“Hey!” Rick said as he walked back into the wheelhouse, his face lighting up as he spotted Casey at the galley table. “Look who’s alive and ready for a day of fishing!”
“Yeah,” Casey said, or at least tried to. Another yawn cut him off halfway through, garbling his response. Rick just laughed.
“Gah,” Casey said, shaking his head. “What time is it?” How early did we get up?”
“It’s almost five,” Rick said, either ignoring or nonplussed by the sound of strangled shock that came out of Casey’s mouth. “We had to get up earlier than normal to finish some of the set-up we didn’t get done last night.” There was a click, and the radio came on, a news announcer’s voice slicing through Casey’s headache like a knife.
“So hurry up and get some coffee in you,” Rick continued as he began to spin the ship’s wheel. “Then suit up and get out on deck; finish baiting up those hooks. We’ve got a long day of fishing ahead of us, and the sooner we’re ready to set, the sooner you can have breakfast.”
Breakfast? That sounded good. “What’s for breakfast?” Casey asked.
“Microwave burritos or cereal, unless you want to cook yourself something else,” Rick said before jerking his thumb out towards the open deck. “Now get moving, I want to be setting by five-thirty at the latest.”
“Sure,” Casey said, pushing himself away from the galley table and trying not to groan as the movement sent a fresh wave of pain through his skull. “Do I have time for coffee?”
“Only if you drink it fast,” Rick said, his eyes already on the distant horizon. Faint light was spilling over the ocean, a sign of the soon-to-rise sun. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Got it,” Casey said, stumbling through the small galley and grabbing a cup and a packet of instant.
Why am I here again? he wondered as he filled the cup up with hot water. Then he shook his head. He already knew the answer. Right. Money. And his parents hadn’t wanted him to be able to earn it the way the rest of his friends had, spending their summers at Seven-Eleven or working part-time and below minimum wage at whatever grocery store he could find. No, they hadn’t wanted him to do that.
So they shipped me off here, he thought as he took a sip of the concoction he’d made and grimaced. Yuck. Shipped him off to the ass-end of nowhere, to a place where the cell connection was so spotty he hadn’t even bothered taking his phone out of his bag after the first day. A place where people still listened to music from before he was born without switching over to an oldies channel.
“You need to make money for college,” his dad had said when they’d told him about it. “Tuition these days costs dozens of times what your mother and I paid for it, and unless you want to be in debt for the rest of your life, you’re going to want to start making some real money now. You can’t rely on scholarships either, so you’ve got to make what you can while you can. Your uncle knows someone who’s looking for a helper on their boat—a deckhand, I think he called it. You’ll make good money, and it’ll be a good job for you over the summer. Hard work, your uncle says, but your mother and I think it’ll be a good experience for you.”
And that had been the end of the discussion. They’d packed his bags, bought his ticket, and before he’d barely had time to appreciate that his summer had begun or say goodbye to his friends, he’d been on a plane, heading for the most remote place in the entire world: Alaska.
“Come on, kid!” Rick’s call shook him from his thoughts, and he nodded as the captain jerked his thumb towards the door. “Get to work.”
“Got it,” he said, nodding and then lifting his cup to drain the rest of the instant in one go. It tasted foul, like a black sludge that had been burned on the bottom of a pot for too long. Why did I even start drinking this crap?
He tossed the cup in the sink, shivered one final time, and then headed for the back deck. It was time to go to work.
5:45 AM
The line was zipping past the side of the boat, tugged along with an intense speed by both the force of the current and the forward motion of the boat. And then, every few seconds …
“Snap. Snap!”
“Sorry!” Casey said, his fingers untangling the two intertwined cords and passing one of them to Rick. His hands felt fat and clumsy in the gloves he’d been given, his motions imprecise. How does anyone get anything done fast when they’re wearing these things?
“Just keep them coming,” Rick said, his eyes already on the trailing line. It was held away from the side of their boat by means of a metal roller, so that all he needed to do was reach out with one hand to catch the rope and ease it towards him. He would let some of it go by, the line humming against the palm of his glove, and then he would attach the cord that Casey had handed him onto the line through means of a small metal “snap.” Then his open hand, now free, would extend to Casey once more, waiting for another cord as the one he’d put in place was sucked under the ocean surface. On the one end the snap, to hold it in place on the line, and on the other end a hook, freshly baited with a recently-chopped chunk of fish.
Rick had been enthused when Casey had told him that he wasn’t going to have breakfast. The captain probably hadn’t realized that it was because after smelling the bait, Casey had lost all sense of appetite. Or maybe he had, and just didn’t care since it let them get to work that much faster.
“Snap. Snap!” Rick’s eyes darted away from the line and locked with Casey’s. “Snap!”
“Sorry!” Casey shouted back, tugging at the trio of tangled cords with his clumsy, glove-wrapped hands. Nothing came loose. The captain let out a sigh and reached across the deck, grabbing one of the cords from the tub and returning to his position.
“They get stuck,” Casey said as he finally untangled the mass of cords, passing one into Rick’s waiting hand.
“Then untangle them,” Rick said. “And fast. The longer you wait, the more line goes by without a hook, and that’s one less fish we can catch.”
“Right.” He gave one of the cords another tug, biting back his revulsion as the bloody piece of bait on the end of the hook bounced. A scent came with it, sharp and pungent, something a million times fouler than he’d ever wanted to experience. His stomach flipped again.
“Don’t like the smell of the bait?” Rick asked, taking another snap.
“No,” Casey said. “It’s gross. It’s … bleeding … and stuff. And it smells.”
“This? Smell?” Rick laughed as he flicked another cord over the side of the boat. There was a soft plop as it vanished under the water, the splash concealed by the glare of the rising sun.
“No,” Rick said. “This isn’t bad. You want smell, wait a few days, until some of our bait starts to rot. That’s a smell you won’t forget.”
“I can’t wait,” Casey said, tugging at another clump of uncooperative cords. He only had seconds until—
“Snap. Snap!”
Oh yeah, he thought as he tugged a cord free and passed it to the captain, only to watch as a second one went with it, tangled around the hook. The captain shook it free with a quick jerk of his wrist. This summer is going to be great.
6:45 AM
The last buoy flipped over the gunwale, dropping into the water with a loud slap. Casey sank back, letting out a sigh of relief as he watched it float away.
At least that’s done, he thought as Rick turned and revved the boat’s engine, prop wash spitting out behind them. Maybe now I can crawl back into bed and get some sleep. Four-and-a-half hours just isn’t cutting it. He pushed himself up and grabbed one of his gloved hands by the fingertip, trying to get a grip on the tough, rubbery material.
“What’re you doing?” Rick asked as he looked back at him.
“Taking off my gloves,” Casey said. “We’re done, right?”
“Are you kidding?” Rick shook his head. “We’re done setting, kid.” The boat shifted as it went into a tight turn, the deck tilting underfoot. “We’ve still got to get everything set up so that we can pull the
gear in a few hours.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Rick said, turning his attention back to the secondary controls on the back of the wheelhouse. It was odd to see the captain steering the boat from them; it almost looked to Casey like someone driving a truck while standing in the bed. “Let me get the autopilot set for our anchorage, and then I’ll get you started. Pay attention, because you’re going to need to be able to do all of this without my babysitting soon enough, got it?”
“Yeah,” Casey said, nodding. His glove was loose now, and he tugged at the palm, trying to move it back onto his hand, but only succeeded in sending the other blood encrusted glove skidding up his arm. Yuck. He took a quick look around the scattered back deck, full of empty tubs and drums that had once held miles worth of rope and hundreds of baited hooks. Fun.
7:45 AM
“Finally …” Casey said, his expression coming out almost like a sigh. He sank down onto the galley bench, his head dropping back to rest against the wall with a dull thump. “We’re done.” And there was still breakfast to eat, now that his appetite had returned. Though even thinking of the scent of the bait on the back deck was enough to make the hunger quaver a little.
“Yep,” Rick said, dropping into the seat in front of the wheel. “For now. Better eat and rest while you can, kid. Come about nine-thirty we’ll be heading out again to start pulling the gear up.”
“Nine-thirty?” Casey shook his head. “So soon? We aren’t going to leave it there for a few hours? Let it sit so some fish can find it? I thought that’s what you said we’d be doing last night?”
The captain nodded. “We are letting it sit for a while. By the time we get back out there, the first set will have been on the bottom for five hours. We start pulling that, and by the time we get done pulling and have everything cleaned and iced in the hold, the other set will have sat for about oh … seven, eight hours. Maybe nine, if we take too long. Which we probably will, since you’re green. So if you want to eat or get some sleep …” He shrugged. “You’ve got until about nine-thirty.”
“Okay.” There wasn’t much else he could say, nor that he wanted to say. He was just tired. He glanced at the small galley clock. It was almost eight. If he ate breakfast quickly, he could get at least an hour-and-a-half of sleep. Maybe a little more.
But first, breakfast. Something fast.
“You said that there were microwave burritos, right?” he asked.
“For when we’re running,” Rick said.
“What?”
“The microwave doesn’t have power when the engine isn’t running,” Rick said. “So if you want to microwave yourself something, you’ve got a few minutes to do it before we anchor, so move fast. They’re in the fridge.”
“Okay.” Casey pushed himself up from the table. The fridge was crowded, and he was forced to use both hands to keep anything from falling out as he grabbed two microwave burritos. “Do you want one?”
“No,” Rick said without looking back. “I had a bagel for breakfast. I’ll eat something before we go back out.”
Casey nodded. Well, at least the food won’t be bad, he thought, digging around for a paper plate and popping both burritos out of their plastic packing. Microwave burritos are pretty good at any time of day.
Unless they ran out. What would they do then? He returned to the galley table, dropping his head down to rest on it while he waited for the microwave to ding.
We rest for an hour, and then we pull, he thought. In the background, the roar of the engine subsided, the deck tilting forward slightly as the vessel began to slow. At least he hadn’t gotten seasick. Hopefully, pulling is pretty easy. Then we can maybe get done sooner. The sooner I get done with today, the sooner tomorrow will be here. And the sooner tomorrow is here, the sooner the week will be over, and the sooner the week is over, well … The trip was only supposed to take two or three weeks. After that, he wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen with the rest of his summer.
The microwave let out a ding just as the engine frequency dropped once more. A moment later Rick walked past, his feet thumping against the floor. The cool table felt nice against his forehead. Maybe he could just let the burritos cool … for a minute … just a minute …
9:35 AM
He ate the burritos lukewarm, not even bothering to reheat them. He had a crick in his neck from falling asleep on the table, but it was fading as he stretched, and at least he didn’t feel quite so tired anymore. Even the pounding in his head had subsided.
“How’s your breakfast?” Rick asked, glancing back at him. He shrugged. It was breakfast. There wasn’t much to talk about.
“Well, eat it up while you can, and then use the bathroom if you gotta. We’ve got a long couple of hours of hauling and cleaning halibut ahead of us.”
Casey nodded without comment. There was nothing to say. Just eat, drink, use the bathroom, and go put on his raingear. And then he’d experience the joy of discovering what the next step in his job was going to be.
11:23 AM
It was boredom. Boredom mixed with brief moments of frustration, activity, and gigantic, flopping fish that seemed to want to do their best to make things as difficult as possible. For Casey, not for Rick. As captain, Rick’s job was simple: Bring the line up with the fish on it, grab a long, metal hook that he could drive into the fish’s gill, and then swing the white monster aboard—on Casey’s side of a plastic divider rather than his own, at which point it became Casey’s responsibility to use a baseball bat to knock the fish unconscious with a swift blow to the tip of the head. Then he had to drag it across the deck and insert a small knife into the back of the gills like Rick had showed him, cutting into a blood vein and letting the creature bleed out so that “the blood didn’t spoil the meat.” Then he flipped the fish onto its back, the white, pale side facing the sky … and then he went and did it again with the next fish.
Sometimes. In actuality, things hadn’t been quite that busy, though as far as he was concerned, taking care of even one or two of the writhing white fish was plenty of work. They wouldn’t stay still, they flipped water and slime everywhere, and they never wanted to cooperate. Not that he could blame them. He wasn’t sure what the whole experience was like for the fish, but it probably wasn’t pleasant.
He still wasn’t sure who was more miserable, though. Was it him, or the dying fish?
Then again, they’re dying, he thought as Rick tugged another halibut aboard. The creature immediately went into spasms of slapping its tail against the deck, kicking itself across the boat and splashing water everywhere. I’m stuck here.
He fought back a shiver as he grappled with the fish, finally flipping it over to its side before managing to club it right in what he’d started to think of as “the sweet spot.” The halibut twitched once, splashing blood and water across the deck with its fins, and then stiffened, quivering faintly.
At least it’s not raining, he thought as he tugged the offending fish across the deck. Then again, the way Rick had announced it had left him with little doubt as to how often he could expect the same to be true. Worse, he was already cold. When it began raining, then he’d just be wet and cold.
Well, wetter, at any rate, he thought as he slipped the knife between the halibut’s gills, cutting for a bit before he saw the telltale streak of red leak out from beneath the fish’s body. And won’t that be fun.
At least he couldn’t smell the bait anymore. In fact, things kind of smelled … almost nice. He wasn’t quite sure that was the way to think of it, but it fit. The ocean had a deep, salty smell to it, but it wasn’t at all like the scent of the saltwater pool back home, or the smell of a seafood restaurant. Maybe it was because the Pacific Ocean was bigger, deeper, but there was a … a … a depth to the scent. A sort of … richness.
It was almost enough to cover up the different, but no less pungent, salt odor of the fish they were catching. Or the water-soaked bait they’d been getting back from the line sitting in a nearby tub. But t
he wind was helping with that, even if it was making him colder.
“—roll down the highway!” Rick was shouting, singing along with some ancient rock song that was blaring from the radio at full volume. Then his next line cut off with a “Whoa!” as something over the side of the boat caught his interest. “We’ve got a good-sized one for you to look at, kid!”
“What?” Casey moved over to the side of the boat and took a look. His jaw dropped in shock. An absolute monster of a fish was sitting in the water alongside the boat.
“Holy shit!” he shouted. “That thing’s huge!”
Rick laughed and shook his head as he picked up his metal gaff hook. “No,” he said, driving the hook home with a meaty thunk. “This is the size we want. Sucker’s gotta be—” He grunted as he tugged the gigantic fish aboard, and Casey felt the deck shake through his boots as the monster hit the deck. “A hundred and thirty pounds? Hundred and forty?” Rick shook his head. Thankfully the monster seemed content to just lie there.
“See, kid, this is what we’re looking for,” Rick said. “This is an average size. Those ones back there?” He pointed at the halibut they’d caught so far. “Babies. Well, not really, but if it’s only fifty pounds, how great can it be?”
Casey’s eyes drifted back down to the monstrous fish, vaguely aware that his jaw was still hanging open. And you have to flip that over, he thought as he eyed it. That thing weighs almost as much as you do! Maybe more!
“All right,” Rick said, waving his hand as the hydraulics kicked back in. The long rope began rolling up out of the water once more. “Go on, get to it. We’ve probably got plenty more of those coming. Maybe we’ll even get a big one!” He seemed overjoyed at the idea.
How much bigger could these things get? Casey wondered as he clubbed the monster just to be sure. It’s gargantuan! There was a needling pit of fear in his stomach as he began to tug the gigantic fish across the deck. This thing could eat my arm.
Unusual Events: A Short Story Collection Page 26
