and forth, up and down, and back and forth, and it never just never ever stops!"
"So did you get laid?" "Naw." "Why not?" "Cause she threw up! She got sea sick from me telling her about it!" The roof nearly lifts off the spars from the laughter in the room. But the guffaws are mild in comparison to Mad Jack's own wild enormous laugh sounding for all the world like twenty fathoms of anchor chain hauling through a voice box. It swamps all conversation. Nothing can happen until his booming stops. "So let's go, Cappy," urges Hallie. "Alright, yeah, let's go get some money," he chuckles heartily. "Hey, what did you say happened to you, Cap? You said something happened," says Billy Goat in his guttural raggedy voice. "Huh? Oh yeah, that. Well, hell, it's hard to explain. I don't know what the hell it was. It was, ah, it was nothin'. Maybe it was nothin', I'll have to tell ya later, let's get that money."
"Let's get that girl," says Hallie "I got some moves to make," and they step out onto the deck towards the stern and hop down in to the skiff. "Ah, the Alaskan One," points Hallie and shouts over his shoulder to Mad
Jack handling the outboard. "God what a rust bucket, eh Cap?"
"Yeah, it sure is. It was probably rusty when it was new." "Yeah, they probably have to put a new coat of rust on 'er every time she goes up in dry dock." The fish processor ship ahead of them looks like it leaks at the seams. It might have seen better days but it probably always looked embarrassing. "I think the Japanese lost the war in the Aleutians just so somebody else would take it," jokes on Hallie. "Yeah," guffaws Mad Jack, "they probably thought we'd bang our heads on the low doors and beat our brains out!" "They were right. The people on this tub have no brains, just fish heads. Hey, finish your beer there, Cap, they don't allow no liquor on board unless you give them some."
Laughing and draining their beers, the two fishermen pull up to the hull that stands motionless as a building in this bay of Atka island. A thick aluminum ladder hangs down from the deck some thirty feet above them. Hallie ties the raft to it and clambers on up. The ladder bangs against the steel hull of the ship with the weight of a body on it, since it is not fastened to the side but hangs loosely, so that it can be drawn up. Hallie climbs easily up and over the rungs, and Mad Jack grabs on and follows surprisingly nimble for his big frame. The handful of burnt-out deck bosses and Eskimo or Filipino hands smile
