Chandler was anxious: deck-handing on an illegal crab boat seemed about as sensible as flavored electrical fencing. But he was broke. And he was man enough to admit that poaching crustaceans might pay better than the centaur romance novellas he’d been self-publishing. So he agreed to go crab nabbing – although he fretted about how rough his roughneck crew mates might be.
At five-a.m., he arrived dockside. On the phone, the captain had said, ‘Be early, Chandelier. Early birds don’t catch flukeworms.’ Chandler still didn’t know what that meant.
Seventy-some minutes later, he located his intended vessel: the Lilith. He was greeted by an old breadcrust, surnamed Bishop, who was barnacled everywhere by volcanic-looking moles. ‘Bish’ sported an eyepatch, which reminded Chandler of Polyphemus, in the Odyssey, which in turn reminded him how the nymph Calypso had sworn an oath, promising Odysseus could safely board her raft. The only oaths Chandler received were Bish’s encouragements to hurry up, which sounded like things Odysseus himself might’ve said, right after the witch Circe transformed his crew into hogs.
The Lilith departed at dawn, sneaking past the harbormaster, into a scoopable fog. She scudded alongside the jetty: a long arc of boulders that ramparted Blunt Point Harbor, and was also used as a latrine by the resident pelican colony, who swaggered atop it like some drunk and idle navy. They grunted at the Lilith as it passed, while Chandler cowered between stacks of crab traps, gagging from the guano-reek of those anvil-headed sea turkeys.
The Lilith rounded the jetty, and the fog vanished. The headland of Blunt Point was now visible, and on its peak was a prim little telemetry garden, tended by the Air Force, and the most impressive bloom in that entire array resembled a colossal golf ball. That great white orb leered down at Chandler.
‘Call me Ishmael.’
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Bish’s laughing fit sounded like somebody was brooming a corrugated tin roof. When he recovered, he hacked a chowder-colored-something over the rail, then squared to Chandler.
‘All happy crab boats are alike.’ Bish permitted himself a smirk, or perhaps a transient facial palsy. ‘Each crabby crab boat—’
Chandler was gobsmacked by Bish’s adaptation of Anna Karenina, and surprised that Bish had read Tolstoy at all – or maybe his choice of words was just coincidence, in the same way that a zillion monkeys thwapping away on typewriters will eventually rewrite the glories of Shakespeare. Regardless, Chandler was curious about the Lilith’s prospects for happiness, so he eagerly waited for Bish to continue. But Bish’s attention had already migrated to cracking open a tin of chewing tobacco.
In the next minutes, the early-morning sunlight became strong and honeylike. Chandler rolled his face skyward, and it was anointed by an orbiting seagull.
Bish died laughing.
***
The captain said they’d put it to a vote. And at first, Chandler thought he’d vote against using Bish’s corpse for crab bait. But then he asked himself: What would Hemingway do?
Dane Rook is an author of fiction and nonfiction. He is based in Northern California, near Half Moon Bay, which is famous for its pumpkin festival (he has never attended it). Follow him here.