Faye had just finished dredging up and emptying the remainder of the crab traps from the ocean floor and was securing them to the deck of the Ginny when she heard the call come over the horn. The rainfall had worsened in the past hour, growing from an occasional tap to the drumming of fingers on the crown of her head. She finished tossing the female crabs overboard, wiped the sea slime onto her bibs, and plodded up the stairs to the wheelhouse. Beneath her the engine of the boat she’d called home for the past six months grumbled to life.
“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” she grunted, patting the side of the boat before hawking a loogie into the frothy waters. From the other side of the fogged window she heard a series of frantic, muffled words, followed by an indiscernible response from the captain. A gust of wind blew spray over the bow of the boat, ripping her hat from her head. It tumbled and spun through the air, carried off into a sea that rose and fell like the coils of a giant serpent. Faye cursed, and then entered the warmth of the main cabin.
“Ten-four. The Ginny’s on her way,” Captain Shepp responded through a mouthful of sunflower seeds. He slammed the microphone of the transceiver onto the dashboard.
“Traps are pulled.” Faye grabbed her long braid and wrung it out onto the floor.
Shepp said nothing. The ship shuttered, and Faye shifted her footing as it propelled them forward.
“It’s not good captain. If you pissed on an old woman’s grave on the way home from the pub, now’s the time to tell me.” Again, silence filled only by the steady chugging of the engine and haunted seagull cry of the gale outside. Faye rolled her eyes and sniffed. “We’re gonna have to sell her Shepp. The gas we got will get us home but… ” Her eyes shifted from the compass to the barometer, to the captain’s unwavering gaze. Something was off. “You listening to me?”
The old captain nodded. He picked up the mouth piece from the dash and put it back on the receiver. He shifted a seed from the clump on the left side of his mouth, cracked it with his teeth, and spat the shell.
“Yeah. I heard ya.”
“Then you’ll forgive me for wondering just where the hell we’re going when it’s blowing harder than a dockhand’s sister out there, because it sure as shit doesn’t sound like we’re making for the harbor.” The captain’s gaze was set ahead of him, where the bow of the ship was baptized by sea spray as it fell.
“The Sea Cow’s in trouble-”
“The Sea Cow’s always in trouble Shepp. It’s a hunk of shit, just like our hunk of shit. And we need to cut our losses while we can to get…” she stared out through the frosted glass, “…home.”
“Those boys said they’re already taking on water. Too much weight in the hull. Engine won’t turn over neither.” His voice, normally coarse as salt was oddly calm. Faye waved a gloved hand and shook her head.
“Because of their own damn pride. Tell them to ditch the cargo and call the Coast Gua-“
“Already did, but we’re closer.”
“And we’ll be closer to the harbor if we ju-”
“They said they’d give us their haul.”
Even the Ginny’s engine took a second to process the news. The boat rose and fell, the beating of the bow against the surf, the steady plodding pulse of a funeral march. Faye’s own heart beat with it. Their live tank was an empty stomach, a constant reminder that every hunch Faye had this season hadn’t paid off. Captain Shepp frequently insisted that luck came with the tide, but Faye knew it was bullshit.
“It ain’t worth it,” Faye tried to reason, absentmindedly rubbing the tattoo on her forearm, through the thick rain slicker. Beneath the rubberized polyester was the image of a poorly drawn dog and two stick figure girls walking it. A tattoo drawn by a little girl who missed her mother. Shepp glanced at this action out of the corner of his eye.
“Your sister’s watchin’ her, right? Might be nice to buy her something other than top ram-“
“Don’t,” Faye growled and the captain dropped it. “Fuck… how much?”
“Enough.”
“How much?”
The old crustacean spit shells to his feet.
“50 grand each.” The boat rocked in the growing torrent. Wind whipped the sock at the bow.
“How far out?” she asked. Her gaze was lost in the glass, where a reoccurring image haunted her.
“Two miles. We’ll be there and back before the storm even hits.”
Thunder rumbled overhead in disagreement.
“We’re not going to get there in time. It’s not possible.”
“Aye… maybe. But if we do…” The radio squealed with feedback and then quieted.
“Dom and his boys are righteous cunts,” she said.
“Yeah…” the captain tossed another fistful of seeds into his mouth, “but so are we.”
***
Outside the tiny main cabin, the wind howled its duet with the soft hum of Faye’s harmonica. Angry with the Ginny’s defiance, the surf grew more violent, drawing the bow of the boat down before walloping it with a rising wave. The captain’s gaze never left the hazy front window, stoically focused on the task at hand. It was a quality that had drawn Faye to be part of his small operation in the first place. She supposed they were both gamblers at heart: him with the sea, she with her money… her marriage… and her happiness. She wondered what he saw when he stared out into the growing darkness beyond the warmth of the cabin. Did it mirror the recurring nightmare that she found herself trapped in when she stared out into the gloom.
The biting cold of a December storm. The whip of her thin plastic coat. The soft glow of her sister’s living room, where through a similarly fogged window she saw Sydney and her aunt playing a board game on the carpet. And the knowledge that once again, as she climbed the shoveled steps, she had nothing to bring, not even a cheap, pathetic gift, for Christmas.
“There she is,” the captain growled and the image in the glass faded in Faye’s eyes. There, floating like a drowned man in the dark-grey surf, was the Sea Cow. A wave rose between them and the red hull disappeared. The motor protested as it fought against the current and Faye watched as the view of the sea through the window became a view of the churning grey-green sky. She removed the harmonica from her lips and stuffed it into the pocket of her bibs. Rain beat against the glass. Silence flooded into the cabin.
The Ginny crested the spine of the wave and Faye’s stomach dropped as they descended. The Sea Cow was still there, and standing on her deck one could make out the forms of three orange crew members, each gripping a part of the railing that wasn’t already submerged. The ship was going down, dragging her loot with her.
Faye cursed. Captain Shepp pushed the throttle onward.
By the time they reached the ship it resembled a beached whale. The stern was beneath the surf, the crew each hanging on as the rain lashed their drooping shoulders. Faye exited the main cabin and, tying one end of rope to the Ginny’s side, tossed the other end to Dom. She hurled a second rope over to one of his two brothers, a patchy bearded greenhorn that was either named Torren or Warren. She couldn’t remember which was which. Once the boats were drawn and lashed together, Dom and his brothers dragged themselves over the rail and onto the deck of the Ginny.
Faye grabbed a five gallon bucket and hopped to the other craft. The live pot was already submerged. Crabs floated in the knee deep surf around it. Faye scooped up a bucket of water and crustaceans, and made her way back to the Ginny.
“The hell are you doing?” Dom shouted over the gale, water spraying from his lips. Faye dumped the water and crabs into the Ginny’s live tank and went back over the rail for another bucket.
“Think we came all this way just to save your skinny dicks?” she shouted over her shoulder, taking in another draw of salt water and crab. “Grab a bucket and help.”
Their hunched forms hadn’t moved as Faye made the return journey to their boat, nor had they moved when she went back a third and a fourth time. The water was getting close to the level of her hips. She had to move quicker.
“It’s fucking impossible,” Dom shouted at her as she prepared to make her sixth trip. “You’re talking about moving thousands of crabs. The Cow doesn’t have that long. We need to cut our losses now!”
She hopped back off the rail and took in a hefty scoop of crab. Each one worth eight dollars. A hundred dollars in her bucket.
“Don’t fuck me on this Dom. Grab a bucket or I-“
“FAYE!” her name sounded over the loud speaker. Turning towards the wheelhouse, Faye struggled to keep her heart out of her throat.
Looming above the vessel, drawing them infinitely upwards, was a massive swell, a wave that rose up into the low hanging clouds. Water tugged at her legs, and her boots slipped against the metal deck. Wrapping her left arm around the railing, she held onto the forty pound bucket with her right. The rain fell in sheets, and Faye felt a chill that permeated her skin, her muscles, her blood. Staring up into the sky was like staring into the maw of some ancient horror, a sea beast rising from the depths to entangle them in its clutches and drag them down. The craft reached the top of the wave. The bow sank and they were careening downward riding the pitch of the wave into the open gullet of the ocean. Faye had time to scream an obscenity before the boats slammed into a wall of water. It came over the bows and swept around the men. Off balance from the weight of the bucket, and unable to keep her grip on the wet metal, Faye was thrown forward and into the cold waters of the Pacific.
Beneath the waves the sea was surprisingly peaceful. Faye drifted suspended in the foaming surf, her body encompassed by an icy chill. Her left hand beat for the surface. Her right still clutched the bucket, an anchor dragging her downward. In the darkness a window bloomed. Its warm yellow light illuminated silhouettes of two figures sitting on a carpet. A familiar scene. Somewhere near and somehow distant, a shape plunged into the water behind her. Arms wrapped around her chest underneath her arm pits. The window remained, and a third figure entered the frame.
Faye opened her right hand and let the bucket go.
With her free hands she undid her coveralls and kicked off her boots. Then, together with her savior, she made her way up to the surface. When she inhaled the air was fire, and it stung her lungs. Rain and sea water ran down her face and she spat out a mouthful of salt. A second pair of hands reached down and grabbed her, and she allowed them to help her up into the rocking fishing vessel. A figure squatted down next to her. “Syd’ll appreciate her mother. Not a new pair of shoes.” Shepp growled into her ear. Faye spat, turning to watch as the brothers hauled Dom into the boat. Beyond them, freed and floundering off into the distance, was the gradually sinking, cash-filled corpse of the Sea Cow.
Genre: Suspense
Event: Impossible
Character: A Deckhand
The Word and The Song 