After that, people shunned Tomasso Testaverde. Other lobstermen especially. It did not matter to him, though. Tomasso cared only about taking lobsters from the Gulf of Maine. And the lobsters were there for the taking, to be sure.
He used all the tricks, such as soaking cloth in kerosene and baiting his lobster traps with the malodorous stuff although this was frowned upon for environmental reasons. For some reason no one knew, lobsters were attracted to the scent of kerosene in the water.
But it was the rules and regulations that bothered Tomasso Testaverde the most. They were many and inconvenient.
Lobsters under a certain length could not be taken legally. These Tomasso dropped into a secret icefilled chest in his boat. These he ate himself. Working with lobsters had not dulled his taste for the crustacean's sweet, firm meat. It pleased him to think he ate for free what rich men better than he paid good money to enjoy on special occasions.
Another rule said the egg-bearing female of any size must be returned to the sea to protect future generations of lobstermen by ensuring future generations of lobsters. Tomasso, who had no sons, thought the law should not apply to him. Only to men with futures. Tomasso cared only about today. Only about survival. Tomorrow would take care of itself.
"The law applies to everyone," a man in a bar once said to him over beer, Buffalo wings and complaints.
"Different rules for different men. That is my law," Tomasso boasted.
An unfortunate admission, because the man was from the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in Portland and he followed Tomasso down to the docks and took down the name of his scunga-bunga jonesporter boat, the Jeannie 1, named after a cousin Tomasso deflowered at a tender age.
The next time he went out, Tomasso was casually hosing off the jellylike black eggs from under the curled tail where female lobsters carry their tiny eggs. That made them legal. Technically.
A Coast Guard lifeboat came upon Tomasso as he was about this activity, and he hastily finished what he was doing and tried to look innocent as he was hailed and boarded.
"What can I do for you fellows?" he asked.
A Coast Guard inspector stepped onto the Jeannie I and said in a very serious voice, "Inspection. Suspicion of scrubbing."
"I keep a clean boat," Tomasso said, trying to keep a straight face, too.
They took up the lobster he had just deposited into the holding bin. The hold was abrim with crawling red-brown crustaceans. There were a few pistols, too, as the one-claw culls were called.
"All my lobster are over the legal limit," Tomasso protested. "You may inspect them if you wish. I have nothing to hide."
Two inspectors dropped into the hold and did that, using caliperlike measuring tools designed for that purpose. They were very professional as they measured the carapace.
Tomasso watched unconcerned. He knew as long as they didn't find the secret hatch, he was all right.
But when they came up with one particular lobster and an inspector dabbed some indigo solution from an eyedropper onto the swimmerets under the tail, which the other held straight, Tomasso grew worried.
"This lobster has recently had eggs," he was told.
"I see no eggs," Tomasso said quickly.
"The eggs are gone. According to our tests, the cement that holds them on is recent."
"Cement? What would a lobster know of cement?" And throwing his head back, Tomasso laughed uproariously.
The inspectors didn't laugh with him. They handcuffed him and towed his boat back to Bar Harbor, where he was warned and fined.
It was a bitter experience. Not only was it becoming impossible for a lobsterman to earn a good living in Maine, but it was no longer safe to have a convivial beer with a stranger. The bars were filled with spies.
For a while Tomasso avoided taking the eggbearers, but they were too great a temptation. He heard that chlorine bleach could erase all trace of the natural cement that lobsters secreted to hold their eggs in place. Tomasso found it worked. The next time he was caught, they had to let him go, though they weren't happy about it. The jugs of chlorine bleach lay in plain sight.
On the day Tomasso ran out of days, the Jeannie I puttered out of the harbor into the gulf with open cargo holds and many jugs of chlorine bleach.
In a zone where the Coast Guard seldom ventured, where the lobsters were not as plentiful and therefore it was possible to work without competition or interference, Tomasso set down his traps.
It was a cold, bitter, blustery day, and only because he drank his profits did Tomasso venture out. He often dreamed of wintering in Florida, where fishermen caught real fish like tarpon and swordfish. But he didn't have the savings to achieve this dream. Not yet.
Tomasso was lowering traps and pots and hauling them up again by stern-mounted block and tackle when a great gray ship came out of the low-lying fog. He took instant notice of it. One moment it was not there, and the next it was bearing down on him as big as a house, streamers of fog curling out of its way.
Tomasso had a dozen claw-pegged egg-bearers on the deck in wooden trays and was dousing them with bleach when the great gray ship showed itself like a silent apparition.
He had never seen one like it. Lobstermen didn't go out as far as deep-sea fishermen, so the sight of a behemoth factory ship was an unfamiliar one to Tomasso Testaverde.
The ship hadn't veered off course, and Tomasso gave his air horn a tap. It blared, echoing off the oncoming bow.
A foghorn blared back.
Tomasso nodded. "They see me. Good. Then let them go around me. I am a working man."
But the ship didn't change course. It came steaming directly at the Jeannie I. Its foghorn continued to blare.
Dropping his jug, Tomasso dived for the wheelhouse and got the engine muttering. He threw it into reverse because that seemed to be the quickest route out of harm's way.
Still the great gray ship plowed on.
Cursing, Tomasso shook a weatherbeaten fist as red as a lobster at them. "Fungula!" he swore.
Men lined the forward rails, men in blues and whites. Their faces looked strange from a distance.
Tomasso looked hard at these faces. They looked all alike. They weren't the faces of fishermen, which are raw and red. These were a stark white, and in the center of those faces splayed some blue blotch tattoo.
For a strange moment Tomasso's limited imagination made those blue blotches into rows of identical lobsters. And he thought of the blue lobster he had eaten, for which he was still reviled.
For a queasy moment he saw the identical impassive faces staring at him as men out to avenge the blue lobster that had been Tomasso's most famous meal.
But that couldn't be. The blue blotch must represent something else.
The great gray ship made a long turn, and its bow was soon lining up with the Jeannie I.
"Are these men mad?" Tomasso muttered, this time throwing his boat forward.
The Jeannie I avoided being struck by a good margin, but the other ship seemed determined to catch him.
There was no radio on the Jeannie I. A lobsterman didn't need one, believed Tomasso Testaverde. But now he wished he had a radio to call the Coast Guard. This mystery ship was playing with him the way a big fish plays with a little one.
It was possible to avoid the big ship whose name was some unpronounceable thing Tomasso didn't know.
But try as Tomasso might, it wasn't possible to outrun it.