It was funny, Jimmy Gibbs hazily reflected as he tightened down his line with his scored and grizzled hands: You might have thought these people, being less unlike himself, would be nicer to him, less demanding; you might have thought too that Gibbs would feel less touchy taking care of them. But somehow it didn't quite work out that way. There was no bigger pain in the ass on earth than a workingman on vacation. Worried about every dollar; his whole year spoiled if the sun didn't shine or if, God forbid, the fat fuck didn't catch a fish; always suspicious that he wasn't being treated royally enough, that the next guy up the ladder was getting treated better. Rich northerners were wimpy bastards, but Gibbs somehow found them less galling to work for. Maybe it was just that it was less hot when they were here, he didn't end the day quite so wrung out, sweat-soaked, thirsty not in his throat but in some unreachable place halfway down his gullet.
Matty Barnett, looking fine and dignified at the wheel of his boat, cut the engines. In the sudden silence you could hear the whoosh of the pelicans' wings as they gathered to beg for their loops of gut, their fish stomachs full of littler fish.
There were four clients, burned red and swollen with beer, milling around the cockpit, antsy to get off. They filed past Gibbs like he was one more piece of docking hardware, then lolled on the pier, their caps pushed back on their shiny heads. The mate cleated off his dock line and regarded them from under his damp eyebrows: four fat cheapskates waiting to be served.
The skipper stepped down from the steering station. "Give 'em a beer," he told Gibbs mildly.
So easygoing, Matty was. So calm, so diplomatic. It's a hot day and they're waiting for their fish; give 'em a beer and keep 'em happy.
It was just the kind of chore, having nothing to do with fishing or the business of running the ship, that Jimmy Gibbs most hated. He delivered the beers and kept his mouth shut. Then he lifted the ice chest, jackassed it over the gunwale and onto the dock, and got ready to clean the fish.
He hosed down the cleaning board so that the splintered wood gleamed darkly in the sun, then reached into the cooler and grabbed a hogfish. Its tail was curling upward and its eye had the surprised look dead fish often have, a look of disappointment, of having been betrayed.
"Whole or fillet?" asked Jimmy Gibbs.
The four fat fishermen looked over at him and sucked their beers. Then one of them said, "Hey, that's mine. That sumbitch had some fight in 'im, wuddn't it? Took line, lotta line. That drag screamin', oh shit."
Gibbs stood there in the sun. His short gray ponytail lay like a rotting log against the back of his neck and dammed up the sweat coming down from his head.
"Fillet, I guess," the fisherman finally said.
Gibbs shoved his knife in and tried to think of other things. Like money. Soon he was going to have some. The painting Augie Silver had given him was on its way to New York, and it was going to fetch a bundle. The Sotheby's people had no doubt of it. They even arranged the crating, shipping, insurance, said they'd take the cost out later. Pretty decent of them, Gibbs thought. He reached into the hogfish and disassembled it. The guts were cold from the ice and felt almost good squishing through his fingers. He spread the creature like an open book and cut the flesh away from the backbone and the skin.
Then he pulled a small yellowtail, barely legal, out of the cooler. Its stripes were still bright, its brick-red gills fanned out in search of something they could breathe.
"Whole or fillet?" asked Jimmy Gibbs.
Three of the four fat fishermen laughed. The fish guts dried on Gibbs's hands. They itched. Flies came to the dead fish and landed on the first mate's wrists.
"Ain't nothin' t'fillet on that baby," said one of the laughing clients.
"Leave 'im whole, I guess," said the one who wasn't laughing.
Gibbs worked. His blue shirt was soaked under the arms and along the spine. A drop of sweat fell into his eye and he had no way to rub it.
When he was halfway through the chestful of fish, one of the clients said to him, "Yo, friend, grab us another beer."
Gibbs just stared at him, then went back to his gutting.
Now the clients were offended, they weren't being treated well enough. You could see all four of them turn sulky, just like that. Let 'em, thought Gibbs. The trip was over, and if at the end the four fat fucks got pissy and didn't tip him, who the hell cared? He'd be well off soon, he'd be a captain, and when he was, he'd dock his boat and go sit in the shade, like Matty Barnett was doing now. No more gutting, no more scaling, no more playing barmaid.
He reached into the fish cooler again and told himself to think about the future and be happy. But he wasn't happy. There are two things that drive a poor man crazy. One is feeling that there's no way out and the other is feeling that there is. What used to be just miserable suddenly becomes unbearable. The last grains of patience slip through the glass the fastest.
"Whole or fillet?" asked Jimmy Gibbs.
The fish on the board was the biggest of the day, a grouper maybe thirty-three, thirty-four inches, ten, eleven pounds. It was a nice fish, but the fishermen were grumpy now, they didn't whoop about it or slap each other on the back. For a few seconds no one spoke, then a loud old car went past in the parking lot and over the noise of it Jimmy Gibbs heard someone say fillet.
He put down his knife, picked up the cleaver and the mallet, and with a single blow that sent loose scales jumping he chopped the head off the fish. Grouper have massive heads, heads like bison, and once this one was severed past the hump, it no longer looked big.
"Fuck you doin'?" one of the four fat fishermen said. He said it loud enough so heads turned three, four slips away, and a lot of people Jimmy Gibbs knew were curious to see what happened. "I said whole, goddamnit. That one was to show the wife."
Gibbs looked down at the decapitated fish. The face was at a funny angle, there was an inch or two of blood-smeared plywood between it and the body. The cleaver blow had made the jaws spring open and the tongue was sticking out. Gibbs felt bad. He'd heard wrong, O.K., it was his fault. He was choking down some evil-tasting stuff and working up the breath to say that he was sorry.
But the fat fisherman wouldn't leave it alone. He threw his beer can down and stomped it. It wasn't quite empty and some foam shot out. "Goddamn fuckin' people roun' here," he said. He said it loud. "Fuckin' locals can't do nothin' right."
A trickle of sweat loosed itself down Jimmy Gibbs's back. Late afternoon sun glared orange on the water, a half-circle of crews and tourists seemed to be drawing closer. Gibbs itched everywhere, his hands balled up and he felt his fingernails clawing at his palms. His knife was on the cutting board in front of him, flecked with gore and sharp as a razor. He'd used a knife once on a man, many years ago. He remembered the weird red pleasure of it, the sucking resistance of flesh to the blade, the fish-eyed surprise on the face of the one stabbed. To kill someone, Gibbs had learned, was less difficult than people thought. All it took was singlemindedness and a burst of raging purity.
Sun glinted off his knife, but when Gibbs made his lunge at the fat fisherman it was the oozing fish head he picked up.