The man snapped around. “Who you calling an asshole, buddy?”

“Do you know why there are no more canneries here?” Ben asked him, ignoring the question. “Because people assumed the fish would last forever. Well, they didn’t. In something around thirty years, they took pretty much every last sardine out of these waters. It’s taken the last fifty to get the levels back up to where they were.”

“Maybe,” the man said. “But they’re back, right?”

“You’re missing the point,” said Ben.

“No, you’re missing the point,” the man argued. “I’ve been fishing here for forty years. My father fished here for seventy-three years. And my son is going to fish here whether you like it or not. Got it?”

Ben stared him down, debating what to do next. He knew he could call the local police. He’d done it before after catching two men spearfishing for lingcod off the beach. But the man was right; there wasn’t much the local authorities could do. If he really wanted action, he would have to call in Fish & Game, and those boys more often than not sided with the local fishermen, most of whom were their friends.

“Fuck you,” he said finally.

The little boy looked at him, his mouth hanging open in shock. Ben doubted it was the first time the kid had heard the word used, but he bet he’d never heard it directed at his father and, indirectly, at himself. He looked genuinely hurt. Ben kept his eyes on the father. “Fuck you,” he said again. “Asshole.”

He walked away as the man called after him, “No. Fuck you!”

He almost wished the man would attack him, use his fists instead of his mouth. Then Ben could fight back and, maybe, not feel completely helpless. Part of him wanted to hit the ignorant son of a bitch, maybe even push him off the pier in front of his kid.

He knew he was being childish, but he couldn’t stop himself. Anger raged in him like a fire looking for a way out of a sealed building. He hated the man—all men like him—every man who thought it was his right to do as he pleased simply because he’d always done so. Thoughtless men, every last one of them, who honestly believed that their desire to live a certain way was more important than protecting the world’s resources. Who told the forefathers of these men, when they first decided to become fishermen or crabbers or whatever, that their sons and grandsons and great-grandsons were owed some debt payable by the sea? Who told them that they had a right to take, even when they took too much? And how dare they be offended when the ocean refused to give them any more.

He had no sympathy. Turning, he once again faced the fisherman and his son. “I hope you get anisakiasis!” he shouted. The two of them stared at him, uncomprehending, and he gave them the finger before moving on.