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The Sea Claims Its Own
by Timothy Fogg
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Milford had always been known locally as a caution. As a kid he had been known for his outrageous sense of humor and his willingness to do anything for a laugh. As he grew older the urge to steal the spotlight stayed with him. The difference was, instead of a school, the setting was now apt to be a barroom, and if a joke didn't go over then fists were likely to fly.
Most of the young people fled the little fishing village upon graduation. Milford didn't, for the harbor was his home and he was content to fish lobsters, dig clams, and spend the rest of his time in one of the three bars the hamlet had to offer.
To the outsider the life in a small fishing village seems idyllic. The passer by, the tourist, he does not understand the hardships involved in such a life. If there aren't any lobsters in this town he'll just travel on down the coast. For the resident, lack of a good catch results in an empty larder, and no other job to go to. He just waits for his luck to change, and if it doesn't, he starves.
The fisherman has lived through the nor'easters, when the wind turns round the Bay of Funday and drives the rain and snow horizontally into men's faces and under the eaves of the roofs. There are plenty of houses that only leak when the wind drives from the northeast. Somehow the owners forget the power of the storms and never patch well enough to prevent a recurrence.
The fisherman has also lived through a lot of slack times, when a pan of poor man's stew was all there was to eat and he was glad to get it. The Great Depression ended in the late 30's for most folks. But in some areas it just ebbed a little bit and comes and goes like the tide. Poverty can be similar to a gene that passes from one generation to the next.
One more thing the fishermen have lived with - loss. Fathers, brothers, husbands and sons are often lost to the mighty ocean, but none of the survivors seem to be able to turn their back on it. It's somewhere in the recesses of the fisherman's minds every time they leave the dock. The feeling is never brought up in conversation, never even referred to, it is just a part of the life of a man who spends as much time or more on the water as on land. It is felt by the wives and mothers as well, and they watch the boats leave the sight of land and pray for their safe return.
Perhaps because of this life on the edge, perhaps because of the poverty, or maybe just because old habits die hard, a lot of fishermen drink. By many peoples' standards, they drink heavily. And in this little town of fairly heavy topers, Old Milford (he picked up that title by the time he was thirty) was the thirstiest man of the bunch. When well into his cups he was prone to stare into the front window of a bar and make funny faces. If he was sitting on a stool he might grind his false teeth until the unearthly grating had everybody hollering for him to stop.
When I got to know him well I realized that a lot of his behavior was from excitement. Heck, Bernie's Place on a Saturday night was as high on the hog as Milford would ever get and he was making the most of it. In conversation I happened to ask his how the fishing was and in a completely sober, refined voice he told me how the catch was that year and the reasons he thought it was so. As soon as our talk was over he went right back to acting like a man on the verge of alcohol poisoning.
The summer of '86 was a banner one for lobsters and tourists. Milford scored well with both. The lobsters were no surprise for the man just about lived on the water, but his success with the ladies was a difficult thing to explain. I have mentioned his refined voice. When he used it wisely he could be a real charmer. When you looked closely you saw that his face actually seemed much younger than it really was. And he could wear clothes.
By this I mean that he could don pants and shirt that would make me look like a janitor just off a hard shift and make them look tailor made. The way they hung and his deft way of flipping his collar made him look like what he was - the master of his own chosen environment.
That summer seemed to stretch out forever, and the local wags on the dock and in the bars would wager who Milford's date would be that evening. Blonde? Red Head? While they would never admit it, a blind man could see these men watched with envy, perhaps dreaming of the glory days that they had never experienced. If they were saddened by this state of affairs at least they lived it vicariously through the exploits of Milford.
September is always a time of change, for as the days grow shorter the tourists with children have to return to their homes. Labor Day can be a time of celebration or a time to cry, depending on one's age. Others visitors stay longer, until the icy blasts of an angry winter wind drive the temperature down below zero and the ocean is covered with sea fog caused by cold air over a somewhat warmer water. Not much warmer, but some.
It was hard to tell how Milford felt about the change of season. His face bore a smile that a crew of undertakers couldn't remove. He was quiet but happy. He even forgot to grind his teeth on slow Saturday nights.
When the radio reported the tail of a hurricane would pass to the south nobody paid it much mind. Such things had happened many times before. Milford passed on the old warning, "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning," but the others scoffed. The storm would pass to the south. Hadn't the radio just said so?
By late afternoon it was plain that the scarlet sky of the early morning had been a true omen. The skies darkened and the wind blew. The rain came in sheets that reduced visibility to zero. The fishermen left the water early and made sure their moorings were secure. Then a lot of them retreated to Bernie's Place to swap stories of the big storms they had seen in the past. Milford was one of them; happy to be sitting in the warmth and sipping a beer while the wind raged outside.
It had been dark for some time when word spread up the street that someone was crying for help from out on the water. The Coast Guard was called, but everyone knew it would take too long for them to arrive. The fishermen looked sheepishly at each other but none volunteered to embark into that stormy night. The memories of their losses were just too great.
Milford finished his beer and stood up. "Someone ought to go out," he said, and he strode out the door. In five minutes he was on the water, straining to hear that voice that cried in the darkness.
He found the couple in a half an hour, their motor inoperative and their boat at the mercy of the sea. He loaded them into his Boston Whaler and thought he was home free when the husband said, "What about our boat?"
Milford would have scoffed at the stupid question, but the wife piped up, "We restored it. We spent three years and this is the first trip out. Can't you save it?"
It must have been Milford's love of boats that made him do it. Quickly he showed the husband where to aim the bow and how much speed to use and then he got on their boat.
When these people showed up at the dock without Milford they met a solid wall of disapproval.
"Outta staters, fer sure."
"Hadn't otta allow 'em in here."
"They're so cussed stupid. They don't even know what they've done."
They didn't know what they had done. They didn't understand the courage it took for Milford to rescue them on that stormy night, or how he had left their outboard down so that the prop could act as a sea anchor. And they had no idea that the prop would catch in a hank of pot warp, gear laid down by Milford himself, and that the boat would pull up short on this and flip, throwing the man to the mercy of a very cruel sea. Like many men who live on the ocean Milford had never learned to swim but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The northern waters are much too cold to allow life that is foreign to them.
The tourist couple left the very next day, never realizing the true value of a simple man like Milford. The natives keep his memory alive, and maybe old Glen Simkins summed it up best when he said, "You believe in re-incarnation? If it happens than I hope Milford is a black fly, biting one of them tourists on the neck."
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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