Read Online The Wooden Nickel by William Carpenter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Carpenter
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at 1600 rpm, clouds breaking up after
a gray spell, nice George Strait song on the radio. Though his heart’s jumping a bit from the skipped medicine, it feels pretty
decent to be alive. He takes Ronette’s note out of his oilskin bib pocket and reads it again.
Just a snack.
What the fuck does she mean by that? He crumples the note into the bag and throws it off the stern. Then he notices one of
his traps has the vent hatch missing so the lobsters can walk right out. And another. No wonder this string didn’t produce.
Fucking seals rip the vents right off the trap and help themselves. The state makes you use these escape hatches that turn
every christly lobster trap into a seal feeder. Might as well forget about fishing and just throw pieces of meat off the side
all day long. Fucking government can’t help itself, it pisses out welfare every chance it gets.
He sees one of their brown bald heads staring at him from the water right off the starboard beam, with a dumb satisfied look
like he’s got two or three lobsters in his throat right out of some poor man’s trap who’s trying to make ends meet. He slows
down and grabs the shotgun off the radar shelf and fires a twelve-gauge load right in the seal’s skull.
BOOM.
The shot echoes off the sharp granite ledges and a flock of seagulls jumps into the air flapping and squawking like a hippie
protest. Though the top of its head is sliced off at the eye line, the seal flashes a look of hatred, then goes down for its
last dive.
“Fuck you too!”
he yells. Only this time it won’t be ripping up anyone’s trapline when it gets down there. Another Orphan Point family is
going to have food on the table as a result of Lucky’s quick thinking and steady aim even in a cross-running sea. Not to mention
the lobsters already feasting on hot bloody seal. Scavengers, just like us.
Half the seagulls are circling the water where the seal went down, looking for what they can get. The other half are crowding
over his stern for a free lunch, bunch of parasites worse than the seals. There’s one big blackback cocksucker flying right
over the bait barrel like he owns the fucking sea and every fish in it. He pumps another round into the chamber and blows
the seagull into a cloud of bloody feathers. The minute its head hits the water another gull gives off a cannibal scream and
dives down to peck the eyes out. He puts the gun down and backs up till he can gaff the dead gull and bring him over the side.
He slices the left wing off with a rope knife and throws the carcass to the other gulls. He stands up on the rolling side
deck and duct-tapes the bloody wing to the loran whip. Soon as it’s up there, the other gulls back off like they’ve seen a
ghost. He’ll leave it up all season, teach them a little respect for the workingman.
He steers with one knee on the bronze wheel spoke while he runs a wad through the shotgun barrel, rubs a little Watson’s gun
oil on the untarnished surface, and puts it back. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Survival of the fittest. It’s them or us. They’ve
got the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Greenpeace submarines and the financial backing of the Rockefellers and the IRS.
Whereas we, the people, what does that leave us but our guns and our own two hands?
Or one, in the case of that Shag Island guy with the robot hook. A whole fucking government against one human hand.
He sets his trapline in five fathoms right where the seal went down. Free bait. He’ll be back to get them in a couple of days.
He’s coming in by Sodom Ledge now with a couple of other boats in sight. There’s the
Bonanza
running a foot low in the water from what must be three thousand pounds of lobster, Art’s kid steering while Art throws shorts
over the side like he’s trying to reseed the inner harbor.
There’s Damon Peterson, he always took second in class C diesels till he got himself a vasectomy. Since that day he
a gray spell, nice George Strait song on the radio. Though his heart’s jumping a bit from the skipped medicine, it feels pretty
decent to be alive. He takes Ronette’s note out of his oilskin bib pocket and reads it again.
Just a snack.
What the fuck does she mean by that? He crumples the note into the bag and throws it off the stern. Then he notices one of
his traps has the vent hatch missing so the lobsters can walk right out. And another. No wonder this string didn’t produce.
Fucking seals rip the vents right off the trap and help themselves. The state makes you use these escape hatches that turn
every christly lobster trap into a seal feeder. Might as well forget about fishing and just throw pieces of meat off the side
all day long. Fucking government can’t help itself, it pisses out welfare every chance it gets.
He sees one of their brown bald heads staring at him from the water right off the starboard beam, with a dumb satisfied look
like he’s got two or three lobsters in his throat right out of some poor man’s trap who’s trying to make ends meet. He slows
down and grabs the shotgun off the radar shelf and fires a twelve-gauge load right in the seal’s skull.
BOOM.
The shot echoes off the sharp granite ledges and a flock of seagulls jumps into the air flapping and squawking like a hippie
protest. Though the top of its head is sliced off at the eye line, the seal flashes a look of hatred, then goes down for its
last dive.
“Fuck you too!”
he yells. Only this time it won’t be ripping up anyone’s trapline when it gets down there. Another Orphan Point family is
going to have food on the table as a result of Lucky’s quick thinking and steady aim even in a cross-running sea. Not to mention
the lobsters already feasting on hot bloody seal. Scavengers, just like us.
Half the seagulls are circling the water where the seal went down, looking for what they can get. The other half are crowding
over his stern for a free lunch, bunch of parasites worse than the seals. There’s one big blackback cocksucker flying right
over the bait barrel like he owns the fucking sea and every fish in it. He pumps another round into the chamber and blows
the seagull into a cloud of bloody feathers. The minute its head hits the water another gull gives off a cannibal scream and
dives down to peck the eyes out. He puts the gun down and backs up till he can gaff the dead gull and bring him over the side.
He slices the left wing off with a rope knife and throws the carcass to the other gulls. He stands up on the rolling side
deck and duct-tapes the bloody wing to the loran whip. Soon as it’s up there, the other gulls back off like they’ve seen a
ghost. He’ll leave it up all season, teach them a little respect for the workingman.
He steers with one knee on the bronze wheel spoke while he runs a wad through the shotgun barrel, rubs a little Watson’s gun
oil on the untarnished surface, and puts it back. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Survival of the fittest. It’s them or us. They’ve
got the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Greenpeace submarines and the financial backing of the Rockefellers and the IRS.
Whereas we, the people, what does that leave us but our guns and our own two hands?
Or one, in the case of that Shag Island guy with the robot hook. A whole fucking government against one human hand.
He sets his trapline in five fathoms right where the seal went down. Free bait. He’ll be back to get them in a couple of days.
He’s coming in by Sodom Ledge now with a couple of other boats in sight. There’s the
Bonanza
running a foot low in the water from what must be three thousand pounds of lobster, Art’s kid steering while Art throws shorts
over the side like he’s trying to reseed the inner harbor.
There’s Damon Peterson, he always took second in class C diesels till he got himself a vasectomy. Since that day he
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