By 1964, my dad’s boat, the Kangaroo II, had become a weekend men’s clubhouse where a group of psychiatrists get a redo on their adolescence, only this time there’s a wide open alcohol spigot. My cousin Tim and I are relegated to the flying bridge, up and out of harm’s way.
A man looks at my dad, asking, “Stan, you’re getting a rep for this mother-kid thing, huh?”
The shrinks are trading war stories while oiling the mahogany deck. All now inebriated by turpentine fumes and alcohol.
“The family actually lives on our block. Corner house. That’s how they knew about me. Two kids. I’m speaking kinda quiet ’cause…” He gestures up at the flying bridge where Tim and I hang out, then continues after a gulp of beer. “Older one’s been a shut-in for years. Won’t use the bathroom. Piles newspaper on the floor of the bedroom as a kinda latrine. Pushes the pile out into the hallway when he’s done. Mason jar for urine.”
On the flying bridge Tim and I are listening intently, ducked down just below the edge of the cushion, ears cupped to the open gap between the seats. I whisper, “Tim, I know the little brother of the kid they’re talking about. He goes to our school…”
Another shrink asks, “How do you approach therapy for that?”
“Therapy?!” Dad shakes his head. “Thank God for Valium; can’t shove enough of it down ’em. I don’t see this kid pullin’ through.”
The ultimate creepfest happens the next weekend. We are far out at sea, Miami off in the distance. Fishing has not gone well; four big barracuda are it. Barracuda are bony, and taste “fishy.”
Dad’s piloting. One of his buddies hauls in a final ’cuda. Gaffs it. Drops it to the deck. Thwap! Another man crushes its skull with a baseball bat, exclaiming, “The ’cudas eat the fish we want!” He chucks the twitching animal into the sloshy catch box.
The day is hot. Slow. The beer intake is through the roof.
“How ’bout we kill some hammerheads?!” One of the men plucks another beer from the ice chest. “Goddamn hammerheads are more guilty than the ’cudas for scarin’ away all of the good eatin’ fish!”
A plan unfolds. One of them cuts the barracudas into pieces and mashes the pulpy flesh and bone in a bucket. Over the stern rail they chum the water, ladling out the bloody carnage. Within minutes, hammerhead silhouettes are rising up from the depths.
First a few.
More.
Up high on the bridge Tim and I witness it all. Big, ugly, man-eating monsters begin schooling slowly around the boat, constricting their deadly circle tighter. Tighter still. One of the men hooks a barracuda head to a wire leader and tosses it in. Boom. A smaller hammerhead hits it immediately! The hooked shark is thrashing, trying to tear itself loose from the hook that’s set all the way down in its gullet.
Suddenly, the biggest hammerhead any of us have ever seen breaches the water and bites into its bleeding, smaller relative, cutting it in half with its first thrash, hooking itself as it gulps down the mid-section.
Two of the men dive for the dock line. Cleat it off. They pull a supremely angry 12-foot hammerhead toward the portside rail.
Powerful tail thrashes rock us all, listing the boat an astonishing amount with each attempt to rip itself free. A nasty gaff is raised.
Dad shouts, “Whoa! No way we’re gonna land that thing.”
The gaff man calls out, “Wanna cut it loose?”
“Nah.” Stan reaches into his personal gear bag and comes out with an item I recognize instantly. “How ’bout a frenzy? Let the rest of them do it for us.” His Navy pistol slips from its holster.
The hammerhead surges downward, teetering the entire boat once again.
Click. The safety’s off. Dad raises up his semi-automatic pistol, leans over the rail, aiming two-handed at the head of the writhing hammerhead.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Up on the flying bridge I cringe with every round, just like I did when I was three, watching him fire at paper targets at the Navy shooting range. Tim puts his hand on my shoulder. The hammerhead pulls hard, jerking the line taut, dipping the port rail downward. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Bullets thud into the head of the shark. Boom. Boom. Boom. Dad ejects the first clip. Loads another. Boom. Boom. Boom. He’s putting bullets through fins and the tail. Blood oozes from each new hole.
I shout to Tim, “Look!” A behemoth bull shark has surfaced about 30 feet away. We track it as it swims in fast.
In one ferocious bite the bull shark tears loose the left side of the hammerhead’s face and head. It circles quickly for a second pass at the immobilized, defenseless giant. Enormous teeth are bared. The bull shark bites down into the mid-section. Violent thrashes tear the hammerhead’s guts apart. Intestines spill out and rise to the surface in yellow floating curls.
Tears of terror. Streaming down my face. I’ve only been to Sunday School a few times. I fold my hands, praying, “Please God, don’t let me or my cousin Tim get thrown into that water down there. Keep the Kangaroo safe and don’t let the sharks pull us over.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Tim adds, “They’ll kill our dads if they can. Please God, please keep us ALL safe…” Tim is about eight inches shorter than I am. Even so, he covers my head with his sweatshirt, and rubs my back while I hide from the brutal, alcohol-fueled madness happening all around us.
I hate my dad right now.
I want him to stop shooting.
Boom boom boom.
I silently vow to be everything he is not.