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The Maestro – by Phillip Caputo
David Wilson could be described as a bulky leprechaun. At five-eleven and about 190 pounds, his frame is that of an ex-running back who could use a few laps around the field. His square face topped by curly, ginger-brown hair and set off by pale, merry eyes, makes you think of an Irish bartender telling an off-color joke. To say that he loves to fish would be like saying that Julia Child loves to cook. No niggling purist, he can, and will fish for anything that swims with anything that casts a line and hook, but his greatest joy is orchestrating angling weekends for his friends. He’s caught enough fish in his life, from half-pound brook trout to giant Bluefin tuna, that catching them doesn’t thrill him half as much as watching other people catch them. Last August, he phoned my wife and me in Connecticut from his office in Miami where he works as a financial planner. He said he was going to flee the stifling South Florida summer for Montauk, where his family maintains a cottage and where he intended to spend a weekend in early September fishing for blues and stripers. A confirmed bachelor at thirty-nine, Wilson…
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The Great Shot
He started out in the morning, early. Sounds glared out in the pre-dawn: spoon in the coffee mug, twang of the egg skillet, running water; and then those few minutes of silence while he stared into the coffee mug because it was blacker than the night outside the window. He put the coffee mug down and stood and picked his pack off the other chair. He took up his old 16-guage pump by the case handle and tucked it under his arm so he had a hand free to lock the door. He put on his cowboy hat and went outside. The rain muffled everything, even the closing of the car door. The car started with a cough and he backed her out and put her in forward. It was a twenty-mile drive to the new place and he drove slowly, thinking that the rain would keep the birds on their roosts. He found an old sweet song on the radio and let his mind wander. No other cars on the road. In the fringe of the headlights the desert began. The sun wasn’t rising. He flicked the radio off. You never can rely on the weather, he thought, not…
