This Month's Story

(This story originally appeared in The Wedding Guest.)

“… I usually go out with my brother, but he got sick with cancer a little while back. He suffered a bit and last week he died. He and I always went out ever since I got the boat seven, eight years ago. Now I guess I’ll do it alone”.

In August, on the eve of the start of the white shrimp season, my wife and I drove our granddaughter, Lorelei, over to Bayou Caddy. Lorelei wanted to see a working shrimp boat up close. She was visiting from Michigan and we had taken her on the Biloxi shrimp boat ride. Although the ride was nice, it was really geared for tourists and Lorelei, fascinated by the whole process, wanted to see the real thing.

When we got to Bayou Caddy, we found a Louisiana boat by the dock that had just been loaded with ice. I got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the dock to ask if it was all right for Lorelei and my wife, Stella, to come over and take pictures.

I felt a little foolish. I had been living down the road from Bayou Caddy for twenty something years and had bought who knows how many pounds of shrimp from the shrimpers and here I was asking if we could take pictures.

I was greeted by a man in rubber boots standing by the boat’s gunwale drinking a Barq. He was in his late twenties, pleasant looking, heavy-built but short, about five-seven, with big, obviously hard-worked hands. His most striking feature was a moon face that seemed to have a nice smile permanently carved in it.

We exchanged remarks and I conversationally asked him if he was headed out to catch white shrimp. I was reluctant to come right out and ask him if we could take pictures.

“Yes, sir.” He had a soft, slow-spoken, almost monotone, Louisiana drawl. “I’ve iced up and I’m going out in a few minutes. Be sitting right outside Bay St Louis when the season starts tomorrow morning.”

I made a couple more remarks and he politely climbed up on the dock to stand by me. He seemed proud of his boat and went through a lot of trouble to explain some of the working gear on the large afterdeck. Besides the turtle excluder gear, he had a device to limit the amount of by-catch in his hauls. “Culling the by-catch takes too much time. It really ain’t worth it and I’m going to be too busy to mess with it anyhow.”

As I listened to what he was saying, I began to look more closely at the boat. It was painted a bright white and gleamed in the late afternoon light. I was struck right away by the fact that everything was clean and trim with very little loose gear on the deck. Everything had a neat almost formal look to it, as if the boat was getting ready for the blessing of the shrimp fleet.

I looked up at the large nets looming over us, jutting out from their masts on each side of the boat. Their size impressed me and I slowly realized that this was a good-sized boat and he had used the singular in referring to his next day’s shrimping.

“Are you going out alone?”

“Yep, I usually go out with my brother, but he got sick with cancer a little while back. He suffered a bit and last week he died. He and I always went out ever since I got the boat seven, eight years ago. Now I guess I’ll do it alone”.

I didn’t know exactly what to say and gave what I hoped were the proper sympathetic remarks. Trying to politely change the subject, I asked if my wife and granddaughter could take some pictures of the boat. He said yes and Stella came up with Lorelei, who began asking a million questions. He answered them all patiently in his slow drawl.

Stella took a few pictures as she listened to the two talk and then stopped. She had also noticed his use of the singular and interrupted to ask him if he was going out alone.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He repeated in his matter-of-fact way the story about his brother.

“He were the person who could just about guess where the best place to be to catch the shrimp.”

He stopped talking for a moment and looked out over the boat.

“I’m going to miss him. We always worked good together, he and me. He was my best friend. Maybe I’ll get a deckhand to help out later. I don’t know. If that don’t work out, I guess I’ll sell.”

Afterwards, he stood with Lorelei a little way down the dock and I took their picture with the big boat in the background, Lorelei all alive with a big smile and him standing a few inches taller in his rubber boots and pleasant face with its quiet built-in smile. Then we left. Looking back as we drove off, I could see he had started his engine and was busy casting off from the dock.

I found a place to park by the channel entrance and the three of us got out. Standing there, we waved and watched as the late sun lit up the bright white boat passing us with its one-man crew and memories of two.

I wish him well.