公牛之路 By 胡冠中
如果手指不是張成一張網，而是鋤頭般掘起溪底的底質，那麼原本四散的魚隻過不久反而會好奇地聚集過來。隨著不斷撥動，我的手邊很快有了一票觀眾，在飛揚的沙塵中伺機覓食，像是農忙後被吸引而來的鷺鷥或八哥。今天沒有看到牛港鰺，反而出現幾條鰭膜透著黃色的六帶鰺，我持續以指尖耕耘土地，牠們飛行，鳥群已然忘記如何降落。
我喜歡牛港這個名字 ，魁梧，結實，讀音的質感堅硬，兩個字咀嚼起來的滋味跟redbull一樣。所以即使夏曼．藍波安在書中都用「浪人鰺」來稱呼，我還是使用牛港，這是個句尾會自己迸出驚嘆號的名字，牛港！
牛隻充滿力量的意象經常被用於賦名，譬如俗稱「黑牛」的黑鯛、俗稱「牛」的鋸尾鯛，以及牛港鰺。牛港鰺這個名字來自閩南語的「牛犅」（gû-káng），意指公牛，因為釣上時拉力生猛而得名。牛港鰺的幼魚，理當是公牛之子，六帶鰺不是牛港，應該也算得上公牛的姪子。公牛姪子，應該是很威武的傢伙吧。
結果六帶鰺完全辜負牛港兩字，大溪川的出海口裡，每一條六帶鰺都活得相當卑微，蹭在隨便一條銀島鯻、銀紋笛鯛或是駝背胡椒鯛後面。姿態十足癟三。牛港鰺、六帶鰺等鰺魚閩南語又被稱作「瓜仔」，原因是這類魚釣上岸會呱呱叫，發出有點像是橡皮玩具的聲音，中文乾脆稱作「瓜瓜」。這個名字通常用在體型較小的個體身上，像是我眼前這條三指幅寬的六帶鰺。
瓜瓜呱呱，公牛變瓜瓜，我眼前的瓜瓜一號跟著條銀紋笛鯛，小雞一樣的眼神四處張望，直到發現跟丟對方才急忙歸隊，然而少他一個尾鰭長度的後者似乎沒有當母雞的意思。銀紋笛鯛穿過石縫，瓜瓜一號尾隨嘗試穿過石縫，卻忘記自己已經長大了。石縫太窄，瓜瓜一號一頭撞上，眼睜睜看著自己的母雞消失在黑暗中，只能呱呱倒車，越過石縫跟上蠻不在乎的銀紋笛鯛。
曾經看過一組射水魚的照片，照片中主角的跟班也是一條六帶鰺。之所以跟隨其他魚隻，或許是為了增加覓食的成功率。只是目前為止，我尚未觀察到六帶鰺真的因此撿到便宜。瓜瓜二號的母雞是一條銀島鯻，銀島鯻不鑽縫，用尖吻翻動石頭覓食。所以瓜瓜二號的額頭得以倖免其難，只需要跟好對象，人家吃飯時在飯桌旁邊呱呱呱呱。那張尖吻吸了又吸，濾食後的砂石從鰓蓋噴出，到底吃了甚麼啊？很好吃嗎？我問銀島鯻，可惜牠不會呱呱。
銀島鯻的最大體長約三十公分，但六帶鰺可是能夠長到一米以上的大魚，至於長達一百七十公分的浪人鰺甚至能以低空飛過海面的燕鷗為食。這些鰺魚的幼魚進入淡水避敵、覓食，等到體型成長再回到海中，以此作為一種生存的策略，一條無關卑賤與尊嚴的道路。河流本身作為一條道路，生物有時往上，有時往下，或者擱淺在無水的沿岸。或者回到海裡，線性的道路突然四面八方。
花蓮的三棧溪出海口裡也有一條浪人鰺。我躲在水草裡窺伺牠，看牠在封閉的沒口河裡逐漸成長，一枚釣客心中沉甸甸的果實。不遠處的定置魚場正販售牠海裡的同族，僵硬的身體就像是公牛的銅像。我知道對牠們而言賦名不是道路，生存才是。於是我選擇放下魚叉，讓牠在牠的路上，我在我的路上。
我也在我的路上，我在台二線上，在水畔，雙足步行，偶爾在不過膝的水裡匍匐前進，進入水深處失控前游追逐一條巴掌大的大口湯鯉。即使知道河無法成為我的路，我還是想來下水，看看瓜瓜到底會長成公牛還是大一號的癟三。我知道必須離開，但我還是想多在溪岸待一會兒。像是擱淺的鯨，蘇花公路上一顆固執的落石。海風吹來，我的身體於是起了一陣寒顫，像是一千萬尾幼魚游經我濕潤的毛髮。
註：指幅，指的是手指的寬度，釣客或漁民會以手指的數量描述魚隻腹部到背部的距離，藉此傳達魚隻大小。
If fingers did not stretch as a net but as a hoe digging the substrate of the creek bed, the scattered fishes would soon accumulate and back with curiosity. Plunking the creek, audiences come beside my hand in a moment; they playing a waiting game, foraging in the blowing sand, just as the heron and the crested myna who are attracted by the harvesting season. There is no giant trevally but only a few bigeye trevallies with yellowish fin membrane. I keep using my fingertip to cultivate the land; they fly, yet birds had already forgotten how to land.
I love the name “The buffalo,” it's burly, robust, and sounds so stiff. The word grazes like the taste of Redbull. Hence, although Syaman Rapogan calls it “The wanderer,” I still use “The buffalo,” a name that would be bursting with the exclamation mark: Buffalo
The powerful image of the buffalo has usually used in the nomenclature. For example, the Acanthopagrus schlegelii is called “The Black Buffalo;” the Prionurus scalprum called “the buffalo,” and the giant trevally. “The buffalo” comes from the Taiwanese dialect “gû-káng,” which means buffalo, and they are known for their powerful tensity when tugged into the fishing rod. The offspring of the giant trevally should be the son of the buffalo; Bigeye trevally is not the giant trevally but must be its nephew. The buffalo’s nephew is definitely a strongman.
However, the bigeye trevally totally betrays the name of “buffalo.” In the estuary of Da-xi River, every bigeye trevally lives submissively and as a groveling servant: following arbitrarily in each of the silver grunter, the mangrove red snapper, or the trout sweetlips. The giant trevally, the bigeye trevally, and other trevally fish are called “the quack” in the Taiwanese dialect, for they make a “quack quack” sound like a rubber-toy once being fished. Hence, people simply use “the quack” in Chinese to refer to the small trevally, like this three-fingerbreadth*-wide one right under my nose.
The quack quacking, the buffalo becomes the quack. The quack 1st in front of me is following the mangrove red snapper and looking around like a chicken; it meandering around then turns back to the queue when lost its leader. Yet the latter one, which is one-caudal-fin shorter than its follower, seems not willing to be a hen. The mangrove red snapper passes through the crevice, so the quack 1st follows, without noticing it has already grown up—the crevice is too narrow so the quack bumps it abruptly. The quack hopelessly watches the hen disappears into the darkness. Quacking, quacking. It reverses, passes the crevice then follows the insouciant mangrove red snapper.
I have seen pictures about an archerfish, whose follower is also the bigeye trevally. The reason they follow other fish may be to predate successfully. But until now I haven’t found the bigeye trevally have succeeded. The hen of the quack 2nd is a silver grunter. The silver grunter doesn’t squeeze the crevice but uses its sharp mouth flipping rocks to forage; therefore, the forehead of the quack 2nd, fortunately, be spared. What it needs is to follow a good target and keep quaking beside the dining table. That sharp mouth keeps sucking; sands spurt out from the operculum after its filter-feeding. What did you eat? Was it delicious? I ask the silver grunter, yet it cannot quack.
The silver grunter can grow to 30 cm in length, whereas the bigeye trevally can reach over a meter long; even a 170 cm-length wanderer trevally can capture a low-flying tern for food. Their larva gets into freshwater to flee from the enemy, forage, and wait to grow up then return to the sea. They use this as a surviving strategy—a road that ignoble or noble does not matter. The river itself is a road: sometimes creatures moving upward, sometimes downward, or stranding at the droughty coast. Or they might return to the sea: where the linear road suddenly becomes boundless wide.
In the estuary of Yayung Pratan, Hualien, there also has the wanderer trevally. I hide in water weeds to peeking it, seeing it ripe in the lost river and become a heavy fruit in those fishermen’s hearts. The fishing ground of set net nearby is selling its kinsmen, whose bodies are ossified as the buffalo’s statue. I know, for them, the road is not for nomenclature but survival. I thus put down the harpoon; let it on its road, and my mine.
I am on my road, too. I am on the provincial highway 2; at the waterside and walking on foot, sometimes creeping forward in the knee-length water and chasing a hand-big rock flagtail before entering into deep water and losing control. Knowing that the river cannot be my road, I still want to go back to water and see whether the quack would grow up to the buffalo or a big beggar. I know I have to leave, but I want to stay on the coast a little longer like a stranding whale or a stubborn falling rock lying on the Suhua Highway. The sea breeze blowing, and my body thus quivering—like tens of millions of fish larva swimming pass through my moist hair.