All week, Reena listened for the whistle that told her the sardine boat had come in and packers would be needed at the cannery. Reena worked at the cannery for fifty years, and she was the fastest. Snip, flip, and intro the can! Nobody could pack more sardines in an hour than she could. “It’s all in the rhythm,” she would say, “But everybody has their own rhythm.”
Ages ago when she lived outside of town, Reena would get up early, and listen for the whistle, Then she would wait for the broken down, makeshift bus that ferried her and a score of other women to the cannery. It rattled noisily down the road, lurching with bad shocks and screeching brakes.
Now she lived in town and walked down the hill to the cannery. A chilly dawn mist rolled in from the harbour, wrapping everything in a soft, diffuse light, like an impressionist painting. The factory that made the cans for the sardines was off to the left and the cannery was to her right. Behind the cannery she could just make out the outline of the wharf, and the shape of the sardine boat unloading its catch. As she came nearer, she could hear the sound that permeated every day of her life. As the tide came in, waves lapped at the wharf’s supporting timbers, keeping time to the earth’s ceaseless cadence as the gulls cried overhead. Wave after wave washed the harbour. They would keep their constant tempo forever.
Reena laughed to herself when she thought about Wilson in the shipping department. They had been sweethearts once a long time ago, until the day she caught him eyeing one of the younger cannery workers, just out of high school. They saw less of each other after that, until they avoided each other completely. Wilson ended up marrying the younger cannery worker. The tide goes in, the tide goes out.
A few years ago Wilson was promoted to foreman. The next morning he looked into the mirror and decided something was missing. A tie. He’d come up in the world and he needed to wear a tie to work. When he walked in the door to the cannery the ladies packing sardines gave him the side eye .
“What’s he wearing a tie for?” asked Reena.
“Who does he think he is? Somethin’ special?” smirked Ruth
“Yup, he got promoted to foreman yestidday. Now he thinks he’s a big shot,” said Mona.
Reena laid out a challenge.“Well, ladies, we can’t let this go unanswered.”
They waited until he was just walking past their table, waiting to punch the tickets tracking how many sardines they packed, then they tackled him and laid him out on his back with his tie drooping to the floor. Someone found a hammer and a tenpenny nail nearby and drove the nail through the tie into the rough wooden floor, wet with the runoff and fish guts.
“That’ll teach him to get uppity!” laughed Rena. The packing floor was well known for such pranks. More than one lunchbox had been glued to a bench, waiting for its owner to rush by and grab it, hurrying to lunch. Rarely were there any serious repercussions for such horseplay, because good, speedy packers were valuable.
…And they were loyal. Back during the ’40’s, the cannery owner took a contract to supply the U. S. Army with sardines for the soldiers’ rations. The packers worked for six months packing crate after crate of sardines. They didn’t get paid until the Army paid its contract after the sardines were shipped by rail. No one complained, they just kept packing.
Arriving at the cannery that morning, Rena put on what looked like a plastic shower cap and plastic apron. She taped up her bony fingers to guard against mishaps with the scissors, then took up her station at the table as the the sluice gate was opened and sardines began moving down one conveyor belt and the three-by-four inch cans down a parallel belt. Snip, flip, and into the can! All day long for fifty years. She could no longer smell the sardines. But her grandchildren could. They refused to eat the cookies she baked.
“They smell like sardines, Grandma.”
For the past five years, there had been less and less work at the cannery because of competition from Norwegian fishing boats. They could catch more sardines, freeze them, and sell to the markets at prices that undercut the local sardine boats and the cannery. Once there were seventy five canneries up and down the coast of Maine. Now there was only one left. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. When the sardine industry was booming, the packers worked ten and twelve hour days, until the fish were gone. The fish wouldn’t keep overnight in a building without temperature control. Now, at piecework wages Reena barely made enough to live on. During the winter, she survived on unemployment checks when the sardine boats didn’t go out.
As the line slowed down and stopped shortly after one in the afternoon, Rena sighed to her workmates, “Looks like this is gonna be a short day.”
“Ain’t no more fish comin’ down the conveyor belt,” agreed Mona.
“I only packed half as much as I packed last Wednesday,” grumbled Ruth. How’m I gonna pay my grocery bill on that?”
It was cool out, so Rena put on her jacket and walked the half mile up the hill to her small house. It was still too early to begin planting the garden, so she began tackling some of the spring cleaning. Wiping the dust and soot from the woodwork, she glanced at the framed, faded newspaper article on the wall. It included a photograph of the cannery owner and the packers standing in front of the plant on the day the new cannery opened fifteen years earlier. The old plant burned down one night when some flammable materials were left in a closet. Firemen worked through the night, but the fire was fed by barrels of oil that were used in packing the sardines. The exploding barrels could be heard all over town
Fewer packers were hired in the current summer. There had been rumours that the cannery would not make it through to the fall. Tastes had changed in the last thirty years. Workmen once packed a can of sardines with mustard or hot sauce in their lunch box, but few did these days. Why didn’t anyone want to eat sardines anymore? She worried about the rumours she’d been hearing. A month ago a small group of men were seen touring the cannery. Someday there’s gonna be a padlock on that door, she thought.
The next week the whistle blew on a Thursday morning, but when Reena walked down the hill, she was puzzled because didn’t see any sardine boats in the harbour. Why did they blow the whistle if there ain’t no sardines? Shortly after she entered the plant, the owner called all the workers into the main room.
“I want to thank all of you who have worked so hard over the years to keep this cannery operating. I will always remember each and every one of you and all of your efforts. Yesterday we had to make a very hard decision. We cannot operate this cannery beyond this week in the current environment. It is no longer economically viable.”
Gasps shuddered through the assembly; Mona reached for her handkerchief, but Reena was not particularly surprised. She had expected it. Still, it was as if someone had died. Reena remembered the months they had worked without pay, to feed the soldiers. She remembered the night the plant burned down, with the sad faces of the workers the next morning, viewing the still smoking ashes and charred timbers, and vowing with the owner to rebuild the plant. And they did. Now it was gone. The heart of the town was gone and people would start to leave. Three months later two of her neighbours packed up and left town, looking for work elsewhere. Two months after that, the small diner on Water Street closed, along with the drug store. They were replaced by a gift shop for tourists and a coffee shop. The tavern was turned over to new owners, who remodelled and built a deck with a view of the ocean, seeking to attract summer visitors.
Weeks later Reena took the framed newspaper article off the wall and packed it in a worn, half crumpled grocery store box, along with some clothes, a few other photos and some knick knacks. Tomorrow her niece would drive her to a retirement home in Bangor—inland, where she would no longer hear the waves lapping against the wharf. That afternoon Reena walked down the hill to take one last look at the old cannery. She listened for the rhythm of the waves lapping against the wharf, but the tide had gone out. She lifted her head and looked to her right. There it was, the padlock on the door. She understood that change was as inevitable as the waves against the wharf. The tide comes in and the tide goes out.
DoubleSpeak 