In
my lobstering infancy the Lucky pulled alongside and a taciturn, salty,
man with a baseball cap smushed down on his head snarled at me and
tossed two of my buoys onto my deck, each with an overhand knot tied
at the end of the short buoy line on it.
“Back
off, you #@$%$*&@,” he barked.
In
one of my smarter moments I proceeded to move all my gear off the rocks
and away from Mr. Smiley to a mile or two outside in about twenty fathoms.
I stayed there for almost twenty years and caught less lobsters for
less aggravation. Thanks Johnny.
Twenty
years later a rookie FNG — there’s one every year, and
usually one less at the end of the year — approached me onshore.
He was in a state.
“That &%$&*#
in the Lucky keeps cutting my buoys off every time I set near him.”
“Do
you talk to him, presently?” I asked.
“What
do I do?”
I
looked him up and down thoughtfully. “Here’s what you do.
Listen close, it’s very complicated. Don’t set near him.”
“He
doesn’t own the ocean!”
“No,
he doesn’t,” I said, “he just owns the western shore.”
Six
months later FNG walked up smiling. “Thanks,” he said.
I
nodded.
In
one of my dumber moments, talking to another lobster man and with lobsters
scarce, I mentioned that John left every day at daybreak and returned
every day in the early afternoon with two totes of lobsters. That’s
150 pounds. That’s a lot. The next day John walked up to me and
suggested in rather harsh language that I had a large mouth and suggested
I go and perform an impossible act on myself.
He
didn’t talk to me or acknowledge my presence for three years.
I
stepped out of the car still dripping wet at Pirates Lane. From a beat
up old truck, its bed full of trash that Donny Kangas calls John’s
Dumpster, he yelled to me, "Where’s your boat?”
“On
the bottom two or three miles southeast of the groaner.”
He
nodded. “Well, you had enough of this racket yet?”
“Not
likely,” I replied.
He
nodded again and drove off waving. I don’t know what shook me
up more, being in the North Atlantic in winter or John speaking to
me again. Somewhere in here he became Johnny Boy to me.
I
fouled my prop and called up John. I needed a tow. As the Lucky pulled
up to me I began, “Look out, Johnny, you can’t come out
this deep.”
“You
want a tow or not?”
“But,
John, there be dragons here. I saw one this morning. If you sink out
here you won’t be able to walk to shore or jump off on a rock.”
As
he began to tow me in I shouted, “Iceberg dead ahead! Look out!”
He
shook his head and towed me in.
I
pulled up to Johnny who was laughing uproariously. Five of his wire
traps were stacked on top of one another about a foot high. Someone
had spent hours jumping up and down on them, he told me who did it.
“Watch
out, his daddy owns a trap company,” I yelled.
“Daddy
better put on another shift,” he laughed.
Never
a dull moment around John.
He
fished every day that the weather allowed and some when it didn’t.
What he went through in one day would make the reality TV shows look
like the joke that they are. When you lobster alone you’re as
close to the edge as you can get. One misstep and you’re dead.
Over thirty years he survived in this environment. Day after day he
was the only boat out.
I
ran the Black Sheep back here from Wood’s Harbor, Nova Scotia
across the Gulf of Maine. John drove into Pirates Lane as I opened
the truck door.
“Where’s
your crew?” he asked.
“I’m
it.”
He
nodded and drove off shaking his head.
From
the Eastern Point Lighthouse parking lot the Environmental Police boat,
Jessie, is way in on the western shore. The wind is banging. Inside
of it rides the Lucky bouncing all over the place. I broke out in hysterical
laughter when I put it all together. The greenies on the Jessie wanted
to board John and two are waving him out away from shore and into a
little deeper water. Johnny is waving them to come on in from their
world and into his, the bushes. They would have wrecked a multi-million
dollar boat as sure as hell. Why, hell, John would have picked them
up even though he would be laughing uproariously. I could fill in the
rest:
“Come
on, boys, come on in. There’s plenty of water,” he was
yelling.
He
would stop waving them in, move to his next trawl, haul and dump it,
then he’d walk on deck daring the greenies to come on into his
world. This continued for an hour. The cops were waving more intensely
as they paralleled him up the shore. Johnny walked back from his cabin
to the deck cupping his ears and holding his hands up. They tried to
contact him by radio. His was not working. He just kept waving them
in. They finally steamed off at high-speed leaving John there and me
a mile away in stitches.
I
sat at Pirates Lane as he pulled in, got out of his truck, and walked
up to my window.
“Where’s
your boat?” I asked.
“Harrison
is coming at 10 to give me a ride over to Huck’s where it is.”
“Well
I’ll give you a ride if he doesn’t show.”
“If
he said he will be here at ten, he will.” He looked at me a little
weird. “You did a real good job with that book.”
I
was blown away. From John that was the highest praise I was yet to
receive.
“Are
you really going to Hollywood to talk about it?” he asked.
“Looks
like. I’ll be going into a world I know nothing of.”
He
laughed. "When you came into lobstering you new nothing. Hell,
Harrison told me he had to show you how to tie the knots. You’re
the only guy to come in here a green FNG and survive one year. You
fished how long?”
“Seventeen,” I
nodded.
“You’ll
do well out there,” he said.
Harrison
pulled up, it was 9:59. John nodded to him turned back to me and tapped
the buoys I have mounted on the back of my truck.
“I
like the buoys,” he said smiling.
“You
think I might get some new ones for the new truck?”
“Naaaa,” he
scowled, “You have good luck out there in Hollywood.”
“I
will,” I nodded.
He
drove off with Harrison. His time came two days later. I never saw
him again.
I
woke up last night from a dream. I’m broken down in the Black
Sheep minutes from going on the rocks and John sees me and guns the
Lucky right at me. He squints through his window removing his smushed
down baseball cap and waves it at me. I relaxed, fired one up. I have
no worries, John Symond’s boat Lucky is coming for me and nothing
will stop him and I will be going home dry this day.
So
long, Johnny boy.
Mark's copper
truck with bouys John talked about in the back. You can see a
manuscript Mark was working on spread open on the dashboard.
Photo
by Kathleen Valentine.
_____________________________________________________________
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Photography of F/V Black Sheep by Jay Albert.
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