Losing Her (5 page)

T
iny had been talking about crabbing since August, when I first met him. Alternating from a dreamy-eyed look as he discussed how we’d all be rich, to angst as he growled about having to pay other boats so they didn’t go out and capsize.

Crabbing began on October 1, at two a.m. Smithy led us in learning to prepare the cages with herring, which had Jameson ready to dry heave from the smell and sight. It was gruesome.

We weren’t allowed to be out on the waters until four a.m., but getting ready was a lot of work, and Sarge was feeling more insistent than normal on going over the safety instructions and how to use the lifeboats. He stressed the importance of keeping our switchblades easily accessible at all times, and wrapped up his speech with the reminder of the docks being slicker and the air colder, then we left.

We had to work hard at scraping the deck to keep the layers of ice from forming. The mist that hung over the ocean was thicker than any fog I’d ever seen and caused an eerie darkness to loom over the boat with an ever growing coati of ice.

The Arctic Bull had a team of nine, our tenth never showed, so I had been in the galley trying to help Smoky make breakfast. He happily whistled as he charred pancakes to the point of being inedible. His coffee was phenomenal, nearly balancing the fact that his cooking was god-awful.

“Poseidon must love you, boy. We ain’t seen this calm of waters in years,” he remarked, looking out the galley window at the dark waves. “You missing the sunshine yet, Beaches?”

I didn’t reply. Smoky didn’t need any more ammunition for shit talking. The truth was I felt trapped inside of a dark, wet box with the air conditioner blasting, and they kept talking about how it was just going to get worse.

Fishing was a damn vacation. Crabbing was the fiery pits of Hell. The pots weighed so much I swore I could feel the boat quiver when we lifted them, and then we had to go through all of the pulls seeking out the females and other debris to toss back. And wouldn’t you know, those suckers were as angry as fire ants and a thousand times bigger. King crabs scared the shit out of me the first time we pulled them in. I’d never seen a crab so big before in my life. It looked like a mutant Hulk spider with pincers.

Days got shorter and with our schedules and long days, it was hard to know if it was three in the morning or afternoon as we pulled shifts that started to make baseball look like a joke.

At the end of December, Tiny found a new recruit: a middle aged man from somewhere in the deep South that spoke in half words that got shorter with the more alcohol he consumed. The crew quickly took to calling him Guinness when he anxiously licked the foam clean from his beer, while the rest of us tipped our glasses to prevent from choking on it. It didn’t even slow him down.

A week later, we started encountering storms that had me experiencing one of my first real tastes of fear. The waves had the boat rocking so violently that even the veteran crew members were swallowing pills to prevent sickness. Smithy had begun muttering about giant squid and legends of sea monsters that were as farfetched and annoying as they were creepy and fear inducing.

Tiny was a ghost as I helped Herron and Shadow secure things to the deck. I wasn’t sure where Jameson had gone, and the distraction kept my eyes from the task at hand.

“Why wasn’t there some kind of warning or advisory?” I asked, tying down another rope.

“We provide those weather advisories, kid,” Smithy growled.

“She came in quick!” Shadow added, barely discernible over the howling winds.

Water ricocheted from the deck as a giant wave that sounded more like a bomb exploding than actual water, hit us. A window broke with the force, and the boat rocked again with such strength that we all lost our footing and slid to the edge.

I was just able to see Smoky fighting to free his leg from a crab pot as another wave pelted us.

Shadow bellowed for us to get below deck, and I watched him crawl in the direction of Smoky, who was fighting wildly as the ropes began racing through the pulleys.

“Go, Beaches!” Shadow yelled as I ran and slid beside Smoky.

I reached for my knife, my thumb brushing against the release. My blade sliced through the rope, freeing him seconds before the crab pot was swallowed into the ocean.

So much adrenaline was pumping through me that my muscles shook. I felt as though every single one of my senses was heightened and literally vibrating inside of me. Shortly after, I felt sick and ready to sleep for days, but in that moment, that very second, I saw Smoky’s fear transition into a mix of gratitude and awe, starting a new beginning for me. I felt the words my mom had once told me about the rush of saving someone’s life. It was more addictive than tattoos, or chasing skirts, or raising my batting average.

By the end of crabbing season, Jameson told me he was done. He couldn’t take the storms, the hours, or the grueling labor any longer, and proposed that I go with him, promising we would continue looking for my dad. I was friends with the other guys on the boat in the same way one would when forced to be with the same people day in and day out over a long period of time. However, Jameson had become my brother.

I rationalized with myself that as long as I continued looking, I wasn’t really quitting. I was just re-organizing and redistributing my efforts.

Jameson and I stayed on an extra month after crabbing season so we could depart in Sitka, since it was still on the ocean but not as desolate as other areas. Tiny took our home addresses for payment since neither one of us had any idea where we’d be staying. Then we trudged through town, looking for a cheap motel.

There were a few colleges in the area, including the southeast campus of the University of Alaska, the school I’d applied for late admission and been accepted to. I didn’t know if they’d still accept me, especially being spring already, but it was the first place I stopped after standing under the shower for too long and going through three disposable razors, cutting off all of the scruff that had accumulated on my face over the last four months.

“You looked better with that whole Grizzly Adams thing you had going on,” Jameson said, meeting me outside of my motel room door with a grin. “Didn’t have to see so much of your ugly mug.”

“Well you look a whole hell of a lot better, except for that long hair you’ve got going on. You’re going to need to buy some rubber bands for those pig tails soon,” I teased, ruffling his hair with my fingers.

He pushed my hand away with his forearm and moved to place me in a headlock, something he’d been struggling to do since we met. Before he could get his arm far enough forward, I ducked and slid behind him, wrapping my elbow around his neck and tugging him backwards.

“Show off,” he muttered through choked words.

I released him with a laugh, and the two of us started through town as the snow began to descend on us. Being cold and wet had become so normal, neither of us seemed to notice or care.

When we arrived on campus, we aimlessly wandered through a few buildings, searching for the administration office. For the first time in months, we saw people our own age and of the opposite sex. Jameson was like a kid in a candy store, pointing girls out.

“That chick wants me,” he said with a cocky grin.

I turned to see a girl with dark brown hair wrapped in a single braid over her shoulder, standing beside a couple of other girls and a guy. The other girls she was with took fleeting glances in our direction, but she boldly stared.

“Nah, she’s just trying to figure out if you’re a dude or some ugly chick with big biceps.” I jabbed him in the side with my elbow and kept walking.

Perhaps it had all been a part of my charted path, because summer registration had just opened, and they seemed to be more than eager at the prospect of us signing up for classes.

“My parents are going to freak out. I refused to go to school. I told them I didn’t believe in continued education because who in their right mind goes to school, racks up a hundred g’s in debt, and then goes to work flipping burgers for minimum wage? Me apparently.”

“It’s just your pre-recs at this point,” I replied with a shrug. “What do you want to be eventually?” There were many days on the ship that we discussed where we’d rather be, or what we’d be doing if we weren’t getting drenched and reeking of the sea, sweat, and grime. Jameson swore he wouldn’t go back to Yakima where he was from, but that had been the extent of discussing our futures.

“The husband of a CEO.” I laughed at his response that was so Jameson. “What?” You don’t see me being a trophy husband?”

“No, I see it all too well. That’s the problem.”

As Jameson flashed his grin at me, I noticed a sign for a barber shop.

“Come on, if you want to catch the eye of a future CEO, we need to clean you up a bit.”

After a month of living in hotel rooms, we decided we needed to find something more permanent and cost effective. We’d been holding off, just in case things didn’t pan out with school, but once we received our acceptance letters and schedules, we began apartment hunting.

Vacant apartments were everywhere you turned in California, except in some of the nicer areas where you’d find yourself on a waiting list. Here, there were hardly any vacancies, and when I asked about a waiting list, they looked at me like I spoke a foreign language. We wanted to remain on Jeponski Island, where the school was located, but eventually settled for renting a place on a month-to-month lease across Harbor Drive, on Griffith Island.

“Do we look at getting a car? Or should we check out the busses?”