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Show Go Love/223 unhooks, two, three-pounders, nice fish Now and then, this Chinese man puts his rod in the surf spike and hikes over to a dark cliff wall where the tide rises. He digs and kicks and scrapes with his hands-some kind of bait over there. Then he retakes the rod, lands fish after fish-he could feed a multitude with what's in his cooler. How on earth will he carry the son of a bitch. I wish Renee here for this spectacle, and just like that I see her coming. My wife, who I've not had twenty minute's meaningful conversation with since this all began with Cap's 70th. Sometimes I'm shocked to see her approach, that she's of this world, that her world is my world. Buoys exist. I watch Renee Rockerson Harvell walk along the driftwood beach, barefoot in a white sun dress-pure-seeming as storks on the wing; Cape Codders for sailor's daughters-for whom I'd once written on a Carolina sand dune I LOVE YOU! in six foot tall letters composed entirely of horseshit from wild horses on the Outer Banks, ponies descended from Spaniard stallions I'd gathered the manure one whole afternoon not far from the twisting Hatteras lighthouse while she drove in to the liquor store for more mm. "It's a bunch of shit," I said, and we split a gut, laughed or asses silly. "Hey," Renee says, "You freezing your balls off?" She takes sleepy Lara, wraps her in a beach blanket. She's brought coffee, hands me a thermos and a cream cheese bagel. "Look at this guy." We sit side by side. The middle man lands a salmon-we see it hanging from his knee to the ground, rainbow colored as he carries it to the cooler. A Coho maybe, he's grinning ear to ear. Renee says, "Dinner." She touches the back of my neck, kisses my cheek. "I'm taking little Miss for breakfast." She stands, cradles our growing girl, buries her face in my daughter's arms. "Love you," she says. "Love you, Daddy," Lara says, and I watch them walk away, the brutal and |
