We trawled the fin through the surf, trying to keep the plank submerged, while my mother filmed from the shore—all of us except José Luis, who was too small to help, and Geraldo, who seemed to want nothing to do with the movie. I shouted to my mother, hectoring her, to make sure she got the shots right. The movie rose or fell, I knew, on that fin.
When the sun was high, my mother called us in for lunch. We were staying at my uncle’s beach house, a single room with a kitchen, toilet, beds. Before we ate, we went to rinse off in the cold concrete shower downstairs, except Geraldo and José Luis, who hadn’t gotten in the water. Oscar grumbled that they hadn’t helped with the fin. Who are they, anyway? Oscar asked. Why did you bring them?
“My Summer of the Shark,” Texas Monthly (June 2015).
