Ore Boats
flash fiction (as read by the author!)
This was when I crewed ore boats on the Great Lakes. Once, there was a big storm on Lake Huron. I wanted to see it, but we weren’t allowed on deck. Instead, we vomited into each other’s arms in the dark below. We rolled just so, and I smashed my head on a bulkhead and everything lit up—shooting star bright and just as quick—then blacker after that, blacker than anything.
I woke up to blood and creaking. The blood mine, off my forehead, and the creaking the boat’s. All the lifeboats were gone, so the rest of the boys got out. I saw that the boat had hogged almost in half. But now there was sunshine, now there were gulls. And now the water was clear and you could practically see the bottom. Four hundred, five hundred feet down? I listened for choppers, listened for engines.
I don’t work boats anymore but now and then, I see those guys. I make my rounds. Different harbors, different bars. They always buy me a drink. And tell me, “Rudy crews in the Philippines now,” “Mike runs charters in Thunder Bay,” “And Martin, poor Martin. He’s a bum in Las Vegas. Lives on the streets. Can’t hold a job.” So, we toast him and the boat and the boys who drowned. God, half the crew. We toast the water anyway, all that water, all our luck.