Rain Over the Atlantic

by Julian Gallo

Lou readies the small boat and places the fishing rods, tackle box, and a Styrofoam cooler filled with ice on board. He checks if the outboard motor is secure, then steps aboard.

Victor had never been on such a small boat before, and it makes him nervous. He carefully steps aboard and takes a seat on the wooden plank closest to the bow. His father pulls the motor’s chord and sets the propellers into the water, then sits down to navigate the small wooden craft out to sea.

It’s a chilly, grey morning with a slight mist in the air. Daylight is just beginning to emerge behind a dense canopy of clouds.

“Put on your rain slicker, just in case,” Lou says. “If it gets bad, we might have to turn back, but it looks like it will hold up for a little while.”

Victor dons the yellow rain slicker and observes the shoreline gradually fading into the distance. He feels exposed now, in the ever-expanding Atlantic. Lou dons his, as well, along with his bucket hat that looks as if it had seen better days. A mist from the water sprays up into the boat as it cuts through the waves, the odor of sea salt and seaweed prevalent.

Victor had gone fishing with his father in the past, but they usually accompanied a group of old men on a much larger vessel. He’s not used to such a small craft, and he worries about it capsizing in the roll of the waves. He was never much of a fisherman, though his father had taught him a lot, and he’s looking forward to spending the day with him; his father assured him there were plenty of fish to catch.

It is one of the weekends when Lou has custody of the kids. Victor’s older sister Alicia is back at the house with Yvonne, his father’s new girlfriend, who plans to do some food shopping for the meal the men will eventually bring home. One big fish would be enough, but Lou hopes for better pickings. He had planned this weekend for some time, and he wanted to spend at least one of those days as father and son.

The boat cuts through the waves, occasionally bobbing and weaving, the horizon drifting further and further away. Victor looks back and sees the shore is barely visible now, and they’ve become an insignificant presence in the middle of the Atlantic’s choppy waters.

After what seems like an endless sojourn, Lou kills the motor and drops the small anchor into the water. The waves rock the boat back and forth as Lou opens the tackle box and removes the container of bait. When he opens the container, the pungent odor from the dead eels wafts through the air. Lou takes one and hands it to his son. 

“Here, use this,” he says.

The dead eel feels slimy and cold in Victor’s fingers as he hooks it on the end of his fishing pole. Lou follows suit, and they both cast their lines into the water and wait.

“I hope I catch something this time,” Victor says.

“You didn’t do too bad the last time.”

“No, I didn’t. Too many got away from me, though.”

More daylight now. The sky, a warship grey. It is still misting, a little windier, but at least the rain is at bay.

“It’ll warm up a little, the longer we’re out here — or I hope so, anyway,” Lou assures.

They wait…and wait. Nothing bites.

“How’s your mother?”

“All right, I guess,” Victor says. “She spends a lot of time with grandma and grandpa.”

“She’s not moving to Florida, is she?”

“She said she might, after we’re finished with school.”

“That’s a long way off for you. You’re starting junior high in September, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m a little nervous about it.”

“That’s normal… but you’ll be all right. You know how to take care of yourself. I taught you a lot of good moves, didn’t I?”

Lou had taught his boy numerous ways of protecting himself — boxing and a few martial arts moves, what to do if he encounters a situation where he’s ganged up on. He even lifted weights for a little while, but he can tell from his son’s skinny frame that he didn’t stick with it. The fact he’d even have to teach him such things bothers him. This is not the same world he had grown up in, though it wasn’t exactly a paradise either. The worst thing one had to worry about was knives, but (at least then) there was a certain code. These days, there is none other than survival of the fittest, where anything goes.

“You’re going to start meeting girls, too,” his father says.

“My friends and I have been discussing that.”

“Whatever happened to that Dominican girl you were interested in last year? You don’t talk about her anymore.”

“She gave me the brush off,” Victor says. 

“Ah, I see. It’s not the end of the world. You’re still young yet. You’ll meet plenty of girls, believe me. You’re a good-looking kid.”

“How many girls did you go with before Mom?”

“Strangely enough, none. Your mother was the first and only girl I was ever with. Until now, that is.”

“Do you still think of Mom?”

“Of course, I do. I still love your mother, you know that. We talk sometimes… it’s just…”

He lets it go. It’s not a subject he wants to get into, though he knows it will happen now and again.

Victor feels a tug on his line. The tip of the fishing pole bends towards the water as he struggles to reel it in. His father encourages him, shows him how to get better leverage, and a moment later, a large fluke pops out of the water, dangling off the hook.

“Quick, swing it into the boat!”

Victor does so and drops the fish onto the boat floor. Lou unhooks it, and they watch it flap around, gasping its last breaths. 

“Nice! That’s a big one. Good job!”

Lou takes another eel out of the container and hands it to him. Victor hooks it, then casts it off into the water.

“If there’s one, there are others,” Lou says.

Again, they wait…and wait, the mist turning into a light drizzle. Lou keeps his eyes on the sky, worries about it opening up while they are so far from shore. He’d been caught out there before when a thunderstorm hit; his father, uncle, and he sped back to shore with lightning striking all around them. He’d never been so scared. He was around his son’s age at the time. What made it worse was how his father reacted to his fear — with ridicule. Big boys weren’t supposed to cry, nor were they supposed to be afraid of “a little rain.” With each flash of light, he thought he was done for, cowering on the floor as the waves rocked the boat back and forth. He vowed he’d never allow his own son to ever feel that level of humiliation.

“The rain’s starting to pick up,” Victor says.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I have my eye on it. We’re still good.”

Now, it’s Lou’s turn to feel the tug on his line. Whatever it is, it’s big, and he fights and struggles to keep the fishing rod in his big hands. Victor watches excitedly as his father wrestles with the fish. With one last pull, the fish emerges from the water, dangling on the end of the line, flipping and twisting in the air.            

“Holy shit, look at that!”

Lou swings the fish onto the boat, dropping it to the floor with a thud. He holds it down as it continues to flip and jerk, removing the hook from its mouth.

“What the hell is that!? It’s huge!” Victor exclaimed.

“That’s dinner, kiddo! Look at the size of it.”

“What kind of fish is that?”

“Striped bass — and a big one, too.”

Once the fish expires, Lou grabs it by its tail and holds it aloft, showing off his prize.

“I never seen a fish so big!”

“Here, take it,” Lou says. “Feel how heavy this is.”

Victor grabs the fish by the tail and immediately drops it.

“It’s got to weigh close to twenty pounds, if not more,” Lou says. “This will feed us for a couple of days.”

After feeling the weight of the fish, Victor is even more impressed with his father. To be able to single-handedly lift such a creature from the ocean, as if it were light as a feather. It occurs to him just how strong a man his father is.

“I don’t think I would’ve been able to pull something like that out of the water.”

“If you catch one, I’ll help you,” his father says. “Don’t worry.”

Lou drops the fish into the cooler with the other and closes the lid. They cast their lines back into the water and wait.

 Lou plucks a cigarette from its pack, places it between his lips, and steadies his fishing rod between his knees as he fires up the Zippo to light it. Once lit, he lets it dangle from his lips, the smoke curling into his eyes, as he, again, grips the handle of the fishing pole. Through rotating wisps of grey, Victor watches his father go somewhere else. He wonders where he’s gone, what he’s thinking. He has many questions he wants to ask but can’t work up the nerve. He doesn’t want to upset him and potentially ruin what has turned out to be a wonderful day. Still, the questions dog him constantly, wanting to understand exactly what happened between his mother and father; why he would fall in love with another woman; why he could so brazenly break his mother’s heart. At the moment, however, he’s just happy to spend time with him, like they used to when he was little. Since he left home three years earlier, he only gets to see him on the weekends, and that is if his work schedule permits. No, now isn’t the time to raise these questions. If his father wants to discuss it, he will. Otherwise, they should focus on the task at hand.

. . . . . .

Over the next three hours, they catch five more fish — one more fluke, three Atlantic cods, and two small flounders. Between the smell of the eels and fish, plus the continuous rocking of the boat, Victor starts to feel a little seasick. The rain begins to pick up again, along with the wind and the sign of ominous storm clouds drifting over the horizon.

“We should head back,” Lou says. “I don’t like the way the sky looks.”

He looks down at their haul.

“I think we did pretty good, considering,” he continues. “That sea bass alone was worth it.”

They lay down their fishing poles, and Lou returns the bait and hooks to the tackle box. He gives the sky one more glance before pulling up the anchor and starting the motor.

As the boat speeds towards the shore, Victor wants to vomit. Lou can see his son is not doing well, and feels for him; he, too, felt that way when his father first took him out fishing on such a small boat.

“If you throw up, make sure you don’t throw up into the wind.”

He meant it as a joke, but Victor doesn’t find it amusing; he’s struggling to keep it together. The rain intensifies, along with the wind. There’s a lightning flash and a low rumble of thunder. The shoreline is in sight now, but Victor doesn’t know if he can hang on.

“Doing all right, kiddo? We’re almost there.”

Victor doesn’t think he’s going to make it, though he tries. He doesn’t want to get sick in front of his father, to show any sign of weakness.

Victor manages to keep control of himself as his father navigates the boat back into the dock. He climbs out, takes a deep breath, and stretches his legs as his father hoists the cooler full of ice and fish onto the dock. He feels well enough to help his father with the fishing rods and tackle box, while his father carries the cooler back to the car. They load everything into the back and are ready to head back to the house.

Lou pauses a moment to light another cigarette, then drapes his arm around his son’s shoulders.

“How are you feeling? You look green.”

“Not so good, but I think it’s starting to pass. I’ll be all right.”

 “No shame in feeling a little seasick. It happens. It happened to me, too, when I was young. You did good, kid.”

Victor swells with pride. He looks up at his father taking another long drag from his cigarette and doesn’t want the weekend to end. He misses him.

“How much you wanna bet the girls get all squeamish when they see the fish and realize what they have to do to prepare it?”

“Alicia isn’t going to touch it,” Victor says. “No way. It might ruin her nails.”

“Yvonne won’t have any issues. She’s a pro at this.”

They climb into his father’s Buick and drive off towards the house.

The sky opens up. A bolt of lightning descends over the ocean, followed by a loud clap of thunder. The wind blows sheets of rain across the road.

New York City, May 2022

BIO: Julian Gallo is the author of Existential Labyrinths, Last Tondero in Paris, The Penguin and The Bird, and other novels. His short fiction has appeared in The Sultan's Seal (Cairo), Exit Strata, Budget Press Review, Indie Ink, Short Fiction UK, P.S. I Love You, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review, Angles, Verdad, Modern Literature (India), Mediterranean Poetry (St. Pierre and Miquelon), Borderless Journal (Singapore), Woven Tales, Wilderness House, Egophobia (Romania), Plato’s Caves, Avalon Literary Review, and VIA: Voices in Italian America.