You Can't Make This Shit Up...

I wandered down to Custom House Wharf this morning to meet up with my cousin for a cup of coffee. It felt strangely comfortable returning to this place where I had spent several summers working at his lobster and bait business. The road down the wharf had received some much needed maintenance; a new layer of tar on the section closest to Commercial Street near Harbor Fish and the Port Hole Restaurant, but the condition degraded quickly to pot holed dirt and cobblestone near the lobster shop and the fishermen's shanties. The road at the end of the wharf was unchanged; craters, mud and pools of fetid fish waste.

The cast of characters on the wharf seemed the same at first glance. Lance sat on a milk crate outside the Port Hole kitchen smoking a cigarette. The Port Hole had reopened since being shut down by the Department of Health for sanitation and vermin issues which had resulted in a rash of food poisoning. Still the tourists and the fishermen love the place as do the bait shack workers. It's one of the few places left in town where a man smelling like rotten fish wearing slime covered skins and boots can be served coffee and breakfast at the counter.

Back in my corporate days I remember I was in Portland for a meeting with the lawyers about some moronic labor relations issue, dressed in my suit, power tie and wing tips. I was early and tried to stop by to see my cousin but he was not at the shop and I walked into the Port Hole looking for him. Lance was behind the counter.

“What do you want,” he asked. His eyes seem to look in different directions so I didn't know if he was talking to me or the fisherman sitting at the counter. After a pause I said “Seen Pete around?”

He cocked his head so that his left eye focused directly on me and shook his head slowly, warily, side to side. Of course he knew Pete. Pete had loaned Lance money; Lance and half the other characters on the dock.

There was nothing else to say so I turned toward the door. He called after me, “You with the IRS?”...

Further down the wharf Sam and Harold, the scruffy guys who maintained the dock, were carrying pieces of rotten timbers to a job site. Sam's arthritis was clearly getting more problematic and he hobbled along like an old dog with hip dysplasia. Harold, the younger man, was wearing the same dirty, grease covered clothing he always wore. He looked like the picture of Saddam Hussein when they dragged him out of his hidey hole.

Mick was standing outside the lobster pound talking with a truck driver and I enjoyed catching up with him on this years lobster catch and the family. Another cousin walked out to the shop and put me in a friendly bear hug. And the catching up continued.

Pete had yet to show up on the wharf so I walked toward the bait shop trying unsuccessfully to keep the fish gore off my good sneakers. The bait shop was, as usual, a circus of activity with forks trucks delivering pallets of poggies and herring in blue and white, 55 gallon barrels to the truck dock and salter. Several men I didn't recognized were loading bait onto fishing boats on the wharf side of the building. Several more were loading a truck. I shook hands with the foreman and three of the old crew and felt the water which flowed across the work floor from hoses and leaky pipes as it soaked my feet.

Pete came around the corner and we entered the fly infested office so the foreman could download his daily issues. Nothing had changed. The fly paper strips hanging from the falling down ceiling were covered with thousands of insects. The tools were rust covered. Bait slips hanging on nails covered the walls. I listened as they talked about the supply and demand and quality and location of bait. And then I listened as they talked about the comments and behaviors of their customers.

The new truck driver, Henry walked in the office. He was late for the second time this week and the foreman and Pete took him to task. Henry begged forgiveness and tried to explain.

“I've got this new girlfriend.” he began. He dropped his voice and said in almost a whisper, “I'm afraid she wants to kill me.”

Pete said, “Well that sounds like a problem, but what does that have to do with you being late for work?”

Henry explained. “Well I've hidden all the kitchen knives and I wait for her to go to bed and then I sleep on the outside of the bed and throw my arm over her... so I will wake up if she tries to get out of bed... so she won't stab me... but I'm not getting much sleep... so I'm late for work...”

Pete said, “Henry, have you thought about getting another girlfriend? One who doesn't want to kill you?”

Henry said “Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Thanks Pete.”

As we walked down the wharf bound for the Irish breakfast at Ri' Ra's, I noticed new stenciling on the side of the big box truck.

“ Coastal Bait. Don't Call Us. We Don't Want Your Business.”

Kind of counter intuitive marketing. But business is up 35% this season, so, guess it's working. Of course, it's better than the last truck stenciling put there as a joke. It remained on the side of the truck for five years.

“Coastal Bait. Maine's Only Homosexual Bait Dealer.”

You can't make this shit up...