Moriches fishing trip

Moriches Fishing Trip

Back in 1986, I was a different person then I am now. I still didn’t have any hair, and I still didn’t like to try change, and I was uncomfortable around people, and women. So maybe I haven’t changed so much then, but back in 1986, I had a video store called Sun Video. A customer named Fred comes in one day to get a membership. He’d just moved into a house down on Western Highway with his brother, and maybe someone else, I don’t remember. He’d just moved back from Florida. We got talking, and he somehow convinces me to go fishing with him somewhere on Long Island, at a place called Moriches. It was run by a guy named Gary. Unbeknown to me that place would become a very important place to me. So important that when I learned my daughters love to fish, that was the place I took them. That first day in 1986, Fred, and I caught, and kept 36 Fluke. Nothing close to that since, but it has always been a fun place. It was Nastia, Elena, and I for one trip a year, a two hour trip, 99 miles on I95, the LIE, and the Cross Island Expressway. To a little slice of Heaven. There were times I’d cancel the trip at the last moment because I thought it would rain, or maybe I was just nervous, I don’t know. This year I was told come Hell, or high water we were going, and Sean was coming along. We, Elena, and I got up like we were going to work. Picked Sean, and Nastia up at their place, and wer on the road by a little after seven. I kept ignoring Google Maps every time it changed direction from the route I’ve taken for the past forty years. Across the Tappen Zee Bridge, don’t take the Mario Cuomo, it’ll sink we]hen you cross it, to the Cross Westchester to I 95, th the Throggs Neck Bridge, to the Cross Island, and finally to the LIE,getting off at exit 69 for Moriches. Near the end of the trip there, I’d followed Google Maps, and it said to take exit 68, and I didn’t like the way it took me. I turn a right down Adelaide Ave. near the school, past the expensive houses. Nothing had changed, well, until I reached Silly Lilly’s. Gary had sold about seven years ago, and the new owner, or owners had made some mighty big changes. It was a little jarring the first time I arrived. There was a food truck, open on weekends, nice idea, the building where you rent the boat has been filled with Silly Lilly merchandise, again I can understand, it’s a business that needs to make a profit to stay in business. Up until this year none of the changes really altered my world. They eliminated all bait except frozen spearing, the reports of where the fish were hitting became vague, to nonexistent, The boats had seen better days, none of that took away from my day of enjoyment fishing. The day before I left I went around work telling people I had tomorrow off because I was going fishing. So I was psyched to go. The girls were even more. I park at the station, walk in, and tell the two kids. They really were kids, and that's not because I’m getting as old as dirt. Maybe they were college kids. I tell them I reserved a boat to go fishing. I only reserved the boat because I didn’t want to travel 99 miles in two hours, brave the LIE, I95, and all those other roads for nothing. It was a Thursday, how busy could they be? They have trouble finding my reservation. I say, “Not a big deal.”, but to them it seems to be. Finally after some throat clearing, and me telling them to just say it. They tell me they cancelled my reservation three weeks ago because I’m not a member of their new club club, something or other.

I surprisingly kept my temper. I asked, “ where does that leave us?” They’re going to call the boss. I tell them to tell hom I’ve been coming here since 1986. They come back and say the boss said to rent us a boat. What he doesn’t say is the boat is now $400.00, not the $260.00. I blow air out of my nose when I see the price, and ask them, THey confirm that is the price. I buy three bags of frozen Spearing, with tax, I’m now at $480.00. The boat has seen better days. The motor runs rough, the teak hasn’t been touched in forty years, and it has a lot of splinters where during the day the line will get caught. I really don’t want to ruin this day for everybody, but Nastia takes one look at my face when I come out, and she asks what’s wrong? I just shake my head and we go to load up the boat. We’re given a map, and some vague indication that the Fluke are in the elbow out near the inlet, because the water is still cold. We get out there, Nastia throws out her line, and while I’m stringing up the other poles, she says, I think I got something. She’s struggling with it, and to my amazement it’s a sand shark. We get it in the boat, but the hook is stuck in its mouth. So I cut the line and Elena tosses it back in.

Never have I ever caught a sand shark out there. It was the first of eight we caught. After Sean bought one into the boat that almost landed Nastia in the bay when she tried to get out of the way, we decided to just cut the hooks and set them free. Fishing was so poor around two, two-thirty we took our overpriced rental boat in early. We took all of our junk, and left the boat like we found it. It was a miserable day. I let the greed, and short sightedness of this owner, and his club regulars policies ruin my day. In the past I’d never felt abused or unimportant at Silly Lillys, that is until that day. I felt like my business was unwanted, I rented a boat mid week, that was costing the owner no money, He made a killing on me this year. Next year when I don’t rent that boat how much money will it make him.

Are we scared yet?

I have to start this off by saying Nastia didn't send me any pictures, and KJ refuses to do any more drawings of places he's never been, so I used a picture of myself showing me joyfully jumpimg up and down when I hear Nastia and Sean are safe. And the other picture is of my raised bed vegetable garden that I'm very proud of. It has nothing to do with this story. I could never understand, when I was in my twenties, my parents' concern for me when I’d do things, and I did not reach out to let them know where I was, or if I’d be home. It was always, “Ma, I’m fine, don’t worry, nothing happened. I just forgot to call.” Being on the other end of the spectrum gives me a whole new level of hurt. Nastia, and Sean made plans to go everywhere, and anywhere during her two weeks off from work. She’s done it in the past, so it’s expected. She treats it as a time where it's almost like she feels that if she doesn't do everything all at once, there may not be another chance to do it ever again.

During this two week period, she has planned, or is planning to go camping, to the shore, and go fishing in Moriches with me. Most of the stuff hasn’t happened yet, except for the camping, and that has been a big scare for me. Every year for the past maybe two years they have gone up to this camp ground past the Roscoe Dine in or called Mongaup something or other. And right there is problem number one. I don’t know the name of the camp ground. Number two is there is no cell reception in the area. Both will play a big part in the following story. A little more background story before we continue. In the past I’d request a picture of the trail head, or some other information when they went hiking, so as I joked to them, I’d know where to start the search for their bodies. I was also not part of the planning of Nastia’s frantic vacation except for the fishing trip on Thursday. I’d hear bits, and pieces, like “Oh we’re going to the shore on Wednesday… and I’d tune out. Nastia and Sean left Monday or maybe it was Sunday, it could have been Saturday afternoon, too. Are you starting to see the problem?

So it was with all innocence when I asked Elena on Tuesday if she had tomorrow off to go to the beach with her sister? Her reply, “Oh, I forgot.” I didn’t think anything more about it until later in the day, maybe after dinner, (or was it a supper?) No one had heard from Nastia, or Sean, and if they were going to the beach tomorrow, Wednesday shouldn’t they be home already? I called her phone, it went directly to voice mail, same with Sean’s. Should I be worried? I tried again a few hours later, same, directly to voice mail. I text Nastia, I need you to call me. It was 9:40 at night, and I was getting worried.Teri looked so cool, and in control, as my heart started to beat a little too hard. Teri, it turns out, just hides it better. I try calling a few more times before Teri, and I call it a night, and she goes to bed, I go to shower. After my shower, I go upstairs and tell Teri, “I’m going over to their apartment to see if both of their cars are there.” She cooly says, “I was thinking the same.” Her lack of comment about me heading out, and her thinking the same thing, made me pause for a moment. I realized she was just hiding it well, and she was getting as scared as I was. At their apartment, only Sean’s car is there. I return home, and realize I have one more card to play. I ask Elena to track her sister’s phone. She tracks it, and it turns out her phone is off, and it can’t be tracked. At that point, I resign myself to the fact I will have to go to sleep without a resolution to where they are. I crawl into bed, and touch Teri’s arm. She asks,”What?”. I say, “I’m just trying to be reassuring.”, She then lets me in saying, “I don’t need to be reassured, I’m just scared.” I roll onto my back. I feel my heart pounding in my chest. I continue to think of all the bad stuff that could have happened to them. At some point, after about forty-five minutes I know if I’m going to get any sleep, I have to stop. I hear my mother say, ‘It’s in God’s hands’ and try to think of all the good reasons why nothing is wrong. I fall asleep sometime after midnight. I woke up like usual around four AM. I get up and go to the bathroom, afraid I’m going to start obsessing about not hearing from them. Again surprisingly I fall back to sleep. In the morning I go about my usual tasks to get ready for work. I feel like I am waiting for bad news the whole time. At work finally Teri texts, 'they are still at the camp ground.' Her friend Sallyann was able to figure out which camp ground they were in, and give them a call. About an hour or so later Nastia calls me and starts to defend what has happened. I stop her and say, “You have done nothing wrong, it was a misunderstanding, and we were just concerned, and we're glad everything is okay. When the girls were younger, and they went on hikes, I’d make them send me pictures of the trail head, and I’d jokingly tell them it was so I’d know where to send the police to recover their bodies. There were no bodies to recover, Thank God, but guess who’s going to have to text information on where they are going, when they be back, and a phone number next time they go away.

It's a Taco night.

Every so often I have this desire to throw a party… well not really a party, if you put dinner before it, and make it less stuffy, and invite people, and family, that is what I like throwing. So I guess it’s… let’s call it supper with people who are not strangers.

One talent I have is I schedule these suppers at bad times. Last year I scheduled one and I must have not given enough notice because no one could come, So I switched it to this day, then to that day, and moved it over here, tried to fit it in there, and surprise, surprise, all I did was confuse people.

This year, I picked out a day in May, about two thirds of the way down. I saw Memorial Day was the following week, but my supper was the previous week, on the Saturday. Memorial Day, it was in the next week, you know two days away. I didn’t think about it too much.I sent out my invitations. Nastia answered first, a rousing “I’m down”.When it comes to Nastia, and tacos, she’ll come. Kristen to my surprise replied the next day with, “I think I can make it.” Things were looking good at that point.

A few days later Karl points out that it is Memorial Day Weekend, and he has plans. And a couple of days later, Kristen texts again saying,’I didn’t know it was Memorial Day, it’s a crazy time at work, I won’t be able to make it. After that, nothing. I went around for the next several weeks telling anyone I talked to about the taco supper, “Well, it’s Nastia, and I so far. If you want to join us, there'll be three.” Dinner on Saturday is at 6PM. Eventually Eric, Lynn, Billy, and Denis show up for tacos. Billy, and Denis must be adopted because they do not eat tacos, but they stayed and socialized. Elena, and Sean both come after work. Nastia helps me prepare the food, and the whole night is one of those nights you have to sit back, and take in to remember how good the good times can be.