Death in the Polka Dot Shoes

by Marlin Fitzwater

  It’s warming up now. Nearly every day in the fall starts out cold, but the pace of activity lets you ignore it. It’s also the most beautiful time; usually a red and clear sky frame the boat like a Hudson River painting, and it’s easy to be romantic about your life. Although few watermen would use that word. But I’ve heard the wives talk about their men and the water in almost romantic tones. They complain often that their husbands don’t like going to parties, or don’t want to attend church because of the congregation. The wives often say, “They only feel comfortable on the water.” I think that’s why so many of the watermen are uncomfortable with me; they don’t understand how I could crab in the morning, and kiss ass, as they say, with clients in the afternoon.

  But today, it’s starting to warm up and the wind is picking up and raising waves across the water. The red has turned to yellow like maple leaves in October. And the boat moves around the sun’s glow on the water, like a puppet on a string. As Vinnie pushes the pots over the side, the gulls gather in timeless fashion, as they have chased fishing boats for their waste since before Christ.

  “It’s a great morning,” Vinnie said above the engine. “Not many crabs today though.”

  “They’ve gone deep,” I said, “beginning to bury themselves in the mud for winter.”

  “The State is going to take away the females,” Vinnie said. “Then we won’t have any catch in the fall.”

  “Maybe we’ll get a Federal bailout,” I ventured.

  “Are you kidding?” Vinnie said. “Never happen. They just give orders, not money. First, they’ll say no female crabs after 11:00 a.m., or only two baskets a day. Then they’ll say none at all. And most of them damn bureaucrats have never been on the water, let alone on a working crab boat.”

  “You’re probably right,” I allowed.

  “Hell,” Vinnie said, “if the politicians had any balls they would clean up the chickenshit on the eastern shore. That’s what’s killing the crabs. Chicken producers.”

  Vinnie liked to get philosophical about crabbing, especially after a couple hours on the water, when the roar of the engine blots out meaningful discourse, and becomes rhythmic background music for your thoughts. No response is wanted or expected. He just talks his way through 300 pots and expounds with ideas you would never hear on the dock.

  “Watermen get no respect,” he says. “But we do all right. I remember once we had a private plane take us to Atlantic City and a limo to pick us up. The Trump helo was nearby, no doubt having just delivered the owner of Trump’s Taj Mahal. That’s pretty good, don’t you think.”

  After about three hours, I’m beginning to feel the pull of the water. I feel a part of the boat; its power and durability are my strength. I’m in control. My boat. My engine. God’s crabs. Guaranteed income. Two miles from land and all the tentacles of society can’t touch me. On the water, I am free.

  The day was going well, at least in the sense that the engine was smooth, no storm warnings, and the winds were calm. Vinnie seemed in good spirits and I never had a moment to worry about Martha.

  “Neddie,” Vinnie said, “have you figured out what to do with your life yet?”

  “No,” I mumbled.

  “You need a wife,” Vinnie said. “Someone to provide a steady pattern to your life, a friend who will always have your back, someone to share things with, and a little extra income.”

  “Thanks, Vin,” I said.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he droned. Vinnie was in his groove now. Talking to the hum of the engine, not saying anything he would remember an hour later. But in full throat.

  “Look at me,” he said. “I started on the water with my dad, working as a deck hand and water boy on the skipjacks over on Tilghman Island, dredging for oysters. Boy, I thought that was the cat’s meow until my arms started aching all night, and my legs would cramp up. I remember screaming in the dark with those leg cramps. Finally my dad came in and told me to get out of bed now. ‘Now,’ he screamed. ‘Get out of bed and straighten those legs out. Kid, if you can’t handle the work, get off the boat.’”

  “I thought about that, and I figured maybe my dad was right. So I saw an ad in the paper for marine police and I applied for the job. They said I was young, but had the right experience, and they could teach me to be a cop. I ended up spending nearly three decades chasing watermen, from one end of this Bay to the other. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair.”

  “One time I came upon this Trumpy wooden yacht, with varnished teak all around, that looked stuck on a sand bar. I looked at the charts, and sure enough, the shallows were out there. So I moved my boat as close as I could get without running aground and yelled for the Captain. I could hear people talking. Course you know how the water carries voices. Then I see a face. And then this guy emerges and when the door opens I hear all kinds of hell. Some woman is screaming at him about being stupid and having a pecker for a brain, and bingo, she stumbles out behind him, as naked as a jaybird. She had big ole boobs hanging down and she didn’t care if I saw them. She was going to finish her tirade. Then the Captain starts yelling for her to get back inside. She turns and goes back inside. But she was mad and she never tried to cover up nothing. I never told Velma about that episode.

  “I remember back in the thirties. Oystering was the big thing on the Bay. In the beginning it was mostly hand tongers. A couple of guys in a small boat could row out from shore, find an oyster bed, stand up in their boat with a sixteen-foot hand tong, which is really just a couple of huge forks that grab up the oysters, and they could make a living. That’s why so many black folks took to oysters. They left the tobacco plantations and went to the water.

  “Then the big sailboats, the skipjacks, could dredge up huge quantities of oysters. At one time we had seven Oyster Houses around here to shuck the oysters and can them for sale. The old Leatherbury Oyster House is still here in Shady Side. And then the power boats came along with their hydraulic patent tongs, and replaced the skipjacks. Nearly cleaned out the oysters. Ironically, those old hand tongers were good conservationists because they were so inefficient.

  “I arrested a lot of them power dredgers, and I was glad to do it. Those boats could make six hundred to a thousand dollars a day, and take all the oysters off a bed. Nothing left for the hand tongers.

  “Another thing that happened is the State let some of those boys lease up to thirty acres of underground oyster beds. Then the watermen would lease open spots close to shore, dump the oysters from a good bed into the empty spot, and hold them till the prices went up. And the State sanctioned the whole business.”

  “Vinnie,” I said, “you’re a walking history book.”

  “No Neddie,” he said, “I just been around a long time. And I still like being on the water.”

  “How many more pots do we have?” I asked.

  “Getting tired?”

  “A little.”

  “We probably have fifty pots to go,” Vinnie said. “But we may run out of bait before we finish.”

  “Let’s try to finish, anyway,” I said.

  Vinnie didn’t mind. He just kept on working and talking.

  “Now crabbing is on the way out, for the same reason as oysters,” Vinnie said. “Back in the thirties, crabs weren’t too popular. The main market was for soft crabs. So like always happens, the watermen got more efficient. They came up with seine nets, fifty or sixty feet long, and would drag them along the shore scooping up soft shells by the thousands. Man, it was like mowing your lawn. So they were outlawed, been forty or fifty years now.

  “I remember once I got a call from a waterman who said he caught three guys from Mayo stealing oysters from his lease ground. I raced down there and the waterman had all three of them tied up, and he was holding a shotgun on em. I took em in to the jail, and the judge said he would hear the case that night. The judge started about eight o’clock in that little jail over by Gaylesville, not more than ten feet square, with a cell in the basement and the cour
troom upstairs. All three wives showed up and asked to testify. All three of them said their husbands couldn’t have done it because they were in bed making love during that time. The judge could hardly contain himself by this remarkable coincidence. He said he flat out didn’t believe it and fined them each fifty dollars. Later, one of them Mayo boys told me it was the most expensive sex he ever had.

  “These crab pots really started the decline of crabbin. We used to catch them one at a time. Now it’s a half dozen per pot. I feel a little guilty every day we’re out here. But I know the real villains are those chickenshiters over at Cambridge, and all these new houses around here with yards full of fertilizer. The runoff kills the sea grasses. No more crabs. Now we’re accused of over crabbin.

  “Now don’t get too worked up Vin,” I said, my voice straining over the engine. “We are always looking for better, faster, cheaper ways to catch more crabs. We’re all guilty.” After pulling 200 pots, my pants and shirt were soaked with sweat. Inside the rubber waders, the sweat starts pouring early in the morning. Now I’m itching everywhere, and as soon as we stop working I’ll be cold. It’s about now that the law books seem welcome, and I’m looking for reasons to go home.

  I reached for the two-way radio hanging by its cord over my head, and punched in the special channel for private boats. “Let’s see what the other boys are doing,” I said.

  Captain Bloom’s voice crackled on the line. “I’m taken it in Neddie,” he said. “Not enough crabs out here today.”

  I figured he was telling the truth because my catch wasn’t very good either. Sometimes one crab per pot. Or a lot of pots with crabs too small to keep. State says they have to be a hand wide across the back. One of the good things about having a retired water policeman on board is he knows the law, and he’s not always urging me to break it.

  Captain Bloom is pretty straight. Some of the guys will always say they’re going in for lack of crabs, but the real reason is they have their limit, and they want to beat everyone else to market. If we’re all selling to the same restaurant, first boats off the water get the best prices.

  I figure I’ll ask the Captain if he has any excess bait. If he offers me some, and brings his boat over, I can see if he has empty bushel baskets. If he says he’s empty and heads for home, I know he’s probably full. Captain Bloom is a good ole boy, but he’s competitive, just like the rest of us.

  “I’ve known Bloomie for 20 years,” Vinnie says. “Course I don’t think that’s his real name. Never heard that. ‘Bloomie’ has something to do with flowers he gave his girlfriend back in the seventies, but I don’t remember the specifics.”

  Captain Bloom pulled his boat up close to the Martha Claire. “I love that old boat of yours,” he yelled. “Made by Sam Hardin over at Easton. Used to have one myself.”

  “Got any bait?” I yelled.

  “Sure,” he said. “Here’s a bushel.”

  “I’ll pay you for it,” I said.

  “No. No. No,” he said, stretching over the side of his boat. Both boats are at idle, and they rock with the waves. So I have to time my grab for the bucket. Missing a bucket, or knocking it in the water, is a serious matter. Captains don’t mind giving away their remaining bait, but if it’s lost carelessly, they’ll be mad for days. We made the switch, and Bloomie waved, saying something about having a couple other little jobs to do, and turned for home.

  Vinnie checked out the new bait as I headed the boat back to our buoys. “I think we can just about finish the line with this,” Vinnie said.

  I was ready to go home anyway. The crabs were getting smaller and fewer. Basically, we were just baiting pots. It was pretty slow, pretty slow. Then it dawned on me that the change was rather sudden. We were getting five or six crabs per pot, and now nothing.

  “Vin,” I said, “do you think somebody’s stealing our crabs?”

  “Could be, boss,” he said. “Pretty common in this area. Lots of yellow jackets out here in pleasure boats. They pick up one pot for the fun of it, discover a half dozen crabs, and then pick up another five pots till they get a bushel for dinner.”

  “It’s against the law to steal crabs,” he continued. “When I was working the beat, we’d catch a lot of these pleasure boaters, give them a ticket and take away their crabs. They got nothing and I got a free dinner.

  “The worst thing is when one waterman steals from another. It’s pretty tempting if you’re not catching anything, and you see somebody else’s pots are full. In those cases, about all you can do is report it to the State police. But they won’t do anything, and the bad guys will never be caught.”

  “What if I catch them?” I asked.

  “That doesn’t happen much. Most likely you’ll find out days later when somebody gets drunk at the bar and starts bragging about what he did. That’s when the bad guys discover that their boat is sinking, or a ‘mysterious’ fire consumes the boat. Funny how those bilge pumps will malfunction. The cost of raising and repairing your boat makes those stolen crabs pretty expensive.”

  “You mean like what happened to me?”

  “Yeah, did you steal somebody’s crabs?” Vinnie asked with a smile.

  “No,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Diane Sexton said she would be delighted to join me for drinks at the Willard, it cleared my mind quicker and more persistently than three hundred crab pots and the roar of a diesel. It reminded me that I had not been to the city in weeks, and anticipation was a new emotion. I used to drive to Parkers for the day, and regret my having to return to Washington with its traffic, and confusion, and urban threats. I clearly remember the fear of the city, having to turn on my street smarts to worry about muggers, and speeders, and drug use near my house. But now that I live in Parkers, suddenly those threats become exciting. I can’t wait to pull my car up to the front door of the Willard, hand the keys to the valet, and stroll confidently through the golden doors and into the welcoming arms of marble columns and a Persian carpet.

  Washington at night is a sparkling picture, like a cityscape painting with a light affixed to the frame that illuminates the streets. It’s not bustling, like New York or London, but it’s busy; enough people so you know the place is alive, that restaurants and clubs exist in enough quantity to draw people from their apartments, or workers from the suburbs. When I used to work at Simpson, Feldstein and James, leaving the office in the evening always meant a stop by the local bar, or dinner at one of many small restaurants in the heart of town. I’ve always enjoyed dinner alone in a restaurant, with other people nearby who didn’t bother me, but gave me fodder for imagination. I wondered what they did, and listened carefully for snippets of conversation, and examined their clothing to judge their professions. I probably wasn’t right, of course, in those moments of fantasy, but it doesn’t matter. The joy is in the dream, the fascination with others, and alleyways of thought that I was led into.

  Those things don’t happen so much in Parkers, and the homogeneity doesn’t provide so much excitement. We look pretty much alike, in blue jeans and plaid shirts. But the tradeoff is in comfort, in the reassurance that we know each other, and we know the same places. The city always scared me with the knowledge that diners at the next table could be from another city, or axe murderers, or watermen dressing up for a Saturday night.

  The most rewarding parts of Washington are the monuments. Driving to the Willard from Parkers takes you within arms reach of the Nationals baseball stadium, the Capitol dome, down the mall with its wide expanses of grass and inviting reflecting pools, around the Washington Monument, and right up to the back door of the White House. In many ways, the White House and the Bayfront offer the same inspiration. They are home; have been there all my life; and almost never change. I can’t go in the White House, of course, but still it’s familiar, in all my old school books, on the cover of local magazines, the center of Washington social activities.

  There weren’t any cars waiting in the valet zo
ne at the Willard. Must be early. I stepped out of the car, left the front door open while I reached in the backseat to get my sport coat. When I reached to slip it over my shoulders, the valet was there, gave me a light assist, and took my keys. I told him it would probably be a couple hours, not really knowing what to expect.

  It didn’t seem likely that Diane and I would end up in the Jenny Lind suite, a famous honeymoon room in the attic of the hotel. The bed was in front of a large porthole of a window, with the Washington Monument rising, and lit, in the middle of your sight. A wrought iron canopy supported rolls of lace cascading around the bed. I had never actually seen the two thousand dollar a night room, but my fellow lawyers said the view of the monument was like a national phallic symbol that invited achievement of extraordinary proportions. All of that seemed unlikely tonight. But we might stay for dinner, which could take a couple extra hours.

  It seemed that every place in Washington invited comparisons with my new life, a result no doubt of my continuing judgmental review of my situation. When I emerged into the high ceiling expanse of the lobby, I noticed a half dozen people sitting on couches around the room. The huge yellow marble columns seemed like hiding places for settees and guests seeking some furtive spot. But the first thing I noticed was that everyone glanced up at me, took a second glance to confirm that I wasn’t anybody important, and then looked away in disappointment. I used to do that too, wanting to confirm that I was in the presence of power or wealth. But I was out of the habit, and now it seemed slightly ostentatious to exhibit such a motive. I wondered if I stared at people entering a restaurant in Parkers. I don’t think so. I wondered what it means to not have any expectation of being impressed, or surprised, or self important in these situations. I decided it was healthy, and headed for the door of the Round Robin bar.