13

I took the boat out only a few miles at first to seine, but I planned to take it out a full thirty-five later on to prove to Ryan that I was fine. He hadn’t argued with me any further, but did seem unsatisfied with the end of the conversation. I slowed the boat to a stop and let it drift. I left the keys in the ignition, and Ryan and I went to the deck to join the crew. They were already up and ready to work. I felt my ego swell, and unlocked the storage compartment. Ryan and I hauled the first part of the net out, and were then joined by two other men. Once enough of it had been removed, I attached it to the pulley. I then returned to the cabin, leaving the door wide open. Ryan climbed onto the fly deck and manned the power block, while the rest of the crew gathered the net up. Once they were ready, I began to coast slowly, watching the sonar closely. When it alerted me to activity underneath us, I radioed to Ryan for confirmation. The signals were usually hit or miss, and we rarely caught on the first signal. I moved on, then stopped the boat again at the next signal and repeated the protocol.

“Toss the net!” Ryan’s voice boomed over the sound of the wind and waves. The men grunted and exclaimed as they threw the net into the water, and I heard the power block creak as Ryan lowered it. He radioed me that we were set, and I began to circle the boat. I began with large circles, but gradually spiraled inwards. Once I could not turn any sharper, I made several passes through the area until I felt the full weight of the net slowing the boat down. I ordered Ryan to retract the net. He complied and I stopped the boat as soon as I heard the power block moving. I dropped the anchor, then joined the crew on the deck. The catch had filled a large portion of the net, as Ryan couldn’t retract very much of the net that we had cast out. I folded my arms over my chest with a heavy sigh, and Ryan came down and joined me.

“That was a pretty impressive school, Adam,” he said, nudging me with his elbow. “We really don’t have to deep sea today. The weather’s looking bad.”

“I’m not worried,” I replied soberly. “Klaus took us out in harsher weather and we survived.”

Ryan grimaced, then signaled the crew to gather in the cabin. Only after I was alone on the deck did I turn to join them, shutting the cabin door behind me. The men were passing out waters from the cooler and arguing over how to split the potato chips equally. Ryan did not maintain his role as a leader when not faced with a task immediately at hand, but the rest of the crew still looked up to him. We were all nearly the same age, though, although the hierarchy was very apparent. Gregory went to high school with Ryan and I, and had graduated with our class, and had joined the crew the year after we did. Michael and Benjamin had joined two years after us, and had both just turned nineteen. Jason was the youngest; he was eighteen. I was reluctant to hire him at first, because he had little nautical experience, but I figured he had to start somewhere.

I sat in my chair and took up the anchor. Ryan passed me a bottle of water; I opened it and drank a bit, but lost interest in it quickly. I sped the boat up to the most responsible speed that I could maintain without busting the net. It took us almost forty-five minutes to get out to deep, so after the others had obliterated the chips, they began to play cards. Once I had gotten out as I far as I wanted, however, I brought the boat to a gradual halt and anchored it. Ryan immediately left the cabin and hurried to lift the net of fish from the water and lowered the net onto the deck. The rest of the men grabbed their fishing poles and lined up in their assigned places along the edges of the boat. I removed the bait from the cooler and chopped it up, distributing it amongst the men. We spent several minutes in one spot, catching smaller fish and tossing them on ice. Once the fish began to come in more slowly, I displaced the boat by a few miles. We caught a few more small fish, before I returned to the cabin again and moved the boat out several more miles. This was the point where we would begin to catch the larger fish, throwing back the out-of season breeds and icing the in-season ones.

It would be monotonous to detail the rest of the day, as this process made up the remainder of it. By lunchtime, I decided to end the day. The men secured comfortable seating on the deck as we made the journey back to shore. It took roughly an hour and half to reach shore. Halfway through the trip home, Ryan joined me in the cabin again. The men were laughing raucously over their lunches on the subject of vulgar humor. Ryan’s spirits had been lifted and he seemed less concerned about me than he was this morning, which made talking to him much easier than before.

“The clouds broke up,” he said with a laugh. “Imagine that. I have a little more faith in you, Captain.”

I grinned and glanced over at him. “I know what I’m doing,” I said, my ego dripping from each syllable. “It runs in the family.”

“You numpty.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about that lassy you’ve been pinin’ over?”

“I’m sure,” I muttered, clenching my fingers tightly over the wheel.

“I don’t think ye are.”

“I am.”

“I don’t care. Tell me who she is,” Ryan insisted.

“Fine,” I groaned, slumping into my seat. “Her name is Ondine. She is a ballerina at the Teagan School for Ballet, and she’s brilliant.”

Ryan cocked an eyebrow at me. “Brilliant, ye say?”

“Shut up, you wanker,” I snapped. He laughed at me, and I couldn’t suppress a grin. We moved away from the subject of Ondine and talked about the football games yesterday and other mindless topics. When we finally reached the docks, I slowed to boat into a park in our dock and anchored it. The crew outside tethered it to the boards. Ryan climbed up to the fly deck and emptied the net onto the docks, and I joined the crew on the deck. Jason drove his pickup to the convenience store for ice, and returned quickly. We began to pack the fish we had seined into ice crates and loaded them onto the back of Jason’s truck. Once we had cleared the deck of the mackerel, Ryan took the truck to the various places we sold the fish to; the supermarket, the processing plants, and a few seafood restaurants we had partnerships with.

The rest of my men threw their deep-sea fish into our freezer on the dock. After all the fish had been removed from my boat, I told my crew they were free to go. They left without protest, but Jason lingered behind to invite me out to the pub.

“Aren’t you too young to drink?” I asked. I usually only went out with Ryan on nights after fishing to play his wingman.

“I was talking to Alfred Schroeder,” he told me. “He owns the Seal Club. He’s on the good side of the police department. Greg, Michael, and Benjamin are going tonight.”

I smirked. “Don’t let those guys get you in trouble,” I chastised. “It’s not worth losing your job.”

“Would you really fire me for that?” Jason asked, taken aback.

“You would be arrested,” I scoffed. “I’m sorry, I can’t fish with convicted criminals. Just be careful.”

“I’m not worried,” he said, brushing me off. “I’ll be fine. We’re meeting up there at nine, if you end up wanting to join us, Captain.” He spun on his heel and walked to the bench by the convenience store to wait for his truck. I chuckled a bit, but I was really disgusted by his bravado. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him; he just reminded me of myself when I was his age, and I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed how much of a dick I was at the time.

I turned back to the boat with an exhausted sigh and began to hose it off. Ryan returned just as I was turning off the water. He approached me and handed me a wad of cash. “They’re not paying as much,” he told me with a grimace. “But we still got it all off of our hands. At least we’re not stuck with a quarter ton of mackerel.”

“Yeah,” I chortled, shaking my head as I counted the money. “I don’t think the dock owner would be thrilled about us paying rent in fish.”

“We always have the same damn banter,” Ryan observed with a grin.

“It’s always damn funny,” I pointed out, putting the money away in the cash pouch.

“The boys were talking about going out to drink tonight,” Ryan said.

“I’m not really sure if I’m up for it, Ryan,” I sighed, zipping up the pouch and tucking it into my jacket.

“I could go for a drink,” he argued, “but not with those dimwits. I’m going to the Clam at 9. I need a wingman.”

I groaned. “Why?” I protested. “Why can you not just get a woman for yourself?”

Ryan lifted his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry, Adam, but us other men don’t all meet mysterious ballerinas.” He grinned at me, but I punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t get so defensive, Captain.” I couldn’t really get mad at Ryan for being Ryan, but I also couldn’t help that his joking was making a mockery of something that was much more serious than one of his one-night stands.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, walking towards the sea fare office. “I’m just stressed out with my mom and whatnot.” I told the woman working I was paying rent. She began to ask who I was, but I interrupted her with my last name and the name of the boat. She was very obviously taken aback by my lack of manners, but didn’t appear offended in the slightest. She turned to find my file.

“I hate when they hire new people to work the rent office,” I told Ryan.

“No you don’t,” he argued. “Last month, when Gwyn quit, you said you wished you had gotten to know her more.”

“I just thought she was attractive,” I told him, furrowing my brow. The lady slipped my file and a white envelope through the window.

“I believe that,” Ryan chuckled, shaking his head. I rolled my eyes at him and pulled out the cash from earlier, putting a hundred of it into the envelope and tucking the rest away in my jacket. I sealed the envelope and wrote my name and my ship name, as well as my dock number, onto the front of it, then opened my file and signed and dated that I had paid my rent. The woman took both of them back, authorizing my signature and slipping the envelope into a locked ballot box, and then ticking my number off of a chart.

“I might have to file a rain check on tonight,” I told Ryan as we left the docks. “I have a lot on my mind. I don’t want to steal your prey by appearing ‘sensitive.’”

“Fair enough.” We went our separate ways, waving each other goodbye. I headed to the bank and deposited the remaining money into the business account, then headed home for a shower and a much-needed nap. I ignored the putrid scent of alcohol when I entered my home and hung up my coat. I wasn’t particularly interested in taking care of my drunken mother this evening. I quickly showered and garbed myself in clean clothes, tossing my dirty ones into the laundry basket, then collapsed on my bed and fell right to sleep.