“ 21 Recovering the Buoy”
Musical Theme; I'll take care of you by The Dixie Chicks
Everyone on deck came to starboard side to see the buoy recovered. Ronnie put the boat very close to the buoy. Josh took the hook of the crane in one hand, and stepped over the rail. He pointed down and rotated his hand, and Kevin let some cable out. Josh jumped onto the buoy and landed with the cable still in hand. He clipped it off to a lift eye, and then went hand over hand up the cable and dropped onto the deck.
Will chased everyone else off the deck, and Kevin lifted the buoy on board. They pushed it to the rail and chained it down. Sassie came down from second deck. “I got all that, Will. Josh is amazing.”
“He is. You can let the covey out. Roberta might want to look at the barnacles on the buoy, and show them all. They can get some of those big ones to keep. The buoy shop will blast them all off anyway.”
Roberta came out, and she did show the girls a lot of things on the buoy. They got little pieces of the gigantic barnacle growth on it. A buoy is a great place to be a barnacle until they clean it. Roberta took little crabs and marine worms out of the barnacles, and showed them off. The deck gang got back to fishing.
Roberta saved some things for the 600 gallon aquarium below decks. She also chopped off some large masses of barnacles for it. The plan was to cover the bottom with rocks that had barnacles, and such things, and then put some unique fishes and things in there. Josh got in the tank, being wet already, and put some of the barnacle masses in the tank for Roberta. She found a tiny octopus in the barnacles, and of course he had to be put in. They put the baffles back into the top of the tank, and the cover, which they locked down. The temperatures were almost the same, so Will put the circulation on for 20 minutes, which would put outside water in the tank to compensate for what the ejector blew out.
Quint was working on the details of a planned basement tank that would go almost all the way around a central observation area, with some rolling chairs under the stairway at one corner. It would be fed with water pumped up from the Med, and not have filters. Roberta was very excited about it. Marcie would write a check. Chrissie thought it would be a nice place to be romantic. Will and Quint were trying to decide what the biggest fish they would have would be. In a community tank, the biggest fish is your first decision. Everything else has to be too big for him to eat. Or too fast for him to catch. One plans a 35 thousand gallon aquarium a little bit differently than putting a 10 on the bookcase.
Marcie thought it would be more fun to see schools of little fishes cruising around than just one big bad guy sitting on the bottom. Roberta thought so, too. Then there was the issue of what would be on top of the tank, with Roberta suggesting a small office for biologists. Marcie thought that would be nice, too. A modest laboratory and office, and gee, we’re right here on the Med. How convenient. Roberta was wondering if she could get 100 thousand for it, and Marcie was wondering if 5 million would be enough.
“It would be nice to have a few microscopes, some chem. lab stuff, some reference books, we could maybe get a couple of grad students. Maybe a couple of modest apartments, and we would get some samples from Jared, and around here.”
“So you will need a few dozen 55 gallon tanks with input from the med, which will be cheaper than filters, since we’re going to have a submersible pump down at the dock anyway. A few desks and computers, filing cabinets. As to the main hardware, Will thinks the Apache S-T 51 is pretty much the way to go.”
The Apache S-T 51 was a scanning electron microscope and also a transmission electron microscope. It could do micro spectrographic analysis. The FBI crime lab at Quantico had one. General Barnes certainly did, but wherever his was, you would never know. There were two at Apache industries in Yuma Arizona that could be rented for reasonable rates. Apache would even let you have an expert operator like Marie Two Cats. If she could do your microscopy in ten minutes, you could get out with a thousand dollar invoice. CIT had one, and MIT was thinking on it. The Carabiniere would want time on Marcie’s, and they would get it.
“Marcie, that’s a very expensive piece of hardware.”
“Darling, I own a seven three. Check the price tag on that.”
“How would this work?”
“I would buy it, and you would use it.”
“We won’t be able to argue with that. Will, I’m supposed to be supervising the fishing.”
“Mistress Galahad, you have the Grail. Do watch your duties on deck.”
Chrissie hugged Will. “Is it more fun to catch a fish, or see them do it?”
“You have the captain syndrome. When you start to get to think of hauling in a fish as kind of boring, and you want to watch someone who gets really excited have a try at it.”
“I’ve never caught a marlin or something.”
“You have to do that. Then you will be a for real fishing captain.”
“I doubt I could do it.”
“I don’t. You put the pressure on the fish and eventually he loses. The fish is elemental, powerful, savage. You’re the apex predator. You can think ahead, and you have a six million dollar boat and another apex predator at the wheel. It’s exciting, but you can usually win.”
There was a commotion on deck, and they ran out to see what was happening. Roberta turned to Will. “Big Sailfish.”
“Roll up, Roll up!”
Everyone but the girl with the sailfish rolled up and put their rods into vertical holders against the cabin wall, with their sinkers in steel baskets welded to the wall.
Ronnie eased the boat around to put the fish off the bow. Will and Chrissie moved to the girl with the fish on.
“This is a nice one, kid, and you can take him. Keep the line tight. Don’t let it slack for a moment. Keep the pressure on, and don’t worry if he gets a lot of line out. You have a lot more line than what it would take to get to the bottom. The skipper is going to keep over him so he can’t get away.”
Will’s guess was, he had a 75 pound girl fighting a 100 pound fish. It was possible. Maybe the sailfish was only 70 pounds. Maybe the girl could last longer than the fish. The deck crew was as good as you could get, short of the archangel Gabriel on gaff.
Roberta intimated “Sails jump. That is where you lose them. Keep your pole down a little, and if he comes up, reel fast, and keep your tip down a little, so you can raise it. If he jumps, keep that line as tight as you can. They shake the hook in a jump. Never let your line go slack.”
“He’s coming up but not to here.”
“That’s fine. We don’t want him here yet. He may jump. When it looks like the line may go slack, you lift your pole tip and take the slack out. ”
Sassie was looking through her viewfinder from second deck when he jumped. He was a big guy. He shook his head while he was in the air, but the fisherman was not intimidated. She pulled the pole back and cranked fast on the fast retrieve Penn Senator 4/0. When the fish hit the water, she was back to about 45 degrees with the pole, just as Will and Roberta wanted. Having jumped and done no good with that, the fish sounded. This suited the crew just fine. They were over sand and mud bottom not even a third of a reel deep. Ronnie followed him but not close. If he came back up, being close to the boat would be in his favor. They wanted him close to the boat when he was completely shot.
Poquita came up. “I conferenced with her dad and Giuseppe, and he wants the fish mounted if we get it. Giuseppe says give him a good one behind the eyes on top of the head. The damage that would be hardest to fix would be if he thrashed and lost a lot of scales and that sort of thing.”
“OK, we put him in the walk in if we get him, and call Giuseppe?”
“Yeah. He will come to our dock no matter how late, take the fish, and he will give us the fillets the next day. His son will come out with them.”
“I’d better get back on deck, Poquita. There isn’t anything they need to do that someone out there does not know just as well or better than me, but they want to have me to ask. I learned in the DA office that senior prosecutors want the DA to tell them what to do, even though they won’t want to do it if he does. People want to be independent, but they want to have someone tell them they’re right.”
“Don’t you like to have General Barnes tell you you’re right, go ahead with it?”
“You got me on that, Poquita.”
He went on deck, and the fish was still deep, working the fisherman very hard, but she was taking it. Roberta and Chrissie were there, the covey watching. Sassie was getting the drama on video. Will came up and motioned the covey to get back and let him have a clear shot. They did so, all of them looking great as they stood back. Will shot a few stills, and backed up to get everyone in. “Girls, look at the fishing action.”
The covey looked intently at the fishing action, which consisted of one of their classmates with a seriously bent pole struggling with it. Chrissie and Roberta were on the other side of her, giving little bits of advice. Dressed in Aurora with Phillipa shoes, of course. Will put his camera inside his windbreaker and went to the fishing action. “How are you doing, here? Are you arms getting tired?”
“Yes. Will, I don’t think I can do this.”
“You sure can. Did you see Josh jump on that buoy?”
“Sure. I can’t do that.”
“Women tend to be more agile than men. That’s why I like to watch the women gymnasts, but that iron cross on the rings stuff bores me to death. In six months, you could be doing handstands on buoys. Josh could never do that. He’s too big and heavy. I can get you a harness that will take the pressure off your arms. We can put it on you while you work your fish. It would put the pressure on your shoulders, and you lean back some to keep it off your back.”
“Sounds like changing the rules because I can’t win fair and square.”
“Maybe you can be one of us. The few, the deranged, the Jarheads.”
“Or a SEAL.”
“If you don’t think you could cut it as a scout/sniper in the Marines.”
“They don’t let women do that.”
“That’s going to change. What would Saint Ralph say?”
“Sue the bastards.”
“I would start either in the Fifth Circuit or DC. You could win there, and make the military go to the Supreme Court of the United States. You could get one of the best lawyers in America to do your case for free. Women are going to show what they can do, Betty, like you’re going to take that fish. They need a real tough chick to walk point. Someone who never gives up. That’s what they teach you in any elite unit. In the Gulf war, I had a guy named Martin in my company. Little guy, you could probably have beat him wrestling. He could pick locks so fast people didn’t believe it. He could hot wire cars, bypass alarm systems, pick pockets, all that criminal stuff. He was a gang banger out of East LA. Today he is a First Sergeant in the Corps. He went from being on the bottom of society to a position I consider equal to my own. He got a medal once for picking a lock at the same time a corpsman was working on a wound on his leg. He got that door open, and we gave the residents a hell of a surprise. Martin does not give up, ever.”
“My fish is softening, Will. What do I do now?”
“Keep the pressure on, gently. Resist the urge to rush. Just pull him in easy.”
“Gaff crew on deck, please!”
Josh, Kevin and Jill came. Will pulled back, and started taking pictures. Betty got the fish alongside, and Kevin went on the outside of the rail with the gaff. The fish took a turn, and Jill grabbed his bill. “Help me!”
Josh had a hand on the bill. Kevin threw the gaff onto the deck, and pushed up the fish as Josh pulled him into the boat. Jill led the parade, still holding the bill, and they put him on the deck. Chrissie smacked the fish with a piece of steel pipe. The fish quivered. Will shot a lot of pix. His favorite was his lioness bashing the fish with the pipe. They put the fish in the reefer, and went back on deck. Everyone but Betty was up for some more fishing. Betty was more interested in a cup of hot chocolate. She had it with Poquita, who of course called Giuseppe and Betty’s dad to tell them of her success. Betty’s dad was very excited by her catch.
Roberta went to the wheelhouse to confer with Ronnie. There were certain places she would like to sample, and there was a place that, given the time of day, tide and the month, might be pretty good to fish. Jill circulated with pieces of fish to put on the jigs to make them a little more attractive. Will took some more pix, of course. The boat ran to some places and dipped the sample net or took bottom samples. Then they came to the fishing spot. The girls let down, and the fishes piled on. Roberta let most of them go to the box, let a few loose, and took a few below decks to the aquarium. She had several fish traps set in the area, each marked by a way point.
Will went back in the cabin to get some coffee and take a break. Roberta and Kevin were talking.
“Kevin, if this is a private conversation, I could be somewhere else.”
“Pull up a chair.” Roberta said. “It’s not for public consumption, but we don’t mind you knowing.”
“What have you been up to?”
“If only that was it. Kevin, tell him.”
“When I got my career going, I got posted to Group San Francisco, which I think is the best assignment you could have. I got a nice little place at the Presidio, and bought a Porsche 911, which was the car my wife always measured the world by. She was really happy with it. One day, she was coming back from Point Reyes, and broke loose on the road on Highway One. The 911 is a rear engine, as I’m sure you know. Even if she knew how to turn into a skid, she probably could not have done it, because once the car starts to rotate, with the rear engine, it’s not coming back. She went over, 100 or 200 feet down, and hit the ocean. I always thought it would be me who would die in the salt water, and I never had any preparation for her to be dead. But she is. Admiral Jacobs discharged me on a bull shit medical. Supposedly I have a bad knee. He said if I was someone who never should have even been in the Navy, I could shoot myself. I would humiliate him. Otherwise, I would take it and go on, like a real Navy guy would. I looked at my .45 a few times, but I couldn’t do it. I’m kind of sort of all right with the whole thing, but I will never be right, really.”
“You decided not to give up. None of us will ever be right. You can join our family if you want. We’re malcontents, fuck ups, and misfits. We all understand the need to know. Nobody needs to know what we just didn’t talk about. I think over time, it will get a little easier to take. I don’t think it will ever go away. But if you could take it at full power, then you can live with it as it slowly fades a little.”
“I guess you need to get on deck and keep things under control.”
“That’s what commanders get paid for. I see you later.”
Will went back on deck. There were a lot of fishes being caught. He went to the door, and told Roberta that she might want to see what she wanted to do about fishes. She came out, and let them go into the box. After a bit, she found one small one that should be let go, and then another she took to the aquarium.
The boat went back to pick the traps, and Roberta was pleased with her catch. She put some fishes in the aquarium, and flicked some she called ‘nasty’ onto the bait table. She took them to another spot, and the girls let down.
They took a few fishes each, and then one of them told Will she had the bottom. Will took her pole. It was not the bottom. “Roll up.”
He gave her pole back. “You have a very big fish down there.”
Roberta came over. “I think this will be a fish like you call a jewfish or grouper. A big bottom dweller, very good to eat.”
“Pauline, it’s your turn to break your tail. Keep the pressure on, but don’t rush. He will tire, and we don’t want him alongside until he does. Keep your line tight all the time. Never let it go slack.”
He went into the cabin.
Chrissie came up behind Will and put her arms around him. “We’re having some pretty good luck, aren’t we?”
“They said we had to have a fish and game observer, and they sent the best fishing guide on the planet.”
“Now she will own a piece of equipment everyone wants to use, and she will let them. Everyone will say nice things about her because they wanted to play soccer and she let them use her ball. The Carabiniere will want to run some micro samples on it, and she will say, “Sure!”
“But what is the point?”
“Who’s point?”
Marcie came in. “It’s my point, girl. Will has been trying to figure me out for some 20 years, and he hasn’t managed it. You’re pretty smart but you’re not in Will’s class. What he can’t do in 20 years, you can’t do in all the time God leaves you. I want to sit in the basement and look at fishes. I’m not going to try to seduce your husband. I gave up on that 10 years ago. I would steal him away from you, but I can’t. I’m building that lab because I have money I really don’t need. I already have two jets. I’d like something really cool, but if I bought an SR-71, assuming I could, I’d have to fly it myself. Please! A B-1 is out of even my price range. So every time I get a million bucks I don’t need, I give it to someone who hopes they can do good with it. According to the priests, I am going to hell anyway because I do not repent my sins. Why should I? I’m a lot better than the supercilious people who are sure they are going to heaven. I fuck around. But I don’t lie, cheat and steal. So if God can’t get that, he will do the big number on me.”
Chrissie looked a little bit stunned. “If I had any influence, I would say you certainly don’t need to go to hell.”
“According to them, that doesn’t matter.”
Will said, “If you could create the universe, would you make hell for people who didn’t believe a book full of nonsense? I’ll tell you a Marcie story. When she was making a little bit of money for a shoot, she runs into a runaway girl, maybe 14 or so. She tells this girl that she has to talk to her mom. She buys a Tracfone for her, and calls Mom. Mom and the girl talk, and lots of tears are shed, and then Marcie puts the girl on an airliner back home.
“Who do you credit, some psychotic who said he saw a burning bush thousands of years ago, or me, when I can probably find the records for that phone?”
“I will believe you, Will. Let’s get on deck.”
They went out on deck, and came to the girl with the fish on.
“Pauline, what you got?”
“Something very heavy. I can feel some wiggling once in a while, but not much. Roberta says a grouper.”
“How is it going?”
“Not so bad. I’ve gotten up about 40 feet of line, and the crew told me we are in 200, so we’re getting there.”
“So you think we will get this fish?”
“Well, to the surface. I don’t know what he is.”
“Groceries. Should we see if your parents want it mounted if you get it?”
“No. Marcie had to…”
“OK. You are just as good as the girls who have money. Who is the best in your class?”
“Jennie, duh.”
“Jennie came from Central America on a freighter. She came here barefoot and broke. So you can see that God, if he exists, has a sense of humor.”
“Pauline, what’s going on down there?”
“How would I know?”
“Use the force, Pauline.”
“He’s been trying to go down, but he can’t beat the line, so he will try something else. I think he will come to the surface.”
“When he gets here, will he be tired enough for us?”
“I don’t think.”
“Then what should we do?”
“Light up and let him swim around a bit. Keep him off the bottom. But don’t try to pull him up just yet.”
“You’re a Jedi Knight. Let him use his energy where it can’t do him any good.”
Chrissie came up. “Helm wants to know what we are doing.”
“She is keeping him off the bottom, and letting him wear out. We are doing well. We have a real fisherman here. She would have done that without us telling her.”
“Why do we catch these big fishes?”
“Maybe the Fates.”
“Do you believe in them?”
“It’s like God. Nobody knows. I’ve done well on luck. Maybe there is someone up there or out there helping me. For some reason, I think it is Marissica.”
In some unimaginable place, an impossibly beautiful woman in a red knit dress stirred her tea with a small silver spoon. She tapped the teacup with the spoon, and set it in the saucer.
“We should see how our fisherman is doing.”
They went over to the fishing action. Pauline had her fish about halfway up. She thought he was losing energy.
Roberta came over, and her opinion was to keep light pressure on the fish, because he was big, and he would lose a lot of power in a short time. Pauline thought the same, so they kept light pressure on. Will took hundreds of pix of the covey looking over the rail and rallying behind Pauline. Then the fish came up. He surfaced alongside the boat so exhausted that he lay on his side. Kevin jumped the rail and gaffed the fish from the mouth to the gill covers. He passed the gaff handle to Karl, and came back aboard. Karl pulled the fish aboard with an assist by Kevin. When it hit the deck, Chrissie was there with a large piece of pipe. She bashed it right where you have to, and the fish quivered. Kevin dragged the fish into the reefer. The rest of the fishing crew put their gear down again. They caught a lot of fishes. Will filleted a lot of them on the way in. The girls were pretty amazed at how fast he could do it. Two of them wanted to learn, and they did, being photographed as they did. One of them, Susan, had filleted before, and she got much better very quickly in the company of people who had filleted thousands of fishes. Sassie filmed Susan filleting. She also filmed Will filleting, which you could watch in slow motion to see what he was doing. Josh took over as the girls got into the giggling and running around mode. Will photographed them as they did so. They got a little too exuberant, and one of them fell over the side. Ronnie was quick on the uptake, and brought Jared about and came up alongside her. Josh jumped the rail, clipped on a safety belt, and grabbed her flailing hand. He put her back aboard with all the difficulty he would have had if she had been a kitten. Chrissie took care of getting her in the shower and getting into a new outfit, Aurora of course. Some nice wool socks and Phillipa boots, and a cup of hot chocolate, and she was good to go.
Will brought the covey into the cabin and gave them a stern warning about how dangerous it was to go over the rail, and suppose it happened when the captain wasn’t looking, or could not see. He worked the issue hard, including the bit about how mom and dad would never get over the death of a child, how hard it might be to find someone who went over the side at night or even in the day if nobody saw. He threw in a pretty gruesome description of what a ‘floater’ would look like. They were instructed about yelling ‘man overboard’. Ronnie gave the boat to Carlo, and came down and warned all hands that he had lost hands overboard in war, and gave them an idea what it would be like to die alone in the ocean. Perhaps it made some sort of impression. The giggling stopped, and there were some tears about the long ago dead.
Will went back in the cabin to find Chrissie. “Will, you can’t make the whole world safe. They are out there running around the deck. Maybe they learned something or maybe not. They’re kids. If they can’t have fun today, will they ever get to again? Maybe you like the world as you see it, a dark and dangerous place where people get blown away for stepping on the wrong stairway. Any time your brothers might tell you the Clantons and McLouries are down at the OK corral. Fine. I know you’re a gunfighter. I don’t like it. But don’t put it on these girls. When they are 30, it will be different. When they are 14, you can’t tell them about death. You can’t be Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. You probably really are the man Val Kilmer was pretending to be, but you can’t let them see that. I love you for the man who cuddles and caresses, and kisses me 300 times before we make love. The lion scares the shit out of me. You get a phone call, and you leave with nothing in your pockets. I do have some concept of what that means. I know it’s dangerous. I wish you didn’t do that, but I know you are not going to stop. You are always wanting to protect women and I know it isn’t nonsense. But protect these girls from horror for a few years. You can tell girls that getting in a car with a stranger might get her in big trouble, but you don’t show them autopsy photographs. You’ve seen things that you will have in your nightmares for the rest of your life. I wish you hadn’t, because I think you would be nicer and happier if you had not, but it’s done. Don’t share those images with the innocent, Will.
Will looked out at the girls, who were still running around the deck. “They do a lot of running, don’t they?”
“They do.”
“You’re right.”
“Will…
“You can’t argue after the other person concedes.”
“You do care about them.”
“God, if you exist, take me whenever you like, but if I take 16 girls out, don’t let me come back with 15. Let someone else take the wheel, bring 16 back, and let me be the one who doesn’t make it.”
“You mean that.”
“Yes.”
“What about me? What about what it would be like to live without you?”
“Responsibility comes before everything. Even love.”
“Nothing should come before love, Will.”
“Yes it should. Mafia guys say they love their kids, so the wrong they do is somehow justified. That doesn’t cut it. You do the right thing first, and then you can get on with your own interests later.”
“Your wife and children are your own interests?”
“Right. Maybe the top of the list, but they are what you care about, not what your obligations are. Maybe there are obligations there, too, but nothing that outranks the obligation to be virtuous.”
“I suppose I agree with that. Let’s get on deck and do our jobs.”
They went out, and saw lots of fishes being caught. Roberta had made one more stop. She saw Will and Chrissie. “Could I talk with you guys and Marcie for a bit?”
“Sure, if you can find Marcie.”
Roberta sent a quail to find Marcie. They went inside. “Will, we need to know what is going on in the local waters, and the legislature won’t give us the money for a research vessel. It’s stupid, because we need to manage our fisheries.”
Marcie came in and sat down.
“So you want the Jared to run you around a little, put some plankton nets and fish traps in a locker somewhere, Maybe assign a stateroom to you, you could live aboard and do your paperwork and all right here? You could come in when the boat was tied up, and Poquita would send faxes for you and so on? File your mail, and all those things she does so well you can’t even tell she is doing them until she takes a day off, and everything is a mess? And then, would Marcie cover a few thousand a month in fuel and so forth? Is that the wish list?”
“Yes.”
“I think we could. Marcie?”
“I could put in, say, three thousand a month for fuel, another thousand for Jared’s maintenance, another for room and board for Roberta, Some basic services like phone and wireless internet. Let’s make it an even hundred thousand a year.”
“As president of Jared, inc. I indicate my agreement in principle. I propose that we make this an agreement cancelable by any party at any time, and forget written contracts.”
Marcie gave Will a funny look. “Jared, inc.?”
“Marcie, you own two million dollars worth of stock in this corporation, and you don’t know the name of it?”
“Oh, the boat.”
“The boat. Roberta, does this suit you?”
“I’d be the dumbest person ever born to say no. Of course it does.”
“Let’s get on deck and see what’s going on.”
They went out, and what was going on was Kevin and Josh and Jill untangling lines, and fishes going into the box. Will took Roberta up to the w