the fog above him, startled enough to cause just the right, or wrong movement in his torso, which injected a fresh dose of pain into that sweet spot in his lower back.  It was on the right side today.  Two days ago it had been on the left. Five days previous it had been on both sides and with some intensity on the left side of his neck. The Percocets would not touch it so he left them in his lure bag next to the Uncle Josh pork rind trailers.  Ward Ambler closed his eyes and felt a contemplative mood coming on. This was a thing he did not welcome. So he opened his eyes, counted the waves, and closed them again, as reset.  And felt nothing except that which could be described by even the most skeptical, as good.  But apparently there was a time limit on feeling good and thoughts began to creep in.  Should he join the throngs by the bridge?  Would it kill him to be a part of the human race?  He was still a little shook up and embarrassed from getting hooked in the face last year when a small three pound schoolie bass had leapt at him from the beach after being yanked from the ocean, while attached to an SP Minnow lure and its two treble hooks.  The fish dangled and tugged most excruciatingly from Ward Ambler's left check while he first panicked under the throes of a thing which heretofore he literally could not have imagined, and then slowly he dealt with it one step at a time, first cutting the line (which does nothing in this situation but is easy and feels like progress.)  He then removed the thrashing fish from the lure, in the process digging another prong of the front treble into his face. He had been strangely relieved at that point and considered heading home with the lure attached to his cheek but found it uncomfortable hanging like that with its internal steel balls rattling, and had in the end clipped the hooks with his magnum wire cutters so that only the parts of the hook that were actually piercing his flesh were left. He had been the talk of the community for a while over that one.  Jimmy Jones had explored the various humorous appellations his limited imagination could muster: Fish Face, Hook Head, Captain Hook, Barbafella (which Ward begrudgingly admitted was almost funny), but over time the hook wounds healed, the swelling in his face subsided, and as for Jimmy, he became consumed by family tragedies, not the least being the progressive mental deterioration of his mother, who was now known to utter the most imaginative and hateful obscenities to any man, woman, or child, irrespective of time or place. Ward took no consolation in Jimmy's misfortune but just moved seamlessly from feeling bad for himself to feeling bad for someone else.  The two felt the same.  The fishing was the escape and that his time spent at it could border on obsessive, and implied an inordinate need for obfuscating the simple bland facts of his life was a thing he did not overly ponder.  As much as Ward wanted to be into fish he still felt an unreasonable fear of being gaffed by another one and wasn't sure he could handle the ignominy of it happening in front of the whole crew down by the bridge.  He knew there were fish in these waters in front of him. He sometimes imagined last years facial piercing had imbued him with a special sixth sense, yet nothing in his life supported the idea that he had any special powers or insights into finding and catching fish.  Lying there he came to accept that he was going to have to miss this run.  He had a couple of hours to kill before attending to a small job in the city. The owners of the bighouse were having a weekend party, somehow in honor of something to do with RuPaul, the details were fuzzy to him, but it was suggested he might enjoy being away for a few days and Ward Ambler agreed that he might.  And in any case as a squatter in their tool shed he tried to be sensitive to their hints, if not their rights. The job was for an anarchist named Abel Gardner, with whom he had become acquainted, when just a few weeks previous, pulled off on the shoulder of the Long Island Expressway to change a flat tire during rush hour in a thunderstorm, the rain suddenly stopped and when Ward looked up there was a silver haired man dressed all in black holding a giant red umbrella over him. While Ward changed the tire Abel regaled him with his recent adventures battling a Grand Jury, of which he had been a member, but apparently not an agreeable one to the other jurors, nor especially to the judge, because on the ninth day of his thirty day requirement Abel had been removed from the courtroom and taken to some other address on Centre Street, where he was informed that he was being held in contempt of court.  All for simply asking questions before allowing indictments to be drawn up against some clearly retarded people.  Ward had nodded at that while tightening his lug nuts.  I'm not being figurative here calling the people retarded you understand, the people, well some of them anyway, some of them were by the descriptions given of their crimes, which is all we really had to go on, well it was patently obvious they were retarded.  By the way my name is Abel, Abel said extending his hand and not hesitating before grasping and shaking the greasy palm offered by Ward.  Ward, Ward said.  Ward, I hope I'm not offending you by calling people retarded. Not really, no.  That's great, well anyhow I did not feel I could just blindly be part of that machinery that was processing the meat, you understand.  Especially retarded meat, so I was asking questions attempting to ascertain truth, and for that I may go to jail. It's not right. Ward stood up to put his tools away while agreeing it didn't sound right.  Abel then asked him what he did and Ward admitted that he mostly fished, not successfully though, and was also known to do small home repair jobs. Outstanding, just outstanding, was Abel's response and they exchanged information which led to this job.  Abel had a half wall in his apartment on W 23rd Street, had been wanting to get rid of it for ages, and now with this court thing hanging over him he had a brilliant idea. Which was to procure graffiti specialists from the street, have them paint up his wall into some semblance of the one formerly in Berlin, and then have someone, and now that someone was Ward, tear it down while being filmed.  The film would end when exposed behind the torn down wall was Abel Gardner reading a yellowed copy of the Constitution.  This film he hoped to show at his hearing.  Ward was skeptical but offered no opinion, so far was any of this from his experience.  He was neither a film critic nor a legal expert.  Or an actor for that matter.  Just be yourself and do what you know how to do, Abel advised.  Ward stared blankly at the wall.  The graffiti had been done, seemed a little off (Hitler sucks cock)? but what did he know.