Damnation Creek, California

Damnation Creek, California
April, 2017

My brother took me deep sea fishing once. We were twenty miles offshore when we saw a frigate bird calmly circling in the bright sky. Two hundred yards behind us we saw several Dorados flickering in the sun.

Frigates are thieves that can live aloft for months at a time. They cross the oceans nestled in amongst the clouds and then dive like avian Messerschmitts toward their unsuspecting prey. They eat the small fish that the larger, predatory, fish school up to the surface. They have the largest wingspan to body size ratio of any bird but their feathers are not waterproof. It is a cruel tradeoff. Frigates, like fighter planes, are not meant to land in water.

I once saw an old frigate bird in the water though, it was gently floating on the rolling waves. It must have dipped too low while trying to catch a fish. Every meal for a frigate is a perilous encounter with death. It was trying to dry its wings in the ocean breeze by holding them aloft. It would eventually drown.

Dorados are magnificent fish. When the sun is high overhead you can see them skimming the surface as they chase and school their prey. They flash brilliant greens and pinks as their scales catch the light.

The fish are exhausted and exquisite when you pull them from the water. Sportsmen like to fish for them because they often spend twenty to thirty minutes fighting against the rod and reel. The fish do not know that the battle is rigged. Dorados are no match for ancient Chinese math and Japanese bearings.

Fishing boats keep large ice chests on board to throw the live fish in. The Dorados freeze to death while everyone else bakes in a tropical sun.

The dead fish come out of the box dull and grey and half frozen. They are quickly filleted with sharp knives that curve like a scimitar. The most handsome cuts are packed into plastic bags. The remainders are thrown to the tarpon that flail about near the docks. Occasionally a Cuban or Puerto Rican will come by and take the heads home to make soup with.

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Last month I drove into the redwood groves in northern California. I parked my car south of Crescent City and walked down to where Damnation Creek meets the Pacific Ocean. It was grey and dark and forbidding. The trees towered and soared. There, the earth ends in looming cliffs that drop hunks of granite into the water as they slowly give way to the relentless tide. The stones are pounded against the walls until they are polished and round. They shine brilliant and glimmer and glint in the sun. I picked one up and put it in my pocket.

That rock is now in Indiana, far from the ocean that whet and polished it. It sits on a shelf and is dull and grey and lifeless.