The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay by Tim Junkin Page B

Bertha had played Maggie at the Cambridge Theater and Pappy had stopped coming home. Before his mother had stopped caring. Before she had moved him over near Denton, and for her, and for himself and his own hurt as well, he had not come back to Pappy, not once until well after she died, and then only to visit, and it had never been the same. Now he kicked at an oyster shell and pushed away these thoughts so the pain wouldn’t be quite as sharp. He shook his head, wondering how a person could be so interfered with, as Pappy had been by Bertha, how a man could turn on or away from his family, how people who cared for each other could break each other like that. He stopped and breathed and made himself think of the morning and what he needed from it and from the day. He watched the water. The waves frothed forward and combed back upon themselves, blue-green in the sun. The northeaster had followed the lunar pull and pushed in the flood tide, but it had peaked and was starting to settle. Tough on the crabbers, he thought. Knock the pots around. Heheard a diesel approach from the east, but his view was blocked, and he heard the engine reverse and then quit.
    Approaching the old dock, he turned and walked in front of the second warehouse, known as the picking shack, though crab pickers could no longer compete with the machine-operated seafood plants, and this building was mostly used for storage. Behind it ran the rows of molt tanks, big wooden crab boxes filled with river water and irrigated by overhead spigots. The live peeler crabs were kept there, studied daily, and moved to successive tanks as they got closer to their molt, the shedding crabs in the last tank, picked out by hand, soft as wet clay, ready for the markets across the Bay Bridge on the western shore.
    Just beyond, on the loading platform, stood Jed Sparks. The platform jutted out over the wooden bulkhead and was plastered with old tractor tires on the water side and cluttered with cleats, hoses, bushel baskets, and barrels on the landing. One workboat was tied alongside, and an older man with a grizzled stubble was unloading bushel baskets from his boat onto the wharf where Jed Sparks stood watching nonchalantly, his hands in his khaki trouser pockets, black suspenders holding them high and running up over a dirty sweatshirt. Seven bushel baskets were heaved up on the dock, each about half full with crabs. The older man looked over the remainder of the baskets in his boat, but they were all empty.
    â€œJimmies still right sluggish.” He looked up at Sparks. “More each day, though.”
    Sparks eyed the baskets half full of crabs. He kicked one of the baskets, watching as the crabs inside scrambled around. “Shit, Chester, you ain’t doin’ no worse than the rest. No more’n a few bushels, all told, though. I figure one and a half a number ones, two bushels a twos, and a half a liver-bellies and sooks.” He turned toward the door to the office behind him. Two men were lounging in chairs under the entrance roof. “Billy, pick ’em up,” he hollered.Turning back to the waterman, he continued. “Payin’ twenty, twelve, and eight today. Premium price as they’re still right rare. Comes to sixty.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills. Peeling back several hundreds, he found the twenties and pulled three out. He handed them down to the man in the boat.
    â€œYeah,” the waterman grunted, accepting the money. “Be better tomorrow. Going deeper. Catch ’em crawlin’ up the bank, out of the mud.”
    â€œTomorrow, Chester.” Sparks turned away and saw Clay leaning against one of the tanks.
    â€œCap’n Clay,” he yawped, sauntering over. “How’s the work comin’?”
    Clay held out his hand and Jed took it to shake. “I’m making progress, Mr. Jed. Been bending pots all week.”
    â€œHow many so far?”
    â€œAbout a