A Lot of Rain For the Lobsters

Current flowing right to left, high tide, feet up, bottle of beer, red and white lobster pot floats in the distance, green wooded isle across the way, purple spike lupines in foreground, white and pink rugosa roses, pines, spruces, a lobsterman motors towards us in his lobster boat, white rectangle on blue horizon, setting traps or checking traps.

"Those are the Eatons' traps over there and those are Alejandra's," Finchie says.

"How can you tell? Can't anyone put traps out wherever they like?"



Nope. Finch and Crow have lived here long enough now to know which laws are inviolable and which are simply illegal. Lobster law is cast in granite. The traps are all different colors. Everybody knows whose is whose.

"Those pots are the Eatons'," says neighbor Ray, "because their father fished there, and their grandfather fished here. Those are Alejandra's because her husband married a woman whose father fished over there."

"And everybody knows?"

"Everybody knows. You don't mess with 'em."



That's either Eaton or Alexandra out there, turning circles around their lobster pots, checking to make sure there aren't any lone wolves upsetting the balance. It's all about balance. They make rules about how lobsters have to be so big or so small to be taken, how they have to throw back the females with eggs, and who can fish where and what'll happen if they don't. Leave it to the lobstermen and they'll pretty much work it out. Pretty much.



It's raining now. Can't see the lobsters, just the floats on the surface marking where the traps are down below on the rocky bottom, and the boats circling around them, and now it's really starting to rain. Maybe a lobster is crawling around smelling that herring the lobsterman has placed in the trap. Maybe's he's helping himself to his last good meal right about now.

Rain is good for lobsters. Bad for people. Especially people catching airplanes. Away from here. Back to the fog. Golden bridges and old houses with wild artichokes growing out back. No scallops, no lobsters.

Great tacos.

Jeez that's a lot of rain.