Shrimp Boat Part 1 of 3

The boat was rocking. Not violently, just three to four foot swells enough to let you know you we’re in open water. The rigmaster was working the winch, trying to lower the swollen net on the captain's command. The pulley holding the net was 30 feet in the air and the 3,000 pound net was swinging four feet above the deck. First the net would swing port several feet over the railing and then starboard. While Captain Joe was shouting instruction and batting at the net like it was a pinata. I reached out and grabbed the net to wrestle it into the middle of the deck. I was lucky it didn’t catapult me overboard or break my legs on the knee high rail. It just dragged me around the deck like a kid clinging to his dad’s leg.

Captain Joe yelled at me from the other side of the net, “Hoss, what the hell are you doing? I know you’re tough but it’s going to thrash your ass!”

I let go.

A few moments later Captain yelled, “Now!”

The rig master dropped the net and it landed dead center of the deck. Captain pulled the line that held the net shut, and the rig master hoisted it back up to release the haul. It covered the entire deck almost 3 feet deep in shrimp, fish of every kind, crabs, lobsters, stingrays and the occasional dead shark. I started separating.

The Captain stood by and watched me start the messy job. The shrimp would go into a laundry basket and everything else was pushed to the side to be scuttled overboard. The rig master had left the winch and was standing on the other side of the deck looking at the pile and fiddling with the crabs.

“ASSHOLE!” I looked up.

Captain: Not you, Hoss. I wanted Asshole.

Calling me Hoss was like calling a fat man Slim or Tiny. At 5’11” and 140 pounds there was hardly enough to me keep from being washed away.

Captain: Asshole, are you going to drop the net or am I going to have to come over there and do your job, too?

Asshole/Rigmaster was waving his gangly arms around his head like the persecuted fool he was, trying to deflect the criticism.

“Sheez, I’m gonna drop the nets. I was just checking the last haul,” The Rigmaster said.

Captain Joe turned back to me, “You don’t say much do you, Hoss?”

I shook my head no.

“Well a man’s got a right to keep to himself.”

This was two weeks into the tour. Long enough for everyone to settle into their roles and be irritable. I had been in Port Aransas, Texas for a year and a half as an aspiring kick boxer. I hired onto a shrimp boat because international waters looked inviting compared to the inside of a cell and by the time I got back I’d be able to clear up any legal misunderstandings .
-----
The rigmaster had the unenviable moniker of “Asshole.” Unfortunately, it was the only name I knew. Rigmaster is the most labor intensive job on the boat. His job was everything the Captain didn’t want to and everything I didn’t know how to do. From buying all the supplies, cooking, dropping & pulling the nets, piloting when the captain felt like sleeping, shoveling ice and packing shrimp below deck, he was the boats girl Friday. He had led a hard life, with a map of the world in the lines of his face. Officially I was listed as the boats sole rig master and deck hand. Asshole couldn’t pass the physical. He was skinny as a rail, but he’d had a heart attack last year and hadn’t been able to get back on a boat until Captain Joe took him on this tour.

Captain Joe hired me despite my lack of experience so he could get Asshole on the boat. When he said he’d take me he set a few ground rules.

“One, don’t get sea sick on me. If you get sick when your sorry, never-been-to-sea ass hits the open water, I’m turning right around and dropping your ass off. You’re as useless as a bible in a whorehouse if you’re going to be sick the whole time. Two, put ALL the shrimp in the basket. Not just the big ones and think it’s good enough. Cause it ain’t. I don’t need no half-ass, whiny bullshit. We get paid by the pound, so the shrimp go in the basket. Three, don’t ask me what type each little fishy is, or I’ll throw your ass overboard. There are only two fish you need to know about, and I’ll show you both of them. The scorpion fish will paralyze half your body and make you puke and die if you end of having some kind of allergic reaction. You ain’t allergic to anything are you?”

I shook my head no.

“Good. Don’t need you dying on me, neither. We need the ice to pack the shrimp, not your dead ass. Can you handle the detail?”

“I can.” those would be the last two words I spoke for over two months. He never did tell me about the second fish.