saw Barb stand and give him a hands-up puzzled gesture, and he knew she wasn’t the only one who’d ask him where he’d been. Missing a tide wasn’t something any of them usually did; too much to do, and the work on the grant itself could only be done about two hours at a time once a day (except in the blessed months of extra daylight when there are double tides), the hour before and after dead low. Other than that, everything was under water.
That’s what made the whole fuss with the upland owners so dumb. Beyond dumb. They were just spoiled rich people fussing about how the sea farmers’ trucks and paraphernalia spoiled their view even though all of it, every single bit was under water except for two hours around low tide. For God’s sake, he and his friends made their living on these grants—grants the town had given them, grants they were able to put their children’s names on, to pass down the right to work and carry on the traditional way of living on which Wellfleet was built. Not only that, the town’s economy was based on what they did. That’s how shortsighted and selfish the complaints were.
He shook his head remembering CiCi’s tone as she asked him why anyone would want to work a grant. She’d sounded like she was interrogating a garbage collector. What he’d wanted to say about it was, for one, it’s mine . If she was out there with him at, say, a morning tide, he’d sweep his arm out expansively to show her, this is my office. There’s the view out my window, my ceiling. This is the air I breathe. Can you hear the bay water lapping around my feet, and those crazy herring gulls feeding? That’s my elevator music. Other people pay a fortune to get this for a week. It’s mine every day. He was well beyond the point where he could imagine another life. Nor did he want to. It probably was a blood thing, he guessed, although shoot, CiCi was native Cape, too. Going to the tides must be a blood-type thing, like A negative or some sort that needs an exact match.
That’s, of course, why you couldn’t talk to the upland owners. They’d never get it; washashores never did. They were clueless that the bay itself was a living, working being, that the oysters from it were the best in the world because of the particular mix of fresh water from the creeks and rivers emptying into the salt harbor, the sweet clean cool of the place, and that the rhythms of putting in and taking out were fascinating and beautiful. They could glory in them from their fancy decks, if they had a shell’s worth of sense. In fact, instead of driving to Aesop’s Tables in town and ordering from the raw bar, they could climb down the fancy stairways they built from their manicured yards to their blasted private beach, walk over, make friends, and he’d have pulled twice as many oysters and given them freely, with a smile and handshake. Where the hell did they think those oysters had come from anyway? He was the one who had the contract with Aesop’s and what he sold the restaurant for sixty-five cents each, the restaurant laughed and sold for double that. Sometimes triple, he’d seen that, too.
At least he’d been able to pull the nursery trays out, thanks to CiCi securing the nets for him. What seed he’d gotten was premium, nearly the size of plantable field clams, which would cost thirty-six dollars a thousand, but he’d only paid the eighteen dollars that matchheads cost. Losing even some of it in a nor’easter would have been—well, he just couldn’t, that was all.
As he got a couple of miles inland, closer to Route 6 where his house was just barely on the harbor side of that bisecting road, the protection of the pitch pines and the oaks lessened the force of the wind on his truck and gave him hope that Lizzie might be asleep. No such luck. As his front tires started to crunch the driveway gravel, she was already giving him what-for.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry girl, I’m coming,” he called, leaving
That’s what made the whole fuss with the upland owners so dumb. Beyond dumb. They were just spoiled rich people fussing about how the sea farmers’ trucks and paraphernalia spoiled their view even though all of it, every single bit was under water except for two hours around low tide. For God’s sake, he and his friends made their living on these grants—grants the town had given them, grants they were able to put their children’s names on, to pass down the right to work and carry on the traditional way of living on which Wellfleet was built. Not only that, the town’s economy was based on what they did. That’s how shortsighted and selfish the complaints were.
He shook his head remembering CiCi’s tone as she asked him why anyone would want to work a grant. She’d sounded like she was interrogating a garbage collector. What he’d wanted to say about it was, for one, it’s mine . If she was out there with him at, say, a morning tide, he’d sweep his arm out expansively to show her, this is my office. There’s the view out my window, my ceiling. This is the air I breathe. Can you hear the bay water lapping around my feet, and those crazy herring gulls feeding? That’s my elevator music. Other people pay a fortune to get this for a week. It’s mine every day. He was well beyond the point where he could imagine another life. Nor did he want to. It probably was a blood thing, he guessed, although shoot, CiCi was native Cape, too. Going to the tides must be a blood-type thing, like A negative or some sort that needs an exact match.
That’s, of course, why you couldn’t talk to the upland owners. They’d never get it; washashores never did. They were clueless that the bay itself was a living, working being, that the oysters from it were the best in the world because of the particular mix of fresh water from the creeks and rivers emptying into the salt harbor, the sweet clean cool of the place, and that the rhythms of putting in and taking out were fascinating and beautiful. They could glory in them from their fancy decks, if they had a shell’s worth of sense. In fact, instead of driving to Aesop’s Tables in town and ordering from the raw bar, they could climb down the fancy stairways they built from their manicured yards to their blasted private beach, walk over, make friends, and he’d have pulled twice as many oysters and given them freely, with a smile and handshake. Where the hell did they think those oysters had come from anyway? He was the one who had the contract with Aesop’s and what he sold the restaurant for sixty-five cents each, the restaurant laughed and sold for double that. Sometimes triple, he’d seen that, too.
At least he’d been able to pull the nursery trays out, thanks to CiCi securing the nets for him. What seed he’d gotten was premium, nearly the size of plantable field clams, which would cost thirty-six dollars a thousand, but he’d only paid the eighteen dollars that matchheads cost. Losing even some of it in a nor’easter would have been—well, he just couldn’t, that was all.
As he got a couple of miles inland, closer to Route 6 where his house was just barely on the harbor side of that bisecting road, the protection of the pitch pines and the oaks lessened the force of the wind on his truck and gave him hope that Lizzie might be asleep. No such luck. As his front tires started to crunch the driveway gravel, she was already giving him what-for.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry girl, I’m coming,” he called, leaving
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