Borealis(4)

They set to work sizing the crabs and examining their sexes, mostly by sight—a quick glance of appraisal, no more than a second and a half long—though occasionally one would have to be lifted and examined and judged before tossing it either into the under-deck holding tank or over the trawler’s side back into the sea.

“This ugly bastard’s a new pair o’ bowling shoes,” Joe shouted, holding one of the giant reds with two hands. He was grinning from ear to ear—Joe, not the crab. Bending down and planting a kiss on the top of the creature’s carapace, Joe flung it down into the tank and quickly scooped up another. “And this ’ere one’s a flat-screen TV!” To the crab, which was raising and lowering its legs with a mechanical, hydraulic quality, Joe muttered, “How you gonna like that, you ugly son of a bitch?”

Sammy Walper, the greenhorn, laughed and kicked one of the crabs down into the hatch soccer-style.

Most were keepers; they threw back very few. And once they’d finished, Captain Fenty brought the trawler around to another buoy and they repeated the process over again. This went on until lunchtime.

Nearing dusk, they reran the circuit and dumped the traps overboard, scattering a trail of neon buoys in the ship’s wake. Having worked up monstrous appetites, the rest of the crew descended belowdecks to the galley quarter where Walper the greenhorn would be coerced into whipping up fried eggs and ham while everyone got drunk on Dynamo Joe’s vodka. Blood-caked lips, splitting and chapped, with eyes like black pools…everyone stinking of codfish guts and dense with perspiration…

Charlie did not join them right away. He remained topside, his joints and muscles aching pleasantly, digging out a pack of menthols from within his overcoat.

“Whatcha smokin’?” Mike Fenty said, coming up behind him. He was a distinguished-looking guy, particularly for out here in this ungodly void—of good height and symmetrically featured, his close-cropped hair silvered at the temples. His eyes were lucid and a shade of blue that recalled Caribbean waters. Had that George Clooney appeal with the ladies back in Anchorage.

“Hey, Mike.”

“Here,” Mike said, extending him a cigar as black as demitasse. “Try this. Helps you settle down.”

“Thanks.”

Mike produced a second cigar for himself and together they bit off the tips and spat them into the water. The trawler was idling down a chasm of banded gray sea, bookended on either side by thin crusts of ice. Off to the north, the silhouette of an iceberg loomed like the spinal column of some giant prehistoric skeleton. Even in the oncoming darkness, Charlie could make out the black specks of seal pups nesting along the rookeries.

Mike lit Charlie’s cigar for him and Charlie pulled on it a number of times, working up good passage. It was strong like coffee and tasted good. Charlie exhaled a jet of cigar smoke into the air. “Nice,” he said.

Mike leaned over the ship’s rail. His lucid eyes watched the sun sink down beyond the backbone ridge of the iceberg. “Listen, Charlie,” he said. “I want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“I’m not an idiot and I’m not deaf. I know there’s been talk all week. Was starting to prep myself for mutiny.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Nothing ridiculous about it.” Mike squeezed one of Charlie’s shoulders. “You’re a good friend, man. I appreciate you keeping the wolves at bay, giving me a chance.” Mike turned and stared at the glow of the lamps coming through the pilothouse windows. His face partially masked in shadows and outlined in the glow of the sunset, he said, “They’re all good guys, all of ’em. I’m glad today was a good day. We needed a good day.” Mike plucked the cigar from his mouth and examined the glowing ember at its tip. “Anyway, I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me with the guys.”

“Forget about it,” Charlie said, looking back over the darkened waters. “We been friends for a while, ain’t we? Was nothing.”

A comfortable silence settled between them. After a while, Mike said, “You hear anything from Gabe? From Johanna?”

Charlie closed his eyes. “Been a long time.”

“You ever call that lawyer? The guy from Fairbanks?”

“Three times.”

“And?”

“And there’s nothing I can do. No court’s gonna make her bring him back to Alaska and I sure as shit ain’t gonna get full custody.”

“Where are they now? Do you even know?”

He didn’t know, not for sure. The last conversation he’d had with Johanna, she and Gabriel were somewhere outside Omaha, holed up in some flea-infested roadside motel, Johanna angry and yelling at him until she finally started crying. In the background, he had heard Gabriel crying too, and calling for him. Daddy-Daddy-Daddy— He could still hear it, echoing out over the ether. In his hand, he could still feel the telephone receiver, pushing hard against his ear as Johanna’s yelling came through all too clear. All of this: flashes of memory going off like mind grenades, the images so vivid they singed the filaments of his brain.

But he couldn’t say all of that to Mike Fenty. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the mottled neon hues of the setting sun spilling over the ice floe and trickling down into the black sea. To Mike he said, “She’s got no family to stay with, Mike. Nobody I could contact. She and Gabe could be anywhere.” The Borealis canted to one side as sheets of ice broke apart beneath its bow, the sound like glass being crushed beneath heavy boots. In the distance, covered now in deepening darkness, the seal pups barked at the moon. “This is my last trip out, Mike. Just wanted you to know that.”