A Thousand Suns (2 page)

Three Miles off the Coast of Rhode Island

Present day

The sea was as flat as a tabletop. The failing light of an overcast evening sky painted it a dull, featureless marble grey.

Jeff sat on the aft deck smoking and looking back over the stern gunwale at the pale wake of suds trailing behind the trawler as she made a steady six knots south. Undisturbed by the calm sea, the wake extended off towards the horizon, where one drab grey merged seamlessly into another.

When it was like this, so calm, so quiet, he found it hard to believe that they were on the open sea, and not in some sheltered lagoon or inland lake. The North Atlantic wasn’t often like this. He was used to the sea off Rhode Island and Connecticut being choppy along the Sound at the very least, and the salt spray from broken waves stinging his skin. But this evening it was subdued, unnaturally calm, like a scolded child sulking. If it wasn’t for the rhythmic thud and sputter of the trawler’s diesel engine, he knew it would be utterly silent, except for the lapping of water against the hull.

No way for the Atlantic to be.

It wasn’t right. It felt like the calm between two pressure fronts, the sort of calm that had you hauling in your nets and securing down every loose thing on deck. But there was nothing to get excited about, no major weather heading their way; just the ocean having an unsettlingly quiet day.

The net lines stretched from thirty-foot outriggers either side of the trawler’s pilothouse into the water. He could tell by the limp way the lines hung and the reduced drag on the boat that there was precious little catch in the voluminous net beneath the surface, trailing several hundred yards behind them.

It had been a poor day.

All in all it had been a pretty shitty week. By a rough reckoning of the last five days’ haul he had maybe broken even on the diesel they had burned cruising up and down this stretch of the banks off the New England coastline. Then there was the cost of the food for the three lads he had aboard.

Maybe he’d break even, if they could pull in something decent. Four tons of catch, be it mackerel, cod, herring, tuna, swordfish, whatever . . . was break-even point roughly. If it were mostly tuna, you could say three tons. It would be impossible to weigh the haul until they returned and offloaded it, but Jeff could guess the weight from the space taken in the ice lockers. They needed another ton before they could start thinking about turning a profit.

One last run this evening and then I’m taking her home
.

He hoped this last roll of the dice would end his week-long run of bad luck. It would be a good way to draw a line under their profitless trip, to pull out a full net tonight and end on a good note. Even if all it did was cover his costs instead of leaving him hundreds down on the whole trip.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest way to make a living.

He took a final pull on his cigarette, watching it glow brightly in the gathering dark, and then tossed it out into their churning wake.

It wasn’t the easiest way to make a living for his lads either, that much was for sure, but then it had to be better than wearing a stupid paper hat, a plastic name tag and serving fries.

The boys on his boat were young. All three of them were under twenty. Jeff took them on instead of the more experienced crew because they were happy to work for a percentage only, instead of a retainer and a percentage. Young fellas, not one of them had properly finished school, leaving them all with few options to choose from. Round here it was either catching fish or stacking shelves. And catching fish paid better.

He remembered when he was twenty: no bills to pay, no family to provide for and little to lose. Percentage-only worked just fine. A good trip and his boys saw good money, far more than is decent for a kid without a high-school diploma. A good trip, three to five days away from home, could bring in up to 2000 dollars each after Jeff had subtracted overheads.

A bad trip? . . . well that’s the way it works. Some good, some bad, you throw good dice then you get the super-big dollar prizes, you throw lame dice . . .

Well, look at it this way; at least you’ve been out in the fresh air.

Jeff smiled. That was something his old man used to say.

That’s the only game going round here, and them’s the rules.

That was another.

All three of the boys still lived at home with their folks as far as he knew. All the money they made was pretty much fun money. Booze, bikes, smokes, whatever.

Ritchie Bradden, a lad who used to crew for him last season, called it his ‘screw you’ money. He’d taken five days’ sick leave from his seven-dollars-an-hour job at Wallders, only to come back at the end of the week and walk off Jeff’s boat with nearly 3000 dollars in his back pocket. His first stop was Wallders to say ‘screw you’ to the store manager. Since then Ritchie had stuck with fishing.

Percentage-only worked just fine.

Jeff watched the line descending from the outrigger silhouetted against the last light on the horizon. It twitched and began to pull backwards with a creaking that could be heard above the chug of the engine.

‘Hey! We got a catch!’ one of the lads called out.

Jeff watched as it tightened. A school of mackerel could do that. They were dense, tightly packed. You knew it when you scored them.

The net suddenly drew fully taut, and the port outrigger bent alarmingly.

Jeff jumped to his feet and hastily leaned over the port side. He could hear the twang of nylon fibres stressing and snapping.

The net was beginning to tear.

‘Stop the boat! It’s ripping!’ he bellowed towards the pilothouse.

The trawler’s engine kept the same monotonous note. The outrigger looked like it was beginning to buckle.

‘Shit! Tom! Stop the goddamn boat!’

The trawler continued at a comfortable six knots.

The young lad at the helm turned wearily around, and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Jeff as he wrenched the door to the pilothouse open and stormed in. He angrily pulled the boy aside and immediately grabbed the throttle and threw it into neutral. Tom pulled his headphones down off his ears and Jeff could hear the irritating sibilant hiss of rock music played too loudly.

‘What’s up, Skip -?’

‘Dammit, Tom! How many times have I said no music when you’re on the wheel? . . . Huh? How many?’

The young lad fumbled for his Walkman to turn it off. Jeff reached for it, tucked into the gathered swathe of the slicker tied up around the boy’s slender waist. He pulled it out and threw it on the floor. Its cheap plastic casing stayed in one piece, but from the internal rattling sound it made as it slid across the floor of the cabin Jeff didn’t think Tom would be getting much more rock music out of it.

Tom opened his mouth to complain.

‘I wouldn’t worry about your tape recorder if I were you. That’s the least of your worries.’

He grabbed the boy’s shoulder, turned him round and pointed at the buckling portside outrigger. ‘If the net’s screwed, I’ll fucking throw you over the side.’

‘I’m s-sorry, Skip . . . I -’

He watched the young man’s mouth open and close silently as he struggled for something useful to say.

Jeff turned abruptly and left the cockpit, cursing his stupidity and weakness for promising to take the boy on. Clearly the fool would much rather be at home (in the warmth) with his feet up on his mother’s threadbare furniture and staring lifelessly at the drip feed of daytime cable.

But a promise was a promise.

Tom’s mother had pleaded with him to take the lad along, with a beseeching smile that seemed to promise a little more than gratitude for his troubles.

She’d wanted to shake the idle waster out of the rut he’d comfortably rolled into. She was confident that a few days of hard graft rewarded with several hundred dollars of his share on the catch, maybe even a full thousand for him to play around with, would be the kick in the pants he needed.

Next time, you idiot
, Jeff muttered to himself,
let the Big Head do the thinking
.

Outside he walked across the aft deck towards the portside outrigger, where the other two members of his young crew were leaning out studying the net with the aid of a torch. Ian and Duncan were cousins, or second cousins or something. They seemed to come as a pair, neither prepared to crew without the other. Which was fine. They were both good workers, he’d taken them on over a dozen trips before, and they’d made good money on all of them.

‘Net’s rigid, Skip,’ said Duncan as he passed the torch to Jeff.

Jeff shone it on the outrigger, which was bent like a fully drawn bow and buckled near the end. That was going to cost a little to straighten out or be replaced.

He panned down to the net. It was as taut as cable wire and beginning to fray.

‘Shit, we better back up a little before something gives.’

He turned towards the pilothouse to see Tom standing in the doorway, shuffling from one foot to the other guiltily awaiting instructions and, it seemed, eager to make amends.

‘Put her in reverse . . . gently,’ he shouted. Tom nodded eagerly and went back to the helm. The trawler shuddered as gears engaged and the gentle diesel rumble changed to a rhythmic chug. Slowly the boat eased back, the outrigger swung with a metallic groan and the net slackened.

Jeff waved his hand at Tom, and the rhythm of the engine changed again as she went back into neutral. The trawler drifted a few more feet backward under its own momentum and then came to rest.

On the calm, mirror surface of the sea, the boat was unnaturally still.

‘Shall we try and pull in the net, Skip?’ asked Ian.

‘Yeah, but go gently . . . I don’t want any more damage done if it can be helped.’

Ian reached for a lever beside the base of the starboard outrigger and pulled it down. With a clunk and a rattle the motor on the hydraulic winch whirred to life and began winding in the net. Jeff watched the fibres of the net begin to stretch and the winch’s motor began to struggle.

‘It’s not coming in,’ shouted Ian above the noise. He looked at Jeff and placed a hand back on the lever, ready to put the motor out of its misery.

‘Nope. Damned thing’s snagged. Shut it off.’

The lad slammed the lever down and the motor on the hydraulic winch sputtered and died.

Jeff was looking at losing a hundred-dollar net if he didn’t play his cards right. A hundred-dollar net, four days of cruising diesel, the cost of groceries for four hungry mouths . . . and a less than stellar haul on ice, below decks, to pay for it all.

It was getting too dark to see anything. ‘Tom!’ He barked towards the pilothouse. ‘Put on the floods.’

Twin beams bathed the aft deck with a powerful white light, and all of a sudden twin 1000-watt halogen bulbs obliterated the last, faint glow of dusk. It was officially night.

‘Whad’ya want to do, Skip?’ asked Duncan.

Good question.

Jeff headed back inside the pilothouse. He looked sternly at Tom and tapped the depth sounder display with his knuckles.

‘You been watching this, right?’

Tom nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘All the time, right?’

‘Uh, yeah. It’s been nothing but flat bed for the last hour, Skip.’

‘Yeah? Well obviously it hasn’t because we’ve snagged our nets on something, and it sure as hell ain’t cod.’

Tom’s jaw flapped ineffectively again, his Adam’s apple bobbed in sympathy.

‘Don’t say anything boy, or you’ll just piss me off even more. Put this boat in reverse and let’s retrace our steps.’

‘Sure, Skip.’

‘And this time keep your eyes on the sounder. Reckon you can do that for me?’

Tom nodded vigorously. Jeff left the pilothouse once more and found himself muttering under his breath yet again.

Somebody else can take his sorry ass out, next time.

Outside, Ian and Duncan were awaiting orders.

‘Okay, Ian . . . you’re on the winch. We’re going to carry on reversing, and I want the slack on the net pulled in as we go.’

The boat began to shudder again as the engine engaged reverse gear, and slowly they started backwards. Ian operated the winch, intermittently slamming it on and off to recover the net as the tension allowed, and Jeff studied the wet folds of braided nylon netting for damage as it slowly built up on the aft deck.

Ten minutes had passed when he heard Tom calling out from the pilothouse.

‘What is it?’ he shouted back.

‘I think you should see this, Skip. Not sure if I’m reading this right.’

Jeff threw down the net and started towards him.

So NOW he sees something.

Tom turned towards Jeff as he entered, and pointed towards the green glow of the sounder’s display.

‘I umm . . . didn’t notice that there before -’

Jeff looked at the ghostly image on the display screen, a grainy rendition of the seabed in profile. Flat from left to right, but with an unmistakable spike building up on the extreme right.

‘Didn’t notice? How the hell did you not notice that! . . . or maybe you just weren’t looking? That’s the shitting thing that’s going to ruin my net.’

‘I’m sorry, Skip . . . I just didn’t see it -’

Jeff angrily waved a hand to shut him up. He studied the green screen as the spike slowly progressed towards the middle of the display. The spike was followed by another and then the line became a plateau at a new height for forty, fifty feet, then dipped back down again.

‘Stop the boat,’ Jeff ordered. Tom slammed the engine into neutral. Whatever that thing was, it was directly beneath them.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t spot that first time round,’ Jeff said, shaking his head with incredulity. Tom ashamedly lowered his gaze, anticipating another roasting. He knew he wouldn’t be going out on Jeff Westland’s boat again.

The door to the pilothouse swung open, and Ian entered. ‘The net’s not moving, Skip. I reckon we’re on top of whatever we’re caught on.’

Jeff nodded at the sounder display. ‘A wreck, I think, we’re sitting right over it. Genius here didn’t notice it.’