A MAN CALLED JOE
by Tom Trabulsi It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Joe Donnelly didn’t like the ocean and barely even went to the beach. But when Harley Ryan, Joe's best friend, called up wondering if Joe wanted to make some extra money, Joe reluctantly said yes. Through the years, when he was especially desperate for cash, Joe would shelve his fears and hop on Harley’s boat. Since Joe ran his own tile business and was currently between jobs, money was tight. Joe’s wife was turning thirty-eight tomorrow and they had dinner plans at her favorite restaurant, so the extra cash would definitely help. But none of that mattered now since Joe was pretty sure he, Harley, and Harley’s apprentice, Teddy, would all be dead before that celebration ever occurred. Clutching the Coleman cooler, staring out at the heaving seascape as he floated in this endless nowhere, Joe Donnelly was determined to live. XXX Hours before, the three of them had worked the deck under a brutal sun. Heavy metal blasted across their furious work. Teddy, the apprentice, was already an eighteen-year-old expert, so Joe, a day-tripper just along for the ride, tried to be helpful while steering clear of the many dangers stalking every square inch of the deck. Besides his fear of water and sharks, Joe was especially terrified of the “block,” a two-foot wheel that dragged the lobster pots up to the surface. On his occasional trips, Joe had only tried running the block a handful of times and was absolutely petrified of it. There was so much force and strain generated by dragging thousands of pounds of pots and rope up from the sea-floor, that if the mainline slipped off the block, it could easily rip off a hand, arm or even drag someone overboard. Each pot was connected to the mile-long “mainline” by a ten-foot rope. The small deck was quickly crowded with stacked pots and double-backed mainline. The process was simple enough—Captain Harley ran the block as Teddy pulled the pots onto the rail and tossed the lobsters or stone crabs onto the sorting table. Joe then re-baited the pot before stacking it in a precise order so that once the entire string was on deck, it could be re-launched without tangling. Before the next pot arrived, Joe turned to the sorting table and used a simple measuring gauge to determine whether or not the lobster was a “keeper.” This gauge measured from the eye socket to the rear of the carapace. If the lobster wasn’t long enough it had to be tossed back. Same with any females that had eggs hanging from their bellies. As the heavy metal sound-tracked the day, all three failed to notice the darkening sky. XXX Harley Ryan’s 42-foot Holland had a 1600 horsepower diesel engine. Because of the boat’s small size, Harley usually stayed within twenty miles of shore. Navigating the open ocean was safer in the 60-80 foot boats favored by the majority of the fleet based out of Point Judith, Rhode Island. These lobstermen, strangled by regulations and ever shrinking quotas, were a dying breed. Same with the fishermen of Fall River, New Bedford, Fairhaven and Gloucester, who had spent two centuries becoming so good at what they did that the federal government finally had to step in to regulate these depleted fisheries. To shrink the fleet even further, the government bought boats and destroyed them at a scrapyard in Providence. That meant a once well-paying profession was now on life support. The only people making money were the boat owners and captains while the deckhands, as always, took the beating. Long a hard job crewed by hard men, the fleet was now inordinately staffed by ex-cons, alcoholics and junkies. Harley’s dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather had handed Harley the knowledge accrued by spending over a hundred and fifty years at sea. Harley, a gregarious 250 pound beast, cried every time the impending death of his industry arose. He had red hair and freckles and a right eye that constantly twitched. He was not good with money, so Helen, his wife, did all his scheduling, taxes, and marketing. Joe wasn’t much better. He and Harley, best friends since the second grade, were like thirty-eight-year-old kids. Helen put up with Harley’s immaturity since his goofy nature and simple tastes bridged the gap between the hard times and money problems that still kept them in their tiny 1,100 square foot house. Their two young daughters liked to paint Harley’s nails and braid his unruly red hair. Helen, who tended bar three days a week, sometimes came home from work to find Harley in one of her dresses and full makeup. Harley Ryan, needless to say, did not make a handsome woman. XXX Their last heading was due east twenty miles offshore. In the panic of those last seconds, Joe felt worst for Teddy because at least Joe and Harley had lived half their lives. Teddy, however, was like any other eighteen-year-old kid who chased girls and partied with his bros before the real job of adulthood would eventually force him to straighten out his game. He reminded Joe of everything he and Harley used to be before their jobs and wives and kids turned them into middle-aged men. The kid was smart but had no interest in college. Originally, he fell in love with the water working alongside his dad, a legendary menace who had grown up with Joe and Harley before falling asleep at the wheel one night driving home drunk from Providence. Then Teddy started boozing and drugging until Harley finally kidnapped him onto his boat and kept him there all summer. Teddy busted Harley’s balls by telling him he would one day take over Harley’s boat. “You’re already old and fat,” he said, “so why don’t you just give it to me?” That only made Harley laugh because he had once told his own dad the exact same thing. With Harley’s laptop directly connected to N.O.A.A.’s website, they all knew the storm was coming. But the original forecast had only called for rain and ten knot winds with increased swells. Either way, Harley had been a fisherman for twenty-three years and survived storms a thousand times worse. Bad weather sometimes even increased their catch once the less hearty fishermen steamed home. When the first alarm started shrieking, Harley ran up into the wheelhouse. But Joe and Teddy, already on deck for the past eighteen hours, continued hauling pots in the middle of the rain-soaked night. There was no moon or stars or ambient light. Besides the massive halogen lights illuminating the deck, the night was a total blackout. Their bright orange Grundens all-weather gear held back most of the water but their faces were drenched from the sideways rain. Teddy took over control of the “block” as Joe stepped into Teddy’s spot at the rail. With only two guys working the deck, and one of them a novice, the usual breakneck pace had to be throttled back. Joe was doing the work of two as Teddy ran the block and made this very dangerous job look easy. They were hauling pots with the heavy metal blasting when a second alarm started screaming. Black smoke suddenly poured out of the engine room. “Teddy!” Harley yelled from the wheelhouse. “Grab the extinguisher and meet me downstairs!” Teddy shut down the block and joined Harley below deck. The boat, now dead in the water, was pushed broadside into the trough as waves smashed over the port-side wall. “Oh God,” Joe said, and ducked as a trio of waves hit hard enough to nearly roll the boat. With no one at the helm, the mainline tightened as the rope paid back out and dragged the pots into the starboard wall. The last pot they had just stacked then flew over the side as Joe jumped away from the rope before his feet got tangled and dragged him over. He ran to the doorway where choking smoke billowed out of the engine room and shouted, “Harley! Pots are going over!” There was no answer as the lights flickered and the smoke grew heavier until Harley screamed, “Joe! Try the steering now! Turn us into the waves!” A second steering wheel was on a podium next to the block to allow the captain to work the deck. Joe spun it but nothing happened. He tripped climbing the six-foot ladder up to the wheelhouse and then fell as another wave knocked him off his feet. A pot flew by his head and he screamed like a woman. The next pot slammed into his chest and almost knocked him out before leaping over the side. “Joe! What’s going on with the steering?” Joe found his feet but fought to catch his breath. He made it up the ladder and entered the bridge in time to see an impossible sight. The approaching wave was monstrous, feeding itself from below and climbing so high he lost sight of it once it got cut off by the top of the window. “Holy Jesus …” Joe spun the wheel but nothing happened. He spun it the other way and, after feeling no resistance, knew the cable must be snapped. “Harley!” “What’s happening?” “Harley! There’s no steering on either wheel!” The wave was thirty-feet high when it hit them and rolled the boat. Joe was thrown across the wheelhouse. He realized he was lying on the ceiling as the lights died after the engine choked out. The ocean poured in through the shattered port-side windows. Joe knew his ribs were broken and, as he scrambled for the door in total darkness, felt the same must be true of his right leg after it immediately buckled. Lucky for him the door had been ripped off in the collision, otherwise he never would have been able to open it with all of the water flooding in. He took a deep breath and swam through the doorway. His gear and boots suddenly weighed a thousand pounds as he breast-stroked to the surface. He popped up choking and gasping and struggled to dislodge his boots before they drowned him. With no time to don a survival suit, the warm water of summer meant he would not be dead in minutes. With his boots gone, he was able to tread water and, after a lightning strike illuminated the night, saw Harley’s upside-down boat slowly sinking thirty-feet away. “Harley!” No answer. “Teddy!” Nothing. “Harley! Teddy! Where are you guys!” Another wave unexpectedly crashed over Joe. Choking, he cleared his throat and pulled off his Grundens jacket and soaked sweatshirt which felt heavier than a cement bag. His broken leg flapped every time he kicked to keep himself afloat. “Harley!” No answer. Another lightning flash showed him where the boat used to be, but it was now gone. “Harley! Teddy!” He had zero time to feel sorry for himself or them. He struggled against the rain and relentless waves just to remain on the surface. Then something crashed into him. At first he thought it had to be a shark but then felt stupid when he discovered it was a Coleman cooler, the same one they had filled with sandwiches the day before. He threw himself across it to catch a breather before the next set of waves rolled through. “Teddy, Harley, where are you guys!” He paddled over to where a debris field marked the boat’s new grave. With every lightning flash he watched the heaving seascape, but no one else appeared. The Coleman cooler was the only thing left from a 42-foot boat loaded with gear and fuel and two friends he now knew he would never see again. XXX The storm continued to rage. Joe had no concept of time until the sun came up hours later. As someone who was terrified of the ocean and everything in it, the irony of bobbing around like an hors d'oeuvre for all that lurked below was not lost on Joe. But his fear was inconsequentially surrounded by thousands of square miles of water. He focused on the colors of the sunrise and knew he had never appreciated one like this before. When he thought of home, Carissa would be getting Emily ready for school and waiting for his birthday call from the satellite phone. Then he remembered that they had not even sent a mayday, so no one yet knew the storm had wiped them out. Joe recalled Harley mentioning something about an EPIRB attached to the roof. It was a hydrostatic sensor that would trigger to a satellite if the boat got rolled over, but who knew if it was even working? He thought about what he would tell Harley’s wife and Teddy’s mom when he finally got back onshore—would he apologize for living, because he already felt guilty. Those two had tried everything to keep them afloat and alive while Joe could not even turn the boat into the waves. Suddenly, he remembered the sun rose in the east and turned the Coleman cooler in the opposite direction. He held the cooler in his right hand and paddled and kicked with his left arm and leg respectively. The break in his right leg felt like it was mid-calf and hurt like hell, so he just let it hang. His ribs were another story. They made everything painful. He made slow progress, scanning the horizon with the constant hope that something or someone might appear. If he even thought about dying, the fear became overwhelming, so he concentrated on persevering, determined to see the shoreline once again. He knew if he headed west land would eventually appear, so he checked over his shoulder for the rising sun in order to stay on course. In events like this, Joe knew adaptation determined survival, so he thought of his dad, a kind and industrious man who went to work every day of his life. Even injured. When his dad broke his arm, he only missed one day before spending six weeks laying tile floors one-handed. Surely Joe could last a few days at sea with a broken leg. The sudden thought of his dad caused Joe to gasp, so he concentrated on his physical pain to keep himself from crying. It wasn’t until his mother wandered into his mind that he began to fear his subconscious most of all. She was a small woman with a big heart that Joe inherited by default, her pride and ferocious determination traits he used every day of his life. Joe remembered visiting the hospital when he was a kid. His mom, who had been crying all day, made her smile strong for him. The sight of his grandfather in that bed, though, filled Joe with dread. The machines beeped and made whirring sounds beside him. “Why’s grandpa look like that?” “Because we came to say good-bye, Joe-Joe.” “What?” “You see how small you are? One day, a long long time from now, we all have to say good-bye. God is waiting for us.” “But what if we don’t want to go?” “Don’t you want to be with God? I sure do.” “Me too.” Out here in this vast nowhere, Joe remembered that awful hospital visit and knew he was definitely not ready to say good-bye. Years later he would realize how fortunate he was to have parents that never divorced. In love for forty years, they showed him the power of respect and honor without him even knowing it. XXX It must have been noon because the sun was directly overhead, and until it picked a direction, Joe didn’t want to stray off course. Salt crusted his sunburnt face. Other than his boxer-shorts, T-shirt, and blue jeans, which were wrapped around his head, everything else was gone. He would have eaten a raw fish if he could have caught one, but that had so far proved elusive. Since the country had been at war for a decade, Joe had gotten hooked on books about the Navy SEALs, an inhuman cadre forged on suffering. From these readings, Joe knew the human body could go a week without food and three days without water, which meant he had forty-eight hours to get to shore . Joe, imagining a grizzled SEAL using a bullhorn to call him a pussy from a boat behind him, pushed aside his thirst and hunger and paddled even harder. That afternoon, he heard the distinct sound of an airplane and his pulse skipped. He did a full 360 trying to find it and finally spotted a tiny dot much too far away. “Hey!” he reflexively screamed, only waving one arm so he did not lose the cooler. “Down here! Over here!” It faded from view. Worse, it was a single engine Cessna and not the Coast Guard, so apparently no one was even searching for them. He found the afternoon sun arcing westward and began paddling again as he tried to keep his mind at bay. Thankfully, summer meant the nine o’clock sunset was still hours away. He had already missed Carissa’s birthday call but knew she would not panic until the boat failed to dock by five o’clock. Thinking of his wife made him regret not being a better husband. Originally, they had met at Rocky Point, a local small-time amusement park favored by generations of Rhode Islanders until it closed down. He could still remember her curvy body and infectious smile as he recklessly forced their introduction. At eighteen, he was a walking strikeout with the ladies, so she took pity on his awkward advances. They married two years later and wanted a large family, so Emily quickly arrived. But once Carissa developed pre-cancerous cysts, her hysterectomy left Emily an only child. Pretending that he didn’t in some way blame Carissa for this was not easy, and admitting it now was even worse. Suddenly, something massive split the surface. Joe screamed and furiously paddled away until he saw a humongous tail crash back down. A geyser of water exploded from a blowhole. He ridiculously wondered if whales ate people before the tractor-trailer sized behemoth circled back to pull a drive-by right past him. The creature drifted closer while making sing-songy noises Joe had never heard. “Can I hitch a ride?” he asked. It was such an incredible sight that he completely forgot his fear and started paddling toward it. Another blast of water geysered into the sky and rained down as he shouted, “Wait, no! Don’t go!” The whale said good-bye with another crash of its tail before descending. “No, don’t go! Please!” But it was already gone and Joe, for the first time, could not hold back his sadness. XXX His fear returned when dusk approached. Joe had only survived last night because of the post-disaster adrenaline high that carried him into the dawn. But he had never been that scared in all his life, so the approaching sunset unleashed these fears all over again. Back home, their boat missed its arrival time. Joe knew his and Harley’s wife would not mess around—with no word from them or anyone answering the radios or phones, the wives would have the Coast Guard scrambling. But that still meant surviving ten more hours until the sun pushed back the night. Worse, he could not stay headed west because he was about to lose all sense of direction. Equally as bad, any accrued progress might be erased by the drifting current. He channeled this frustration into paddling and kicking toward where the sinking sun smeared the sky into a purplish-red hue. This bruising reminded him of his younger brother, Kenny, Joe’s right-hand man until jobs and families pulled them apart. The bleeding sky made him remember Kenny’s car wreck. The fire department cut him out and dragged him from the woods. No one thought he would make it, not even Joe, who had no idea how anyone could survive such a crash. Every square inch of his little brother, where there wasn’t bandages or casts, was the same horrifying purple and red the sky now resembled. But Kenny survived. Completing three years of physical therapy, he came out even stronger—so would Joe. An hour later full dark descended. He pointed himself at a star that had replaced the sun. Floating out here during the day was bad enough, but at night it was a truly terrifying place. Utterly defenseless, Joe felt like a chunk of meat waiting to be digested. After treading water for twenty-four hours, his skin was leached by the salt and pickled from the constant submersion. His lips were caked and split, his tongue a giant sock stuffed into his mouth. He was so hungry his stomach felt like an open sore. His broken leg dangled beneath him like a fractured rudder. He prayed for rain but got a chilly night instead, and so pressed onward toward the dawn. When the sky finally lightened behind him, Joe was relieved to find he had more or less maintained a westerly course through the night. Again, he prayed for rain but none appeared, and the brutal sun ascended. He drifted through a cluster of jellyfish, got stung repeatedly, and so just scooped one up and ate it. Oozing down his throat, it tasted like a salty ball of snot and stung his mouth. He ate two more but stopped after he felt like puking. He found his eyes closing if he did not keep paddling, but the sound of a plane snapped him awake. “Hey!” He saw it in the sky, saw the red and white paint. “Oh sweet Jesus, it’s the Coast Guard!” He frantically screamed and waved before pulling off the top of the cooler and whipping it like a flag. “Hey! Down here! I’m down here! Goddamnit, I’m down here!” For a second he thought they might have seen him because the wings dipped side to side, but then the plane kept going. “Fuck! What the fuck!” He punched the water and acknowledged one second of self-pity before the rage returned and he paddled with renewed vigor toward the endless horizon. Later that afternoon, he noticed rain clouds rolling in and thought his prayers might be answered. The winds picked up as the first drops splattered across the vast heaving tabletop and Joe cried with joy. He aimed his sunburnt face at the sky and unrolled his tube-like tongue. But trying to catch raindrops with his mouth became a maddening tease, so he took the lid off the Coleman, placed it inside the cooler, and treaded water while maniacally licking at the sky. He was so happy he almost forgot where he was until the sky blackened and the rain swept down in blinding sheets. The swells increased and tossed him around before transforming into waves that only grew bigger. When the lightening zippered across the sky, his joy was quickly ended. There was a half-inch of water in the Coleman, which he luckily drank before a massive wave washed over and completely filled the cooler. Cursing, he tried to empty it, but the next one caught him unaware and ripped the Coleman from his grasp. “No!” He gave chase but the current fueled more waves. Another smashed into him, and soon he was rising and falling and scaling up one side and down the other while the cooler drifted further away. His broken leg re-ignited after sets of waves crashed over his head. He abandoned the cooler just trying to survive. Minutes turned to hours before night came and the rains ended. Exhausted from treading water for two days, he rolled onto his back in time to see the moon break through the clouds. XXX He was still on his back as the third night began. The water, after the raging tempest, was now a pane of glass. He bathed in the moonlight as his mind drifted across his family. He was too exhausted to paddle, especially without the Coleman. Floating on his back, his broken leg hung ninety degrees below him, but he used this pain to stay awake. Pain as coffee. His mother returned as Joe remembered his grandfather’s hospital room all those years ago. He wasn’t ready to say good-bye and didn’t think any of this was fair. He floated in a direction that might have been east or west or either way, too exhausted to care, he told himself to conserve energy until morning when he could find west again and renew the fight. He just needed to last until sunrise. Which he did. Dawn broke at 5 a.m. but Joe was barely conscious. He drifted peacefully into day four with no regrets. His sunburnt eyelids blinked once or twice and then closed as a wave washed over his face and behind him, in the sudden distance, the shoreline finally appeared.
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AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
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