The Poor House

I am aware that I have shown signs of moral bankruptcy in the past but I always managed to pay the dues associated with that itchy plight. Now, I'm faced with a full financial collapse. They simply do not pay Texinos the way they did when we schooled like big tuna with manuscripts fresher than the best grade fish flesh. Oh the price of fuel and the invention of automated long liners. Then you make the mistake of fishing for what would eat your own carcass should you bunk with D. Jones on a perfect stormy night. Once you take that bug money, it is better to go to the hill and buy a house with the wind at your back. And I did that and 30 years of near perfect citizenship brought me in touch with a different breed. Then: Lord did the heavy past en bay me with casual duties and one day I looked up to find 30 thousand squid full and fine and demanding their share of the voyage of my life. What kind of captain doesn't pay off? Well no kind of Captain at all. And then this steady procession of old mates walked off the plank into the fog where, unlike the snowy churchyard not one can answer your whispered question and your loudest calls are swallowed and beaten senseless beneath the billowed blankets.