Superslime
By Tim Leigh
Portland, OR
It was my tenth day on the Point Adams Cannery dock in Hammond, Oregon. I stood on a wood riser on the far side of the long, heavy butcher-bench, my feet in kneeboots crusted with fish scales, my middle wrapped in a once- white oilcloth apron, my hands in wet cotton gloves, holding a stubby knife, reaching for headless, finless fish carcasses shooting through a hole in the table bulkhead, stacking up like cord-wood. Water splashed out of the workstation faucet, off the fish, and all over me.
Step right up, college boy.
“Git movin,” somebody growled. “Ya gotta keep up with the butcher across from ya.” I was a slimer. A new guy’s job, one all the college kids got. I scraped blood, errant entrails, skin parasites and slime from the bodies of just-butchered salmon and tuna fish, cleaning them for the canning process in the adjacent buildings on the shore. It wasn’t hard work, except the part where you split the spine to clean out the dorsal aorta, but it was cold, and dirty, and never stopped.
Not your living room.
Portal to the culture of the river cannery dock it was, too. Dark buildings sat sullenly on rows of log pilings about 120 yards into the Columbia River. You walked (or drove) out there on high, planked scaffolds that creaked. Once through the huge rolling door at the entry end, illumination dimmed, which was surprising because there wasn’t an interior to speak of. Though the icehouse and main fish handling areas were covered, nothing much else was. No windows, just holes in the walls. No drains or refuse containers, just holes in the floor. Fish heads and fins lay about randomly (and routinely). Water ran everywhere, floors were constantly wet and slippery with salt sometimes scattered to improve footing. The only warmed area was a small coffee room where crews went for 10-minute breaks at 10 and 2. Boats moored on the inside of the dock away from the current, off-loading their catches in big boxes, and taking on ice from and immense, howling ice-grinding machine.
The players.
An old time male place. Smelly, brawny, noisy, often dangerous. Unchanged for decades. Colored by people like Bill Anderson the dock boss and carpenter; Clarey Dreyer and Jimmy Kerno the launch captains; Shorty Rogers, founder’s son and ice house chief; Monzie Brummet, who talked fast and drove a slow ex-milk truck; Bill Broderick, a brawler with a mysterious, violent past – prison, they said; Pat Broderick, Bill’s huge, noisy nephew; Short George Anderson, who chewed snooce and liked to talk low in your ear; and Smitty, the lead butcher who tested his knife edge by shaving his arm. “When hair jumps a coupla inches, yer blade’s right,” he’d say.
These guys watched to see how you held up, often openly voicing their doubt you could. They worked hard themselves, but their expectations of prissy college boys were low. I liked them right off, maybe because they were so openly themselves, maybe because their world – a small slice by anybody else’s standards – was enough for them.
A rite of passage, all right.
I wanted to win approval, I guess. Since I was a slimer, that would be how. Today was as good a when as any. I’d watched and learned; I was ready. I didn’t say anything to anybody. I just lined up the rolling fish bin off my right elbow, sharpened my knife more than usual, and started grabbing fish. Silvers.
Grip the ventral fin flap, thumb under. Sweep the knife down the fish, one swipe. Wrist-flip and swipe the other side. Wrist-flip back. Open and press any blood toward the backbone with the broad of the blade, both sides. Slash down the backbone toward the tail. Turn the knife and return once, scraping the dorsal groove clean. Done.
Heave the fish back to the right without looking. Wham, into the bin. Reach for another and do it again. Faster this time.
Hey! Yeah, you.
Before very long, here comes Smitty the butcher around the table wondering where all his fish are going, down the guts hole? “Looks like I’m doin’ nothin,” he’s muttering.
Next the dock boss stomps up, telling me to stop, he wants to check my fish. Looks through most the whole bin, but only finds one I have to work on more.
And finally, Short George (a professional slimer) leans over and says through tobacco juice, “Hey kid, put that damn knife down. It’s breaktime.”
The dubbing is done.
I took my apron off and walked into the steamy coffee room – which smelled like fish hadbeen cooked onto its walls, making the proffered coffee and muffin seem less than appetizing.
All the butchers and other slimers were sitting on chairs, sipping hot joe, quiet, looking at me.
What?
After a long, nerve-jangling minute, Clarey Dreyer spoke up for the group, “Thinkin’ of makin’ this dock a career, boy? Slime so fast us butchers can’t keep up? Makin’ us look slack? Nobody ever did that ‘fore you got here. What’s yer name?”
“Tim,” I said, kind of defensively.
“Naw, that ain’t it,” he went on, now sweeping his arms in broad maritime gestures. “Fellas, this here is Superslime. He’s makin’ history. Give him a hand.”
Two sarcastic claps, a grunt, and mercifully the recital – and the coffee break – were over. But you know, as long as I worked at Point Adams Packing Co. there in Hammond, Superslime was my name.
