Hooked On You
Lioness – Joy Cimino
Hooked On You
Catie Chua
Mom beckoned her tipsy friends around the oak-stump coffee table, the warm overhead lights twinkling in their cracked resin coating like tiny stars that escaped from the dark night sky. With a glass of fizzing champagne in one hand and what remained of her shawl in the other, she looked like the lady on the logo of Columbia Studios — if she had ever-curling locks and a fringed black dress and a dazzling smile, her lips spilling either school secrets or embarrassing stories from your childhood. I had hoped that it was the former, since the adults that were currently present all had kids that went to other schools, but one sniff and a look around the living room soon sealed my fate.
The air was thick and clammy, hinting bitter raspberry that whispered the champagne rosé on the tip of everyone’s tongues. I squeezed in-between Dad and one of his work friends on our cramped couch, and a split-second glance to the stairwell leading to my second-floor safe haven revealed that yet another adult blocked it, his hulking frame letting scant openings of the dark upstairs escape. I knew that my sister had already used the I’m tired excuse, and I had alike gone to the restroom within the last ten minutes. Simply put, I was trapped. I wavered, a small fish in a tank of large sharks, their senses tingling at the piece of flesh that Mom dangled capriciously over their heads. She skimmed over the faces of her guests, set her dangerously low glass of blush-pink poison onto the coffee table, pointed at her left thumb, and promptly betrayed me and my fragile dignity.
“Did you know,” she started, scrutinizing me, totally un-Momlike, “that Nicky got a fishing hook stuck in my finger?”
“Mom,” I groaned quietly, stretching the ‘o’ with faux-exasperation. I channeled everything I had in getting her attention, like Matilda slipping a salamander into Ms. Trunchbull’s water jug. Mom didn’t get my telepathic memo, however, and started telling her silly tale with as much detail as a drunk adult could muster. As embarrassment heated my resigned face, I, too, was thrust into that cloudy, hook-filled September night.
The pier that we were fishing atop stretched far into the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean, roiling underneath the artificial bright whites of the overhead LEDs. I thread the spiral of coarse, stiff-shelled shrimp through the curve of my mom’s fishing hook while she read out the names of fish that were (supposedly) active during the fall season.
“Nicky, I think we can catch king mackerel and flounder right now!” When those names struck my ears, determination sparked in my chest, like flint striking steel. I saw myself hauling up a great thrashing kingfish, earning my place on the Surf City Wall of Fame as everyone around me watched in fixed wonder. Or, better yet, triumphing in the form of a flounder the size of two dinner plates and taking a selfie with it, then heading home with it descaled and fileted so Mom and I could feast on authentic, All-American Flounder. With the thought of catching such aquatic wonders fresh in my mind, I baited my own hook with a slippery, fleshy shrimp and prepared for it to fly.
Many fishermen say that casting your line is an art form. It requires dexterity, timing, and, in some cases, elegance. Casting is like throwing a thin dart at an invisible scoreboard; you don’t know you’ve hit anything until your score is tallied. I’ve casted my line countless times during my brief time fishing, but never before had I thrown it so far — and into such a vast space, either. I squeezed the cork grip of my fishing rod with my slick, slightly-sticky fingers, and wound my arms back like I was hitting a home run. With a sharp inhale of the fresh, briny ocean air, I propelled my rod forward, waited a second as the silvery line coasted above the water, then snapped my reel shut. Leaning forward onto the wooden brace of the pier, I saw the small, triangular weight disappear with a plop into the navy-white waves below me. I straightened my posture and trained my eyes onto the thin, arcing pole, waiting for the rhythmic bob of the ocean’s influence on the line to be interrupted by a tiny heartbeat of a tug. A minute passed, maybe three – it couldn’t have been more than five – and that telltale snag of a fish upon my hook wormed its way through the rod and up my fingers. With my heart a quickening and heady drum in my ears, I jerked harshly on the rod and drew in my prey, wrists flurrying on the handle of the reel. What emerged from the depths of the sea was glistening, pure white under the artificial lamplights above it, hazy and almost dreamlike. Marked right below its eye was a large, black circle.
I called Mom over from her fiddling with her own rod. “Mom, look, I think I caught a spot!”
“It’s not a bad size, honey! We can’t eat it, but it’s a good start! Teach me how to cast, and I bet I’ll catch an even bigger one than that.” Ever cheerful, she snapped a photo of me and the fish. After slipping it off the hook, I gave it a chaste kiss on its lips and threw it back into the ocean. “Alright, Mom,” I agreed, gesturing for her to pick up her rod and follow my lead, my baitless hook dangling and catching the light. Again, I grasped the rod tight, nodding as she did the same. “So you just pull it back like this-”
“AAAAAHHHH!!!!”
A harsh shriek, piercing and abrupt, came from Mom’s direction. I whipped my head back, noticing that the fishing line trailed from the top of my rod all the way to Mom, my hook buried halfway into her thumb. It hit me then, when I saw the dark blood surge around the hook and bead up to the surface, that I had just harmed my mother. Not only that, but I physically hurt her; it was as if seeing Mom bleed was proof that this whole trip was a mistake. Shame, ugly and sharp, dripped down my back like barnacles on a shell, or grease down a drain. I folded into myself and inside my mind I realized a Leviathan that submerged my body in icy water, drowning out everything and everyone except the sight of Mom, her face distorted in distress and words muffled through a block of ice.
Oh God… Oh God… I thought as I watched a man cut the line that connected the hook to my fishing rod, wrestling the hook out of her finger to no avail. Contempt-filled phrases echoed inside of me like a desperate, lamenting chant that didn’t know whether to seek absolution or exile. Somehow, through my whirlwind of self-loathing, Mom’s surprisingly gentle, clear-cut voice coaxed me toward her: “Come on, Nicky. Let’s go back to the shop; I think they can help us better there.” I trailed behind her like a lost fawn, my eyes downcast and fixed upon the salt-stained planks of stripping wood that fit against each other intimately. My fingers clenched helplessly into my too-hot palms, the pier lights’ strident glowers beating down on me with each step after Mom. I crossed the threshold between the jetty and the tackle store, one coarse and dark and the other exuberant and glowing.
Abruptly, the lights stopped scrutinizing me, and there was no chill in the air. Everything was warm and cluttered and lived-in, and Mom was laughing. With a spirited tone to her words, she told the gruff man behind the counter, “My daughter was teaching me a casting trick when she hooked me instead of a fish!”
He let out a small chuckle, and said, “I can fix this quickly. You have no idea how many people get fish hooks stuck in themselves out here.” With that, the man brought out a thin length of fishing line, bowed it between the hook’s crescent, and gave a single yank to the line. As if in slow motion, I saw the barbed tip that riveted inside Mom’s thumb slip out, then clatter tinnily onto the counter within a split second. Mom was elated.
“God. Did you see that, Nicky? Did you take any photos? It was painless! That other guy, the one who was trying to wiggle the hook out, he was really hurting me. Thanks so much.”
After Mom wrapped a band-aid around her thumb, I could only stare in amazement at the spot where the hook had dug in. It wasn’t bleeding profusely. She wasn’t screaming in pain. She laughed as she exited the shop.
“Sorry…” I mumbled. Mom gave me a wide smile, then pulled me in for a tight hug. She was warm against the brisk fall air.
“Honey,” she began, lightness lacing her words like the first draft of spring, “cheer up! It was an accident, right? You know what, I think you need to learn to brush things off more. It’s not like I lost my hand or anything!” I nodded quickly.
“Thanks, Mom. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures.”
“It’s okay. I got a good story out of it. And we’re gonna laugh at it later, anyways.”
“Stop! Don’t tell anyone… it’s embarrassing.”
I hurried those words out of my mouth, knowing she was most definitely thinking about telling that story to her friends already. But I knew she was right — I was going to laugh about it later, and I did need to toughen up a little.
Mere months later, I huddled closer to the oak-stump coffee table, listening to the end of Mom’s embellished retelling. In hindsight, I thought it silly that I overspun my thoughts, so much so that I forgot the majority of what happened between the hooking and the releasing. Mom’s version was, after all, far more lighthearted than my memory of it. I knew that the next time something that memorable happened, I needed to embrace it… and get photo evidence. After all, I’ll never know if I can top the time I hooked my mom on a fishing trip.