Dead Low Tide by J. J. Dutra

Author:J. J. Dutra [Dutra, J. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480869288
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Published: 2018-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Billy Adams and Ernie Thomas bent over a pile of fish that was dropped from the net onto the deck of the Sea Crest. The boat moved in a wide circle, towing the net slowly through the water. They were on the Middle Bank, seven miles north of Race Point Light. They picked up a variety of fish: skates, yellow tail flounder, black-back flounder, dabs, and five hundred pounds of codfish and a couple of lobsters. The fish in the wire baskets were washed with the deck hose and dumped into wooden boxes. The one hundred pound boxes were then wrestled into the fish-hole. The crewman stacked them in the pens below deck.

When all the saleable fish was stowed, they pushed whatever was left off the deck, through the scuppers, and back into the sea. They could not sell monkfish. No one would eat sea cucumbers, believing them to be inedible. They shoved broken bottles filled with sand, cow-tale a useless sponge-like bottom vegetation, a couple of dog-fish that would appear by the thousands in the summer, and countless crabs that no one wanted, back where they came from. The lobsters were sold for cash at local restaurants and the fish to Atlantic Coast Fisheries.

Billy tied a particular type of knot at bottom of the net. He looped a rolling hitch, around and around. It would hold the net closed and could be pulled apart with a few tugs. The two men maneuvered the heavy wet twine over the side. Billy went to the wheelhouse and turned the wheel to port. The boat moved forward. The net hung waiting to enter the water. Billy hollered, “Set out.” The crewman lifted the brake that held the line and the net fell into the sea. The tow would last an hour and then the routine would begin again.

Ernie disappeared below deck into the galley to prepare a lunch. Billy went to the wheelhouse to sit in his chair and stare out the window at the seemingly endless sea. He thought about how Millie was distracted and frightened the last time they saw each other. Her husband was at home more often lately and the front window was kept dark.

Billy was worried. Millie told him that she was afraid of Joe. She said he spoke about how our country was on the path to destruction and ruin. Lately he was saying things that she didn’t understand about how he felt the government should work, about political unrest, and demonstrations. “Other countries are solving their problems with strong leadership,” her husband had told her.

Billy felt his chest tighten. He felt sure that the situation was becoming urgent. He thought about running away, leaving his home, the town, and his fishing business. His thoughts were a jumble. They would need money. They would need to go where her husband couldn’t find them. Where would they go? He was sure he would find a way out, for both their sakes.

The fisherman didn’t usually pay attention

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