1. Reid
Where do you go when the world is at your throat? Home? Some secret place where no one will find you?
Where do you disappear to when you don’t want to be found?
I come here.
The ocean is my home. More specifically, the Atlantic. The way it welcomes me back time and time again, day after day like an old friend.
I rest on the water, at peace with the demons from my past. On land, they catch up to me, but out here?
I guess they can’t swim.
Caw!
There’s a fucking seagull perched on the back of my deck, screeching at me.
“Shut the fuck up,” I grumble, tossing it a rotten fish. It must be getting five-star meals wherever it nests because it looks at the fish, then back at me like I’m a peasant for offering it some of my bait.
“Well, then starve.”
I used to keep a pistol on deck for birds that tried to start shit, but lately, I’ve been leaving it in the cabin for fear of getting my ass hauled to jail.
I fish bottom feeders for a living.
Then, I sell them to the docks who turn around and sell them to rich people with a taste for the ocean.
It’s not glamorous, nor does it pay well, but life on the water is the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
Just not covered in seagull shit.
“Fuck off, bird.”
I flip him the finger. He stares at me like I’m an idiot.
Hauling a heavy wire cage to the surface, I wrap the rope tethering it to the buoy around my pot hauler, which drags the pot up onto the boat so I can filter through the contents.
It might seem boring to some, but to me, it’s life. It’s exciting in it’s own dirty way.
I’m content.
Most people don’t understand life. They think they need the next best thing. Their egos force them to fit in everywhere they go, so they’re afraid of doing what they really want because God forbid, they stand out from a crowd of a hundred.
They aren’t built for change any more than I’m built for life the “traditional” way. I’m a fisherman. A traveler. I don’t have a home because I take it with me everywhere I go in the form of this boat.
I sleep where I dock and I don’t bother trying to make lifelong friends because, well, when you’ve seen the world, you tend to move before you’ve had time to be solidified in their minds as more than a passing thought.
I’ve just finished my trap for the day when the sun is starting to set low over the horizon.
This is my favorite time of day. Right at the cusp of night when the sun turns the sky bright orange, reflecting off the water and basking everything in a warm glow.
I’m not sentimental, but something about being out on the water when it fades to dark is special.
Shit just gets peaceful out on the water. Even if the rest of the world isn’t.
Unfortunately, today is not one of those days.
I start the engine of the old boat, Hope’s Grace, to take me back to Portland. Mainland is some hour and a half back to the coast and it’s getting dark as it is.
I stayed out too late, again.
Not that I’m not accustomed to sailing at night. I’m just not supposed to. I know the moment I come puttering in after dusk, the coast guard will be breathing down my damned neck as if I’m the next greatest world threat, delivered on a thirty-five foot, thirty-year-old lobster boat.
As soon as the engine starts to come to life, the most gut-wrenching sound fills the open air and a rumble vibrates the boat from beneath.
Well, shit.
The old motor sputters and starts, but she doesn’t like it and when I slide it into gear, it putters through the water like it’s crawling to it’s final resting place.
“Goddamnit,” I snap, gritting my teeth hard at the sounds coming from below deck. “Anything else want to break, today?”
The universe thinks I’m a fucking joke. I know it’s a fact, because the moment I say that, my favorite coffee mug—my only coffee mug—crashes to the floor, shattering with a wave that rocks against the boat.
“Fine,” I growl at the old boat, as if it’s a person. Sometimes, I wonder if it is and it just likes to fuck with me. “We’ll make port closer.”
I check the map stapled to the wall behind me. The only place between here and Portland is Port Nova—some little rundown island with a shitty fishing village located about an hour out from Portland. I’ve never been there. I’ve never really wanted to go, but they should have a mechanic. It’s a fishing island, after all.
I nod, setting a new course to the island that sits just eight miles from my current position.
“Port Nova, it is.”
“Three weeks?”
“Well, don’t get your panties in a notch.” The old man behind the counter in Port Nova holds his hands up in defense. “It’s an old boat.”
“In case you missed it, all the boats in the yard are old.”
“Yeah,” he nods. “But yours is special.”
Of course it is.
“Portland would have it on the shelves.” I know I’m being an asshole, but goddamnit, I’ve got to be in Alaska in September. I don’t have time to spare on this dusty little island.
“Well, you’re welcome to limp it to Portland, but don’t come calling me when you’re resting at the bottom of the Atlantic.”
Shit.
“I thought so,” Al, as his name tag reads, says.
Of course, typical name for a typical fishing island in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“Now,” Al continues. He must deal with men like me often because he’s not the least bit affected by how pissed off I am. “I have a couple spares I can rent ya, but they end up on the ocean floor, they’re coming out of your pocket.”
That’s what I want. A boat rigged up to sink so I’m out thirty grand. You know, pocket change.
“I’ll think about it.”
I’m about to leave when it dawns on me, I won’t be able to stay on the boat here. Not in Port Nova where it seems they lock the boat yard up at night. I haven’t slept anywhere but that boat for the past two years.
Turning back to Al, he looks all too happy that I’m still here. As if I’m a man-sized cockroach.
“Is there a hotel here? Anything?”
I won’t lie, I’ve had Hope’s Grace for the past three years. Once I fixed her up, she became everything I could ever need. I eat, sleep, shower, piss, all on that damned boat. Now, she’s broken and the only parts that can fix her have to come from California, of all places.
Yeah, the universe definitely thinks I’m a joke.
“There’s an inn and restaurant up the block. Might be full of tourists, but try there. Tell Beth Al sent you.”
I tip my hat, my manners getting the best of me before I leave. “Thank you.”
Leaving the boat office, I head into town, just up the path. The sidewalks aren’t full by any means, but the people there stare at me as I pass. I bet it’s not often they get newcomers out here. Whatever tourists Al was talking about may be a figment of his imagination because I can’t fathom why anyone would want to come here.
It’s just a small fishing village. What’s so fucking special?
A couple small businesses line the streets. A coffee shop. Pizza place. Hardware store that looks like stepped out of the fifties. Everything you’d expect in a small town. I can see a school up the hill a little ways and at the end of the block—the inn Al was talking about.
It’s an old, white brick building with Christmas lights still hanging on the outside in July. The paint is chipped and the bushes are so overgrown, they may as well just be weeds by now, but I’ve slept in worse places. It’s got a bed and shower and that’s all I really need.
Stepping through the front door, the smell of something that makes my mouth water hits my nose. It smells like a grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. Warm. Soft.
All the things I’m not.
“Well, hey there,” a woman at the front counter greets me a little too cheerfully. Probably because I’m not a face she recognizes. “How can I help you?”
I step up to the front counter, over a worn spot in the old tile on the floor and set my duffle bag down. “Need a room. Please.”
I spot her name tag, Beth.
“Al sent me.”
“Oh, Al.” She smiles, chipper as ever as she looks through an old book on the counter. I take the time to look around, scanning the old wood paneling on the walls that used to be white, but have now faded to a stained off-grayish yellow.
The place is old and whoever their maintenance guy is sucks. Perhaps it’s from years of working with Dad on construction crews, but I can see the small details. The little things that need repaired that haven’t been taken care of in some time.
“Okay, looks like we got a room upstairs. Room B-4. Ha,” she laughs, rooting around in an old shoe box for a key. When she finally produces one, she hands it to me, her eyes crinkling as she gives me one of the most genuine smiles I’ve seen in a long time. She strikes me as the mother hen of the inn. “How long are you going to be staying for?”
“At least three weeks. Boat’s broken down in the bay,” I explain when she looks concerned.
“Ah, well, I’ll have Al get it in tip-top shape for you. He’s my husband.” She rolls her eyes, chuckling. How the crotchety old man from the boat docks ended up with the nicest woman I’ve ever met is beyond me. “Well, I just need your card. If you would like to pay cash, I can collect half now and half when you leave.”
I nod, reaching into my wallet. I don’t do credit cards. Or banks. I know, I know. They’re so safe now. Bull. I’ve seen enough to know the banks do not have your best interest at heart.
She tells me the total and I pay in full, just so I don’t have to do it in three weeks.
“Thanks. There a store here?”
“Well, we have the Quick Mart up the block. By the school. That’s about it.”
I nod, reaching down to collect my duffel bag. “Well. Thanks.”
I make my way toward the rundown wooden staircase to my left, but before I make it, she calls back to me.
“We have a restaurant.”
I turn, waiting for her to say something else.
“You know,” she shrugs. “Just in case you get hungry. Or you want to meet the townsfolk.”
“Thanks.” I nod, knowing damn good and well I probably won’t find myself in the restaurant mingling with the locals. I’m not a mingler.
As I said . . . I prefer to be on my own.