Lobster Boy

by Rodman Philbrick

  Once I get the first three traps into the skiff, I fire up the outboard motor and take us down the creek and into the harbour and up to the wharf at Murphy’s Bait & Fuel. I leave five dollars in the jar for a bucket of bait and try to skedaddle before anybody thinks to ask what I’m up to. They’re pretty busy salting down a new load of herring, but Devlin Murphy, the boss and owner, he gives me the eye and comes over before I can get away.

  I can tell he wants to talk and I’d rather not.

  “Bucket of bait? If your old man is back fishing, he’s going to want it by the barrel.”

  I go, “Yes, sir. See you later,” and try to scoot out the door.

  “Not so fast!” Devlin says, laughing through his beard. He’s this huge guy with a big chest and belly and legs that look like tree stumps. He hooks a finger in my shirt and slows me up. “What are you up to, Skiffy? This bait for your dad or what? Heard you fixed the Mary Rose, is that it? He finally getting back into it, is he?”

  Devlin Murphy is a fiend for gossip. Always wants to know everything that’s happening on the creek and round the harbour. My mom used to say he was better than a radio station for having all the local news, and he’ll keep at you until you tell him every little thing, even if you don’t mean to.

  I finally have to tell him the bait is for me.

  “Oh,” he says, “you going to fish a few traps this summer? Good for you, son.”

  He follows me out to the wharf and spots the skiff tied up at the end. “Hey, I remember when Big Skiff built that! Lovely lines. You think you can haul up a trap all by yourself?” He laughs and squeezes the muscle on my arm, and that gets me riled.

  “For your information, I’ll be fishing all two hundred traps,” I go, bragging on my own idea. “If you don’t think I can pull ’em, just watch me.”

  That shuts him up, but only for a second. All of a sudden he’s looking serious. “What about the Mary Rose? I heard you and Amos Woodwell fixed her up.”

  I shrug. “Bad engine. We’re saving up to have it rebuilt.”

  He scratches at his thick red beard, wrinkles his fat nose, and studies me. “Uh, yuh. That makes sense. Let me think on this. Two hundred traps from a ten-foot skiff. Mmm. That’s a whole lot of traps to be hand pulling, young Skiffy. Your dad worked that many with a full-size boat and a hydraulic puller.”

  “I got the skiff,” I tell him, “so that’s what I’m using.”

  He rubs the top of my head, which I hate more than anything. “Tell you what,” he says. “We’ll set up an account for you, like I did with your father. Give you the fisherman’s discount. You can charge the bait and gas you need, and we’ll settle up at the end of the summer. That okay with you?”

  “Sure it is. Thanks, Mr. Murphy.”

  “My customers call me Dev. Now you go on and catch a ton of lobster, son. And tell your father Dev Murphy says hello.”

  He stands there at the end of the wharf, big as his own bait shack, and watches until I’m out of sight.

  10

  Lobster in the Parlour

  Things go real good the first two weeks. I’m up with the sun every morning, raring to go. Have my toast and cereal and then run for the dock. Check to make sure Rose ain’t leaking – nope, dry as a bone – and then drag traps out to the end of the dock and lower ’em into my skiff.

  If you do it right you don’t have to lift much. Trap itself ain’t that heavy, but it’s got bricks in the bottom to make it sink. Anyhow, I’ll load on, fire up the outboard, go down creek to the harbour, fetch a bucket of bait from Dev Murphy, then off again to wherever I’m setting traps.

  Setting traps, that’s where the science comes into it. Everybody says so. You got to put your trap where the lobster lives. Lobster crawls along the bottom eating what it can find. So you got to think what the bottom might be like even if you can’t see it. Watch where the current whirls, and how the shore comes down. Try to picture it down there. Mostly it’s a feeling you get, that this is a good place to set a trap.

  ’Course there’s about a hundred other guys setting traps, too, and you got to take that into account. Set too close to one of theirs, they don’t like it. What they’ll do is tie a hitch in the line to your buoy, as a signal to back off. That’s if they’re being nice. Push it far enough, buoys get cut. Then you got a trap on the bottom and no way to find it. Which don’t do nobody no good.

  Anyhow, by the end of the first week I get near a hundred traps in the water, all baited and waiting for visitors. The old saying is, first the kitchen, then the parlour. See, a trap is divided into two “rooms”. First room the lobster crawls into is called the “kitchen”. Kitchen has the bait bag and the lobster wants to get at it. But when he tries to leave the kitchen, only place he can go is the “parlour”, and there’s no getting out of the parlour. Lobster is stuck in there until you pull the trap.

  Only thing, pulling the traps out of the water turns out to be a whole lot harder than putting them in.

  I wait four days and then go back to the first string of traps. Can’t wait to see what it caught. Picturing it chock-full of two-pound lobsters. But when I grab hold of the buoy and start pulling in line, it don’t budge. Trap feels like it’s been nailed to the bottom.

  I cleat down the line, rub my hands together, and try again. This time it shifts a little, but then the rope slips through my hands and the trap clunks back on the bottom.

  How can a thing that’s made of wood and sunk in the water feel so heavy?

  Finally I figure a way to pull the rope up and keep it cinched around a cleat so it don’t slip back, and that’s how the first trap comes up, a few feet at a time. By the time it comes over the side, slick and dripping, my arms are shaking from the effort.

  But that don’t matter because there’s stuff in the trap. Lobsters, lots of ’em, and a bunch of crabs. Trouble is, all but one of the lobsters is too small to keep. They’re real strict about that. It makes me sick, having to throw back the shorts, but you got to do it.

  Still, I do get one keeper.

  One down and two thousand four hundred and ninety-nine to go.

  “Wake up, Skiffy.”

  I jump up. Has the alarm gone off? But I’m in the living room not my bedroom and it ain’t morning it’s night, or getting there. Must have dropped off accidental.

  “Figured to let you sleep,” says my dad. “You want, I’ll fix us some supper.”

  “Got twelve keepers and a bucket of crab,” I tell him.

  “So you said. That’s good.”

  I can’t recall the last time my dad fixed supper. It’s only hot dogs in the fry pan, but still, that’s something. Nothing wrong with dogs and beans. Except my hands are so tired and achy from hauling traps, I can barely hang on to the fork.

  “Had me a string of traps when I was your age.”

  “That so?” I go, watching him crack open a beer.

  “Thirty traps, that’s all it was. Kept me awful busy, though. Thought my arms was going to fall off the first few days. Then I got used to it.”

  “I’m already used to it.”

  “I’m just saying,” he says. “Two hundred traps. It’s possible you bit off more than you can chew.”

  I go, “That’s your opinion.”

  He sucks on the beer. “Dev Murphy give you credit?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thought he might.”

  I’m figuring this is the start of a long yammer. Him telling me what to do and so forth, and stuff about what it was like when he was my age. Like dads and sons are supposed to do. But he picks up his beer and goes back to the TV couch. End of conversation.

  Anyhow, the dogs were tasty.

  Food makes me sleepy again, and I just about crawl up the stairs. Must have, because that’s where I wake up the next morning, in my own bed.

  Stupid alarm going brinnnnng, brinnnnng, brinnnnng. Bring me some lobster, bring me some money, bring, bring, bring.

  What I really feel like is rolling over and hiding
my head under the pillow, but there’s bait to fetch and traps to pull, so I get up and dress and eat and do it all over again.

  And again.

  And again.

  After a while it ain’t as hard. Traps don’t seem quite so heavy. Bait bucket is lighter. I can work all day and stay awake for a whole hour after supper. End of two weeks all two hundred traps are fishing and I’m pulling twenty-five a day by hand. Averaging a pound and a half per trap, keeper size, and more crab than I know what to do with. Can’t get nothing for small crab, nobody wants it, too hard to pick the meat out, but I don’t care. I’m a lobster boy, and all I care about is them crawly bugs with the big claws. Money in the bank.

  My brain is humming like a cash register, totalling it up, making change. Take out for gas and bait, I’m still ahead by nine hundred dollars, and next week looks to be better, everybody says so.

  Like I say, things are going real good. So naturally that’s when the crud hits the fan.

  Miserable rotten crud by the name of Tyler Croft.

  11

  Trap Wars

  One day I’m leaving Murphy’s, loaded up with bait and a couple of traps that need new heads. Heads are the little nets the lobsters crawl through to get into the trap. Anyhow, I’m feeling real good about things and minding my own business, and that’s when I notice Fin Chaser tied up to the town wharf.

  Beautiful boat. Finest kind of tuna boat. Forty-foot hull with a high tower on top for spotting fish, and a bow pulpit near as long as the boat. The idea is, the long pulpit puts the harpooner right over the fish so he can strike down at them before they feel the boat.

  I never been out on Fin Chaser, but I know all about it because my dad used to be the best harpooner on the crew. Come August he’d lay up the Mary Rose and mate on Fin Chaser for a month or so. Fished the boat from Provincetown to Bar Harbour, chasing the big tuna. Sometimes he made more money in that one month than all year lobstering.

  One summer my dad harpooned eighteen tuna, twice as many as the next best man in Spinney Cove. That’s the year he got his new Ford pickup, and Mom got her new kitchen. He and the Fin Chaser owner were really tight until Mom got sick and Dad quit working. Then the Fin Chaser guy said something to my dad about him drinking too much, or maybe they argued about money, I’m not really sure, and my dad said something back, and they ain’t spoke since.

  The problem is, the guy who owns Fin Chaser and used to be my dad’s best friend? He’s also Tyler Croft’s father. And there’s Tyler on his father’s boat, loading the long harpoons aboard and acting wicked cool while his dad, Jack Croft, dumps buckets of ice in the ice hold, getting the boat ready.

  Last thing in the world I want is Tyler to notice me, but he does. Gives me a big sneery smile, points at my little skiff, holds his nose. I ain’t close enough to hear, but his father says something sharp, something that wipes the sneer clean off Tyler’s face, and then Jack Croft himself looks at me. Short, strong-looking guy with a long-billed cap, and his eyes all squinty from looking for tuna. Studies me and don’t say nothing, just gives me a little nod like they do. Then he’s talking to Tyler and pointing at me, like he’s saying something about me, and Tyler, he sneaks me a look that says, just you wait, lobster boy, just you wait.

  Don’t have to wait long.

  Next day I’m out by Little Sister Rock, just outside the cove. Got a dozen traps set in close to the rock where the lobsters like to hide. It’s one of those perfect summer mornings. Water like rippled glass, with just a few soft clouds in the sky, and everything sparkling. The way the sun comes off the water, it’s hard to see at first. But I get in as close to the rock as I dare, with the sea slurping over the top and the seaweed floating like a woman’s hair, and I pull up the first trap.

  Empty. No lobsters, no crabs, no bait left in the kitchen. Nothing.

  Most traps have at least a crab or two, but it happens.

  I put the bait bag in the kitchen, drop it back down. Then I grab the next buoy, pull on the line until I feel the trap lift off the bottom. Wrapping line around a cleat as I go, so I don’t lose it. Get the next trap up to the side, grab the end, haul it over the side.

  Empty. Same thing as the first. No lobster, no crab. And this time I see where the bait bag has been cut loose. By something sharp enough to cut the head net.

  Could be a lobster claw, but where’s the lobster? Did they get smart all of a sudden and figure a way to back out of the trap? Don’t seem likely.

  I got a sick feeling in my stomach that it’s something else.

  Pull the third trap. Empty. Same as the other two.

  Pull the fourth.

  Pull the fifth.

  Pull the sixth.

  Empty, empty, empty.

  Take a break, my arms aching. Sun drilling a hole in my head. Then haul another six traps, inch by inch. Foot by foot. All empty. Bait bags cut.

  Hits me like a bad clam for breakfast. Somebody is stealing my lobster. Worse, they’re cutting out the bait bags so the traps won’t attract any more lobsters to replace the ones they stole.

  Whoever did this wants me to know.

  Only one name comes to mind, would do a thing like that. Tyler Croft. Must have snuck out here and emptied out my traps, letting me know he’s better than me. ’Course he knows I can’t prove he done it. Could have been anybody. But it wasn’t. I know that like I know the smell of a rotting fish.

  That makes my whole face hot, but it gets worse.

  On the way back in I stop to check on another spot, on the inside bend of the channel where the bottom is rocky.

  There’s not a buoy of mine in sight.

  Ten more traps clean gone. Either stolen or the buoys cut, which amounts to the same thing.

  Now it feels like my head is going to explode. The only thing I can think of is, open up the throttle and head over to the town wharf, looking for Fin Chaser. But the big boat ain’t there. Must be out chasing tuna.

  I’m so miserable mad, it hurts, but there ain’t nobody to hit or cuss, so all I can do is go home and mope around, thinking of things I’d like to do to Tyler Croft.

  Tie his stupid mountain bike around his neck and throw it in the harbour, and that’s just for starters.

  Later on I’m banging cupboards and stuff, feeling sorry for myself, when Dad wakes up on the couch. “What’s wrong, Skiffy?”

  “Nothin’!”

  “Must be something.”

  “What do you care! Go on back to sleep! Watch your TV shows! Drink your beer!” I say that and a whole lot more, mean as a snake to my own father.

  Worst thing is, he don’t say nothing back.

  No way can I sleep. Not with Tyler out there stealing lobster and cutting buoys. I got to do something, but I don’t know what. Find a way to stop him before he puts me out of business.

  Just hating the miserable little twerp ain’t enough. I been racking brains and nothing comes to mind. Call him names? He don’t care. Throw rocks at his head? He’d throw ’em back, and plenty would pitch in to help. Call his father? I know Tyler, he’d just lie to his dad and keep on with what he’s doing. Report him to the Fish & Game? I ain’t got proof. Tell my dad? Don’t make me laugh. If he wouldn’t get off the couch when the boat sank, he ain’t gonna move his butt over a few traps.

  What it comes down to is this: It’s up to me.

  That’s why, when midnight comes, I sneak out of the house, get in my skiff, untie the lines, and drift down the creek, quiet as the night.

  Watch out, rich boy. Lobster boy is coming to get you.

  12

  Rich Boy in the Dark of Night

  The thing about drifting the creek at night is how it makes you feel invisible. Like you can watch the darkness of the world go by but nothing can see you. You can see the tall pines standing like an army of zombies along the shore, with stars for eyes and the wind moving their ragged arms, but they can’t find you. Nothing can.

  It’s like being asleep but watching yourself inside the dream,
drifting on the creek. Letting the tide pull you around each bend. Letting the current carry you along but keeping you always safe, always moving.

  Until you wake up and remember that what you’ve always been afraid of has already come true. Like what happened to Mom and the Mary Rose sinking. Makes you never want to wake up, but in the end you got no choice, that’s the way it works in this world. You got to wake up, or disappear.

  And I ain’t about to disappear. Not without a fight.

  I can’t know what buoys he’ll cut next. All I can do is try and guard what’s mine. Figure a sneak like Tyler will take the easy way, and hit the traps closest to home. The Croft house is way out on the east end of Spinney Cove, with all the other big houses. Places where they got electronic gates and garages big enough for six cars, and more rooms than people to live in them. Rich-people houses. Houses so important, they got names, like Windswept and Beach Rose and Seaview. Rich guys like Tyler’s dad, they don’t fish for money, they fish for the fun of it, and because it gives them an excuse to own a big expensive boat and wear a long-billed fisherman’s cap.

  Nothing wrong with that – you can bet I’d have a wicked big boat if I were rich, and a new hat, too! – but it gets my goat when rich people steal from me. And that’s what cutting traps is, plain and simple: stealing. Sticks in my craw like a rusty hook, knowing how little it means to a rich creep like Tyler Croft, that he can ruin my life any time he feels like it.

  There’s no moon in the sky, but the stars make enough light to see by, just barely. Enough so I can find my way, weaving through the boats moored in the harbour. Shadows of boats is more like it. Looming things that move with the current, swinging all together like a flock of ducks set down on a pond, beaks to the wind.

  Sound of my outboard echoes off the hulls. So loud, it seems the whole world must know where I am. But they don’t. It’s just another sound in the night, a small boat going by, no big deal.