New Title 1

by Florschutz, Max

  1:35 PM

  “No, no, you hold the knife like this,” Rick said, flipping the long blade in his hands. “You’re going to make a cut here—” The knife darted out, parting flesh with ease, “—then here, and then here, all while holding the gills just like I’m holding them now.”

  “That fast?” Casey asked, looking down at the halibut.

  “If you can,” Rick said, tugging the halibut back over to his side of the cleaning area. “But since if you messed up you’d cut the meat and lower the price, just take it easy for now and get the motions down.”

  “All right.” He reached out and grabbed the first halibut, tugging it closer to himself and then wrapping his hand around the gills the way he’d been shown. To his side, Rick had already finished the halibut he had been demonstrating on and was now using a hose to make sure that everything was nice and properly cleaned out. Once he finished, the halibut would be dropped into one of the holds to be iced. Though Casey wasn’t quite sure what Rick had meant by that. Something to do with ice that he would probably hate, that much was certain.

  By the time he’d finished his second cut, Rick was already halfway done with another halibut. Slow and steady, Casey told himself. Just focus on getting the cut right, and making sure you don’t ding the—

  “No, no, no.” Rick’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Not like that.” A hand reached out and wrapped around Casey’s wrist, twisting it so that the tip of the knife flipped upwards. “Like that. You just cut the meat.”

  “Oh.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, just do it right, all right? The first time, if possible.” Rick pulled at his wrist, moving the knife across. “Like, then—” He tugged at his wrist once more. “Like that. Got it? Then go. Finish this one up, then pass it over to me to check.”

  “Right,” Casey said, scowling as rick let go of his wrist. And did you do it perfect the first time, jerk? I doubt it.

  Then again, who knew? Maybe Rick had been some sort of savant when it came to cleaning halibut. Halibuts? He wasn’t sure.

  He pulled the guts out and tossed them over the side of the boat. The smell made his nose wrinkle, but at least it was gone quickly. Then it was just a few minor touches with the knife and a metal tool called a scraper, and he passed the halibut over to Rick.

  “It sucks,” Rick said, shaking his head. “You need to cut cleaner here and here,” he said, pointing. “And you need to scrape the sweet meat right here out at least twice as well. He grabbed his own tool and went to work, then rinsed it. “Like that.”

  He wanted to sigh. “Right,” he said, grabbing another fish. “I’ll do better on the next one.”

  “Good,” Rick said as he grabbed his own fish. “If you can’t hack it as a greenhorn, you won’t last long.”

  Lovely, Casey thought as he made his first cut. At least it can’t get any worse.

  “No, kid, like this. Watch me.”

  Or maybe it can, he thought, trying not to grit his teeth as he turned.

  2:27 PM

  I was wrong, he thought as he picked up another fish and tossed in atop the icy layer he’d laid down. It can get a lot worse. I hate you, Rick, and I hate everyone who put me down in this stupid hole!

  The hold he was currently crouched in was only about five feet high, forcing him to hunch whenever he stood, but he hadn’t yet had the chance. He was “icing,” which as he’d learned, meant setting one of the fish in ice and then stuffing its now empty insides with ice to keep it cool during the trip.

  “Do this wrong,” Rick had said as he’d shown him how to do it, “and the meat will get off. And it doesn’t even need to. If the processor even thinks this wasn’t stored properly, it’s cut-rate meat, and we make nothing, you understand?”

  “Thankfully,” he’d continued as he’d moved to climb up the ladder out of the hold. “It’s a job so simple it’s hard to screw it up. Even for a greenhorn. So don’t.”

  After that, nothing had been left to Casey but hunching over cold, lifeless bodies of halibut and stuffing them into place in the side-holds as Rick had directed, pausing every so often to move out of the way of an incoming fish or stretch his back.

  I was wrong, he thought again as he slid another halibut into position and began shoveling ice onto it. His fingers felt frozen, along with his legs, and he was pretty sure his teeth were chattering. This job isn’t a cold hell. This hold is a cold hell. The rest of it is just upper layers and management.

  “Coming down!” Rick dropped down next to him on the ice, his bright yellow raingear wet and slick with seawater.

  “What’d I do?” Casey asked, freezing.

  “What? Nothing, unless you did, in which case, it should have been the right thing. Keep icing. We’re just clear up top. I came down to speed things up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Less talk, more work,” Rick said, already tugging a halibut across the ice.

  Fine by me, Casey thought as he stuffed more ice into his halibut. The less talk, the less chance you get to snap at me for something.

  The work went quickly with Rick helping, and though he wasn’t anywhere close to being able to match Rick fish for fish by the time every halibut in the hold was on ice, he did watch the captain closely to see exactly how much ice he used and how quickly he worked. It helped … a little. He still couldn’t shake the man’s disapproving stare.

  “Come on,” Rick said when the last fish had been iced. “Let’s go.”

  “Oh, yes,” Casey said as he followed him up out of the hold. He slumped against the side of the boat as Rick closed the hatch. “Done at last.” Finally, he could get out of his gear and rest for a while. He could take a bathroom break. Or maybe just massage his sore muscles.

  “What are you talking about?” Rick asked as he flipped the boat out of idle. “We’re not done.”

  “What?”

  “That was only the first set,” Rick said, turning the wheel. “We’ve got one more to go, kid!” He was grinning. Grinning like a legitimate maniac.

  “Great,” Casey said, pushing himself up. “So …?”

  “We get ready to pull again,” Rick said, sliding a barrel or tub or whatever they were—Casey still wasn’t quite sure what to call them yet—across the deck. “Come on, hop to it. We can eat lunch before we pull if you work fast.”

  “Yeah,” Casey said, trying not to groan too loudly. “Hop to it, all right. Lunch. Got it.” Rick shot him a look, but didn’t say anything.

  There was still another set. But then they’d be done. And then, then, he could take a break.

  7:30 PM

  “I …” Casey said as he pulled himself out of the hold once more. “Am so glad to be done.” He shut the hatch behind him. He could see the clock through the open door of the wheelhouse. Seven-thirty. Minus the hour and a half he’d slept, he’d been working for …

  Just over thirteen hours, he thought, his shoulders sagging as he leaned back on the hatch. This can’t be legal. Still, at least he could get out of his raingear. He reached for a suspender snap.

  “Kid.” Rick’s voice cut across his consciousness. “We aren’t done.”

  “What?” Casey asked, shaking his head. “How can’t we be done? We only had two sets, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And we picked them both! We’re done.”

  “Kid,” Rick said with a stern frown. “We still have to get ready to set tomorrow. That means baiting hooks and getting gear ready. Unless you want to get up earlier.”

  For a moment he considered saying yes. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Let’s just get it done, okay?”

  “Let’s?” Rick laughed. “You know what to do. I’m driving the boat.”

  “What?”

  “The bait’s all yours,” Rick said, heading for the wheelhouse. “Call me when you’re done. Or if you need me for something. Like injury or death.”

  “You’re not going to help?�
� Casey called.

  Rick’s only answer was to laugh and shut the door.

  “You suck!” Casey called, but he doubted the captain could hear him over the loud rock music, the roar of the engine, and the closed door. “This whole job sucks,” he said as he turned back to look at the deck.

  “Every last bit of it.”

  8:45 PM

  “All right,” Rick said as Casey dropped himself onto the galley bench at last. He felt like his body was made of warm rubber, rubber that had been stretched and tugged in all directions. He wanted to lie down and just fall asleep, right there.

  Even his headache was back.

  “Not bad,” Rick said as he shut the door. “Looks decent enough. Only took little bit of my oversight. Keep at it, and maybe one day you’ll make it through a night without me having to tell you what to do.”

  That’d be nice, Casey thought. But he was too tired to say it.

  “So, dinner’s on the stove, do what you want,” Rick said. “We caught a little over fifteen-hundred pounds today. Not a bad haul, but we could do better. We’ve still got another fifteen thousand or so pounds to catch.”

  “Great.” He could smell dinner, though he wasn’t sure what it was. He just wanted to sleep.

  “We get up at five,” Rick said. “Tomorrow’s another day of hard work.”

  Right, Casey thought as he drug his body over towards the pot of … whatever Rick had made. And I’ll kind of know what I’m doing tomorrow. Maybe. So hey, at least it won’t be a worse day, right?

  6:58 AM – Day 2

  He was wrong. It could be a worse day. It was raining.

  Really raining. Which meant that now not only was he cold and tired, he was wet. His raingear had done about all the good he could have expected it to do, which was not much. Mostly it had served to hold what water had gotten past the outside in.

  I’m cold, I’m wet, and I’m sore, he thought as he passed Rick another hook. Snap, his brain corrected. He ignored it. Moving was a challenge. Everything felt stiff and tight, like the rubber he’d been at the end of the last day had seized up into a rigid, inflexible shape.

  “Snap.”

  He managed to tug the hook free before Rick could reach for one on his own, passing it to the captain and sparing himself another glare. Over the side the hook went, the bait hitting the water with a plop that was almost lost beneath the steady drumming of the rain against his hood.

  Why would anyone want to live here? Casey thought as he passed Rick another hook. Or more importantly, do this? I could be working a job at the food court with the rest of the guys and instead I’m passing bits of half-rotted fish over to some sea captain who thinks the nineteen-seventies never ended. He sighed as the next cord came out of the tub in a four-way tangle. What am I doing here?

  “Snap. Snap! Come on, kid, I need those pronto.”

  Oh, right, sucking.

  He let out a short, almost angry snort as he managed to tug the tangle apart, two of the cords falling to the deck. He could already feel the cold chill of rainwater sliding down his back, slowly soaking through the heavy sweatshirt he’d put on.

  “Snap!”

  This can’t be over soon enough, he thought as he passed Rick the cord. Just got to make it through today.

  1:22 PM

  I’m going to hear this song in my sleep, Casey thought as he pulled another halibut towards him, grabbing it by the gills just the way Rick had shown him. Behind him, the speakers were blaring out the same rock song for what had to be the tenth time that day. He wasn’t sure if Rick had just left a CD on endless repeat or if the captain just didn’t care that whatever he was listening to was endlessly repeating itself, but he was pretty certain that by the time the day was over, he was going to know every riff by heart.

  And cut here … and here, he thought, pushing the loud music from his mind. Just like Rick showed you. Twice. He twisted the knife, then remembered the iron-grip that had locked around his wrist the day before and adjusted it a little further.

  And like … that! he thought, pushing the knife down and away from himself. And … haha! He couldn’t help but smile as the fish’s insides came out in one giant mass. It was gross, disgusting, and the size of the thing still sent a chill down his spine, but he had to admit it was kind of cool to see the entire insides of the fish come out all at once. Gross, but cool.

  “Quit admiring your handiwork or we’ll be here all day.”

  And Captain Buzzkill goes for the rapport … Casey thought as he threw the mass of guts overboard. They hit the ocean with a wet slap. And he misses, he thought as he turned his attention back to the inside of the halibut. Would it kill the guy to say “Hey, congratulations, you did an okay job?”

  “You nicked the meat, greenhorn,” Rick said.

  I guess so.

  6:32 PM

  I, Casey thought as he lifted another shovelful of ice and stuffed it inside a halibut, have never been this cold in my life.

  Shovel ice. Pick up another halibut. Put it in place. Stuff it with ice. Shovel more ice. Repeat.

  His fingers felt numb, along with his legs. At first it had almost felt nice. Despite the wet chill he’d already had from the rain, kneeling on the ice had felt a lot like icing his legs after a long run, or his back after a long game.

  But unlike those events, where his ice would have come wrapped in a nice towel he could remove whenever he wanted to, this ice he couldn’t get away from. He was working in it, burying fish in it. Fish that just kept coming, no matter how fast he worked. Not that he was working that fast, with his fingers being so numb.

  “Coming down!” There was a wet slap that echoed through the hold as another big halibut landed on the ice. “How’s it going down there?”

  “Oh, everything’s cool,” Casey called back, his voice flat. “Should I be able to feel my fingers?”

  “Quit worrying about your fingers and worry about the catch, kid. How’s the icing?”

  “Like I said, cool!” He stuffed ice inside another halibut. “How many do we have left?”

  “More than enough,” Rick said. “Keep going.”

  Great, Casey thought as he pushed the halibut into a side hold and began shoveling ice over it. Well, I guess if I get frostbite, I go home, right? He shook his head. That or Rick’ll have me keep working without the “extra” fingers.

  Another halibut landed behind him with a wet slap, cold slime splattering across the back of his hood, and he let out a sigh.

  7:45 PM

  I must be dead, Casey though as he dropped down onto the galley bench. His pants let out a wet squelch as he hit, proof positive to his ears of how wet he’d been through the day. I’m dead, and this is some really sadistic version of hell that got outsourced or cut from the bible.

  “So,” Rick said from the other side of the table. The captain was already in dry clothes—that or he’d never gotten wet to start with, somehow—and going over a heavy, weathered notepad. “How was your day?”

  Casey gave him a scowl, but the captain hadn’t even bothered to look up, and he slumped back in disgust, trying not to shiver.

  “If you’re wet, you should probably go change,” Rick said, still not looking up.

  “If I’m wet?” The words slipped out.

  Rick didn’t even flinch. “There’s a line in the engine room. It’s cramped down there, but you’ll be able to hang your stuff up so it’s dry by tomorrow morning. It’s pretty hot in there. Or,” he said, making a note with his pen. “You can sit there wet and get yourself sick, making sure that tomorrow, rain or shine, is an even worse day.”

  “All right, all right,” Casey said, pushing himself up and wincing as his body complained. There wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t feel sore or tired. He felt almost like someone had beaten him with a shovel, pounding his body over and over until he was a mass of just barely bruised tissue.

  Still, once he was in the focsle it felt good to peel his soaked clothes off and change into so
mething dry. His skin still felt cold and clammy to the touch, numb enough that at first he could barely feel the dryness of the clothes he changed into. The warmth of the engine room, however, felt good enough that he let out an audible sigh as he hung up his clothes. He still didn’t feel remotely nice or alive, but the tingling sensation in his cheeks was a good sign.

  “So,” Rick said as Casey climbed out of the focsle, shutting the small door behind him. “How was your second day?”

  “Do you really want an answer?” Casey asked.

  “Depends on how mouthy you’re going to be.” Rick said. “If you’re going to be a wise-ass, then no, I don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah, well if you’re going to be a dick, you probably shouldn’t ask.” His eyes widened as soon as the words had slipped out, but it was too late. He’d said it, and he could see Rick turning away from his notebook. At least something had gotten a reaction.

  “Excuse me?” the captain said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at him. “What did you just say to me?”

  No point in backing out now. He swallowed. “I said if you’re going to be a dick about it, you probably shouldn’t ask.” Might as well get it out there.

  “You think I’m a dick?” Rick said, rising from the galley table.

  “I don’t think you’re one,” Casey said.

  “Damn right,” Rick said, turning to sit back down.

  “I said you’re acting like one.”

  Rick was rising back out of his seat before he’d even touched it. “All right, kid, I know you’re new, but you can’t just—”

  “Of course I know I’m new!” Casey shouted. “You won’t let me forget it!” For a moment the interior of the boat was silent.

  Might as well go all the way if I’m going to get fired anyway. “Of course I’m going to be mouthy if all I ever get out of you is a bunch of outright or passive-aggressive digs about how I suck at the job! I know I’m ‘green,’ or whatever you called it. I know I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s why I ask you in the first place! And all you do is talk piss about how I’m not doing everything right and how I’m slowing us down! I don’t care if you are the captain, owner, and everything else! You’ve been a jerk since I started this job! If you wanted someone who was going to be perfect every time, then you should have hired someone who wasn’t new!”