Death at Sea

This past Wednesday, I went to the town market here in Babatngon to get my usual, 1 kilo potatoes, 1 kilo carrots, ¼ kilo green beans, 10 bananas, 1 sandwich bag holding about 5 tablespoons of curry powder, and 2 heads of garlic. I picked through the vegetables and fruit, negotiated the price down to what I always pay, and turned to go on my way when I noticed a crowd had gathered at the shoreline. Babatngon's market faces the ocean, you can see the other islands that are right off the coast, the market is about 20 yards by ten yards in all, a pole frame open-air building with a corrugated metal roof and always has a stale odor of fish guts, sweat, and pork cuts that have been out too long. There is always a row of pump boats, fishing vessels and the like that are docked at the shore, waiting to take passengers to nearby islands, or fishermen out to sea.

This day, though, the crowd gathered around the shore area where boats are docked, and the fixed gaze of a wondering, murmuring crowd focused on one of the small fishing vessels tied with fishing line to another of the pump boats. I walked over, pushed through the little crowd of 40 or 50, and saw what they were looking at. Two fishermen had been out fishing the night, before, and found another boat, floating, kerosene lamps burnt out, and the boat owner sitting, listless, slumped over his little two stroke engine, dead. The men presumably tied fishing line on the dead man's boat, and towed it in, then, to the market area, where the crowd was looking at the contorted body of the fisherman. He was still slumped over, his right arm straight out, wrist twisted upwards, left arm flung over the side of his boat, bent at the elbow, both arms weathered, the sinews of tired muscles apparent, and fingers still soiled with his toils in life. One shop owner, Jimmy, whom we buy our eggs and elbow noodles from, walked past me, just shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said, 'The police will come, they will know what to do.' I looked around, saw two of the police standing in the shade of a cacao tree, chatting idly with a group of men, smiling and nodding. I doubt they were carrying out any sort of investigation of the man's death.

As soon as it had gathered, the crowd of people began to disperse, their curiosity gone and no more questions answered than when they had come. All the while, the tide continued to lap at the little concrete storm wall, the ice cream man, box slung over his shoulder continued to ring his bell, and the little market continued its business. Still, the man's body remained in the boat, awaiting some sort of official examiner, its only movement being that of the breeze on his thinning hair and the current on his little boat.

I tried to process that scene later, all of the pieces and how they must all fit together in this culture. My initial impression was that of someone seeing, for the first time, a dead body, one that was not inbalmed or hooked up to tubes in a hospital room. It struck me how little anyone cared that here, in front of them, was a dead body, it seemed no different than if the crowd were looking at a beached whale, and the temporary intrigue. I thought about all of the loud, painful, overbearing ways of dying, and how, compared to all of the wars and suffering, this man died in one of the most peaceful ways I can imagine, out on the ocean, doing what he did all his life, without a care in the world. After thinking about it for a while though, I think that is all wrong.

The people in the crowd around me saw themselves, a man fishing to keep his family fed, in poor health, who died without anything but a Nipa Hut, and a small, broken down fishing boat. I realize now that the more time those people spent looking at that body, trying to find out what happened, who he was, where he was fishing, the more they would have seen a reflection of the lives they live. The man in that boat probably didn't die peacefully at all; he was working his hands and arms raw to fight for a livelihood in the ocean, in the unknown. Maybe to die in the middle of the ocean fishing would be the dream of Bill Dance or some other sports fisherman, but for this man, fishing may have never been his avocation. Without a choice of doing something, I don't think we can ever be satisfied with it. Maybe he lucked out, and loved his life of fishing in solitude every night, rain or shine, but most likely, that man led a life of struggle, resenting the choices he never had.

As I turned to go from the crowd on Wednesday, I hoisted my bag up on my shoulder, and said goodbye to our vegetable vendor. She looked at me, smiled, and gesturing to the man in the boat, said in Waray, "Maybe he caught a huge fish that was so big he had a heart attack trying to pull it in." I agreed maybe, smiled, and rode away on my bike.