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Authors: William Carpenter
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and a Reba McEntire cassette and a note. The note
is printed like the way Kristen used to print in about grade four. It reads, HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU, which is the name
of one of Reba’s songs. On the other side it reads, JUST A SNACK. DINNER SOME TIME. And on that side it is signed, Rhonda
(Astbury)
Hannaford. He barely remembers Ronette was an Astbury before she married Clyde. Her old man Ivan runs Astbury’s Wrecking
out on the Burnt Neck Road. And another thing, as a high school freshman Lucky played JV football for Orphan Point when Ivan
Astbury was a senior on the same team. He must have had Rhonda first thing after graduation. Sarah would know.
Sixteen years difference. She could pretty near be his kid.
He throws the banana in the bait bucket, thinking he might bait one of the traps with it, lobsters might go for something
new. He eats the éclair, wipes the cream smears off the cassette so it won’t fuck up the stereo, and puts it on. It’s cued
right to the song too.
Have I got a deal for you
A heart that’s almost like brand-new
Her old man Ivan Astbury lives over on the Split Point Road, right near the RoundUp so he can find his way home when he’s
drunk. That’s where she’s probably gone, home to Daddy, all the way across the harbor from the hot tub of her frozen home.
He looks over eastward as if he could see Ronette Astbury standing on the Split Cove wharf, but it’s a good two miles and
his eyes aren’t what they once were either, not anymore.
When he starts up, instead of steaming past his own house on the eastern side, he steers her down the Money shore and doesn’t
turn eastward till he’s opposite the Split Cove entrance buoy, a red nun half sunk because the Split Cove boys like to take
a shot at it as they go by. He doesn’t go in exactly, it’s been a long time since an Orphan Point boat crossed the Split Cove
line. He does come close enough to make out a figure on the dock. He picks up the binoculars. It’s not Ronette, just the blubbery
outline of Chub Washburn, the Split Cove co-op manager, inspecting his lobster cars. It’s a well-known fact that Chub takes
a leak in them now and then, gives his product that special Split Cove taste.
He puts the throttle up and swings way over to avoid Split Rock, used to be big lobsters right in those shallows in his old
man’s day, but they’re long since gone. He’s going eighteen knots by the time he reaches Sodom Ledge, which at this tide is
lined with seals, big fat cocksuckers, every one of them’s got a hundred pounds of lobster digesting in their stomachs. The
Eskimos have the right idea, kill them and eat them just like anything else. It would improve the environment. You cut up
seal blubber in thin strips, dry it in the sun, it tastes just like a fried clam.
He slows and swings close to Sodom Ledge so the color fishfinder comes right up in a big red splash. He pulls the twelve-gauge
out from its bulkhead rack, feeds a shell into the chamber and takes aim at a couple of big bull seals dozing off on a rock
after pumping their harems all night. Take a look at those females, every one of them’s pregnant, all they do is bellow and
fuck out there, there’s more seals than the sea can support so they have to raid traps, lazy fucking parasites, living off
the sweat of other people’s brows. It would be a good deed to kill three or four of the greedy bastards.
The seals take one glance at the
Wooden Nickel
and its blood-thirsty captain and slide off their deck chairs into the surge. Too late. He puts the gun away and hauls ass
out to sea.
End of the day, he’s made his gas and bait, he’s got maybe fifty pounds aboard and a bucket of rock crabs from the line off
Ragged Arse Ledge that will return to the water in Sarah’s deluxe crab sandwiches. He’s moving a line inshore that didn’t
catch anything out by Red’s Bank, carrying twelve traps on the stern, motor purring easy
is printed like the way Kristen used to print in about grade four. It reads, HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU, which is the name
of one of Reba’s songs. On the other side it reads, JUST A SNACK. DINNER SOME TIME. And on that side it is signed, Rhonda
(Astbury)
Hannaford. He barely remembers Ronette was an Astbury before she married Clyde. Her old man Ivan runs Astbury’s Wrecking
out on the Burnt Neck Road. And another thing, as a high school freshman Lucky played JV football for Orphan Point when Ivan
Astbury was a senior on the same team. He must have had Rhonda first thing after graduation. Sarah would know.
Sixteen years difference. She could pretty near be his kid.
He throws the banana in the bait bucket, thinking he might bait one of the traps with it, lobsters might go for something
new. He eats the éclair, wipes the cream smears off the cassette so it won’t fuck up the stereo, and puts it on. It’s cued
right to the song too.
Have I got a deal for you
A heart that’s almost like brand-new
Her old man Ivan Astbury lives over on the Split Point Road, right near the RoundUp so he can find his way home when he’s
drunk. That’s where she’s probably gone, home to Daddy, all the way across the harbor from the hot tub of her frozen home.
He looks over eastward as if he could see Ronette Astbury standing on the Split Cove wharf, but it’s a good two miles and
his eyes aren’t what they once were either, not anymore.
When he starts up, instead of steaming past his own house on the eastern side, he steers her down the Money shore and doesn’t
turn eastward till he’s opposite the Split Cove entrance buoy, a red nun half sunk because the Split Cove boys like to take
a shot at it as they go by. He doesn’t go in exactly, it’s been a long time since an Orphan Point boat crossed the Split Cove
line. He does come close enough to make out a figure on the dock. He picks up the binoculars. It’s not Ronette, just the blubbery
outline of Chub Washburn, the Split Cove co-op manager, inspecting his lobster cars. It’s a well-known fact that Chub takes
a leak in them now and then, gives his product that special Split Cove taste.
He puts the throttle up and swings way over to avoid Split Rock, used to be big lobsters right in those shallows in his old
man’s day, but they’re long since gone. He’s going eighteen knots by the time he reaches Sodom Ledge, which at this tide is
lined with seals, big fat cocksuckers, every one of them’s got a hundred pounds of lobster digesting in their stomachs. The
Eskimos have the right idea, kill them and eat them just like anything else. It would improve the environment. You cut up
seal blubber in thin strips, dry it in the sun, it tastes just like a fried clam.
He slows and swings close to Sodom Ledge so the color fishfinder comes right up in a big red splash. He pulls the twelve-gauge
out from its bulkhead rack, feeds a shell into the chamber and takes aim at a couple of big bull seals dozing off on a rock
after pumping their harems all night. Take a look at those females, every one of them’s pregnant, all they do is bellow and
fuck out there, there’s more seals than the sea can support so they have to raid traps, lazy fucking parasites, living off
the sweat of other people’s brows. It would be a good deed to kill three or four of the greedy bastards.
The seals take one glance at the
Wooden Nickel
and its blood-thirsty captain and slide off their deck chairs into the surge. Too late. He puts the gun away and hauls ass
out to sea.
End of the day, he’s made his gas and bait, he’s got maybe fifty pounds aboard and a bucket of rock crabs from the line off
Ragged Arse Ledge that will return to the water in Sarah’s deluxe crab sandwiches. He’s moving a line inshore that didn’t
catch anything out by Red’s Bank, carrying twelve traps on the stern, motor purring easy
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