A Fishy Tale

Wind-surfing the gnarly waves at Gazos Creek Beach had me amped up, stress-free, and hungry as a wolf. Driving back to The City, I veered off the Coast Highway towards Duarte’s Tavern & Restaurant in the tiny town of Pescadero.

I stepped off the street into the near-empty barroom and got a welcoming hello from the bartender, a proper old-timer in a white shirt and vest with “Tom” neatly stenciled on a brass name tag.

I asked if the restaurant was open yet. He said, Twenty minutes so I slid onto a stool and ordered a draft beer to pass the time.

As Tom pulled the tap handle, I extended a friendly nod to the only other customer ─ a stout, middle-aged, ruddy-faced guy wearing a short white beard. I said, “Jack”, he said, “Dave”.

We’d settled into sociable conversation when a burst of late afternoon sunlight entered the bar along with a lanky dude wearing dark glasses and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He took a stool two down from Dave, set his shades on the bar, and said, “I’m Bo. How you guys doin’?”

We traded names, and I joked that Dave could win an Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest. Showing thanks for their friendly laughter, I ordered a round of beer and asked if they’d help me munch some fried calamari from the now-open restaurant. They said damn right, or words to that effect, so I raised a twirling index finger towards Tom, signaling another round for the bar… “and a calamari platter.”

Tom called in the order and put a freshened beer on the bar in front of me and refilled Dave’s mug from the same tap. Without asking his preference, he set an Anchor Steam Beer in front of Bo, who raised the foamy glass in my direction before taking a gulp.

As he lowered the half-empty pilsner glass back on the bar and wiped away froth from his upper lip, Bo said, “Amazing coincidence you should mention Hemingway. My grandfather knew him in Cuba, and when he and his wife, Mary, came north, he sometimes stopped at the family estate. We have, or at least had, quite a few letters from him – you know, asking for a loan until the next book came out, stuff like that.”

A food server came through the swinging door carrying a platterful of fried calamari heaped on butter lettuce. She set the serving tray on the bar in front of us, along with three side plates, forks, and ramekin cups of aioli sauce and lemon wedges.

I dropped a twenty on her serving tray, and Dave and Bo each added a five for the tip. She smiled and said, “Thanks, guys,” as she disappeared back into the restaurant area.

Using his fork to snatch a garlicky morsel from the calamari platter, Dave asked Bo, “Did you say your grandfather was a friend of Ernest Hemingway?”

Bo answered, “He was more than a friend. They were like brothers. Lemme get another beer and I'll tell you the damnedest story you’ve ever heard about Papa.”

I spotted Tom shaking his head and rolling his eyes toward the ceiling as he dispensed Bo’s second refill into a tilted pilsner glass.

Bo took an unhurried sip, then, setting his glass down on the antique bar top next to his sunnies, and licking a bit of froth from his upper lip, he swiveled his round-cushioned stool toward Dave and me and began an extraordinary story.

“The Guinness Book of World Records lists my grandfather as the man who caught the biggest shark ever landed with a rod and reel.”

“The biggest one, ever?”

“Yeah. A 1,000-pound Mako on a rod and reel.”

“That’s impressive. But what’s that got to do with Ernest Hemingway?”

“I was coming to that - it all started when he and my granddad went sport fishing on Montauk Bay. Back then, you could catch swordfish there, and my grandfather hooked one. His line ran out about two hundred yards before the silver-blue fish pirouetted out of the water. Everyone else reeled in empty hooks and watched Granddad fight him in on No.7 filament. Hemingway tossed his gear aside and snatched his Mont Blanc fountain pen from his duffle, and stood at the port rail, writing.”

I asked, “Writing?” and Bo explained.

“Hemingway was always writing. My grandmother called him an impolite bore because he was always writing. Whatever; let me get on with what happened.

“After almost an hour in the fighting chair, Granddad was all sweat and strain. He’d finally worked the swordfish in about fifty yards from the boat, and the captain had her all astern. The swordfish was spent, and it was just a matter of reeling him in without losing the hook. That’s when the Mako hit the swordfish and somehow got himself hooked. The line zinged back out again like the plastic rabbit in a Whippet race; in all probability, 300 yards, before the Mako breached with the swordfish in its jaws, and everyone on the boat simultaneously gasped, ‘Good God’, or something like that. Hemingway's notes talked all about that moment; "A primeval determination" is how he described the look in Granddad’s eye.”

There was reverence in Dave’s voice, “You read Hemingway's notes?”

“I did. He copied them and sent a set to the family. The estate was sold, and those notes, plus a lot of other valuable stuff, disappeared when the family lawyer retired and moved upstate. Getting back to the shark, my grandfather landed him – mangled but on the hook, which brought a lot of recognition; the place being populated by anglers and tourists, as it was.

“His name was on the radio. There was a sequence in Movie-Tone News that ran in theaters. Hemingway wanted to cash in on the story, but he wanted to be fair to my grandfather too, so he sent him a copy of the manuscript, which stayed in the family until my sister divorced some crack-head she was married to, and God knows where it is now, but my grandfather hated the title so much he refused to even read it much less consider going in on the publication rights, which Hemingway offered him, by the way.”

“What was the title?”

“The Old Man and the Bay.”

Dave and I let that sink in. Then we burst out laughing.

Tom shook his head and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.