They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry.
Others, of the older fishermen,
looked at him and were sad.
But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and
the depths they had drifted their lines at
and the steady good weather and of what they had seen.
The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their
marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with two men staggering
at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they
waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana.
Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other
side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed,
their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.