I Do It, BecauseIn the end, that is why I’m here. If you ask me, I won’t be able to tell you.I can’t say I love it but, there it is. I hunger for that edge of life feeling; where to stay awake and moving is to stay alive. The cold and the waves want to rob you of it. The man; the cannery, the captain want to wring it from you but you just keep clinging, gnawing, fighting it with every fiber of your being till after the hatch is closed behind you and you drop where you stand, sinking into oblivion till you hear the 5 minute warning and you have to go out and face it again, gutting it out till you can’t grip your own knife, resist the motion of the boat anymore yet still you go on. It becomes a deadly dance. Just me and ‘it’.
Hot food and rack time makes me jump out on deck and howl at the moon as the waves and the winds bring it on all over again. I never feel more alive than in those moments. The fibers in my back threatening to tear loose, fingers like swollen sausages, a face that feels like it had a bad fight with sandpaper, and on and on I go. Why do I do it? Because I can. And getting paid for it is the perfect excuse to keep doing it till I get my fill and then some.
Finally the dock’s pull gains the upper hand and I land on it ready to go to town. Seeking refuge and refueling from any source I can gain access to. The warm punch of whiskey to replace the sting of a thawing body, the soft curves of a woman instead of the cold steel of the boat.
And I rest, relax. Take some R and R.
But when I scan the souls around me, there is no one that understands what I’ve seen, what I’ve been. And it doesn’t take very long before I seek the companions of my misery and find myself back on the boat, riding the waves ready to prove it once again. I do it, because… it is what I do.
Just for the Money
My throat is tight. Swallowing again, I adjust my grip on the chart table. The inside the wheelhouse is quiet-except the popping static of the radio, and dark- with only the soft glow of the depth sounder, computer monitors, and the display panel for the engine room. Beads of sweat are gathering at the nape of my neck. The heaters are on full blast. Small fans push the air at the windows trying to stay ahead of the ice that is steadily building on the outside. Sludgy rivulets trace down the panes after the boat emerges from each deluge. Legs spread wide to brace myself, my feet slide inside my socks on the close napped carpet. Deliberately, I force my breathing to slow.
“Hey, I didn’t see you there”. The captain glances my way before turning his attention back to the weather. He seems neither annoyed with my presence nor pleased. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was, but I got tossed out of my rack.” My elbow and the back of my head still smart a bit but I don’t lift my hands to rub them.
He doesn’t take his eyes from the water. “Did you break anything?”
I’m not sure if he means me or the boat. “No,” I finally reply.
His meaty hands with long practiced moves, nudge the throttles and the rudder to keep us pointed nose first into the worst of the weather. His shoulders twitch under his tee-shirt. Unlike so many other Captains, this one has not succumbed to shape of the chair. At 16, he lied about his age to get on a crab boat and worked 10 years on deck before he moved upstairs. The words that come to mind regarding his frame are substantial strength in motion. These could be applied to most that carry the label deckhand. But few start so young to have their frames molded so completely to the job. I think only gymnasts have equal strength and agility in their upper body as fishermen do. This captain has lost none of that. It has been set in his bones.
He stands. There is no captain’s chair; he took it out. He stands, leaning forward as the boat goes up one side of the steep dark hills, and back as we slide down the face. The blows to the side and bow of the boat as she fights to stay up right reverberate through her hull. The wind howls through the rigging. But he and I stand silent. Our strong mast lights illuminate the spray as we merge into the water, which sounds like for a second or two, a downpour on a tin roof in Mississippi. The lights strike nothing but air as we crest the next one.
Going down into the trough, I allow it to carry me forward, floating on tipy-toes, to grip the wide dash that skirts the inside of the wheelhouse, the gyroscope is tilting crazily in its inset stand. My face is now just a few feet from the onslaught but protected by an inch of Plexiglas held by steel plating. The boat is a house forward design so I can see the personal details of the beating our bow is taking, a layer of ice building all along the rail and coating the inside. The scuppers are still clear though; the white churning water escapes easily.
I take another look at his face and see no fear. Swallowing again, I work on relaxing my death grip. “How long before it’s supposed to let up?”
“Another 4 hours. But I’m guessing less. We’ll probably start hauling gear in two. It should be lighter then.“
All I see is inky blackness past the scope of our lights. The waves don’t gain any definition until they gleam into existence in front of our bow. Trails of wind whipped rivulets streak the surfaces, like an old man’s wet straggly hair. He throws the throttles full over again and we power up another one, the “psst” of the pneumatic release punctuate the interior silence as he pulls it out of gear at the crest. We are jogging into the weather as we wait out the worst of the storm, four days from town. Four days away, and not another boat on the radar.
His words sound in my head, and I mentally prepare myself to get on my gear and step out into that. A cold shudder runs down my spine despite the heat. I shake my head in the companionable darkness, the muscles in my torso holding firm as the boat careens over to port and then back, the heavy mass of my heart squeezing against my lungs. A low grunt comes from the Captain, the wood cabinets creak in response.
This is all for money, commerce, making a buck. This 120 foot long pride of man’s enterprise with its 7 souls aboard is here, pounding through the winter night in the broad expanse of the Bering Sea risking it all for a paycheck, nothing more. The markets in the Orient pay top dollar for a crab that seems all shell to me. The meat is not worth the time it would take to crack it open. But they think so. So here we are.
The Captain holds out his coffee cup. “Can you refill me?”
I stagger walk over to him and take the cup, making my way cautiously down the steep stairs to the galley. At times, it is almost easier to walk on the walls; the stairs somewhere between flat on the floor or steep like a ladder. By the time I make it back up the stairs, I’m giggling. I must look pretty goofy, staggering around like I’m drunk off my keister but completely sober- except the giggling. As I clear the stairs, the wheelhouse door slams shut. The Captain is pulling up his sweats with his other hand. What goes in must come out, or so it seems. I get the cup to him and make my way back to the starboard side.
With a secure hold again, I experiment with the waves. Instead of clinging to the floor, I try and let myself float free as we plummet. I can hover for a few seconds before we slam into the bottom, driving me to the floor. Knees and ankles are wonderful things- astounding, really. I can feel the changes in my own body after a month out here; definitely leaner and meaner. Not that I can keep much food down anyway. But the constant motion at sometimes extreme angles, the repetitive long hours of cold physical work, is changing me more than any hour at the gym ever could.
Not long after, I notice that we aren’t getting slapped around quite so hard. The Captain sends me down to wake the crew. Different shapes, sizes, and colors of bodies but all that same groggy, had a bad night at the bar, hair standing up on end, stuttering around groping for boots and sweatshirts, with the accompanied farts, snorts, and loogie hacking. I leave them after starting another pot of coffee to help the Captain scan the undulating waters for the first set of bags, the smell of bacon frying trailing behind me up the stairs.
All too soon, we are lined up ready to go out and haul the first of many pots of what the marketers have labeled Snow crab. We call themOpies- a slang of their latin name, Chionoecetesopilio. Not that any of the deckhands in front of me knows the whole name. Being the female, the Observer, the fish cop, I bring up the rear. Cigarettes lit in every mouth but mine, gloves strapped under the edge of the rain coats, rain pants secured to high deck boots with rubber bands, hoods pulled tight over baseball hats, the Deck Boss opens the hatch to the door. Our heads bent into the wind, we tumble out running, half sliding in the icy slush to take up our positions. Darkness still dominates the sky. The wind instantly freezes my sinuses with my first few breaths. And before I have crossed to my spot by the high starboard sea wall, my nose hairs have started to stick to each other. The guys work fast to bring up and empty the first pot before setting back over the side. The weather may be ****** but at least the pots have crab in them. Shivering, I wait a few pots to let them get into the rhythm of the day. A popper sends water over the wall behind me and down on top of my head. I don’t try to hold in a yelp. Damn, that’s cold! I double check my hood before stepping forward to claim the contents of the next pot. I pick a doozy. Usually I have two totes full of crawling crab to document before handing them back to the crew. But there are four heaping totes full this time. After throwing a clove hitch to secure the totes to the starboard rail, I get a couple more empty ones to toss the crab I’m done with into and dive into my sampling duties. It doesn’t take long for my back and legs to warm up but my right hand holding my calipers is getting increasing stiff. Thus motivated, I work faster; bend, lift, measure, shout at my tape recorder, toss into an empty tote, repeat- 782 times. All the while working with the boat to stay upright, getting occasionally doused and chasing totes sliding around on their short tethers. After that pot is completed, I wait a few more and sample another, and another, and…
Six hours later, we come inside for a quick meal, my hands alternatingly screaming in pain and numb to the world. I bolt up wheelhouse stairs and plunk down in front of the wall heater, trying to fan my shaking fingers in front it. After a few minutes the Captain peeks around his console at me. I grin up at him.
“Hey bright eyes, you OK?” I’m a morning person so my nickname has just as much to do with that as the color of my eyes.
“Yeah! I’m great!” Just about then, the blood in my fingers starts to thaw enough that a wave of stabbing pain shoots through them. I grimace.
He laughs. Soon I can move them freely again and massage the tops of my thighs, my toes, and rub my face, showering my sweats with a layer of salt. My hair is standing up at crazy angles having not finger-combed it down in my mad dash to get to the heater. I jump up and my bladder protests my neglect. “I gotta pee!” The captain laughs again as I navigate the stairs down to the galley and the head.
Thus relieved, hot food in my belly, dry gloves on, I stand ready to go back out and do it all over again. The question of -why do this?- floats back into my mind. Why do we submit to such misery over and over again? Is it really just money? I know my own measly paycheck cannot support that lone answer. The sun is down again having been up just a few short hours the last time we were out. The black long night greets us with indifference. But the wind has died down.
This string of pots doesn’t hold as much crab so there is more time to goof around between each one. The hi-jinx makes me laugh. A seastar sails at my head. I pluck it out of the air and return it to the waters. I am booed by my deck mates for ending their game. I just smile at them.
Later, stretching out in my bunk in the seconds before sleep takes me, the question hovers near. The engines can be heard purring us along our watery route. I am warm, dry, fed, tired, sore, and happy. Money can’t be the only reason why people would do this. I think I know what it is, but I need to sleep on it.
Seeking shelter from the storm
I’m on wheel watch and the sky is dark. The wind has been pushing the waves taller and howling through the rigging for a while now.Snow flurries turn it sometimes white outside the wheelhouse and also on the radar screen, blanking out everything in our path till it passes. The boat isn’t quiet. Blows ring through the hull. The cabinets in the wheel house creak, the dishes clank around in the galley. None of this bothers me though. This kind of storm is like an old cranky friend by now. Not much to do but watch and wait till their tantrum ends and you can go back to work.
It’s her. All she has to do is sit there. She ain’t doing nothing for me to bug out about. No whining, no yacking about a boyfriend, no tight clothes, no stinking perfume, no constant questions about stuff I don’t know- nothing.She’s just sitting over there, feet against the dash watching the weather, and it’s annoying as ****. I resist the temptation to light another cigarette, my knee bouncing nervously.
Peering around the monitors, I ask “what you doing?” The spray on the windows muffle my words. She looks over at me. I expect her to look at me like I’m an idiot. But instead it’s like I brought her away from another conversation.
“Hmm?” she says.
And like an idiot, I say it again. “What you doing?”
“Not much, just watching the waves. “ She stays there a little longer and then goes below deck.She’s like a cat, that one. I can tell nobody owns her.I don’t trust cats. Never know where their loyalties lie. I light that cigarette and lean back, wedging myself further into the Captain’s chair.
Out on deck, it had been fairly miserable. But no one had complained. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. We were all in it together, unless somebody got their finger cut off or something. And she stuck it out too. I hadn’t seen any of our Fish Cops do that before, except that one guy and he had been looking for a job.
I think that is what bugs me about her. She doesn’t ask for help. She never looks like she’s about to freak. Even when that pot was swinging at her, she didn’t lose her cool and just laughed about it.I just wish she’d break down, just once. Then I could be the strong shoulder, you know. And then maybe it would be OK, if I took a turn at it. If I could let out what keeps me awake even when I’m exhausted and we are steaming in at the end of a trip. What keeps me chain smoking in the galley…I mean, I just kinda want to say it to somebody but I don’t know where to start. The guys… well, I don’t count them as my friends. They’re great guys, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t know nothing ‘bout me really. I’d probably end up crying if I told anybody and they’d call me a *****. Good guys, but not anyone you can show weakness around. But her, I mean, she’s a girl, and all. It would be OK, right? She’d understand. I know she would.
I sigh and run my hand through my salt encrusted hair, not bothering with the knots.But I haven’t told anyone what happened last spring, so I don’t know to say it. I’d start out all wrong and she’d turn those eyes of hers on me and I’d make a mess out of it- which is flat irritating.
I put the butt of the cigarette out and hope that it’s her I hear on the stairs but the steps are too loud. Yep, it’s the Captain. His hair all greasy and sticking up, pillow marks still on his cheek.“Go tell Steve to start breakfast. We’ll start hauling in 20.”
Point MadeShe could still feel the heat from the wave of indignant rage that had pounded through her but her pulse now was beginning to return to normal. She licked the wound on her upper lip and wondered what it looked like. Was her blood thin, orange tinted, and watery from the spray, running down her face in rivulets or was it more like thick molasses, clotting right near the surface of each small hole. Knowing her, it was probably the later. She kept everything close, including her blood. She didn’t mind them looking at her. In fact the one who did the deed. She dared him to do it again, chin jutted out throwing daggers with her eyes. He had the right good sense to look abashed. A string of victorious incoherent cursing swung through her but she kept her mouth in a grim line. But as he turned away a small smirk played on her lips.By ones and twos the other men were turning and giving her astonished stares. She must be a sight. But she continued to stand her ground and calmly worked through her sampling duties, lifting each golden king crab, measuring, noting its sex and condition before either dropping it with a gentle toss into another tote or, if it was female allowing it to float out the discard chute.
Done with this batch she stood back and pondered a quick run inside the house to see the damage. Her eye was beginning to sting pretty good and although she didn’t expect it, it was possible he managed to poke a hole in her eyeball when he hit her with that balled up female king crab.
The engineer came over and tilted his head toward the deck door.
“Did he get your eye?”
She shrugs and gives in to her temptation. Damage report: minimal, but quite visual. The left side of her face has a new constellation of red holes on it, like a new tattoo concentrated around her eye socket. There are two holes right through her eyelid, making it look like she’s crying blood. Small trails of thick red blood from each hole are strangely satisfying to her. She wipes them off reluctantly.
Getting her rain coat back on, she can’t help but have a small swagger going back to her station by the sea wall, which probably is disguised in the roll of the boat. But there is no doubt that she’s standing just a little taller with the blood still trailing from her wounds. One small but essential victory has been won. She has earned a little respect from one particular grouchy, hard to handle, stubborn as a goat, obstinate deckhand. And now she can continue with the rest of her job duties knowing that as long as she is out there, it is unlikely that he will be tempted to fling female and juvenile king crab at the sea wall allowing them to bounce off before they can float out the discard chute back to the sea. All she had to do is step one foot into the path of their arching bodies across the deck. If only the rest of her job was so easy.
Peace Shattered-The relative peace of the day was shattered by a rogue wave that launched its assault over the starboard stern of the boat. The monstrous wall of heavy water capped with icy death snapped pot ties and pushed the 7'x7' pots toward the house like they were tinker toys for an over large toddler as it submerged the tail end of the boat and roared up the deck.
The five man crew scrambled to get under the shelter deck of the crab boat. But footing that was just seconds ago known and safe became a tangle of buoy lines as the wave ripped out the bin boards of the line bin sending miles of the ground line twirling in the water to ensnare their feet, arms: what ever it could get a hold of.
The diesel engines groaned as the Captain slammed them all the way open, unmercifully applying pressure to their aging pistons. The water pinned the men to the back of the house while they fought to hang on to slimy hand holds that were covered in equal amounts with hydraulic oil and ground herring juice. Through the onslaught of water they could hear the pots which seemed so benign stacked in neat rows before slam into resisting obstacles in their path- the bait bin, the launcher, the sea wall, and, more deadly, the back wall of the house where they were clinging.
Just as quickly, the water receded as the boat righted herself and she plowed through the oncoming swells. Craig quickly did a head count: two beside him, the bait boy appropriately cowering in what was left of the cod bin, Jerry crouched in the lee of the crane base, but where was Juan?
