“What was that?” Tommy growls.
“Nothing.”
“Hmph.” He settles into the lofted seat on the port side of the wheelhouse, glaring through the salt-stained glass at the stretch of Atlantic ahead of us. “Got a big haul today. A hundred traps to check. No time to waste.”
“I know.”
“Glad to hear something permeates that thick skull of yours.”
I mash my teeth together, trying not to snap at my boss. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Tommy Mahoney is as curmudgeonly as they come. A lifelong lobsterman, he’s been catching sea-bugs longer than I’ve been on this earth. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his veins run with briny ocean water instead of blood. He’s not quite sixty but after decades of grueling work, his body is that of a much older man — his back curved in a perpetual hunch, hands arthritic from overuse, hair white as salt.
You take from the sea, she takes back.
Tommy treats me like an imbecile half the time and ignores me completely the other half. I try not to take it personally. He’s equally unpleasant to everyone who crosses his path. Most captains prefer to work with a stern-man — a grunt worker to order around, passing on the tricks of the trade in exchange for a menial wage. Hauling as a two-person team lightens the load; makes the backbreaking task of checking traps somewhat easier to bear.
Not Tommy Mahoney.
Word on the dock is that he’s always toiled solo rather than subject himself to the pain of human company. He took me on last fall only out of pure necessity, when he finally found himself unable to keep up with the demands of the job. Most of the time we exist in grudging silence, carrying out our respective tasks without exchanging more than the most basic of words.
Slow up on the throttle.
Buoy off the port side.
This trap needs fresh bait.
Gulping from a warm thermos of coffee, my breath fogs the air. This early in the day, it’s still cold out on the water — even in June. Lobstering does not favor night-owls. My alarm goes off at 4AM. I’m at the dock long before the sun has begun to creep over the horizon. Despite the dismal hour, Gloucester Harbor is a ceaseless hive of activity, especially in the summer months. As one of the busiest commercial fishing ports in Massachusetts, it’s home base for hundreds of lobstermen.
Our comrades.
Our competition.
After all, lobsters are a limited commodity. There are only so many buyers willing to purchase at market price, and so many bib-wearing tourists willing to pay it. Some days the Atlantic coastline feels more like the Wild West — a lawless land of maritime desperados staking claims to tracts of sea.
Alongside us, a handful of familiar boats motor out the channel, each eventually branching off toward their favored fishing spots. A massive offshore trawler emits a foul cloud of exhaust as it chugs for the horizon, headed for deeper waters, its dragger-nets coiled at the ready on dual booms. Back at port, the first ferry of the day rumbles to life with a throaty roar, a lion shaking awake after a deep sleep.
We’re circling the coast of Straistmouth Island when I spot one of the Ebenezer’s buoys — solid black with a mustard yellow X on either side — bobbing off the starboard bow. Every working vessel uses a unique paint pattern to distinguish their buoys from others. A blue-collar coat-of-arms, so to speak.
I gradually ease up on our throttle and feel the boat slow in response. Wordlessly, Tommy takes my place behind the wheel. I pretend not to notice the stiffness in his hands as he adjusts his grip; the slight wince he looses as he settles his hunched frame into the captain’s chair. Chugging the last sip of coffee from my thermos, I grab a pair of thick neoprene gloves from the gear box. Lobsters are feisty; you don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of their crusher claws. And let’s face it, after the accident last summer, my hands have enough damage already. The last thing I need is another broken bone.
Tommy steers us slowly beside the black and yellow buoy. Leaning over the rail, I use a long gaff hook to grab the submerged line and tug it aboard. My hands move on autopilot, feeding the saturated line into the electric pulley, flipping the switch to reel it in. The engine moans, straining to bring the string of traps up from the bottom. It doesn’t take long — most of our traps are laid in the rocky shallows, about twenty or thirty feet down, where lobsters are plentiful.
When the yellow cage breaks the surface, I switch off the pulley and bend to drag it aboard. Inside my glove, my right hand spasms a bit at the effort. I power through the familiar pain with a grunt. Seawater streams onto my rubber boots, splashes onto the bib of my waterproof pants. Overhead, gulls circle the air with throaty cries, their beady marble eyes fixed on us, waiting for the right moment to swoop down and claim any tossed scraps of bait.
“How’d we do?” Tommy calls, dropping the boat into idle and walking back to join me at the stern. “Any keepers?”
“A handful.”
Popping the top of the trap open, I lean forward to examine the contents. Several opportunistic crabs cling to the sides; I toss them back into the waves. Eight lobsters scurry along the bottom, serrated claws clicking at the air. An empty bait bag hangs limply at the back of the trap’s parlor. With practiced ease, I check each lobster for size and sex, making sure they’re legal. Keepers get their claws banded before being tossed into the aerator tank; shorts and shedders are released back to the wild, to live another day.
The last bug in the trap is a female — thousands of tiny black eggs coat her underside.
“Berries,” Tommy barks gruffly, leaning over my shoulder. “Toss her back.”
“I was planning on it,” I say, annoyed. Even after months as his stern-man, he still treats me like I know nothing — just some dumb kid, reckless enough to scrub a pregnant female and get his license revoked.
Tommy scowls. “Don’t back-talk me, boy.”
“Don’t micromanage me, old man.”
“This is my boat. How ‘bout you show a little respect?”
“How ‘bout you earn it?”
His jaw tightens. “Watch yourself. Or I’ll find myself another deck-hand to help.”
“Good luck finding someone willing to put up with your crap.”
We glare at each other as we trade barbs, but there’s no heat behind the exchange. No emotion at all. It’s almost perfunctory, as arguments go. Just another part of our daily routine.
Haul buoys.
Band claws.
Reload bait bags.
Bicker.
Despite our frequent clashes, deep down, I doubt either of us is capable of mustering the proper enthusiasm for a real fight. Frankly, mustering enthusiasm for anything these days seems an impossible feat. The apathy inside me is an unrelenting tide, strong enough to blot out everything else — joy, rage, fear, hope. Those emotions are the faintest of undercurrents, too weak to stir the ice water inside my chest cavity where a warm heart used to pound.
A loaded beat of silence stills the air. Tommy’s dark gray eyes narrow on mine before he throws up his hands and turns away with a martyred sigh.
“Just reload the bait bag, will you? We’ve got more traps to pull and the day’s wasting.”
I turn to do as he says. The brief flicker of annoyance his words inspired has already slipped away like a stone beneath the ocean’s surface. In its place, I feel nothing at all. Nothing but numb. But that’s just fine, as far as I’m concerned.