when all a man is trying to do is make a goddamn living. What the hell was that supposed to mean, tying knots in his lines? If Mr. Thomas has a problem, why doesn’t he talk about it like a man? And by now Mr. Cobb doesn’t care if Mr. Thomas tries cutting his traps away, either. Let him cut! The hell with it! Let him try. He’ll clobber the bastard.
And when Mr. Thomas finds his neighbor’s pot buoys floating in his territory again, he has to make a choice. Cut the traps away? Mr. Thomas wonders how serious Cobb is. Who are Cobb’s friends and allies? Can Thomas afford to lose traps if Cobb retaliates by cutting them? Is it such great territory, after all? Worth fighting for? Did any Cobb ever have a legitimate claim to it? Is Cobb being malicious or is he ignorant?
There are so many reasons that can lead a man to set traps accidentally in another man’s area. Did these traps happen to drift there in a storm? Is Cobb a young hothead? Should a man protest every affront? Must a man be on constant guard against his neighbors? On the other hand, should a man sit in silence while some greedy bastard eats from his dinner plate, for Christ’s sake? Should a man be deprived of his means for making a living? What if Cobb decides to take over the whole area? What if Cobb pushes Thomas into someone else’s traps and causes more trouble for Thomas? Must a man spend hours of his every working day making such decisions?
In fact, he must.
If he is a lobsterman, he must make these decisions every day. It’s the way of the business. And over the years, a lobsterman develops a policy, a reputation. If he’s fishing for a living, fishing to feed his family, he cannot afford to be passive, and in time he’ll come to be known as either a pusher or a cutter. It’s hard to avoid becoming one or the other. He must fight to extend his territory by pushing another man’s trap line, or he must fight to defend his territory by cutting away the traps of anyone who pushes in on his.
Both pusher and cutter are derogatory terms. Nobody wants to be called either one, but nearly every lobsterman is one or the other. Or both. In general, pushers are young men, and cutters are older. Pushers have few traps in their fleet; cutters have many. Pushers have little to lose; cutters have everything to defend. The tension between pushers and cutters is constant, even within a single community, even within a single family.
On Fort Niles Island, Angus Addams was the most famous resident cutter. He cut away anybody and everybody who came near him, and he boasted about it. He said, of his cousins and neighbors, “They’ve been pushing my fanny around for fifty years, and I’ve cut away every last one of those bastards.” As a rule, Angus cut without warning. He didn’t waste time tying friendly warning knots in the lines of a fisherman who, ignorantly or accidentally, may have strayed into his domain. He didn’t care who the errant fisherman was or what his motives were. Angus Addams cut away with rage and consistency, cursing as he sawed through the wet, seaweed-slick rope, cursing those who were trying to take what was rightfully his. He was a good fisherman; he knew he was constantly being followed and watched by lesser men who wanted a piece of what he had. For the love of Christ, he wasn’t going to hand it to them.
Angus Addams had even cut away Ruth’s father, Stan Thomas, who was his best friend in the world. Stan Thomas was not much of a pusher, but he had once set traps past Jatty Rock, where the only buoys that ever bobbed were the yellow-and-green-striped buoys of Angus Addams. Stan observed that Angus hadn’t laid a trap there for months and thought he’d give it a try. He didn’t think Angus would notice. But Angus noticed. And Angus cut away every last trap in the line of his best friend, pulled up the severed red-and-blue Thomas buoys, tied them together with a yard of rope, and quit fishing for the day, he was so goddamn mad. He set out to find Stan Thomas. He motored all over the inlets and islands in and out of Worthy Channel until he saw the Miss Ruthie floating ahead,