I think my dad’s primal scream to the universe might go something like this: You think ya got the world by the tail and ya got everything figured out, a little change in your pocket for Saturday night; and then you go and have a kid. Nothing is like it used to be. Barely enough for food, let alone a coin for the Pub. Then that alien creature is not just a baby, but a female, girl child that grows up into a woman kind of baby. Then to add insult to injury, the woman who promised you she’d birth your brat, raise them, and help you muddle through the rest of your sorry life goes and kicks the bucket on ya, but the skinned rat lives through it all. If I was a mind reader, I think it might go something like that.

So, there’s my da, trying to figure out where and when the Mother Ship is arriving, my tough as nails ma is getting planted in the church yard, and there I am floppin’ around like a skinny skinned rabbit or some such. The friends and neighbors are willin’ but they ain’t got nothin’ neither. A couple of days dinner, and my da’s on his own again.

But my da is a big, fine man. He don’t sell me off to some barren battle axe who wants to play dolls or worse yet, some perverted buggerer who wants to play with all the parts of a little girl, whether she wants ‘em played with er not. Nor does he sell me to someone who keeps kids in cages to whore out one day. He keeps me as his own kin, which I rightly am, but you knows what I’m a talkin’ ‘bout, as there’s more than a few who don’t do as they rightly should these days.

So, we do the best we can. I goes to school enough days when they gives da a final notice, at least if there aren’t too many storms to get me there. I know I’m not stupid, but I can’t seem to get my rememberin’ workin’ on where this place or that might be if they don’t be a place where a fish can hide or a fishing boat can be tied up. And as ya can be seein’ by my writin’ I’se most like as not to copy da’s talkin’ er Red Nose John’s yappin’ as ta copy the old maid school teacher lady’s proper like talkin’.

My name is Katie Pike, and I’m fourteen years old. My da’s a commercial fisherman, and we live on the boat more than a bit. I’ve tried ta keep outa the way of the fishing for my dad, but then I’m starting to see that’s the way of the world, ain’t it? Kids get in the way of about everythin’ whether we’re a meanin’ to or not. So, then I figures if I can’t be a keepin’ out o’ the way, I’ll be a helpin’ the best as I can.

My dad like to burst a vein tellin’ me about me being a girl and such like. I had ta work right hard ta keep from laughin’ at him a stammerin’ about my monthlies, which wouldn’t have been polite, since da was just a tryin’ ta help me not be ignorant or get a scary surprise.

Now ya could a been callin’ him Purple Nose John for when he be about a tellin’ me that all boys lie all the time and all they be tryin’ ta do is ta lie wit a girl and get her in the family way of bein’.

Then my da says, “Ah, Red Nose John, I’d best be a tyin’ an anchor to your truly immense feet right now and throwin’ ya to Davey Jones, seein’ as how you’re already confessin’ to lusting for my daughter, and she barely being fourteen. If I let you keep a livin’, no tellin’ how much mischief ya be a getting’ up ta or how many bastards ya be a makin’.”

So, I says, “Ah da, let the big lummox keep a breathin’. Even an ugly girl like me needs an admirer and the hope at least one man would be a givin’ her comfortin’ on a cold winter night, if it be she were so inclined.”

Truth be told, that’s how I saw myself. I was the skinny, drown rat in the second-hand clothes, with no new places left to darn. I’m of a certainty that I always smelled of fish, no matter how much I scrubbed. I was the little kid who could squeeze into the impossibly small spaces to get this or that thing the men couldn’t get their big mitts on.

Now a good bit of fishing be going to where the Captain be thinkin’ the fish be hidin’. When we was a steamin’ here, there, an yon, my da and I be a singin’ at the top of our lungs. I don’t know if it was good singin’ or bad singin’, but we passed many an hour that a way. “Our” song was, “A Boat Like Gideon Brown.” [1]

Da’s a beltin’ out bass and I’m a squawkin’ away like a gull, wishin’ I had clever fingers like the girlys I met at school that sew and crochet and such, so might hap I could work a squeeze box and make a joyful noise. I get up as high on the pilot house roof as may be, and Red Nose John be a usin’ big black plastic tubs for Bodhrans and a stompin’ his truly tremendous feet in his truly humongous sea boots on the deck to the rhythm.

Lyrics

Oh Gideon lived across the bay
He’s gettin’ older now
His boat is big and strong and bold
She has a stalwart bow

But my father’s boat was second hand
One someone used before
And after every fishing trip
My father always swore

That someday he would save enough
To go to St. John’s town
And buy himself a big new boat
A boat like Gideon Brown
A boat like Gideon Brown

Confederation came around
And the days of old age pension
He said ‘Son I’m saving every cent’
And this you must not mention

You save the baby bonus too
And things just might turn around
And we’ll have enough to buy a boat
A boat like Gideon Brown

‘Cause she can punch ahead in any gale
And ride the fishing ground
I often thought how proud I’d be
In a boat like Gideon Brown
In a boat like Gideon Brown

Many years did pass away
And Dad began to fade
He didn’t talk of boats too much
He said ‘Son I’m afraid’

If things don’t soon improve
Then I’ll be underground
Before we ever get to see ourselves
In a boat like Gideon Brown

‘Cause she can punch ahead in any gale
And ride the fishing ground
I often thought how proud I’d be
In a boat like Gideon Brown
In a boat like Gideon Brown

I sat and held his hand one day
And he said ‘Son, that policy’
The insurance is all in your name
You’re the beneficiary

And when I’m gone they’ll pay you off
Then go to St. John’s town
And buy yourself a big new boat
A boat like Gideon Brown

‘Cause she can punch ahead in any gale
And ride the fishing ground
I often thought how proud I’d be
In a boat like Gideon Brown
In a boat like Gideon Brown

‘Cause she can punch ahead in any gale
And ride the fishing ground
I often thought how proud I’d be
In a boat like Gideon Brown
In a boat like Gideon Brown

Now I’m sure you be a seein’ that the song is about a son and his old da. In truth, we never did be thinkin’ much about my bein’ a girl. Well, that is until the night the fact of me bein’ a girl was pounded repeatedly down on all our heads.

We was headin’ for one of da’s favorite short trip banks when the starboard diesel starts a makin’ noises like a rock crusher. We shuts er down and gets into a shithole cannery town on the port engine. We would have just gone on to St. John’s, but the weather was turning squally and my da, bless him, never lets us take a batterin’ for no good reason. Da knows it’s gonna be 30% higher and take three days longer because the cannery town shop is only licensed for Cummins, and we got Cats, so parts have to be shipped at least, and if it’s bad, Mr. Peterson will likely send big Steve and little Steve both, to make sure the work gets done right and proper.

So, we goes into the pub for some chowder or sompthin’ and this big old drunken sonnabitch grabs my left tit and says, “Dance wit me girlie!” and he’s a whirlin’ me around, all the while maulin’ my left teat.

I’m objectin’ but he’s not a hearin’ me, so I tries to crush his stones wit my sea boot ta be getting’ his attention. Well this makes him mad, and he rips my jersey offen me. Now it seemed to me I put on me jersey in the morning, a flat chested little girl, and when this bilge water smellin’ rat rips off me shirt, I got full grown woman tits. Now they’re not movie star teats, but they be a swayin’ a bit and every eye in the place is on either my right nipple or my left, and now this hunk of garbage has a paw on both my naked tits and is twistin’ both nipples somethin’ brutal.

I punches him in the gut hard enough to double him up. My da throws a five-punch combination that’s way beyond what bar brawlers ever see before they’ve already hit the floor, and this hunk of blubber is on his way down when Red Nose John shows up and turns out the buggar’s lights, permanent like.

Now the landlord is a kind man, and he’s givin’ me a jersey now that the house has had free entertainment from lookin’ at my mammies. His wife ain’t so charitable, and she’s wearin’ me out with all her scoldin’ about how it’s beein’ a disgrace, me parading around without a “proper” brassiere and all, I might as well be a prostitute or at least the Whore of Babylon, and turnin’ tricks right there on her “clean” public house tables.

I put up wit it as best I could until I had a belly full, and then I punched the old sow. It was right comical to see thirty-five kilograms o’ me turnin’ out the lights o’ that hundred an fifty-kilogram pile a blubber. We got asked to leave, and the local constable asks us not to come back to that house, ever. Oh, and don’t make this port either unless we be a sinkin’.

The weather clears up and we limp up to St. John’s on the port diesel. I’m thinkin’ it’s all said and done, but oh no, some fancy lawyer-like dressed up lady from Ottawa comes a knockin’ on our boat and I’m charged with bein’ a public menace as well as public indecency. Now I wasn’t havin’ any of that because I woulda been all proper covered if old bilge scum hadn’t a ripped my jersey off.

Well the good news was that the magistrate agreed with me that the indecency charge was a bogus as a hunk of pyrite made to look like a nugget. The bad news was that he was upset I wasn’t all lady-like and sweetness. So, I had ta report to the social worker every week of the school year and give evidence I was complying with the court’s order and getting myself civilized.

I did what they asked and got thick white cotton bras you couldn’t see my nipples were hard underneath. I found out my real bra size was 32 C, which the department store lady says is a respectable grown woman size, except kinda skinny. I mended my speaking as I could and tried not to swear as much.