The Last Pelican in Sheboygan

Joe has been out here on the dead-wood bridge for five hours with a rod, a net, and a tackle box. And he’s caught nothing. This is the agony of an amateur fisherman who wants an exciting fish on the line. He brought along a cooler in the truck with the idea that the Spotted Cows would leave the ice more or less at the same speed a few suckers would go in, swimming upstream to the net to the cooler. There’s no more beer. Maybe Joe’s the sucker.

His lure for the past hour has been an inch-long glowstick that smells like dog food. The lure is slathered in grease out of its packaging. His handheld net is flimsy plastic and wouldn’t hold up a panfish, let alone something big, but he has the net hitched to the bottom of the bridge just in case. He checks the rod and the knot on the lure and the reel seat. Now he has to catch something or else go back to the truck and sleep. 

Sunday nights aren’t long enough after a big lunch. But Sunday nights are hot enough in July, even after sunset and so close to the water. Humid like a running dishwasher. Joe digs into the cooler with one hand for an ice cube to press on his forehead. His feet knock the empty cans over. Then he turns back to the rod. He opens the bail on the rod, leans back and swings with his shoulders instead of his back.

A few seconds pass from when the line swings out and when the hook drops into the water. Joe closes the bail with a loud click.

Joe can fish, but his friends at their most flattering would never say he is good at fishing. At least he has the rod for bringing the fish in close and the net for actually getting the fish out of the water. If one ever shows up. He doesn’t see that the fish aren’t showing up where he has been casting straight in front of himself. Worse, he doesn’t reel in and throw back out and pull. He doesn’t dance or swish the line in an S like a little fish or skimming bug that a sucker would bite. Wind pushes the bobber out far from the bridge, past where the suckers go, and he doesn’t know to keep the reel tighter. Maybe the worst thing he doesn’t know is that fish here will only go under a bridge if there is good bait (not here) or if they are washed out by some rain (not in this slow water). He is irritable.

An old, torn baseball cap sits crooked on Joe’s head, his head tilted a bit to match. His beard smells of dried day-old soap. His hands are rough from long days of baseball and unskilled fishing. The bobber blurs slightly before he shakes himself focused again. 

Long waits for a fish get even longer with only a cooler of beer and a summer wind from the rapids for company. No more cars will come by tonight. There’s no room for cars on the bridge when there are fishermen out, anyway. A car has all the glass and brick and downtown road it could ever want. Joe just has an empty hook.

 

Sunset turns the water from blues to pinkish, orangish reds. Joe didn’t bring a flashlight. He can still hear the stream as it moves below the bridge, not a rushing rapid, and not a meandering drip. Somewhere in between. The sky is getting darker. Splashes from upstream encourage Joe into checking his hook and net again. He sees just a peek of a fish up out of the water, past his hook.

Many minutes pass with no twitch on the line, until it happens. He hears the wind in his ears. Joe reels in the line when it feels heavy with a fish. The handle turns and turns and… caught on something. Just for a second. Then the line is light in that way even Joe recognizes. Empty.

He’s been casting all afternoon and now into the evening. Even he can tell where the rocks are. He’s not hitting a rock.

Still, just to be careful, he walks over to the other long side of the bridge. A good cast with a whistling line, then a tiny plop when the bobber hits the water. The wind helps one more time with just a little swishing and swirling. Joe is lucky. Pull forward from the fish. Pull back from Joe. The wind scrapes his ears. Reeling in, turning, and… caught. Like the fish gets heavier for a few seconds longer this time. Pull back. And then Joe feels a great pull forwards and up. 

Then gone. No fish.

Joe tries again, casting a ways away from where he has cast so far tonight. Same heavy catch. Pulling. Wind on his face. Snagging onto something heavy. Tug up. But this time, he can reel in the line with quick, jerky turns. 

Silver head of a sucker, missing the rest of it. Something is eating the fish right from the hook. His lure is gone, too.

So Joe crouches down and digs through the tackle box to rebait the line when he feels the rush of wind right at the back of his neck, a strong wind. He ducks lower, holding onto his hat in surprise. Empty cans fall off the edge of the bridge. He looks up to see it: a pelican flies down the length of the bridge and dives to the river. It’s bright white against the shadow-blue, almost black water, even in the low light. Its mouth is thin but long, red pink orange like the sunset. Covered in pieces of fish.

 

Joe’s mind races with pelican and beer and fish and pelican. Is the great lake east of here not enough fish for you, bird? Is a brat at a backyard barbecue nearby just impossible for you, bird? Did the boardwalk run out of French fries? Are you the last pelican in Sheboygan with nowhere to eat? Can you not find anywhere else to go except right here, only after my long afternoon of catching nothing?

He sees the thin bones in the pelican’s wings, its frazzled feathers. Maybe this is the bird’s feast after a long afternoon of catching nothing. The pelican shakes its beak at Joe as it passes again before perching on a big stone jutting between the water and the riverbank. It growls a deep, throaty growl at him.

This bird is picking on me, Joe thinks, while I’m handfeeding him. Joe throws an empty beer can at the pelican with a loud grunt. He misses.

The pelican circles back around, a little faster. Fuzzier. Hungrier. Joe grabs the net and tries to swat at the pelican, just to scare it away. Let there be one fish tonight that’s mine, he thinks. He feels the pull of the pelican as its beak tugs then tears through the net. Flimsy plastic.

Joe groans at the thief. He could try to scare it off with the rod, but if the rod breaks, too… 

And then Joe waits. Sits down, even, on the cooler. Takes deep breaths. Unclenches his hands. The big, old bird is still hungry for dinner while Joe already had a full stomach before the afternoon started. He feels the cool air blowing up onto his face. He sets his hat back on his head.

Minutes pass.

You, bird, have to either eat your fill or go somewhere else eventually. I can wait, Joe thinks. He does not suddenly have good technique for fishing. But when he looks at the pelican, his eyes have a fisherman’s patience at last.

The bird circles around and then peeks into view. Joe is ready.

His empty can, from a focused pitcher’s hand even with a sore shoulder from an afternoon of fishing, doesn’t miss the second time. The pelican flies off in a daze with a dizzy head. Joe’s face is red, his back full of sweat.

At last, the water is quiet again. One more time. A minute, maybe less. Cast. Figure eight, but crude and not what he would know to call it. Twitch on the line. Pull, reel. The rod is heavy with a fish, carried up and over the side of the bridge. Two suckers unhooked but only one tossed into the cooler. Joe packs up the truck with his tackle box and broken net and a fish. There is no more light in the Sunday dusk.