Surf fishing for striped bass, Point Judith lighthouse.

Cast after cast. You begin to doubt yourself. The tide’s all wrong, moon’s too bright. Nothing feels right—the makings of a wasted night. Your mind wanders. You lose interest in changing lures, chasing tide.

You went fishing to go fishing, there was no other reason. You wanted to feel a fish on the end of the line. Sometimes that helps.  But you haven’t caught a big fish in months. The insects drive you nuts, you hate them. Sirens on the main road: an ambulance, a cop car. You try to differentiate between the siren tones, isolate one from the next. You swing the plug up to check for weeds, cast again. Who is each siren for—those in the wreck or the fire, or a man on the floor, clenching his heart?

You fish, casting mechanically in the night. The distant shape of Block Island, the glow of the moon on the water. Three trawlers have left Point Judith, outbound. You watch their bright decklights as they steam southeast.

You cast again and wonder about your new girlfriend. Is she understanding of all this? The money you spend on fishing, the time on the phone with fishing friends, your small mania over treble hooks and lunar phases. The last girl tired of it—the too-familiar tales, the foolish obsession. She ended up with another man. You remember the night it happened. You drove all the way to Watch Hill to catch the dropping tide. There wasn’t shit there. You threw needlefish all night and caught nothing but bubble weed. You got home late. Her car wasn’t there. Beer bottles on the kitchen table, lipstick by the sink.

You take another cast and start to reel. Point Judith Light is starting to irritate you, the white arc of light, revolving outward from shore—every fifteen seconds the beam goes by. The rocks underfoot hurt your knees and lower back. How did this place become your default spot—your autopilot destination—if the spot hasn’t done a thing for you? (And it hasn’t.)

Then, in an instant, something has shifted–an awareness. Three cranks of the reel and you feel the lure start to dig. One second…

You picture the plug in a tight wobble; the kelp on the bottom, flowing out from broken shell, sand, boulders. Every molecule in your body braced.  Two seconds…

You picture the shape trailing the plug, a good fish. It’s not a follow.  The fish just hits.

Then your girlfriend is gone. Her face vanishes into the cirrus. The rod bends down, extinguishing trawler lights, the insects, the hurt knee, the sirens. Three seconds, four seconds, five.