Flotilla

by Daniel Haight

  Dad somehow scored some seats on the Dixie Star for the race but I was barred from entering. He said he was sorry that I was locked out but that wasn't going to do me any good. I was supposed to find another place to watch the race while he tried selling the idea of keeping the Dixie Star here permanently. I was upset about missing out on the free food and punch. Nobody ever made punch out here and I missed it. Weird, right?

  I was disappointed. I got on board the Phoenix and looked down from the rail to see everyone milling around on the top deck. I could see Mitch Cutter tending bar up there. Mitch was one of the few kids that were permanent residents of the Colony and at 16, he was also a die-hard scam artist. Dad didn’t care much for him and after losing a bunch to him in a poker game one night, neither did I. Mitch hustled scams all day long but even he should have been too young to get on board the Dixie Star. So how did he manage that? I was seething at that point ... Dad was going to hear it from me when the day was over.

  Riley and I ended up back on the Horner for the race. I had a cooler and a crappy lawn chair shaded by an ancient golf umbrella from the junk room below. Riley wandered in and then the races began. The inter-Colony speaker system started belting out a crackly version of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ which we were supposed to stand up for. I didn’t see anyone who did.

  “Welcome Race Fans,” the speakers echoed over the water, “to the 9th Annual Steeplechase and Regatta hosted by the Pacific Fisheries Colony D Complex located here on the beautiful Pacific Ocean.” A big cheer started rising up from the Colony. It always gets the people going to know that they’re on TV. There were now two helos flying around the colony, filming us. He started reading out a list of sponsors while they ran race highlights on a temporary Jumbotron over by the Phoenix.

  While the highlights ran, you could hear the cheering start from one boat or another as someone came on that they recognized. The crowd was warming up and I started to get excited myself ... Dad never told me that it was this big. Then they changed it to a blooper reel and people started to fall silent.

  Some of the accidents were no-harm, no-foul. Other ones were from times where people genuinely got injured. I could tell that this was Pac Fisheries way of putting their thumb on us. We might be the stars of the show but they could amuse themselves watching footage of our friends and family getting injured.

  “Classy,” Riley said at one point. The highlights eventually came to an end and the race was almost ready.

  “Before we begin,” the announcer said. “We’d like to review a few housekeeping rules to ensure everyone stays safe and we end the day happy.” He started running down a list of rules that almost everyone had heard before. Who wanted to hear some rules from Pac Fish that they were only broadcasting for the benefit of the visitors? I heard the sound of hundreds of beer cans or bottles being opened simultaneously. It was a not-so-silent editorial.

  The first race, the exhibition race, was a walk. There were three offshore racing boats that were entered: mainland people that we made a point of scorning. They thundered by maybe 50 meters from where we were and the sound from the engines rattled inside my chest. The girls hated those big race boats but we loved it – it’s a total XY-thing. After that, a regatta of some of our nicer sail boats cruised by and we went to sleep for that. About half an hour after that, the tension was building and I knew the race was about to start.

  I had taken a break during the Regatta to see how Dad was doing on the Dixie. I found him arguing with a guy in a suit on the B ring and kept my distance. The guy was Indian but he was dressed sharp: nice suit pants and a pair of brown loafers set him apart from our usual slacker-casual uniform. He was saying something to Dad and shaking his head and Dad’s jaw was grinding tighter and tighter. He kept pointing at the Dixie and appealing to the guy but the guy wasn’t having it. After a few minutes, the guy just threw his hands up and I could hear him say “forget it, Rick.” He turned on his heel and walked away. Dad looked like he wanted to explode.

  Mitch appeared from somewhere and stood next to me, watching it all happen. “Crash and burn,” he said and snorted. He almost seemed happy to be seeing it and it made me angry.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, trying to hold my temper.

  “Your old man is trying to talk Sahid into fronting him the cash to open up a Casino here,” Mitch was chuckling. “Been three times he’s tried this and he strikes out every time.” Dad had never mentioned any of this to me – what made Mitch so well-informed?

  “I was tending bar and listening to it,” he said. “Just came out for a smoke and they’re still at it.” He looked at me with whatever passed for sympathy from Mitch. “Sorry, man … guess you shouldn’t be surprised.” I considered taking a swing at him. But Mitch was larger and faster than I was and I didn’t need him on my bad side. What kind of jackass insults a guy's Dad to his face?

  He sauntered away and Dad was still standing there, staring at an empty space between boats. I didn’t know what to say to him. His eyes were stormy and he looked, well ... lost is the word I would use. I came up to him slowly and said, “You okay?”

  His eyes cleared and he was right back to his usual self – nothing was wrong, nothing could bother him. “Of course,” he said quickly. “How are you?” He walked off, looking at nothing. I shook it off. If he didn’t want to tell me what was going on, well … whatever. Just don’t get upset when I’m not ‘reacting to your mood’ or something. You can’t have it both ways, Dad.

  The Regatta finished and the Steeplechase was almost underway. Back on the Horner, we took turns ogling Jessica Cho. Riley watched her through a naval telescope and kept a running commentary of all the things he'd love to do to her. The dirtier and grosser, the better, in his mind. I tried to ignore him while they rolled out a small cannon to be used as the starting gun.

  I didn’t hear the “Go!” but the cannon popped white smoke and everyone cheered at once. The racers exploded from the starting line and then, well, they were off. We had a pretty good field of view for the start but then they disappeared out of view around the far side of the colony. Riley cracked open a beer that he snagged from Jeb … I decided to pass but it wasn’t easy. About seven or eight minutes later, they shouted and the racers passed in front of us again. Jessica was maintaining a small lead and it looked like she’d be crowned winner again.

  “I’ll give her the victory baton tonight,” Riley said suddenly. I looked at him in disgust.

  “Tell it to her,” I said. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

  “You’ll hear it tonight when I’m giving it to her.” I groaned ... his comebacks were always worse.

  “What’s the matter with you, anyway?” I said. “Seriously.”

  “The doctors say it’s genetic.”

  I shook my head and turned back to the race: Lap number two was down and soon they’d be heading into the Maze. With all the turns, it looked like something you'd trace out on a kid's menu while waiting for your burger and fries. Maybe that’s how they put it together in the first place. Jessica had finished the last dog leg at the edge of B-Ring and was on her way out when disaster struck.

  At the far end of the Maze, one of the Burning Man Tribe set up a rubber raft and was taking pictures or filming. He’d managed to plop down dead center in the middle of the Maze exit and was ignoring the oncoming Jet skis as he caught pictures of the last riders making the entrance. People were screaming at him but he was too stupid, drunk or high to notice. She was slowing down to navigate around him but the guy behind her was coming up fast, trying to overtake her and didn’t see the idiot in the raft.

  He rear-ended Jessica Cho’s Jet Ski and the impact knocked them both over the raft and into the water. The two Jet skis then hit the guy in the raft. I would find out later that the crash turned him into a paraplegic. Jessica was out cold and minus a life jacket. Jessica looked beautiful in that LZR suit she wore but it wasn’t much for safety … she wouldn't be on top of the water for very long. The Jumbotro
n was nice and tight on the action and so of course you could see everything. We hit the deck shouting.

  “Everyone, please stay calm while we get the medics onsite” the speakers droned. The race stopped and all the Jet skis that were on the race came to an undignified halt as they couldn’t maneuver out of the lane and they couldn’t get off, either. One of the racers was Jessica’s brother: he jumped off of his Jet Ski and started clambering over everyone to get to her. He made it most of the way but fell off into the water. He eventually had to duck his head down and swam under the dock to where he could get out.

  The medics were our guys and they expertly maneuvered her onto a backboard. While they moved her toward the dock the announcer kept getting in the way telling us what we were already seeing. People hated him for doing that: some suit from Pac Fish running his mouth while our girl, our crew, our mate might be dying out there. Even I knew that. “You just don't do that, man,” I yelled in his direction. There was no way he could hear me but Riley nodded with approval.

  Bottles started shattering against the bulkhead of the Phoenix and the announcer subsided. Jessica was being put onto the dock but it was a madhouse. Our people were pushing in to help just like we would on any other day. The official medics were shoving aside and blows were about to be exchanged. Guess where Dad decides to be during all of this?

  I didn't bother to join the crowd down there; I decided to find Dad instead. I saw him on a phone on board the Dixie Star, talking heatedly to someone. It sounded like he was planning a military operation. I heard the words “chopper” and “extraction”.

  “Dad,” I called into the boat. “What are you doing?”

  Dad beckoned me on board – nobody was around to complain. He had his sly hustler grin going on. “They’re calling a helo out from San Diego,” he explained. “It’ll take an hour.” We were sitting at the bar on the first deck of the ship – he pulled out a cocktail napkin and started to sketch out a map.

  “Normally,” he said, “they have a medevac chopper standing by during the race. But ... the crew was called to respond to a problem on one of the offshore oil rigs near Santa Barbara. Even without the available crew, Pac Fish didn't want to disappoint everyone so they crossed their fingers and said ‘okay’.” His little map was of us, where the helo was coming from and where the hospital would be. It would take the chopper an hour each way … Jessica could die before they got her to the hospital.

  No major accidents had happened before so I guess I see their point. None of this would help Jessica – she was pretty banged up and a boat ride back to shore would take too long. “I can have one of those guys up there,” he said, pointing up to one of the hovering whirlybirds, “pick her up and get her to Cedars in no time.” Dad was cooking up another scam to make himself a hero.

  So, pump the brakes: Dad seriously wanted a sports channel helicopter to land on the colony, pick up an injured person and then take off to take her to a hospital. Skip over the part where he wasn’t her parent, wasn’t involved and had no business trying to put something like this together.

  At first I was like: this is nuts. But then I was like, why not? It also wasn’t any weirder than anything else I’d seen here – who’s to say Dad couldn’t be a hero? He disappeared while all of this was processing but I knew where he was going. I turned and scampered off in the direction of the Horner.

  I found him throwing furniture out of the way on the flying deck. Some of it was light, rattan stuff and he gave it a hook shot onto the foredeck below. He stowed a folding table and had me help him move it into his state room. Going back upstairs, he picked up an old tire rim and considered it for a moment before dropping it overboard. Another bold move: if I had ever tossed something overboard into or near the fish pens, he would have thrown me in after it. Whatever…his boat, he calls the shots. I just couldn’t believe that we were going to have a helicopter land on the Horner!

  Dad was on the phone again and I could hear the conversation better this time. “I have a spot open on my back deck, it’s 60 yards from where she is,” he said. “Yeah – just have him set down, I’ll have her over here by the time he’s down.” Silence for a few seconds. “I don’t know, you’ll have to work it out with him…You think he’s going to turn down a ride? I’m sure he’ll be okay with it.” He ended the call and was hurrying to where they were easing Jessica onto the docks. I could hear the chopper thumping away overhead.

  The security team had everyone pushed back while Jessica was lying on the dock in a thick white cervical collar and covered with a blanket. I didn’t realize how bad it was but she had gray skin and she looked…I guess bored is the word. Distant. Miguel told me later that she was in deep shock. Her mom and dad were people I knew from the colony and they were on their knees next to her, talking quietly. Dad was trying to get one of the medic’s attention.

  “What’s the story on that chopper?” one of them called to the Pac Fish cop.

  “On his way,” he replied and resumed a conversation he was having on his headset. “ETA is about 45 minutes.” The medic did a weird monkey-move from where he was on his knees and came quickly over.

  “She needs to be moving now,” he said urgently. “Deep shock and she’s got some internal stuff that needs attention.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” the Pac Fish guy said sarcastically. Man, what a dumb thing to say. Her parents probably overheard her and her Dad was some kind of knucklefighter from Asia.

  He was already off of his feet and moving to do some damage when my Dad reached in and grabbed his shoulder. The guy was going to hurt someone and probably thought Dad was another goon reaching in to cool things off. He rolled his shoulder and shook Dad’s hand off while pirouetting to give his other hand a chance to swing around and pulp Dad’s nose. I didn’t really put all of this together as it happened…it was just one big blur of motion.

  Dad was faster. He managed to swing a paw up and slapped the hand away while shouting at Jessica’s Dad. “I got a chopper!” he shouted, partly to explain or stop Mr. Cho from countering his clumsy block. Mr. Cho was still moving and had Dad in a hammerlock, face down on the deck before he could breathe. “I got a chopper!” Dad shouted again, his voice was muffled with his face pressed into the deck. The words finally got through.

  Mr. Cho said the only dignified thing he could say under the circumstances. “What?”

  “I got a chopper, man,” Dad muffled. Alex let Dad’s arm go and he painfully sat up, rubbing his shoulder. “One of those helos can take her to the mainland a lot faster than the Coast Guard.” All of a sudden, everyone was shouting.

  Mr. Cho was shouting and clapping Dad on the back, the Pac Fish cops were hollering to someone and the medics were shouting for some transport, whatever it was, to get Jessica in the air and on her way. It didn’t take long for a suit from Pac Fish, wherever he was on the Phoenix or the Dixie to push his way in and lay down the law.

  He appeared out of nowhere and pushed his way past the goon squad. “Who called ESPN and told them to pick someone up?” he shouted.

  “I did,” Dad said. “Coast Guard can’t have a chopper-“

  “I told you we had this handled, Rick,” he shouted. “What in God’s name are you thinking, telling that pilot to land?”

  “Get the girl on board-“

  “Is he trained to land on a moving deck?” the guy yelled. “Two casualties is bad enough you want to make it four or five?” The crowd fell silent at the argument but Dad wasn’t giving up yet.

  “Hey, this kid needs medical attention!” Dad yelled back. The crowd was murmuring their approval and if it weren’t for the cops, this guy would have found himself in the water in a few seconds. The Pac Fish people were used to dealing with us, it seems and the guy stood his ground.

  “I got a chopper diverted!” He said and there was no mistaking the scorn in his voice. “He’ll be wheels up with Jessica and her parents in 8 minutes, not farting around on little tub with a pilot who’ll proba
bly dunk the second he tries to leave.” Dad was busted – the Pac Fish guy had it all under control. This wasn't what they led me to believe out here. They told me that the company guys were useless. The guy wasn’t finished. He looked to the Pac Fish cops.

  “Escort Rick back to his boat. I want to talk to him after this is over.” He knelt beside Jessica and her parents. “You hang in there, kiddo,” he said gently. He gripped Mr. Cho by the forearm. “We’re gonna handle this, sir. You stay with her.”

  He stood back and started barking orders like a sergeant or a colonel or something. This wasn’t a paper-pusher out for the day ...This was one of the People in Charge. In that moment I realized that there is a big difference between a guy who is genuinely in control of the situation and someone who’s trying to bluff.

  Hint, hint Dad ...

  The line of Pac Fish cops moved everyone back so that the medics could move Jessica to the Phoenix where the Coast Guard medevac would pick her up. Dad was escorted back to the Horner by a couple of the goons. Nobody paid any attention to me.

  I stayed to watch the helicopter land and then leave again. The Steeplechase was off, obviously, and everyone was standing around discussing the crash and a few people asked me what Dad had been up to. I didn’t know anything, of course.

  Dad was running a scam of some kind, told me very little about it and now that it had blown up in his face, he was under some kind of house arrest and I was out here, looking like an idiot just for being related to him. I was angry and sad for him – I saw his face when he realized his potential day-saving move was blowing up in his face. I sat on the dock for a few minutes with my head in my hands. What a mess.

  I stayed away from the Horner until the Pac Fish guy and Dad finished their chat. I have no idea what they were saying but I knew it was going to be ugly. Riley found me on the dock and invited me home to the big Race Day dinner his mom had going. They lived on the A Ring, close to the Phoenix’s gangway. The dinner itself was amazing – she got hold of some fresh catch and started turning out equal amounts of Baja-style fish tacos and sushi. It was strange to see tortillas sharing space with sashimi and kelp wrap but it was so good you got hip to it. I forgot about Jessica and Dad for a while ... it felt great check out mentally.