WATERFRONT FANCIES
Man's capacity for faith is infinite. He is able to believe with passion in things invisible. He can achieve a fantastic confidence in the Unknowable. Here he sits on the breakwater near the Municipal Pier, a fishpole in his hand, staring patiently into the agate-colored water. He can see nothing. The lake is enormous. It contains thousands of square miles of water.
And yet this man is possessed of an unshakable faith that by some mysterious legerdemain of chance a fish, with ten thousand square miles of water to swim in safely, will seek out the little minnow less than an inch in length which he has lowered beside the breakwater. And so, the victim of preposterous conviction, he sits and eyes the tip of his fishpole with unflagging hope.
It is warm. The sun spreads a brightly colored but uncomfortable woolen blanket over their heads. A tepid breeze, reminiscent of cinders, whirl idly over the warm cement. Strung along the pier are a hundred figures, all in identical postures. They sit in defiance of all logic, all mathematics. For it is easy to calculate that if there are a half million fish in Lake Michigan and each fish displaces less than five cubic inches of water there would be only two and a half million cubic inches of fish altogether lost in an expanse containing at least eight hundred billion cubic inches of water. Therefore, the chance of one fish being at any one particular spot are one in four hundred thousand. In other words, the odds against each of these strangely patient men watching the ends of their fishpoles—the odds against their catching a fish—are four hundred thousand to one.
* * * * *
It is therefore somewhat amazing to stand and watch what happens along the sunny breakwater. Every three minutes one of the poles jerks out of the water with a wriggling prize on the hook.
"How are they coming?" we ask.
"Oh, so, so," answers one of the fishermen and points mutely to a string of several dozen perch floating under his feet in the water.
Thus does man, by virtue of his faith, rise above the science of mathematics and the barriers of logic. Thus is his fantastic belief in things unseen and easily disproved vindicated. He catches fish where by the law of probabilities there should be no fish. With the whole lake stretching mockingly before him he sits consumed with a preposterous, a fanatical faith in the little half-inch minnow dangling at the end of his line.
The hours pass. The sun grows hotter. The piles of stone and steel along the lake front seem to waver. From the distant streets come faint noises. On a hot day the city is as appealing as a half-cooled cinder patch. Poor devils in factories, poor devils in stores, in offices. One must sigh thinking of them. Life is even vaster than the lake in which these fishermen fish. And happiness is mathematically elusive as the fish for which the fishermen wait. And yet—
An old man with a battered face. A young man with a battered face. Silent, stoical, battered-looking men with fishpoles. A hundred, two hundred, they sit staring into the water of the lake as if they were looking for something. For fish? Incredible. One does not sit like this watching for something to become visible. Why? Because then there would be an air of suspense about the watcher. He would grow nervous after an hour, when the thing remained still invisible, and finally he would fall into hysterics and unquestionably shriek.
And these men grow calmer. Then what are they looking at, hour after hour, under the hot sun? Nothing. They are letting the rhythm of water and sky lull them into a sleep—a surcease from living. This is a very poetical thing for a hundred battered-looking men to attempt. Yet life may be as intimidating to honest, unimaginative ones as to their self-styled superiors.
There are many types fishing. But all of them look soiled. Idlers, workers, unhappy ones—they come to forget, to let the agate eye of the lake stare them into a few hours of oblivion.
But there is something else. Long ago men hunted and fished to keep alive. They fought with animals and sat with empty stomachs staring at the water, not in quest of Nirvanas but of fish. So now, after ages and ages have passed, there is left a vague memory of this in the minds of these fishermen. This memory makes them still feel a certain thrill in the business of pursuit. Even as they sit, stoical and inanimate, forgetful of unpaid bills, unfinished and never-to-be-finished plans—there comes this curious thrill. A mouth tugs at the little minnow. The pole jerks electrically in the hand. Something alive is on the hook. And the fisherman for an instant recovers his past. He is Ab, fighting with an evening meal off the coast of Wales, two glacial periods ago. His body quivers, his muscles set, his eyes flash.
Zip! The line leaps out of the water. Another monster of the deep, whose conquest is necessary for the survival of the race of man, has been overcome. There he hangs, writhing on a hook! There he swings toward his triumphant foe, and the hand of the fisherman on the municipal breakwater, trembling with mysterious elation, closes about the wet, firm body of an outraged perch.
* * * * *
A make-believe hunt that now bears the name of sport. Yes, but not always. Here is one with a red, battered face and a curiously practical air about him. He is putting his fish in a basket and counting them. Two dozen perch.
"Want to sell them?"
He shakes his head.
"What are you going to do with them?"
He looks up and grins slowly. Then he points to his lips with his fingers and makes signs. This means he is dumb. He places his hand over his stomach and grins again. He is going to eat them. It is time to go home and do this, so he puts up his fishpole and packs his primitive paraphernalia—a tin can, a rusty spike, a bamboo pole.
Here is one, then, who, in the heart of the steel forest called civilization, still seeks out long forgotten ways of keeping life in his body. He hunts for fish.
The sun slides down the sky. The fishermen begin to pack up. They walk with their heads down and bent forward like number 7s. They raise their eyes occasionally to the piles of stone and steel that mark the city front. Back to their troubles and their cinder patch, but—and this is a curious fact—their eyes gleam with hope and curiosity.