Belly Fish

Good morning Tim!” Jimmy shouted, walking next to Tim’s boat reading “Belly Fish” detailed on his new boat. “Good morning Jimmy! Are you ready to go fish hunting?” Tim shouted in return.

Jimmy climbs up on the boat with excitement in his voice,” Thanks for letting me fish with you.”

“We haven’t hung out in a while. I figured this would be good for you and me.” Tim responds with sincerity. “You bet” replies Jimmy.

Tim follows behind him. As Jimmy enters the Wheelhouse, he sees a big fish hung on the wall which it scares him by thinking the fish were going to jump on him. Jimmy shrieks “AHH!”

“What!”, Tim shouts in a domino effect while turning around from helm of the boat to look at Jimmy. “What’s the matter with you man!” Tim frowns.” You could have given me a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry bro but………That fish on the wall scared the heck out of me.” Jimmy shakenly states. Tim laughs at Jimmy. “I’ll tell you a story of the fish but let’s head out to sea first.”

20 minutes out to sea, Jimmy reminds Tim.” Hey what about that story you’re going to tell me.”

“Oh ya, that’s right.…. Do you remember Sinbad?” Tim questioned.

“Yes, I remember Sinbad. Your father gave it you when he passed away.” Jimmy recalls in his mind. Sinbad was a boat that got destroyed in the storm ‘Xenia’ over a year ago. Remembering Xenia as one mean storm traveling 76 miles an hour tearing through towns and cities, unstoppable. Talk about touch of death, Jimmy felt scared even to recall the storm in his mind. With a concerned tone “What happened”

Tim passively recalls,” We were at home, underneath the bunker with Ashleigh and Shanna when the storm was out of our radius. One of the most terrifying nights of my life." His shaky voice continues,” As the storm moves closer, a thousand things went through my head.”

Jimmy looks at his friend, seeing tears gather in his eyes. Jimmy knew Tim was scared to even recall the memories of the night in the storm. Especially with the fact his family could have gotten hurt or worse. In knowing Tim for so many years, he was one of the strongest men he had ever known.

Jimmy pats Tim’s back, “It’s ok man, … It’s ok.” Trying to comfort him. Tim wipes his tears with his hands, looking at Jimmy, “thanks man.” Jimmy replies, “I’m here for you, hope you know that.”

Tim gets his composure then continues with the story. “After that awful storm passed, we loosened our grip from each other in fear. All we had left was tears of laughter from what had just happened. I am not sure if from fear or because we had survived the storm. Maybe it was both. When I got the courage to go outside to see the damage, our house was slightly torn up. I walked to the dock seeing Sinbad. Well only half of Sinbad, the rest was sinking to the bottom of the bay by my dock. While the other half had flew up in the air and must have dropped right in the back of our house. Which has not been moved since.” Jimmy remembered how after everything that happened during Xenia. Ashleigh and Tim had very tough time. They had enough money to fix their home but had to sell things just so they could feed their family. Tim struggled to find work, because fishing was all Tim knew as he had been doing it for so many years. Somehow things got better with Tim and Ashleigh, while never really knowing the reason why.

Tim goes on, “Well, Ashleigh became very depressed with losing everything, she lost her motivation. Even somewhat lost her soul but one thing she did not lose was being a good mother to Shenna. I’m grateful for that. Ashleigh is my Soul and Shenna is my star.”

Tim takes a deep breath then continues. “I’ll never forget March 26th. I was preparing dinner for the family, making fried fish filet. While filleting the fish mid-way something blocked my knife from filleting it all the way through. So, I took my knife out from the fish to examine it, making sure it wasn’t dull. Which it wasn’t, so I tried to filet again. But it stopped again in the exact same spot where it stopped before. This time I decided to examine the fish for some odd reason. I put my hand on the fish’s belly area, noticing something hard in the fish. First, I thought it didn’t defrost all the way, but knew that couldn’t be because I had taken the fish out of the freezer the day before. So, I looked deeper flipping the portion of fish where I had cut it like paper. Put my finger inside the belly of the fish……. You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you Jimmy. Shoot, I still can’t believe it myself even after a year ago.”

Jimmy’s eyes got wider in anticipation, as if he was the one who had found whatever it was that Tim found. “A ring is what I found!” Tim surprising Jimmy.

In disbelief Jimmy says,” What, a ring? No way man”.

“Yes, A ring!” Tim grins from ear to ear. “That ring must have been worth something Tim.” Jimmy exclaimed.

“I’m not an expert but when I looked at the ring, I had a feeling it was worth a lot of money because there was 18k inside of the ring with a large diamond in the center. Small diamonds surrounding both edges of it with four types of stones. I guessed they were someone’s birth stones.” Tim explained.

Before Tim trying to explain more of the ring Jimmy intercepted. “That is unbelievable! Did you tell Ashleigh of what you found in the belly of the fish?

“Oh yes I did.” Tim responds.

“What did she say?” Jimmy’s voice getting louder. “What did she do?”

“I’ve never heard my wife stutter in 11 years we’ve been together. So, when I handed her the ring, unable to fully speak clearly asking where I found it and then she began to cry. We then held each other for a while because we hoped that this ring would solve our financial problems we’d been having since losing Sinbad in the storm. “

Jimmy shakes his head in denial then asks,” what did you do with the ring?”

“We decided to see if we could sell it, of course. So, we went to Tantum Pawn, near Flow Street on Mucker avenue.” Jimmy remembering that place mentioned. Its where he goes to buy tools but mostly to sell them. Tim pauses for a moment.

“Ashleigh handed the ring to the pawn clerk named Barden and asked. How much do you think this ring is worth?” Barden examined it quickly and handed the ring back to my wife and told us to wait a minute while he got the manager. He didn’t even give us a reason why.”

“That’s strange.” Jimmy notes. Tim nods in agreement, “That’s what I said.”.

“A few minutes go by then this guy comes out and introduces himself, as Robert the store owner. Ashleigh hands him the ring, then Robert’s voice changed. Like as if he had seen it before? So we asked again that we would like to know the value of the ring.”

“Robert than proceeds to tell us he could give us “Twenty Thousand Dollars” for the ring. At this moment Ashleigh and I looked at each other with a confusion and without hesitation, replied, OK! Robert smiled then gave us some paperwork to sign and excused himself to get the money.” Tim excitedly awaiting Roberts return.

“I signed the paper quickly, as Robert returned back with a thick envelope that read in capital “THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH”. Without any idea of why he had written that on the envelope. Ashleigh and I went home, talked about what we were going to do with the money. She insisted for me to buy another boat, one that I’ve had my eyes on for a few years. The boat you’re on, now.”

Perplexed Jimmy resounds,” So you’re telling me that the fish on the wall, is the reason you have this boat that we are on.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Tim replies.

Jimmy couldn’t say he didn’t believe Tim’s story, because Jimmy knew Tim is not a liar or one to even make up such a farfetched story. “Ok fine!” Tim handing him a little black notebook.

“What’s this?” Jimmy asks.

“It’s my little black notebook. It has all the locations of where I have fished. It also shows how much money I have made and how much fish I have taken home as well. To keep a track of my daily log on the sea.”

“So, what am I spouse to do with it?” Jimmy responds questioning what this book has to do with the belly fish.

“Turn to the last page?” Tim demands. Jimmy did what Tim requested. Finding a newspaper cut out with a date reading February 2nd. On the newspaper was a picture of a ring just like the one Tim had mentioned in his story. A gold ring with diamonds and stones. Just below the picture it read: Reward $20.000.00. In realizing, the ring Tim had found, belonged to a young woman named Shandell Grammar. Who was also the pawn shops owner’s daughter? It was her wedding ring, stating in the article; if anyone finds the ring to return to Tantum pawn with address.

Looking at the article Jimmy was blown away by how things happened. Because of this terrible storm Xenia, Tim had lost Sinbad. Although there were hard times in between, somehow, someway, the universe put the puzzle together like a jigsaw. One woman loses her wedding ring. A month later Tim finds this giant ring in the belly of his fish. With everything going on with his home, family, financial problems, and without a fishing boat. They decide to sell the ring, and out of all the pawn shops in the town. The happenstance of Tim and Ashleigh to enter the one! The one, that had been looking for this ring, the slim chance it be just the right place. Jimmy thought, Oh Heck! Tim could have just kept it and Shandell would have never gotten her wedding ring back. Jimmy finished reading the article, looked at Tim starring back. Jimmy says with a smile, “Let’s go fish hunting……. I mean let’s go Belly Fish hunting!”