Natural Enemy

Robyn Ryle Natural Enemy

47 I was fishing on the beach down by the house on a Monday. Monday’s my day off. It’s a crowded beach, and there was a family. Big family. Lot of kids. Black family. The kids are all runnin’ around. They’re gettin’ knocked down in the surf. The waves are pulling off their shorts. They’re wearing shorts, not swimming trunks. They’re dark-skinned, hell, for all I know maybe they weren’t black. Maybe they were Mexican or something. They’re runnin’ around. I’m lettin’ them get in my tackle box. Play with the shrimp. Dangle my handmade lures in each others’ face and scream and run away. They’re nice kids. I don’t tell them, but out on the bar I see this fish. I can’t tell what it is at first. I’m talking to the little dark kids playing in my tackle box. I’m looking at this fish. And it’s a shark, I see. A bonnethead shark. A decent-sized one, but the kids, they’re not in the water. They’re just on the beach. Maybe they can’t swim. I think a lot of blacks can’t swim. The shark, though, it’s not moving. And I’m watching it. It’s just laying out there on the bar, and I’m thinking, What’s it doing? What’s that shark doing just laying there on the bar?

They tell you sharks can’t stop swimming or they’ll die, but that’s not necessarily true. They can slow down. They can tread water. They can do a kind of moving that’s not really moving. “I’m going out to the bar,” I say to the little black kids, and they get real quiet. They don’t say anything. They line up on the shore and watch me like I’m getting on a spaceship and heading to Mars. I stop in the drop-off there, the water up to my neck, and look back. The kids are a dark line against the white sand of the beach. Lined up tall to short and completely silent. I start to think, These kids know something I don’t. I start to think, These kids have set me up. I start to think, These kids are waiting for blood. I wave at them, and not a one of them waves back.

The shark, it’s still there. I get up close to it and it doesn’t move, and finally I realize, the damn thing is dead. Dead and covered with tiny little marks, all in perfect lines along its body. I’m trying to figure out what happened to this shark. “What the hell?’ I say to myself, and then I realize. Dolphins. The lines are dolphin teeth. They drove it into the shallow and killed it, because sharks and dolphins are natural enemies. Give dolphins a chance to kill a shark and they’ll take it.

I could reach down with my hands and grab the shark. The holes where the dolphins got it are a bleached-out pink. I think about dragging it back to shore to show the kids.

Shark teeth are sharp, though, so I give it a poke with my toe. It rolls over in the waves and little fish scatter every direction. I see its belly is all eaten up, a gaping, reddish hole with biteshaped edges. Little pieces of flesh ripple in the water and float around. You’re standing in shark flesh, I think to myself. I’ve seen a lot of stuff, but I take a step back, away from the dead shark and the bits.

I turn towards shore and all the kids are still there, lined up on the beach. The waves almost reach their toes and then stop. They’re waiting for me to come back in.