Pantheon, 2009
Hardcover, 304 pages, $24.95
Faded treasure
The cover photograph says a lot. Wooden piles show above the water’s surface, marking where a dock once stood. The dock is gone, the piling a relic of the past. Rory Nugent’s new book, Down at the Docks, suggests that going down to the docks in many working waterfronts is becoming harder and harder, as the fishing industry changes and a tradition disappears. He profiles New Bedford, Massachusetts as a prime example, still considered “The Fishing Capital of North America,” with the largest fleet in the United States, according to Nugent.
Nugent sees corporate ownership and government regulation as the stranglehold. He provides anecdotal evidence by introducing us to some of the waterfront’s colorful characters he got to know over the 17 years he lived there (he now lives in Maine).
It was no easy undertaking, gaining their friendship and confidence. Nugent had soloed trans-Atlantic in a sailboat three times, but he realized, “This was their turf. Their bar. Their waterfront. Their freaking salt air. The whole damn place: it belonged to them. They’d inherited it and maintained every stick, brick, and boat. If an outsider wanted entry into this part of town, he had to earn those rights, and only the sea can punch that sort of entry ticket.” It took tenacity and verve-and buying the right number of drinks for the right person in the right bar-before he gained some street cred. Ultimately, drinks were also bought for him. Nugent described one such friendly overture by a local: “He raised his drink in one hand and raised the other to shake. Welcome to New Bedford, dickhead.”
Like any good scholar doing research, Nugent consulted many primary sources. His gritty narrative deftly weaves together wide-ranging reportage, including first-hand accounts from the denizens of the docks as well as background gleaned from historical records and literature. We get some factual data, like: “Scallops are the port’s biggest moneymaker and the main reason why New Bedford is the largest commercial fishing port in America, home to more than 250 boats and dozens of processors handling landings scratching the $300 million mark.”
Then there’s the flesh and blood component, here a fisherman dubbed Mako (Nugent uses pseudonyms): “A fresh butt in his mouth, he sends a cloud carrying soothing words into the Amy-C‘s wood. Don’t worry, baby, no banker will ever touch you again. His eyes shoot skyward as he says, they can’t take her from me. She is his lifeboat. If his world sinks, she’s the one thing that can keep him going. He might turn on the TV tonight to news that the greenies or lab coats have convinced some judge to close the whole damn ocean to commercial fishermen. If he didn’t have the Amy-C, he doubts he’d ever get a good night’s sleep. His skills aren’t transferable to land, and he fears he’d just jones, wither, and die without a near-daily fix of salt water.”
Nugent reminds us how many different livelihoods in this port city once flourished, then faded. There were whalers. Smugglers and pirates. Rum runners. Mill workers. In a recent Boston Globe interview, Nugent said, “I’m an observer with an eye out for things that have either gone missing or are about to go missing.” His book offers a warning: change is in the air again. That message could also serve as reality check for the waterfront’s inhabitants. In the case of Mako, he writes: “While it’s merely the dance of light atop a patch of hydraulic fluid fouling the harbor, Mako prefers to imagine it as the bling of money, each color flagging a treasure awaiting him.” Dreams-and traditions-die hard.