Then he took a breath, and I took my chance.
“So why do you put up with it?” I asked.
He motioned to the front windscreen. “Where else would I get to see this, day after day?”
And I looked to where he was pointing, to sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was the damndest thing. For the past while, I was interviewing Jack, I had looked out every now and then and saw darkness. Towards the stern of the boat, I could make out the lights of Tyler Beach, and then, the further out we went, the lights of the New Hampshire seacoast. But it had felt like we had been hurtling out into darkness, bouncing up and down.
But now… the sun was rising, and the morning light was starting to make its way. There was a hint of deep red and orange out there in the horizon, which grew brighter and brighter, as the sun finally rose. Then everything came into view, as the red and orange become a ruddy gold and yellow, and I could make out the gentle swells of the ocean, a few seagulls, weaving and bobbing overhead, and the wide, wonderful and wild ocean about us.
I nodded. “I see what you mean.”
Now the engine was in neutral, idling, as Jack and Bert went out to the rear deck. On either side of the derrick-like structure that was holding the large bale of twine – which I now recognized was a fishing net, stored in a large roll – where flat pieces of wood that looked to be the size of barn doors. Working with just a few grunts and “okay, now, okay?” the slabs of wood were unlocked and dropped over the sides with large splashes of water. By then I had my digital camera out and stared taking a series of photos. Jack then sprinted back to the cabin and in a manner of seconds, came the whining noise of a winch engine letting loose. Cables attached to the slabs of wood started running out, and then, so did the net, made of green mesh. As the net was unrolled over the stern, a fresh smell of dead things struck at my face, and I saw why: bits and pieces of dried fish were still stuck in the net.
Bert kept his eye on the unrolling net, and then I almost jumped, as Jack stood next to me. “Ready for a quick lesson?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
He said, “Those two pieces of wood, they act like wings down there, under the water, helping the net stay open. The net drops back and those pieces of wood keep everything open as we move forward; it’s like a large balloon down there.”
“Okay.”
“We trawl and the fish swim into the net, and when we’re ready, we slowly bring everything up. The net gradually closes and then, boom!, everything’s brought aboard.”
“Then what?” I asked.
He grinned. “Then you’ll see the real work begin.”
“I see.” I took a couple of more photos, and then looked back to Jack. “How long do you trawl, then?”
“Oh, not long,” he said, making his way back to the cabin. “Two hours.”
Two hours!
And how many trawls do you do?”
“Today? We’ll do three.”
And with that, he was back in the main cabin.
I looked behind us, to the straining cables, seeing the sun rise higher up in the sky.
Two hours per trawl. Total of six hours. Not to mention the time to open up the net, clean and sort the fish, and –
Christ, I thought. Any way you looked at it, it was going to be a very long day.
I went forward, to join Jack in the cabin.
Two hours. Jack kept the boat at a steady speed and course, keeping an eye on the performance of the engines, while his first mate Bert either bustled around or sometimes stretched out for little catnaps. I interviewed Jack for another twenty minutes or so, and then stopped bothering the man. I couldn’t think of any more questions to ask him.
Perhaps taking pity on me, he explained some of the gear in the crowded cabin. There was a radio, a radar set, and an odd piece of equipment that was called a fish finder. It had a square screen that displayed a lot of squiggling green lines, and Jack claimed that he could tell where schools if fish were located, the depth they were at, and the direction in which they were swimming. I nodded in all the right places and promptly forgot everything he told me. Up above the fishfinder were a couple of photographs, taped to the wall. The photos showed a busty blonde with a wide, easy grin. In one photo she was wearing a bikini, and in the other, she looked to be at a pool party, in a black cocktail dress, a bottle of beer and a cigarette in her hand.
Jack noticed me eyeing the pictures. “That’s my better half, Helen.”
I nodded. “Boat named after her?”
“Of course,” he said. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I looked through my notebook and went outside for some fresh air, and found Bert sitting up forward, leaning against a hatch on the bulkhead, stretching his legs out.
Maybe time for a change. I started to ask him questions, and then found that he was pretty good at deflecting them. Grew up in Tyler. Local schools. Knocked around a bit. What does mean? Oh, the usual. Here and there. Loved motorcycles. Did you see my Harley, parked there on the dock? Did you? Good. Always liked to fish. Worked a number of boats. Ended up here with Jack. Nice to be on a little boat without a big crew to get in the way. And…
“Excuse me?” I asked.
Bert grinned. “You heard what I said.”
I paused. “Well… I thought maybe you were making it up. Couldn’t believe you asked me if I was seeing anyone, and what I was doing this Saturday night. Are you putting the moves on me?”
He shrugged his thick shoulders. “Whatever you call it. You’re good lookin’, I’m reasonably lookin’. Not many attachments on my part. Fast bike, little apartment, fast women… that’s the kind of life I like. No harm in asking, is there?”
A little shudder raced through me. It came to me just how vulnerable I was, out here on this boat with these two men. Who knew I was out here? Rollie, my editor… and I wasn’t sure how on the ball he was when it came to my presence. Anything could happen to me out here with these two… and how much did I know about them? Even with all the interviews and such, the both of them were pretty much a blank slate. They could… well, do anything, and what would I say? What could I tell? It’d be my word against theirs… and if push came to shove, it was a pretty wide and deep ocean out here.
I shuddered again. “I need to go see Jack again.”
Bert smirked. “Does that mean no?”
“Yes, very much so.”
But I didn’t have to into the cabin, for Jack was coming out, slipping on a pair of heavy work gloves. “Come along, Bert,” he said. “It’s time.”
Jack went to the rear of the cabin, to a set of controls, and there came the sound of the winch turning, its noise loud and whining. The cables grew taut as they started coming up the drum, saltwater dripping off them as they rose up from the ocean. He and Bert kept eye on the cables, and I watched out at the ocean, another chill coming over me. It seemed… spooky, in a way, that scores of feet beneath us, a giant net was closing in on schools of fish, and that in a manner of minutes, many of these fish would be dead. Oh, I’m no vegetarian, not by a long shot, but it still gave me the creeps, that all these things alive down there would shortly be dead because of these two men.
As the cables came up on the rotating drum, I took photographs of Bert and Jack at work, and once Bert winked at me, so I resigned myself to thinking that he’d put the moves on me again before the day was out. But that was many, many hours away.
Jack called out to me. “Ready to see something strange?”
“Sure,” I said.
“See any seagulls around?”
I looked around at the sky. “Not a one.”
Jack smiled, hands still on the winch controls. “Just you wait.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but pretty soon, one seagull showed up, hovering over the stern of the boat, and then there was another, and another, and within five to ten minutes, there was a squadron of seagulls over the stern of the boat, wheeling and crying and squawking. I looked to Jack and he threw up his han
ds and laughed. “Nobody knows how they do that. It’s like their psychic or something. They leave us alone and when it comes time to bring up the net, it’s like they come out of no where.”
Bert called out, “Here she comes!” and I kept on taking photographs, as there was a boiling in the water, as the full net came up at the stern. The winch seemed to whine even more as the bulging net broke water, and stopped taking photographs for just a moment, watching how Jack and Bert worked together, like members of some sports team. They went to the full net, alive with things flopping and flipping, and pulled it in close to the boat, so it was now hanging over the empty rear deck. I went back to my picture taking. Then, some work with wrenches from an open toolbox and –
Plop!
The bottom of the net popped open and Bert and Jack were up to their knees in fish, flopping and skittering and bouncing around on the deck. They reached up and pulled off some fish that were caught in the netting, and in a few more minutes, the net was rolled up and out of the way. Then the two of them bent down and got to work, tossing over chunks of seaweed and other debris, sorting the fish, putting some into one plastic container, others in a different container. Then the long knives came out, and without saying anything at all, they went to work, cutting off the heads of what I recognized as cod, flushing out the guts with hoses, working in tandem. The cleaned fish were then placed into neat piles in large tubs with ice. They worked quickly, and Bert looked up at me and said, “Here, catch!”
And he tossed something at me, which I caught. It was cool and small and gray and pulsed in my hand. Bert smirked and said, “Heart from a cod. Still beating.”
I swallowed. “Cool.” And I tossed it back at him, and he laughed and caught it one-handed, and then tossed it over the side.
More work on their part, more photographs on their part, and then Jack and Bert went back to the net, closed up the opening, and then Jack went to the wheelhouse. “Well?” I asked. “How was it?”
“Not bad,” he said. “But we’re going to head off to the east for a bit, try our luck somewhere else.”
But we never made it there.
This is how it happened.
By now I was drowsy, for having been up so early, and having taken the anti-motion sickness pill, and I stretched out on the padded bench in the wheelhouse to rest my eyes. Bert had gone forward, to sun himself from the squat bow of the boat, while Jack worked the steering and listened to the radio. The idle chatter on the radio from other fisherman out there, the drone of the diesels, and the gentle rise and fall of the boat made my eyes heavy, so I stretched out, pulled my baseball cap down over my eyes, and dozed, though at one point, I made out a change in the pitch of the engine, as he adjusted the speed. Still, I kept my eyes closed.
I know, dozing while doing a story. Probably grounds for being put in front of a firing squad of opinion columnists from the New York Times, if any of them could be bothered to put their precious hands around a firearm, but I was tired, I had taken scores of photos, and filled a half notebook with my interviews with Jack and Bert. I had enough information to write a novella, no matter a newspaper story, and about then I was really falling asleep, and –
A thump.
Jack’s voice, “What the --?”
And then a slam, as he pulled open the sliding door and I heard him yelling, “Bert! Bert! Where the hell are you?”
Now I was sitting up, rubbing at my face, as Jack flew back into the wheelhouse, slammed the throttles to neutral and looked at me, face white. “Bert’s fallen off. I can’t spot him!”
I scrambled off the bench and came out to follow Jack, as he moved around the bow, leaning over, and he turned to me and said, “He stood up and we hit a wave. He fell off. I think he hit his head on the way over. Hey, Bert! Bert!”
No answer.
I didn’t know what to say, what to do, and Jack looked to me and said, “Run aft, grab a life ring, tell me if you see anything. Hurry!”
I made my way back to the stern, as quick as possible, taking an orange life ring off the side of the wheelhouse – it said F/V Helen H Tyler N.H. in big black letters – and looked along the side, and to the rear.
Nothing.
Just swells of dark gray water.
A yell from up forward. “Do you see anything?”
“No!” I yelled back, the life ring heavy and awkward in my hand, still looking out onto the waters, part of me thinking, nope, this can’t be happening, this so cannot be happening, Bert has to pop up in a second or two, wave in my direction, so I can toss the ring out, nope, this cannot be happening.
He couldn’t be gone, just like that.
I heard Jack moving back into the wheelhouse and I dropped the life ring on the stern and joined him, as he brought down the microphone to his radio, spun the dial to a certain channel, and started speaking in a slow, clear voice, “Porter Coast Guard, Porter Coast Guard, this is fishing vessel Helen H., fishing vessel Helen H., we have a man overboard at coordinates –“ and then he looked at another display, a little GPS screen by the fishfinder, and Jack read off the longitude and latitude, and repeated his message “- Porter Coast Guard, Porter Coast Guard, this is fishing vessel Helen H., fishing vessel Helen H., we have a man overboard…”
Then the Coast Guard came back to him, acknowledging the message. Jack put the microphone down for a second, reached under the console, slapped a pair of black binoculars in my hands. Jack looked again to me, face still pale, and said, “I’m going to motor in a slow circle, keep within the coordinates… go out on the bow and keep a sharp eye. Okay? Damn it, maybe I ran him down, chewed him up with the prop, damn it… Look, yell out if you see something, anything, even if it looks like a scrap of cloth. Go!”
So there I was, no longer a newspaper reporter, but an unwitting member of the Helen H. crew, and I stood out there on the bow, binoculars in hand, looking out at the slowly moving but oh so unforgiving ocean.
Nothing.
My heart was hammering so hard I thought my throat would choke up, as Jack moved the fishing boat in a slow circle, as I scanned the waters, seeing nothing, nothing at all.
After a while other boats began to appear, lobster boats and stern trawlers like the Helen H., and even a couple of fishing party boats, chock full of scores of tourists, leaning over the railings, all of us looking for poor Bert. No doubt the other craft had heard Jack’s message, and had motored over to help, for at least out here on the ocean, the basic rules of survival and assistance still ruled.
The binoculars seemed to grow heavier with every passing minute, and still, none of us could find a thing. Despite it all, I took photos after photos, while still using the binoculars to scan the waters. In a while a bright orange and white helicopter from the Coast Guard station up the coast at Porter arrived, scanning from overhead, and eventually it was joined by a small patrol boat, but even the intercession of the Coast Guard couldn’t help.
Bert was gone.
And as the day dragged on, Jack in his wheelhouse with his thoughts, and me out on the bow with my own, I looked down and against the dull white fiberglass, saw a smear of brown.
A bloodstain, where poor Bert had struck his head while going overboard.
I stood there, legs trembling, knowing that somehow I would have to write this story up, and not sure if I had it in me.
As dusk fell, we motored back to Tyler Harbor. I sat on the padded bench, exhausted, legs and hands trembling, and Jack kept quiet, just staring ahead. Only once did he say anything, when he shook his head and said, “God… at least he has no family… nobody I have to tell… sweet Jesus…”
We went through the channel to the harbor, from where we had motored out more than twelve hours ago, and I suppose I should have been hungry or thirsty, but I was just so damn tired. I just wanted to make it to the dock, climb in my Kia, and drive to my little one room apartment and just collapse.
But other people had other plans.
There was a crowd at the dock as we approac
hed, and the flashing lights of police cruisers, and the harsh glare of a camera-held light that meant a television crew had arrived. I was with Jack and he just muttered, “Shit,” as we motored up to the dock. He looked to me and grabbed my hands and said, “Look, usually… Bert, he handles the lines.. but I’m going to need your help. Just hold the wheel steady and when I yell out, ‘Now!’, pull the throttle back to here, neutral. Got it?”
What I got was a strong feeling that I wished the entire day hadn’t happened, but I nodded and he went outside, and I held the wheel and I saw him toss out mooring lines to eager men on the dock, wanting to help. Then I heard him yell out, “Now!” and I pulled the throttle back to neutral, just like he said. Jack came back and his eyes were red-rimmed, like he had been quietly weeping on the way back into the harbor. He just stood there for a moment, shook his head, and said, “Now the real fun begins.”
By now there was a scrum of people on the boat, talking, questioning, hugging Jack, and I saw a familiar face, a woman I had never met before, but the woman in the photo in the wheelhouse, one Helen, whom the boat was named after. She gave Jack a big hug and I saw his shoulders shake, and I couldn’t wait to get the hell off that boat. I grabbed my gear and stepped up out onto the dock, my legs quivering as I was on stable land, and I went to my Kia and opened the passenger side door and tossed my gear in, and I closed the door and was going around to the other side, when I was stopped,
By a Tyler police officer, in a dark green uniform.
He was quite polite. “Ma’am, you were on the boat, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“Then my detective wants to talk to you. Will you come here, please?”
“Sure.” I was too tired to do almost anything else.
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