Uncharted Waters

by Scott MacKenzie

  “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to swim in the middle of the Atlantic?” I ask.

  Tenn repositions her big hat so she can see me standing in front of her, and I put the bottle and two glasses on the table between us.

  I open my arms, motioning to the ocean that surrounds us. “We are officially in the middle of the ocean. Let’s go for a swim!”

  Tenn looks around and then back to me. “Are you serious?” she asks.

  “Of course. It’s only about twenty thousand feet deep, but first we drink. This is a very special bottle given to me by a dear friend.” I don’t have to explain further because I know she knows.

  “Well, I can do the drinking part, but I don’t know, I’m not sure I want to jump in the water.”

  I open the bottle and let it take its first breath of air since the day it was bottled, then I pour two glasses.

  “Today is the day we cross the imaginary line in the middle of the ocean. We’re halfway across the Atlantic, halfway to Azores. We honor our ship, and the sea. We drink to celebrate the miles we have sailed and ask Neptune to protect us for the miles that lie ahead.” I raise my glass and Tenn raises hers. “To Crazy Lady.”

  “To Crazy Lady,” Tenn responds.

  We touch glasses and take a drink. It’s an excellent rum that doesn’t need ice, and we both drink again, emptying all the rum in our glasses. I pour again, then we drink again.

  “There is one more thing to do,” I say with a devious smile.

  Tenn has expressed a fear of swimming in the open ocean, and she hasn’t been in the water since we lost sight of land almost two weeks ago. I wouldn’t encourage the idea if I didn’t think it was safe.

  “Come on, we’ll jump at the same time,” I say as I hold out my hand.

  “I don’t know,” she says, a genuine fear in her tone that makes me want to forget the idea.

  “Fine, I’m sure Neptune will understand.”

  Tenn fills her glass again to the top and drinks it down with a wince. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she says as she stands and walks toward to the stern of the boat. I remove the towel from around my waist, open the gate, and take her hand.

  Tenn holds my hand tight, and we both stand there naked, looking at the blue water. I feel like it’s best to not have too much time to think, so I lean forward, and she does, too.

  Tenn lets out a scream.

  We jump.

  The water is cooler than I would have thought and shocks me at first. I stay below the water and open my eyes, amazed at how clear it is. I can see the bottom of Crazy Lady. She looks so vulnerable and small from this perspective. Tenn’s legs are kicking frantically and there are white bubbles surrounding her. I stay below for a moment to take in this world that seems so surreal, but I also want to see that the coast is clear of sharks or anything else before I tread water with Tenn. There is nothing but blue water, the hull of Crazy Lady, and Tenn’s kicking feet.

  I surface next to Tenn.

  “Ahhhh!” Tenn is shouting a carnival-ride scream that is somewhere between fear and joy.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Ahhhh!” she shouts again, this time with joy rather than fear. She then takes a deep breath and disappears below the water.

  I follow her beneath the surface. Tenn swims like a fish, kicking her feet, and heads below Crazy Lady, flipping around with an acrobatic grace. She surfaces on the starboard side this time, and I surface about twenty feet away. We slowly swim toward each other. It’s a strange feeling, having somewhere around 20,000 feet of water below you. Even I have a looming concern that something will grab at my kicking feet.

  As we get close, I can see most of her fear is washed away.

  “Okay, darlin’, I think Neptune should be happy. I’m done,” she says while treading water in front of me.

  “Ladies first.” I motion to the ladder hanging off the boat.

  Tenn climbs up, and I’m close behind.

  The very hot day had us feeling sluggish, and the swim was very welcomed. I feel clean, rejuvenated, and slightly drunk from the rum.

  Tenn pours herself a generous glass and pours me another as well. Her hips sway from side to side to a song that is playing in her mind, the drops of water on her skin sparkling in the sun. She has on her hat and a long necklace that drapes between her breasts, but nothing else.

  I look at the half-empty bottle on the table and can’t help but let Tenn know the value of the rum we are enjoying.

  “We’ve just drunk about one-thousand dollars worth of rum.”

  Tenn holds a mouthful of rum in her mouth, frozen in shock. She swallows with guilt. Drinking excessively expensive rum is an extravagance that is against a liveaboard’s intuition. That’s the kind of money that could sustain the Caribbean liveaboard lifestyle for at least month. I didn’t want to tell her until we were halfway done so she couldn’t protest.

  “I didn’t even know rum that expensive existed. What’s the deal, man?” she asks.

  “It was Stan’s. He said we would drink it on a special occasion. Trust me, he would be happy we are enjoying it on a sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic.”

  Tenn takes a moment, looking at the bottle reflecting on the memory of the man she did not know for very long but clearly liked very much.

  “To Stan,” she says, raising her glass.

  “To Stan,” I say, and touch the rim of my glass to hers. We both drink while holding eye contact.

  Tenn throws on a yellow sundress that hangs off her beautifully.

  “Okay, Vince, we are becalmed in the middle of the Atlantic drinking a two-thousand-dollar bottle of rum. I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you something, and this is it.”

  Tenn looks concerned. I have no idea what is happening, and her concern has migrated into me. I’m making rapid speculations of what she might need to confess. All my speculations and concerns circle my biggest fear. My worst nightmare. I fear whatever she has to say will break the spell we have been under. I have been feeling a deep connection to her that I don’t want broken.

  “Should I be concerned?” I ask.

  “No, it’s all good, but I don’t know exactly how to tell you this,” Tenn says nervously. “Come on, I need to get out of the sun.” She grabs the bottle and heads down into the cabin. I follow.

  Tenn sets the bottle on the table and slumps onto the deep bench, more like she is on a sofa than at a dining table.

  “I think I better lead up to this one, darlin’,” Tenn says while she swirls the remaining contents of her glass around. She investigates the glass like there are answers in the rum. Maybe there are.

  I sit across from her.

  “Like I said, Sylvester would take me on little Caribbean vacations, and we would charter sailboats. It was such a contrast to the winter months in Manhattan, the sun felt so good, and it was nice to be out in the open rather than in that windowless bar. I met people who were living on their sailboats, couples, families, loners — all types of people. It seemed like such a beautiful escape to me. What surprised me the most is how little these people needed. That’s where the dream of living on a sailboat in the Caribbean began. Sylvester and I were doomed from the start. It was only after we broke up that I started to work for him. He knew of my plan to save enough money to buy a sailboat and leave New York behind, so he gave me a few jobs that earned a little more than singing at the chophouse.”

  “What kind of jobs were those?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Well, I drove from New York to Miami, and back. I didn’t know more than I had to, and that is how I wanted it. The only rule was I couldn’t look in the trunk, and I had to stay at a certain motel and park in a specific spot. In the morning when I left, it was with a different car, and I drove back to New York. I didn’t mind it. I always loved road trips, and I liked checking out the little towns along the way. I would listen to the Allman Brothers and dream away on the open highway. I dreamed about my future sailboat, a
nd what I would do once I had her.”

  “A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. I don’t judge you, Tenn,” I assure her.

  “There’s more,” she adds with some guilt.

  “Okay. I think we might have a two-thousand-dollar hangover tomorrow,” I say as I fill both of our glasses.

  Tenn takes a slow drink and her eyes deepen as she gets lost in a memory. “I decided I wanted more money. To keep on doing these runs for Sylvester, it would have taken too long for me to save enough for a boat with some savings to get me by. The conversation didn’t go well, and I didn’t do another run after that. We didn’t speak for months. I would see him occasionally at the chophouse, but he would pretend I wasn’t there. Other than signed divorce papers, there was nothing I wanted from him. I still put money aside when I could, but I would be old and gray before I had enough to buy a boat to sail away on. Then one day his business partner, Jesse, wanted to have a word with me after my shift.”

  “Ah yes. Jesse. He seemed nice,” I say with a heavy, sarcastic tone.

  “He said Sylvester told him about my dreams to leave New York and buy a sailboat, and he told me he could make that dream come true. He said he had a single job that could make that happen for me.” Tenn looks from her glass up to me.

  We hold eye contact. Although I have not pieced together what she is telling me, I can tell she is asking me to brace myself. Her eyes are wide and intense.

  “Since you are living on this sailboat, I assume you did that last job,” I rationalize.

  “It’s more complex than that,” she adds.

  Our eyes stay on each other.

  “Vince, this is the job. We are doing a run right now. Only this time Sylvester is dead, and I looked in the trunk.”

  Tenn slides off the bench and scoots over to the center of the floor. She then peels up one of the teak floorboards, reaching inside and pulling out a black duffle bag. She slides it over to me, where I pick it up and set it on the table. When she joins me again, our eyes meet, and I know this moment will be a turning point for me on this trip. I will never be able to un-see what is in the bag. Tenn takes a deep breath and opens the bag. She removes a small black brick-shaped bundle and takes a knife from the galley table, cutting into the bag and revealing a white hard-packed substance.

  “This is what I found in the trunk,” Tenn says. She is now breathing heavy from the stress of the moment.

  I look down at the bag and try to process what is happening. I look back at Tenn, who is still holding the knife she used to cut open the bag.

  “How much?” I ask.

  “How much is in the floor, or how much is it worth?” she questions.

  “Both.” My voice cracks.

  “I have no idea how much it’s worth. All I know is the compartment has eight duffle bags.”

  “That’s a lot.” I pick up the brick, surprised at how light it is. It’s maybe only two pounds. Looking back in the duffle, I guess there are about thirty bricks. If each bag is the same…

  “Holy shit. We are sailing with five hundred pounds of cocaine.”

  “I think we’ll be able to buy another bottle of this rum when we’re done,” Tenn says.

  I notice how she is using “we.” I guess we are in this together. I want to say something, but I can’t find the words. I drink what is left in my glass.

  Tenn sits down in front of me and speaks quickly. “The original deal was for me to bring the boat to Azores, get some land-time in, explore the island, then sail it back to Miami, where Sylvester would meet me. He would take the money that would be hidden in the hull and I keep the boat. That was it. But Sylvester is gone.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Right, so, we make the drop and we sail away with the money and the boat.”

  “Right.”

  “We are sailing across the Atlantic with five hundred pounds of cocaine,” Tenn says.

  “How much is that worth?” I ask.

  “I have no idea,” Tenn admits.

  I have no idea why, but I start to laugh, and Tenn laughs with me. I pull her close and we kiss, both out of breath. I want to show her that she is not alone, that I will protect her. I want to show her that I will be strong, that I can handle this. We kiss harder, our hearts running wild with the thought of being encased in walls of an illegal drug, our minds hazy from the rum. I pull up her yellow sundress and we make love on the bench next to the open bag of cocaine.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I tell her as we lie together for a moment. I kiss her lightly on the forehead before I step away. We share a smile as she pulls down her dress and walks to the galley for a glass of water.

  I make my way up the steps and look around 360 degrees. There is nothing to see but water. But, to my delight, the sails waver, making a loud noise as they move around. We have wind. With a gentle thud, the sails are full, and I feel them push us along. We are sailing.

  Seventeen

  We have a night-watch schedule that we kept to for a couple of days, but Tenn can’t seem to keep to a routine. It doesn’t bother me as I am used to sailing alone. I like the fact that she trusts me so much; she sleeps soundly knowing I am at the helm and won’t let anything bad happen. I like that I can be that for her.

  Tonight is ghostly, and these long nights test me. There is something about the sound of the slapping waves that plays with my mind. The clouds blanket the sky, blocking the moonlight, making it the darkest night I’ve seen so far. There is nothing to distract me from my thoughts which can sometimes be a problem. I have a rule that I won’t drink while on night watch, but I broke that rule tonight. I slump on the bench like a drunken pirate, clutching a bottle of rum like a child clutches a toy.

  I’m trying to fight my demons with the rum, but the rum never helps. In fact, one of the demon’s only jobs is to make me take that first drink. It’s a kind voice that tells me I can have just a small drink and it will only be tonight. It’s always a kind, soothing voice. Evil sounds nothing like the movies portray it — the voice of evil is beautiful and comforting.

  I had my first drink many hours ago, so that demon’s job is done, and he’s long gone.

  I have been doing a decent job keeping the demons away on this voyage, but tonight I have failed. All of them are on the boat with me, all those memories of people who are burned into my mind.

  The people from the past that seem to be able to prune away any new growth, they never cut from the bottom of the stalk because that would be a far too vulgar display of power. No, they just cut away and make sure I don’t flourish so much that I start blocking their light.

  It could be a parent, or it could be someone I met along the way that wishes ill will on me for one reason or another — they’re like laser beams that search for my weakness and do anything they can to exploit what they find. It’s amazing how these people who wish me misfortune smile from ear to ear every time they see me. They need to smile, they want my shield down so they can find that weakness, that fissure in my skull, that vulnerable part of my soul where they want to dig in their claws.

  There was a time I felt I was always surrounded by these demon people. That’s why I sailed alone into the open ocean and stayed alone for nearly a decade. I felt safer battling wicked storms than under the scrutiny of the creatures of Seattle trying to break my eggshell mind.

  Maybe it’s a human instinct, trying break someone. We are hunters after all. We are predators. We’re wicked creatures that want to take down anyone who is shining too brightly.

  Those laser-beams come from everywhere and I’ve learned that there is no hiding from them. Even in the middle of the ocean I can sometimes feel the hate and ill intentions of one of Lydia’s old friends I haven’t seen in many years, but somehow, I know they still hope to get word of my demise. Or someone from my past that wants nothing more than my pathetic bloated body to be found floating in the ocean. I’ve been defeated for so long, overwhelmed by the darkness that I see in everyone I meet. However, o
ver the past few weeks, I have felt a transition.

  I lie on my bench, feeling a stupid drunken smile form on my drunken face. I feel like I have fought off the demons tonight. It was a hard-won battle and I’m not left without injury, but they are gone for now.

  This experience with Tenn hasn’t changed my mind about human beings’ inherent evil. I still believe it takes a great deal of effort to fight off our demons. I have fought many battles, and oftentimes the demons have won. I’ve been left with injuries that can’t be seen. Over the course of this journey across the Atlantic with Tenn, a shift has happened. It’s not my feelings for Tenn, it’s not that I feel like I found someone who will love me unconditionally. Tenn hasn’t even said those three words, nor have I to her. No, it’s not Tenn’s love that has driven me to the light. There is only one person’s love and acceptance I can trust. There is one person in the world I do have control over, there is one person whom I’m sure doesn’t wish my demise or death.

  Me.

  I feel the demons move further away, and I sit higher in my seat.

  I suddenly feel guilty for all the times I have relentlessly beaten myself down, and of course, trying to take my own life all those years ago. I’ve been my own worst enemy. It isn’t Lydia or any of her minions who have crushed my spirit. It’s me. I had lost respect for myself somewhere along the way. I’d turned my own predator laser beam on myself.

  I stand up, the bottle in one hand, the other holding the pedestal for balance. I strain to see something, but there is nothing to see but the outline of the boat and the black night that surrounds me.

  I have a moment of clarity and throw the bottle into the sea. I clutch the pedestal and mourn that the rum is gone.

  I don’t know if I will ever shake the idea that the world is full of wicked demons that want nothing more than to consume the light of all living things. But I realized self-destruction is a sin and I’m learning to stop tormenting myself. Save tonight, I have done rather well on this passage.

  Tenn seems to be a master at keeping her demons away. I have learned from her. She is the brightest light I have ever seen, and she seems to be able to deflect all the attacks on her character with grace. She has a love and respect for herself.