Grinder (3 page)

“I want the fish to swim figure eights around the boat. If he's into the bait he'll stick around for more.”

On the third toss, I saw a dark shape streak by the boat under the splash of the raw fish. Jeff saw the streak and laughed under his breath. He baited the large metal hook with something white before spearing a large chunk of bait.

“What is the white stuff?”

“Styrofoam, city boy; it came with the new TV. The hook is heavy. The foam gives it a bit of lift so it won't sink before Godzilla gets a chance to pass it by. Secure the pole, city boy.”

I grabbed the pole, anchored in the metal holster, with two hands while Jeff threw the baited hook over. Even though the pole was propped up by the holster, I could still feel its heavy weight; it was nothing like the fibreglass rods I used as a kid. I breathed deep and cleared my mind while I waited for the giant below to grab the loaded bait. Jeff and I sat quiet in the boat. No more questions or sarcastic remarks passed between us. I stared at the line, happy for the calm minutes on the ocean. As if the giant below sensed my happiness, the line began to run out, yard after yard, away from the
Wendy
.

“He can run fast and deep for almost three hundred yards. Problem is he swims with his mouth closed. Eventually he's gonna have to slow down to open his mouth and breathe.”

The line ran from the pole as though I had shot something into the water, the reel releasing its heavy line as though there were no drag at all. After a long minute, the rapidly fleeing line began to slow, and that's when the real fight began. I stood, heaving against the rod, for what felt like hours. I followed every instruction the suddenly serious captain gave me. Jeff never asked me to turn over the pole; he just guided me in killing the giant.

After an hour of endless fighting, I began to see the head of my foe. My left arm burned with the effort of fighting the bluefin, but I never let go. I was up against my first real test and I was not going to blink. Little by little I began to see more of the head of my enemy; it was heavy and fierce, its eyes alive with fear and the marine equivalent of adrenaline.

As I dragged the fish closer and closer to the boat, Jeff stopped watching me with his hawk eyes and turned to retrieve a huge pole off the a rack at from the stern. The pole was old and worn and had a large black hook on the end. The tool didn't match the many technological advancements on the boat — it was a relic from harder times. It was a grim instrument, one I later learned to call a gaff, and it made the tuna's tremendous opposition all at once understandable.

“Bring it closer,” he yelled.

I manoeuvred the tuna beside the boat, and Jeff bent over the side and swung the hook into the flesh behind the head of the bluefin tuna. With my help, he dragged the fish into the boat. It hit the deck with a thud and helplessly slapped its tail against the deck as though it were only airborne and not helplessly dying. I felt a pang of empathy for the fish. I knew what it was to be beaten to the point of death.

If Jeff caught my expression he didn't show it; he just looked over the fish and then at his watch. “We got time to get this back in before it starts to spoil. If we stay out I have to bleed it and pack it with ice. That would take about as long as it would take us to just cruise into the dock.”

“How big is it?” I asked.

“'Bout three hundred pounds, city boy.”

“How long would it take for one of the real big fish?”

“That's five or six hours of hard work, but it's easier at the end. We don't bring them into the boat when they're that big. We secure them by the tail and tow 'em in to be lifted out with a small crane.”

“So you get all the cash for this catch plus what I paid?”

Jeff smiled at me. “Sometimes it pays to be an island fisherman, eh, city boy? But it ain't all easy. No, I gotta haul it in, get it ready with the saw, and then clean up the boat. No, the job ain't all roses, that's for sure.”

“Sounds like you need help.”

“Had a college kid, but he quit on me. Thought the hours were too long. Ha, I told him you want to make a living on the boat you gotta be out before the sun and you only stop when it's long gone. There's lots of island kids looking for work. I'll take another on before long and work him till he decides he's meant for other things. Kids today don't want to work all day fighting the fish; it's easier to go work at Subway. There the only fish you fight are already at the bottom of a bucket.”

I thought about it for a minute — the minute was fifty-nine more seconds than I needed. In the last four hours, I hadn't thought about home or my arm once. “I want to work for you, Jeff,” I said.

“Why's a city boy want to get his hands dirty for peanuts? 'Cause make no mistake, that's what I pay. I don't share the profits.”

I used the same excuse I'd given Nellie. “I need to get away from the city.”

Jeff smiled again. My answer seemed to be some secret code that everyone on the island silently understood. “Well,” he said, gesturing at the expanse of ocean, “ya won't get much farther away than this.”

I spent the rest of the season searching for giants with my captain. I was paid a low hourly wage, and I was treated better — he didn't talk to me like I was an idiot more than three times an hour. I learned the ins and outs of fishing off the coast and in the deep ocean. Because I wasn't paying anymore, I was no longer the one holding the rod. Jeff fought the monsters while I followed orders. Between bouts of frantic reeling, he explained how to sense when to pull and when to let the fish run. The only job left for me was gaffing. Once the fish was close enough to see the panic in its lidless eyes, it was my job to bury the hook behind its thrashing head. The trick was timing the strike so that the gaff sunk deep into shoulder of the fish. The shoulder was dense enough to support the weight of the fish as it was pulled from the water and it was far away from the prime meat. After a few weeks at sea, I could bury the hook deep in the fish without a moment's hesitation. It was like stabbing a person up close. All at once, the panicked eyes went even wilder until they dulled as the fish resigned itself to its fate. If the fish was big enough, I was demoted to harpooner. I would spear the fish, to bring it closer to death and even closer to the gaff. When the true monsters were circling the drain, we hooked them with wire and dragged their carcasses back to port. The part of me that felt remorse for the first fish I saw dragged into the boat vanished after my second trip out. Part of me, a part I tried to pretend was gone, enjoyed the thrill of the fight. It wasn't the cruelty that brought me back day after day. It was the skill of the hunt and the artistry of the perfect blow with the gaff. Fishing felt like reflex. I used the old muscles I had developed working with my uncle and for Paolo Donati. As much as I thought I wanted a new life, there were some things I couldn't unlearn, even out on the ocean away from all the city lights and smells.

At the end of the fishing season, Jeff went on EI, even though he had earned almost six figures from the tuna and charters. I spent the winter in the house . . . working out and having a nightly meal with my captain and his wife Wendy. Each night, I was invited back into Jeff's home and treated as though I were a member of the family rather than an employee. My awkwardness and lack of social skills wore off fast in the loving home. I learned to enjoy dinner, and began to look forward to it. Soon I found myself keeping tabs on interesting things to bring up over dinner. The dinners expanded to weekends. I watched movies with Jeff and spent time admiring his hunting rifles while I was told stories about the ones that got away. Through all the stories and firearm showcasing, I played ignorant pretending to be in awe of the dangerous weapons.

I loved my new friends. A fact which made it hard to hide what I was. We spoke mainly about fishing and life on the island. When I was put on the spot about my life before the island, I stuck to generic comments and terms like “rat race,” which got me appreciative nods. So long as I spoke of the city in clichés, I was safe from further probing — even safer from losing my new friends. My old life was something few would be able to understand, and a good man like Jeff would never allow me to be near his wife and business if he knew what I was. I understood this — he had priorities and they were sacred to him. I was still searching for my own new priorities, and for a while I thought the search was narrowing as I began to truly become a part of other people's lives again for the first time since my parents died. I laughed and smiled more often; I even forgot to check over my shoulder once in a while. The island had healed my body, but it had trouble healing the rest of me.

The winter ended, and we went back on the boat. I was strong and healthy, but tired. I was sleeping less and less with each night on the island. My first nights in my new home had been long and restful, but each passing day took with it precious minutes. I collapsed into an ever shortening dreamless sleep each night waking before the sun in the loud silence of the house.

Together Jeff and I fished and worked charter groups of die-hard anglers out for a new challenge and loud drunken businessmen taking days away from the difficult island golf courses. After each day of fishing, Jeff would take the charter off the boat with the catch and set up for a photo. The people who had chartered the boat crowded together to get in the shot while I stayed clear. Jeff had stopped trying to include me, deciding it was a fight he would never win; he left me to clean the boat while he schmoozed the clients for the last few minutes. I stayed clear of the crowds and their cameras despite the fact that I hadn't been anywhere close to trouble for almost two years. Part of me couldn't let go of all of the years of training beaten into me by my uncle. While I stopped looking over my shoulder all of the time, I couldn't let myself be captured on film for anyone to see. I was happy to clean the blood off the boat and prepare for the following day. Life went like this for months until the day I slipped up and was caught off guard.

Four politicians down from Ottawa caught an eight-hundred-pound bluefin at the tail end of a slow day. I was cleaning up the boat while they took their picture and quietly conversed around the hanging fish when one of the men grabbed his chest and uttered that he was having chest pains. His friends searched his pockets for his pills, but they were in his bag — left behind on the boat with me. Jeff yelled for me to bring down the bag and I did it without thinking. I ran as my right hand searched the bag for the pills. I had them in my hand as I reached the crowd of people around the man, who was lying on the dock. I didn't check to see what kind of safety top was on the pill bottle; I just dug a nail into the plastic and sent a geyser of white pills flying over the dock. I dug one of the remaining pills out of the container and tried to shove it down the man's throat, but he was too far gone. He died on the dock, below the massive fish he helped pull in. Camera flashes pelted the body from nosy tourists who took shots of the scene before I could move out of the way. One of the shots, one with a profile of my face as I bent down to help the dying man, got national coverage in the papers. The man who died was a politician who was pro big business and against protecting Canada's national resources. Headlines like “Nature Fights Back” led the picture out to the rest of the country. I saw the photo the next day after Jeff slapped the newspaper on the back of my head.

“Ya managed to get your ugly face into the paper. Well, half of it anyway, didn't ya, city boy? Yer just lucky my face was in it to balance it out. Yer mug would scare off the tourists.”

I ignored the comment as I looked at my face created out of thousands of meticulously placed ink dots. My face had been sent out across the country for everyone to see. It was that front page postcard that brought the man to the wharf; he was there because of the picture. He was there for me.

Few people came to the wharf alone, and no one did it dressed like he was going to a club. The outsider was not dressed to fish or tour — he had no camera, fishing pole, or binoculars. He didn't even seem to be interested in the large fish being cut to pieces by the chainsaw. He just stood at the edge of the pier watching people get into their cars. I pulled my hat down low and bent over pretending to work around the boat. I thought I had an agreement with my old boss, Paolo Donati, and his criminal army. After I helped Paolo survive his very own Russian revolution, he said we were even. The man on the wharf said different.

I closed my eyes and thought about the photo. I stared at it when I first saw it — enraged at my stupidity. I got too comfortable and I paid for it. The picture had my face in it and the boat's name was in the caption. Soon the guy with the pointy shoes would get tired of waiting and watching the wrong people walk by. He would get impatient and decide to walk around the ships looking for the boat named “Wendy.” It was close to the end of the day, the perfect time for someone looking to go unnoticed to walk down to the boats. People were coming and going all over the pier; no one would pay much attention to an out-of-place man looking at the ships

I moved to the other side of the boat and took a seat. If I finished the nightly cleanup, there would be no reason for me to stay on board. I wanted to be the only one around when Pointy Shoes came looking for me. I wanted him to be out of his element when he made his play, so I had to wait and make sure Jeff couldn't see me taking it easy while he schmoozed on the dock with the day's charter.

I got up twenty minutes later after feeling the boat slightly shift with the addition of my captain's weight. I scanned the wharf, noticing how empty it had become. There were a few fisherman left hosing off their boats and loading their trucks, and one other man still watching the parking lot.

“Shit, city boy. You're not done yet? I'll help ya get finished, 'cause at this pace you'll be here all night.”

“Sorry, Jeff. I just got to thinking and it slowed me down. You don't need to stick around. I'll finish up here. You get home to Wendy; she's probably craving something.”

“Don't ya know, that is for sure. Her and that baby have me going everywhere for food. The only thing she doesn't crave is tuna. At least I could bring that home with me. Last night I had to go into Charlottetown for Taco Bell. I wasn't in bed until one.” He sighed and looked around at the mess on the boat. “Make sure to lock her up when you're done, city boy.”

“Tell Wendy I said hey.”

“Tell her yourself at dinner. After you're done here.”

The rest of his goodbyes trailed off as he walked away from the boat. I watched him go, making sure to stand straight up on the side of the boat so I could be seen from the parking lot. I watched Jeff pass Pointy Shoes; they nodded a greeting to one another as Jeff walked over to his car. Pointy Shoes pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. I guessed it was the newspaper photo. He glanced at the paper, then turned to look at Jeff again. While his back was to me, I took off my hat. When his head turned back, I made an elaborate production of stretching and wiping my forehead. I didn't look in the direction of Pointy Shoes, but I was sure he was looking at me. I walked to the ladder on the side of the boat while, in my peripheral vision, I watched my audience consult his piece of paper once again. He was comparing me to the paper. I made my way down the ladder to the dock. Once I had two feet on the wood planks, I kneeled at the ropes holding the boat to the dock. I untied one of the knots and began retying it slowly. With my right hand, I unsheathed the knife I kept at the small of my back. The knife was a worn fishing knife that I used everyday; it was battered, but razor sharp. Jeff always made fun of the way I carried my knife, but I could never force myself to wear it out in the open or leave it in a pocket where it was hard to pull free. A concealed weapon always felt more natural.

I put the knife on the dock beside my foot, so that it was hidden from anyone approaching. I flipped one loose end of the rope over one side of the knot then the other, pretending to be unsure about the right way to finish. I didn't have to pretend long before I heard the squeak of old worn wood planks groaning under human weight. Pointy Shoes was walking towards me. Being on my knees made me an obvious target. Every schoolyard bully loved to shove a kid when he was down on a knee tying his shoe. Pointy Shoes was just a bigger schoolyard bully — one with a paycheque.

I looked in his direction as he approached, smiled, and said, “Evening.” Looking at him to say hello let me see that his hands were empty. A fact that made me happy.

He didn't smile back; he just stopped eight feet away and spread his feet apart. I didn't want to act first because there was still a small chance that this guy was a tourist or maybe just a reporter doing a follow-up story. “You want to book a charter, you'll have to talk to the boss. I can give you his number if you want, or you can come back tomorrow.”

I got no response at first from the man with the pointy shoes. I looked into his eyes and I knew there was no way he was a tourist or even a reporter. His greeting relieved all lingering doubts about what he really was.

“Hey, Wilson.”

I remained on my knees as our eyes locked. My face didn't register surprise, instead it pulled into an expression I thought I had forgotten. My face made an ugly grin, my uncle's grin. It was a look that I learned the hard way. Whenever I thought I knew the score, I would see the look on my uncle's face and know I was wrong. The look tormented me, but I was lucky — everyone else who saw it usually wound up dead. I spent years learning my uncle's craft, years surviving his tutelage, until the same grin became my property. Pointy Shoes saw it and it told him something he didn't like. It said I wasn't afraid. It said I wasn't even surprised. It said I knew something he didn't. My grin said all of this in a fraction of a second.

Pointy Shoes was good; he didn't waste time looking confused. He instead reached behind his back under the stretchy fabric of his synthetic shirt. His reaction didn't faze me; I was good too, better than this guy, even after two years of rusting. My right hand found the knife by my foot, and I lobbed it in the direction of Pointy Shoes. The throw was slow and sloppy not because I was rusty, but rather because I wanted Pointy Shoes to use both of his hands. He gave up on whatever was behind his back and decided to try to catch the slowly spinning knife moving towards his chest.

Instinct is a funny thing; every person will always opt to save himself over almost any other choice. It takes years of training and experience to be able to fight the primal urge for self-preservation. Pointy Shoes chose personal safety over inflicting harm on me. He didn't catch the knife; he only managed to knock it out of the air. Pointy Shoes let out a sigh of relief just before my fist crushed his collar bone like a beer can. The blow knocked the air out of him, pushing with it any means of screaming. To his credit, Pointy Shoes stayed standing; he just crumpled inward like he was a balloon losing air. My heavy work boot smashed his instep knocking him off balance and into my hands. The fishing and rehabilitation had turned my grip into something close to a vise. His greasy hair had nowhere to go in my hands but down, dragging his face to my rising knee. Pointy Shoes fell to the old salt-soaked boards as though he were poured from a cup. His body just splashed unconscious at my feet. The few leftover fishermen were too far away to see what had just happened in four seconds beside the
Wendy
, and the sound couldn't have carried over the roar of motors and lapping water.