Captain Phil Harris (7 page)

He was never again responsible for such a glaring accident. And motivated by his early screwups, Phil went on to establish his skill as a fisherman and build a solid reputation as a crab boat captain.

•   •   •

Phil was coming of age at just the right time. The opportunities for success in the crab fishing industry were never better than in the golden era of the mid-1970s.

In the early twentieth century, the hunt for crab had become popular, but the technology to make it highly lucrative was still decades away. There were no sophisticated computers to chart courses, no eight-hundred-pound pots to catch crab because there was no hydraulic system to lift those pots in and out of the water, and no high-powered lights to make night fishing possible. Fishermen would go out in smaller boats, converted trawlers that didn’t even have holding tanks to keep the crab alive.

“Those boats weren’t designed to do what our boats do today,” said Sig Hansen, captain of the
Northwestern
. “They were junk.”

Without the proper vessels, most of the Bering Sea was off-limits. “Back in the late fifties and sixties, they would just fish along the Aleutian Islands,” said Sig, whose father, Sverre, was a captain in that era.
Back then, with radar as the primary locating device, the fishermen would triangulate their fishing spots at sea by using landmarks on the islands that could be seen from their boats.

“It was a pain in the ass,” said Sig, “like fishing in the blind.”

They may have lacked the tools of today’s crab fishermen, but the older generation could certainly match the current group when it came to colorful characters. The old-timers could have put on a
Deadliest Catch
series every bit as entertaining as today’s shows, and Sverre was as colorful as any of them. When he was young, Sig used to hear a story about how his father’s boat sprang a leak while Sverre was cooking steaks. His father looked at the water gathering on the deck but also kept an eye on his steak.

“I’m not going on an empty stomach,” he proclaimed to his deckhands.

By the early 1970s, the boats had grown bigger and the technology had improved, allowing the vessels to roam much farther from shore. No longer did they need island landmarks to guide them.

But the single biggest factor in growing the industry was the addition of sodium lights, generating beams powerful enough to illuminate the search for crab regardless of the time and circumstances.

In January in the Bering Sea, the sun doesn’t come up until around ten in the morning and is gone by four in the afternoon. Add in the dim daylight hours on sunless or stormy days and the dark waters of the Bering Sea, and the working hours and conditions for crab fishermen were extremely limited.

“The sodium lights changed everything,” said Sig. “Now fishing at night was possible. You could fish twenty-four hours a day. And you could venture farther out and not worry about getting stuck out there in the dark if you had problems.”

The result was the heyday of crab fishing, beginning around 1974. By 1978, when Grant allowed Phil to take a turn commanding the
Golden Viking,
the business was really booming.

“Phil was part of the generation,” said Sig, “who got in at the peak.”

I probably knew Phil better than anyone.

On the plus side, he was confident, gutsy, a thrill seeker, persistent, adventurous, a take-charge type, full of energy, fun, exciting, generous, extravagant, first class, yet casual, kind, a good provider, sympathetic, humorous, good-natured, very forgiving, an animal lover, and almost always upbeat.

I admired his strength and how hard he worked. I had no idea just how hard until I watched
Deadliest Catch.
I am sorry for all the times I yelled at him when he’d call from the boat, especially during a bad storm, to say he loved me and the kids. I wonder if it wasn’t because he thought he might not make it back.

On the downside, he could be loud, bossy, restless, fidgety, reckless, out of control, lawless, a showoff, boastful, disorganized, messy, foulmouthed, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical, stubborn, overly indulgent, an excessive drinker, a five-pack-a-day smoker, a drug user, gambler, and womanizer. He was a very addictive person, someone who just couldn’t do anything in moderation.

Yet when I think of him now, I see my knight in shining armor.

—Mary Harris

The hot-pink neon sign flickered atop the old building in Woodinville, Washington. Jagged cracks snaked across the sign’s glass surface, and some of its letters were only partially illuminated. But that was no problem for the unruly horde of fishermen, loggers, and construction workers descending on Goodtime Charley’s on that April night in 1978. They didn’t need a compass to find their destination. Brazen men such as these were drawn to strip joints like fish to bait.

At least one police officer suspected that the good times involved more than just stripping. Officers saw fancy cars belonging to suspected pimps regularly drop off and pick up women. Often, officers were required to do more than just watch the scene from a distance. “I remember going to calls there for fights between patrons and employees,” King County police sergeant Rick Krogh told the
Seattle Times
.

Inside the topless go-go bar, the cigarette haze was thick, swirling along as though fueled by the loud disco music pulsating throughout the nightspot. A voluptuous dancer named Holly McMillan, stage name Heartbreakin’ Holly, worked the boisterous crowd.

The fishermen filled every corner of the room, behaving as if they owned the place. Which in effect they did, considering how much of their cash they left there nightly.

After her set, Holly pulled aside a fellow dancer, Mary Smith, a willowy twenty-three-year-old creature with raven hair down to her knees. The genes from a French father and Chinese/Polynesian mother had combined to give Mary delicate features and an exotic vibe that would have stood out in any club, but especially in this lowbrow establishment.

Holly pointed out a rough customer to Mary, one whose ruggedness wore well on him.

“That guy really wants to meet you,” Holly said. “He’s in love with you.” Mary rolled her eyes, but Holly would not let up.

“I told him you were married,” Holly said. “He said, ‘Oh bummer, is she happily married?’ I said, ‘No, I think she’s getting a divorce.’ He said, ‘Great. Better yet.’ ”

Mary had been a waitress at Goodtime Charley’s for three and a half years, serving beer and food. Mostly beer. She knew the customers would drink vinegar and chew on newspapers as long as they could ogle beautiful, sexy women. And she knew how big the wads of money were that the clientele tossed onto the stage or stuffed into the skimpy outfits of Goodtime Charley’s fantasy females.

Still, Mary’s shyness and lack of confidence kept her off the dance floor. “I was scared to death to go out there,” she said.

She finally made the big leap into the spotlight after a particularly traumatic night in her ever rockier marriage. Her husband, who, according to Mary, abused her in the past, had locked her in the bathroom and refused to let her out to go to work.

It was a busy night at Goodtime Charley’s, wall-to-wall customers packing the joint.

Where was Mary? When the club’s manager, John Lewis, called her, she explained the problem. No excuse. Lewis sent the club bouncer, a man named Tiny, who was anything but, to Mary’s house. Imposing and distinctive, with a muscular frame, shiny bald head, and one sparkling earring, Tiny didn’t look like a man who would shy away from a confrontation. Mary’s husband wasn’t about to test him as Tiny escorted Mary out the door.

She knew that night that she couldn’t go on like that. She was going to have to save up enough money to move out. And the only way to do that was to put down her drink tray and put on her dancing shoes.

Though her confidence grew as she demonstrated her ability on her feet, and she was happy to be free of waiting on drunks, she still hated the obligation to strut and grind night after night. But she stuck to it tenaciously, and, in just three months, Mary saved enough money to carve out an independent life for her and her two kids.

“He’s got a lot of money!” Holly whispered as Mary strolled over to the mystery man.

“So what? It’s not like he’s going to give it to me,” Mary yelled back.

Mary sized the stranger up. A fisherman. Fresh off the boat. He
had that Kurt Cobain grunge look about him. His outdated bell-bottom jeans were liberally sprinkled with holes. He wore a dirty down vest, a shabby plaid shirt, and sported stringy, oily, dishwater-blond hair under a knit cap. He was over six feet tall, but skinny as a rail at about 160 pounds.

Close up, she caught an acrid whiff from this lanky but strangely charismatic bad boy. Phew! Mary recognized the funk of sour seafood that branded working fishermen. She didn’t have to ask where this guy had been.

Nevertheless, Mary flashed an ivory smile and asked him if he wanted a dance. He introduced himself as Phil Harris and told her he wasn’t interested in a dance. “I’m interested in you,” he informed her bluntly. “Want to go for a drink when you get off work?”

Mary explained that she wasn’t interested in starting up with a youngster. Phil, all of twenty-one years old, lied, saying he was twenty-four.

That’s when she first noticed his eyes. They were a striking baby blue and danced with a confidence unexpected from someone in his early twenties.

Another thing that struck Mary was the obeisance being paid Phil by the seamen he had come in with. They eagerly jumped at his every command.

“Get me a beer.” “Go find me a pack of smokes.” They did whatever he said. Mary thought the interplay was hilarious. She wondered what they would do if he told them to go take a piss for him.

Phil explained that he was a crab boat captain, skippering the
Golden Viking
on the Bering Sea and that his cohorts, about five in all, were his crew.

Mary found this Phil guy interesting. There was definitely something different about him.

Phil invited Mary outside for some air and a drink. She liked his relaxed, upbeat style. He was brimming with self-esteem, yet didn’t come across as arrogant.

They talked for a while, sharing some laughs on one of those rare Washington nights when the stars are actually visible.

Mary opened up to Phil, telling him about her violent husband. Phil said she should let him know that, if he didn’t cool it, Phil would have some very serious people pay him a visit.

Phil told Mary he’d be back at eleven when she got off work. As she came strolling out of the bar, there was Phil standing beside his red Corvette. He came running around to the passenger side and opened the door for her.

As they roared away, Mary didn’t notice the white powder on a hand mirror resting on the console. She rolled down her window to flick away a few ashes from her cigarette. As she did so, some of that white powder joined the ashes disappearing into the night.

As she turned back, Mary noticed a disgusted look on Phil’s face.

“Uh, you rolled the window down,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Mary, wondering why that was a problem.

“Did you notice all the powder on that mirror that got blown away?” Phil asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Phil said. “That was only about three hundred dollars’ worth of coke.”

“Coke?” Mary asked.

“You’ve never had any?” said Phil.

“No,” she insisted, then got right to the point: “And I want you to know that you’re not getting laid tonight. If that’s what you’re expecting, you can drop me back at the club right now.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Phil assured her.

They wound up at the
Golden Viking,
where they sat talking until dawn.

Mary was intrigued. Who was this new man in her life and what did he mean to her future?

She soon found out. Phil would call in the early morning hours on a daily basis to see that she’d made it home safely from work and
that hubby was keeping his mittens to himself. Phil treated her like a queen, telling her that she was gorgeous and alluring, and that she was destined to one day be his wife.

“But I’m already married,” she would say.

Phil would shrug and say, “That’s just a small obstacle.”

Smaller all the time. Phil had come into Mary’s life just as her marriage was crumbling, and her husband was spending less and less time at the house.

Phil asked Mary to lunch a few days after they met and flew her to San Francisco, where they dined at a five-star bistro.

Mary never knew what to expect next, but she knew that, with Phil around, she would never be bored. He called her every two hours. He smothered her in dozens of expensive long-stemmed roses.

Mary’s neighbors were perplexed by the sight of flower shop delivery vans day and night. When friends dropped by, they would think, Wow, did somebody die?

Phil himself would often drive by her house several times a night on his Harley-Davidson. Mary’s husband and everyone else in the neighborhood would hear him roar through.

Mary’s husband finally split after six years of marriage, but he came by one time when Phil was visiting. Mary braced for an eruption. Instead, she was stunned to see her ex cruising off on Phil’s Harley. Phil explained to Mary that the ride would keep her estranged husband busy, allowing him and Mary some private time together.

This is nuts, she thought.

By the time Phil met Mary, he was well into his hobby of collecting Corvettes. He had a white one, a black one, and the red one.

Mary’s favorite story about Phil and his cars, one that causes her to laugh to this day, occurred when they went shopping together for a new Corvette. Phil liked the convertible model, while Mary was pushing for the hardtop. To prove his point, Phil had her sit in the convertible, then he gazed up at the sky.

“Look how open it is,” he said.

If Mary had trained a seagull, she could not have timed it better. Phil had long hated the birds for unexplained reasons, and just then, one returned the feeling by dropping a load of poop dead center on his upturned face.