The Deer, The Boat, and The Harbor Master

It was just me in the office working for the Harbormaster in Portland, Maine. The Harbormaster, who I’ll call Gabe, was new. He had just come out of the Navy, and he was restless.

Every day, he came in complaining about the boredom. One day, he said that because I am in the office all day by myself I must be bored, too. He was like, why don’t you come out on patrol with me?

For a patrol boat, it was just a step up from a dinghy. It had no power to it. The startup was sluggish and loud and it barely had a turning radius.

As we’re putting around, Gabe’s pointing out where members of the Board of Harbor Commissioners lived, conveniently on the water. He says, chuckling, “Oh, my God. I swear they stare out the window all day long because I’m constantly hearing them complain about something, and they have to make sure they see my boat. Otherwise, I’m not doing my job or whatever. I don’t know if they would be okay with the office manager being out here, so, like, lay low.”

I sink into my seat as Gabe starts complaining about how his wife is irritated with him and his kids drive him nuts.

I see something in the water, “Is that a dog?”

Gabe is interrupted and whips his head around. The boat chugs closer and we can clearly see a young deer.

“Oh, shit." He steers the boat towards it. “Let’s try to steer it to shore.”

Thus ensues chaos.

When we get close to the deer, it doesn't turn toward the shore, but dodges the boat. Gabe yanks on the wheel trying to turn fast enough to correct the direction of the deer, but the deer is doing a great job paddling with its little hooves, zipping around us again and again in never ending circles.

“This stupid boat doesn’t turn!” He yells, watching the deer easily dodge us again.

Gabe stops the boat. “I can’t help it. There’s nothing I can do. This stupid boat is too slow.”

We watch the deer then swim to shore.

Gabe calls the Game Warden, or whoever, to come and get the deer. We pull up to a nearby peer and wait.

The poor deer is so exhausted from the chase that it’s standing like a statue, heaving, trying to catch its breath. It’s sandwiched between the pier, a brick building, and a 20-foot tall metal fence.

The Game Warden pulls up, and two guys get out; one with that noose on a stick for catching animals. They slowly approach the deer.

It bolts, running around the rocks and beach. The bumbling fool with the stick uselessly reaches out to hook the deer and misses by several feet.

Gabe and I are standing in the boat, mouths agape.

They finally get the deer cornered to the fence.

There’s a pause.

The noose guy inches a little closer, and wham! The deer leaps at the fence to get away, but it gets nowhere near the top to jump over. It panics and slams itself into the fence over and over, beating itself up.

One of the Wardens moves a little too close and the scared, bloodied deer makes a break for it, back into the water.

“Here we go again.” Gabe starts up the boat. This time one of the Wardens gets on the boat with us, carrying the stick and a rifle.

Once again we go after the deer. Once again, in circles. The warden reaches far out over the edge of the boat to to hook the deer but it's nimble and ducks away.

“Becky, go below!” Gabe yells at me.

“What? Why?”

“Just do it!”

I go below, shutting the door behind me.

Bam!

I peek out the window and see them hauling the dead deer onto the boat.

We pull up to the pier, and they drag the body the 30 feet to the Warden’s truck, leaving a trail of blood. It looks like there has been a massacre.

“The Commissioners are going to kill me if they see this.” But there’s no way we can clean it up.

We head back to the office in silence. As I'm stepping out of the boat, Gabe says, “Sorry about all that.”

The next day, Gabe comes into the office, “Hey. So, remember the whole deer thing yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

His hands are on his hips, his neck snapping, “Well. I heard from the Board of Commissioners. They saw the whole thing. And they said, ‘Don’t ever let that happen again.’”

I was like, “How???”

His arms fly up, “I know!”