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.
Numb is better than broken.
* * *
I make eye contact with the bartender over the rim of my glass as I drain its contents, signaling for another. The whiskey barely burns going down.
“Slow down, kid,” Harvey says, eyeing me sharply as he pours two fingers of Jack Daniels into my empty glass. “I don’t want to have to cut you off again.”
I grunt out an acknowledgment, already lifting the fresh pour to my lips. Harvey just shakes his head and walks away. He knows by now that any lecture will only fall on deaf ears. Not that he’s wrong to judge me. It’s my third refill. Deep down, somewhere beneath the buzz of Jack in my veins, I’m aware my drinking is probably a bit excessive for a Tuesday night — or any night — though I’d be lying if I said it was a rare occurrence. I’m one of Harvey’s best customers. Almost every afternoon, as soon as I’ve finished my shift on The Ebenezer, I find my way to his bar.
Biddy’s, a dark ramshackle dive on the fringes of the commercial docks, is the kind of place people go to disappear. Tourists don’t come here. Hell, locals don’t come here. The patrons are exclusively lobstermen and long-haul fisherman, reeking of mackerel, hands rough with calluses, half of them still wearing their rubber boots as they slug down cheap domestic beers and razz each other with the same jabs they’ve been trading for decades.
Tommy brought me here after my first shift. Sat me down on a weathered wooden stool, shoved a whiskey into my hands, then drained his own in one long sip. With no more than a nod to the barkeep, he slammed down a twenty-dollar bill to cover the tab and left me behind to drink alone. His version of bonding, I suppose.
Tommy never came back here after that first night, but that hasn’t stopped me from showing up on my own. I’m certain the owner, Harvey, knows I’m underage, but Biddy’s seems to operate on a strict don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. In the six months I’ve been drinking at his bar, he’s never asked for ID or hesitated to pour me a dram. To him, I’m just another dock-rat seeking liquid oblivion after a long day on the water.