The Captain and His Shark Skin Boots

Airline crews are easy to identify at the hotel bar. Especially if it’s closing time when the lights are bright, and the staff is attempting to clean for the morning. We’re a group of middle-aged folks from various genders and races eating and drinking and carrying on like it was a reasonable hour. “Too late for an extra side of fries?”There is a common joke about identifying the pilots in the group. We’re the ones with the big watches, cargo shorts, white socks, and sneakers. Guilty.

But at our table of several mixed crews that night, it was his shark skin boots that caught my eye. He had a mustache. He was drinking whisky with his steak. He was a Captain.

“First of all,” I asked him. “I’d be really interested to hear about those boots but then I’m going to ask how the hell they fit in your bag?”

“Are you in for the long haul, Son? Or do you want the short version?”

Since the bar already announced the last call, I asked for a large water.

His story took place when he was in the military and based on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. It didn’t take long into his story that he wasn’t just telling it to me.

“We used to haul the trash from Base out to a dump near the Pacific. We’d load up a pickup with trash and then drive it out to the landfill. It wasn’t our job. It just gave us something to do and got us off base. The dump, and it may not have even been an official dump, was near a cliff and you’d just back on up in there. Often when we were there, we’d see trash blowing over the rocks and down into the water below. It was a different time. We probably seeded that island of junk out there. But every time we were there, we’d see sharks swimming out in the waves eating everything that would fall in. Lots of farms around so there’d be all kinds of carcasses falling over into the water.  Mostly chicken but sometimes a pig or something bigger. We saw a horse out there once! But one day out there, we saw what looked like a twenty-foot shark eating up everything that fell in and we knew we had to take that one home with us. We scurried through the trash and found everything we could use to fashion a rod and reel. We found some old wire for the fishing line that came off a fence. We made a big hook by banging and bending up an old metal bucket and some random metal laying around. And for bait? A dead chicken! We found a fresh one and snagged it on our hook!”

The bartender who was now listening interrupted. “Wait a minute. You’ve got all that up and running. How did you plan on pulling it in?”

“The truck!” Said the Captain. “In hindsight, it wasn’t the wisest idea but it’s all we had. We tied the wire up to the back of the truck and threw our contraption over the rocks. Immediately we had the shark on the line! We all piled into the pickup and spun the wheels making a mess of all the trash we were parked in. A few times it looked like the shark was going to catch us instead but after time we had her up and out of the water.”

I jumped in. “Obviously it was still alive at this point. What was the plan?”

“We hadn’t thought that far. I don’t think any of us thought we’d catch the shark. But there it was. Flopping around on land connected to a hook made from a metal bucket and a wire attached to a pickup truck.”

“So you all are there watching this shark thrash in the trash yard. Did you push it back in or what?” Asked a concerned flight attendant.

“Nope. We shot it. Right then and there. What else was there to do? We couldn’t get the hook out. None of us were marine biologists. So a buddy there shot it in the head with his service weapon. But! Nothing goes to waste!” He said pointing at his boots. “We loaded up the shark and found a processor on the island to make us steaks. And one of the pilots knew a lady in the Philippines who made boots and since he flew cargo there regularly we got the skins from the meat man. After our guy’s next trip to Manila, he returned with boots for all of us who were there. These boots! And if you ever go to a bar called Dukes in Osaka you will see the jaw of our shark hanging over the bar!”

We all were captivated by his story. Real or not. The staff even suspended their duties for a moment to listen and even seemed to give us a pass for getting in their way while they cleaned up.

I did follow up asking him how he packed those big boots in his overnight bag.

“Son, I gave up the tennis shoes a long time ago. Makes you all look like a bunch of morons.”