Bimini Big Game Club

Bimini, BAHAMAS

25.7270° N, 79.2976° W

Fifty miles off the starboard side of Florida is a few specks of rock called Bimini. Should you ever find yourself disembarking a seaplane or cruise ship along the north island’s Bailey Town pier there is a good chance you’ll encounter Mister Breez. You’ll know it’s him not by his gilded smile or frosty beard or sun-bleached dreadlocks, but because he’ll tell you it’s him. And, in his estimation, ain’t no one worth knowing more than knowing Mister Breez. He has anything you need and if he doesn’t, he always know someone know someone. Mister Breez will have you to step into his office – the shade of a palm tree – and out of the midday straight up & down sun. He already has a golf cart picked out for you to rent. And he’s a charter boat captain in mind. Take care of you, Captain will. When you are done fishing, Mister Breez has a table reserved for your party at the Bimini Big Game Club. Say hello to Jimmy Kraken and his Bimini Crackers, Mister Breez will insist. Are they the house band?, you might inquire. Nah Boss, Mister Breez will laugh, they big fish story hunting. If you buy Old Jim a beer and ask him octopus to dance, you will learn why they call Jim “the Kraken”. When you see the octopus dance, today the day we got fun!

If you made the trip south along the Queen’s Highway to Alice Town’s Bimini Big Game Club on this particular afternoon, you will, in fact, find Jimmy Kraken upstairs at the conch bar. Look for the sunburnt bald man with his shirt liberally buttoned to allow more airflow and, if he’s being honest, to display his namesake: the many-tentacled octopus tattooed to his chest.

Everyone know the tattoo hide hideous scar, Mister Breez would’ve told you as you signed his waivers. But no one, not a man in all of Bahama, know truly what made them scar. Other than Jim. Fool say jealous lover attack Ole Jim with harpoon. Other fool say barracuda. But you look real close, Boss… you see it true: Ole Jim been gutted. He ain’t cut him shaving, ha!

This afternoon Jimmy Kraken has ordered a pitcher of mango daiquiri to share with his sister-in-law, Rolf, the only wife of Buster John’s Jimmy Kraken has ever acknowledged. Anyone who buys Jim a beer to watch the octopus dance will see Jim slide the beer over to his brother before gladly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt to expose the beast. Then, to the beat of Jemaine Clement’s 2016 classic Shiny from the Moana soundtrack, Jim will flex his pectoral muscles and make the inked tentacles of his octopus bounce.

It is an act performed much to the chagrin of the Kraken’s fifteen year old son who escapes downstairs, past the billiard and ping pong tables, out onto the docks where sportsman yachts are moored one after another. Between the ships & docks, the water is Bombay Sapphire blue, a divine clarity which magnifies the sea creatures lurking to snack on scraps flotsammed or jetsammed overboard. At the furthest reach of the harbor is the shark tank operation. For fifty bucks, the most desperate and/or least seaworthy of tourists can plunge into the stationary cage and breathe off of a air-hose as deck-hands toss gnawed chicken bones into the water. On certain days, bull sharks will arrive for the show. Most times, however, it is only a frenzy of docile nurse sharks. The Kraken’s son watches today as a doggy-paddling tourist pulls himself out of the cage to complain there are no scary sharks. The deckhands toss chicken bones further out into the channel as if that will draw scarier fish. The Kraken’s son knows it’s no use. The scary sharks have already eaten.

The boy returns to the conch bar to the shouts of “Shark Bait!”, the nickname bestowed upon him by his father’s research team. Jimmy Kraken tells his son to order something to eat. Shark Bait looks across the table at dinner plates scattered before the members of La Fin Du Monde Shark Team. Shark Bait asks, how is the burger Uncle Johnny? Buster John performs his Liam Neeson grimace with a half shrug and says, it’s alright, but everyone knows the best burgers are from the cows you strangle yourself. I don’t know who killed this cow, but I am willing to bet he’s got a bad handshake.

Jimmy Kraken’s brother Buster John is a arguably the most Florida-Manly of the team; certainly a devious hellion capable of the greatest provocations. His wife, Rolf, is a dastardly counterpart ready & overly eager to take on any challenge. She ordered the barbecue plate. Jimmy & Buster John’s hometown evil mastermind, Palatka Joe – henceforth called “Bahama Joe” – or “Joe Bahama” – or “Bahama Joe Bahama” – is a subtle juggernaut of bad intention. He had the cracked conch. And then there’s La Fin Du Monde Shark Team’s crocodile expert: me, Vic Neverman. I had the red snapper.

Buster John & Rolf are the two most academically accredited scientists gathered here and are discussing the drug habits of sharks. Since the drug smuggling boom beginning in the late 1970s, local sharks have become fiends for cocaine they’d find floating in these waters after floatable packages were dropped by tree-top flyers to later be picked-up by boatmen. The epidemic began when one hungry & curious shark took a nibble on a “square grouper” to have its little jurassic mind blown. The rest is history. A history which is evolving. After generations of coked-out hammerheads, we are discovering different, unexpected drugs in the blood of sharks today: caffeine, pain killers, boner pills, antidepressants. This isn’t the result of cartel business. This isn’t a Walgreens that got swept out to sea in a hurricane. No, Rolf says, its all the piss & shit coming off cruise ships tainting the waters of the Caribbean. It’s not just sharks impacted but probably all local sea creatures. Buster John says, that conch you are eating right now Joe might just give you an unexpected erection.

Oh no shit?, Bahama Joe says, this explains a lot. Joe Bahama is a semi-permanent fixture in these islands. Understanding the power of the local sun & reflective water, he dresses like an extra in a Dune movie. Or, as Buster John says, you look like if the Unabomber was a guitarist for U2. Under the shelter of Bimini Big Game Club, however, Bahama Joe Bahama feels at liberty to drop the hood. Studying the conch on his plate, he decides to pace himself.

Buster John says, all those sharks circling us today were so chill they were likely on Xanax. I’m curious what the lab results show.

La Fin Du Monde Shark Team spent the morning in the mangrove flats of the south island. After baiting the waters, 7 or 8 lemon sharks the size of greyhounds arrived, swimming past our knees in the waist-deep water. We conducted our research until the cooler ran out of bottles of Kalik. We then proceeded back to the north island to lunch here at Bimini Big Game Club.

Coldest goddamn draft beer I’ve ever had, I say with a lift of my freshly arrived Kalik. Jimmy Kraken lifts his daiquiri and toasts, first one today. It’s fucking paradise, I say, or at least it’s in the neighborhood. Mimicking Mister Breez, I quote the man, “if this ain’t it, Jim, what the devil is it?”

The first time I visited Bimini, I wasn’t much older than Shark Bait. On this trip, a primary focus of mine is mentoring the Kraken’s kid. Not in anything legitimate. He already has his father’s resolve. His mother’s morality. His father’s dirty fighting techniques. His mother’s beauty. And her wit. A touch of his father’s sarcasm. Yeah, Shark Bait’s a good kid. But like most kids, he has to learn to not take life so seriously. He’s been raised to confront the world with hope, effort, kindness and if all else fails, grab your opponent by the testicles and twist until they are willing to negotiate to your terms. What Shark Bait needs is to understand is within the absurdity of it all, you can’t let the bullshit get you down. This is where I come in: introducing some mischief. Just as my father’s fishing buddies once introduced to an all-too-serious young Victor. Or “Chum Bucket” as I was called then.

Or as our guy would say:

The only thing more important than knowing when to know when to give a shit is knowing when to know when to not give a shit.
Mister Breez

You think you’re hot-shit?, I taunted Shark Bait when we were on dorsal fin patrol this morning. Fifteen years old and you already have a girlfriend? Damn dude, I said to him, you know what I had at fifteen? Acne. And a job delivering pizza. Shark Bait nodded back. Sure, Uncle Vic, he’d say. Polite as shit – as he was raised. I teased him, saying, I hear your girlfriend’s mom is single. & cute. Why don’t you arrange things, bud…? Once you & me return to the continent, what say you we go on a double-date with the ladies? I don’t think so, Uncle Vic, Shark Bait said. Polite as shit – as he was raised. Polite yet absolutely squirming at the nightmarish scenario of Uncle Vic approaching his girlfriend’s mom at one of his soccer games; Shark Bait introducing me as the homeless man who lived with his family at the tail-end of the pandemic; charmed-I’m-sure I’d belch as I take his girl’s mother’s hand to kiss. It wouldn’t be that bad, of course. I certainly wouldn’t embarrass Shark Bait any more than his old man demonstrating the octopus dance at church lunch functions.

Shark Bait!, I say to the kid as we sit around our lunch table, see those ladies over at the bar? Go ask if they want to join us. Tell them for every round of beers they buy us we’ll give them a damned good story. Shark Bait looks warily at the women. I don’t know, Uncle Vic, he says, why don’t you talk to them? Because boy!, I say, you have fresh legs. When you’ve spent half a lifetime chasing fast women you too will have tired legs. But damn, Shark Bait, you will have seen some places.

Shark Bait nods at my words faithfully. He looks again over his shoulder at the women at the bar and, still unconvinced, he says to me, I am pretty sure those are their husbands with them, Uncle Vic. Yeah?, I say. Maybe. Those gentlemen do appear married. Either way, we can’t afford these ladies on your shitty allowance. We’ll get ‘em next time, buddy.

Once La Fin Du Monde Shark Team is properly into our cups, the inevitable storytelling begins. Bahama Joe Bahama delights the table with a tale about a marlin caught off the coast of Miami. Rolf tells us about a wreck dive near Miami where she swam with a tiger shark. Never mind Miami!, Buster John says. Biggest thing I ever encountered was on the St John’s River. I was casting a shrimp net and caught a manatee! Manatees, I say with the weariness of a man who knows, are not as cuddly as you’d think.

Y’know, Shark Bait, I say to the kid, when I was about your age, I went on a night dive right here in Bimini. I was chasing a parrot fish and lost myself from the rest of the divers. Stupid move, but I wasn’t as bright of a kid as you are. I swam under a massive ledge of coral and came face-to-face with a 400 lb mammoth fish. It’s mouth was large enough to swallow my head whole. And those big groupers are like your Uncle Johnny on a BudLite, if they get to sucking on something, they don’t let go until they’re done.

400 pounds is nothing!, Jimmy Kraken says. During my time in Australia, I heard tales of a mythological grouper – or “groper” as they say Down Under – named “VW” because the fish was as big as a Volkswagen. Dude-bro, it was thought to be the fattest fish on the Great Barrier Reef. I doubted its existence until one day, diving the reef, I came upon the leviathan himself. I became mesmerized with those big dumb eyes. I felt like Jonah. Was this a prophet from God? VW began twitching his mouth. Was he going to speak? Did God want me to preach at Ninevah? His lips parted and the great fish mouth opened wide. I watched in equal parts horror and fascination. I probably pissed my wetsuit but who can say for sure where the warmth on my belly came from? The great fish opened his mouth and I was ready to receive the Word of God. And VW spat out a sea turtle shell. A turtle shell the size of a dinner table! VW had slurped up a giant turtle and sucked it clean. I guess he expected me to do the dishes!, Jimmy Kraken says with a cackle and a hoot.

God spoke to me in the Coral Sea too, I say – not one to be outdone. I was riding the tender to the dive site when a couple hundred yards away the water’s surface broke and a humpback whale breached to do a backflip. Overzealous, I leapt overboard so quickly I hadn’t put my mask on yet. The water was great visibility on that day, a fantastic shade of blue, but I could not see the whale. I could only hear him. Them! There was a pod and they were singing. When you are in the water during a whale song, you do not necessarily know which direction the whales are because all of the water becomes alive with music. The song is eternal, omnipresent, coming from every direction. My bones hummed with their harmony. I absolutely shook with their vibrations. Cormac McCarthy believed if we could understand the song of whales it would further our understanding of God. Personally, I think they’re all singing dirty sea shanties, but either way, it is as close to God as I have ever been.

Cute story, Rolf says unimpressed. I not only met God while scuba diving, I was smote by Him! “Smote?” “Smited?” “Smitten?” Smote. It was in very choppy waters on the Gulf of Mexico and by the time we got to the dive site, everyone was seasick, she says. Only two of us were willing to get into the water. It was certainly better than being in the boat, as far as seasickness goes, but it was still a miserable dive with little viz. On the ascension, we were doing a safety stop, holding onto the anchor line fifteen feet from the surface where the tumult of the sea was really getting to me. I let go of the anchor chain for a moment as I vomited through my regulator. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last. As I was vomiting, lightning struck the water. The entire sea was one great flash bulb, Rolf says. I was blinded and wondered for a moment if I might be dead. Had I been holding onto the rusty anchor line, perhaps I would be grounded enough for the electricity to kill me. I finished my safety stop and proceeded to the surface afraid for those in the boat, but they were okay. Unnerved, but okay.

Bahama Joe Bahama asks to cut-in to this dance, saying, as the resident sea-sickness expert, I’ve got a story for y’all. You saw how tense & sweaty I got on the ferry crossing from Ft Lauderdale to Bimini? That was nothing in comparison to the worst plane ride I have ever taken. No shit, there we were: Vic Neverman & I, visiting the Nazca Lines in Peru and the best way to see those geoglyphs is by chartering a plane to fly over the desert. To help with the expenses, we teamed up with a couple German anthropologists, Bahama Joe Bahama says. Das Ingos, I say, one of them was named Ingo and we couldn’t remember the other’s name so we called them both Ingo. That’s right: das zwei Ingos, Bahama Joe Bahama says with a recollective stroke of his goatee. At least one Ingo was dressed-up like Indiana Jones. The pilot took us up and as we were flying over the lines, the pilot pointed one wing at the specific geoglyph and spun in a circle before pivoting the plane to circle the same damn geoglyph with the other wing. He did this for every damn ancient desert doodle. All the shifting g-force spins had your brain swimming in its skull juices. Before long we were all ass-puckered with motion-sickness and I am happy to say I held onto my cookies longer than the Germans, Joe Bahama says. Yeah, I say, poor Ingo ralfed into his Indiana Jones hat. The pilot took us back down to earth immediately, Bahama Joe says, and once we dumped the Ingos he wanted to take Vic & I back up! Needless to say, we politely declined. No gracias, you damn maniac. I’ve seen enough Nazca for this lifetime.

You might be the seasick expert, Joe, I say to him, but when it comes to purges, no one releases the kraken like Jim. Yeah, no shit, Bahama Joe Bahama says with a bass-mouthed laugh. There was a night, I tell the rest of the table, Joe & Jimmy came down to the damp end of Florida and we hit up a Gulf front bar at the Lani Kai Hotel on Ft Myers Beach. This was well before you were born, Shark Bait. Late into the evening, Jimmy Kraken did his signature dance move, stripping off his shirt to whirl it around over his head. Palatka Joe had to fight off every boyfriend whose girlfriend Jimmy accidentally smacked in the face with his sweat rag. This went on until Jimmy Kraken yells “move!” before rushing to dramatically jump over the railing to the beach below while vomiting mid-flight. It was heroic, like John McClaine jumping off the Nakatomi Tower to escape his own explosive regurgitate. Ha!, Bahama Joe confirms, Jim made a beeline to the gulf water to freshen up. We had to pull him from the sea. You should have seen the lot of us, Joe Bahama says, shuffling into the Waffle House at 3 am looking like Ahab’s whalers.

Shark Bait, unimpressed with his father’s long-ago deeds, stands to leave. Sit back down, Shark Bait!, Bahama Joe Bahama says. You need to hear this. If we are going to tell Jimmy dance stories, I’ve got the greatest to tell. Gather around children. No shit, there we were: Jimmy Kraken & I, visiting Santiago, Chile. It was our last night in the country. We had an early flight out the next morning, but we were determined for one last hurrah on the town. We found our way to a dance club and, let me tell you children, the tango gods smiled upon James that night. And when Shakira arrived, they wept.

Shakira!, Buster John says, bull-fucking-shit! I’ve heard this story seventy times and I don’t believe it any more today than I did when y’all got back to Palatka.

Nah, dude-bro, Jimmy Kraken says to his brother. If there ever was a Shakira in the world, this was her. Not only did she look exactly like Shakira, but when she began to dance, there was no question it was her. Polygraph me, bitch. Hips don’t lie.

This goddess takes one look at James, Bahama Joe Bahama tells us, scanning him from top to bottom… mind you, Jimmy still had hair back in those days… and Shakira grabs Jimmy and the two begin dancing. Like a fucking whirlwind. Jimmy Kraken was a man possessed. He’s never danced so well, not before, never again. The temperature of Santiago at midnight was five degrees hotter than it was at eleven pm. Shakira & the Kraken danced and it was divine, it was sex-in-heels, miraculous babies were birthed that night – immaculate conceptions – an entire generation of Chileans spontaneously conceived & delivered. I nearly plucked out my own eyes because I realized I would never again encounter divinity as I had seen on that dance floor. You fools speak of seeing whales & lightning, but that’s all bullshit. No, if you want to see God, witness Shakira when her grace falls upon the Kraken. It’s no wonder you needed a transplant, Jim. No mortal heart could endure such a blessing. When the doctors cracked open Jimmy’s chest to replace his batteries with a baboon heart, they should’ve put his old heart into the Smithsonian’s “what the fuck just happened?” collection next to Alanis Morsette’s 10,000 spoons.

Douchebag, it wasn’t a transplant!, Jimmy Kraken says as he subconsciously touches his octopus tattoo, certainly no baboon heart.

Okay, so finish the fucking story, Buster John says with a creeping grin. The only part of the story Johnny likes is the ending. Buster John asks, and so did Jimmy go home with Shakira that night?

No, thankfully, Bahama Joe Bahama says, or we might not have Shark Bait with us today. No, I came closest to taking a woman home. One of Shakira’s girlfriends, Joe says. I couldn’t go back to her place because I had to hunt down the Kraken who had gone missing. I guess part of Jimmy’s dance power prowess came from all the rum we were drinking. Jimmy Kraken never said “good night” to Shakira because once his adrenaline wore off the poor guy passed-out against a urinal in the men’s room.

Shark Bait appears amused. Despite the grimy conclusion, the kid is entertained by the antics of his father. I tell him, buddy, there are consequences to flying to close to the sun, but it is a worthy price to pay. You’ll learn that soon enough, Shark Bait.

I look over at Jimmy Kraken. He has a tight-lipped smile on his face. He is giddy. I raise my beer towards him and say, if this ain’t it, Jim, what the devil is it?