The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay

by Tim Junkin

  Clay fixed more coffee for Byron, for the road. At the jail, he made Byron wait in the car.

  Once inside the jail, it took about twenty minutes of paperwork to get Byron’s father, Mason, released. As Clay knew, he was a frequent Saturday night visitor. He was brought out into the office by one of the deputies, who held on to his arm as he staggered. Mason was red faced and walked bent over. He looked at Clay and then slowly around the room and then at the deputy, as though he had just noticed him and just noticed where he was. Then he pulled a red handkerchief out of his back pocket and threw it at the floor, imitating a referee in a football game, and shouted, “Flag on the play! Flag on the play!” and then doubled up laughing with a whiskey wheeze. Clay had to grab him to keep him from falling.

  Clay put him in the back of the station wagon and drove into town to Grady’s Diner and took Mason and Byron in and made them both order coffee and breakfast. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he ordered a scrapple sandwich.

  Byron made a face at Clay. “How you eat that shit?” he said, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  “It’s pig peter, you know.”

  “Bull.”

  “No. Not bull peter. It’s pig peter.”

  Mason started laughing again, like he had in the jail.

  Clay held on to Mason so he wouldn’t fall off the stool. He looked at Byron. “How would you know? You ever tasted pig peter?”

  “I ain’t neither, and I don’t aim to.”

  Clay didn’t answer.

  “It’s bad enough watching you eat it, though,” Byron went on, trying to wink at his father.

  It was after midnight when Clay drove them down to Planters Wharf, figuring some fresh cold air might help. Byron was sobering up some. The three sat shivering on the dock, and Mason babbled for a while about the waitresses at the VFW. Two half-tame mallards swam up toward them out of the dark, looking for bread. Mason cursed them away.

  “Goddamn scavenger house pets,” he shouted. “Where is your wildness gone to?” He began coughing and Byron patted his back. “Where have they gone to, boys?” he implored. “There used to be millions of ’em. Millions! And they didn’t beg for bread, neither. Not a one, damn it.” He let out a wheeze. “When I was a youngster, my daddy would take me up off the Susquehanna Flats. Cans and reds would just smoke up the sky, there were so many. They would blot out the sun. They’d be everywhere. I’m sorry you boys never saw that.

  “Go on, get away,” he shouted at the mallards, and then he started coughing again, coughing and wheezing.

  “They tore up all the grass and seedbeds dredging, I suppose.” Clay spoke softly, patting the older man’s back. “The wild celery’s mostly gone. Eelgrass is scarce. Lack of food.”

  “It’s just like Joe DiMaggio, selling Mr. Coffee machines on the TV. It’s shit,” Mason hacked out. “The man was a hero. Now he’s selling goddamn Mr. Coffee machines like who gives a good goddamn.”

  The boys looked at each other at that. “I see there’s a link there, Mase,” Byron finally said. He hiccuped at Clay. “Somewheres.”

  They all sat silent for a while and listened to the quiet stirring of the river and the rustling of the boats in their slips. And then Mason started talking again and gradually got around to talking about what he always talked about when he got that way, about being on the sea at night in the war against the Germans, and how the sea had a soul that wrapped the earth and contained all life, and that the men who were lost on the sea were contained in her soul, and how it felt to wait for the submarines to attack, to wait for death on the sea at night, in the silence, night after night, listening for the torpedoes that they knew would come. Byron listened and didn’t speak, but his face betrayed the images of his own war branded in him.

  Traveling back to Blackie’s, Mason fell asleep between them in the front seat. It had begun to drizzle and then the rain changed to snow, a light April snow, just dusting the earth, muffling the night. On Oxford Road, Clay slowed and then came to a stop and turned off the engine and the car lights, and the two young men, with one of their fathers asleep between them, watched the translucent flakes float to the ground in the luminous spring snow in the soundless night.

  8

  Outside the boat barn, a rusted conveyor belt lay disintegrating in a field of weeds and trumpet vines. In better times it had been used to unload the bountiful oysters. Clay walked past it and past a graveyard of beached dredgers, abandoned years before, most with their sides staved in. A field mouse scampered over a rotting timber, split from the belly of the Tessie May, the name still faintly readable across the gutted transom. A gray gull, perched on the broken masthead, surveyed the swollen river. Clay liked the stiff breeze and the sound of the sailboat halyards ringing.

  Like a branching oak tree, the wharf at Pecks Point sprawled into Plaindealing Creek and faced out into the Tred Avon River. South of the loading platform, a new dock of unweathered pine ran into the creek, where a few luxury slips had been built to handle pleasure yachts. The new wood seemed out of place among the older structures and the rusting husks from another time. For two hundred years the wharf had been home to boatbuilders and watermen. In colonial times, when the town of Oxford was competing with Baltimore to become the leading port of the upper Bay, the wharf was first an unloading station for shad and oyster and then served the herring trade and, still later, the crabbers. Built originally on hard-packed sediment, the wharf area had grown with the commercial dredging for oysters by sail-driven skipjacks, expanding into the creek on its accumulated oyster shell base, the refuse and legacy of generations of watermen, watermen’s wives, and the Negro women shuckers who used to fill the warehouse.

  Clay knew the history of this place. He had learned it from his father and read about it as well. But he had also come to know it just by being on the river, by learning the slow track of the muskrat in the eerie backwaters of the Dorchester marsh and learning when and where to set the traps, and what the traps did to the animals, and how to finish them. And by finding home through the spartina with the bow of his skiff laden with muskrat pelts and rounding Pecks Point and catching the thousand eyes of the sun on the Bay.

  That was before Bertha had played Maggie at the Cambridge Theater and Pappy had stopped coming home. Before his mother had stopped caring. Before she had moved him over near Denton, and for her, and for himself and his own hurt as well, he had not come back to Pappy, not once until well after she died, and then only to visit, and it had never been the same. Now he kicked at an oyster shell and pushed away these thoughts so the pain wouldn’t be quite as sharp. He shook his head, wondering how a person could be so interfered with, as Pappy had been by Bertha, how a man could turn on or away from his family, how people who cared for each other could break each other like that. He stopped and breathed and made himself think of the morning and what he needed from it and from the day. He watched the water. The waves frothed forward and combed back upon themselves, blue-green in the sun. The northeaster had followed the lunar pull and pushed in the flood tide, but it had peaked and was starting to settle. Tough on the crabbers, he thought. Knock the pots around. He heard a diesel approach from the east, but his view was blocked, and he heard the engine reverse and then quit.

  Approaching the old dock, he turned and walked in front of the second warehouse, known as the picking shack, though crab pickers could no longer compete with the machine-operated seafood plants, and this building was mostly used for storage. Behind it ran the rows of molt tanks, big wooden crab boxes filled with river water and irrigated by overhead spigots. The live peeler crabs were kept there, studied daily, and moved to successive tanks as they got closer to their molt, the shedding crabs in the last tank, picked out by hand, soft as wet clay, ready for the markets across the Bay Bridge on the western shore.

  Just beyond, on the loading platform, stood Jed Sparks. The platform jutted out over the wooden bulkhead and was plastered with old tractor tires on the water side and cluttered wit
h cleats, hoses, bushel baskets, and barrels on the landing. One workboat was tied alongside, and an older man with a grizzled stubble was unloading bushel baskets from his boat onto the wharf where Jed Sparks stood watching nonchalantly, his hands in his khaki trouser pockets, black suspenders holding them high and running up over a dirty sweatshirt. Seven bushel baskets were heaved up on the dock, each about half full with crabs. The older man looked over the remainder of the baskets in his boat, but they were all empty.

  “Jimmies still right sluggish.” He looked up at Sparks. “More each day, though.”

  Sparks eyed the baskets half full of crabs. He kicked one of the baskets, watching as the crabs inside scrambled around. “Shit, Chester, you ain’t doin’ no worse than the rest. No more’n a few bushels, all told, though. I figure one and a half a number ones, two bushels a twos, and a half a liver-bellies and sooks.” He turned toward the door to the office behind him. Two men were lounging in chairs under the entrance roof. “Billy, pick ’em up,” he hollered. Turning back to the waterman, he continued. “Payin’ twenty, twelve, and eight today. Premium price as they’re still right rare. Comes to sixty.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills. Peeling back several hundreds, he found the twenties and pulled three out. He handed them down to the man in the boat.

  “Yeah,” the waterman grunted, accepting the money. “Be better tomorrow. Going deeper. Catch ’em crawlin’ up the bank, out of the mud.”

  “Tomorrow, Chester.” Sparks turned away and saw Clay leaning against one of the tanks.

  “Cap’n Clay,” he yawped, sauntering over. “How’s the work comin’?”

  Clay held out his hand and Jed took it to shake. “I’m making progress, Mr. Jed. Been bending pots all week.”

  “How many so far?”

  “About a hundred, I’d say.”

  “Need more.”

  “I know. And I need to find a hauler. And a cheap one. I’m about tapped out.”

  Jed Sparks squinted against the sunlight on the water. He had worked for Pappy running the wharf for as long as Clay could remember. Now he was tending things here for the bank.

  “I ain’t for sure, but Lester Quill’s been workin’ on some pot boats down in Tilghman. He might have an old hauler to sell.”

  Clay thought but couldn’t recall the name.

  “He’s got a work shed right next to Morrison’s.”

  Clay nodded. “Thanks. I’ll drive down there.”

  “We’ll stick her in your ole slip when she’s ready. I told the bank that I was trying to rent it but I ain’t had much luck.” Sparks grinned. “You might as well keep on using it for the time being.”

  “Appreciate it. Once I get some crabs to sell, I’ll make it good.”

  “Nothin’ to make good, as far as I see it. You got a line on your bait?”

  “Barker Cull might spot me for a while. I need to scrounge up some more pots, though. Or raise some cash to buy ’em.”

  “Course you do.”

  “When you figure they’ll start comin’ in full?”

  Jed thrust out his jaw in a way that he had. “I ’spect another two to three weeks.” He looked at Clay. “’Bout when the dogwood buds swell open.” He chuckled and Clay smiled. “You should hit ’em just about prime.”

  They both heard another diesel coming down the channel and looked.

  “Appears Buddy Claggett’s had his fill,” Jed stated.

  “So it does,” Clay agreed. “Well, I’ll get back to it. Thanks for your help.”

  “Sure.”

  Clay turned to go.

  “Hey, Clay.” Clay turned back. “You seen that center-cockpit beauty, blue hull, named Mood Indigo, out in the new wharf?”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “The owner’s looking for a cap’n to run some weekend charters. Seems pretty free with his cash. Paid six months’ slip rental in advance. In hundreds. Probably pay good for a cap’n. Name’s Brigman. Claims he’s from Delaware. Jersey accent. Seems a bit slick, but you might try him.”

  Clay thought for a second and then nodded his head. “Yeah. Right. That might work. I could use the money right now. Thanks, Jed.” He started to walk back past the peeler tanks and then changed his mind and turned to go out on the new wharf. He went out on the dock, past the smaller flat-bottom and centerboard boats, toward the larger slips. Underneath the dock the water was spring clear, and through the ripples he could see the eelgrass growing on the bottom, four to five feet down. He walked out to where the Mood Indigo was riding high in her slip. She was tied too loose for the flood tide, and her bow was nearly scraping against the pier. He quickly pulled her in and stepped aboard and tightened her cross lines, reining her back safe in the slip. He walked along her varnished teak deck. She was a beauty. He thought about sailing her. He wasn’t keen on chartering for weekenders, but the boat would be a fine run. It had been a while since he’d sailed anything. Maybe weekends for a few months anyway. Money for more crab pots and bait. He turned and stepped off her and went back to work.

  That night, Byron wasn’t around when he got home. After showering and changing, he drove into Oxford and ordered some fried clams from the carryout. He ate them and stopped off at Pope’s Tavern for a beer. The place was quiet. He drove into Easton and then to St. Michaels, but the Crab Claw was closing and the restaurant empty except for two buses of seniors from Baltimore. He wasn’t ready for sleep yet, but went back anyway and sat in the quiet.

  The phone rang and he picked it up. It was Kate. She started talking. She was lonely, she said, because Matty was away on an interview in Williamsburg for his summer internship about a plantation restoration. The others in their group house were off studying. When was he coming to visit? she wanted to know. What was he doing? She hesitated. Then she said that wasn’t the only reason she was lonely.

  “How long has Matty been gone?” he asked.

  “Just tonight.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “He’ll call soon.”

  “Probably. But I wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Yours sounds good too,” he answered.

  Kate was silent. Clay could hear her breathing. “I don’t know, but I felt I needed to call,” she offered. “I miss you. I know that.” She paused. “Tell me about your boat, Clay.”

  He thought about the past days and began to explain his preparations, the hauling of the bateau, and the sanding. The painting. He told her about the traps he was building. He even described the Mood Indigo and told her his thoughts about that.

  “If you captain it, I’ll come charter it,” she said. “You know, I’ve never known anyone from a place like you come from,” she went on.

  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Like, from the earth.”

  “Come on, Kate.”

  “No, really. All the guys I knew from Woodbury, at all the schools actually, till I met Matty, you know, they were all so . . .” She waited before completing her thought. “I don’t know, urban. Of course the girls at St. Theresa’s weren’t much different. And here in the city now. Well, I’ve never known any watermen, that’s for sure.” She finally laughed, and Clay told her it sounded good. To hear her laughter.

  “You know what you’re doing,” she added then. It was a statement. “And what you’re doing now—I think there’s a dignity about it.”

  Clay thought about this. “I’m not sure about that. But thank you,” he said after a while. “It’s just plain work, though. The kind’ll tire you out. And risk. I’m not sure it’s as idyllic as you think.”

  “I guess I’ll have to come see for myself.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “Can I?”

  “Whenever you want, you’re invited. You know that. Soon, I hope.”

  He listened, but she didn’t speak.

  “Talk to Matty, and the two of you come soon.”

  “Oh, Clay,” she said.

  He heard the
sadness in her voice. And the rain starting outside the farmhouse.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s just that I’ve always felt you were such a special friend. You know?”

  He held back. But the silence didn’t help. “I know it too, Kate,” he finally said. “You know I do.”

  “Why is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know any more than you.” His words echoed back to him, hollow.

  “It just is, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose.”

  He heard her sigh. “Yes. I suppose.” And then she said she would come soon and thanked him for cheering her up, though he didn’t believe he had. She asked him if before she hung up she could read him a poem, and she read the last few stanzas from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Her voice, when she read, stayed silky and soft. She was unrelenting with him; he knew that much. Or with herself. It was hard to fathom. While she read, he watched the black rain run down over the windows, and the sound of her voice took him back again to dancing with her that evening after Pappy’s funeral. Then he thought of her and Matty and Byron, and knew they were really the only family he had left, and vowed again to look elsewhere to quench that place in himself, so parched, so dry-docked.

  Over the next few days, Clay continued his work on the bateau and on bending wire. By making the pots himself, each cost about half the ten dollars charged at Wilkerson and Cromwell, the local wholesaler. He wore heavy gloves and worked with cutters and pliers from a roll of eighteen-gauge steel wire treated with zinc. This wire was sturdy enough to last several seasons, but thin enough to give the crabs a good view of the tunnels leading to the bait. The zinc retarded corrosion. Despite the gloves, his hands were swollen and blistered from the work.

  Each crab pot, when finished, looked like a square cage about two feet across. Steel rods were attached along the bottom of the cage to act as sinkers. Conical funnels were cut and bent on two opposite sides, leading into the lower half of the trap. A mesh cylinder was fitted into the center of the trap for the bait, and the crabs, smelling the bait fish in the cylinder, would find their way through the narrowing funnels into the lower portion of the trap. A wire shelf divided the lower half from the upper half, with funnels leading from the lower section into the upper, and the crabs, looking to escape, would quickly work upward into the top section, where they would be caught. Each pot was attached by a nylon line or warp to a pot buoy of cork the size of a football. Clay painted all of his buoys half orange and half yellow, easy to identify and easy to see on the water. The ones he had finished were stacked against the barn wall. He figured he needed at least another fifty to start and hoped to have two hundred by midsummer.