I really, really enjoyed this. You communicate so much in the spaces between dialogue, and the descriptions of this tough, grim and uncomfortable floating Duck and Joe are - by their sexuality, their depression and desperation, their poverty and lack of options. Even among the other fishermen they're the cast-offs, and I really liked your choice to focus only on Walt and Joe. We're more aware of the seagulls than we are of the rest of the crew. Everyone else on the boat is just a dim voice in another room. And I think that makes sense for loners like Joe and Duck, who really only seem to connect with perhaps one other person in their lives. Everyone else is just a voice.

Anyway, this was really, really good. The details (sights, sounds, your very specific description of Duck's bag and the items therein, Billy's lighter) were great. We learn so much more from the objects in this story, and from the context of the dialogue, than anything Joe and Duck actually say. That's incredibly hard to do from a writer's perspective, and you made it look easy. Great job, E.