The Clam Digger

I grew up in Cutler, Maine. My great grandfather, Vincent Dennison, used to own the only store in town, but its no longer in operation. I think there is an unwritten ordinance in this town that all school aged young men are required to dig clams.

My family lived on the Little Machias Road and across the street from our home was a narrow dirt road that led down to the shore called, “The Schoolhouse Road.” So named because it used to be the location of Cutler’s one-room schoolhouse. The small building was torn down long before my time, but I remember listening to both my parents and grandparents talk about it as if it was still standing. There was a spooky legend associated with this area, that dated back to the prohibition. Supposedly, a young boy was murdered in this vicinity for witnessing a rum-running operation. Over time fact and fiction got so tangled up, that no one could recall any specific details of the event or even if the event ever really occurred.

One particular August afternoon, when I was 13 years old, the fog was set in as thick as pea soup as the tide was leaving. Per usual, I grabbed my clamming gear and headed for the shore. As I started down the winding Schoolhouse Road, I thought I heard something in the bushes just out of my sight and I had the eerie feeling that I was being watched. I chalked it up to my overactive imagination getting the best of me, but nonetheless I did quicken my pace. When I reached the shore, I remember thinking that the fog was thicker than I had ever seen it before. As I started out across the flats, I noticed the outline of someone about 50 yards away. It sounded as if they were talking to themselves, which was not an uncommon practice among clam diggers, so I thought nothing of it and continued in their direction.

“Ha-boy,” I shouted to the other digger. That was the typical greeting that all the guys in Cutler greeted each other with regardless of age. I realized the digger was a boy about my age that I had never met. He just said, “Hi.” “No big deal,” I thought, he was probably from away, visiting relatives here in town, and just trying to dig a mess to eat. “Finding many?’ I called out, trying to be nice. “I’m afraid not,” came the hollow reply.

This is when I noticed that even his clothes looked odd. Not that the clam flats in Cutler are any type of fashion show because they’re not, but his clothes looked curiously outdated. I wasn’t sure if he was wearing short pants or long shorts, his grungy old t-shirt read, “Packard Motor Car Company,” and he wasn’t wearing boots. Instead he had on long socks and a pair old brown shoes. I had seen people from away on the flats before and they always looked out of place, but this boy reminded me of pictures that I had seen in the family scrapbook of my grandfather. Even his Red Sox ball cap, reminded me of something I had seen before. Was it on an old baseball card or maybe in one of those black and white photos in the family album?

I found a spot to dig not far from the boy, sat my gear down, and got to work. Once again, I could hear him talking to himself, “Vinnie, I swear I didn’t see anything. Honest injun Vin, I saw nothing!” When I looked over, he had stopped digging, turned his bucket over, and was now sitting on it. His head was in his hands as he continued to mumble, “Ok, Ok, I won’t tell a soul, I promise. Just let me go home Vinnie, please!” By now I’m starting to get really creeped out and I don’t know whether to just walk away or ask him if he was in some sort of trouble. I opted for the latter, “Hey man, are you ok?” He didn’t reply, but picked up his clam hoe and started to walk in my direction.

He was making me very nervous, so I stood up straight with my clam hoe in hand, ready to defend myself if need be. He stopped about 10 feet from me and asked, “Do you know Vinnie, the guy who runs the store in town?”

I said, “You must be confused, the store has been closed for years, but it used to belong to my great grandfather Vincent.” The faded lettering on the side of the dilapidated old building, “Vinnie’s Market,” flashed before my eyes.”

“He’s a bad man, I tell ya, a real bad man.”

“Ok,” I said trying to play along, “why is he so bad?”

He ripped off his t-shirt and I could see round red pock marks all over his upper body that appeared to be bleeding, but they couldn’t be because his t-shirt didn’t have a lick of blood on it. “See,” he said, “He’s no good!” Before I could respond, he threw his t-shirt back on and started mumbling, “Stupid Seagrams, stupid Seagrams, I shouldn’t have opened that case, I shouldn’t have read that note, I shouldn’t have gone clamming, I should have stayed away from Vinnie." He turned his back towards me and walked away into the dense coastal fog.

My mind raced to an old family photo in the scrapbook, of my great grandfather standing beside his store with his arm around freckled face kid, wearing knickers and a baseball cap, that nobody could identify. It was supposedly a young helper he had hired.

“Its him! Thats the boy!” I vividly remembered the hat! “Hey wait, you forgot your hoe,” I yelled into the fog, but he didn’t leave so much as a footprint in the Cutler mud. Exasperated, I bent down and picked up the hoe and to my horror it was dripping with blood……..The End