Hank shrugged. Now the rounds had started, end of a twenty he’d hidden, probably also his hundred. It had to go sometime. When the biologist returned, having gently sidestepped another barrage of the bartender’s reminiscence: “Maybe we wasted and busted our share of crab, Pat, but we’ve done it one by one. The foreign trawlers do it wholesale. What about stopping them?”
“Is that whining I hear?”
“Never!”
“Well you’re right, they kill their share. Blame that one on D.C. and write your congressman, it’s nothing I can help. Everybody’s screwing the crab for something. I’ll tell you this out of office. For years Alaska’s managed king crabs to let you birds take all the keeper-sized males of each year class, and always counted on the following year class for a new crop. Nothing saved for future even after we warned.” Suddenly he pounded the table. “Don’t tell me. Big crab money dictates in Juneau. Nobody who’s making out lets it go.”
Hank glanced at the men in hard hats. Their eyes returned to their drinks. “I’m not arguing, Pat.”
“Yeah, well. . . money’s approached me to change my data and stop warning, as if anybody ever listened. Realistically, I suppose a million bucks would buy me. I’ve had good offers but not that size. Lucky I’m a bachelor with simple tastes.”
“You see us as the rapers of the universe, don’t you?”
“I see you moving with no tomorrow in your heads. And ignorant of yesterday. Turn old Nick back on and he’ll tell you. Think king crab was always this abundant? Never. Read statistics before the sixties. Back then crab was a cog in the ecosystem, not the engine. That was before the factory fleets started scooping those voracious feeder cods and groundfish that gobble baby crabs and shrimp and everything else, when nature kept a different balance. The crab population exploded, with their predators down as never before, and probably water conditions we don’t yet understand. But now you’re regulating the foreigners. Their catches are down, however you bitch, and that shifts the balance again. It means more fish to gobble baby crabs. And God knows how many trawlers out there besides the super-crabbers, all of you hungry as feeder-fish.”
Hank gulped enough of his drink to bum then soothe. He wished he’d let Nick chatter on.
“And how about it? Ever talk to the old-timers? King crabbing started around Kodiak, not out here. Heavy fishing, so the animals got scarce. But fuel was cheap and the fleet was small and flexible, thus the world didn’t end. Boats could target other creatures or could chase the crabs all the way along the peninsula and into the Bering Sea. Of course those salmon boats easily rolled over with too many pots. But they were the covered wagon into the Bering. These boats you’ve put your millions into are great crabbing machines. But inefficient for anything else. Maybe drag for groundfish with modification and compromise. Easy credit has put your ass in hock. Back twenty years ago guys had small boats they owned. You did yourself. I know. Now you’ve reached the Bering Sea, the far comer of your country. You’ve gone to the last frontier, you’ve got no new grounds, and you’re stuck with luxury liners.”
Hank shook his head. “Seattle banks are already calling in loans. Repossessing, even. Guys are scared. What’s your valued advice now? To pray?”
“Stop crabbing. Before it gets worse. Do something else. Aren’t the Koreans looking for boats to deliver groundfish?”
“Boy, you aren’t on the grounds. Your salary’s there whatever we do.”
“Steady mortgage and retirement, but you get to wear the gold nuggets and have the Maui condos. That’s if you listen to us and stay lucky.”
“And you stay dry behind your desks. No risk, no glory.”
The biologist looked at his watch and slipped a five under his glass. “Normally I’d welcome another few hours of insults on a lousy November night, but I’m expected.”
“Those drinks to give you courage?”
The restless eyes actually lightened. “Life’s not all crabs for a single male, even for an aging one.” Pat paused in his parka, put three more dollars under the glass. “Old Nick’s not getting rich tonight either.” At the door, another pause. “Maybe you and the foreigners have raped the crab, maybe. But that’s not the whole answer. They’ve moved away for their own reasons. We’re still scratching our heads.”
Hank nursed his drink. The fan that circulated the close, heated air made the only sound except for a whine of wind outside blowing straight from the water. Northeaster, sloppy sea. What kind of a life, away from Jody and scratch besides?
“It ain’t my business, fellah,” said one of the oil men. “But out drilling we see fish and crabs wasted floating everywhere. You ought to stop.”
“Your goddamned oil kills more fish then we do!”
The man rose. He was big. “I can make something of that. It’s our fish too, you know. Say the word.”
Hank rose automatically, craving action. “Say the word.”
“Outside, not in here,” called Nick.
The second oil man grabbed his partner’s shirt and eased him back into the chair. The challenger shrugged and obeyed. Hank resumed his seat quickly. Busted knuckles took long to heal. Jody would have been pissed.
“What’s your poison, bud?” said the second man easily. “Join us. It’s blowin’ shit outside.”
Hank would have done so at once. But he’d had drinks enough and saved both his twenty and the single hundred-dollar bill Jody allowed him. He made cheerful excuses and hurried out into the wind feeling diminished. His style was to peel bills he’d hard-earned, not nurse them.
A light shone from Swede’s office. Hank entered after a quick knock. The desk drawer shut abruptly and a shot glass tumbled to the floor. Swede retrieved it unsteadily. Despite the whiskey that neutralized Hank’s nose, no amount of ammonia from the plant below could mask the smell of real boozing. Swede’s voice was thick. “Crabs not there, Crawford. Dozen boats quit today, dozen prob’ly tomorrow. Sit down. I’ll tell you about it. I’m free to talk.” Hank made excuses and left.
On the dark path to the boat, whirling snow shadowed the bare wooden houses and the onion domes of the little Russian church. It all looked like a Christmas card. A shaggy kid hunched in a jacket hurried from a door. “Mr. Crawford. Sir. Been waiting since I saw you go in the plant. Somebody said one of your men quit, that you needed crew.”
“Not a thing.” Hank hurried to avoid contact.
“Just make enough to fly out of this shithole, sir.”
“Nobody’s making money out there. Try the canneries.”
“They’re layin’ off, not hiring.”
Hank slowed. Take him to the boat for a meal? A sidewise glance showed other heads blocking dim light at a small dirty window. His guys had their own problems.
“Maybe I could come down and clean out your boat, sir.”
Shouldn’t have slowed. “I’ve got idle men with nothing to do but clean the boat.”
“Got you. Thanks anyhow, sir. Good luck out there.” The kid had a steady voice. He headed back toward the window with the heads.
Hank called, and gave him the twenty.
“I really do thank you!” The hand that came from the pocket to shake his was soft, but nicked and scarred. With the charity settled, Hank asked a few questions. The kid, Jeff by name, had come six weeks before from California to get rich, had worked a few shifts in a couple of the crab plants while looking unsuccessfully for a boat—didn’t look strong enough for deck work even if they replaced Odds—but without a contract had always been the first laid off. He bunked in a rented shack with five others like him, pooling what money they had. One of the chow-hall cooks passed them leftovers.
Hank scribbled a note to Swede: “Do me a favor. Find this one a ride on some boat going south.” The kid asked for his address to return the twenty. “Address it to the Jody Dawn in Kodiak,” Hank called, confident he’d never hear.
Down at the pier by the boat, three other bundled figures stomped in the snow. Hank waved them aside with “S
orry, guys, we’re not replacing our man.”
The door to the boat was locked, and a hand-lettered sign taped to it read “NOT HIRING.” His crew sat at the crescent table in the overheated galley. Seth, slumped with a book whose pages remained unturned, wore only skivvies and thong sandals. A fly walked unchallenged over his thick shoulder. Mo and Terry, slightly more dressed, flicked cards at each other. Most cards lay scattered where they landed. Hank started to pour a mug from the coffee on the stove, but it smelled old and bitter. He glanced at his watch. The holiday of their near-mutiny had lasted twenty-eight hours. More than another negotiated day and a half to go. “Guys having fun?”
“We always have fun,” muttered Seth without looking up. “And you’d think we was the kings of Persia the way everybody’s pestering us.”
“You were once hungry on the dock yourself.”
“Probably be again. We all got problems. You might not have noticed.”
“Slept round the clock, Boss,” said Mo more respectfully. “Slept so long it’s in my mouth.”
Terry managed a dispassionate wink as he aimed a card at Hank’s face.
“A dozen boats quit today,” said Hank.
“So we hear.” Seth jerked his shoulder and the fly moved a few inches down his arm.
Hank dumped the old coffee and started making new. “Means less competition out there.”
“Won’t be the same without Odds,” said Terry. “Now who we goin’ to kid?”
“We could take on one of these apes still hanging around.” They all looked up warily. “Or we could fish one less man on deck, and go find the fuckin’ crabs wherever they are. After you’ve all had your sleep, that is.”
“Boss,” said Mo, “I sleep any more, I’ll stick to the mattress.”
“Have some fresh coffee.”
Within an hour they had banged on a door to buy depleted basics and were calling good luck to the huddled figures on the pier who cast off their lines. Another hour at the fuel pier, again waking irritated people, and they pitched into the wind and black open sea.
12
JAPS
BERING SEA, NOVEMBER 198 1-SEATTLE, APRIL 1982
By late November, the men were looking up from deck with blank faces. The same cold sea still gurgled across their legs as the boat rolled, while lines still had to be coiled on the run and the same pots maneuvered perilously. But one or two keepers to the pot, if any? It was more than most of the remaining boats found, but scraps compared to the great old banquets. Swede’s price, although raised steadily, did not fill the gap.
Seth stopped on a mat outside the wheelhouse to let his oilskins drain, then entered and peered at the electronic screen. He pressed a button to search other charts. Since relief-skippering and discovering his own Sloo (as bare this year as the lamented Hank’s Hole) he’d become partners to the search, nearly as aware as Hank of the seafloor’s slopes and trenches where crabs might school. “We tried that fathom curve off Misty Moon last trip, right?”
“Right.”
“At least there was one or two there in most pots, sometimes three, four. Better than here.”
“Try anything. We’ll go back after this string soaking to the west.”
“Want me to relieve you?”
Hank started to say yes gladly, but looked him over. Eyes wind-veined and dull. Had barely washed during a week at sea. Black tape covered rips in his orange oilskins, and a hole in his sweater showed red long johns beneath. Little shout left in him on deck where danger lay. Indifferent, nearly. Hank held out his mug. “Just have Mo brew some fresh. We won’t pick for another three hours, so hit the rack, you and the rest.”
Seth lingered with arms against the window bar. “Should have gone back and married that Marion. Wouldn’t come to Alaska, she said. But she’d’ve come around.”
“Too late now?”
“Oh yes, too late. Married some guy named John, writes my mom. Fuckin’ asshole name. Got a little boy. I guess John goes home at night and plays with his kid.”
Seth ambled below and Hank watched alone again, lonely and deep-tired. Steady swoosh against the hull. The ocean hadn’t changed in the three years since the Jody Dawn sailed new-minted to the Bering Sea. Himself with thousands more hours of eyes watching seas. Unseen forces still drove the water from below like figures crawling under a blanket. Seabirds still scanned for food, rode the surface from sky to dark hollows, squawked staccato. And gray water gathered as always into swells that lifted the boat above the horizon, followed by troughs that buried the deck in spray while walls of water hid the sky, all in rhythm as steady as breathing. “Oh Jody. What am I doing so far away?” he muttered.
“What’s that, Boss?” It was Mo with fresh coffee.
“Just singin’ to the crabs.”
“Maybe the crabs all swam back down to Kodiak. At least down there you’d see Jody and we’d sometimes see our girlfriends.”
“We don’t show up on Horse’s Head with a 108-footer designed for the Bering, to compete with 58-foot-limit seiners rigged slambang. Anyway, it’s scratch there too.”
“Pride, eh, Boss? Guess that’s life.”
“Life it is, Mo. Get your sleep.”
Christmas, back home at last by season’s end, turned selectively frugal around town. The smaller-boat salmon fishermen who geared their economy to the summer season alone had fished bumper runs and done well. (A Christmas photo from Jones Henry, inserted in Adele’s letter reporting their second trip to Europe, didn’t help. Scribbled over an image knee-deep in sockeyes: “Too bad you didn’t stick with the old seiner, Hank.”) As for the crabbers, those gold-nugget men of other years, the agency that rented them Maui condos stayed dark, while formerly lavish hosts now penned hearty suggestions to bring-your-own. Hank fingered invitations with a weary thought for ice outside and the long drive. After the Bering Sea push he craved sleep. A mere day’s crash no longer invigorated him for parties. Jody shrugged and agreed to stay in. She moved through the house with restless efficiency. The wood she chopped piled high outside.
Little Pete, now past his third birthday, more than a year after the meningitis, had had no seizures. Jody relaxed her surveillance, which earlier had kept the child in her sight or, at work, beside a phone even at lunch in case his preschool called. But, although he jaunted with a chuckle that proved his vocal cords functioned, Pete only squirmed and looked away when urged to try words. Dawn peppered him with words, teacherlike, Henny with quiet persistence. Hank cuddled him and read slowly, lingering over each word in hopes that one might entice an imitation. Pete plainly enjoyed the attention and began to expect it. He was being spoiled. Jody, aware of it, alternated between urging and aggravation.
Hank placed his table for the vista over water and faced bills she laid before him. Her salary covered daily expenses but not the obligations. “What the hell does therapy do for Pete? They charge like brain surgeons and he still can’t talk. Maybe pull him out?” At her narrowed eyes: “Just joking.”
“Expect first to sell this house and even your boat.”
He caught his breath, hid panic, and pretended to study the next bill. “You needn’t have paid your crew their full shares before checking with me. They’re all bachelors since Odds left, they’d have managed on partial till spring.”
“Make excuses? They’re my men. You used to understand.”
Her explosion made no sense. At least, he thought, we’ll make it up tonight. But when his arm went around her in bed, and he leaned over to begin kissing, she rolled away with “Good Night.” It was final.
Want ads had virtually disappeared from the Daily Mirror, even for laborers and hash slingers. He inquired casually, then swallowed pride and asked direct even at the fish plants where they knew him as a highline skipper. No work.
A crab settlement from Swede in late December enabled them to make the September and October boat payments, September mortgage, and the summer portion of Pete’s medical bills. And a check for four thousand dollars
arrived from the Korean joint venture of the spring. It was only partial payment, but: “I wrote our senator and now I’ll push him for the rest,” said Jody. “Ted Stevens helped start this two-hundred-mile business, so I told him to see it through.”
“You never told me.”
“When are you around? You didn’t do it yourself.”
Nothing she said anymore gave him an inch. Nor did the nights improve. Yet she remained as brisk and efficient as ever.
Hank wrestled with his pride and considered calling his father for the offered loan, just to bring debts up to date. Then a check for $8,000 arrived unsolicited with a note: Dear Son. Gift. In case Pete’s medical bills get out of hand.” Hank debated accepting, and finally wrote a grateful thanks. But in so doing he vowed not to ask for more.
The mail also brought a money order for twenty dollars, from the kid named Jeff stranded in Dutch. Now home safe, he thanked Hank profusely and reported that because of his note Mr. Scorden found room on a Seattle-bound tender for himself and all five of his buddies. A thanks note also from the kid’s mother added how welcome he’d be anytime in Sacramento. It made Hank sunny as he crawled along his roof to tar a leaky flashing.
At the Kodiak bank, Jody, her hair tied more neatly than usual of late, negotiated crisply. Hank’s hands twisted under the table as they listed his Jody Dawn as security for the house and added years to the mortgage payments.
The Seattle bank also needed reassuring. He spent New Year’s Eve aboard a friend’s tender, southbound in a Gulf of Alaska storm, braced at night in a storeroom bunk hemmed by clacking tool boxes. It saved airfare. In Seattle, the bank executive who had extended the loan on Jody Dawn a year before gravely drew up new papers that cut monthly payments even further, to a quarter of the initial agreement for a dozen years’ more indebtedness. “We’ll float you all we can, Hank. God knows we don’t need more repossessed million-buck crabbers on our hands. Guess you’ve heard the bank joke going the rounds, that we’ll offer a free boat with each new account?” Hank bit his lip and pretended to be amused. “Do you know Terrance Smith?” continued the banker. “I’m afraid he crashed so deeply we couldn’t keep floating him. Any bidder can buy his boat, Star Wars, cheap. We can’t even find a bidder.”
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