Four Thousand Hooks by Dean J. Adams

Author:Dean J. Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

That day in the storm, the Grant labored through the waves to move forward, forcing the rollerman to slow the gurdy down, turning at three-quarters speed. The boat couldn’t keep up with the gurdy’s ability to pull line on board. The line coming up, leading from the water to the boat, stretched forward and tight. Chris stopped the gurdy at times, to let the boat catch up with the gear. Halfway through the first string, I could tell that we had a long day ahead—longer than most. The novelty of watching the massive waves roll by wore off. The day turned into drudgery.

Early on, I baited a skate with Wally working behind me. The wind made the canvas of the bait tent slap hard and loud against its metal pipe frame. I yelled, “Wally, how hard is it blowing?”

“What?” he hollered back.

I yelled louder.

“How hard is it blowing?”

“I can’t hear you.”

I turned away from my skate and saw that he had his hood tied tight in a circle around his face. No wonder he couldn’t hear me. I started to ask my question again. Seeing that he looked at my mouth, reading my lips, I lipped the words instead, “How hard is the wind blowing?”

Before he answered, the Grant came off the top of a wave and dove down, throwing me back into my skate. I caught myself before I fell, but I knocked over my skate in a mess onto the deck.

Wally just shook his head.

It took a moment to sink in. I had to start all over, picking up this snarl of hooks and rope—a quarter-mile long—and duplicate a half hour of work. Standing on the wildly moving deck doubled or tripled the effort it took me to do my work, and now I had to bait this skate a second time.

Later on, in the checker, more frustration awaited me. Interrupted in the midst of cleaning a fish to go help Jack pull a big fish into the boat, I left a 100-pound fish behind, lying on the hatch. The boat rolled hard to starboard. Unattended, the fish slid off the hatch cover and became wedged headfirst down into the checker where I had once stood.

The fish looked hideous, three feet of its tail sticking up, flopping back and forth to the Grant’s roll. I finished helping Jack and crawled on top of the hatch cover, where I gaffed the fish’s tail and pulled, angry at my mistake. The fish wouldn’t budge. I changed tactics and pulled from a different direction so that I faced the wind. It was a vulnerable position and I knew it. A thick curtain of spray hurtled over the starboard rail and smacked me in the face. Salt water wicked into layers of clothing down through my collar and down my neck. At the top of my lungs, I cursed out loud, “FUCK!” only to startle myself—I had never said the word that way before.

I needed help. Nobody was available on the main deck.

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