Three days had passed since he’d arrived in Naknek. After the officious Mr. Goss left, Mr. Scorden had seated him again at the office and said, “Now, sir. Whatever you expected, it will be several days before you can see fish being processed. I’ve spoken to my manager in Ketchikan who has spoken to the owners in Seattle, and it’s agreed that you are here as our guest. Clearly the Japanese market has become of interest to my company. But you see that I’m busy and it’s not convenient that I entertain you. I’ll write down the meal times. You are free to see what you wish, but don’t interfere with the work or the machinery. Understood?”
And then they had left him alone, free to observe as he chose. After he’d tired of watching workers prepare the machinery (bowing to one mechanic, who in the shower room had accepted his American five dollar bill to hold against the outcome of the boxing fight) he wandered back to the waterside. But now all of the fishing boats had been launched and the dock was empty. Without work of his own, Kiyoshi began to feel restless.
One day Swede-san, as Kiyoshi now called him routinely, arranged for him to ride with a company truck into the village. He walked among the few wooden buildings—at first with the purpose of discovery and then because there was nothing else to do until the driver had finished his business. In the buildings that were stores he inspected the goods on all the shelves while glancing at the customers. Some appeared to be actual Eskimos, to judge by their dark skin and Asian eyes—the first he’d seen outside photographs. If people stared at him he nodded back, controlling his impulse to bow. Then, in a bar that smelled of stale beer, it was so dark that nobody paid him any attention and he could watch how ordinary Americans behaved. He even eavesdropped on their conversations. One particularly strange exchange caught his attention, although its meaning escaped him. One man had said, “What about your brothers up in Dillingham, buddy? We’re together with this new union. If you guys down here joined us and stayed dry next week, you think the canneries wouldn’t give in? Pay what those fish we catch out there are worth?”
And the man listening had replied, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” They drank in silence and gave Kiyoshi no further clues as to their meaning.
After two hours of wandering, however, he knew every muddy path off the single paved road. All most interesting, although not the vital America of tall buildings and well-dressed people and bold abstract paintings that he so yearned to see. He was ready to go when they at last returned through the wilderness to the processing compound.
Thus, at dinner when Swede-san suggested that he might like to travel out on the water aboard a collection vessel, Kiyoshi was only too happy to agree. And so this early morning, still sleepy, he hurried from the bunkhouse along the boardwalks that had been built over tundra to the paved ramp and down to the water. He passed no one until he reached the docks. There, people strode purposefully and he needed to step aside for vehicles.
The only vessel at the pier was more like a huge box than a ship, ugly at best, at worst unseaworthy. Its rails and housing revealed old wood painted in some places and scuffed bare in others. The deck lay far below the top of the pier, to be reached only by a slimy metal ladder. This surely could not be the boat he was to stay aboard for two days! He stopped one of the workers who appeared to have some authority. He pulled himself together and spoke carefully: “Please, I am wishing to find collection vessel Evelyn K.”
“You’re looking at her.”
“It’s okay,” a man called up from a scuffed cabin above the deck. “He’s expected. Not going to blow us up, far as I can tell. Just see he gets his hands on the ladder, then toss over his bag there.”
Kiyoshi decided this was, after all, part of the adventure. Holding himself erect so as not to appear vulnerable, he gripped the slippery metal rungs and began to descend carefully without looking down. Below the pier boards, the pilings were a mossy green peppered with white barnacles. All of it smelled of sea rot. Thank Swede-san for his heavy shoes with soles of rubber tread. The busy manager had looked out for him after all.
Suddenly his foot stepped down into air. He steadied himself back on the final rung. Below him lay a gap of several feet to the vessel’s rail. Kiyoshi felt his eyes widen as he hesitated, one leg waving free.
“Jump over, we’ll catch you,” said a gruff voice. Kiyoshi looked down at a face framed by black hair and black beard, a true American savage. The man stood on the rail with a hand reaching out close to Kiyoshi’s leg. American version of the Kiyomizu-dera gorge! he thought with sudden fear. But feeling all eyes watching, with a bold “Hai!” he loosed his hold on the ladder.
Hands caught him firmly and helped him over the rail onto the deck. “Well good for you,” the man laughed. “Thought for a minute we was going to need a cargo net!”
“Hai. Thank you!” Kiyoshi panted.
“No problem. Skipper’s up that short ladder in the wheelhouse. Can you make it?”
“Hai, hai, thank you!” He straightened himself to stride across the deck and gripped the second ladder firmly, although with trembling hands.
“Japs not so tough I guess when they don’t have a gun in your face,” said a voice behind him.
“War’s over, leave it alone,” said the gruff man who had caught him. “Didn’t he let go and drop down when I told him?”
“Sounds like you never saw Pacific duty.”
“Whatever, man.”
At the top of the second ladder Kiyoshi placed his feet on the deck with assurance and faced a robust man of about fifty who was sweeping with a broom. He bowed slightly. “You will please direct me to captain, sir.”
“You’re looking at him. They said you’d be down. What’s your name?”
Kiyoshi withdrew the business card he’d placed in his shirt pocket. Before he realized, slime that covered his fingers from the ladder smudged it. He held the card, suddenly uncertain what to do.
“Give it here, then.” The captain took it with hands shockingly blackened by dirt or perhaps grease. “Mister what? Tee-surafuny?” Kiyoshi pronounced it correctly for him. “Right. Going to ride along for a couple of days, eh? Understand you’re not to get in the way. I’ll show you a corner in the wheelhouse where you can stand.”
Aboard either of his company’s vessels, the captain or any crewman would have stumbled over themselves to provide him with at least a comfortable chair. And no captain would be discovered with hands so stained from common labor. So. America.
From the window alongside his post, wedged between the chart table and the bulkhead, he looked straight out at the barnacle-encrusted pilings. Only by pressing close against the window could he see down to the vessel’s rail and part of a deck where the men prepared for sea.
Despite the warning that the vessel would leave soon, no one seemed in a hurry. He watched whatever activity occurred in the wheelhouse, although this was sporadic at best, since even the captain appeared to be occupied elsewhere. Well. He watched the vessel slowly rise against the pilings. Pilings in Japan were no different than these, but such tides! Like everything else in America, tides were bigger. He began to grow hungry. Best forget this, and remain obediently where he’d been told to stay.
More than two hours passed. Finally, “Oh shit, you had breakfast?” the captain demanded, facing him for the first time since he’d come aboard. “Forgot about you. Follow me.” He was led down enclosed stairs to a cramped room with a single, long table where the air smelled unpleasantly of cooking grease and soap. One crewman sat drinking from a mug. The captain gestured for Kiyoshi to sit on the bench at the other end of the table and snapped, “See this man here gets something to eat. He’s going to ride with us.” And the captain was gone.
The crewman—it was the one who had made the hostile remark when he’d come aboard—regarded Kiyoshi for a time. At length he went into a small galley, returned with two pieces of soft white bread and an open jar of brown stuff labeled “peanut butter,” and slapped them down. “Speak any English?” He took a dinner
knife from a drawer and pushed it over. “Guess you people know how to use one of these—though it ain’t as sharp as you’re used to. Coffee’s over in that pot. Cream in that can beside it. If that’s what you people drink.”
Kiyoshi fought to control his rising anger. “Thank you.” But he left the food untouched, despite the feeling of hunger gnawing at his stomach. My ancestors, it roiled in his mind, were samurai, while yours were at best common laborers. A few years ago, with an arrogant American like you as my prisoner . . .
“Thank you,” he repeated in order to keep his perspective on the present. “I am not hungry.”
“Yeah. Right.” The two men eyed each other, neither willing to look away.
“Well, hey, there’s my man!” exclaimed a gruff voice at the doorway. It was the black-bearded crewman who had told this man to “leave it alone.” Kiyoshi leapt to his feet, relieved, bumping his shins against the bench.
“Sit, man.” The newcomer turned to his crewmate. “Seen to feeding our guy?”
“If you want to call it that, Vic. But I guess he’s particular about not getting fish heads and rice.”
“Ease off, Spike.” Vic poured two mugs of coffee, came over, and pushed one toward Kiyoshi. “Riding with us, eh?”
“Hai! Yes. Coming on this vessel for . . . observation of the fishing.” He gripped the handle of the mug, put its hot rim to his lips, and drank, even though the liquid burned.
“Then we’d best find you a bunk to throw your gear,” Vic continued. “Going to be a busy day once we get started. You don’t like peanut butter?” In answer Kiyoshi knifed a glob of the brown paste from the jar, spread it across the bread, and took a bite. He had never eaten it before. The man named Spike shrugged and left.
“From Japan, eh?” Jimmy continued. Kiyoshi nodded. The peanut butter stuck in his mouth, but he managed to say: “Yes. Japan. Coming to America first time.”
“Pretty different here, eh?”
“Americans are . . . different. Hai.”
17
FISH PICKERS
At high slack on Monday in 3:00 a.m. twilight, the high-powered company crafts they called “monkey boats” prepared to tow the fishing vessels in strings to the grounds. Buck Henry had checked the destination of each available tow and decided which flats of the Bay he’d work. Men in the twelve fishing boats of the tow secured their lines: bow to the stern of the double-ender ahead of them, a wrap around their mast to absorb the strain, then stern to the next bow tugging behind. With a throb of its diesel engine the monkey boat started its procession from the pier. Rope by rope the fishing boats’ towlines tautened while their hemp fibers stretched and squeaked under the pull.
Their thirty-foot double-ender was third in line, close enough to the monkey’s belch to blow exhaust into their faces and leave them coughing. “Next week we’ll make sure to tie further down the damn row,” grumbled Buck Henry.
“You got it,” muttered Jones. “If we can.” But he wasn’t unhappy. It was all part of the action he remembered from times past when there was no war and the only blood to be spilled came from the fish. As for the boats that might stay dry as part of that new runaway union’s strike . . . well, that was their business.
Their row of boats moved up the Naknek River toward the bay. Other tows pushed out from the piers of other cannery settlements along the way. Shouts rang from man to man across the water in English, Norwegian, Italian, or who-knows-what. Men aboard the boats guarding their towline or stowing for the work ahead looked up to laugh and joke back.
The monkey boat’s deckhand stood by its stern and drank from a mug of coffee as he idly watched the fishermen. Dumbass, thought Jones without heat. To merely pull the rest of us around and then to hustle piles of dead fish—never live ones.
“You’ll mebbe stay dry,” he muttered. “But you won’t be in the real part of it.”
“Say what, boy?”
“Nothing, Dad.”
Before they had traversed the length of the river and passed the right-hand shore where low, weathered roofs and the little Russian church of Naknek rose above the scrub, the tide had begun to ebb. It pulled them out. When they entered the open Bay, the towboat headed north into the flow. Swells passed from boat to boat, creaking their sternpost and slapping bursts of spray into their faces.
Jones licked the salty water from his lips. He’d forgotten, trolling alone, that fishing in company had its good points. Not like soldiers stuffed butt-to-butt and no relief. Adele, at home, was a fine girl, and he’d done right to marry her. But not much company anymore when closures or bad weather kept him at home. She wasn’t near as lively as when they’d courted just five years ago. Let the baby’s death get further behind them and then see. He himself wasn’t so good at making people laugh if they weren’t already prepared to have a good time. Seen too much killing maybe. In truth, even as a kid, he’d enjoyed having tricks played on him and would return them with satisfaction, even glee, but he was never much of an outright laugher himself. Adele would have to restore the laughs. When she was ready again. Whenever she’d stop crying the minute she stopped the constant, almost hysterical, chatter. No wonder the company of men suited him best.
He watched his dad. Also serious, not much of a laugher either, unless Mom started it and pulled him along. Bones wide and tough. Hands big enough to grip anything. More squint lines around his eyes than a few years before, but nothing had changed the clear cool stare of those eyes. Nothing changed there. Hair full and curling from want of a trim—since it looked like mother hadn’t corralled him to sit for her scissors recently—but graying. Didn’t like that. Call him “the old man” for fun, but not to his face.
Oh shit. Don’t let things change.
As if in reply, straight in his face, an engine boat their own size eased alongside the tow, and Gus Rosvic himself shouted over, “Hey man!” Gus’s dad stood grinning at them from the little enclosed wheelhouse while Gus hefted a gillnet on deck and grinned even worse. “Need an extra push, man?” From inside, John Rosvic senior pushed a throttle. With a sputter, white smoke puffed from their exhaust pipe astern. The engine boat gunned ahead, then drifted back alongside.
“Just let that put-put of yours foul and you’ll be on the sands,” called Jones in equal good cheer. If only Gus had come along when they were free of the tow and in control under sail! “Let that ol’ engine stink up your day? Of course, only an expert can do it under canvas.”
“Dinosaur, man. Don’t you know that’s what a sailboat is here, now the law’s changed? Don’t have to fish Bristol Bay under sail no more. Finally. Vets like me bucked the cannery bosses. Put enough screws on the bureaucrats in Washington to change the fuckin’ law. Where were you?”
“Sail suits me fine. No need to change what a man’s good enough to do by himself.”
“Yeah? And what about this new union? Time we stopped jerkin’ off the cannery bosses in Seattle. You fought the war. Now you’re going back to taking their shit?”
John called sharply that they needed to go. Gus shrugged. “Later, man. See you around!” And with engine in gear the Rosvics’ boat roared away.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Buck Henry. “Law’s been changed, and here we are still being towed and jerked around.”
“Wait till we’ve squared our fish aboard, and there’s the Rosvics with nets still in the water while they worry over oil pan slop or some leaky carburetor.”
“Wonder how much that new boat of Rosvic’s cost him?”
“Two years of fishing, likely. We settle free at end of season.” Jones considered, then added, “Okay. Gus told me. Seven thousand five hundred.”
“I figured she didn’t come cheap. Even got a little cabin aft there to keep off the rain while you sleep warm.” Jones found no answer for that one. At least they had no discussions or disagreements about a new union or about commies taking over. But now that the authorities had finally caved to allow engines after all the years of making sail compulsory, everyt
hing would change. He’d need to change with it or get out. Strange that he should be the one resisting rather than the old man.
The monkey boat towed them to the traditional Salmon Flats in north Kvichak Bay, in sight of Copenhagen Creek off the west bank. One by one the boats freed themselves from the towline. Some put out oars to maneuver for position, while the men on others broke out their sail at once.
“Your call,” said Jones to his father. Buck Henry immediately turned alert, his yearning for motor power forgotten.
“Mud flats of Halfmoon Bay are too close from here. We should set further east.” He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Ha, boy. What else we got them paddles for?”
“You got it.” In good humor Jones unlashed two of the oars provided them, fitted their thick shafts into the oarlocks, and bent their blades into the water. He stood with legs braced and pushed with arms and back, feeling the water’s resistance. Good clean feel. His muscles locked into place stroke by stroke. The heavy wooden bow cut through the rips of an increasing ebb, driven alone by Jones Henry, man and fisherman on top of it all.
A few hours later, fish had entered the Kvichak system on the flood and Buck and Jones Henry were in the thick of it. Six-pound sockeyes stormed their gillnet. A sparse run had been predicted for 1951, but the water around them sometimes boiled with fish so packed that the glistening bodies broke the surface. So much for know-nothing biologists at their desks. For good or bad, before they’d finished picking fish from one shackle of net filled on the flood and brought aboard, the other shackle left to soak had filled again. No rest possible here.
Regulations allowed each boat only nine hundred feet of gillnet—or one hundred fifty fathoms, in the biologist fancy-talk that Jones scorned. Stretching astern with corks holding it to the surface every twenty-five fathoms, as required by law, it didn’t seem to Jones like that much net—except when it snagged with that of another boat. He hadn’t remembered! Now, fish snouts clogged into the five and one-half inch spread of the gillnet meshes. He judged it likely that at any given moment he and his dad were pulling a hundred and fifty-some pounds of flapping sockeyes up from the sea and lumping them over the roller. Just as good the fish-diddlers hadn’t regulated a longer net.
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