"I WENT down to the fish pier a lot after the search ended," says Chris Cotter. "I went there a lot, I went there alone and I'd go through these things—you know, picturing what happened to their bodies, that kind of horror. I'd reject it from my mind and my soul as soon as it blew in, and then I'd remember the good things, he'd come back to me and it would be okay. I miss him immensely, though, I fight it all the time. Later, I tell myself. I'll see him later on."
The memorial service is held several days later at St. Ann's Church, just up the hill from the Crow's Nest. It's the first service in thirteen years for Gloucestermen lost at sea, and it brings people out who don't even know the men who died. The sea was their domain, they knew it well, Reverend Casey says quietly to the thousand people packed into his church for the service. I urge you to mourn not just for these three men, but for all the other brave people who gave their lives for Gloucester and its fishing industry.
Mary Anne and Rusty Shatford read a poem about fishing, and Sully's brother speaks, and some of the Tyne family speak. Bob and Susan Brown are at the service, but they say very little and leave as soon as it's over. This is the third time men have died on one of Bob Brown's boats and, regardless of fault, people in town are not inclined to forget it. After the service the mourners drive and walk down the steep hill to Rogers Street and pile into the Crow's Nest and the Irish Mariner, where a wake is held for the next couple of days. Food is brought and people go to Sully's brother's apartment, then back to the Crow's Nest, then over to the Tynes', and back to the Nest again, endlessly, all weekend long.
If the men on the Andrea Gail had simply died, and their bodies were lying in state somewhere, their loved ones could make their goodbyes and get on with their lives. But they didn't die, they disappeared off the face of the earth and, strictly speaking, it's just a matter of faith that these men will never return. Such faith takes work, it takes effort. The people of Gloucester must willfully extract these men from their lives and banish them to another world.
"The night before I found out about the boat, I had this dream," says Debra Murphy, Murph's ex-wife. "Murph was supposed to be home for my birthday, and in my dream—I don't know if he's standing there or if he's calling me—he says, 'I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it this time.' Then I wake up, and the phone call comes. It's from Billy's new girlfriend, who says there was a big storm out there and the Andrea Gail hasn't been heard from in a couple of days."
The first thing Debra does is drive over to Murph's parents' house to give them the bad news. They've never liked his fishing much—his father's in real estate, they live a quiet suburban life—and they sit there in shock while Debra tells them the boat is missing. She doesn't know much more than that one fact, and when she calls Bob Brown, all he can tell her is that the boat was last heard from on the 28th and that a search has been launched. Brown refuses to return her calls after that, so she starts talking to the Coast Guard every day asking how many flights went out, whether they see anything, what they plan to do next. Finally, after ten days of hell, Debra sits her three-year-old son, Dale Jr., down and explains that his father's not coming back. Her son doesn't understand, and wants to know where he is.
He's fishing, honey, she answers. He's fishing in heaven.
Dale knows his father fishes lots of places—Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts. Heaven must be just another place where his father fishes. Well, when's he coming back from fishing in heaven? he asks.
A couple of months later, as far as young Dale is concerned, his father does come back from fishing in heaven. Dale wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, and Debra rushes into his room, panicked. What's wrong, honey, what's wrong? she says.
Daddy's in the room, Dale answers. Daddy was just here.
What do you mean, Daddy was just here? Debra asks.
Daddy was here and told me what happened on the boat.
Three-year-old Dale, stumbling over the language, goes on to repeat what his father told him. The boat rolled over and caught his father on a "hook" (one of the gaff hooks for grabbing fish). The hook snagged his shirt and Murph wasn't able to free himself in time. He got dragged under, and that was it.
"My son has a lot of anger in him from losing his father," says Debra. "There'll be days where he'll just be really depressed and I'll say, 'What's the matter, Dale?' And he'll say, 'Nothin', Mom, I'm just thinking about my dad.' Oh, God, he'll look at me with these big brown eyes, the tears running down his cheeks and it kills me because there's nothing I can do. Not one thing."