Title: Sleeping with Ghosts

Author: Bluehaven4220

Summary: (MIRACLE) Push has finally come to shove

ooOoo

I'll eat when I am hungry, and I'll drink when I am dry. Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by. And if this river don't drown me, it's down I'll need to roam, for I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.

The River Driver- Great Big Sea

ooOoo

I could feel the sweat pouring down my face and the fierce burn of the sun on my back. I know that I may seem an anomaly. Not many women choose to go into the family business and work on a fish and tackle boat. I didn't actually choose to do this, it was a necessity. How was I supposed to support myself when I didn't have anything more than a high school diploma?

I wasn't cut out for police work, and the days of slinging booze and food in dingy bars and restaurants left me with barely enough money to pay my rent, let alone eat. There's not much money in fish and tackle, I know that, but it's better than waitressing. I had never been so bored in my entire life when I was on my feet all day in those restaurants. At least out on the water I was free, I was able to do something that made me feel as though I were making a difference.

"Oi!" I heard him yell at me. "Princess, you mind givin' me a hand?"

"I ain't no princess there, Bane!" I shouted as I made my way down the boat to where Bane was struggling to hold on to a trawling net. I reached over the side and grabbed hold of the other side and pulled it up myself.

Opening the net, I rapidly pushed things out of the way, and what did I see?

Nothing.

Sighing in defeat, I shook my head.

"Come on, let's wrap it up for today," Bane clapped me on the shoulder and set to wrapping up the nets and guiding the boat back into the harbour. It was another day with barely anything to show for it. Ever since the fisheries had collapsed, what were we supposed to do? People didn't eat as much fish as they had before, but there was still use in trying to bring what we could.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

I lived paycheck by paycheck, and tried the best I could to support myself and bring the money into the house. Just for us to live my mother, brother, and I all worked, and we still barely made enough to make ends meet.

My father had fallen off an ice flow during the seal hunt when I was about five. They brought the box that he kept his belongings in home to my mother when they docked once again. Seeing them remove their caps and hang their heads, I knew. I knew my daddy was never coming home again.

My mother cried for weeks on end after it happened. She had asked them what had happened and where they had buried his body, but very rarely did they bury a body during the hunt. They had wrapped him in the flag and given him a ceremony, reciting the Lord's Prayer and promising to wait for him till the day that the sea would give up her dead.

We did not know when that would be, but certainly not in our lifetime.

To help my mother when my father's measly pension ran out, I got a job in the fisheries when I was eight. I cut and sold cod tongues for a local fisherman, Francis MacDonald. He was hardened old bugger if there ever was one, but he took pity on me and my brother, because he knew my mother and knew how much she suffered. When we told him we wanted to help he smiled an almost toothless grin and immediately set me to the cod tongues and my brother to the oysters.

Oh the smell! So disgusting! But eventually we learned to deal with it. A couple of times I stuffed rags up my nose so I wouldn't have to smell anything. Fish, if it's fresh, shouldn't smell 'fishy', it should smell like salt water. Sometimes it was too much even for me.

When I stopped working for Francis, I found work in a restaurant, but it was not a pleasant experience. Sticking my hands into greasy water laced with cheap detergent soap and Javex. Eck, javex! The stuff stained my black pants orange and burned my skin. I wanted to quit, you have no idea how much I wanted to quit, but I couldn't... I needed the money.

By the time I quit I had had enough of drunken patrons making passes at me and asking if they could take me home. In a small town, you know everyone and his uncle, and most of them were married. If I hadn't been working, believe you me, I would've cracked my knuckles across their mouths and knocked out their remaining teeth.

I realized very quickly that the restaurants was no life for me. I longed for the water, to throw a net over the side and pull the catch up. But it was about the time that the government closed the fisheries, and forced us out of our home. Now my mother, brother, and I lived in a cramped, two bedroom basement apartment. My brother slept on the fold-out couch while my mother and I took the two bedrooms. Chivalrous as always, he insisted the the couch was plenty comfortable enough, he would be fine. By the end of the day we were all so exhausted it was all we could do to eat supper and then shower and go to bed.

I should not be living this way. I am 24 years old and still need to live with my mother in order to avoid starvation. It is a sad life, one that I am not proud of, but one that I must accept. Many people have left to pursue other prospects; they believe that if they leave they have the opportunity to send their children to school, that they can live without having to worry about money or food or shelter, but the sad reality is that many of us do not have the resources to start over. Instead we make the best of what we have.

The next morning my brother and I set off to work, no doubt to be a day filled with nothing other than empty nets and the smell of the salt. Bane met us there at the same time every morning, with his canister of steaming hot coffee and his steel-toe boots already tied.

"Alright, so, Francis MacDonald wants a crate of oysters and a barrel of fish by 4pm today."

"The old coot is still around?" My brother looked over his shoulder, as though saying such a thing would result in his receiving a beating from Old Francis himself. "Thought he died off long ago."

"Be nice, Gary," I muttered under my breath. "The guy gave you yer first job. Be damn grateful you're still workin', and even more that he only wants a crate and a barrel."

"Fuck off, Viv," he muttered.

"Fuck you too," I slugged him in the arm and jumped over the side of the dock and up onto the deck. I immediately checked the net for any tears and set the crates and barrels before starting the motor. Bane and Gary soon followed, and off we went for another day of disappointment.

ooOoo

Indeed it was disappointing. By 4pm we had barely filled the crate of oysters, never mind the barrel of fish. We would have to bring what we had to Francis, and with this kind of cartage we were always prepared for the worst. Would he suddenly turn his back on us and say he no longer needed us; that he would find his fish elsewhere from other suppliers?

We brought it to him, and waited for his reaction. I could barely bring myself to look him in the eye. Technically, when the fisheries closed we were no longer allowed to fish, so I guess you could say we were dealt with off the books, there was no record of us ever bringing supply to Francis MacDonald, and the money he paid us with went into his 'business'.

He gave us a sad smile and accepted what we could give him, which really was not much. With a 'ye did the best ye could," and money exchanging hands, Bane, Gary, and I went home with our heads hung in shame.

What else could we do?

Make the best of what you've got, it's all you can do.

As you can see, I'm not trying to tell you how lovely living where I do is, it is hard, and it takes all I've got not to throw up my hands and say that I give up. I don't have a choice; this is how life is, and I've got to make the best of it.

My name is Vivianne Hallet, and this is my story.