Water from the hose made the big enamel pan ring with a sound that said another night’s work was done. It had been a good day on the lake and a long evening under the carport lights, turning a tub filled with bream into fillets.
A cut behind the gills angling to the backbone, a back-and-forth slice down the fish’s length just to the skin ahead of the tail, a nifty whip of the knife to flip the slab open, one more back and forth to free the morsel from its hide, then turn the fish over and repeat. A more delicate, deliberate surgery with a smaller knife against a cutting board removed each rib cage and left a clean, white piece of sashimi waiting for a ride to Crisco Bay.
It was a process like factory piecework, pleasant in its own way as long as too much attention wasn’t paid to the fish waiting in the tub, a pile that seemed to grow as the hours clicked by. Every time I looked, the collection multiplied, so I figured out how to reach in without looking. I labored at it by myself while my daughter checked on me occasionally.
“Here he is! Here’s the one we’ve been looking for!” one of the Old Men boomed, and I could hear him laugh at the standard joke, holding the last fish high with a smile.
“We should have dressed him first and been done,” another replied with the line’s countersign. It was a refrain as familiar as Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First,” not so much funny as comforting in its familiarity.
One Old Man wore a short sleeved work shirt. The other? Faded blue coveralls and thick glasses. We stood under makeshift lights and dressed fish on boards across a table of our own design. They were my mentors, and I was their sidekick and protege. We waded steadily through our welcome chore, one with a clear beginning, middle and end, but one without end so long as days on the lake could be repeated.
Decades had passed since our last night cleaning fish together, but they worked with me through that morning’s catch, a team again.
“Here’s the one we’ve been looking for,” I finally called, mostly to myself.
“What?” my daughter asked. “Why that one?”
“Because he’s the last one in the box,” I said and received a groan. “It’s just something my Old Men used to say. I should have dressed him first and been done.”
“Good grief Daddy,” she said, but smiled, locking her own copy of the moment away.
Some friends and I had spent a morning loading bream into a big ice chest, but I had volunteered to take them all home with me to clean.
“I hate for you to have to clean all these by yourself,” one had said, but I’d just smiled. I knew I wouldn’t be working alone.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected]
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