Breakers

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by William B. McCIoskey Jr.


  They could now chat again as friends. He told her the humiliating comer into which Swede and John Gains had driven him, and of Jones Henry’s obsession. Her advice was practical: Avoid Jones. Make the best of cash buying and remember the lesson in future. But: “Do you think Jones can still take care of himself?”

  “When he’s sober, sure. And he’s never been a drunk. This is just an aberration. I’ve never seen Swede as solicitous.”

  “Adele’s worried.”

  “Then so am I. To this point just for our friendship.”

  “You may have lost it, you know.”

  “Not for good!”

  “You’ve heard about old dogs.”

  They calculated Jones’s age from anecdotes since Jones never spoke of it. Something beyond sixty. “But not far beyond,” said Hank anxiously. (Sixty? Old!) “Damn that Japan trip for all its loss! Everything went right before that!”

  “Except for no crab, Pete’s doctor bills, and the fact you’d overextended us for the house and the big boat.”

  “But I was managing.” At her expression he held up both hands. “We were.”

  Dressed now, she peered down as she tied back her hair. “Try to remember that ‘we.’” She said it in good humor but he heard the edge.

  “We. Always.”

  She left with “Go see your kids. And thank Jeannie if she hasn’t already gone to the net.”

  Outside she bantered and laughed with the old tough freedom. By the time he’d made it back to his children and had jiggled them awake in their sleeping bags she was down with the others, about to wade out into the cold water.

  21

  FIRES OF JULY

  NAKNEK, 4 JULY 1982, 7 A.M.

  The chopper returned him over the river to the cannery. Below, a handful of gillnet boats had flaked from the pack and were heading to open water. A firework trace arched toward one of them from a boat still tied. “Be sure to tell Swede I gave you a smooth ride,” said Marvin the pilot, lightly. “Swede’s got a chopper pilot’s license, you know. Means he’s always watching how I do. At least when he flies with me I can relax, since he takes the controls himself to stay in practice.”

  Hank’s Jody Dawn waited with engines humming and Seth on deck irritated and restless. “What the fuck are we up to?” Seth exploded. “Boards with some crazy name painted on and ropes to flap ‘em over the sides across our own name. And asshole John himself’s waiting in the wheelhouse with tin boxes, says nobody else should come up except you. You’d think he’d never been a deck ape under me the way he acts. And I stood up for him once when you wanted to fire him, remember?”

  Hank patted Seth’s shoulder. “Are we afloat yet?”

  “Just. Better give it more time to be safe.”

  A sputter of explosions made Hank jump. “Somebody shooting?”

  “Chrissake it’s Fourth of July. Mo and Terry made some bottle rockets we’re going to shoot as we leave.”

  “No. Don’t. No attention to us. Sorry, but I mean it.”

  “Awww,” came from Terry as Seth told him the news and Hank climbed to the wheelhouse. Out by the strikebound boats other rockets arched toward the departing boats, accompanied by hoarse shouts. They were aimed by the men still on strike, who were not playing.

  John Gains turned from the chart table. He wore freshly creased coveralls but hadn’t shaved since the night before. “Nice visit? That’s a wonderful family, yours. I should get started myself and no more Japanese girls, however attentive.”

  “Don’t mix ‘em. What’s up?”

  “Count the money and sign for it. I’ll trust the bank with just a pack-count on fives, tens, and twenties in this box, but we should do the fifties and hundreds together. Swede’s on his way.”

  They each counted packs, then exchanged them to verify. It became tedious. Between packs: “Mike Tsurifune says hello. We talked an hour ago.”

  “Early evening in Tokyo? He’s still sober then, I guess.”

  “At home and sober, sends warmest. He parties only with visitors he wants to impress. Do well here and I think the old man’ll forgive. They did have bigger plans for you.”

  “When I buy back my boat they’ll never see me again.”

  “Don’t be hasty. They’re your future.”

  Retort was saved by Swede’s appearance. He, too, looked sleepless. “I left your friend Jones snoring. That’s a hard nut to crack. I’ve always respected him. This bum against you isn’t funny. It is strange. He doesn’t care that the Japanese pull my strings, but your connection sends him wild.”

  “It’s no compliment to you. Jones and I had a different kind of pact.”

  Swede unfolded a chart he’d brought and showed Hank where he wanted the newly christened Arctic Lion to anchor. “A few miles on the opposite side of the processor than before. I’d planned to send you further toward the Nushagak, but Dillingham just said they’re close to settling for seventy. You were to pay sixty-five, but now seventy-five’s got to be your price.”

  “And you’re still offering these guys fucking fifty? I curse being part of this.” Swede looked away.

  John Gains studied him coolly. “You are naive.”

  Swede handed him the chart. “Don’t change identity until you’ve collected from the boats committed to us and delivered.”

  “And I’ll pay them seventy-five?”

  “Don’t be difficult, Hank,” said Gains. “You know they’re on the books for fifty. Eventually they’ll get whatever we bargain, but not seventy-five, I hope.”

  “Pricks”

  Swede continued in a drone: “Suggest you change identity on an empty horizon, preferably in the dark or fog, just after delivering to the Dora. Then put up your banners and advertise. After that, deliver back in the dark, best if nobody else is delivering. But on your way out now, pass close to whatever boats you see to give us an idea how they’re doing. Codes are in this book.”

  “I feel dirty.”

  “Sorry to hear it.” By the time Jody Dawn passed the clustered boats on strike the defectors had cruised far enough ahead to reach open water and disperse. Hank’s men usually gathered in the wheelhouse underway, but none of them appeared. He called down for coffee and Terry brought it. “Where’s everybody?”

  “We’re pissed, Boss. Try working on bottle rockets all night, all ready to shoot, then like some prison warden says you can’t.”

  He called them up and explained what was happening. Seth fumed and called it betrayal, Terry declared it kind of interesting, and Mo silently studied the deck.

  Boats were still scattered distances apart. Hank told Seth to cruise among them and check their nets discreetly with binoculars, and to wake him if anyone wanted to deliver. “I can write their tickets,” said Seth. “Get your sleep.”

  “No. Wake me.”

  Sleep had closed deeply when Mo shook him awake with: “Sorry, but you said to, Boss.” It was lean Jack Simmons. He and his man were working the end of their last shackle. Little more than a day had passed since the plugged gear that set the Jody Dawn men wild, and again it was on a flood when new fish poured in, but now the net came over the roller with only an occasional lump. They picked as they reeled, scattering individual fish around their boots where netfuls had piled before.

  “Where’ve you been?” asked Jack without looking beyond Hank’s chest. “We picked all night on that good set, then tried to find you. Nothing like that now. You ask me, I think the first run’s passed.”

  Hank took the tallied fish ticket from Seth. He beckoned Jack to his cabin and closed the door. “If you’re smart you won’t talk about this.” He entered the delivery in the book for fifty cents a pound, then paid another twenty-five in cash.

  Before they changed identity Swede radioed instructions to offload an extra net to the Orion that they carried as service to their fishermen. (“You’re not going to be offering service now.”) The old engineer Doke stood at the boom controls outside the wheelhouse. He acknowledged sententiously w
hen Hank nodded.

  As soon as the two vessels exchanged lines the Orion’s skipper climbed across the rails and introduced himself as Jeff. He indicated Doke. “That lardpot prick, I hear you put up with him once.”

  “That I did.”

  “He’d better watch I’ll throw him overboard—he’d fuckin’ float—if he don’t stop bitching about everything we do. You know he has a lock on his special teabags and counts them each day like we’d steal them? Fact is we figured his combination and now and then we do slip one out when he’s down with his engine. We ought to sell tickets for that circus when he counts and counts, then looks all around, then counts again. Of course now he takes his teabag can, lock and all, down to the engine room with him and we’ve got to figure some new way to get even.”

  Hank laughed. “We’d all have paid to watch that.” He considered. “Don’t injure him. He’s more vulnerable than you think. And—you’re passing through. That boat’s his life.”

  “I didn’t think you and him got along. Whenever he brings up your name it’s to say you don’t deserve such a wife.”

  Hank laughed again. The exchange at least put him in a lighter mood. When they left the Orion he waved merrily to Doke, who was still guarding his post by the boom controls, and received back a suspicious nod.

  The days became nondescript, governed by tides more than the sun, which seldom shone. After collecting from Jack Simmons they found two other boats ready to deliver. None had recent catches to match their earlier ones.

  At the factory ship: “Get me fish for Chrissake,” said Dave the skipper. “My classroom’s sitting on its ass eating my steaks and smoking pot. Let ‘em smoke since it keeps them quiet. My boom lowers when it affects their work. But these restless little Japs, they creep in and out of their holes, little mouths like prunes, act like it’s my fault we don’t have fish. Get me fish, Hank!”

  Hank watched uneasily the conversion of his Jody Dawn to the Arctic Lion. Like a thief taking his boat. The mechanics of the change were simple enough. Planks with the new name were flapped neatly over the old name, although it would be easy with a boat hook to peer under them. Wouldn’t fool somebody like Jones. Swede had furnished sets of canvas banners with numbers by tens from sixty to a hundred along with attachable fives, allpainted in big red letters outlined in black: two of each so that they could face both port and starboard. Old-time Norwegians called it bad luck to change a boat’s name. He himself might be free of superstition, but this was one more reason to hate it.

  Once his men accepted the idea they took Terry’s lead to enjoy making the trick work. After they had mounted “75” and entered an area of boats: “You can shoot your bottle rockets now to draw attention” Hank called down. When Terry and Mo pranced on deck they wore red bandannas pirate-style, and Terry had blackened curly mustaches and long sideburns on their faces. Seth followed soberly with a smaller token mustache.

  Hank wished he could stay out of sight, but he needed to be paymaster. He chose a comer of the galley table which he darkened by unscrewing the ceiling light, and hoped it made him less identifiable. After debating Terry’s and Mo’s pirate fantasy he let them keep it. But to Seth: “Think you’re fooling anybody?”

  Wry smile. “Just ourselves.”

  The first boat to deliver came alongside quickly in dark rain, choosing starboard since other boats nearby were fishing to port. Watching from the wheelhouse Hank recognized them from the strike meeting. In the galley he offered no coffee as he had on the legitimate Jody Dawn. The skipper kept his eyes down. They finished the transaction as quickly as possible. With no further commitment after cash passed hands no one needed to sign off. Hank started to enter the name of the boat in his log. “That necessary?” asked the man. Hank wrote instead “Gillnetter One.”

  But later that night: “Heyyy man, you!” It was Chris Speccio. “Who are you and me working for? D’you quit Swede? You some spy?”

  Hank banged the table in sudden good humor. “Arrest this cash-monkey and throw him in the hold with the fish!”

  Chris leapt up, fists clenched, then looked around and realized it was a joke. “Oh man, this tension, I don’ know.”

  “Get some coffee.”

  “The old man, he’s so upset he talks about going back and joining the strikers again. Half our guys are still ashore. We’ll never live it down with the older ones, but two of my cousins? My own age, their papa died last year left them the boat? They’re fishing. It’s old against young, and I’m pulled in the middle. First time we’re all divided. For me and my cousins, we remember two years ago we struck got shit, wives, kids back home want money. The old guys remember how the canneries jerked them around before they got the union. I don’ know. If they’d just the fuck settle! Seventy-five you’re paying they’d settle for that.”

  “Take the money, Chris. I can’t advise you. Suggest you deliver to the Orion now and then to keep face with Swede.”

  “Then this ain’t Swede here?”

  Hank considered. “Not the Swede you know.”

  As word spread, more and more boats slipped to the Jody Dawn/Arctic Lion’s visual lee and delivered. While none of the catches were vast, they accumulated enough that Hank’s boat, in tandem with the Orion, enabled Dave on the factory ship to activate his butcher-freezer lines for a full ten-hour shift. By the seventh of July a freighter bearing Japanese flag and characters had tied alongside to transfer icy cartons from the Dora’s full hold. Hank arrived with a delivery in time to see the hatches sealed and the ship head for Japan.

  The cannery helicopter stood on the factory ship’s helo deck. Marvin the pilot had brought some engine parts, and a carton of American candy bars from John Gains to the captain of the Japanese freighter. A return gift rested beside Marvin on the galley bench as he ate a steak and joked that this was the best chow place on the bay.

  “Well,” said Captain Dave after signaling the cook, “I like a happy crew.” Soon a smiling older woman brought steaks for himself and Hank.

  “Your old lady still pumping setnets?” asked Dave.

  Hank nodded, annoyed at the choice of words. His mind wandered the site every night between sleep. To change the subject: “Marijuana smell’s gone from your corridors.”

  Dave stretched comfortably. “Fish are here now, and I’m the law. Said it’s finished, class—finito. Caught two kids smoking anyhow, sent ‘em ashore for Swede to ship home or whatever. At least the little prune-mouths approved.” He glanced around, then imitated with jerky bows. “Hai hai hai. Prune-mouths in their little white boots everywhere, trying to chisel grade Number One fish down to Number Two’s. Couple of hours ago with that freighter you’d have thought it was the Ginza here.”

  “I thought you had only three of them stationed aboard.”

  “So, like I said. Everywhere, everywhere.” As if on cue one of the Japanese entered, filled a teapot with hot water, glanced around, frowned, and left. “Oh, they’re okay. Just shy I guess. All out of shape if they see people not working, like it’s their ass back home. They just never let go, like a dog with his teeth in the meat.”

  Hank remembered John Gains’s prediction that this was his future. He sliced his steak so hard it scraped the plate.

  “Hai hai all over the place maybe,” said Marvin. “But when I ride those people back and forth you’ve never seen anything so polite.”

  Hank was summoned to the wheelhouse. “Tide’s rising and strike’s done,” said Swede on secure radio. “Settled for seventy cents.”

  “Great! We’ll pull our planks and return as we were.”

  “Negative. Negative. Continue as before. But now fly cherry vanilla.”

  Hank checked his code. It was eighty-five cents. “That must be a mistake.”

  “Cherry vanilla’s never a mistake. First run’s already started up the rivers, nobody’s sighted the second. Get me every fish you can. My pilot there? Send him up for instructions.” Hank returned to the table disturbed.

  The strik
e news had already reached others by radio to judge from shouts and laughs. Two high-pitched voices chattered excitedly in Japanese, and from somewhere a string of firecrackers sputtered. The pilot returned from the phone and nudged Hank. “Come for a ride.”

  “I should get back on the water.”

  “Swede’s instructions.”

  They rose from the ship’s helo deck. Quickly the factory and Hank’s boat alongside diminished and fuzzed in the mist. The horizon held only two or three gillnet boats in one vista. They headed toward land. Suddenly the pilot whooped and pointed. Boats were streaming out of the river like ants from a hill or cars on a rush-hour freeway. They moved rail to rail in the river confines, then at the mouth fanned out in all directions. “Cage door’s open and the grounds are hotl” Marvin called.

  Jones Henry’s among them, thought Hank. Good luck to you. The pilot grinned and next swept across the water to Jody’s setnet site. “Hour and a half, Skipper, gift of Swede.”

  Hank accepted the bribe buoyantly. He dashed across sand and marsh to Jody’s cabin and flung open the door with a loud “Hey!” Jody sat by the table with Pete on her lap and a picture book in her hand.

  “Daddy Daddy Daddy!” Pete ran to hug his leg. Hank fondled and roughhoused him. Jody stood smiling. When Pete had subsided: “Go find Henny and Dawn, honey. Tell them who’s here.”

  They stood alone. Smoky odors of mildew, bacon, and boots had become dear to him. Arms out and they advanced together. She pressed against his chest and he breathed hard at once. Through layers of wool he felt her heartbeat. “Let’s lock the door.”

  She rubbed against him like a purring cat. “You know we can’t. Relax until the kids get here.” Their kiss held until noise and chatter tumbled in. Pete jumped up and down while Dawn talked nonstop about the fireworks they’d had for two nights, and Henny stood looking up. Hank eased off Henny’s cap and tousled his hair.

  Dawn grabbed his hand. “Daddy! Come meet my best friend Melissa and everybody.”

 

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