The Fix

I entered the smoky bar and immediately saw the informant in a dark corner, slumped over a glass of Liquid Sunshine with his hat pulled down.

"Did anyone follow you?" he said to me sideways.

I waved for my own Sunshine. "There was a raven behind me for a while but I lost him in the blizzard. Now what kind of information you got for me?"

"It's the fishing industry. Rationalization, secret deals, sub-minimum wages, processor linkages-it's a fix, I tell ya, and I got the evidence."

"What evidence?"

"Remember when crab rationalization came to town? The economies of a lotta coastal towns sleep with the fishes because of that thing. And it rode into town on a spending bill. The guy who saddled up that spending bill has a son who works as a lobbyist, gets a lot of money from the big corporations who did very well on that deal."

"You mean Senator S..."

"Don't say his name!" he yelled, choking on a peanut.

I clapped him on the back and he went on. "The same thing's about to happen to Gulf of Alaska groundfish. The Ratz is coming to town. Guy who appoints the Management Council is the same guy who sidestepped the state legislature to make it legal for big processing companies to deduct room and board from the wages of their workers. That means they can pay less than minimum wage now. His daughter got sixty grand in campaign contributions from those guys right after he did that."

You mean Governor M..."

"Would you quit doing that!" he yelled, spilling his sunshine. "Anyhow, the deck is stacked on the Council. There's only one fisherman on there right now. And his seat's up for reappointment." He winked at me. "So you can say goodbye to a free market. Linkages instead. And even though rationalization could mean lots of smaller local boats, using selective gear types- local equity and sustainability, that's not what you're gonna see. The system's set up to encourage fewer, bigger boats, and the same amount of bottom dragging. Most of the people who get initial allocation will sell their rights to the out of town guys with the big pockets. Who wouldn't? Money's going to get vertically integrated right outta here" Outside a garbage can blew by in the blizzard.

"That's your information? Everyone knows about that stuff!" I stick my stained notebook back into my pocket in disgust and head for the door.

"Then why don't you do something about it?" He bellows at my back. I step out into the snow. His raspy voice follows me. "What are you going to do...?"

Posted 3/08