The Mentor

by Pat Connid

  I had no idea how long the trip had lasted, but if the pain in my back were any indication, the cluster of rope beneath me had been my bed for three or four hours.

  The two men sounded like they were arguing but not aggressively—more like two coworkers bellyaching. Other than my two handy phrases, I don’t speak much in the way of Guinean, but it seemed the language being tossed around in the night air was actually French.

  Which, naturally, darkened my mood immediately.

  And… something… a smell in the air. It was a vaguely familiar odor, but I was having trouble placing it because my bunk mate Mr. Motorhead was oozing out oil and diesel fumes next to me, muddying up the scent.

  A spotlight burst to life above me as the tarp was snapped away and standing there under one brilliant, yet excessively tall lamppost, I saw two men who’d planned on checking their cargo, suddenly go very weird about the dirty, white dude in the back of their truck. Both took a step back but then steadied and inched back toward me.

  Cocking my eyebrows, I cleared my throat and politely asked: “Ou est la toilette dans ce bon etablissement?”

  Instantly, their two faces turned to scowls, and as it occurred to them that they were not looking at some armed bandit, and that they had the home field advantage, one of the men barked at the other, this second man racing to the cab of the truck. I had to act quickly because there was no doubt when the other man returned, he’d have some sort of boom stick with him.

  Standing, the blue tarp draped over my head and shoulders like a monk’s tunic and hood. I stepped toward the other man, and he snapped the truck lip back into its upright position and barked at me in French.

  I twisted my head toward the cab of the truck and there in the back window there were only the other man’s fingers, whirling behind the glass like a panicked underwater sea urchin.

  Sure enough, he was unlatching a shotgun from the window rack.

  Quick, quick, quick!

  I had to get away.

  Turning back to the other man, I happened to see myself in the driver’s side mirror and, terrified, just blurted out the phrase that had popped into my mind the moment I caught a glimpse of me draped in the dark, burlap tarp.

  Passing my fingers through the air between us, I said to the man: “You don’t need to see his identification.”

  His face twisted, and yelled again at his friend still fumbling in the truck for the weapon, but his eyes never left me.

  Moving closer, I rolled my extended fingers through the air again. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

  “Quoi?” He looked up at me, then to his friend, and that was my cue, so I sprung forward, my right foot stepped up onto the truck lip, and my left foot kicked at his head like a soccer ball. He tried to duck, but I still clipped him, grazing his temple and he went down, falling backwards and clutching his skull. My momentum launching me forward, I went over and landed onto the road, rolled once and came back up to my feet, running nearly full speed into the night air. The tarp fluttered then lifted and curved at its edges, then drifted from my body and fell to the road as I sprinted away.

  As darkness swallowed me whole, their voices called after me. Not taking chase but cursing me like some feral cat that had crawled into their truck and nibbled bits out of their sardine sandwich lunches.

  After running in near total darkness for more than a minute, my feet slapping against the blacktop heavier now, I saw more lights up ahead. Just off the side of road there were huge boxes, stacked one on top of the other, erecting an uneven fortress wall to my right.

  As I drew closer, the wooden crates were precariously stacked, so high up, craning my neck to see them, I got dizzy from a small bout of vertigo.

  Every few yards, there was a gap where the crate wall receded away from the road about ten feet, then another row of wooden boxes. Between the thick walls of crates there appeared to be a winding path the size of, say, a forklift, so the effect was that of a labyrinth made from some child giant’s wooden blocks.

  Jogging a little closer, I passed through the splash of bright light from atop another tall poll and, moments later, could just make out the growl of large vehicles. The ground shimmied and thin phantasms of sand danced across the black top road, everything shaken by the rumble of massive, wheeled machines-- or giant, likely hungry, prehistoric creatures-- on the other side of the walls.

  Without a second thought, I slipped into the maze of sky boxes, winding down one of the many dark, twisting paths as quick as my feet would manage.

  Finally I came to the end of the trail and tucked back into the shadows. It was then when the source of that earlier, unidentifiable smell became clear.

  Hidden from the road behind stacks upon stacks of wooden crates, I stared out at the splatter of moonlight, drew in a deep breath of salty air and suddenly felt better than I had all day. Being born a Midwesterner, and more recently landlocked Southerner, there was no reason clear to me why the ocean affects me in this way

  The docks at this low tech port were in part wooden planking but mainly slab concrete reinforced by thick, iron rods, which protruded in the high traffic areas— metal spines, burst from cement skin and rusting in the salt air.

  Below me, the dirt and sand had been packed down with concrete block, which made sense—whatever was in the crates stacked halfway to the moon, well, you didn’t want any column to tip and fall. It reminded me of clips I’d seen from Japanese television shows where uniformed school kids diligently spend a month lining up colorful dominoes and then, cameras flashing, one piece is flicked and all the others fall in succession, colors changing and morphing into weird patterns like Asian butterflies, thatch umbrellas or glaucoma-stricken cartoon animals.

  Out here, one stack of crates tips and it all comes tumbling down.

  As a kid, I went to the third grade at a French school. Seriously. I’m not getting into it, and if I could afford therapy, maybe I would be over the trauma by now but I’m not and that’s all there is to it.

  I’ll just say that there were verbal lashings (which I didn’t understand because it was a foreign fucking language!), a busted thermos and a pee-soaked pair of husky-sized jeans in the mix. Franco-Dexter relations are not rosy, that’s all, and I’m not getting into it.

  So, I know a little French.

  Over the sound of varying, grumbling moods of motor boats— six of them, ranging from fifteen feet to what appeared to be about thirty-five feet long— I could hear men shouting en Français.

  The men on the beach were all African, none of which seemed to have the slightest dollop of European to sully their coffee black skin. There was no use to even consider, say, grabbing something heavy-looking and, whistling whilst I worked, stroll up to a boat and hop on. If any of these men saw me, there’d be one of two reactions. Either I’d be shot, or they’d run, panic stricken at the sight of the chubby-grubby ghost. My money was on the former of the two.

  And, there was no way my hidey-hole at the entrance of the crate maze would be very safe much longer. Whizzing between the boats and the crates were four rough terrain forklifts. Had I not seen these types of vehicles close up some years ago during a brief stay in Florida, I would have guessed them to be some sort of fortified Jeep. Each looked as though it was built from iron, with an open cabin, no roof but a high canopy made from steel beams. If memory served me, they could lift nearly three tons. These guys meant business. And sooner or later, one of those big beach-eaters was going to head my way to pull one of the crates I’d seen stacked in a small, short wall on the other side of the road.

  I’d come in at the north edge of the uncharted, crude port, most of the activity taking place on sand and concrete (where one ended and the other began was anyone’s guess) up and to my left. Just south of me, there was a recess in the crate wall—a concession to a small cluster of trees that had avoided destruction. That seemed like the only choice available to me that would provide at least some cover.

  The sand gropin
g at my bare feet, it wasn’t a very long run, probably fifteen yards, but it felt like an eternity. I didn’t dare turn to look toward the docks, the machines or the shouts of the men because my pale face would probably glow like a lighthouse in the dark.

  Shuffling along faster as fear gripped my chest and throat, all I wanted, was to be hidden in that burst of trees. Yet, as I got within a couple yards, forcing myself to take deeper breaths, a most disturbing sensation was making its way down my nose and throat. But terrified of being captured, I didn’t dare stop and instead dove between skinny trunks.

  Thankfully— and these are the moments that even an atheist might wonder what sort of benevolent entity had been watching over them—I didn’t fall and roll or land face first on the horribly rank and sodden ground. My knees and feet took the brunt of the slop of sewage below me.

  Momentarily wrapping myself in denial, my mind began creeping toward the realization that the Port-o-let salesman had not yet penciled this particular workplace into his long, circuitous route, so it came to be that this lush patch of trees, bush and grass had become the leaning post of many ‘a men.

  And, I'm no one to judge, but these guys needed to back off the dairy a bit.

  Moving fast but gingerly deeper into the darkness and away from the more spongy parts, gagging from the smell, I began to wonder if, in fact, these trees had been here originally… or if the sudden collection of moisture and fertilizer had prompted their growth. There was no way for me to tell how long the slapdash port had been there, but the skinny trees could be no more than a few years old.

  Creeping along slowly, my hands found the back wall of the small cavity and moving across its edge, I stopped when the boats were visible again. Taking few chances, I barely inched my head out to scan further down the beach for another place to hide that was, say, less shitty, but then I froze as voices began to come closer.

  In less than a second, my back was pressed against the rear wall again, and I crouched lower to the ground where there was less light, bringing the essence of the make-shift potty closer to my nose. My stomach began to turn somersaults. Luckily, I hadn’t eaten in a very long time. In fact, over the past few minutes I’d been hit with a cold light-headedness, which indicated either my blood sugar was in the cellar or an allergic reaction to the effervescent bouquet of poop perfume.

  There were three of them, chattering away as they came up to the tree-potty. My nerves would have been flailing like kite streamers had it not been for the fact that, now steeped in fermenting sewage, my brain had begun shutting down many of my unnecessary systems. The focus now was simply not to pass out.

  My head down, hands tucked under my armpits, I listened, trying to pick words out. It’s tough deciphering a foreign language casually spoken between people familiar with each other because they don’t really enunciate their words like a chesty, militant French teacher does. Oh, to only have Madame Granderson with me right then. She of the belittling scowl and tight turtleneck sweater. The feel of her disapproving left breast as she leaned against my wanton shoulder while pointing out my repeated conjugation errors.

  A throaty laugh brought me back to the present crisis. The three men could have been arguing or reeling off jokes—I couldn’t really tell yet.

  The guy on the left, less than fifteen feet from where I was squatting in the dark, was laughing about something. A couple one-eyed glances told me the other two didn’t look so happy.

  The cheerful one was heavy, sweat stains on his shirt like he’d tucked a dark green pillow under each arm.

  Closing my eyes, I concentrated on trying to pick out any familiar French words. I heard either “hair” or “horse”—unable to remember which it was. Then, “lemon”, I think. And recherché in French: “searching.”

  The tallest, in the middle, pointed at sweaty-fatty, and thankfully enunciated each word, trying to make his point.

  I picked out “boat” and “money” and “people” and a number, which seemed like it might be high. French is a confused and confusing language so when you numerically get to, say, eighty, there is no “eighty,” per se…. instead you say “four-twenty”… so when you get into the very large numbers, what sounds like someone laying into you with a long, nasty admonishment simply turns out to be the current time and temperature.

  Whatever, he was going on about…

  Hold on. A big number of, what? People with money? On a boat?

  It seemed possible the fat guy was getting ribbed because he had some cushy gig shuttling people from somewhere along the shore to a yacht or cruise ship, maybe anchored a ways out. So, the other guys are hauling bat guano or something and this smiling dude, he’s hosting Mr. and Mrs. Howell.

  While some of the bits were probably wrong, at least some of it had to be right. And, if nothing else, I had a vague idea of what to do next.

  New goal: Follow the jolly mariner and sneak aboard the ship.

  Then, when we get to the boat with the money people, I slip over and give them a story about getting robbed in town, left with no money and no ID, I call the American consulate.

  Slightly elated, it sounded like a minimally serviceable plan, albeit one that at any moment would naturally go terribly wrong.

  When the three began to stumble away, relieved, the tall one punching fatty on the shoulder (or possibly wiping his hand), I tried to trace the vector of my guy to see where he was headed.

  Finally, something in my favor: my boat was on the far right—beyond it only dark beach. That’s where I was going to board.

  Slipping from the darkness of the trees, I darted low and ran as quick as possible through the heavy sand back toward the entrance to the crate maze. A new and unpleasant squishy sensation between my toes did not slow me as much as it made me nauseous.

  The boat wasn’t the smallest there but far from the largest of about a dozen or so. It had been moored to a cement platform with cables from its hull strapped to a row of shimmering dock cleats, listing the boat slightly to one side. The vessel had settled a little lower in the water than the others, and the deck was pretty sparse save a couple of fishing chairs.

  There was a captain’s nest, and it looked like below that could be the sort of area where cocktails were occasionally served.

  Perfect.

  Crossing past my earlier hiding place, I slipped into the near total darkness on the far side of the crates, then spun around, ignoring the slime lubricating my toes. My breath quickened a little at the sight of how far I would have to run before finally diving into the cover of the ocean water. Easily fifty feet—a long way to go as hungry, thirsty and exhausted as I was.

  The earth rumbled around me, and the sand on the concrete looked like water splattering in a greased skillet. Then—a roar— as one of the camouflage colored, monster forklifts erupted from the crate maze. Had I been standing at that spot again, there’d be nothing left of me but a red smear.

  That’s when I saw the beam of a spotlight coming up behind me.

  A second forklift, taking the beach route.

  Having just thanked my lucky charms that I hadn’t been in the maze a moment before, I quickly swung around and hid at the mouth of it once more. Again, the ground shook as the vehicle growled, approaching with increasing intensity.

  I braced against the inner crate wall, waiting for it to burst across the sand like the other had.

  But, then the whine of a hydraulic lift split the air, the plaintive melody against the rhythmic chords of a diesel engine. Whatever this guy was picking up, it was just opposite of where I was standing.

  “So, he’d be faced… this way, toward the crates,” I whispered to myself. This meant there was a chance to get behind the vehicle. Maybe.

  Little time to think it through, I leapt forward, arched around the stack of crates that made up the lip of the maze, caught sight of the huge machine working on a crate with its blazing spotlight focused on work at hand, and rolled across the sand, into the darkness.

  Now out in t
he wide open for the first time, my body was casting long shadows across the beach, the brilliant moon low in the sky. In a running crouch, fighting the heavy sand, my freshly lubed toes no great help, I finally made it to the rear of the vehicle.

  The back of the driver’s head was just visible above me. The lift was retracting slowly, coming back down with its crate, and my options were very few at the moment.

  There was no way I could possibly clear fifty feet of beach without being seen. The only option, then, was to catch a ride with one of the forklifts. This close now, it wasn’t readily apparent how to do that. There wasn’t much of an area to grab onto and, seeing how these guys were driving the huge vehicles at top speeds, I’d need something really solid to get a good grip on or risk becoming road kill.

  My heart nearly stopped at the sound of the clanking above me and, terrified, I braced for the impact.

  But, the vehicle didn’t move. Wincing, I looked up.

  The driver was trying to light his smoke, but his lighter was shot, so he was banging it on the metal seat beam by his head. Trying to beat a flame out of it, I suppose.

  Looking down from my black-lunged friend, I spotted a metal loop just behind the right tire. It was probably used for towing but, to me, it looked a lot like a handle.

  And, with that thought—and likely because of a lack of water, food, sleep— I bent down and grabbed it with both of my blackened and scabby hands.

  I laced my fingers around the loop, instantly beginning to second-guess my rash decision— Wait, this is, isn’t this..?— But that line of thinking cut short as he threw the vehicle into gear, backed up, and I went under the machine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My chauffeur was an expert, only reversing far enough to allow his payload to clear when he turned. Still, being dragged underneath a belching, rattling twenty-five thousand pounds across the cold sand was an experience lesser men would have probably… well, they probably would have been bright enough not to do it.