Montana Jones Sells Shrimp in Maine

“Did I ever tell you guys about the one time I got scared for my life?”

Everyone in the shed laughed.  Montana Jones, fireball of Gloucester, meanest man to ever fight in the Crow's Nest scared.  It was almost inconceivable.

So he began his story.

 

In the early days it was hard to get work on the boats.  But being a resourceful guy I found ways to make ends meet. 

Montana was gearing into the story, taking quick sips from his bottle of Grey Goose at each breath.  His eyes though, that's where his fire was, in his eyes.  He picked up speed as he remembered the events.

My friend, Ace Greery had a job on a shrimper.  One night we was talking about the business and he tells me about all the shrimps they can't sell.

“What the hell?” I says. 

“What the hell indeed, Montana.  We can't sell the dead ones, just the living ones. That's why we've spend so much work keeping the hold clean and the aerator working.  The dead ones aint't worth shit.  That's where the money goes for a shrimper over the side with the dead ones.  You try to make it up with the live ones.”

“Can you get me some of the dead ones?” I ask.

“What for?”

“I've got a plan,” I tells him. 

 

Montana leans back and takes a long drag on a Cuban cigar.  He gets them from someone on the docks.  It's a myth that we don't have trade with Cuba.  Cargo is moving up and down the Eastern seaboard all the time, just not always on the docks.

“So I showed up at the pier the next afternoon.  Ace brings me two barrels of shrimp and we empty them into the trunk of this huge El Dorado I was driving at the time.  I'd already lined the trunk with plastic and poured  four coolers of ice in it.  Now I've got my shrimp and I get to driving.  All night I drove, cause I wanted to get to the stupidest people on God's green earth – inland Mainers.  Those apple-growing potato farmers wouldn't know good shrimps from bad. 

Just before the crack of dawn, I'm knocking on kitchen doors of restaurants and diners in bumfuck Maine. 

My pitch?  I tell them that these are fresh shrimp caught the previous evening and I'm delivering them at my own expense, cause I'm trying to start up a little delivery service.  They like that, a small businessman getting his start.  They think they can get a deal that way. 

“Why aren't they moving?” the cook asks me. 

“It's the ice,” I says.  It makes them sleep.”  That's the line I use from town to town.  It works like a charm.  I sell the trunk load every morning that I go out and that's like three a week for a month. 

But then I hit Carrabassett and that's when things change.

 

Montana sits back and thinks about his story for a few minutes.  He takes another long swig of vodka and then continues. 

 

I get to this town just like the rest, right at dawn and I go to knock on the door but it opens right up before I can knock.  The cook jumps out at me, “How're you doing?” he asks with that Maine accent where they make the words squeak on the hard sounds like they do.

“I'm here to see if you'd like some fresh shrimp, caught last evening,” I says. I go right to it, because the ice will melt anyway and I have to unload the shrimp quickly and get out of town.

“Let me see.”

He's got these blue eyes that don't blink.  He's looking right at me and hasn't blinked.  He gripped my hand and he didn't release it.  He's just looking at me and holding my hand. 

I pulled away.

“Right over here in my car,” I says.  I open the trunk and show him the catch. He comes over and looks in the trunk.  Then he pulls out a handful and begins to inspect them really close.  I don't like it.  He's looking at them like he knows something about shrimp.  He's looking at them like he looked at me. 

I was ready to close up the trunk and get out of town when he said, “Come on in. I'll write you a check.”

Being in my line of work, I prefer cash.  This guy's got me spooked, however.  I don't know w why, but I go in the restaurant with him. 

That's when he says to this black boy working in the kitchen, “Boy, go unload that trunk out there.  The shrimp.  All of it.”

That little black boy was like a shadow with two white saucers for eyes.  He runs right outside with a bucket. 

“I love those little nigger boys.  They'll do anything.”  He's looking right at me again.

“I like them too, so long as I don't have to touch them,” I says.  Well it's true.  I wouldn't have said it if it weren't true. 

“You're my kind of people,” the cook says to me.  We go out to one of the tables and he brings his checkbook.  It's the kind that's like a journal.  It has three checks on a page and a tab that stays in the book after the check's been removed. 

“How much?”

I'm a little nervous, and I want to get out of there.  And I want to get to a bank as fast as I can in case he tries to stop payment on the check.

“Three fifty,” I said.

“Are you sure? That's less than two bucks a pound. “

“Three fifty,” I repeated.  I wanted to go. 

“Deal,” he says.  He starts writing out the check.  “Only if you stay for breakfast,”  he says.

“I have to get going,” I says.

“You do?” He's staring right through me with those blue fucking eyes of his.    Your trunk will be empty.   You don't have to peddle to any other restaurants, do you?”

“Well, no. Not today,” I says.

“Then breakfast it is.  I'm opening in ten minutes.  I'll start some eggs.”

He got up without finishing the check.  I'd have snuck out, but for that.  And the boy was still emptying the trunk.  I stared at the check half-written, but not signed.  What was I going to do?

Then those townfolk started filing in.  It was quiet like they were entering a funeral parlor.  One at a time or two by two, bu they weren't talking.  I watched them come in.  They went right to their tables like they did this every single morning.  They were all dressed in church meeting clothes and they sat down.  Didn't even pick up menus, they just sat down.

 

He paused again.

“Like Zombies?” Jim asked.

Montana nodded his head as he took a huge gulp.

 

The cook came out with my eggs, but on the way to my table he stopped at another man's table and said something to him.  Then he nods my way. 

He set them in front of me and  I started wolfing them down.  They was good eggs, with hashbrowns and some sausage.  Those inlanders can do something good with potatoes.  He brings me a coffee also. 

Then he sits down right in front of me and looks at me with those unblinking eyes. Stares at me while I eat.  It slows me down.

Then the other guy, the man he spoke to, stands up and begins talking.

“We have a guest with us today,” he says.  “Montana Jones.” 

He must've gotten my name from when I told the cook who to write the check out to.

Then the whole diner in one voice says, “Welcome, Montana Jones.”  It was the freakiest thing you ever heard.  Like they were all programmed to say it.

“You're here from the coast, aren't you Mr. Jones?” the man asks.  Now I get a good look at him.  He's got his hair greased back like one of those T.V. Preachers and his suit is blue.  His tie is black and that kind of bothers me, not that I care what some guy wears, but the black against the blue makes me keep staring at his tie.  I want to look at his face, but it's weird.  I can't.  I must've nodded or something.

“Mr. Jones, this is a nice town.  We've got things under control here,” he says.  The way he said under control makes me really nervous. 

“Do you have a problem with blacks over there on the coast.”

I just about spit my eggs.  “Excuse me?”

“With darker people,” he asks.

“Well, yeah. I suppose.  Don't we all?”

“We don't,” he says.  “Not with Spics either.  Do you like Spics?”

“Not particularly,”: I said.

“Montana Jones,” he says.  You're our kind of people.  Why don't you stay here?  We could use you in our town.”

The rest of the people in the diner stood up and started clapping.  Like there was an applause sign and they were obeying it. 

You never saw me run so fast.  I didn't get my money, I just went out the back, slammed the trunk down and drove away.  I ain't been to the middle of Maine since. 

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

eerie. there ARE really towns like that too. i've been to 'em. the worst one i ever went to wasn't way up north OR way down south. it was in rhode island. i swear inbreeding like no one's bid-nez. you could just about hear those dueling banjos in the backgroup.

you do have a way with woids rick

[CV Rick]

I ought to be a writer.

[bex]

I love Montana Jones stories... I'm waiting for the one with the monkey.

[NFlanders]

I thought the chef was going to serve him his bad shrimp.

Before I moved to New England, I didn't think there were any hicks here. Man, was I wrong. This place is redneck central. (No offense to New Englanders.)

[CV Rick]

The Monkey . . yeah, it's on the way.

NFlanders . . . there are some scary people up that way. Stephen King didn't have to make up the people in his stories, he just needed to walk around a bit.