John Casey - Spartina

A guy said, “Hey — that’s Sawtooth Pond.”

Dick thought of leaving before the boys at the bar recognized him. He couldn’t move without making a big effort — the boys were now two deep behind the bar stools.

Schuyler had rearranged things so that the launching of Spartina came before the shots of lobstering or harpooning swordfish from Mamzelle’s bow pulpit. Schuyler’d made it look like Spartina was the only boat in the movie.

Schuyler’s voice-over—“According to OSHA, fishing and coal mining are the two most dangerous occupations in America. On board this fishing boat sometimes there is camaraderie, sometimes a good deal of tension.” And there was a close-up of Dick’s face for the first time. He turned to the camera and said, “If you go over, we pick the fish up first.”

The boys laughed. One said in a mock singsong, “Ooh, Dickey, he thinks you’re cute. Wants a little of that camaraderie.” The boys quieted down at the shots of pulling pots, emptying them, and rebaiting them. No faces, but Dick recognized his old gloves with duct tape around the middle finger. One guy yelled, “Short! That lobster’s a short!” but no one laughed.

Then there was a sequence that puzzled Dick — underwater shots of a pot settling on the bottom. In the corner of the picture there was an inset rectangle with elapsed time — oo: oo.

One of the guys said, “That’s that old URI movie. It’s infrared or something.”

At first Dick thought that was just like Schuyler — fake a little, bullshit a little, steal a little, stitch it together. But then Dick got to like the contrast of the seabed to how things looked on the boat — cluttered, noisy, and bouncing around.

Elapsed time 02:38, the first lobster. Jump to a little later, three more. First one still can’t figure out how to get in.

Back upstairs. Long shot of Elsie in the dory. The guys couldn’t tell who she was, but they figured out what was wrong quick enough. “Look there — that asshole’s fouled his line.”

Good shot of shark fins. One of the guys hummed the theme from Jaws. They laughed. A shark jostled the bow of the dory. Dick hadn’t seen that at the time. The boys settled down for a bit, then cheered half-derisively and laughed when Dick hauled Elsie up, her feet running in mid-air. “Look at the little bugger go!” “Ain’t that the Vietnamese kid that’s the boy on Spartina? ” They laughed again at the shot of Elsie from the rear, crawling to grab hold of the hatch cover.

Dick felt as if his head was in an oven. It was a relief when the movie went back to the lobsters. Elapsed time 09:43. A whole workday for one lobster to get in. He’s reaching for the bait with one claw, can’t get it. He’s using the other claw to keep the others out, jabbing and thumbing with it. But it somehow seems slow and quiet down there. For all the lobster scuttling, scuffling, and claw waving, it’s peaceful. They take their time between moves. Their feelers sweep out in slow arcs like unhurried casting with a fly rod. Even the quick tuck of the tail when a lobster drives himself backward seems calm. He darts once, then settles, his tail spreading out like a Spanish lady’s fan, the rows of walking legs touching down as light as a spider’s on her web.

The last rectangle gets crowded with big numbers. A lobster is in the parlor. A second one is just inside the entrance, keeping the crowd out. The line is around the block; it’s like Star Wars at the Wakefield theatre. Dick shook his head. You could get on edge about it, pretty discouraged at how slow they go about getting themselves caught. But he found himself soothed by the way everything wafted, by the watery gentleness of time down there. He’d never seen this. He’d thought about it of course, knew about it mechanically, but never seen it this way. But then it occurred to him he’d seen something like it: newsreels of astronauts on the moon — heavy-shelled, weightless creatures finding their own slow way, not in rhythm with the click of earth-surface readouts, their large motion as liquid as the silt they stirred up.

Send these brave lobsters to the moon.

Dick didn’t mind now about all the lobsters that didn’t get in the pot. He was pleased to see what he’d never imagined — that he’d spent a lot of his life dropping pots onto the moon.

The movie jolted back to the surface. Dick’s gloved hands moving fast, grabbing lobster out of the netting. Side view of his face, but you could still read his lips—“Fuck you, Schuyler.”

The guy next to him back-handed his shoulder. “Jesus, Dick. You’re on fucking educational TV.” Laughter. Dick tipped his head. Let him have his joke. They weren’t so bad, a little rowdy was all. Dick wished the movie would get back down to the seabed. But it was in his backyard. A shot of May in her garden. Looking pretty good. One of the guys at the bar leaned forward to say something. Another guy knocked his forearm.

May said, “When do you want your supper?”

Dick’s voice—“When I get back.”

They all whooped it up. “Keep her right in line, do you, Dick.”

Okay, Dick thought, I’m an asshole.

A while later there was Dick back in the bow pulpit, leaning forward with his harpoon. Dick heard the tail end of Schuyler’s voice—“… requires strength and timing.”

“Hey. He does think you’re cute.”

Dick shoved the harpoon.

“Give it to me, Dick. Put it in all the way.”

Dick said, “Blow it out your ass.”

Then there was Spartina sliding out the channel past the sandbagged crab-processing plant. Shots of boats being hauled.

“That’s Swiss Miss. ”

“Where’s Bom Sonho? ”

“She was out with Lydia P. ”

“Yeah. That was just before the hurricane.”

Then they all shut up when they saw the sea come up over the breakwater.

They sat still and watched boats crack like nuts. One broke loose and lifted up onto land and rolled — they could scarcely believe their eyes — she goddamn rolled across the parking lot in the white surge.

Then you couldn’t tell. There was stuff moving, but you couldn’t tell. Blackout, but the soundtrack kept going for a bit. Then quiet.

The next day. The guys stared at the harbor. They spoke up again to say the names of boats they saw, boats they couldn’t see.

There was Spartina riding off the beach. Dick remembered Elsie had been in her jeep. He remembered looking at the hills, the scrubbed beach, the green shoots in the salt marsh. All he could see now was how beat-to-shit Spartina looked. The movie could erase what he thought. But it didn’t erase completely. It left little bits of his life all lit up.

There was another shot of the wrecked boats at the state pier.

The men on either side of Dick pulled away from him.

There was the scene Elsie shot of the boys and May at the boatyard. Schuyler — but maybe it was Elsie — had put in music. Dick was glad Elsie hadn’t recorded what they’d all said to each other. But the music was bad. It did just the wrong thing. It was happy-end-of-the-movie music. It stank, and Dick saw how some of the stink was going to stick to him.

Some of the guys still weren’t working. It didn’t surprise him when one of them said, “And here he is with us today. Luke Skywalker.”

At last someone else said, “Hell, there were a couple of lucky ones. Texeira’s boats were out. You got to choose lucky or good, choose lucky.”

“Hey, Dick. They pay you? For being in their movie?”

Dick said, “No. Nobody paid me.”

“I heard they loaned you money. The money for your boat.”

He left the bar. Stood by his pickup. Didn’t feel like driving home. Sooner or later May would hear about the movie. She’d smell a stink too. Different, but just as bad. For a moment he thought, What the hell have you done to me, Elsie? You thought Spartina was a work of art, put her in a movie, put me in a movie, made a fool of me.