Old fishermen never die

Cold salt water laps the beach, baptizing goose tongue and goldenrod with spray. It stings my hands in places that have been met by sharp rock and lobster claws: a nice clean sting like ointment. The motorboat I moor sputters to life onshore. I'm drenched by sea and fog before reaching Pemaquid, and tied forward so that it can't turn upside down. The lobsters get stuck as soon as I push them into the engine. I wince at the high-pitched squeal, a testament to its manufacturing date. Orange rubber overalls turn me into a beacon an hour just before dawn. Then I see blue light. Engine stalls. My eyes explode between the arms of the temperature gauge and the RPM, spinning freely from whatever the little fishing boat does or has ever really been able to do. I have seen blue light many times, but not so close. ever so close. It pulsates slowly over the surface of the water, as bioluminescent plankton are on vacation off the coast of Bristol. Light, dark blue color floats in the fog. Fine hair crawled along my neck and scalp as soon as my fingers hit the radio. "Matt," I hiss in the tube. "Matt, it's light. It's back—blue light—" But my voice is greeted with a stillness. The antenna of the permaquid beats against its sides in the form of sudden waves, like the turbulence of an airplane. A ship has entered, hiding somewhere in the harbor. I scrunch my mind to remember if there had been a scheduled arrival, any clearance for a ship to tilt the deck so that I stumbled forward, lobster nets crashing around my head. Swearing, I support myself against Bulkhead, am more angry now. Which chowderhead of town hall decided to keep his fishermen in the dark like this? A shadow thickens against the fog. I only have time to dive ashore, before the fangs of a wooden ship come straight out in front of me, piercing the horizon like a swordfish. The ship groans and blinds me from the rays of blue light scattered between the wooden shores, which emanated from somewhere within the heart of the ship. Permaquid is slow in its wake. I screwed my eyes against the lights, gritting my teeth to see the name painted on the stern. "Angel Gabriel" is printed in bloody letters on the side of a triple-masted sailboat. Great. Another tourist attraction. Just what New Harbor needs. The light dims and the silhouette of a full beard is visible at the very top of me. In the first pink fingers of sunrise, I can see two bright eyes prick like pricks before the man screams and disappears again. "Oho!" I scream back. "Help me here, will you?" There is silence. I wave my hand towards the shelter in desperation. Near Pemaquid, a boat suddenly splashes around Angel Gabriel's hull. There are two passengers, but only one row. The other is far from me, straight-backed and motionless. They are both wearing costumes. I stick a smile on my grin and wave. "What's going on guys?" I use the Barney-the-purple-dinosaur voice instead of the Batman voice I want to use. The rowboat scratches Pemaquid's paint and the two men's boards, still without speaking. The rover is dressed like an old-fashioned Chinese farmer, complete with a rice-picker hat and a long queue. His clothes are torn and stained, burnt. The other is yellow and has a blunt, pointed cap undercut. He wears a brass-button coat longer than his companion, who has two swords, a broad sword and a saber, draped over its sides. I can feel your smile in my temples. "Now I don't mean to be rude, but I like to know who my guests are before I invite them to my boat," I protest, forcing a laugh. "Fai Yu Ming, your worship," murmurs Rover. Before I could stop him, he kneels and touches his forehead to the platform, still he floats in the sea water. "I respectfully and respectfully serve my captain at Angel Gabriel." "Nice to meet you, uh, Yu Ming." I can't tell if the name and pronunciation are part of the act. I noticed that the "Captain" seems much younger than me. Not old enough to pay for your own health insurance, I suppose, but too old to dress up as a pirate with dignity. Out of that I am positive. I take off my gloves and shake hands with him. "Daniel Curtis. And you yourself?" I think his grip has turned to steel. His eyes caught my eye. "Is that true," he said in a very low voice. His face is strangely emotionless. "Daniel Curtis. Well, Daniel Curtis, I think you should know that my name is Dixie Bull. Courtesy quickly turns into annoyance. "Yeah, I thought," I murmured, pressing my thumb toward the ship's name. "Hey, listen, there must have been some kind of mix-up because we don't know anything about your venue here. You'll want to get a special permit with the county and local administration before doing any kind of entertainment or attraction. Especially. On this scale. Looks good and everything, ”I offer, my last attempt at decency. I hope people leave my boat, maybe even apologize. But instead, the self-styled Dixie Bull rolls her lips in a derision, looking up and down my rubber overalls. "Daniel Curtis, I believe you are confused." "Get off my boat. Get off now or else I'll call the police." Dixie Bull laughs, catching me off guard. "And where are we, Daniel Curtis? Which cop will come for you?" "What do you mean, where are we? We're in New Harbour, downtown Bristol," I say angrily. "You're talking about the whole Dixie Bull and that godly British accent. I swear, my little brother Matt is a Maine State Trooper. I can call him that now." "Can you really? Show me." I remember static and flush from before. Still, I try the radio again. no answer. I realized that I was trapped in a boat with a stranger carrying a sword. A plastic sword, I tell myself. It's starting to feel very real. Dixie Bull laughs a quiet little laugh like dry leaves scattered on the sidewalk. "Daniel Curtis. I'm waiting for you." "Well, Dixie Bull," I say, turning her on and acting braver than me. "You tell me where we are. If we're not in New Harbor, where?" "Didn't you guess? We're only a few hundred fathoms swimming off the coast of Pemaquid." "You're wrong," I say mechanically.  "For hundreds of years Bristol hasn't been called Pemaquid." "You're starting to understand." The corners of his cold cruel snoring were shaken. "It's almost morning. The fog is rising. Look, and you'll see that I speak the truth." "Wait," I stop. "You may be the real deal Dixie Bull but let me tell you I'm wrong Daniel Curtis. I catch lobsters in a 1975 Robert Rich, not cod in whatever little boats they had in the seventeenth century I've never held a sword in my life, and more importantly, I'm not interested in asking you to duel." "But you must have heard the ballad." hell. My whole life, and maybe even some time before that. You have to wonder what my parents thought when naming me after a hero from Bristol. "So that's for sure. It's a pretty normal song." The red dawn hangs behind Angel Gabriel like a blood orange. A cold spread in my bones and I tremble. The captain nods at the farmer. "Dixie Bull was a daring pirate, he sailed our shores in search of gold," Fai Yu Ming said. "He raised his flag and took his lead, which kept people out of bed." “But Daniel Curtis, a fisherman, was not afraid of the flag from which they fled,” I add impatiently. "But that's just a legend. Daniel Curtis didn't actually kill Dixie Bull. The ballad isn't very well written either." "Because Daniel Curtis hasn't hit Dixie Bull yet, you claim he didn't," says the young captain. He hasn't taken his eyes off me the whole time. "Daniel Curtis, how stupid are you if you can't understand at all that time changes, time ... time never changes. It's the eternal present, Curtis. That's the secret. It's the truth that set me free." His words and the absurdity of my situation finally hurt me. "You're crazy. I can't believe I'm giving you the time of day. Take your little advertising stunt somewhere else before you get arrested by the Harbor Patrol." "Look," he whispers. I turn, and gasp. There is still a splash of fog from the surface of the water, but in the light rays of the sun I can see the shoreline quite well. New Harbor is gone. In its place are some ferries, the anchors of wooden boats, and trees—so many trees. Women in petticoats and linen caps stand alongside men in breeches and coats. In the distance rises a thin smoke trail of the chimney. I study Angel Gabriel more closely. The blue light is still branching out with the wood like lightning. I saw black crab-like insects floating on top of the hull. Trilobites, I realize with fear. I get down on my knees in disbelief. "The last time a trilobite roamed this earth was the Paleozoic era," says Dixie Bull, amused. "And Fai Yu Ming? I caught him by the Pearl River during the Second Opium War." I lick my lips. "Okay," I shout. "I believe in you. You're Dixie Bull. I believe you can time travel, or whatever. But please, take me home. I'm from Bristol, not Pemaquid, and I'm from your There is nothing against you. What do you want from me?" "I want you to fight too." He tosses me the handle of the saber, which I drop. "I refuse to fight," I shout. "What are we fighting over?" "Village gold," he says awkwardly. "Blood or your gold is what I need." "I won't! I can't! Take the gold and but leave the villagers alone!" "Could it be that you still don't understand?" Dixie the Bull roars, looks like he's grown taller than his modest build. "There's no gold. There was never gold. I'm going to kill you, Daniel Curtis, because you saved Pemaquid and you saved his gold. I'm going to kill you because you're going to kill me." Our boats have sunk near the rocks and sands of Pemaquid. For the first time I can hear people on the shore. They are screaming, they themselves are screaming, there is redness on their face. "He's going to save our gold," they chant, apparently oblivious to my motorboat and orange rubs. Dixie Bull opened his wide sword and put it on my neck. "You're their only champion. Fight me, or I swear," he says, eyes flashing, "I'll destroy every board, brick, and human until I forget there was ever a Pemaquid." " My hands tremble as soon as I lift the kirpan. The hilt-guard slips easily into my fist. A sky with stripes of pink and blue reflects from the salty sea in a blurry curved blade. he is right; I did not understand. But as unlikely as it sounds, somehow Bristol—Pemaquid—is in real danger. I'm Daniel Curtis, the champion. "If he kills me they are in his right, if I kill him we win the fight," I whisper. Somehow, I don't find it funny at all. I almost stagger to my feet, breathing heavily. "And so we begin." Dixie Bull touches the tip of my saber with a broadsword. "Can't we fight on the edge?" My shoes slip on the platform and I struggle to escape the lobster net. "We'll end up on Beaver Isle," he says. He pushes the blade upwards, as if to test my strength, then drops it and cuts my forearm straight. I feel the heat before I feel any pain. Dark drops scatter and bloom like red algae on our feet. I blink at them for a moment, but I don't have time to re-process Dixie Bull's lungs on my face this time. I withdrew impulsively and shield myself from the flat of the saber, hindering his strike. He pushes back. The steel grinds against the steel, creating sparks that bounce off my overalls and land with a sizzle on the deck. Dixie Bull grinds its tiny yellow teeth. "Protect, protect, protect all," he hiss. "You will die like a slave at my feet." I take a look at Yu Ming, who was hiding in the shelter. His complexion is ashy, his eyes are pale. Without warning, Dixie pulls the bull blade back and cuts it on my thigh. This time I'm too fast for him, leaping backward over the net and out of his reach. The situation is strange, but my head is now a foot or two above that. I sweep her low and fast, leaving a wound on the back of her neck. He trembles a bit but stands his ground. The chanting continues. "Curtis fought for the cause that's right, Bull, because he loved fighting." The current knocks both robot and permaquid against the bushy cliffs of Beaver Isle, projecting slightly from the mainland. I jump over the shore and onto the island. I roll over to my feet and almost dance away from Dixie Bull in fear, though I'm too scared to realize it. Then I see rivers flowing under his collar, giving his entire shirt and coat a dirty brown color. He turns to me, eyes turn yellow with anger. My new strategy is to run. Dixie Bull follows me. The island is no more than a backyard, large enough to scrape from conifer to conifer, avoiding direct collisions. "Cowards," Dixie Bull Rasps. "Even now do I still threaten you?" "I don't want to kill you," I call from the shadow of a cedar. "You hurt more than me." "Coward," he repeats stupidly. He leaned towards me. "Fight... Fight me, Curtis..." I pity her sorry state and emerge. "Is there anyone on board who can heal the wounds quickly? A barber?" I try to remember if barbers were surgeons in the 1600s, or if surgeons were barbers too. "Come here, I'll help-" Dixie Bull bends over and pounces on the reel, ripping a hole in my overalls that reaches all the way to my ribs. I bend over and fall sideways, stumbling on the steep drop toward the sea. He is standing on top of me, water and blood dripping on my head. "Here's the end of the lobster fisherman," he says grimly, raising his broad sword over his head. My mind races. As Dixie's sword was falling down, Curtis sprang up off the ground—but I can't. My blood has froze in my veins. I am ready for the final blow. Instead, I hear a shrill hoarse voice accompanied by a low groan, a voice that reminds me of a dying wolf in a previous nature documentary I watched. I look upward through the crook in my elbow. Dixie Bull's face is sticky white, and covered in sweat. As his fingers turn red, he grabs his left side upwards. His mouth moves without a word and the yellow sun is seen staring into his eyes without looking. He stumbles forward, groping with a sword in his left hand as if he sees a ghost in the east. "Daniel Curtis," he pants. "Can you see it? Can you see the blue light?" He turns. His bloody chest draws closer to me. "Eternal Present," he takes a suffocating hot breath in my nose. "E-e-" He utters the word "eternity" before placing his head at its final angle. His eyes become smooth and glassy. Yu Ming is standing above us. He holds a jade dagger in his left hand and doesn't speak, just watches as I close Dixie Bull's eyes and jaw. I can't tell where this blood on my palms came from. All three of us have been sitting in silence for a long time. There is shouting from the shore, and there is more chanting. "That's how Curtis won the day, and killed his man in Bristol Bay." "It's funny, but I don't remember much about the Chinese farmer in the ballad," I joke. It tastes bad and Yu Ming doesn't listen. He drops the dagger and sits beside me, covering his face with his hands. The harbor is as calm as a Dixie Bull's Eye. It seems it usually does, except for fewer pleasure boats. Only Rowbot, Pemaquid, and Angel Gabriel still float like untiring islands in a secluded sea. I look at the shoulders of the Chinese man. About how many years has he been away from Hong Kong? If the pirate was right, it doesn't matter—it might have been a thousand years. Does he have a wife, I wonder, the one he loves? A younger brother with a family he treats like himself? "Pearl River, did he say that?" Yu Ming looks up. "Come on, Fai Yu Ming." I wake up reluctantly. Sharp pain is once again stabbing me in my side. I hope there is a hairdresser on the ship. "I'll take you home." Dixie Bull said it was the end of The Lobster Fisherman. I think he was right.