Lobsters and Landmines

by Glen Johnson

  Jim stood over the crumpled form of the lifeless child. He didn’t need to recheck he was dead; the cracked open skull and copious amount of blood over the flagstone flooring and kitchen cupboards was obvious enough.

  Without a conscious decision – as if on autopilot – he left the kitchen and went around to the side of the cottage to grab some tarp.

  The kid weighed as much as a grown adult, at just over fifteen stone, Theodore was only three stones lighter than Jim was; and now he was a dead weight. Jim was sweating, by the time he had wrapped the body up in thick black bags and the green plastic. He rolled the corpse over next to the door while he used some of Tracy’s new expensive clothes out of the hamper to wipe the blood off everything. He then tossed that in with the body. Next he slid the body and bloody clothes into a large old Hessian sack; one his bait used to be stored in.

  He checked the chair wasn’t to badly damaged – it didn’t have a mark on it.

  The cottage was only a few minutes walk away from the village harbor, and when he normally walked to work at five in the morning, the place was deserted. It was now half five. He hoisted the corpse up onto his meaty shoulder and with one last look around the kitchen, exited the cottage.

  He slipped the spare key back in the flowerpot.

  Jim almost ran to his boat. He checked every corner, and every cobbled street. There was not one single soul around. He feared he would run into Crazy Mike, the areas tramp, who sometimes drifted in and out of the village. Crazy Mike was rumored to be ex-army, and had gone AWOL when he returned from his last tour in Afghanistan. He supposedly witnessed the death of his best friend, Peter Swanson. The sight of his friend being blown to pieces apparently unhinged him.

  Luckily, Crazy Mike was not around.

  His boat, Freedom’s End, was an eighty-two foot, 1979 steel trawler, with a twenty-two-foot beam that had been his dad’s pride and joy. It was far too big for just him, but the truth was he couldn’t find anyone interested in buying it, and unlike his dad, he couldn’t afford the four-man crew to man it. Half the systems on it were shut down to save money, and the other half only worked when they felt like it. The boat was a money-pit that was slowly falling apart at the riveted seams. Only last month a whole section of steel rigging collapsed and fell onto the decking.

  He sprinted the last fifty feet to the docks and tossed the body over the gunwale onto the bow. Jim ran around untying the ropes off the three cleats that kept the boat attached to the dock. He then jumped over the gunwale and ran along the starboard side to the wheelhouse to pilot the boat out of the harbor.

  He didn’t think too far ahead. He now decided to just do his normal route and drop the body off along the way. If he didn’t go home with his usual catch, then people would start to speculate. When someone went missing or turned up dead, the family was always the first to be investigated.

  After he exited the harbor, and set course, he put the controls on autopilot and headed to the stern. He needed to prepare the wrasse and flounder for the pots. He had sixty-four pots along a three-mile stretch, on eight lines of eight, but it would take him just over an hour to reach the first line, and in that time, he needed to prepare the bait for when he started pulling up the pots.

  Jim’s hands were all sweaty, and he was starting to shake; the shock was starting to set in. He leaned a little further from side to side than normal, as the gentle waves rocked the boat.

  He reached the stern, where the large, rusty box was located that had the bait in.

  Fucking fuck!

  He slammed the container shut. In his haste and stress, he had forgotten to load the fish that sat on the wharf where his supplier had left it.

  Fuuuuuck!

  Jim rubbed his hand down over his face, and felt a wet sensation.

  Blood!

  He held his hands out and stared at the blood that covered them. He slowly turned his head to look at the pile of tarp poking out of the Hessian sack that rocked steadily from side to side. A large pool of blood was gathered around it.

  The chugging of the four-blade propeller, cutting through the Celtic Sea, was the only sound.

  Jim slowly turned as if on a turntable and reached for his six-inch filleting knife and the old axe that hung from the wall behind the chum container. With the axe in one hand and knife in the other, he headed towards fat Theodore.

  It should be more than enough to fill all sixty-four pots. Why waste good meat. “Meats just meat,” my old ma used to say.

  Jim cut open the sack and pulled the tarp away, setting it to one side to wash off later. The pale, bloodless body rolled up against the hull. His slack mouth hung wide open. His bulged eyes stared blankly into space. His Doctor Who pajamas were saturated in blood.

  Jim knelt down next to the body, and started cutting the wet material away from the overfed pink boy.

  The boat chugged along at a steady fifteen knots. Seagulls danced and jostled for a position all around the boat. Blood ran down the decking, over through the bung plugs, mixing with the sea, leaving a trail of red in its wake. Some seagulls bobbed on the surface, plucking small chunks of pale meat from the water.

  When he was younger, Jim would spend days fishing with his dad. Sometimes they would drop hooked lines over the side while heading out to the pots, and countless times Jim would help his dad gut a fish. As he leaned back, arms bloody up to the elbows, he realized guts are just guts, regardless of what kind of animal or fish it was.

  A full, large blue plastic tote bucket rested to one side, while Jim used the powerful hose to wash the blood and gore from the decking, through the bung plugs.

  His face felt wet. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying. He rolled the hose up and hung it back in place. He then dragged the large, sloshing, meat filled bucket along the decking to the stern.

  Jim could see his first orange buoy coming into view. He jogged to the wheelhouse and slowed the boat.

  With his thick blue rubber gloves on, Jim used a long wooden gaff, leaned over, grabbed the buoy, and attached line. He then wrapped the wet line around the hauler and switched it on. It whizzed to life, pulling the line in. Jim slowed it when the black and blue pot broke the choppy surface.

  With an action he did thousands of times; he hauled the pot up onto the metal washboard. With a snap of the catch, he opened the pot. He counted nine lobsters. He used a metal gauge to judge the first ones length. They had to be at least 450kg; the first was just a cull, of about 225kg; way too small. He tossed it over the side. The following three were v-notched, showing they were breeding females, and had to be thrown back regardless of whether they had eggs or not. The next four were berried females heavy with eggs; he tossed them over the side. The last was a large cull, a lobster with only one claw. He would still get money for it, but not as much. Jim lifted the live-tank lid with his boot, and tossed the cull in.

  Nine lobsters and I can only sell one. That’s the lobster game.

  The pot was now empty. Jim reached into the tote bin and grabbed a tubby; pale severed hand. He hooked in up inside, and used a scoop to fill the plastic holder with guts and cut up intestines.

  Just like chum.

  He then rejoined the line, unhooked it from the hauler and dropped it over the side.

  Bye Theodore you fat fuck!

  Nine hours later Jim had hauled all sixty-four pots and had collected a mere ninety-eight lobsters, just enough to cover the fuel and daily expenses.

  Fuck, I need a miracle.

  Jim had not checked his radio in the wheelhouse all day, in fear that someone had been trying to get a hold of him. When he checked, he had no messages. He turned the boat around and headed home. All the way back he constantly walked up and down the decking, checking for any trace of Theodore.

  *

  Tracey sat at the kitchen table, on the very chair that had killed her son; she was smoking and reading a glossy magazine. She didn’t even look up when Jim walked in.

  How could she not know her sons missing
?

  He did not want to question her, in case she became suspicious. Jim headed for the shower and spent forty minutes scrubbing his body and hands raw.

  It was nine o’clock before the alarm was raised, when Tracy phoned her friend to see why Theodore hadn’t arrived home yet. The friend said Theodore had walked home the night before, when he had become homesick.

  Jim stated he had gone straight to bed, so he didn’t know if he had arrived or not. They checked the hidden key; it was still in the flowerpot. His bed had not been slept in.

  The police were called, and Theodore was announced missing. Tracy was interviewed and the fact she had been drunk when she got home didn’t help matters. A search party was arranged. Theodore would have had to walk by the wharf on the way; police frogmen dredged the area around the dock. They found nothing.

  *

  Jim took four days off work, to try to make it look like he cared. He even spent eight hours traipsing around the cliff and harbor, along with over a hundred other concerned citizens, looking for any signs that the fat kid had tripped and hurt himself, or some perv – that found obese, sweaty kids attractive – had kidnapped him.

  Jim and Tracey appeared on local and even national TV to ask for help. They gave over nineteen interviews for local and national newspapers, and a couple of magazines. It was a complete carnival of noise and activity; there was always someone in their house.

  Jim had to appear sad and confused. Luckily, fear gave him the same appearance, with a downcast and withdrawn expression.

  *

  On the fifth day, all the police reports were logged and filed; the search parties called off, and all hope of finding him alive had diminished. He was still on the cover of local papers, but the national ones had moved on – he was now just a footnote on page seven.

  *

  When Jim left for the boat on the sixth day, Tracy was up and sat crying at the kitchen table.

  It takes something like this to make her act like a real mother for the first time, he thought.

  Jim was actually refreshed from a good nights sleep – there was no fat Theodore running around shouting, keeping him awake.

  He couldn’t believe he was going to get away with it. No clues. No body. No evidence. For the first time in years, he almost skipped to work.

  Then he got an even bigger surprise, the first pot he pulled up was brimming full of fat, healthy-looking lobsters. Even after he took the pregnant and small ones out, he still had eleven to put in the live-tank. At the end of a grueling twelve-hour day, his live-tank was overflowing, and he had seven tote bins full of seawater holding more.

  He was just sad he had used all of Theodore’s body up. He had to put flounder in the pots as bait.

  Mr. Kenshaw’s face dropped when he started unloading at the wharf, and for the first-time, Jim had the upper hand. With a roll of money in his pocket and Mr. Kenshaw saying, “About time your family got some luck. Sorry to hear about sweet Theodore,” Jim headed home.

  He may have been sweet. Jim chuckled under his breath. He couldn’t look too pleased with himself, because his fiancées child was missing after all.

  Tracy was a complete mess; mascara running everywhere and her hair all lank and greasy. She rushed to the door when she heard his key; still holding onto the hope that Theodore would come wobbling in.

  Jim had done some shopping, and his arms were full of carrier bags. Tracey did not help him put the food away; she simply sat at the table, crying, and smoking, while looking longingly at the door.

  *

  The next day the pots were back to their normal low standards, and the only thing he could put the luck down to was human flesh.

  While Jim tucked into some lasagna that night, he wondered where Crazy Mike was. No one would miss a homeless guy; they would just presume he had drifted somewhere else. One body is as good as the next.

  He looked across at Tracy as he forked another spoonful of beef and pasta into his mouth.

  I will give it a couple of days. She cannot disappear right away; people will get suspicious. Tomorrow, while I am down the pub, on the way home, I will start spreading the fact that she is going to stay with her mother in Cardiff.

  It was getting late by the time Jim stood at the kitchen sink doing the dishes. Tracy had long since gone to bed and cried herself to sleep again. A silhouette eclipsed the small kitchen window as Jim was putting a plate on the drying rack.

  Crazy Mike had just shuffled past, and was heading down the small lane towards the harbor.

  Jim dried his hands and put his coat on. He checked his filleting knife was in the coat pocket. He gently closed the kitchen door as he headed out into the night.

  Crazy Mike meandered along up ahead with a paper bag in hand. No one was quite sure how old Crazy Mike was, due to his dirty clothes and unkempt hair and beard. He looked about fifty, but could have been thirty.

  Hitting the old juice are we Mike?

  Jim did not mind that it was taking Mike twice as long to wobble along, he was enjoying the walk, and it would be easier to overpower an intoxicated hobo.

  Jim remembered Crazy Mike had been in the army, but he knew many people who had. It didn’t mean anything. Most in the army are just cannon fodder anyway, he thought. You don’t have to be tough to use a gun.

  On the way past The Bay Restaurant, Jim looked in the window. A group of four sat enjoying a large lobster thermidor. He knew it was one of his because Mr. Kenshaw sold his catch to all the hotels and restaurants in the area. He noticed it was the do-gooders from number thirty-three opposite, along with two of their friends.

  Jim had to smile, a poster in the window, just to the side of the four, had a picture of Theodore, asking if anyone had seen this boy.

  If only they knew a tiny bit of him was merely a few feet away.

  It didn’t look like Crazy Mike realized he was being followed, as he went down onto the wharf to find a nice pile of soft ropes to curl up on. Crazy Mike moved over to Jim’s boat, Freedom’s End and skipped over the gunwale.

  Jesus he could not make it any easier; Jim thought as he followed close behind.

  Jim looked at his boat that was once his burden, but was now his salvation. He had never really taken any notice of the name before; why his father named it Freedom’s End, he will never know, but now it kind of made sense.

  Jim slipped the knife from his pocket and stepped over the gunwale, looking for his next tote of human chum, and a great day of fishing ahead.

  Jim walked slowly along the starboard side. He couldn’t see Crazy Mike.

  Jesus, he moved fast!

  The boat gently rocked against the dock. Water could be heard lapping up against the ship.

  Jim quietly opened the wheelhouse door. He had the knife out in front, ready to drive it into Crazy Mike’s stomach.

  Empty! Where the hell has he gone?

  Strong arms wrapped around Jim’s neck from behind, and forced him into the wall. The wind was knocked out of him. Jim dropped the knife as his hand hit a shelf.

  What the fuck!

  “Think you can sneak up on me do ya?” The arms wrapped tighter.

  “I knew you would come looking for me!”

  A knee hit Jim in the back, paralyzing him, as Crazy Mike released him. Jim almost blanked out at he fell to the wheelhouse decking. In a flash, Mike was on top of him, pinning an arm behind his back.

  “Dirty fucking al-Qaeda. You killed my friend, Peter.” Crazy Mike’s face was inches from the back of Jim’s head. Jim could smell his fetid breath.

  “This is for Peter,” Crazy Mike said as he sliced the knife across Jim’s throat.

  -2-

  Little Prick

  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound. Exodus 21:24-25

  The mornings are the worst. The first few minutes when Jasmine Melville wakes up are almost normal. She can hear the birds singing through her window, which looks out onto the Devon countryside. It t
akes a few seconds for her brain to register everything, for her body to catch-up and the pain to overwhelm her.

  Twenty-three-year-old Jasmine is wasting away, her painfully thin body lies like a cadaver on the white sheets. Just looking at her, you would be amazed that she is still breathing.

  The shingles are the first to register, stabbing pain down her back from the fluid-filled blisters. The Candida Infection is a close second, because she has to be on a BiPAP respirator, helping her infected lungs breathe during the night. During the day, she uses it spasmodically, depending on what kind of day she is having; lately, they have all been bad and getting worse.

  Jasmine is still weak from the radiotherapy she needs for Kaposi’s Sarcoma, the purplish cancerous lesions that also cover her skin.

  The respirator covers her nose, itching her skin where it pushes up against her sensitive nostrils, which are riddled with white lesions from Hairy Leukoplakia.

  She slowly turns her head to the right. Her mother, Jackie, sleeps in a bed next to hers, always on call, always ready to help. Her mother gave up her job, her friends, her life, so she could be ready to help twenty-four hours a day.

  Jackie’s weight had also dropped from the strain of looking after her daughter. Her once plump cheeks are now hollow, and her jowls hang discolored from lack of sleep.

  Between them, they have lost over five stone.

  It has been four years since Jasmine had the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay diagnosis test, then having to wait four hours for the results, after going all the way up to London to the clinic. If she had the test locally she would have had to wait four days to hear back.

  Jasmine stares at her mother while she sleeps. She has put her life on hold for me, while I slowly die in front of her eyes. However, she won’t be needed for very much longer, just one more day, because Jasmine is dying from AIDS, and they have a plan to end it all; they spent month’s meticulously planning, before she lost the ability to speak.

  The worst part of it all was it wasn’t even her fault that she caught it. It is not as if she slept around, letting numerous men go bareback on her, ignoring using condoms because life is too short to spend mere seconds to put one on. And she was not a drug user who had reused a syringe one time too many with strangers. It simply was the case of the wrong place at the wrong time.