The fishing trip was on Tuesday. I awoke in a hospital bed early Friday morning and wrote down everything I could remember. The following is a version of that writing that has been edited by my friends at the FBI to save me any legal hassles or charges of regicide.

"That’s a good catch, that’s dinner" Plocik said. As I awoke I saw the fuzzy outline of a 25 pound Amberjack wriggling in the sun.

"Quirk, get back here and lick this fish" said Smitty.

Then, back to sleep. Sleep was the thing for me. The only thing that kept me from coughing up bile. Sleep and fancy ketchup. Where did I get all these packets of fancy ketchup?

Now I remember. I was given these ketchups as a prescription of sorts from the medicine man of the Dolphin people. Is that right? Maybe not, but I swear I remember someone asking me if I needed any fancy ketchup "for the road".

Wait, no. That wasn’t the medicine man, that was the king! I was given a prescription for Fancy Ketchup from the Dolphin King! Oh god, is he dead? Did I kill him?

No, wait, OK. I’m OK. No one knows what happened down there but me and Dennis Haskins, and he’s with the Feds. They can’t touch me.

——–

I remember seeing his eyes. Black slits in a shiny bald fish-head. Dolphin.
Dolphin are mammals!
Shut up! Who are you, get out of my head!

Nick, Smitty, Plocik, and Captain Bruce were in the back screwing with their rods. It was me and the dolphin at the bow of the boat. Now was my chance. I unhooked the strap from the camera case and dove in on top of him. I connected my legs under him. He flicked his tail and tried to buck me. I went limp and made my center of gravity as low as possible until I could reach forward to his beak. The first time I tried to get the strap in his mouth he bit my wrist. The second time I flung the end of the strap across his mouth and donkey-punched him right in his blowhole. He opened his mouth to shriek and I pulled the strap tight into the corners of his jaw. He was mine to ride, but where?

I’d waited a long time for this. I sat up straight and was able to keep him level in the water, then I gave him a swift heel-spur to the left undercarriage and sent him into a slow spin. We did a full counter-clockwise rotation and I couldn’t see the boat anywhere. We were 40 miles off the coast when I landed on the bugger, he must have taken me 10 more during the struggle. I leaned in close to his earhole and whispered, "You make me sick."

"Geh huh hell ah me!" squealed the dolphin.

"What?"

"Geh ah me!"

"If I take this out of your mouth, will you flee? If you do, just remember that I have my legs wrapped around you like a vise. I swear to god I’ll punch your blowhole again."

"Oh ay, oh ay!"

I slipped the bit out of his mouth and looked at him, stunned.

"Please get off my back."

"Will you flee?"

"I swear I won’t go anywhere, I just want to talk."

"Talk to me right now."

"I need to see who I’m talking to. Let’s be civil."

Jesus, I thought, I lassoed the one polite dolphin in the Gulf of Mexico.

"OK. Don’t flee."

"Stop saying flee. You sound like an Englishman. My name is Tim, by the way."

"I’m Adam."

"What do you want with me?"

"I just wanted to see your village. Can you take me there?"

"I guess, but you can’t ride me. Just grab my dorsal fin."

So I grabbed his fin and he took me under. I had to close my eyes because we were going so fast and the plankton hurt as it banged off my eyeballs. About a minute later, I felt us slow down and opened them back up. I was in a cave and I could see lights above the water. I let go of Tim and swam up for air. There were lanterns hanging on the wall of the cave and I saw a man sitting at a table with a bottle of Beefeater gin. He was talking on a cell phone and I heard him say, "Not today, I’m staying here for the night." I coughed up some salt-water and he turned to look at me.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Adam"

"What are you doing here?"

"Tim brought me, I wanted to see the dolphin village."

"Well, alright. Welcome. I’m Dennis Haskins."

Sure enough, it was Mr. Belding from Saved By the Bell.

"Where are all the dolphins?" I asked.

"They’re on vacation in Mexico. Tim stayed home to care for the king. He’s been stricken with a rough case of Gonorrhea. He also might have some Gingivitis. We can’t be sure."

"Is he going to be OK?"

"Oh sure. He gets it all the time. Terrible personal hygiene, these dolphins. Want a drink?"

"Sure." I climbed out of the water and sat down at the table opposite Dennis Haskins.

"I don’t have any chaser, but you don’t really need it down here. The pressure makes the gin go down incredibly smooth."

"Thanks." I sipped some cold gin from a conch shell and leaned back in my chair.

"What brings you down here, Dennis Haskins?"

"Oh I come down here about once a month just to get away from it all. You know how it is for us celebrities, paparazzi around every corner, behind every bush. Sometimes you just need an escape."

"Sure, sure" I said. I doubted he was hounded by the press that often, but didn’t think it would be polite to question him.

We drank for a while and killed the bottle of gin. We talked and talked, a little about dolphins, but mostly about the recent decline of quality in Arby’s food (his topic of choice for some reason). I decided it was time to head back to the boat and called for Tim.

Tim popped his beak out of the water and I exchanged phone numbers with Dennis Haskins and said goodbye.

As soon as I got back underwater I felt severely sick and started to vomit. Tim sped up and took me to the surface. As soon as I got my first breath and opened my eyes I saw a shiny gold crown floating on top of the water. Then the crown lifted up and under it was the dolphin king. I tried to bow (nearly impossible while treading water) and said hello.

"Hello human man" he said with some difficulty, "What is your name?"

"Adam. Great to finally meet you, dolphin king."

"Good to meet you, Adam. Tim tells me you are feeling ill. Is this true?"

"I think I drank too much gin with Dennis Haskins."

"Drinking too much gin with Dennis Haskins is a common problem in the dolphin village. Here, take these eight packets of fancy ketchup for the road and I will take you back to your vessel."

"Thanks, I owe you one" I said and I took the fancy ketchups from his beak.

I grabbed his fin and he took me back to the boat. Once there I noticed that the guys were still in the back of the boat and had not realized that I was gone. I patted the dolphin king on his head in thanks and he gave a small cough. I climbed up onto the bow of the boat and looked back down to see the crown sinking into the depths of the sea. The dolphin king was floating down upside down behind it. He was dead. I’d killed him with a friendly tap. Seconds later my phone rang. It was Dennis Haskins. He said it was not my fault, that the king was already very sick, and that he and the FBI would take care of everything. I felt very tired and sick and laid down on the bench. I woke up three days later and wrote this.

Read the 1st Deep Sea Fishing article here

Video account of actual fishing here

Pictures here

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 7th, 2004 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.