by Boyd Craven
“I’m terribly sorry about that. If I would have stayed, it would have been a thousand times more embarrassing.”
“That I doubt,” she said, irritated herself. “What’s those pulleys for?” She pointed, deliberately changing the subject.
“Oh, I decided I wanted to steer, so I’m going to put a wheel on the column. I’ll still pull start the little motor, but these will use guide wires to turn the engine. This one is for a throttle cable.” I showed her.
“You’re really going to give this fishing gig a go, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I have to do something,” I admitted. “I live in a junkyard, one of my best friends talks about himself in third person, and my past keeps catching up with me.”
“Maybe you should quit running.”
“From my past?” I asked her.
“From everything.”
Chapter Ten
“These guys will like you,” Carly said, pulling into the restaurant.
“How do you know?” I asked her.
“They go to our church. They’ve seen you around the last three weeks.”
“Oh,” I said quietly.
Carly did most of the talking. I was amazed they let her get away with it, because she wasn’t really the one who was going to do the fishing. I shot a bemused smile at the owner’s husband, who gave me a smile and nod back. The ladies were hashing out deals, and all I had to do was fish. I had been doing it a bit lately and found out right away that something Irish John had told me had been true: the sea provided, and it provided well. At least enough for one man to eat.
“I know snapper have been biting, and that’s always a favorite; grouper is good… The local place here in town has their own shrimp boat, so I won’t need any of those.”
I was taking notes as the ladies were talking.
“What got you interested in commercial fishing?” the husband asked. I thought his name was Mister Fowler, Brandon to his friends.
“Well, one of the first people I met down here was Irish John. Up north I liked to do a spot of fishing, and it was a healthy way to keep myself fed. Right away, Irish took me out fishing. It was amazing to see how much you could do with what I had, and I started to get hooked, so to speak.”
“Ohhhhh, that was a bad one,” Carly said, patting my shoulder, breaking from her conversation.
I grinned back. “But hanging around with Franklin and Irish John kind of got the bug in me. Working on boats all the time, I started riding in them, and Irish has been showing me all kinds of good stuff. I don’t know if I want to do it forever like Franklin has, but I don’t need an expensive lifestyle. It was Franklin who suggested it.”
“With the way the economy is going, it’s still a pretty good way to make some money, as long as you can keep your costs under control.”
“Other than the license, fuel is my only other cost and I can keep that down too, unless the weather is horrible.”
I had also made sure to find oars that fit my boat. It had come fitted with a spot for them, but I’d never had more than a backup paddle in my boat until recently. I was finding rowing down the Crystal River in the early mornings to be good exercise, especially before the cloud of mosquitos descended on the brackish areas and ate me alive.
“I don’t think we can promise to just buy from one source,” Mister Fowler told me.
“That’s okay,” I told him. “I’m actually going to talk to a few places in the off chance I have more than any one restaurant wants or needs. I’ll catch what’s in season, and what people want the most of, and try to fill any special requests as I can.”
“Give me this a sec,” Carly said, sliding my notebook to her side of the table, where she began scribbling.
“What you did for Carly and her parents, that was a brave thing.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “It was really no big deal.”
“Taking on armed robbers? That’s a big deal,” he told me quietly.
“I was probably being stupid, but I’m glad I was able to help. They’d already hurt Carly by smacking her around. I just wanted them to stop, so I stopped them.”
“Yeah, that one guy… his family has always been in trouble, but he’s got a good kid. You should meet him sometime.”
“That Ramon kid?”
“Yeah, that’s him. His father’s name escapes me at the moment, my brain seems to hold less and less as the years go on. Rumor is he’s been connected to some bad things, and even worse people.”
“I hear ya, yeah. I met Ramon briefly. He thanked me for that, but it has to be hard… to be thankful that your dad is locked up and it’s his third strike?”
“Yeah, poor kid. He’ll be eighteen next year.”
“So what do you think?” I asked him.
“You bring your catch in by 9pm, I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise to buy all your fish, but it looks like our ladies are hatching plots and making deals on their own.”
Carly looked over at me sideways, a sly grin on her face as Mrs. Fowler, Dawn, leaned in so they could whisper over their wine glasses.
“They look like they are conspiring to do something,” I said, even though I was sitting right next to her.
“You ever been married?” he asked me suddenly.
“No.”
“All ladies conspire, but it’s not always nefarious,” Brandon said, making his wife sit up and look at him.
“Good save,” Mrs. Fowler told him.
“I have to walk through the kitchen and check on something. Want to come?”
“Sure,” I said.
Three restaurants would buy from me. I had the boat, I had the tackle, but I had almost no experience and no way to deliver things. Both Franklin and Carly had offered to let me borrow a truck from time to time, but that didn’t sit right with me. I was rebuilding my life from rock bottom. I had some cash left after paying all the licensing and buying parts for my boat, and I had scavenged a ton of materials from inside the warehouse, and what I couldn’t find there, I’d swapped, bought, or traded for. Franklin had gone to the Copart auction and bought a dozen hulls and had them delivered to the yard, and I’d kept busy going back to what I’d started doing: fixing what could be fixed, stripping what couldn’t. Making complete boats where I could and then selling them.
Still, the work there was slowing down. Franklin and I had talked about it, and he insisted I could continue to stay in my little boat as long as I kept an eye on things. He’d gone ahead and planned and booked his tickets for his missionary experience and was leaving in a week, so I had about that long to do odd jobs for him, and then I was going to be on my own for a while. That was why when I was sitting off the end of his dock with a pole in the water for my supper, I was surfing Craigslist on my phone. I pulled my line in and called the number on the listing.
It was an old cube van, what some people would call a box truck. I’d already had a chauffeur's endorsement from my old job and carried that over to Florida, so I could drive commercial vehicles while doing work. This one wasn’t over the weight limit that would make me need a CDL. The price… It was expensive, but for what it was, it wasn’t, and I could work on it which made it priceless. I called Franklin right away, and he laughed when I asked him if I got it could I work on it there and park it in the lot somewhere. I should have known better, but it felt right asking first. He literally said me casa su casa.
I got on my bike and half an hour later I was on the outskirts of town. The van had been parked at the end of the Walmart parking lot. I walked around it and saw the DOT lettering had been faded from the sun and at one point this had belonged to a plumber, as the shiny parts of the box were the spots where detail lettering had been removed before the sale. I called the number on the listing. When a man answered, I asked about the truck and told him I was there looking at it.
It took him half an hour to show up, and by this time my stomach was growling. We walked around the truck, and I ignored him when he tried to tell me what a great de
al it was. He fired it up, and black smoke erupted. I let him wear himself out, then I went to work. I pointed out some of the visible problems with it, how I would probably have to get it re-certified for emissions, and it needed a ton of work. In the end, I bought it for half of his asking price. I threw my bike in the back and headed back to the warehouse.
I had already checked out what the price of insurance was online. I could afford it for six months if I made no money. Things were falling into place way faster and easier than they should.
“That’s one big damned truck,” Irish John said the next day as he looked at my new acquisition.
“It is,” I agreed.
“You could fit Irish John’s boat in ‘da back!”
“Not quite, but pretty close. Irish John, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Yes?” he said after he finished his walk around.
“Would you show me some more spots for fishing? Just till I get the hang of it?” I asked.
“Yes, I ‘tink so. I might even come with. You work for me, but take all da moneys. You have fishing license that covers boat, so FWC can shit in a hat when it comes to old Irish John.”
“You really want to stick it to them, don’t you?” I asked him, grinning.
“They ‘tink they understand conservation. Irish John live by the sea his whole life. I understand ebb and flow of life as good as any of ’dem. ‘Dey want fancy moneys for regulations.”
“True, but I have to work within their system,” I told him softly.
“So how long you do this ’ting?” One hand gestured to the box truck back to the boat.
“I want to give it a try. With Franklin being gone for a month or more, I don’t have a lot of choice.” I wiped my brow.
“Even if you make no money, you will not starve.”
“No, that’s true, and I’ve been practicing with the cast net like you showed me. I was already decent with it from mullet fishing.”
“What do you have for keeping ‘da fish fresh?” he asked.
“Honestly? I’ve got some large coolers I garbage picked. They’re the big ones, the huge white ones. I washed them out really good, soaked them in a bleach solution, and sat them out in the sun.”
“How many?”
“Three so far. If I have someone else in the boat, it’s going to depend…”
“Three,” he said, one hand scratching his bristled chin.
Irish hadn’t shaved since the time he’d stayed with me overnight to go to church the next day. It was his form of rebellion. I thought he was growing his beard out again because he thought it would make him less attractive to Miss Josephine.
“Where you going to get ice, big dummy?”
“The marina where the commercial guys go. They sell it by the pound.”
“‘Dis is true. Now, you have gear?”
“You know I do,” I told him, grinning.
“You have extra rope, anchor lines?”
“You want to go fishing with me today, John? Maybe pull in some snappers? See if we can find us a big grouper?”
“You have no hoist; a big grouper would make no sense. Babies, yes, not big ones. Not legal on gulf anyway.”
“You promised to show me some fishing spots,” I said, knowing I had him half won.
“Yes, let’s see if you are as much of a dummy asshole as when I met you months ago.” John turned and walked to the docks. “What you name boat?”
“Something you’ll like,” I called, then made sure the gate and everything was locked up before jogging to the boat and getting in.
“You named it the Dummy Asshole,” Irish said with a laugh, pointing at the hand-painted name on the side.
I paid for the ice at the marina, topped off my two fuel tanks, and then headed out. I had mounted a small console and wired four deep cycle batteries in a series so they worked as one large battery. For now, I would plug in and keep it charged, because what I had on my little motor wouldn’t do it. I had an idea about solar, but that would be for someday, after I replaced the canopy. For now, everything was working. Irish sat in front at first, but got curious and came back, dodging the shifting coolers half-full of ice, to sit near me. The boat couldn’t come to plane with the weight and under-powered motor, but it didn’t ride straight up in the front end when John’s minimal weight plopped down next to me.
“Fish finder, GPS, Shortwave Radio … is ’dat a plotter?” he asked.
“Hell, I don’t know. I know it’s a GPS unit I pulled off an old cigarette boat hull when I first moved into Franklin’s.”
He reached over the steering wheel and hit some buttons. A ton of waypoints showed up, and he read them over and then cleared them out.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked him.
“Never you mind, ‘dat cigarette boat belonged to a bad man. Shame on Franklin for forgetting to clear this out.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Is drop-off points for smuggler drug man.”
“Oh, yeah, we don’t want anything to do with that,” I told him seriously.
The hull itself had been half sunk according to Franklin, and the motor was what he had wanted out of it to put in a newer one. It hadn’t been horrible to do the transfer with the forklift and some ingenuity. Boats were a learning experience for me still, but you turned one wrench, you turned them all, and with an experienced guy like Franklin around, I was able to adapt as needed or have somebody there to answer questions if I didn’t know myself.
“Now ‘dis is new. Now, stop here,” he told me, as we rounded a small curve in the large river.
“Why?” I asked him.
“You got the buckets, get you some water in them,” he told me.
I killed the motor and remembered his home-built sea anchor and grinned, but I scooped a bucket more than half-full of water. Irish got a cast net out, using both hands and his teeth to separate it how he wanted it, throwing one portion of the net over his shoulder. Then he twisted, and when he spun in the opposite direction, he moved with a grace I couldn’t have believed. I had seen him do it a dozen times now, but what he did took practice that I just hadn’t been able to put in enough time to perfect.
The net opened into a perfect circle ten feet across and hit the water. After letting it sink, he started retrieving it slowly, then faster at the end. I pushed the bucket up his direction, over top one of the coolers. I thought of them as shad, but according to the FWC paperwork, they were called Atlantic shad; not quite the same thing. Irish had gotten at least a couple dozen, if not more, ranging in size from a few inches to the width of my open hand. He dumped them in the bucket, picking at the net to get it ready for another throw, then he started rolling it up instead.
“We have enough I ‘tink, unless you want to be gone all day. Irish John doesn’t think we have enough ice to be gone all day.”
“I’ll go with whatever you think,” I told him.
“Mark ‘dis in your GPS,” he told me. “‘Dis area is good for bait. See, corner there? Gets shallow and water is warmer. Not far from drop off in river and more cover. Little fishes come up here to warm up, eat and get food. You throw net on ‘dem and ‘den you use them to catch bigger fish.”
I nodded, playing with the GPS until I found how to make the mark, knowing I was also doing my best to memorize his words as well as the terrain around us. I could see the silver flashes as bait fish darted through the water in schools, the way the mullet had during their run. Irish caught the last couple fish that hadn’t fell into the bucket and put them in the water, and we headed back out.
I got out of the shipping lane when we reached the mouth of the river into the Gulf. Off to our north was the coal and nuclear plant a couple miles away, the steam from it mixing with the light clouds of the bright day. Irish indicated for me to kill the motor and I reached back and hit the kill switch.
“‘Dis is my favorite spot; they say redfish is reef fish. Two fish per person with commercial license.” Irish pulled a rod
out of the holder I had made and welded to the side.
I marked the spot on the GPS and called it ‘Reds’ and got my own rod. I had gotten used to using the different style hooks that the Florida and saltwater regulations warranted. Still, it made it a little more difficult than I was used to to put the bait fish on it. I dropped my line over the side, letting the weight pull the swimming baitfish down. Irish did the same. It wasn’t long and he was jerking his rod upwards, his reel whining as a fish took off.
“Is a good one,” he said, non-committal.
He played it out like I would have played out a salmon, letting the fish tire itself. I put my rod in a holder and got my net. When the fish splashed the surface of the water, I grinned. It wasn’t a redfish, but if I wasn’t mistaken it was a grouper. I netted it and pulled it in.
“Scamp?” I asked.
“Yes, is good eating. Can have up to four fish each, though some grouper is only two of a species with four grouper still ‘da limit.”
“Yeah, that’s confusing, but I laminated the guidelines and have it in my console here, along with my license stuff.”
“Good, you better, because ‘da stupid dummy assholes are coming this way,” he said, nodding. I was about to ask who when my rod tip bent over, and I pulled it out and set the hook.
Irish laughed and opened a cooler, then unhooked his fish and heaved it in. It was almost three feet long, if I had to guess, and the cords in his arms stood out as he schlepped it in and then pushed the ice around, so it was halfway covered. I kept reeling, feeling the weight at the end of the line fighting me. I looked up for a moment and saw a familiar boat headed our way. I couldn’t help it, I laughed as the FWC closed the distance between us.
Chapter Eleven
“This is amazing,” Carly said.
We were seated across from each other at the restaurant.
“I have no complaints,” I said, digging into the food.
“I mean, you caught this,” she said, pointing to her fillets that had been deep fried to perfection.
