American Thighs by Jill Conner Browne Page A

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    Simultaneously, Kyle called on my cell phone and Angie hooked something BIG. I was feigning interest in whatever Big News Kyle had called to share as I watched Angie’s line being stripped out, miles at a time. There was something BIG on the end of that line.
    Kyle nattered on for some minutes as I “uh-huhed” enough that he apparently thought I was (a) listening and/or (b) interested, until finally I could stand it no more. The whine of her reel as the line was stripping off was driving me wild. Angie looked at me and mouthed, “Net,” meaning whatever it was, we were gonna need the net to land it.
    Kyle was still blathering away about whatever it was—even though I had interrupted him fairly early in his monologue with the Important News that Angie had just hooked something big, but it didn’t slow him down a bit. It must have been something he thought would really be of interest to me to continue in such a fashion. Shows how wrong he can be.
    When I saw Angie’s lips form the word net, I somewhat forcefully interjected, “Where’s the net?” But he evidently thought whatever it was he was going on about was more important because he did not immediately respond to my urgent query about the location of the net. I found this irritating to the extreme and followed up with a much more forceful and considerably louder “THE NET! THE NET! WHERE’S THE FUCKIN’ NET?!”
    I didn’t actually wait for his answer since I had just recalled where I had last seen the net and, flinging the phone—with Kyle on the other end—to the ground, I loped off in that direction. As I loped, I bellowed at Laura—in total violation of about a half dozen Laura Fest Regulations having to do with the at-all-cost avoidance of disturbing the peace of Laura during LauraFest—to get over here quick and bring her camera, Angie had hooked something big.
    Loping back, net in hand, I could see Laura had loped herownself over with the camera and was watching, wide-eyed, as the line continued to strip off Angie’s reel. What the fuck had she caught? Something big.
    Kyle—and, as it turned out, our friends Allen and Jeffrey—were hanging on the phone line in New York, in total thrall regarding the little drama that was playing out on our seawall. We could hear them shouting but we had no time or inclination to respond, being in a pretty big thrall ourownselves.
    Finally, the fish began to tire—but not much—that fish was not nearly as tired as, say, Angie. Her arms were about to break just from trying to keep the monster from yanking the rod, with her attached, into the lake after him. Gradually she worked him closer and closer to the bank. At this point, he still had not broken the surface—we had no idea what it was—or how big it was.
    Finally, we could tell from the line that he was close—I was ready with the net, Laura was standing by with the Kodak on auto-focus. Angie had braced herself a few feet back from the edge of the seawall, fighting the fish. Laura was beside her and I was right on the edge with the net, peering into the water, straining for the first sight of Moby.
    Suddenly, there he was—well, part of him. He was twisting and turning and his midsection broke the surface. What I sawwas about a foot wide and about three feet long—and I knew there was plenty more fish on either end of what I saw. He was HUGE and I was broadcasting that fact loudly and with great excitement to the girls on the bank, the boys on the phone, and the world at large within the sound of my voice—which I figger was a good five-mile radius, easy.
    The fish broke again and I saw that the hook was in the big fin on his back—he hadn’t swallowed it at all—and so he wasn’t coming up headfirst but kinda sideways. I knew he wasn’t about to fit in that net sideways and I was gonna have to get down under one end of him to land