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The Passing of Stabby the Sailfish
I was driving down the alley a while ago, and picked up a damaged Sailfish mount that someone had discarded, because I thought I would repair it and hang the beast on my wall. It’s an impressive fish. But I don’t have the time or the space for such a frivolous project, so he just rode around with me in my truck for about a month before I came to terms with the fact that my dream of picking up a piece of shit in the alley and hanging it permanently on my wall just wasn’t gonna happen. In the meantime, I named him Stabby, and man we had some good times together in that truck. I remember this one time, I went through the McDonalds drive-through, and Stabby was there. Man he was funny that day. Another time, he was with me when I went to Jewel to do some shopping. He was so fun, just laying there, being all busted up with his peeling paint, taking up cargo space and shedding plaster into the carpet. I liked the way he would lay on his side, his long rapier bill reaching all the way to the center console, just waiting to spear it like a mackerel if I were to get into an accident. There was so much life in that one cold, dead glass eye on the display side of his body, I felt I could see his soul. What do you think his life was like?
I like to imagine him slashing his way furiously through a shoal of mackerel on the move, a confident, fleet apex predator in the deep waters off of Cabo Blanco, Peru. I like to imagine Ernest Hemingway and baseball great Ted Williams sitting on a boat together, taking turns on the rod, struggling for hours to land the creature. When the fight is finished, the men bring their prize ashore, and retire to the fishing club to do some shots of Pisco with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. They would eat Dorado and share stories of love, life, and women. And one day, the symbol of their greatness would find its way into my life, and perhaps onto my wall.
Whatever. Anyway, time to throw this dirty fuckin’ thing into the dumpster.
In a last-ditch effort to bring life to Stabby, I posted this ad on CraigsList:
ENORMOUS 9ft Sailfish Trophy in disrepair FREE (montrose/western)
Reply to: sale-766881813@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-07-23, 12:51PM CDTStabby the Sailfish needs your help! Fun repair project: tail & pectoral fin broken off. Turns out, despite the misleading name, sailfish don’t fly. All pieces accounted for. Just needs total re-paint and some glue. Primarily plaster taxidermy. Not too difficult to repair and paint. In good condition he’s worth $900 on e-bay. In this condition he’s taking up space in my truck. Pick him up by tomorrow evening or I’m throwing him into the Chicago river and hoping for the best. I practice catch and release.FREE - You pick up. Save Stabby. He would do the same for you.
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I had one taker but he flaked. He said that, on second thought, he didn’t have room on his wall. I told him no problem. Papa Hemingway, on the other hand, would have said “well make room, you son of a bitch,” right before knocking his damn teeth out.
I’m setting him gently by the dumpster today, like a loved one who’s died in my arms. Goodbye Stabby. Thanks for all the plaster fragments and a slight tear in my armrest. I’ll never forget you.
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Greetings faceless robotic overlords. HERE IS A FLUFFY TAG CLOUD to sate your insatiable thirst for indexable information. I hope it will please you. Please don't eat me.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
You should have kissed him and then harvested his tusk for use as a deadly walking stick. Then after dumping his remains, you should have brought blurry yet disturbing pictures of this case of sailfish poaching to the papers.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Another thought- decapitate him, then place a stuffed human leg in his mouth to recreate the classic opening scene in the Addams family - it would take up less wall space than 9 ft.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:07 am
If I ever met Stabby in his inanimate life, it was only once and the encounter was fleeting yet I felt an overwhelmingly strong kinship with him. He definitely had an ‘old soul’ aura about him, kind of like when you are walking down a relatively empty street in the French Quarter of NOLA and you see a strange character who could be real, could be ghost but there is something about this person’s presence that elicits a sense of deja vu dipped in nostalgia and smothered in melancholy. You could have been that person in a past life but, more likely, knew him or her. That’s how I feel about Stabby: as though I swam with him (or her, who the fuck knows at this point) as a fellow sailfish in the same school. I have a strange and strong recollection of Stabby nudging me aside with his bill urging me to not take the bait before us and giving me a nod that said ‘I got this one, it’s my time, friend’. And off he went in true Billfish form, to fight his last battle. A battle with the worthiest of foes: a Bayliner over-filled with drunken business men vacationing in the Keys for a boy’s weekend of liquor, women and gambling.
Damn you to Hell, Dan DeMichele, for not living up to your promise to restore that prized sailfish you came to know as Stabby. Damn you to Hell for sending my compadre off to a funeral befitting of a wino…
September 28th, 2008 at 8:41 am
There is a sad, sad empty wall at shady Beach…
September 30th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Chicago?
You delivering it?
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I’ve heard many fish stories but this is the first one that brought tears to my eyes. Stabby was more than a prize catch - he was a symbol for all fish that have been simply treated as sources of food or trophies on a wall. Stabby meant alot to alot of people and those people that have learned about him will never forget him.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Who will avenge stabby’s death being left in a dumpster like
a 50.00 hooker(inflation).I certainly dont have the time to avenge a fishs death ,its not like his fish friends would notice, it would be misguided loyalty in a sense.
Finding duct tape on his fish mouth was disturbing , probably.
Then there was the lipstick, that was ,unusual for a fish to adorn
itself in that way , which makes you wonder what kind of sick
lover of fashion would give this poor fish soul an unwitting
deadly makeover.Probably , Oprah trying to make a martyr out of it,
and make a quick buck.