The Salmon at the Cleaning Station

The afternoon

We went back to Carmen’s place, a little ranch house on the north side of town with a big yard and a fire pit. The plan had always been that the family would grill the catch that evening at the marina, at the pavilion by the cleaning station, the way Grandpa Sawyer used to do.

I almost called it off. I want to be honest about that. I sat in my car in Carmen’s driveway with my hands on the wheel and thought about just taking Bobbie home and letting my uncle eat his birthday fish by himself.

Bobbie was the one who said no.

She was sitting in the passenger seat, still in that orange jacket, turning the old fillet knife over in her hands in its leather sheath.

“Grandpa Sawyer always cleaned the fish at the dock,” she said. “Everybody’s fish. Even the bad ones. You told me that.”

“I did tell you that.”

“So we should go,” she said. “Somebody has to clean them right. Uncle Larry is terrible at it. You said so last summer.”

I laughed for the first time that day, because it was true. My uncle could run a road grader through a snowstorm in the dark, but put a fillet knife in his hand and he would hack a salmon to pieces.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

She thought about it. Then she nodded. “I’m not doing it for him,” she said. “I’m doing it because it’s what we do.”

The cleaning station

The Ludington city marina has a fish cleaning station on the dock, a long wooden table out in the open air, with a steel sink, a hose, and white buckets for the scraps. It smells the way they all smell, like lake water and fish and bleach.

We got there at about six thirty in the evening. The light was starting to go gold over the water and the gulls were already lined up on the pilings, waiting.

Carmen had the coolers. Roland ran ahead to look at the boats. And Larry was already there, standing at the table with Zach, his tan cap pushed back and his gray goatee stuck out in concentration, trying to figure out where to start on his son’s king.

He had a cheap fillet knife from a tackle shop, the kind with a plastic handle and a blade too thick for the job. He had already made one cut behind the gill plate that was too deep and crooked.

Zach was standing beside him with his hands in his hoodie pocket, looking at his fish like he was watching it get hurt.

“Dad,” he said quietly. “You’re wrecking it.”

“I’m not wrecking it,” Larry said. “It’s fine. Hold the tail.”

Bobbie stopped about ten feet away and watched. I stopped with her. I did not know what she was going to do, and I made myself wait to see.