Highly Commended -- Senior Section
Elizabeth College
The aminic smell of salt and fish bait hovers around my grandfather’s short, average-sized figure. Nitro wore his trademark style: a sleek golf-course green polo shirt neatly tucked into classic blue jeans, topped off with a navy sweater, smeared with fish remains, which fit snug around his beer belly. He has just returned from his fishing trip with his wife, Eleanor. Sand grains camp within Nitro’s hairy toes and are buried under his fingernails. He wanders over to the two-car garage, flicking the water pump on. Nitro offers Eleanor the tap. The first drizzle of water is always warm. She rinses the granules from between her toes and the water slaps the ground in a rhythm, the grass receiving a taste of grit filled, salty water.
Nitro yanks the hose from its position by the shed and it attempts to retract. It’s like a game of tug-of-war, except this time, there is no winner. He aims the plastic nozzle toward the side of his boat, pulling the trigger with his left index finger. His right hand is occupied with a clean rag, ready to polish the boat’s body. Salty residue rebounds off the galvanised tin, covering Nitro in a faint, chromatic cloud. He smiles to himself.
Nitro works around the boat’s hull, ensuring each panel is cleaned to perfection. He reaches out with his thumb to swipe the merely damp surface and it returns a whine. That’s when you know it’s clean. He stands staring into the steel, his warped reflection staring back. Nitro places one foot on the boat trailer’s wheel guard and stepped inside onto the casting deck with the other. It’s always the same routine.
Nitro picks up the rectangular tar-coloured box; that held our morning catches and drops it on the grass beside the boat. My grandmother stands watching through their shack’s kitchen window. She likes to keep an eye on Nitro at all times since the accident. That uneasy feeling in her stomach returns.
I love following Grandpa around the yard, watching him turn our most recent catch into our next delicious meal that Grandma would prepare, wash, crumb and fry. Nitro couldn’t cook, except for toast and microwave meals. Does that even count as cooking? I’ve learned many things from Grandpa, from how to unhook a fish to how to fillet them. I always ask to help him clean them, but Grandpa says it’s a yucky job.
Nitro’s parents died when he was only a boy, his mother from breast cancer, and his father from a devastating fall. It’s like a tradition that all the males in the Watson family have died young due to falls. But my grandfather is special. He has broken that curse.
My grandmother knows that Grandpa broke the curse, but it is still buried deep within his genetics. She nearly lost him that day. The doctors said that he should have died.
Strutting over to the far corner of the yard, adjacent to the boat, Nitro sets up his fish cleaning board. A dark piece of ragged timber sits on an A-frame of steel. On the ground to his left sits the box filled with blistering flathead, awaiting rigor mortis. To his right sat the empty scraps bucket, craving for the skeletal, festering fish carcasses later used as crayfish bait. Nitro grasps his red-handled knife and jars it straight into the first vulnerable flathead’s brain. Its reflexes squirm the now-soulless body as he lifts it onto the board, the blade still present in its head. Nitro’s fingers grip the fish’s head, laying it horizontally in line with the board. He carves the knife into the flesh just behind the gills. The blade staggers down the spine, not far behind Nitro’s hand. Nitro peels away the crisp meat. It’s like when two pieces of conjoined Velcro disconnect.
A lime green bowl is placed on the end of the board in which Nitro places the fresh meat. It was always my job to carry this bowl into the kitchen where my grandma was still supervising him by the window, waiting to wash them. On a good day, the green bowl would be full, and I’d have to make a second trip to the kitchen.
The flies started swarming around the fish meat, playing bumper cars in the air. The irritable buzz pauses for a millisecond – as two flies hit each other, and then it returns.
Nitro keeps the fishes’ tails in a zip lock bag, in the freezer. It’s our supply of fresh fish bait for our next trip. There are times when he’s forgetful and doesn’t get a pack out, even after Grandma reminds him to. Without the fresh bait, we have to rely on the old, dehydrated bait that has been left on the fishing rod, soaking in the sun since its last use. If we manage to strike a bite and the fish is legal size, Nitro takes its tail, hoping that it will increase our luck out on the water.
Nitro hoses down the board. The flies are now pestering. He steps into the boat one last time for the day, retrieving the white bucket. It holds the two crayfish that we caught in the cray pots that morning, a male and female. They lay still, black glistening eyes and dark crimson bodies.
Grandpa taught me how to legally catch and size the cray, and to decipher its gender. When pulled into the boat, the crayfish are always agitated, and I find them scary. He tries to measure their shell whilst they are flapping, fighting for freedom. Some would wiggle free from his grasp and summersault around the boat. By far the best trick shot. I’d shriek and jump up onto the blue bench seat at the back of the boat, so I didn’t get nicked. My biggest fear. Grandpa showed me how to cut the little flap off from under the cray’s tail to prove that we aren’t going to sell it. He also showed me the claws on its back legs so I could pronounce its gender. ‘It’s a girl,’ or ‘it’s a boy!’
Nitro fills the white bucket with fresh water, drowning the crayfish. He places them on the fence, adjacent to the cleaning board so the excess muck drips off them. Is this why the shack always smells of ammonia because Grandpa spreads the scent everywhere? Fish here, fish there, fish everywhere!
Nitro finishes his post-fish clean-up while Eleanor retrieves the crayfish from the fence and puts them to a boil on the electric stovetop. The water bubbles away, hot and spitting. The crays turn bright and red, their eyes an empty white. Using two hands, Eleanor lifts them out of the pot with long metal tongs, placing them in the sink to drip-dry, later to be put in the refrigerator.
Nitro and Eleanor both sit down in a huff, with a glass of frothing, white champagne. Relaxing for the afternoon, before getting ready to go fishing again in the morning.
