by Chris Riley
Loni’s weariness was as clear as a naked sky. His cheeks were flaccid, his arms trembling, legs wobbling. “Whoa, boy …” was all he got out through his rattling teeth. We helped him to the superstructure, where he collapsed into a seated position. I was vaguely perplexed, wondering just how bad it was up there on top of the main-stack.
“It’s your turn, Ed,” Loni stammered, handing me the bolt cutters. “Have fun.”
With bile rising from the depths of my stomach, I clenched my teeth and faced the main-stack. Another large wave belched over the rail. My quivering body was doused with water once again, benumbing and icy, clouded with salty foam. It brought with it nothing remotely vague or perplexing. The water brought with it clear and certain pain.
Chapter 24
My battle came more from the Angie Piper than it did the wind. It was tough getting up that main-stack in the face of a furious williwaw, its breath thrashing through my raingear, peeling at my face, my eyes, ripping at my skin as if to uncover my weakened spirit beneath. But this was nothing compared to holding on for dear life. Against fifty-foot waves, gale-force winds, and billowing currents, the Angie Piper had little trouble convincing me of her own conflict while I held on, high above the deck.
Every fiber of muscle went into anchoring my body, keeping it from catapulting into the sea. The crab pot I aimed for was three feet away, top of the main-stack. I kept myself pressed into the tower of steel, inching my way up like an insect, trying to move with the pitch of the boat, not against it. I imagined having Danny’s strength every time the boat angled acutely toward the frothing waves, threatening to toss me in. And I had to be quick. When the moment was right, I had to get up and over the highest pot in haste, knowing that my time clinging to the side of the main-stack was limited.
That moment came when the Angie Piper suddenly careened low into her stern, attempting, as it seemed, to pitch me toward the back of the boat. Like a swift insect, I scrambled onto the top of the last pot, exposing myself to the winds that screamed past. Then, for the briefest of moments, lying at the highest point of the planet for miles around, I took in the scenery—the limited, confining scenery. I took in the desolate blackness of the eternal sea, its bleak shadows, its haunting forecast, its taunting bellows spewing from a mouth of unhinged sanity. And I pictured this scenery embossed with icy fingers of death, fingers that reached up and forward, toward the Angie Piper, toward us, toward me.
I shuddered, shook my head, and searched for the picking crane hook. Dave had tracked my path up the main-stack within inches. The hook was less than an arm’s length away. I reached for it and managed to grab hold of it first try.
Hooking the pot was simple. Un-securing the pot was a nightmare. I retrieved the knife clipped to my belt and cut the mesh surrounding the pot, providing ease of access to the bindings I needed to remove. Then I pulled the bolt cutters loose from my body, a challenge in and of itself. I turned on my side and wriggled the rope tied to the cutters up and over my head, nearly rolling off the main-stack in the process. Afterward, I dug my feet into the ribs of an adjacent crab pot for stability. Reaching with the cutters and my knife, I plucked away at both chain and rope, cutting everything as Dave had suggested.
Chain links popped loose and tumbled toward the deck. I inched from one corner to the next, cutting and slicing. The less than five minutes it took to un-secure that crab pot felt like a lifetime. The fear alone was exhausting. I caught an acrid, foul-smelling odor wafting upwards from the crab pots. Like death, it was thick enough to taste and robbed me of energy. I shuddered once again.
When I finished with the pot, I rolled away so that Dave could lift it. But I shifted my weight incorrectly and fell with the pitch of the boat. The ferocious wind pushed me across the top of the main-stack as if I were a helpless bundle of rags, rolling and tumbling for the edge, careening toward the hungry sea below.
I clawed for netting and kicked for steel girding, trying to catch or brace myself. I heard my own voice mutter, “Oh no!” I grabbed hold of a piece of steel, just before plunging over the edge, angering the williwaw all the more, it seemed. That bitch of a wind barreled across my chest with such violence, she ripped holes in my raingear. I tucked my chin and rolled forward, catching a glimpse of my deck-mates scurrying about, pointing at me, shouting silently into the wind. Then I reached with my other hand and wove it into the netting of a crab pot. I found my footing upon steel girders, exhaled a deep breath, and buried my face between my splayed arms. Knowing how close I had come to going over the edge, I felt my limbs buckle with fear, yet also surge with an adrenaline that brought with it unimaginable strength. I briefly asked myself, who was I at that moment? But more importantly, who was I about to become?
I’d always suspected that what I wanted most in life would come at a price, a dear price—one measured in pain, perhaps even death. And now, it might be the time to pay the piper. But these inner thoughts fled almost as quickly as the wind presently rushing past. There were crab pots to unload.
Several minutes later, I was cutting away more netting with my knife. Thankfully, I still had the bolt cutters, and I tried using them. Dave hoisted away another crab pot. I moved forward then, in slow, tedious inches. Timing the boat’s movement against the current’s relentless pull kept me from losing my balance. The storm still weltered around the Angie Piper. The winds still raged. And the waves still washed over the rail, splashing hard onto raingear and wooden planks. But I pressed onward, finding a raw bundle of energy accompanying the strength that kept me on top of that main-stack.
I managed to stay up there for ten pots. I’d found a rhythm. Dave, Loni, and Danny were relentless maniacs, as every thousand-pound cage that landed on the deck found itself in a quick transaction over the rail and toward a rusty doom. Those ten pots had pushed me beyond my limit. I wasn’t sure how I could keep moving up there. How we, as a crew, could keep up our fight against that dreadful storm. I only knew that I needed to get back down on deck, out of the wind and away from the constant threat to my life.
No sooner had I reached the main deck and stepped away from the stack that a wave no smaller than a school bus crashed down from the portside of the wheelhouse. The wall of water collapsed onto Danny’s back and my chest, sending both of us sprawling across the deck. I felt the immediate onset of bruises on both of my elbows, and then the back of my head, which had bounced against the hard, wooden deck planks. That was followed by darkness.
“Hey! Quit sleeping on the job, Ed!” I opened my eyes to the sight of Loni, kneeling before me. The wave had knocked me clean out. “But nice work on them pots, eh? You ready to get back up there for some more?” He motioned to the top of the main-stack.
“Fuck that,” I replied. An unremitting, intense throbbing drummed in the back of my skull, like the cadence of a loud and terrible song.
“Come on, then,” Loni said, his voice less jovial and more sincere. He helped me up and over to the superstructure. Danny was at my side also, and I remember seeing rivers and creeks and full waterfalls trailing off his sodden raingear. To my right I spotted Dave near the hydros, securing the rope attached to the bolt cutters around his neck and shoulder. He looked at me and grinned before giving me a thumbs-up.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, sitting against the superstructure.
“Only a minute or two,” replied Loni. “Not bleeding, not dead …. You’re still in the game, Eddy-boy.”
I smiled in spite of the pain and mounting worry. Ten, fifteen, seventeen pots—over a hundred or so left, and my mind and body felt like they had both endured seventy-nine lashings from a cat o’ nine tails. But at least there was Loni—thank God for that.
“All right, Loni!” Dave shouted, ready to make his climb. “You girls can kiss later!”
Loni patted my shoulder and said, “Catch your breath, Ed. We gonna have another pot down here soon, so be ready.” He stood and staggered over to the hydros, signaling with his hand for Dave to go on up.
“It’s about time,” Dave said, shaking his head.
My whole body was in pain, but I stood nonetheless. Danny leaned into me and gave me a side hug, supporting my sagging weight with his strong arm. His eyes beamed with hope.
“Thanks, Ed,” he said, graciously. “You almost fell off. It was scary. But you stayed up there a long time. You got down a lot of pots for us.”
I barely heard Danny’s words. I wiped my face with both hands vigorously, attempting with friction to stave off the bitter cold.
“Do you think we can do it, Ed?” Danny continued. “Do you think we can get them all off the boat?”
“We sure as hell better,” I replied.
“But are we going to sink if we don’t?”
“I hope not, Danny.” I turned and looked at him. “Don’t you worry about that, okay? Trust me, we’ll be fine. Besides, do you think I would’ve brought you out here, fishing for crab, if I didn’t know we’d make it back?”
Danny’s swollen, pomegranate face creased. He looked down, sideways, not at me. I had the uneasy feeling that he doubted my words. It was unsettling, in fact, for Danny had always trusted me. Until high school, perhaps, when things had literally changed overnight, and over one incident. Until then, I’d always had Danny’s unwavering confidence.
That brief, painful moment there on deck, with that look in Danny’s eyes, reminded me of our younger years, of the awful mistake I had made, and it felt then like a piece of cold steel was slowly driving through my heart. “You can trust me, Danny,” I said, almost muttering the words.
“Ten pots, Dave-man!” Loni’s sudden holler hammered against the wind. “Nothing less than ten pots!” He wrapped his hands over the hydraulic controls and ran the crane forward, chasing after Dave’s thick body, which slowly scrambled up the main-stack. “Nothing less than ten, or you’re a worthless son of a bitch!”
Twenty minutes later, Dave lurched back onto the deck, smiling grudgingly. “Ten pots, Loni-boy!” he said, imitating Loni’s Polynesian accent. He passed the bolt cutters over to Loni, and then took over at the hydros.
“Yeah, man … but you still a son of a bitch!” Loni replied. Both men laughed, before Loni headed for the main-stack. He threw a glance at me on his way, and winked. “More pots coming down, boys. Be ready.” There was that usual tone of enthusiasm in his voice, but I could see on Loni’s face just how tired he was. Like the rest of us, he was running on the fumes of his spirit.
In the time it took for Dave and Loni to switch up, Danny and I had taken a seat against the superstructure to catch our breaths. Exhaustion was a close companion by now, and I simply gave up thinking about it. I gave up thinking about the cold, and the wind, about my weary muscles and aching bones. All that was on my mind were more crab pots that needed to get off our boat. More pots, and then hopefully, afterward, we’d get some rest. We’d get back inside, at least, and eat some food. Drink coffee.
I looked at Danny sitting next to me and realized that we were probably thinking the same thing at that moment. “We’ll be done soon, buddy. A few more hours at this rate … as long as things hold up.”
“I’m hungry, Ed,” Danny replied. His eyes seemed fixed on his gloves, but then he looked up, wiggling his fingers absently. “Do you always throw pots away, Ed?”
“No, Danny …. But yeah, a little bit, I guess. In a way. It gets nasty is all, the weather and the waves. But we’ve never had to dump all the gear. And I’ve never seen a wave crash through the wheelhouse, either.”
“Well, do you think Dave is right about me? Maybe I’m a … superstition.
“Bullshit, Danny! You’re no superstition, so get that out of your head. We’re gonna be fine.”
After a few minutes, Loni gave Dave the signal to start lifting. Danny and I stood, our backs against the superstructure, ready to manhandle the oncoming pot. I wondered about my friend, standing next to me, his shoulders slumped and sullen. It wasn’t like him to dwell on the future, or to ponder the many “what-ifs” that often plagued other people. I hadn’t realized he had that kind of imagination. Yet I knew he must be dead tired, like me, and tiredness has a way of stretching a man mighty thin. With a weak punch to his arm, I said, “Cheer up, Navy SEAL. We’ll get through this yet.”
As time crept by, more pots came down, more went over the rails, and more weight came off the Angie Piper. We could see the difference we had made as our decks gradually took on less water. Our vessel was riding higher in the seas, which lifted our spirits. With about half as many pots left, we started un-securing them as a team, scrambling over the lower ones like rats. Even Danny joined in. We’ll get through this yet, I thought. Those words abated my own fears, and the fervor of hope surged through my veins. Ragged, cold, raingear torn beyond repair, the wind and the waves still punching us like a bully from a nightmare, and all I could think about was hot food, and hot coffee, and some much-needed rest. And it was all just a few measly hours away, if that.
Curiously, I watched as Dave suddenly stepped away from the hydraulic controls. He stumbled over to the main-stack, shielding his eyes against the wind, and appeared to study the crab pot attached to the picking crane. Much to my dismay, I saw that this pot had somehow snagged on the corner of another one. Then, suddenly, there came a dull, snapping sound, and a low-pitched twang, followed by a faint screeching above us. I looked over and saw the picking crane’s cable flog the air, like a thin willow branch thrashing in the wind. Then I saw the crab pot attached to that cable come crashing down—a terrible monster of the night. It moved slowly enough to punch a hole of fear in my gut, but too fast for some of us to get out of the way.
Chapter 25
The pot walloped into the side of what was left of the main-stack, clanging against steel and deck-board before pitching itself into an ugly, terrifying lurch midship. It stopped with a dead thud, lying broadside—yet curiously uneven, angled.
Dave’s scream was a jagged fissure in the fabric of night.
“Oh fuck!” I shouted. “Loni! Loni, get down here!” I dropped to my knees and looked under the crab pot. Dave lay beneath it on his side. His sickening howl faded into a deep groan as the weight of the entire pot pressed down on him, crushing him into the deck.
“Help me, Danny!” I gripped the corner of the pot and pushed with all my strength. I might as well have tried to move a bulldozer. The thing wouldn’t budge. I grabbed at it from beneath, lifting with my legs. The pot inched away from Dave’s body. I heard the man gasp for air, but then I panicked. The weight was too much for me. My back felt ready to give out, and my knees bulged from the weight, threatening to blow. And then there was the fear, the fear of letting go—the crab pot would crush Dave even more. “Help!” I stuttered, my body shaking as a whole. “Danny, help me!”
Danny curled his fingers under the lip of the crab pot, same as mine. He gave a great heave, his arms and legs pushing away from the deck. Sure as shit that pot came straight up to Danny’s chest. Not stopping there, he switched his grip and began to push the thousand-pound cage across the deck, stepping over Dave’s body, crashing the lethal steel box into a corner near the rail. My God, I was amazed.
Loni was down on deck, crouching near Dave, taking cool control of the situation. He gently rolled the man onto his back. “Can you hear me, Dave?” he said, lifting one of Dave’s closed eyelids.
Dave moaned in response.
“We gotta get him inside,” Loni said. “Gotta get him in a bunk.”
Danny reached under Dave’s shoulders from behind, and lifted the man into a seated position. Blood trickled out of Dave’s mouth, he groaned again, and then Loni and I tried in vain to lift him up. But Danny blocked us with his body, smoothly curled under Dave, and put him right onto his own shoulders. It was a perfect fireman’s carry—and why wasn’t I surprised? When Danny had learned that was how a man carries a wounded comrade off the battlefield, he had his dad teach him the maneuver, and then he practiced it on me every chance he got, until
he owned it.
“All right, then,” I said, leading the way off deck.
Moments later, I slammed the door tight against the furious night, only to meet a similar commotion within the Angie Piper. Loni dashed down the hall and up the stairs, straight for the wheelhouse. “Get him on the floor, guys!” he hollered, before disappearing from sight. I rode Danny’s heels until we reached a stateroom, and then I stepped past him, kicking and throwing duffel bags, clothing, random items out of the way, until I had cleared a spot on the floor.
“We need to get this raingear off,” I said, helping Danny set Dave down.
Loni rushed in at that moment, holding a first-aid kit, but was pushed aside by Fred. The captain’s stare was straight and focused, his face pale. Loni had obviously told him what had happened during his mad rush into the wheelhouse.
The captain ripped open Dave’s raingear and pressed his hands against his chest, ribs, and then stomach.
“He fell on his side,” I stuttered, shivering deeply from the cold.
“He could’ve busted something inside,” Fred replied, almost to himself.
Dave gave a low moan and blinked several times, looking around in a daze.
“Hey, buddy,” said the captain, “wake up now! Time to wake up, Dave.”
He moaned some more, before he managed to fix his stare onto the captain.
“That’s right, you big fool.”
But then Dave howled again, painfully, disturbingly. “My fucking leg!” he stammered, his eyes jamming shut. “Oh … son of a bitch!”
We wasted no time getting the rest of his raingear off. With a pocketknife the captain swiftly cut away the suit, slick as gutting a fish. Then I had to blink my own eyes, swallow hard, and tell myself that he wasn’t gutting a fish after all, upon witnessing the amount of blood and twisted gore sticking out through Dave’s pant leg. Dave’s left leg, what remained of it, was a mangled coil of bone and grisly flesh. From the knee down, it was a complete mess. Blood pooled around the floor near our feet. My stomach lurched. I had to look away.