The Sturgeon
Sturgeon
“YOU LOOK GOOD!” This horrible queen named Shane yelled at me from the cabin hatch of the boat. There was no reason for the volume but maybe it was the only way he could hear himself above the ever-present white noise of his internal scream. He always screamed.
There were five of us on Jim’s sailboat and I was sitting at the stern, soaking the fungus-infected toes of my left foot in the water. With no wind we were barely moving, a tiny trail of wake behind us. It was very quiet.
I’d just gotten done with a short lecture on how although Lake Michigan wasn’t the ocean exactly, it was still a questionable environment, and although it had no sharks other prehistoric shit did live in it, like Sturgeons.
These Sturgeons, I informed my captive audience, had been known to attack humans, and although it was usually small children and babies that were pulled from the shallows to their deep and no doubt gruesomely prolonged watery deaths, the occasional adult male had also been known to fall prey to the ugly beast. They never eat women, I said pointedly, they don’t like the tits. I said this cause there no women on board and none of the guys that were, liked tits either. They nodded in agreement with the fish.
Shane was stoned, making him vulnerable and paranoid, and had pulled his feet from the water and retreated to the cockpit. The subsequent flattery he directed at me served to deflect and change the subject. I went along with it.
“Well actually I always look good,” I responded, “It’s just that the awareness that I am probably the most fundamentally and in all ways, spiritually, physically and mentally, beautiful human being that you could ever to dream of coming across in your life is a concept so complex and overwhelming that to even ponder the possibility of its factuality would set in motion a domino effect of cause and effect so staggering that it couldn’t help but utterly undermine the fragile house of cards of thought and belief without which you would hardly be able to face the break of day. An all consuming and chaotic whirlwind of doubt and confusion would so undermine even your most basic human functioning you would be left bedridden and stewing in your own filth. Fact,” I added.
“WTF?” said Jim.
I usually didn’t rant like that but I was drunk. I was also annoyed by the queens on board and decided to jump into the water for a swim. Before I got wet though I performed a take-back, a take-back was when you said something you’d like erased so you just pretend you didn’t say it by saying something completely contrary. It was a trick I got from my sister who frequently spoke out of turn.
“I said, if I may repeat myself, thanks man it’s probably the new Ray-Bans” and with that I slipped over the side.
The boat still wasn’t moving but Jim turned it into whatever wind there was, (sloughing the sails), and dived in also. The other three stayed aboard, Steve, Jeff, and Shane, fearing the Sturgeon’s bite I suspect.
I paddled away from the boat and floated on the surface of the warm water. The sky overhead was as blue and cloudless as it had been for the last month or so? It’d been a great summer for outdoor activities and wildfires.
I’d kicked my way a good distance from the boat, I could see Jim scrubbing at the hull, and the heads and arms of the others lounging aboard.
The surface of the water was covered with little carcasses, the remains of some non-indigenous invasive species. All these idiot creatures would make their way into the Great Lakes through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, only to end up as beach litter. Alewives, Zebra mussels, AIDS infested syringes.
I felt a sharp pain in my foot, not pain really, more like an intense vibration, electrical shock. Some underwater fuck had bitten me, some freak fish. I kicked my legs hoping to scare it off. The water splashed and rippled around me.
I paddled back to the boat, not using my legs. I didn’t want to re-engage the hostile fish or whatever. over to Jim, “Scrubbing off those floaties?” I asked Jim, referring to the little carcasses stuck all over the hull, who was doing just that. “Yeah, I don’t know what they are” He says, “Some lower order, maybe junior Sturgeon spawn,” He smiles, “I think you scared the girls with that fish tale.” He nods above.
“Well, actually that story may have been fortuitous. Some thing did just bite me,” I awkwardly stuck my foot of the water, causing my head to dip under for a second.
“Fuck Morey, you’ve been ravaged!” Jim hollered as I resurfaced. The boat tilted sharply as the boys leaned over the side to see what’s going on.
I pushed against the water with my hands, keeping myself afloat as I inspected my ravaged ankle. The flesh is ripped open and I’m pretty sure I can see bone, lots of blood. It’s bizarre that I don’t feel anything. Jim is kicking his legs and looking around like he’s expecting to see Jaws. I look up at the three horrified faces peering over the side of the boat, “Sturgeon,” they whispered in unison.
.