It's all here: Bibles, sharks and the word "stiff":
Victor DeGregorio had spent nearly seven months dying,during which time he repeatedly made his wife swear on her communion Bible that she would scatter his ashes off the coast of southern Florida. It was there, aboard a charter boat called the Happy Hooker IX, that Victor DeGregorio had once reeled in a hammerhead shark. He considered this the foremost masculine achievement of his life, and kept a jar filled with the shark's pointy teeth on his desk at the John Deere outlet where he worked as an inventory manager. Sometimes Victor DeGregorio would present one of the teeth to a customer or a visiting big shot from Deere headquarters, and the recipients were always impressed. Also on display was a framed nine-by-twelve of Victor posing on a dock beside the gaping stiff behemoth, which had been chained up by its tail and chalked with the number 193 to proclaim the weight. Victor's friends eventually forbade him from mentioning the hammerhead--even toward the end--because he'd told the goddamn story about a thousand times.
Star Island. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
I'm pretty sure now that the fish Jesus charbroiled for the disciples was swordfish. Or blue marlin.
Posted by: |