ALL DUE RESPECT: ISSUE 2
All Due Respect is a
Full Dark City Press publication
Copyright © 2014, Full Dark City Press
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The All Due Respect Crew
Editor: Chris Rhatigan
Associate Editor: Mike Monson
Publisher: Full Dark City Press
Cover Artist: Eric Beetner
Formatting: JW Manus
All Due Respect
Issue No. 2
Table of Contents
Fiction
N.F.G.
by Owen Laukkanen
Decomposition is the Universe Forgetting Itself
by CS DeWildt
Fake
by David Siddall
That Time I Worked for the Feds in Mississippi
by Joseph Rubas
Ice Cold Alibi
by Eric Beetner
God’s Country
by Liam Sweeny
The Gulf
by Scott Adlerberg
Non-fiction
On Arbitrary Writing Decisions: An Interview with Owen Laukkanen
by Chris F. Holm
Dock Talk: How I Came to Write N.F.G.
by Owen Laukkanen
Reviews
The Gutter and the Grave, by Ed McBain
reviewed by David Bishop
Plunder of the Sun, by David Dodge
reviewed by Larry Maddox
Joyland, by Stephen King
reviewed by Steven Belanger
The Twenty-Year Death, by Ariel Winter
reviewed by David Bishop
The Cutie, by Donald Westlake
reviewed by Mike Monson
The Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, ed. by Clare Toohey
reviewed by Chris Rhatigan
Fiction
N.F.G.
By Owen Laukkanen
YOU HEAR STORIES.
There’s not much to do when you’re out on the water. There’s the work, sure, the fishing: long days running gear, cleaning the fish, packing them in ice in the hold. Gear always needs tying and the decks need a wash, and when the Coho are running there’s nothing but hauling and cleaning and packing, a couple hundred fish a day. Guts everywhere, slime and blood. Seagulls by the scores dive bombing the boat.
But there’s downtime, too. Weather days, harbor days. A long run between tacks. You take an early night at anchor, cook a nice meal, spend a few hours in the galley, crowded around the tiny table. You hear stories.
Earl’s spent fifty years on the water. He talks about the old days. The Black Mamba, a drop-dead gorgeous deckhand with a standing invitation to party with Zeppelin wherever they were touring.
“They’d fly her in on a jet,” he tells you, packing his pipe. “Pick her up anywhere, party with her, have her back on the grounds in time for the next halibut opening.”
Earl talks about a harbor day in Prince Rupert, a legendary herring run. Boats tied five and six deep at the fisherman’s wharf, and the skipper had a mind to have a small dinner party.
“Only thing was, he needed potato salad and the stores were all closed,” Earl says. “Rupert had a good three or four peeler bars, back in those days, all of them with kitchens. So we told the skipper we’d run up to the Brass Rail, ask the dancers if they could fix us up a salad.”
He looks around the wheelhouse, gauging his audience. The skipper’s dozing off in the captain’s chair. The owner’s son picks at his fingernails. You’re the only one listening. Doesn’t matter to Earl.
“Girls at the Brass Rail say they can’t help us, but maybe the ladies at the Sundowner will. So we take another cab across town, visit the Sundowner.” He takes a puff of his pipe. “Of course, we all had to get dances.”
“Of course,” you say.
“Sundowner girls have potatoes, but they don’t have any eggs. So we head across the street to the Alibi Room.” He winks at you. “More dances.”
You nod. You drink your coffee. You listen.
“Alibi girls have the eggs, but no mayonnaise. By this point we’re all out of peeler bars, so we head back to the Brass Rail and badger the clientele some more. Finally, one of the girls agrees to take us to her place, let us raid her pantry. We cab her there, cab her back, toss back a couple beers. By the time we get back to the boat, the party’s long over and the food’s all been eaten.”
He puts down his pipe, looks at you, a glint in his eye. “Skipper gave us a hundred bucks to buy potato salad,” he says. “Smallest bill he had. We brought him his salad, and three dollars in change.”
The skipper tells stories, too. He tells about the fishing boat that dragged anchor, top of the Queen Charlottes, loaded with king salmon and headed for the rocks.
“Called in a mayday,” he says. “Soon as they do that, the boat’s up for grabs. Couple enterprising young fellows were anchored nearby, headed over to relieve the stricken boat of its cargo.”
He sips his coffee, stares out the window. “Filled their holds with the fish just as fast as they could. Then they stripped the wheelhouse of everything wasn’t nailed down.”
“And the skipper?” you say. “The guy who owned the boat?”
“Hell, what did he care?” the skipper says. “He had the insurance coming.”
The owner’s son tells his own stories. He’s never been on the water. He’s green as they come. He talks about dry land, Las Vegas, women. A couple drunk girls in a Tofino hotel room. You all look and listen; you’re all envious. He’s young. Tattoos. Gold jewelry. Walks with a swagger.
“Don’t know why he’s so cocky,” Earl mutters. “The kid’s N.F.G.”
N.F.G.
There’s a washdown bucket on deck with a hole in the bottom. A big old garbage can and it leaks everywhere. Most of the time, you don’t notice until the thing’s half filled with water. Then you’re dumping it out and pulling out the spare wasting time, cursing, hoping Earl didn’t see.
One day, Earl brings out a marker. Scrawls in big letters on the side of the bucket. “N.F.G.,” he says. “No fucking good.”
Then he gestures to the owner’s son, farting around in the stern. “N.F.G.,” he says. “Exhibit A.”
The kid’s name is Chad, the owner’s son. He’s never worked on a boat, couldn’t tie a knot if you taught him. Always losing the gaff overboard. He’ll suitcase a king salmon more often than not, miss the head with the hook and put a hole in the belly, the meaty stuff, ruin the fish. Can’t sell a suitcase. A hundred bucks, gone. A greenhorn’s mistake.
You’ve been out for a month now, watching Earl watching Chad, his frustration supersizing. The kid still doesn’t get it, treats it all like a game. Still walks and talks like he’s king of the reef.
“Lot of accidents happen on a boat,” Earl says. “It’s a dangerous place.”
He tells you another story. Some shitty deckhand. Went out on deck for a piss in the dead of the night, fell overboard, vanished. Never heard from again.
“We always wondered,” Earl tells you, castin
g a glance toward Chad. “Maybe the skipper pushed him over on purpose, on account of the kid being such a shit stain. Be a convenient way to get rid of a guy, we always figured.”
Lots of stories on the water. Lots of time to tell them.
You don’t tell many stories. You don’t know many good ones. You needed a job. Your buddy knew a guy. Now you’re here. Now you’re fishing. Now you’re out on this boat, all forty-two feet of her, a hundred miles out at sea. Watching Chad dick around, watching Earl’s temper rise. And the skipper in his stocking feet at the wheel.
You hear other stories, though. Whispers, mostly. You see the dark looks from the other fishermen when you tie up in the harbor. Silences, sideways glances. Muttered words and long stares. You hear whispers.
You hear whispers Earl used to be a captain. Had a bit of a problem. Smoked a little too much green in the wheelhouse, ran his boat on the beach. Failed a drug test, lost the boat. Moved back to the city.
You hear Earl got in with a group of motorcycle enthusiasts, the Devil Dogs. You hear he sold a little weed for them. One night in a bar overlooking the harbor, you hear Earl got sick of selling, bilked the biker boys of their money. Took eighty-two grand and hit the road, Jack.
You hear Earl lived it large for a while. Moved inland, bought a Corvette, found a pretty young girlfriend. You hear the Devil Dogs tracked him down. You hear that Corvette got burned. You hear that girlfriend skipped town on the back of a Harley-Davidson.
You hear Earl hit the road in the other direction.
They say he ducked out in the dead of the night. Beat the Devil Dogs and their baseball bats by about forty-five minutes. Their knives and their guns. They say Earl started running, and he hasn’t stopped since. Hopped this boat in Port Hardy, at the top of the island. Figures the Devil Dogs can’t hurt him a hundred miles out at sea.
They say Earl isn’t even Earl’s real name.
You hear stories. You keep your mouth shut. You just sit there and listen.
Chad suitcases three kings over the next week. Loses two gaffs in the water. You split the cost of the gear among the crew, split the profits, too. The boat gets half of every dollar. The skipper takes a double share of what’s left. You and Earl and Chad get a single.
“Greenhorns get a half share,” Earl tells you. “Every boat I ever worked on before.”
You say nothing. You’re pretty green, too. Maybe you’re thankful the owner’s son is aboard. You could use the extra money, for sure.
Bottom line is, Chad’s costing the crew. Still can’t tie up the boat properly when you come into harbor. Can’t figure out how to haul the gear without getting it tangled. A liability, without question. Hopeless. N.F.G.
Earl tells a story about a guy he used to fish with. The guy’s neighbor sleeps with his wife, so the guy kills the neighbor. Buries him in a woodlot, figures he gets away clean. Only problem is, some rube sees him as he’s driving away. And the guy’s hard to miss. Six feet tall and built like a redwood. Hairy as a grizzly bear. Big bushy beard.
The guy gets arrested. They bring him to trial. The guy’s lawyer tells him shave up, put on this suit. They bring another guy in to stand in the crowd, bearded guy, burly guy. Almost a twin. Put the witness on the stand, ask him, who’d you see driving out of the woodlot?
Witness looks around the courtroom. Points at the gallery, picks out the ringer. Our man walks away, scot-free.
“So how’d they finally catch him?” you ask Earl.
Earl looks at you funny. “Didn’t catch him,” he says. “The guy’s free.”
So you fish. You fill the boat, despite Chad. The salmon are running. You work in the stern, morning to night. You run the gear portside. Chad runs the starboard. Earl’s in the hold, icing the fish. Days of it. Salmon, fish guts and slime. The waves come in sets, slate grey and ominous. You learn to hold your balance. You learn to handle your knife.
You work to exhaustion. There’s no time for stories. You grab a sandwich at dinner, maybe some soup. Crawl into the fo’c’sle for a few hours in your bunk, stagger out before first light and do it over again.
You don’t talk much. The skipper keeps the radio playing; you keep your head down and work. You steal glances across the cockpit at Chad. He’s still struggling with the gear. He still can’t clean a fish.
You cover for him, best you can. Hell, you’re green, too. Anyway, it’s your money. It’s everyone’s money. The faster you fill the boat, the sooner you head for land.
Then one night, Chad falls asleep at the wheel.
You can’t cover for this. You can’t mop up his mistake. It’s an all-night run up the west side of the island, a fifteen-hour steam. You’re in your bunk when it happens, dreaming of palm trees and potato salad. You hear Earl in the wheelhouse. Then Chad. Angry voices. Earl wakes up the skipper. You lie there and listen.
Cardinal sin on a fish boat, falling asleep on wheel watch. Puts the whole crew in danger. Grounds for dismissal.
It’s just not done.
The skipper talks to Chad. Soft tones. You can’t make out the words. After a while, Chad comes down to the fo’c’sle. He looks across at you in the dim light, and you close your eyes, pretend you’re asleep. You feel his eyes on you for a hell of a time. Then he climbs into his own bunk and is gone.
You lie there, awake, the waves pummeling the boat, the propeller changing pitch as it rocks in and out of the water. You listen to Earl and the skipper above you. Earl’s words are angry, though you can’t make them out. The skipper is quiet. His tone is measured. This seems to get Earl even louder.
But the skipper doesn’t bite. He won’t engage. Earl mutters something. Then he comes down the stairs, makes every step count. You meet his eyes at the bottom, staring out of your sleeping bag. He looks at you, shakes his head, and his expression is dark as he climbs into his bunk.
“Something’s gotta happen,” he says later. Chad’s inside the wheelhouse, making sandwiches. You’re running the gear. Earl’s washing the fish. “You don’t just fall asleep on watch. It’s not done.”
“What’d the skipper say?” you ask him.
“Skipper says we can’t fire him. His daddy owns the boat.”
You nod. You say nothing. You clean another fish.
“You don’t just fall asleep,” Earl says, after a minute. “The guy’s N.F.G. Something’s gotta be done.”
Except nothing happens.
You take a storm day at the hot springs. Run inbound from gale-force winds and tie up at a dock behind a craggy little point, a boardwalk disappearing into the rainforest.
“Closest thing you’re going to get to a shower for a couple more weeks,” the skipper tells you. “Bring your soap.”
Earl goes first. Climbs down off the boat and walks up the dock and into the forest, towel over his shoulder and kitbag in hand. You do the dishes in the galley as the skipper tells a story, a good one, a couple of guys on a sinking salmon troller off the top of the island, just a couple of kids, how the coast guard found them playing Playstation on the skipper’s TV when they flew out a helicopter to rescue them.
“Just holed up in the wheelhouse, survival suits and all,” the skipper says. “Some shoot ’em up game. The boys wouldn’t let the coast guard take them away until they’d beat the last level.”
You laugh. You’ve seen a survival suit, a big, orange, Gumby-looking thing. Be a hell of a time playing Counterstrike through the flippers.
Chad’s sitting at the galley table, his headphones in. You can hear the rap music blaring, tinny, incessant. Chad’s not paying attention.
You finish the dishes. Grab your towel and head off to find the springs.
It’s a two-mile hike through the rainforest. Every board on the boardwalk has the name of a boat carved in it, a date. Fishing boats, sailing boats, yachts. Anyone who’s ever tied up at the dock. Some poor sucker’s started carving in a love poem, but something made him quit halfway through the second stanza.
You can smell the sulfu
r as you get close to the springs, feel the rotten-egg humidity. The forest opens up and the boardwalk dumps you out at the ocean again, on top of a little waterfall plunging down to a few steaming tidal pools in the rocks below. Earl’s in one of the pools, staring out at the sea. He doesn’t look up as you approach.
The waterfall’s scorching hot. You stand under it as long as you can stand, feeling the steam scour the filth from your body. When you’re bright red and gasping, you venture down to the tide pools.
“Thought you were the kid,” Earl says, as you slip into the water. It’s cooler, fed by the tides and the waterfall both. “I was looking around for a big enough rock.”
Out on the open ocean, through the rocks, the wind’s starting to howl. The water’s gunmetal and mottled with whitecaps. “Few more days and the trip will be over,” you say. “Not too long, now.”
“It’ll be over,” Earl says. “One way or another.”
“Don’t think I’m not counting down the days, either, old man.” A voice from the trees, and then Chad emerges from the forest. He picks his way down the rocks in flowered surfer shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. You didn’t hear him on the trail.
Earl watches him, wary, hackles raised. Chad’s all studied nonchalance, the bravado of youth. They’re wild animals at the watering hole, predators, alpha males itching to fight.
“You’re a fuck-up,” Earl tells him. “N.F.G. All you’ll ever be. Sooner or later, someone’s going to get hurt.”
Chad ignores him. Peels off his sweatshirt by the waterfall. You can see the tattoos that cover his arms and chest. Ride or die slogans in black gothic letters. Barbed wire. Crazy patterns. Teenaged gangster shit.
Earl’s staring at him, his lip curled. “You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Chad says. He says it soft. Says it quiet. “I hear you, old man.”
Earl stands up from his tide pool. He’s bare-assed naked, his skin marked with tattoos of his own, mermaids and sea anchors and biker insignia. The tattoos are faded, mostly illegible, but the old man’s chest is still defined and his muscles are strong. You know it was struggle and violence that wore the sheen from that ink.
All Due Respect Issue #2 Page 1
