Breakers

by William B. McCIoskey Jr.

  “I remember firing you once.”

  Hank relaxed. “You demoted me from shrimp foreman to a shovel, once. Back when I was a green kid. I didn’t let you fire me. Don’t worry. You still piss battery acid.”

  “Follow.” Swede’s cramped office had skeltered ledgers on shelves and mud tracks on the floor. Radio voices droned from the speaker. He unlocked a drawer and produced a bottle.

  Whiskey gave neither man pleasure, nor any of the old bonding. The glasses remained nearly full. Swede coldly stated his terms. Hank acquiesced. (The fishing lark by itself would have made boat jokes, but to be fired for grounding . . .) Doke’s petty mess deck privileges were to be honored, and never a foot of Hank’s was to leave his own deck at sea. Hank had enough honesty to know his relief and to accept in good grace.

  Swede on his part told Hank to keep the key and use the room when the Orion docked between tides, and authorized his men to eat in the mess hall without charge. “But tell your apes to keep it to themselves. I don’t run a Salvation Army. The Speccio types all have their same rooms year after year—they’ve been here so long they’re scenery, I respect them—but they pay for chow ashore. Frankly, those old-time Dagos would never leave the dock if I made it too comfortable.”

  Hank put down the key and rose to go. “Guess I’ll sleep aboard where I belong. I’ll want to phone Jody in the morning, then we’ll ship with the tide.”

  Swede pushed over his telephone. “Call the lady now. You ever see that line by the phone I keep outside for the apes? The town’s got a half dozen circuits, that’s all, and you’ll wait hours after people wake up.” He poured their untasted whiskey back into the bottle, locked it away, and rose to leave. “Close the door behind you. By the way, that new crabber you’re building. I assume it has the horsepower to pull a groundfish trawl?”

  “That’s not how I’ll use it.”

  “Groundfish may be your future.”

  “What? Cent-a-pound trash the Japs make into fish paste? With good crab and shrimp out there?”

  “You trust good times like the stock hotshots of 1928.”

  “Come on, Swede, there’s no future for groundfish except on factory ships, strictly foreign ones.” Hank drew a breath and settled in. He had argued this before, and voicing it kept him reassured. “You ever caught a pollack? It’s half mush before it’s dead. No American plant would buy the stuff. It rots before it gets to shore, so rule that out. Now. The alternative. Can you see Americans three months at sea on a shitty factory trawler gutting those things into paste?”

  Swede waved him aside. “I’m only telling you that the stuff’s out there for somebody to catch, and it might as well be you. Do you live in a vacuum? Ever heard of JV’s—joint ventures? Washington just approved a JV for Koreans to bring in two factory ships—not to fish, just to process—and buy pollack from American boats, since Koreans don’t have quota anymore to catch enough for themselves. Don’t think the Russians and Japs are far behind.”

  “I might sound like Jones Henry on this, but JV’s are the State Department’s way to ass-kiss foreign governments into trade deals. It lets foreigners keep cluttering our two hundred miles. We’ll start depending on them after all we did to kick them off.”

  “So do you waste the stuff? The State Department won’t do that. It’ll give it back to the foreigners.”

  “Then let somebody else catch it. Come on. Joint ventures are for guys without the balls to handle my big crab pots. They say you just float the trawl bag over to the factory without it ever coming aboard your own boat. Not for me. Delivering bags of mush to Koreans, kissing Jap ass? Asian peril. Forget it.”

  “Your vision’s smaller than I thought.”

  Hank spread his arms. “Swede, I love my work. It’s because I catch critters big enough to wrestle with. Real food, not mush. Factory fishing’s the wet and cold without the buzz. Your ass is so tied up in business you’ve forgotten what that’s like, if you ever knew. And I hate deals. This tendering shit with you is bad enough.”

  “Pay attention, Hank, don’t fall behind. Big fish eat the runts. If you think small like that, why are you hocking yourself for nearly two million dollars of boat? The more you invest, the more deals you’ll need.”

  Hank thought it over, and laughed uneasily. “Better pray for me, Mr. Scorden.”

  A door opened and a light switched on in the deserted outer office. “Mr. Soren? You are there?” A short Japanese man entered. His starched brown coveralls bore a round chest insignia in Japanese. “Mr. Soren, salmon egg line has young girls who talk and do not concentrate. You must make them pay attention to business.”

  Swede’s voice lost its heat. “It’s three in the morning, Mr. Togamashi. American kids work better if they talk. Especially on graveyard shifts.”

  “But they are paid to work and they are not serious. They set bad example. It will be necessary for me to make report.”

  Swede avoided Hank’s amazed grin. “Okay, Mr. Togamashi, let’s see what we can do. Hank, pick up the phone and wait for a connection. It may take a few minutes. Love to Jody.” He started out, paused, then closed the door. The lines in his face still held the trademark scowl except for a smile like a grimace. “The rules I learned came from a different time. Thank God people still put salmon in cans. I do that very well. But Japanese—” he lowered his voice—”Jap money’s paying so much for frozen reds this year I’m not sure we can compete the price and still make canned reds pay. In which case the Japs over my head might convert the canneries and everybody in them. Jap money’s bought control where you stand, don’t think otherwise. When I warned that big fish eat the runts, I didn’t mean just you. Tell your buddy Jones Henry or don’t, it might give him apoplexy. But up here we didn’t win World War Two.”

  Hank found no words to reply. After Swede left, it took a half hour of garbled phone signals before he reached a sleepy Jody. Her voice started a rush in him of loneliness and desire. She understood the reason for his call at such an hour but her voice remained matter-of-fact. Boat repair would take another two weeks. Dawn had a cold. He began to tell about the scow with room for her and the kids, but she talked over him in a way he knew when he’d come from a long trip. Once started she needed to talk.

  She’d registered Henny for nursery school in the fall, she said, and the kid talked of nothing else. They were invited to a farewell party at the Coast Guard base for Commander Hill after his final cruise on the Confidence. Everybody expected a good pink salmon run, but hardly any pinks had shown up yet. The Koreans said they’d pay six cents a pound for JV groundfish, but no Kodiak boats were signing up. (“Good!” said Hank.) Some Danish delegation was in town looking at sites for a groundfish plant, and Chris Blackburn reported in the Mirror that they would pay twenty cents. A1 Burch was taking the Danes around.

  Jody continued. Hank listened hungrily to her voice. Oral Burch said he’d delivered his best month of shrimp ever, a million pounds, and the shrimpers had it out at Fishermen’s Hall with the Fish and Game biologists who wanted to close down Kiliuda Bay for stock sampling. Oral quizzed them on how they set their trawl, and told them they’d better take a fisherman with them to do it right if they planned to spout off about closures.

  Hank stretched and yawned easily. “I knew that was bunk about the shrimp disappearing. I hate to sound like Jones, but you’ve got to watch them biologists.”

  “Maybe Jones says what’s on our minds whether we admit it or not. Here’s one for you. I went with Adele and Jones to an open house on the Japanese research ship. Just before he left to fish pinks. Adele dragged him along for some reason. You can imagine how we heard about Japs on the Canal all the way there, and Adele telling him to act like a gentleman. Well, I didn’t mind going. You should have seen the spread of crab legs and raw fish, and those prawns ten times as big as the ones we catch around here. But trust our Jones. He marched to the buffet table, and, sharp as rusty nails, I mean loud, he announced that we’d better eat all we could since
it had been stolen from right under American noses. Poor Adele.”

  Hank laughed disproportionately, and Jody joined with her own husky laugh. He yearned to hold her. Lucky Jones, to be out on a little seiner where a fisherman belonged, and home every few days at that.

  “That’s about the news. I see through the window we’re fogged in. Again.”

  “How’s the little guy in the oven?”

  “He waits to kick until I start to doze. I assume it’s a he. No girl’s that ornery.”

  “Your mother told me you’d kicked her black and blue.”

  “With the bridge tournaments and martinis? How would she remember? Oh. Your mom wrote a nice letter. She’s so tactful, I don’t know where she went wrong with you. Should she come to help during my confinement or is my own mother coming? It’s Adele she’ll fight to hold the newborn, not Mother Sedwick. Anyhow, I’ve booked them late August at the Inn.”

  “What’s wrong with our house?”

  “Nothing a new, bigger one wouldn’t cure. God, you men, do you ever look around you? They’d be underfoot here and your mom knows it. Adele said they ought to stay with her. Your folks like Paris but I don’t think they want to hear about it day and night.”

  “You’ve sure gotten catty.”

  “I’ve gotten bored. My company is children and wives. I hope you’re making money.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Yes yes, I know. And we all miss you. Who’s paying for this call?”

  “Listen! This barge I’m running has space if nothing else.” Before he could talk about her coming up with the kids static drowned his words. The phone went dead. He clicked and clicked, cursing, then scribbled a letter for her and left it with a note asking Swede to mail it.

  Back at the Orion under bright wharf lights, Hank found Seth, Mo, and John assembled in oilskins, down on an adjacent scow. They were pushing paddles like shuffleboard players to corral fish against a revolving ladder of big scoops that raised them to a hopper on the wharf. “What the hell!” he exploded, and shouted down to them. The thump of heavy rock drowned his voice. All three—even John—worked at a competitive pitch, starting at a far end of the deck to push so hard that the fish bunched in hills and flopped over the paddles.

  “Where’s the dock foreman?” he demanded of somebody passing. Gone for a piss was the reply. Hank stormed into the plant. Inside he glowered over lines of workers who stood by conveyor belts of fish, gutting and sliming. Off in a section separated by thick flaps stood a glum Swede with the unhappy Japanese foreman, among girls in plastic aprons and caps surrounded by crates and tables full of red, glistening roe. He started for Swede himself when the dock foreman sauntered by. “Why the hell are my guys pushing fish?”

  “I was shorthanded this early, and old Doke said he was in charge. Told those guys to hop to it.”

  “Well I’m in charge of the Orion. You fuckin’ get your own men down there if you want to unload.”

  “Easy, easy. They didn’t seem to mind.”

  “They fuckin’ do now!” His anger increased as he strode dockside and yelled down to his men to drop their goddamn paddles and get to bed.

  In the galley, Doke looked up from his tea mug. “Come to pack your gear, have you?” The man’s beady eyes mirrored the mouth’s satisfied twitch.

  Hank stood over him. “I’m captain here, old man. You stay in your fucking engine room. Never again order my guys around. They’ll fix your fucking tea for you, and see you get fed in your comer there. And when we leave at the end of the season you can take back your fucking scow. But get this straight, old fucker. Never again order my guys around.”

  Doke pulled back against the padded bench and his mouth quivered. “Swede didn’t sack you?” His eyes darted. “You better not hit me.”

  “Got it straight?” The man nodded.

  Seth and Mo came in merrily. They’d enjoyed working up a sweat. “Boss, you okay? Doke here said you was fired, and we was going to quit too, soon as we’d got our fill of fish.”

  “We sail out again at noon. Haven’t you been up all night? Go sleep. Where’s John?” Taking a shower. “All right, I’ll tell him separately. Get this straight. You never again do the fucking dock gang’s work. Doke does not give you orders.”

  “Sure, Boss. Fuckin’ A.”

  John came in soberly, brushing his dark hair. Despite recent labor he now wore crisp clean denims. He shot a glance, aware that he’d missed something. Hank repeated his instruction. “Well, I’m glad to see you assert yourself, captain. Maybe now you are in charge.” Hank realized that the man no longer addressed him either as Boss or by name.

  The July sockeye season wore on. Doke kept his place, sullenly. He and John, despite their different concepts of the fastidious, worked as a team on deck and bonded after a fashion. Both had inflexible standards, and both stood apart. John alone respected Doke’s claim to specially brewed tea. After Mo had with good will flubbed the job a few times to Doke’s sour (but now cautious) reprimand, John took the job and did it always correctly. Doke for his part urged John to share his special tea, while still guarding that no one else—uninterested coffee drinkers all—raided his closed can.

  Hank forced himself into detachment as sockeyes arrived in volleys from the little gillnetters. He stood at the rail to banter with the Italians when they delivered, but found cheerful excuses neither to join them fishing again nor even to come aboard for mug-up. He assumed a barge captain’s rightful jobs at anchor—coordinating deliveries by radio, ordering supplies and selling them to boats, logging the fish tickets, deciding levels of credit—while aware that John could have done it all better while he himself would have preferred working on deck.

  Jody indeed flew up with the children and spent nine days aboard the Orion. Hank relaxed. The barge, neither his in spirit nor hers in fact, became an oasis where neither ruled. They enjoyed each other, both in companionship and physically, as they had in the old fishing days before children grounded her ashore—and changed her nature, as Hank saw it. Yet, in contradiction, he still hoped to name the new boat Jody C and have her accept being Mrs. Crawford. The S for Sedwick bothered him whenever he thought of it. A man didn’t fish under his wife’s maiden name no matter how independent she wanted to see herself.

  Jody’s visit was a bright time for everyone despite increasing hours on deck as salmon poured aboard. Under her civilizing influence Hank actually spoke to Doke again beyond curt business, to find the old man marginally pleasant once his defenses relaxed. By now, Hank respected Doke’s skill with tools and welding torch. Henny, tied in a life jacket and harnessed to a steel eye on deck at a safe distance from dangerous brailer-loads of fish, watched with endless fascination and chattered to men on the boats until they looked forward to it and he became part of the scene. He continued delightful scampers over his daddy. Dawn, to Hank’s annoyance, took to John who quietly enjoyed the child’s attention. She sat beside him at table and he cut her food.

  Jody, freed of clinging children and not required to cook—Mo had learned to cook basic food well enough—soon volunteered special dishes and presided brightly at table. Doke began appearing for meals in a shirt that was clean although ragged at the collar and sleeves. She returned to Kodiak before season’s end only because a zoning fight at the city council needed wives to speak up against the merchants, with their fishermen at sea.

  By season’s end, Hank had banked several thousand toward the new boat. He and Doke shook hands in parting, and Hank even asked kindly how the old man spent his winter. “Not much, skipper. After here I stay with my Orion when she follows the fish to Kenai and maybe Ketchi Kan, then go back to my boardinghouse in Seattle. Up here again in May. I catch a lot of TV, winters, in my room. Nobody there to bother me like here.”

  When a new skipper recruited by Swede came to relieve him in early August, Hank handed John his plane ticket. John handed it back. “You can be free of me,” he said quietly. “One of the foremen took me on to help shut down t
he plant. Canneries interest me, you know.”

  Hank gladly mellowed even to John. “I’m not sure why the fish business attracts you, but I think your talents are for the shoreside part of it.”

  “Yes. But I needed some seagoing perspective. I’ve certainly seen my fill of that now.”

  Even the asshole’s good-bye carried barbs! But they shook hands, and Hank wished him luck. It was time to face selling the Jody S, and making sure the new crabber in Seattle had everything he wanted.

  6

  WINNER-LOSER

  SEATTLE, AUGUST 1978

  And here he was, separated again from Jody. But he enjoyed the shipyard’s organized chaos of grinders and welding torches and booming hollow metal. From under the ways he admired his boat’s gleaming propellers and pondered the transformation of blueprints into the reality of a hull rising above him like Everest. When no one was watching in the unionized yard, a sympathetic welder let him do two of the welds himself. He tasted the ozone and metal dust as well as breathed it—ate it—and bonded to the new boat in the process. It was at night that he missed Jody and fretted to be with her in the final month of pregnancy.

  The loan had been negotiated before the shipyard began construction. The bank smoothly paid each step of completion. Startling, but exhilarating, how easy it was to obtain a million and a half dollars in credit, how little he’d needed to shop. A man with proven performance, he simply guaranteed his assets.

  Tolly Smith, his old buddy from early salmon days and now rival skipper on the grounds, also roamed town babying a new boat in time for the September crabs. Perpetual strutting bachelor Tolly, who had never removed the gold ring from his ear, crowed over such easy new boat loans. “They’ll get their money back easy, the banks. You know it man, or they wouldn’t do it, the way crabs is everywhere and Japs pay top dollar. We’re riding into the future, man, you and me, gravy gravy gravy. And look at back where we started.”