Little Pussy Bitch (A Shark Tale)

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• November 2, 2015

The last time I went surfing in Florida with my brother and Father, we found ourselves sharing the surf with an eight foot long bull shark.  This would be the second time I would see a shark in the water while surfing.  The first time was at Atlantique Beach, on Fire Island, back home on Long Island.  There had been repeat shark sightings that weekend, but when I saw the dorsal fin break the surface of the water, I was still shocked and rather petrified.  I’m unsure what kind of shark it was, but it was probably smaller than me, at about four feet in length.  Still, a four foot shark could ruin your day, so it didn’t stop me from yelling, “shark!” at the top of my lungs, alerting my brother and friends, as we quickly got out of the water.

My family drove down to Cocoa Beach, Florida one year during Spring Break for a respite from the cold in New York.  The problem with revolving a trip around surfing, is you never know if the swells are going to deliver (unless you go to Hawaii, where there is pretty much always good surfing).  The week we were in Cocoa Beach, it sucked.  What a bust.  We went surfing almost every day anyway, despite the almost un-ridable waves.  It wasn’t a total bust.  We were still on a beach, instead of hiding indoors in New York.  I had suggested we drive to Disney World for a day, but my brother and sister shot that down.  We were all in our teens and they were too cool for such a trip.  I’d never been too cool for anything, especially Disney World.

The vacation was almost over, it seemed almost a waste of a vacation (we couldn’t afford to go on a lot of family vacations, they happened every three years).  My sister was going through her whole, “I’m a bitchy teenage girl” phase, and played the part quite well.  My brother was even more of an ass than usual because he’d hoped for better surf.  And my parents were curmudgeonly dissatisfied about how all three of their kids were ungrateful brats.  Then, on one of the last days, there was decent surf.  Nothing spectacular, but the best it had been the whole trip.  Waist to chest high and clean.  It looked like a lot of fun.  Except no one was in the water.  Why?  People gathered on the pier to watch a shark fest, as several sharks were feeding up and down the coast.

My family and I watched from the pier.  I could count five sharks.  There were probably more down the beach.  My brother watched the empty incoming swells, imagining himself on them.  My Dad’s game plan was to do something else, then maybe, later in the day, the sharks will have moved down the beach and we can go surfing.  So, that’s what we did.  A few hours later, we were back on the pier, looking for sharks.  They seemed to have disappeared, so we grabbed our boards and paddled out.

I remembered when I first jumped in, I was anxious and excited, but as soon I was in the water, I became weary.  Every time the sun reflected off the water, I quickly turned my head, expecting the beast from Jaws to bite my head off.  There was only one other guy in the water besides myself, my Dad, and my brother.

I was scared, but I wouldn’t admit it.  As a tomboy, coming from a large Irish/Italian Catholic family where men are alpha’s and women are passive beta’s, I viewed myself as an alpha, and desperately wanted to be viewed as one as well.  My brother inherited the birthright of being the alpha-male so naturally.  He was agile, and over confident to the point of cockiness.  This made him a much better surfer than me, even though we started at the same time.  The women are far more nurturing in my large family, but they would naturally second guess themselves.  The only real difference between the males and the females were the males had a brazen confidence the females seemed to lack.  Why?  The women in my family are smart and capable, if not more so than the men.  But self doubt and anxiety seemed to come as naturally to the women as the confidence did for the men.  This confidence didn’t come naturally to me either.  And whatever anxiety my brother lacked, I seemed to have a double dose of.  Was it nature or nurture?  Was this my families fault or societies?  Still, I defied whatever fear I had on a regular basis.  I would not succumb to it.  I’m an alpha, I told myself.  Like my father, and his father before him. Like my baby brother.  I’m an alpha.  Hear me roar.

At the end of the pier, a dorsal fin, over a foot long, so long, in fact, that it curled over a bit, rose out of the water.  The beast then rolled, and it’s girth was huge, and it’s length exceeded seven feet.  Just like the scene out of Jaws, the world stopped as my heart did, and my vision zoomed in on the shark.  My Dad and brother saw it too.  You could hear gasps from the beach.  I turned, and paddled for the shore.  I saw on a television program about sharks that one should paddle calmly, in a pattern of threes.  So this is what I did.  Without looking back.  One, two, three.  Glide.  Don’t forget to breathe.  One, two, three.  Glide.  When I got to the beach, people were on their feet, watching the shark.  Relieved to step on the shore, I finally looked back, and much to my surprise, my Dad and brother were still in the line up.  What were they still doing out there?

A kid on the beach told me it was a bull shark.  Great whites get all the publicity, but bull sharks might be more dangerous to humans than the great whites because they like to swim in shallow water.  Also, they can live in both salt water and fresh water.  Watching him catch waves, I knew my brother Mitch was going to make fun of me when he got out of the water.  I sat on the beach watching them feeling torn.  A part of me wanted the shark to rip my brother’s arm off, so I could say, “Ha!  I told you so!  I told you!”  But, of course, I didn’t really want my brother to lose a limb.  That would be beyond awful.

When my brother and Father safely returned to shore after catching a few waves, my brother had that pirate grin on his face and immediately called me a “little pussy bitch.”  An insult so absurd, only a teenage boy could come up with it (actually, in another context that could be taken as a compliment!).  “Lori’s a little pussy bitch,” he continued, “what are you afraid of a little shark, Lori?  You scared of sharks?”

If being afraid of an eight foot bull shark makes me a little pussy bitch, then yes, by those standards, I am a little pussy bitch.  I’ve surfed thousands of times, in different parts of the world, and I’m not afraid of sharks until one makes it abundantly clear they are in the water with me.  Mitch said he wasn’t afraid because the water was so shallow (he hadn’t known the fact about bull sharks attacking in shallow water.  The lack of this knowledge could have cost him an arm!).  My Dad later confessed the only reason he stayed in the water is because Mitch refused to get out.  There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and my brother has lived on that line for most of his life.  He feels comfortable there, being the alpha he is.

We later learned the bull shark was dining on a large sea turtle.  The carcass washed to shore the next day.  The mutilated turtle served as a grim reminder as to what the shark could have easily done to us.  My brother continued to torment me, “oh Lori, the little pussy bitch, you afraid?”  I don’t recall my parents ever yelling at my brother for his mocking.
“Yeah, well, if not wanting to surf with an eight foot shark makes be a little pussy bitch, then that’s what I am, okay?  I’ll wear it on a t-shirt.  Would that make you happy, Mitch?  At least I’ll be alive, and have all my limbs.”
“I have all my limbs and they’re both giving you the middle finger right now.”
We bickered like Rick and Morty (Mitch being Rick, me being Morty (have I pitched Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty to you yet?  If not, I will)).  The range of emotions one can feel towards your siblings is astounding.  No one quite understands where you come from like your siblings, you love them, and also, a lot of times, you hate them.

Oddly enough, probably the most offensive word to me in “little pussy bitch” was the word “little.”  Because I was always so little.  I was a runt.  If we were hamsters, my Mom probably would have eaten me.  If we were pigs, some little girl would feel bad for me and adopt me, and my best friend would be a spider.  See, runts are never alphas.

It would be years for me to learn that the alpha males in my family struggled with anxiety a lot more than the women did.  They were just really good at repressing it.  Like the other alpha’s in my family, repression would be something I’d become some what of an expert at.

The next day we went surfing again, and there was a baby sting ray in the water with us.
“Aw,” I said, “he’s so cute!” And I followed the sting ray as he glided through the water.  My brother panicked, and paddled away.
“Get that thing away from me!” He said.
“Wait.  You’re afraid of a baby sting ray and not a shark?”  I started laughing, and mocking him.  Who’s the little pussy bitch now?  Ironically, years later, my brother would be stung by sting ray.

Now, as adults, my sister is less annoying and moody, my brother is less of a selfish prick, and I am no longer a runt (I’m probably more annoying, moody, and more of a selfish prick though).  Nowadays, I don’t even think about sharks when I go surfing, and I’m much more worried about jelly fish than sharks.  If I did see a shark, however, I would get out of the water.  Sharks are the ultimate alphas.  In almost everything I do, from surfing to stand-up, when I’m afraid of going for something, there’s a little voice in the back of my head that says, “don’t be a little pussy bitch.”  For a long time, I thought that voice was my brother or my Dad.  But it’s just me.  Because like my Dad, and just like my brother, I still want to be an alpha.