fiction
Deep Sea
Stories
By STEVE SABATKA
For the TODAY
(Written under the influence of Wagner’s “Gottedammerung,”
a wet November wind, and 400 milligrams of Advil PM)
“And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.”
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798
M
y friend and fellow teacher, Justin, tells a lot of
stories — strange stories, amazing stories — about
what he saw and did as a commercial fisherman,
actually one of those “Deadliest Catch” guys, hauling halibut
and tuna and crab up from the Pacific Deeps and risking his
neck so the rest of us can have fish and chips, and crab Louie.
Twenty-some years out on the water. Close calls and brushes
with death. Blisters and busted knuckles. Ropes and blades
and heavy things, moving way too fast.
Juan, one of our students, and a movie fan who often
speaks in movie review language, using phrases like
“visually stunning!” and “tour de force!” insists that Justin
looks like Gene Hackman, in that actor’s younger, “French
Connection” days. I can see it. Sorta. Justin is well-read and
well-traveled, so he can quote “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner,” and tell you that the actual “Mona Lisa,” hanging
in Paris, is surprisingly smaller than you might think.
Justin is a good friend, the kind of friend that will appear
in your doorway, point at you, snap his fingers, and say, “I
left your gumbo in the truck. Be right back!” Justin is also a
loving dad to two fine sons. He’s enthusiastic about almost
everything. And he says “awesome!” more than anybody I’ve
ever known.
But back to the strange and amazing. In his many years
as a professional fisherman, Justin saw towering waves
as big as office buildings, and felt — in the tendons and
muscles of his feet and legs — the dwarfing, humbling,
terrifying forces of tide and current. He has heard Aleutian
ghost stories, curling up to the yellow moon on campfire
smoke, as well as the haunting death songs of noble,
barnacle-whiskered whales. ( Justin tells a chill-inducing,
Monkey’s Paw-type story about the severed foot of a bald
eagle, but won’t let me repeat it here.) And he has hooked
and netted and reeled-in creatures you don’t ever see
swimming behind thick glass at the aquarium, or staring
out at you with glistening, accusing eyes from the other side
of the sushi bar.
“ Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.”
See Stories on Page 5
4 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • January 3, 2020