boil

Belvedere Jehosophat - Wednesday, 28 October 2009 - 23:07:55 - print it raw

““Hurt ‘em, boys! Hurt the fuckers!” That was how the Captain of the Stormy Petrel got us fuckers – we was whalers, but we was fuckers too – to get the harpoons. I never liked killing the beasts; I had no stomach for the job. I would operate the capstan instead and winch the absurd animal up the slipway, up out of its element, and onto the flensing plan. I never took part in the butchering neither, god help me, those knives cutting into that fat. I was sick the first time I saw a flensing, you ain’t never seen a pink like that, the sea boils with blood. But it was nothin’ on the tryworks. The tryworks made me sick, all that blubber boiling, that fucking smell. But I had to load the try pots, that’s what the Cap said. “If you ain’t gonna flense the fuckers at least load ‘em in the pots,” he said. So I boiled them fuckers, and we rendered their fat into oil. I saw none of that oil money. I hated him. I hated him so much. That’s the only feeling that hasn’t changed. I was on that ship for three years. By the time I got off I couldn’t even remember the smell of the rendering, but I’m never gonna forget the Captain, good ol’ Cap. I hated him, but what could I do? It was Hobson’s choice, wasn’t nothin’ on land for a fucker like me.”

the boiling sea