The Kodachrome Lobsterman of Montauk
(continued)
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A blond, hatless lobsterman slips into that empty seat to my left. I barely notice as I indulge in my steamed-
clam feast, telling myself that the morsels were dug just that morning somewhere out in Montauk. That
thought makes them taste even better.
The blond lobsterman, who looks to be in his late twenties, is wearing a thick green hooded sweatshirt and
drinking a draft. He lays a small metallic box on the bar and plucks out thirty-five-millimeter slides from it, one
by one, holding them up to the light now streaming in over our heads from the screened back door behind
the bar. I watch as he studies the small squares in the light, and the slides look old. The stiff cardboard
frames surrounding the transparent film have yellowed with time and are no longer pure white, but the
images themselves seem intact and shiny.
He is being ignored by his companions, but I can tell that he is doing his best to attract attention and a
comment or question as to what he is doing.
I try to stick to my best mind-my-own-business intentions, though I’m becoming insanely curious. I lose my
internal battle to silence myself and get ready to say something . . . but the bartender beats me to the punch.
I’m relieved that I don’t have to break the ice with these strangers.
“Now what the hell did you find, Anthony?” Then, to all the drinkers and stool-sitters, he says, “This guy is
always bringing all kinds of weird things. Look here—half the junk we got behind the bar and hanging up all
over this place, Anthony dragged in here over the years.”
“And most of it ain’t half bad either,” retorts Anthony with a proud grin, “or you wouldn’t be showing it off to
everybody all the time. It’s probably worth a fortune, and I just give it to you. So don’t complain, or I’ll take my
stuff back and you’ll have nothing but bare walls and liquor bottles and this forty-year-old paneling to look at.
This place has character because of me.”
“You’ve got that right, Anthony—you are a character. You’re weird,” says the bartender, a man of about sixty
with gray-black hair and a trim build.
Suddenly I get an elbow nudge. Anthony is inviting me into the conversation. “Hey, you see that stone duck
up there?” My gaze finds the duck behind the bar and I nod. “I found that. That’s a nice piece. It’s art.” I nod
once again, agreeing that the duck does appear to be more like art than garden ornament in appearance.
“Where did you get that duck,” I ask, a bit more certain now that it’s okay to join in.
Anthony sidesteps my direct question. “I find things. That’s what I do when I’m not lobstering. I just find things
around Montauk. I just know where to look.” I don’t press the issue. I’m just happy to be talking with the
lobsterman and now kidding with the bartender who wasn’t so friendly to me just a short while ago. For the
moment, I’m no longer just another napkin-and-fork drifter from back west. I’m beginning to feel like one of
the boys.
The real issue for me here, though, is not the stone art duck behind the bar or the rest of Anthony’s odd
donated artifacts nailed to the walls.