So he got himself a job on the swordfish boat.
Total fucking doofus at first, no clue what he was doing, and Dick, he must have yelled himself hoarse trying to teach Danny what to do, what not to do, called Danny every name in the book, and for a good year Danny thought his first name was “Dammit.”
But he learned.
Became a decent hand and overcame the prejudice most of the old guys had that no one who didn’t come from at least three generations of fishermen could work a boat. And he freakin’ loved it. Got his drafty little cottage, learned to cook—well anyway, bacon and eggs, clam chowder, chili—earned his salary, drank with the men.
Summers he worked on the swordfish charter, winters he caught on with the boats that went out for the groundfish—the cod, the haddock, the flounder—whatever they could net, whatever the Russians or the Japs didn’t get and the government would still let them have.
Summers were fun, winters a bitch.
The sky gray, the ocean black, and the only word that could describe Gilead in the winter was “bleak.” The wind would come through his cottage like it had an invitation, and nights he’d wear a heavy hooded sweatshirt to bed. When the boats could get out in the winter, the ocean would make every effort to kill you, and when you couldn’t get out the sheer tedium would take its shot. Nothing to do but drink, watch your belly grow and your wallet shrink. Look out your window at the fog, like you was living inside an aspirin bottle. Maybe watch some TV, go back to bed, or put on your toque, jam your hands inside your peacoat, and walk down to the docks to look at your boat sitting there as miserable as you were. Go to the bar, sit around and bitch with the other guys, Sundays you had the Patriots anyway, you weren’t unhappy enough already.
But those days they could go out, Jesus Christ it was cold, colder than a witch’s tit, even with so many layers of clothes on you looked like the freakin’ Michelin Man. Thermal long johns and long-sleeve shirt, thick wool socks, a wool sweater, a sweatshirt and a down jacket, thick gloves and he was still cold. Out at the dock by four in the morning, chopping ice off the moorings and the gears while Dick or Chip Whaley or Ben Browning or whoever he was working for tried to get the engine to turn over.
Then it was through the channel and out through the Harbor of Refuge, the whitecaps splashing on the icy rocks of the breakwater, then out through the West Gap or the East Gap, depending on where the fish were. Sometimes they’d be out three or four days at a time, sometimes a week if they hit it good, and like the rest of them Danny would catch two-or three-hour naps between watches or putting the nets out and hauling them back in, dumping the catch into the holds. Going below to clutch a steaming-hot cup of bitter coffee in his shivering hands or bolt down a bowl of chili or chowder. In the morning it was always bacon and eggs and toast, as much as he could eat because the captains never stinted on the food; a man working that hard has to eat.
On the trips when they were lucky enough to hit their quota, whoever was captain would say they were headed in, and that was a glorious feeling, that you’d done your job and been rewarded and there’d be a fat check with your share of the full hold reflected in it, and the men would go back to their wives and girlfriends proud that they could put food on the table, go out to a movie and dinner.
Other times, the bad times, the nets would come up light or even empty and it seemed like there wasn’t a fish in the whole dark Atlantic Ocean and the boat would skulk back into port with a feeling of shame pervading the whole crew as if they’d done something wrong, as if they weren’t good enough, and the wives and the girlfriends knew to step lightly because their men would be angry and ashamed and feel not quite like men and the mortgages and rents might not get paid and the repairs the car needed would have to wait.
And that happened more and more.
Summers, though.
Summers were wonderful.
Summers, Danny was on the swordfish boat, light and fast, on blue seas under blue skies chasing the game fish, and Danny’s post was right on the bow because he was a good harpooner. And Dick, he could find swordfish like he was one of them. A freakin’ legend out of that port. Sometimes they’d take clients out to sport-fish—rich guys who could afford to charter a boat and a crew, and they’d go after the swords and the tuna with poles and lines, and then it was mostly Danny’s job to cut bait and make sure the clients had cold beers, and they had some pretty famous people on that boat but Danny will never forget the time that Ted Williams—Ted freakin’ Williams—came on and was a good guy and tipped Danny a hundred when they were done.