Below The Fold

Gone Fishin’

He sits, legs dangling, on the pier. It’s a long boardwalk that juts out over the sea like an errant tooth.

There’s a small tin can next to him, filled with bits of black dirt and earthworms. It looks like one pulsating mass of brain matter that’s in constant motion, and his eyes drift to it every few moments in distracted interest.

He holds a fishing pole. It’s yellow, and has an emblem of an eagle’s claw on the side of the handle. Right beside the emblem is the reel, which bears a similar emblem. It’s a closed-faced reel with a black crank and a brass top.

It’s an early spring day, and there’s still a winter’s chill in the air. The cold sea air leaves a tinny taste on the back of his tongue that he finds just a little comforting. Gulls dance on the inbound breeze and he lazily tosses them a piece of crust from his lifeless tuna sandwich. He’s amused by the way the gulls seem to struggle to remain aloft in the currents, yet they easily swoop in to catch the bread.

In the distance, he can see an ocean liner. Nearer in, the sea is dotted with yachts and sloops and the occasional tugboat and garbage scow.

He’s been there all morning. He left his house before sunrise, and ended up here. He lives in a modest row house in Williamsburg, and he commutes by train into Manhattan every morning. His wife is a pleasant woman with a crooked smile and a slight pear shape. They have no children, not by design, they just never got around to it. She works in a Dentist’s office a few blocks from their home.

He walks a few blocks to his building, and then rides the glass-and-silver elevator 27 floors up to his company’s office. He walks past the reception desk with the redhead who never wears any makeup, and is always talking into her headset. She pretends not to notice him as he strolls past her and steps into his office. It’s not a corner office, but one wall is glass, and he can see ground zero from here.

He spends the first few moments of every day checking his email. Today, the first one on the list has a little exclamation point next to it, and the subject line says “See Me When You Get In” with every letter capitalized. He hated that. His boss has a hierarchy of speech patterns that annoyed the hell out of him. When he capitalized the first letter of every word, it was to be placed on top of the priority list. His boss never used all caps, because he felt it was “uncouth and smacked of laziness. All you have to do is hit the Caps Lock Key.”

He walks down the hall to his boss’ office. The door is closed, as it always is. It’s always a power play with him. You have to knock, and then look through the glass on the side of the doorjam to see if he waves you in.

He waves him in, and he walks to the chair on the right of this side of the desk and sits down. His boss is still on the phone, and talks for several more minutes before hanging up. It’s obviously a personal call, and he does it just to prove how unimportant the person sitting across from him is.

His boss looks at him with a level gaze and speaks for a few moments about things that mean nothing to him. He stares out the window while his boss prattles on, watching the light glint off the ocean under the stoic Statue of Liberty’s unwavering gaze.

He hears the boss’ last words and rises out of his chair. Wordlessly, he walks out of the room, past his office, past the homely redhead. He rides down the elevator and walks out the front door. He walks and walks, stopping only to buy the fishing pole and bait. He walks all the way up to the Brooklyn Bridge, and crosses over it and then walks south to Coney Island.

He’s been here all morning, legs dangling, sitting on the pier.