There the view of Manhattan is splendid and the tourists come to lose themselves and machine gun the city with their Ipads, Iphones and a whole array of things that take a photo.
At the very end of the pier, what do I see? A fisherman! In this season! As we all know, migrating fish have long since quit these waters for warmer climates. So I approached the guy, pretending to be a neophyte: “Anything biting?”
The guy was holding his fishing rod with negligence, leaning on the railing like an old alcoholic in a dumpy bar.
“No” he responded…”nothing!”
“Not even striped bass?”
“Ah no, they cleared out quite a while back!”
“Anything, a bluefish maybe?”
“Zero!” he said with an thick polish accent that you could cut with a knife.
“At least the day is agreeable, no?”
“Oh yeah, it’s great to be here looking at the city, forgetting that it’s winter. What luxury!”
“Tell me, what do you use for bait?”
With a big grin that displayed his tobacco yellowed teeth, he reeled in his line.
The reason for the grin was that, at the end of his line was a big sinker and… nothing else!
No bait. Addressing my look of stupefaction he said…
“You know what??? I don’t care!”
A wonderful sunday on the Brooklyn pier.