“Be careful or you will fear even the Reds of Cincinnati and the White Sox of Chicago.”
“You bought me a beer,”the old man said.“You are already a man.”
“But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”
“No,I will eat at home.Do you want me to make the fire?”
“I would,”the boy said.“ But I bought these.”
“It could not happen twice.Do you think you can find an eighty-five?”
The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck.The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks.The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords.But none of these scars were fresh.They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.
“I am a strange old man.”
“Two,”the old man agreed.“ You didn't steal them?”
“He hasn't much faith.”
“Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces.Can you remember?”
“Yes,”the old man said.He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.
“May I get the sardines?I know where I can get four baits too.”
When the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the sun was down.The boy took the old army blanket off the bed and spread it over the back of the chair and over the old man's shoulders.They were strange shoulders,still powerful although very old,and the neck was still strong too and the creases did not show so much when the old man was asleep and his head fallen forward.His shirt had been patched so many times that it was like the sail and the patches were faded to many different shades by the sun.The old man's head was very old though and with his eyes closed there was no life in his face.The newspaper lay across his knees and the weight of his arm held it there in the evening breeze. He was barefooted.