History: Key West
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He was an Old Man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the Old Man was not definitely ‘salad’ which is the worst form of unlucky. And the boy had gone at their orders.
It made the boy sad to see the Old Man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.
The Old Man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.
…Many of the fishermen made fun of the Old Man and he was not angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen.
The successful fishermen of the day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana.
They picked up the gear from the boat. The Old Man carried the mast on his shoulder and the boy carried the wooden box with the coiled, hard-braided brown lines, the gaff and the harpoon with its shaft…They walked up the road together to the Old Man’s shack and went through its open door.
When the boy came back the Old Man was asleep in the chair and the sun was down…The newspaper lay across his knees and the weight of his arm held it there in the evening breeze. He was barefooted.
The boy was back now with the sardines and the two baits wrapped in newspaper and they went down the trail to the skiff, feeling the pebbled sand under their feet, and lifted the skiff and slid her into the water.
'Good luck Old Man’ ‘Good luck,’ the Old Man said. He fitted the rope lashings of the oars onto the thole pins and, leaning forward against the thrust of the blades in the water he began to row out of the harbour in the dark.
In the dark the Old Man could feel the morning coming and as he rowed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness. He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean.
He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current. He was letting the current do a third of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further out than he had hoped to be at this hour.
…The bird went higher in the air and circled again, his wings motionless. Then he dove suddenly and the Old Man saw flying fish spurt out of the water and sail desperately over the surface. ‘Dolphin,’ the Old Man said aloud. ‘Big dolphin.’
…But as the Old Man watched, a small tuna rose in the air, turned and dropped head first into the water. The tuna shone silver in the sun and after he had dropped back into the water another and another rose and they were jumping in all directions, churning the water and leaping in long jumps after the bait. They were circling it and driving it.
…Then it came again. This time it was a tentative pull, not solid or heavy, and he knew exactly what it was. One hundred fathoms down a marlin was eating the sardines that covered the point and the shank of the hook where the hand-forged hook projected from the head of the small tuna.
The Old Man held the line delicately, and softly, with his left hand, unleashed it from the stick. Now he could let it run through his fingers without the fish feeling any tension.
Then he felt the gentle touch on the line and was happy. ‘It was only his turn,’ he said. ‘He’ll take it.’
…The fish just moved away slowly and the Old Man could not raise him an inch. His line was strong and made for heavy fish and he held it against his back until it was so taut that beads of water were jumping from it. Then it began to make a slow hissing sound in the water and he still held it, bracing himself against the thwart and leaning back against the pull. The boat began to move off slowly toward the north-west.
This will kill him, the Old Man thought. He can’t do this for ever. But four hours later the fish was still swimming steadily out to sea, towing the skiff, and the Old Man was still braced solidly with the line across his back.
The fish never changed his course nor his direction all that night as far as the man could tell from watching the stars. It was cold after the sun went down and the Old Man’s sweat dried cold on his back and arms, and his old legs.
After the sun went down he tied it around his neck so that it hung down over his back and he cautiously worked it down under the line that was across his shoulders now. The sack cushioned the line and he had found a way of leaning forward against the bow so that he was almost comfortable…
During the night two porpoises came around the boat and he could hear them rolling and blowing. He could tell the difference between the blowing noise the male made and the sighing blow of the female.
A small bird came toward the skiff from the north. He was a warbler and flying very low over the water. The Old Man could see that he was very tired…The bird made the stern of the boat and rested there. Then he flew around the Old Man’s head and rested on the line where he was more comfortable.
The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the Old Man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.
Now that he had seen him once, he could picture the fish swimming in the water with his purple pectoral fins set wide as wings and the great erect tail slicing through the dark. I wonder how much he sees at that depth, the Old Man thought.
…It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the stern, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the Old Man leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stern…
He put one of his feet on the fish and slit him quickly from the vent up to the tip of his lower jaw. Then he put his knife down and gutted him with his right hand, scooping him clean and pulling the gills clear. He felt the maw heavy and slippery in his hands and slit it open. There were two flying fish inside. They were fresh and hard and he laid them side by side and dropped the guts and gills over the stern.
He woke with the jerk of his right fist coming up against his face and the line burning out through his right hand. He had no feeling of his left hand but he braked all he could with his right hand and the line rushed out…
…He looked back at the coils of line and they were feeding smoothly. Just then the fish jumped making a great bursting of the ocean and then a heavy fall.
Then he jumped again and again and the boat was going fast although line was still racing out and the Old Man was raising the strain to breaking point and raising it to breaking point again and again. He had been pulled down tight onto the bow…
He could not see the fish’s jumps but only heard the breaking of the ocean and the heavy splash as he fell. The speed of the line was cutting his hands badly but he had always known this would happen and he tried to keep the cutting across the calloused parts and not let the line slip into the palm nor cut the fingers.
…He used both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling as much as he could with his body and his legs. His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling.
He is hitting the wire leader with his spear, he thought. That was bound to come. He had to do that. It may make him jump though and I would rather he stayed circling now.
It was on the third turn that he saw the fish first. He saw him first as a dark shadow that took so long to pass under the boat that he could not believe its length.
But he was that big and at the end of this circle he came to the surface only thirty yards away and the man saw his tail out of the water. It was higher than a big scythe blade and a very pale lavender above the dark blue water.
‘Be calm and strong, Old Man,’ he said. On the next circle the fish’s back was out but he was a little too far from the boat.
The fish was coming in on his circle now calm and beautiful looking and only his great tail moving. The Old Man pulled on him all that he could to bring him closer. For just a moment the fish turned a little on his side. Then he straightened himself and began another circle.
The Old Man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more strength he had just summoned, into the fish’s side just behind the great chest fin that rose high in the air to the altitude of the man’s chest. He felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all his weight after it.
Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the Old Man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the Old Man and over all of the skiff.
The Old Man felt faint and sick and he could not see well. But he cleared the harpoon line and let it run slowly through his raw hands and, when he could see, he saw the fish was on his back with his silver belly up. The shaft of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish’s shoulder and the sea was discolouring with the red of the blood from his heart.
'Keep my head clear,’ he said against the wood of the bow. ‘I am a tired Old Man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave work.’ When he was even with him and had the fish’s head against the bow he could not believe his size. But he untied the harpoon rope from the bitt, passed it through the fish’s gills and out his jaws, made a turn around his sword then passed the rope through the other gill, made another turn around the bill and knotted the double rope and made it fast to the bitt in the bow. He cut the rope then and went astern to noose the tail.
The skiff was sailing well considering the handicaps and he steered with the tiller under his arm. He could see the fish and he had only to look at his hands and feel his back against the stern to know that this had truly happened and was not a dream.
He was a very big mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a swordfish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was built as a swordfish except for his huge jaws.
When the Old Man saw him coming he knew that this was a shark that had no fear at all and would do exactly what he wished. He prepared the harpoon and made the rope fast while he watched the shark come on…He took one look at the great fish as he watched the shark close in. It might as well have been a dream, he thought. I cannot keep him from hitting me but maybe I can get him.
The shark’s head was out of the water and his back was coming out and the Old Man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down onto the shark’s head at a spot where the line between his eyes intersected with the line that ran straight back from his nose. There were not such lines. There was only the heavy sharp blue head and the big eyes, and the clicking, thrusting all-swallowing jaws.
The shark swung over and the Old Man saw his eye was not alive and then he swung over once again, wrapping himself in two loops of the rope. The Old Man knew that he was dead but the shark would not accept it. Then, on his back, with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking, the shark plowed over the water as a speedboat does. The water was white where his tail beat it and three-quarters of his body was clear above the water when the rope came taut, shivered and then snapped.
‘Galanos’ he said aloud. He had seen the second fin now coming up behind the first and identified them as shovel-nosed sharks by the brown triangular fin and the sweeping movements of the tail. They had the scent and were excited and in the stupidity of their great hunger they were losing and finding the scent in their excitement. But they were closing all the time.
‘Ay’ the Old Man said. ‘Galanos. Come on galanos.’ They came. But they did not come as the mako had come. One turned and went out of sight under the skiff and the Old Man could feel the skiff shake as he jerked and pulled on the fish.
The skiff was shaking with the destruction the other shark was doing to the fish, and the Old Man let go the sheet so that the skiff would swing broadside and bring the shark out from under. When he saw the shark he leaned over the side and punched at him.
The sharks did not hit him again until just before sunset. The Old Man saw the brown fins coming along the wide trail the fish must make in the water. They were not even quartering the scent. They were headed straight for the skiff swimming side by side.
‘Come on galano,’ the Old Man said. ‘Come in again.’ The shark came in a rush and the Old Man hit him as he shut his jaws. He hit him solidly and from as high as he could raise the club.
When he sailed into the little harbour the lights of the terrace were out and he knew everyone was in bed. It was quiet in the harbour…There was no-one to help him so he pulled the boat up as far as he could.
He unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. Then he shouldered the mast and started to climb. It was then he knew the depths of his tiredness. He stopped for a moment and looked back and saw in the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing up well behind the skiff’s stern. He saw the white naked line of his backbone and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill, and all the nakedness between.
He started to climb again, and at the top, he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult, and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road.
Finally he put the mast down and stood up. He picked up the mast and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.
He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning. The boy saw that the Old Man was breathing and then he saw the Old Man’s hands and he started to cry.
Many fishermen were around the skiff looking at what was lashed beside it, and one was in the water, his trousers rolled up, measuring the skeleton with a length of line. ‘He was eighteen feet from nose to tail,’ the fisherman who was measuring him called.
The boy carried the hot can of coffee up to the Old Man’s shack and sat by him until he woke. ‘Don’t sit up,’ the boy said. ‘Drink this.’ He poured some of the coffee in a glass. The Old Man took it and drank it. ‘They beat me, Manolin,’ he said. ‘They truly beat me.’
Up the road, in his shack, the Old Man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him, watching him. The Old Man was dreaming about the lions.
He was an Old Man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
