Death in the Polka Dot Shoes (13 page)

Every waterman has been through storms. But not many have the good fortune of Pete's friends Harve and Catsoup, who according to Pete, were not blessed with intellectual genius. But an even more precious quality seemed to ride in their bow: luck. Pete liked to tell their story as a way to describe the capriciousness of the Bay; how the weather could turn in an instant; how a waterman's experience and physical prowess meant nothing against a rogue wave; and how only one decision really counted in a captain: knowing when to get off the water.

According to Pete, his friends Harve and Catsoup had been together as crabbers and oyster tongers so long that they almost never spoke to each other. They didn't have to. They first met on a hot day in September nearly 30 years ago. Catsoup simply walked over to Harve's boat, the
Minerva
, one day on Jenkins Creek and asked Harve for a job. Harve looked him up and down, dismissed the shirt patches and dirty boots, but noticed the muscles in his arms and his frugality of words. Every captain wants a strong quiet mate, and Harve was no different, although he didn't expect his new mate to stay for thirty years.

“Come aboard,” Harve said. “Help me with these pots and you're hired.”

The
Minerva
was a wooden deadrise, built in the 1920s and repaired and painted so often that you could see the outline of every plank. It had not been cleaned as often. The deck was worn and almost black. A commercial crab potter is allowed to fish three hundred pots per person and up to nine hundred per boat. The
Minerva
was only thirty-foot long and wouldn't hold 300 of the two-foot square pots, even if stacked over Harve's head. But he ran that many pots anyway, and if he took on Catsoup he could run another 300.

The day Catsoup walked up, Harve was sitting on the engine box cleaning pots, a never ending task. His new employee didn't respond directly to the job offer. His response was to sit right down beside a stack of the wire pots and begin pulling dried bits and pieces of alewife bait out of the mesh, and straightening wires bent or broke. Two mangy cats were lurking nearby, waiting for scraps among the debris. The stranger took a swipe at one of them and said, “Git. We'll make cat soup of you.”

“Catsoup,” Harve said to his new mate. “I pay every day when the boat docks. I get paid, you get paid.”

“Sure boss,” Catsoup said. The name stuck and so did the friendship.

Harve told Catsoup to be on the dock next morning at six o'clock, bring his own lunch and the coffee would be provided. No beer. This was a business and Harve had seen too many boats go down with a blurry-eyed crew.

As they eased out of Jenkins Creek the next morning, Harve watched Catsoup closely to see if he knew the ropes. First thing he noticed were traditional white boots, crusted with mud around the bottom and smeared with green moss along the edges, as if they had walked a million miles through Bay marshes. He had a canvas jacket over a green cotton sweater, layered over a flannel plaid shirt, all of which could be peeled quickly with the morning sun. His face was weathered, red around the chin, but young. Harve searched Catsoup's eyes and they were clear, set on high cheek bones and devoid of wrinkles. Catsoup had some miles on his boots, but his youthfulness was still evident on the back of his hands. Furthermore, he walked quickly from one position to another, moving from the cleats that held the spring lines, to the stern where he could fend off any contact with the dock, to the hatchway where he could note the path of the bow through the water. Harve was impressed, although he had known other one day wonders that never finished the week. With Catsoup, he would wait and see.

Harve's crab pots were set in a designated area just off Clark's Point, about a half hour run from the Jenkins. The Point was named after General Boswell Clark, a confederate general who commanded Maryland troops on the western shore of the Bay, and who kept a watchful eye for land parcels that he could purchase in better times. Those times came and the name Clark is still found on a half dozen towns and inlets that boast one peculiar geographic circumstance. They all jut out into the Bay and have deep water ports, which must have been high on the General's priority list. On the charts of the area, the Clark properties look like a series of narrow peninsulas jutting out from the shore. Clark's Point survived and prospered primarily because all the other points had washed away over the decades, or their deep water deteriorated to shallow channels, or someone changed the name. This parcel of land had just the right combination of sea grasses to attract the crabs and create spawning areas. Watermen had been setting pots off the eastern edge of Clark's Point for years, and Harve had all 300 of his on a line stretching directly into the morning sun.

Harve guided the
Minerva
and her 1957 Chevy V-8 engine out the mouth of the Jenkins and set a course directly for Clark's Point. The engine had a low roar to it, much as Harve remembered when it used to power his uncle's car. As he reached the eastern end of the Point, just a few dozen yards from the fishing pier, he turned east and headed into the morning sun that was still young and shocking the darkness with an orange band across the water. When the sun hit Harve full in his face, he knew he was on course, exactly one half mile from the head of his line of red and green buoys. He felt good about the day and muttered, “Looks good so far.” He might have been talking to Catsoup, but on this first day he had no idea whether the new mate would respond, or talk at all for that matter. Catsoup shook his head, but said nothing.

Harve had pulled nearly thirty pots, with crabs in every one, when the first small cumulous cloud appeared on the starboard side. He didn't notice it in the excitement of the catch. It's not often, in fact almost never, that the first strings of pots are full, and Harve couldn't wait to get them in the boat. So he didn't pay much attention to the storm coming until the waves started whipping the hull and the clouds would occasionally hide the sun like an eye patch in flight.

Catsoup seemed able to carry a fast pace emptying the pots, so Harve edged the engine faster, hoping to get as many crabs as possible in the boat in case the storm intensified. Chances of Harve stopping his work were slim. He had worked in rain so hard it beat entirely through his clothes, and his legs had stabilized in seas so rugged that the boat would not hold a line. Yet wind made him nervous because it sneaked across the water, sometimes hidden in front of a brilliant sun that lied to you about the dangers. Sometimes the wind started as a breeze so gentle that Harve welcomed the coolness on his face, and then it could rear up like a rodeo bronc that meant to throw his boat out of the water, and Harve would cuss and swear and call upon the devil himself to bestill his wrath. But he never lost control of the
Minerva
, and today would be no different.

As the chop of the wave increased, Harve stumbled at the helm, caught himself on the hatch door, remembered his purpose, and reached inside the berth to grab the soiled life jacket. He never wore it, and probably wouldn't even admit to his friends that he had one, but he carried it for these moments. He pulled the jacket out of the hatch, grabbed the helm with his left hand, and righted himself just as the boat took a portside wave that lifted
Minerva
into a three quarter turn on her side. He glanced at Catsoup, who looked worried, but seemed stable as he wedged himself between the side of the boat and the engine box. Harve threw the life jacket at Catsoup's feet to be sure it didn't go overboard but said nothing. Catsoup felt it hit his leg. He looked up and saw where it came from. He slipped it over his head, and quickly tied the one canvas ribbon that held the vest around him. The other ribbon had been torn off years ago, and Catsoup doubted the vest would hold air for a second, let alone save his life in a rascally Bay. But he was a sensible man and he saw that Harve was not going to leave one crab in the water as long as his boat would float.

Catsoup braced himself once more, and wedged his toe under a cross slat near the deck of the boat. He grabbed the next pot that broke the surface, and the engine roared with a spinning, whining shriek as a huge wave lifted the stern and propeller out of the water. For an instant he was level, suspended in mid air, and the boat felt like an oasis. Then it fell. The wave left a sharp trough behind it and
Minerva
fell to the bottom. Harve hit his head on the roof of the cabin, but it kept him from being swept overboard. Catsoup was left in the air. Harve glanced toward him in the midst of confusion and Catsoup was suspended like a cardboard cutout, still holding the pot, looking frozen and unafraid, but at least three feet above the boat. Then he fell. And Harve was astounded to see him fall flat in the bottom of the boat, the one place where he was unlikely to be hurt. For the first time, Harve exclaimed to himself, “That lucky bastard.”

Then he turned back to the helm, hoping the prop was far enough in the water to give him some traction. He yanked the stainless steel steering wheel hard over, needing to turn the boat into the waves. He knew the most dangerous position was to get “side to” a wave. The boat would roll over and either take on enough water to sink, or simply go straight down. He didn't quite make the turn, but a sheet of brackish bay water came over the bow and hit Harve full in the face. It burned, but at least Harve knew he had made enough of a turn to avoid capsizing. Then the wave rolled under him, once again raising the stern. Harve glanced over his shoulder to see if anything was left on deck, some empty pots, a gaff, two wooden oars and an assortment of baskets and buckets. All were gone. And so was Catsoup.

Chapter Nine

Catsoup splashed into the water with a thud, and held. He didn't sink or wrestle the waves. He simply was captured in a cradle of foam and water that cast his face to the sky. It was gray as a plastic airplane, a strange object to be the first thing that popped into his mind. From his youth no doubt. Then he turned his head to look for the
Minerva
, finding instead only flashes of suds like a roiled dishpan. It was a lull like he had never known, so he decided to accept it as a child accepts slumber, but then it ended. He began to feel a mattress of water raise him until he could briefly see Harve in the stern of his boat, wrestling the wheel at the rear helm station and looking frantically at the water. Catsoup knew they would search for him, but he had no control, and was soon whisked away in a distant direction.

Harve called the Coast Guard the second Catsoup flew out of the boat. His eyes scanned the water until they ached. But he didn't see that moment when Catsoup's body was lifted, twisted, and rolled. And he didn't see that moment when Catsoup came down hard on what felt immediately like wood. For a moment the water separated and Catsoup felt the plank under his chest. He grabbed the board with both arms. Then realizing it must be eight or ten feet long, he tried to find the end of the board with his leg, raised his knee over the edge, and clung to the object like so many surfers he had seen on television. He wrapped his body as tight as possible around the board so that even a dip beneath the waves would not wipe him off. He roared up in the air, and down the back side of ugly waves. And then he went black, later remembering nothing. But he rode that board to its inevitable landing on Clark's Point. Right up to the pier, like a power boat delivering its passengers, the long plank hit the steps at the end of the dock, wedged itself in some fashion, and when Catsoup regained consciousness, he was laying on the dock with the storm about to die out around him. He had not recognized anything since being thrown overboard as normal, or natural or planned. Finding himself suddenly on the dock, his body beaten into submission, he simply yielded to the experience, closed his eyes and slept while the storm blew itself out around him.

Harve had struggled with the boat and his emotions, but he couldn't find Catsoup. The Coast Guard patrol boat that pulled along side
Minerva
, called a helicopter to help make the search. They asked Captain Harve if he wanted help, and he said nothing, exhausted by the waves and frightened by the loss of Catsoup. The Coast Guard offered to tow the
Minerva
, but Harve refused. That would be another indignity no waterman wants to endure. Instead, he started for nearest land at Clark's Point. About a hundred yards from the pier, Harve squinted toward the dock and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. He was astounded to see Catsoup's plaid shirt on the dock, and what looked like his body. He began shouting and screaming until the figure on the dock slowly raised his head and began to clear his thinking. Catsoup sat up as the first ray of sun broke though the clouds. Harve climbed from the boat, righted himself on the dock, and watched as Catsoup struggled to his feet. As often happens on the Bay, the wind was dying and the waves were diminishing as the two figures met. They gave a kind of half hug, grabbing each other's shoulders, and Harve said, “Catsoup, you are the luckiest son of a bitch I have ever known. But don't you ever leave my boat again.”

They just stood on the pier for several minutes. Finally Harve said, “Let's take the
Minerva
back on down to Parkers and get her ready for tomorrow.”

“OK,” Catsoup said. And another idiom of the Jenkins Creek watermen was born: “The luck of the Cat.” They all wanted it.

Chapter Ten

Pete Wildman's boat was fiberglass, no maintenance they called it, meaning no painting required, no rotting wood to be replaced, and no bright work to be varnished and stained. But it still needed the barnacles scraped off every year and a new coat of bottom paint applied. Pete was proud of his boat, partly because he had done most of the work in building it. The boatworks had supplied the hull, the basic finish work on the cabin and the electronics. Pete respected fiberglass, but he didn't like it. He hated the work of finishing because it meant breathing the fine white dust that fiberglass produces. But he added the rod and reel holders himself, put in a special bench seat that was more comfortable than a captain's chair, and added the fish tanks and assorted cushions. He was a proselytizer for the many savings that fiberglass produced over wood, but it never felt the same.