The boat glided past hundreds of other boats returning from their day trips, including his old pal Rick Rogers's booze cruise catamaran, the Rickroll, which blew its horn in greeting as it cruised back to shore, two dozen exhausted and tanked revelers clinging to the deck like confused barnacles.
Taters caught sight of Marlene, a leggy brunette in a red bikini standing behind Rick, waving. Rick, true to form, wore his goofy captain's hat cocked at an angle on his head.
"Helloooo, Marlene," Taters whistled under his breath appreciatively as he waved and smiled.
Taters carefully navigated away from the marina area and headed for open waters.
Taters rang a small ship's bell aside the steering column, "Welcome aboard the TenFortyEZ, one of the finest examples of a Chris-Craft Constellation in existence. You will note that she's a thirty-eight footer, although size is not everything, built around 1960, complete with wooden hull. You are standing on the original teak decks, and that rumbling under your feet are the mighty twin Chrysler V8s."
He gunned the twins quickly for effect.
"She sleeps four comfortably, six uncomfortably," he added with a little chuckle that was as much a part of this speech as the rote information about the boat's origins.
Lamda looked at Hector, who smiled, his eyes locked on the marina and harbor fading into the dusk astern. "How long until we get to the wreck?"
"Oh, about forty-five minutes, give or take," Taters said, pushing the throttle forward a hair, the engines chortling a bit. "Relax, you're on island time. You'll get your money's worth." Taters hit a button on the CD player, cueing up another tune.
"Young lady, would you like another drink?" Taters asked gesturing at the cooler beside him.
She nodded, walking carefully from her seat on the stern to Taters, her cup extended. Taters reached into the cooler and removed the premixed colada bottle and poured Lamda a fresh one. "Hector?" He offered an unopened Modelo.
Hector shook his head, holding up his half-full bottle.
"Well, it would be a shame to waste this one," he said, reaching for his bottle opener.
"But Captain Taters," Lamda said. "It's not open. How is it a waste?"
He popped the top off. "I'm sorry, what?" Then he punched the button the CD player, which belted out "The Pina Colada Song".
Lamda laughed. Taters swigged some Modelo. "All part of the service. Please, take your seat, relax and watch the sun go down. We'll be somewhere quiet and fishy before you know it."
She turned away, facing Hector for a moment, then turned back, looking quizzically at the boat's superstructure. "What happened here?" she said, her fingers tracing the outline of several repairs.
"Oh? That? Termites."
"Some pretty big termites," she said.
"Sea termites. Rare species. Hard to get rid of, but we did."
Lamda shrugged and glided back over to Hector, who had finished his beer and handed the empty bottle to Lamda. "Get me another, would you, affair?"
Taters knew "affair", the way Hector said it, was a Bahamian term of endearment. He flipped open the cooler again, scooping up a Modelo and popping off the cap, handing it to her wordlessly. She nodded, took the beer and walked it over to Hector.
"Okay, folks, hang on, we're getting ready to open her up." He jabbed at the CD player and cranked "Let's Get Drunk" by Southern Sky.
Taters pushed the throttle further forward, the throaty engines roaring and the bow rising perceptibly as the boat sped into the sunset.
<><><>
Not far from the wreck fishing site, Taters cut the engines to an idle. Hector rose from his chair. "Are we there?"
"Not quite," Taters said, "but it's just about time for the green flash."
Hector nodded knowingly but Lamda was literally at sea. "What's the green flash?"
"It's an optical phenomena," Taters said. "It happens right after sunset or just before sunrise. When conditions are right, you'll see a green spot over the upper rim of the sun there." He pointed at the orange orb sinking rapidly beneath the waves.
"Oh," she said.
"You know about it, Hector?" Taters said.
He shrugged. "I heard about it, yeah," he said, gulping his beer.
"I've seen it many times, but not every sunset to be sure," Taters said. "One thing about seeing it out here in the middle of nowhere is it's the last bit of brilliance you get before it goes pitch black. Unless there's a bright moon, which we don't have tonight, sadly."
Lamda moved closer to Hector.
"Watch," Taters said, pointing.
The pair watched the sun sink further into the horizon, color draining from the day.
"And there it is," Lamda said, clapping. "The green flash!"
Taters switched the CD to Tony Bennett. "Unless you prefer some Junkanoo music? What do you say, Hector?"
Hector and Lamda turned away from the vanished sun, the last bit of sunlight peeling off them, leaving a fresh coat of shadow on their features. "No, that's fine," he said. "So, we gonna head further out?"
"You bet," Taters said, turning back to the wheel and throttle. "Hold on."
He gunned the engine to life, steering for the wreck site.
<><><>
In ten minutes, Taters dropped the engines back down to idle, then off. He turned the music down very low. "Time to weigh anchor," he said, climbing around to the bow. "Be right back."
He dropped the small anchor and looked out at the gently bobbing lights of other boats a few miles distant, dancing low like truant stars on the edge of the sea. He sighed, listening for a moment to the sounds of the sea, looking up at the starry night.
Taters took a deep breath and headed aft, where Hector stood beside the wheel, Lamda at the stern, standing behind one of the fishing chairs.
"Hector, you in a hurry to get the fishing gear out, are you?"
Hector's right hand patted the superstructure over the door to the cabin below. "You know, no matter what you told Lamda, I think these termite holes were of the forty-five caliber kind, captain."
"Is that so?" Taters said.
In the shadows, the unmistakable sound of a pistol cocking harshly displaced the sound of ocean lapping against the boat's hull.
"It's so," Hector said. "Hands up."
"So it’s like that?" Taters said, raising his hands above his head. "You and Lambada here paid six hundred smackers for the privilege of robbing me at sea?"
"No. I think you know who I am," Hector said. He was working at sounding confident, but Taters caught a whiff of fear in his voice. "You think the Bahamian didn't have no other friends? You think you can do what you did and not expect to pay?"
"Well shit, I'll be paying for boat repairs due to your old friends until doomsday as it is--"
"Shut up. You make my crew all stiff toe and think it's funny."
"I'm not laughing," Taters said.
"Yeah, and you won't laugh no more ever again, cause I'm going to put holes in you like my cousin did your boat, then we're gonna use your ass as bait for da sharks."
"You know how to pilot this boat back?" Taters said.
"I tink I can figure it out," Hector said.
“You know, there's an old Bahamian saying, which might just apply here," Taters said, adopting a passable Bahamian accent. "'Don’t let your mout’ carry you where your foot can’t bring you back from.'"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The cabin door swung open, knocking Hector's gun from his hand and sending it clattering to the deck. Taters swung a roundhouse right, failing to connect with Hector's chin but instead catching him squarely in the throat. Hector fell to the deck, gasping for air.
Taters switched on a floodlight, illuminating the rear deck and revealing Lamda gaping from Hector's prone form to the Glock pistol at her feet.
"You really don't want to try that, do you?" said a gruff voice from the darkness of the cabin.
"Trust me, dear, my buddy in there isn't a great shot, but he'll probably get y
ou through sheer luck. Best you take two steps back, then sit on your hands on the deck,” ordered Taters brusquely.
"The captain is correct," the voice said, punctuating the sentence with the sound of his own gun cocking.
"Okay, okay, I donna want any trouble anyway, I told Hector this revenge shit was stupid." She sat obediently next to Hector, still trying to recover from Taters’ solid right fist to his windpipe.
"You got that right," Taters said.
"And you made me miss the green flash," Buster Campbell said, hauling his bulky form from the cabin onto the deck, handing Taters a pair of handcuffs as he came. "Next time, you wait in the damned head below decks. What if that gal had needed to pee?"
"Ain't gonna be a next time," Taters said. He pulled Hector's hands behind his back and roughly applied the cuffs. "'Sides, I had a gun hidden in the cooler. Just like President Reagan always had a thirty-eight in his briefcase."
"He did not," Buster said.
Taters shrugged. "True story. Saw it on the History Channel. What about her?"
"Lock her in the head."
"Sounds good," Taters said. "Sorry young lady, I dropped a deuce in there before the action started. I think there's some Glade in there somewhere."
Lamda frowned. "Just great. Hector! I hate you!" She spat at Hector's prone form as Buster hustled her to the head below deck.
"Fuck you, chica!" he croaked.
"Hey, zip it!" Taters shouted at Hector. "What about Neckbeard's Ghost here?"
"We'll leave him out here on deck where he can be of use."
After securing Lamda in the head and pushing the handcuffed, heaving Hector to a corner of the deck, Buster plopped down in one of the fishing chairs, resting his feet on Hector's back.
"Beer?" Taters asked. Buster nodded assent and accepted it, his gun back in his holster.
"You know, I think this is two you owe me now, Malley," he said, brushing beer foam off his bushy mustache.
"Take it up with John Pilate. This is all on his tab," Taters said, laughing, gunning the throttle and pointing the TenFortyEZ back towards Key West.
Cut You
The thick layer of bar smoke perverted the glow of neon beer signs into an eerie light, giving patrons' faces the aspect of a skull. Hollow-eyed, sallow-cheeked drinkers lifted beers and manipulated pool cues with mechanical indifference.
Johnny blew grey smoke into the air. A Pall Mall dangled from his lips as he raked one hand through his thick hair, the other pushing a bottle of Coors around the creaky two-top, one centimeter at a time.
<><><>
Hitching here had been a treat; the trucker who picked him up in Chadron, Nebraska had tried to jump him at a rest stop outside of Rapid City. Johnny had dozed off after feigning interest for an hour or so of listening to the trucker's take on why Jimmy Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan because people were tired of the free ride those "nigga welfare queens" were on and, after all, "Reagan would get the hostages released before breakfast on his first day." When the rig stopped at a Stuckey's (Home of the Pecan Log) around eleven that night, Johnny didn't move.
He was broke and didn't need to piss, so he hoped the trucker would get out and leave him in peace for a while. That ended when he saw through a slitted eye the trucker closing the sleeper curtains across the windshield and unbuckling his belt. Before Johnny could get a handle on his next move, the trucker was on top of him, fumbling with Johnny's pants and breathing his foul, black coffee-and-cigarette breath on his face.
The guy was heavy, too heavy for even a strong guy like Johnny to slide away from easily, especially in the confines of the Freightliner's cab.
"Get off me," he hissed.
"Now, don’t be like that," the trucker crooned roughly, his beard scratching Johnny's face.
"I can do it better if you get off me," Johnny said, his tone more pleasant.
The trucker stopped his handsy movements. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Johnny said.
"What ya gonna let me do to ya?"
"Whatever you want. I pitch or catch, guy. Just get off so we can do this right," Johnny said, trying to get a deep breath in, despite the weight on his chest and the foul odor of the trucker's exhalations.
"You'll catch," he said. "I'm gonna get off ya, then you climb back in the sleeper. Okay? I got some stuff so it won't hurt ya. Not much."
"Okay," Johnny said, silently cursing himself for being in this situation. Hitching for two weeks had worn down his stamina and weariness had replaced wariness. Now he was paying for it.
The trucker eased off him, a smile on his fleshy face.
Johnny smiled back, reaching for his belt as if he were going to unbuckle it before he climbed back into the sleeper behind them. Instead, with one fluid movement he removed a switchblade from his pocket, opened it with a flick and raked it across the trucker's face.
"Jesus Christ, you cut me!" the trucker yelped in a gurgling voice, plastering his meaty hands to the open folds of skin on his cheek.
"Damn right I did, you fucking prick," Johnny said, kicking him in the gut for good measure. "Your balls are next unless you give me your wallet.
The trucker was crying by then. "It's--it's in the glove box. Just please don't hurt me."
Holding the blade in his left hand, pointed at the trucker's belly, he worked open the glove box and removed a hand-stitched leather wallet with the initials L.C. on it. With impressive dexterity, Johnny used two fingers to wedge it against his belly and counted just over two hundred in tens and twenties. He took the cash and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.
The trucker continued crying and moaning, fresh bright red blood leaking through his fingers and down his shirt.
"You better get that looked at," Johnny said, opening the door, closing the switchblade and climbing out of the cab. "Cut yourself shaving," he said over his shoulder as he broke into a run for the relative darkness of the highway.
<><><>
After he had pelted down the highway for an hour or so, another trucker picked him up. Aside from a few comments about the weather and heartburn from a pecan log, the trucker was amiable enough as they barreled down I-90. The driver was talking on his CB, and around the time they hit Murdo there was a lot of excited chatter about a brother trucker getting cut and robbed by a lot lizard back at Stuckey's.
"Damn fool shouldn't pick up those kinda gals," he said into the CB mic.
Johnny shrugged into his jean jacket. "You gonna stop in Murdo?"
"Can do."
"Know any good bars there?"
"Marty's Tini Club is alright," the driver said, eyes on the road. "It's about a half mile stroll from where I'm dropping you."
"Stroll," Johnny said, almost to himself. He liked the trucker's quaint use of that word. Such a carefree word, stroll.
<><><>
Everybody looked sickly unto death in Marty's Tini Club, Johnny had decided, and it wasn't just the glow of beer signs and cigarette smoke, either. People are either alive or dead, and these folks are dead and don't know it.
Johnny pushed the Coors bottle around the table a minute or two more, then glanced up at the pool table again. He was good at hustling, and the marks around the table looked plenty rough…and plenty bad at getting the correct ball into the correct pocket.
He downed his beer, thumbed out one of LC’s donated twenties and stood. He tuned out Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" and idly wandered over to the table.
Two guys in their twenties, one wearing a flannel plaid shirt, the other a Foreigner concert t-shirt, both in jeans, each sporting long sideburns and holding a Budweiser, were working their way through a game of sloppy eight ball. Two women who Johnny had observed talking to the men previously were now at a tall boy in the corner, smoking, drinking their beers and ignoring the men.
"Hey fellas, you play to win or play for fun?" Johnny said after the man in flannel botched a shot to the corner pocket.
The flannel guy looked up from the table. "What?"
"Jus
t saying I like to make it interesting," he said, holding up a twenty, weaving slightly from side to side, as if drunk.
The man in the Foreigner shirt held up a palm in a "peace be with you" gesture; "Man, we're just playing."
Johnny shrugged. "Okay," he said, tucking Andrew Jackson's picture back in his pocket and unsteadily turning to walk away. "No problem."
"Wait," the flannel guy said. "Twenty a game?"
"Eight ball," Johnny said, over his shoulder.
"Sure, why not?"
His friend shook his head slowly, eliciting a wink from his buddy.
"I'm Landon," Foreigner said, handing his cue to Johnny.
"My name's Taylor. Rack 'em up," said Johnny’s mark.
"Dodge," Johnny smiled to himself, dutifully racking the balls. He noted they apparently weren't big Planet of the Apes fans.
<><><>
Johnny spent the better part of an hour drinking beer, playing up a drunkenness that wasn't real, and losing sixty bucks to Taylor. They were tough games to throw, as Taylor sucked at pool and had a bad habit of doing a silly victory dance around the table whenever he won.
Johnny gestured at the girls in the corner, who rolled their eyes at Taylor's antics. "Those your girls?"
"Yep," Taylor said.
"They're pretty,"
"Shit yeah they are, Dodge," he said, slugging back a swallow of Bud. "Rack 'em, loser."
"Well, you can treat 'em extra nice with all my money you won. I'm down to my last hundred and need it to last until payday."
"Well, maybe you should quit, then," Landon said, leaning against the wall, impassively watching.
"Who asked you?" Taylor said. "Here, I'll rack 'em." He started gathering the balls in the center of the table.
"I think he's right," Johnny said.
"Oh, come on, Dodge," Taylor said, positioning the balls in the rack. "Let me give you a chance to win your money back."
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