Breakers

by William B. McCIoskey Jr.

  Time grew short. They had a picnic. Next morning the Jody Dawnprepared to leave its slip. Hank’s parents were smiling and so was Jody. Henny and Dawn, in puffy orange life jackets, capered up and down the float under the eye of Adele. Seth and Mo, as senior crew, kept businesslike expressions while they checked yet again the lashings on the pots, but when Jody summoned them for a good luck kiss they broke into grins. Odds glumly nodded to his wife, jumped aboard with the bow line, and coiled it without looking up. Terry twirled the stem line overhead like a cowboy and yahooed to nobody in particular.

  Off they went. Jones blasted the horn from his boat in the opposite slip and his boys threw firecrackers. They would head soon for crabs at Horse’s Head just down the coast, but by the time Hank returned, Adele would have dragged Jones south to San Pedro and his welding shop for the winter with pressure for another foray to France before the salmon next spring. They had worked it out, however much they scratched at each other. Hank sighed as he saw the last of his beloveds, and pulled the whistle gaily to cover it.

  The first day saw them down the east coast of Kodiak Island, past foggy rock sentinels and then, as the sky cleared, past friendly bay mouths backed by mountains streaked with perpetual snow. It all had memory, from the rocks near Chiniak where he’d lured a bullying Russian trawler in days before two-hundred-mile, to sheltering Uyak and Kiliuda Bays where salmon and shrimp had teemed for his nets in season. At dusk, by the shelter of Sitkalidak Island, boats the size of Jones Henry’s had already begun to assemble for the king crab opening still days away. Their lights twinkled in the distant funnel of Three Saints Bay.

  “Old Harbor around the point, that’s where I was bom,” said Odds, now perched on a wheelhouse bench with the others, his drunken belligerence forgotten. His voice was soft, the r’s deliberate. “Place all rebuilt after the earthquake. I’ve got plenty of aunts and uncles there if we ever want to go in.” Hank acknowledged to encourage him. Odds pointed at the boat lights. “Three Saints, that’s where the Russians first set up to fur trade, two hundred years ago. There’s all kinds of history. But we came there first, my people.”

  Hank had always been unsure how openly he could speak to Natives about themselves without offending. “Do you, uh, your people, keep any Aleut customs?”

  Odds seemed to have no reticence. “Go to Russian Church if that’s what you mean. Big family dinner afterwards at Grandma’s: Pop and Mom, aunts, sisters, cousins, everybody’s kids. But Ivan, my uncle in your crew that died a few years ago in that wreck, he never came to family.”

  Hank and Seth exchanged glances. “Ivan’s your uncle? I didn’t know.”

  “A little crazy, but very serious about church. Guess he’s pretty well forgotten.”

  “No! Not forgotten. A good, good man. A friend.”

  “Well, we always thought he was a little crazy. Never came to family. Pop said he never done anything right. Figured he finally died from doing something crazy.”

  “Don’t never say that,” snapped Seth, his voice near to cracking. “Ivan, he saved our lives. And when Ivan fished, he hung tough more than anybody here.” Seth left the wheelhouse.

  Hank drew a breath. “We work together, so I guess you should know.” He told the story quietly. How the late Adele III caught fire and they abandoned her in a life raft that inflated upside down and had to be righted all wet with gear lost. How all of them—Jones Henry, Seth, Steve, Ivan, himself—drifted five days getting weaker, at last barely moving as wind rattled their tom canopy and cold sea splashed through. How a Japanese trawler they thought was heading to rescue them blindly ran them down instead and how Steve, fending off the high hull, drowned. How Ivan mourned the shipmate who had buffered him from the world —”Stevewas Ivan’s family, Odds”—but kept rubbing their feet and sheltering their bodies when they lay comatose. How when a Coast Guard helicopter found them at dusk, Ivan lifted them one by one into the rescue basket to be drawn aloft while seas rose and night darkened, then dropped into the water to be with Steve.

  He said nothing of Seth’s giving up first, Seth’s eternal shame; or of his own guilt: how he, as skipper, had probably led them to the situation. Nor could he have told, without choking up, how when only the two of them remained in the newly unstable raft under the helicopter’s prop wash, and he as captain decided to go last despite fear, Ivan had hugged him, then put him firmly in the basket.

  Odds listened, grave and frowning. Mo and Terry knew when to keep quiet.

  By next morning the last of Kodiak had been passed, and Jody Dawnrolled through the North Pacific. Waves turned alternately blue or gray depending on the sky. Everyone had settled into routine underway—sleeping, eating, standing watch. They picked at food and felt sluggish. The boat took seas with the rhythm of breathing. When water tumbled across the wide afterdeck, the high lashed pots shifted not an inch. Without heavy work it became a limbo time, when leisure made even washing dishes a chore. Thoughts of land and home intensified, but they also blurred as did again the memory of Ivan. Hank played with the new electronics in his new wheelhouse, watched his new crewmen, yearned for the warmth of his new son against his chest, all with desultory effort. Even newness became mere abstraction.

  “I had a dog once . . . ,” Terry would begin, but lose interest in the story himself.

  Storm, fog, and whitecaps had gathered by the time they entered Unimak Pass so that only radar showed the blocks of land that heralded the Aleutian Islands. Hank bypassed Dutch Harbor—the new boat’s large tanks had enough fuel and water, and he mistrusted Odds with the bars. He headed north toward the Pribilofs and his own tried grounds for early season. They passed other boats, stark on crests, then hidden in troughs twenty feet deep and more. With relief he found the water uninhabited over Hank’s Hole, the spot where big males had collected in previous years, his private discovery from years of prospecting, exact position known only to himself and Jody, marked on a chart he kept even from Seth. Tolly began calling on the VHF. Hank stayed brief. People had things now like radio direction finders that could home in on a signal and spot you. He’d fish with friends later when the crabs migrated along known tracks.

  Time to fish. Suddenly they all felt it. Before starting to set pots for next day’s opening, Mo heaped out a breakfast of steak, spaghetti, and canned com. Nothing remained on the platter but grease. Terry’s quips became hilarious. Soon the heavy, square pots were being craned, swinging from the top of the stack. The men armed them with chopped bait and launched them over the side. Hank, at the wheelhouse controls, started his four men slowly. He watched the newcomers. With everyone keyed up they quickly reached the shotgun pace he favored. Both Terry and Odds had Mo’s young bounce. They teamed but competed. Good sign, although the whole tale would await fatigue. Only Seth paced himself, a strong man but nearly thirty. The new boat had quick response despite its wide beam. A string of red plastic balls bearing the new Jody Dawn “JD” logo stretched farther and farther astern. All good.

  Next day, with a radio signal from Fish and Game, it began. The first pot came up empty and stayed on deck. The second had three crabs, all males. Seth brought one to Hank, who gripped its claws to spread the legs the breadth of his reach, then kissed the big red-purple carapace while the others cheered. Terry and Odds had never heard of the ceremony. Terry chuckled and kissed the creature. Odds refused, but with a self-deprecating grin that didn’t offend. “Bring your buddies!” called Hank and lobbed it into a wave.

  Each successive pot contained more. Only a few were females to throw back. After a dozen pots the steel-framed cages—seven feet square and three feet high—contained enough crabs to block the sight of white-caps through the mesh. The crabs increased the seven-hundred-pound base weight by a thousand pounds and more.

  Seth and Mo were proven. The new men kept pace. Terry on deck was a buzz bomb, everywhere, doing it right. Only Odds had never handled such pots before, but he had innate sea-sense from years on smaller boats. No one needed to coach him to wa
it for the deck to roll in the right direction before launching a pot or moving it. He measured keepers carelessly, however, ignoring calipers the others used when in doubt even on the run. Hank alerted Seth, who caught Odds twice about to throw a crab with too small a carapace into the hold. “So close it makes no difference,” argued Odds quietly. “Fucking big difference,” Seth roared, “if an inspector sees undersized and fines your ass.” Odds shrugged, complained of damn regulations, but culled more carefully.

  And the crabs were there: sluggish from the cold depths, their spiny shells the size of dinner plates, claws slowly groping for something to crush—food and money both. Under Seth the men alternated jobs to keep fresh. Only Odds, learning a new skill, snarled line when coiling it at top speed while the hydraulic roller wheeled up pots from sixty fathoms. Hank could afford no weak link. He allowed a slower pace with Odds at the rail, and saw the man improve.

  Hank also broke rhythm each day to trade jobs with Seth and train him at the new helm, glad for an excuse to stretch on deck. Each time after two or three hours he returned panting, though stimulated, to the wheel-house, troubled by his fatigue. It was one thing to declare he’d hire only apes under twenty-two on his crab deck, but another at only thirty-three to wear down himself. And he noticed that Seth, five years his junior, seemed relieved for the break. Too soon. Steve and Ivan, the twin ghosts of his past, had been in nearly their late forties when the water claimed them, but still bulldogs on deck who needed no rest however long the fishing.

  Each pot raised to the surface brought more big, purple crabs than could be culled on the instant. They cluttered the deck. Seas over the rail washed them from side to side until the men threw or boot-nudged them into the open tank of circulating water. Were other boats doing so well? As the abundance continued Hank began to speculate. Jody Dawn could be the first boat of the season to deliver, even to come in plugged. Throw down the gauntlet to be highliner! Seth and Mo agreed lustily, Terry with a cheerful “sure,” Odds with sober acceptance. Hank pushed them as close to clockaround as he dared, allowing five hours’ sleep, taking less himself. No one slacked. At last, crabs stopped sinking from sight in the holding tanks and bunched near the surface. Time to deliver. The creatures would die in tanks plugged any fuller, would smash against each other in heavy seas, suffocate. They left baited pots to soak and steamed to Dutch Harbor a hundred thirty miles south. All hands crashed into dead sleep except the watch.

  They entered Dutch to a frosty dawn. Blue shadows coated snow on top of the sere mountains. Odds sucked in his breath at sight of the dark twin onion domes on the boxy Russian Orthodox church and declared he’d never seen anything so pretty. Their delivery plant lay near the church in Unalaska, the village across a narrow waterway from actual Dutch Harbor and the Navy’s decaying World War II facilities that had been closed in 1947.

  The plant manager welcomed them noisily. They had indeed brought the season’s first delivery, reason for Hank to treat the attention cautiously lest other boats track him back to his Hole. A familiar knot of young men were already hunched by the gangway, hoping some change in fortune had made a crew berth available. Soon workers stood in the drained hold waist-deep in crabs, and brailers lifted the creatures to a chute that tumbled them into the building. Steam rose from inside. Sea-astringent odors overlaid with ammonia wafted out, the smell of crabs in cookers. Mo and Terry drooped no longer. They strutted from their cabins in clean, tight denims, ready to see what lay along the boardwalks and gravel road. Odds, buttoned carefully, prepared to visit the church. “Father Rostinoff back home, he’ll be glad. I guess you don’t know it, how important Russian church is to Aleut people.” Hank gave him money to light a candle for Ivan, then became again the Navy officer briefing his men before granting shore leave. “No talk about where we’re fishing. Back here in two hours.”

  “Aww, Boss . . . The bars won’t even be open yet.”

  Exactly, thought Hank, avoiding a glance at Odds. “The minute the hold’s clean we go across to the Dutch side, load a hundred pots I stacked there last year, then back to sea.”

  He went to the plant office to sign off on his delivery. A head of dark hair and sideburns looked up from a desk outside the manager’s office and the man said evenly, “Well, I assumed you’d be along some time. Pushing as usual I suppose, since you got here first.” It was John, his former asshole crewman. Neither offered to shake hands.

  “So you’re making out in the cannery business.”

  “Freezer business. Yes. Of course I’m glad for that look from down under first, for background. But management’s the place for action these days, not slogging in oilskins.”

  “As long as somebody else slogs for you. Swede took you on, then?”

  “Mr. Scorden?” John handed over a receipt, and pointed at the line to be signed. “Not Mr. Scorden, no. A few of those cannery bosses still have their place. But this part of the company’s the future. You should understand that, with your new crabber and its capacity for groundfish. You see, I do follow your fortunes. You’re on our high-potential list.”

  Hank wanted to hit him. “There wouldn’t be a fish business up here without men like Swede who took gut chances. Men who went broke trying new processes, picked themselves up, figured things out.”

  “Oh, nobody denies the man his place in history. But the new fortune’s in groundfish, and he’s not with it. They don’t invite me yet to the managers’ meetings, but I’m far enough along to hear what goes on. Last week in Seattle Scorden was the only one who spoke against going ahead with a trial surimi plant. If you’re his friend you might want to caution him. That’s the way down.”

  A short Japanese in suit and tie bustled past. John stood quickly. “Mr. Hitai. This is Henry Crawford, one of our better performers. He’s just delivered a full hold, in his new boat with groundfish capability.” The Japanese regarded Hank from head to foot, inclined his head slightly, offered a limp handshake, said that good performers were always welcome in the office, and hurried on. John sat again at once. He smiled. “Fact is, I’m going with Mr. Hitai to Tokyo next December. They want to look me over, I think, since I’ve already shown a pretty good knack for the business.”

  Hank signed the fish ticket and left. The glow had lessened from delivering first, although he knew his sudden malaise to be just anger. The asshole hadn’t changed, and now he’d be around. And the fellow was wrong. Nobody would dump Swede after he’d produced year after year.

  As they left harbor the sea quickly took them in motion. Hank calmed in the sharp salty air that was free of crab-factory stench ashore. They passed other boats just coming to deliver. Hank, feeling himself again, pumped his whistle at Tolly’s Star Wars Two and wished his envious buddy better fishing ahead of the crowd next time.

  Having tasted highlining they all wanted more, for honor and money both. With a hundred additional pots to work, and crabs pouring in, Hank quickened the pace. He reduced haul-and-reset time from ten minutes to eight, then seven. The new hydraulic machinery sped pots up from sixty fathoms as fast as the line could be coiled, and even Odds’s deliberate hands now flicked line correctly on automatic. Wetness became part of life, whether from sweat or sea. Painful to start after stopping, better not to stop. When Hank cruised between strings of pots, the others flopped to deck in the heated corridor without removing boots and oilskins. They toughened to four hours’ sleep. Crabs filled their every sight and crawled through truncated dreams. The creatures stopped being food, were money alone. The Jody Dawn became a crab-catching machine, its rhythm the hard rock that blared from the deck speaker.

  When delivery time and blessed rest halted the crabbing machine temporarily, aches moved in like a tempest. In port however, their aches ignored, Seth and Mo headed at once to the Elbow Room for beers and then to a pizza shack. Seth might have announced a month before, after visiting his folks in California, that he was maybe engaged, and might have talked about it since, but he showed no further sign of commitment after meet
ing a girl who bossed one of the crab lines. She also found friends for Mo and Terry. Terry held back to make sure Odds didn’t follow before joining them, but the Russian Church kept Odds from the bars. Although the small, old building opened only for services, a parishioner gave Odds a key, and he spent most hours in port—even in rainy dark—replacing weathered boards outside at his own expense.

  At the plant, Hank endured John’s presence as he waited for phone connections to Jody. Sometimes it never clicked. Alcohol had little savor. After each approximate week at sea the half dozen hours in port were too long without Jody, who once had sauntered the road here alongside him.

  As autumn stormed in, night increased, seas towered higher in the dark, and hail slashed across lights. Water bubbled over deck as often as not. Hank needed to maneuver every minute to avoid seas that would sweep them. He drank ever more coffee and chewed countless antacids to keep down the coffee. Money, money, each hour another little chunk toward the million dollars still owed on Jody Dawn. Sometimes on deck, with everyone moving like zombies, rotten sea things came from the bottom and, led by Seth, they slammed them at each other, or broke into wild dances to the music. It restored adrenalin.

  Life outside the boat existed less and less. The different warmths of Jody and the kids, the special new warmth of infant Pete, lay in limbo, comforts too distant to be real. Also other thoughts: John Gains slithering up the corporate ladder; Swede maybe threatened. Ivan and Steve became sputtering candles back safe in memory again. Occasionally he brooded on the arrested Korean captain, perhaps now being beaten? Another’s reality, not his. He felt passing sad for it all. Then, suddenly, sun breaking through a cloud would pierce gold into the whitecaps, or sea birds in the dark would flash under deck lights, or a tumble of crabs would explode into shape and color. I’m in charge, it’s happening because of me, he’d exult. This is my time, and this is my place!