Flotilla

by Daniel Haight

  Me? Well, I was stuck working the same hours. I wasn’t ballsy enough to cheat my way out of the job, Dad woulda seen through my ruse almost immediately and he was famous for thinking of really diabolical revenges. It wasn’t worth the trouble. The previous summer’s pranks and mayhem faded into memory and I was back to the dull drudgery of another boring, lonely job.

  The next two weeks settled into a sort of normalcy. Madison was learning the ropes and rapidly becoming my favorite line tender on Pen Patrol. We resumed our onshore sibling rivalry and pulled a few pranks on each other. We annoyed Dad, fought amongst ourselves for control of the single TV onboard (where I had enjoyed pretty much total control before) and I tried to pick up where me and Stacy left off. It was a quiet period and I was grateful for it. After the chaos of the last month I needed some kind of respite.

  Dad was putting less hours in at the Dixie and we saw a lot more of him. The difficult part was that it made him more particular about house and fish-keeping. More often than not, he’d pull me aside for a fiercely-whispered conversation about how things were looking, all out of earshot of Madison because he would never lose his temper in front of her. I blew most of it off: I’m only one guy, come on home and do it yourself if you’re so worried. Dad took Madison to the Dixie most nights when he had to work late … something he never did for me. On one level, I was mad but I had to remind myself that I had Dad to myself all last summer and it wasn’t always fun.

  There were a few other things that were happening at the same time. Steeplechase was in limbo this year. Pac Fish was looking for a way to close it down without losing all the money they brought in on the gambling. The Colony folk didn’t want to lose what they made and so there was some negotiation going on.

  One night, Mongo, the guy from the Children of the Burning Man, visited me at the Gun Range. I pulled a late shift while Miguel attended a quinceañera over on the other side of the Colony. Mongo stumbled in, talking gibberish and mentioning between grunts that he was looking for Dad.

  I tried to tell him that all he needed to do was go to the Dixie and ask for Rick but he must have been self-medicating or something. Mongo was talking a mile a minute and his eyes had a wild, violent look that creeped me out. Plus, he had a fishing knife tucked into his waistband. I stole a glance outside while he was rambling. Hopefully, Dad or Miguel would be coming by and see what was going on. All I saw was the Trash Man leaning against a railing, smoking a cigarette and staring at the paint. It was all too weird – Trash smoking outside and Mongo the Freak tripping inside. Just another freak in the freak kingdom, Dad would say.

  Looking back on it now, I can see that there was some kind of tension. Maddy and I were cool but I think there was some kind of dramatic pause going on in the Colony. Dad was never around and Mongo pretended like the Gun Range freakout never happened. Trash Man was never far from sight – I would see him twice as often as Mongo and I knew there was something going on. Dad refused to tell me what it was.

  So there you have it. We had drugs moving around the Colony, we had a sudden influx of people who were obviously illegal immigrants and meanwhile Pac Fish kept looking the other way. Something was very wrong on the Colony but nobody wanted to admit it. Things were getting out of whack and I guess the everyone was waiting for an opportunity to restore some kind of balance. It was waiting for something. Yes, I can see that now.

  Our current position is: 35° 8'52.84"N 120°47'6.98"W

  Chapter Thirteen - The Meltdown

  So here’s where everything goes crazy …

  We had a fight on the first day that we heard the plague was loose. I had spent all night on the flying deck, shivering in my old sleeping bag, rather than down in the cabin with everyone else. Stacy and I were bored and we took a joyride on the C Minor. When Dad found out he almost threw me overboard. He yelled, I yelled and it ended with me stomping around on the flying deck before settling in for a long, cold night.

  It was so cold that I was awake by 4:30. I was stiff and sore from sleeping on the plastic decking and I shivered in my sack thinking of all kinds of mean things to say to Dad when I saw him. I even took a leak off of the top deck into the water because I know it drives him nuts. The coffee was brewing around six… I could smell it. It made me want to go inside.

  Dad had the coffee going and was working on some breakfast. Like I said, he’s a cheap old man – he was making scrambled eggs out of that freeze-dried stuff they sell to backpackers. He said it was still good but I didn’t believe him. It was well past the expiration date but Dad’s adventurous like that. He mixed in some of the fresh salsa we had on board. It came from the stock of veggies he traded with Grandma Alice in exchange for some fish. The salsa was pretty good, actually but I wasn’t in a mood to pay him any compliments.

  He poured hot water into the pouch and let them cook. It starts out looking like corn flakes but eventually turns into something that looks like scrambled eggs with little bits of bacon mixed in. The trick is to pour out as much of the water as you can. It took about 10 minutes to put it all together and we didn’t say a word to each other in all of that time.

  I decided to risk it and try the eggs … we didn’t have much else. The junk food was gone, the soda supply was low, and all we had was the diet stuff that Dad couldn’t live without. A grocery run was almost two weeks away. I poured enough of the salsa on that I could barely taste them.

  Madison was quiet as she entered the galley – she had disappeared into her room when Dad and I started yelling. She actually liked the eggs – don’t ask me why. Dad gave me a triumphant look and started heating up more of those culture-grown sausage links for her to eat. People have started growing food like pork and beef, cell by cell, in factories. They’ve recently been approved for sale and you can’t really tell the difference between them and regular meat. Even die-hard vegans are starting to eat them since they are definitely ‘cruelty-free’.

  I was happy that we had them but I knew he was doing it for Maddy. He would never have done that for me. Mad acted like she didn’t even notice and disappeared into the salon to flip on a cartoon show.

  I wanted to sleep for a while but knew better than to try and push it. I was still in my ratty t-shirt and gym shorts from last night and had to suit up for the pens. I took a cup of Dad’s coffee with me and went outside to the docks. The Horner C isn’t much for privacy after a fight and I wanted some distance between us.

  I was sitting there in my wetsuit, drinking coffee and just enjoying the morning when Stacy walked up the dock. I was happy and a little surprised to see her: her dad wasn’t happy about our joyride, either. It was still early … why wasn’t she doing Pen Patrol? People are normally out doing their boat chores at this hour. I wouldn’t expect to see her before noon.

  “Did you guys hear on the news?” she asked as she approached.

  “No – Madison and the cartoon brigade pretty much took care of that.”

  “They’re saying that Los Angeles is under attack.”

  “What?” I asked skeptically. For a second, I was thinking that she was trying some weird joke on me. The look on her face told me that she wasn’t. Dad was just over my shoulder, pretending to wash dishes while he glared suspiciously at us. I reached up and knocked on the window, startling him. “Turn on the TV.”

  I couldn’t see him from where I was sitting but I knew he was trying to decide whether to be mad at me for making him jump like that. “What?” I heard him shout dimly through the window.

  “Turn. On. The TV.” I yelled again. “She says something’s happening on the news.” After a second, he lumbered off in the direction of the lounge. “That got rid of him,” I said in what I hoped was a seductive voice. Stacy could be sexy hot when she wanted to … I was hoping that was the reason she came by.

  “I’m serious, Jim,” she said. “Something’s really wrong.” She started talking about the reports she caught before she went to bed – leaving her parents to watch the news like they usually did. Ear
ly in the morning, she woke up still hearing the sound of the video feed.

  “It was weird … they never went to bed. Then I looked around and everything in the house was being packed up. I haven’t seen the house like that since we moved in. We’re supposed to go up north to Santa Barbara and help my aunt and grandma to evacuate. We’re talking maybe 25 people on a 30-foot boat.”

  The fact that that many people were trying to get onto a boat that size and that her parents agreed without an argument scared me in a way I had never known before. Looking up at the window, I noticed that Dad hadn’t returned to his dishes. “Hang on a sec,” I said. I left Stacy outside and went inside.

  Dad stood with his arms crossed and his feet wide to stay steady on the floor. The video feeds looked horrible – less dramatic than a movie but more terrible because it was real. Helicopter footage showed thousands of bodies in the streets, Wilshire Blvd looked like the pictures of Jonestown in 1979 that I read about in Wikipedia. Bodies were strewn everywhere – the chopper wouldn’t get close for fear that the bug would spread. This kept us from seeing the horrible, close-up images of people dead from a weaponized flesh-eating virus.

  “Dad,” I said finally, after watching for a few minutes. “Dad!”

  He looked up suddenly, I don’t know if he knew I was standing next to him before then. “You think Mom is okay?”

  He started to say something. “It’s … I don’t know, son.” He started to say more but then the colony loudspeakers chirped and they started announcing something. My stomach tightened – were the pirates coming back?

  “Attention all colony members. Due to the emergency on the mainland, we are asking for all boat captains to meet at the Phoenix immediately for a response planning session.”

  Dad sighed and started pulling on his shoes. “Well, that’s that. I gotta get over there.”

  “Yeah, but Dad-“

  “I know, Jim – just slow down.” He finished tying his shoes and stood up, thinking for a few seconds. “We’re not going anywhere right now. I’ll figure out what we’re doing once I get back.” He pulled on a hat and stepped out the door as another captain – the guy on the AM Radio jogged by to the shuttle boat ramp. He paused as Dad came out the door.

  “You hear that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m on my way – they said it’s a about the emergency on the mainland.”

  “I know,” he said with a grin. “Which one?” He started walking quickly again, not bothering to explain himself. We stared after him for a minute.

  “Dad-“ I began but he shook his head.

  “Don’t ask, I don’t know either,” he replied. “See what you can find out.” Dad started jogging toward the boat launch where a crowd was piling on. They motored off and left us – I watched them go and realized that Stacy was still standing there.

  “Oh, dude…I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” she offered. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, opening the door. “He won’t be back for hours.”

  She came into the lounge. “Hey, Madison.”

  Madison looked up from her place on the couch where she’d huddled with a blanket and her stuffed Tigger. “Hey.”

  “That guy on the AM said that there’s more than one disaster,” I said to Stacy.

  “I know,” she replied. “There’s a bunch of things happening.” She sat down and accessed the cable television menu we couldn’t get on our boat because Dad refused to pay for it. The news channels came up and the carnage began to become very apparent to all of us. We stared in silence for half an hour – the bugs in LA and Baltimore. San Jose’s downtown area had several fires that they were covering at a distance, afraid that a bug was spreading there, too.

  My wetsuit started to get uncomfortable after all that time – dry suits bind at your shoulders; mine does, anyway. I went downstairs to my stateroom and almost had it all off when I realized that Stacy had followed me. She grinned at almost catching me with no clothes on – she knew that I never wore anything inside my suit.

  “I just wanted to tell you, in case I didn’t get a chance later … it was fun.” She stepped forward and kissed me on my cheek. Then, she put her arms around me and pulled me close. It was a kiss that I would spend many nights afterward reliving … probably the sexiest moment of my life. Then, the roof caved in. “I gotta go,” she said, turning to leave.

  “No, wait!”

  She was already upstairs and in the salon when I caught up to her. As Stacy turned around, I saw the tears going down her cheeks. “Sorry, Jim, I hate to tell you like this. My mom and dad are leaving today, after the meeting. I wasn’t supposed to be gone this long but I had to tell you goodbye.” She started crying hard and put her arms around me again. Sniffing, she kissed me again and again before tucking her head into my shoulder and giving me a whiff of her apple-scented conditioner. We held each other like that for a long time.

  Stacy finally pulled away and gave Madison a hug. They had become pretty good friends in the month we were all together and Madison was crying, too. Finally, Stacy came back, put her arms around me and gave me the second best kiss I’d ever had in my life. Then, without another word, she was gone. She waved to Madison as she closed the door. I stood there, my wetsuit half-off with all of these feelings twisted up inside and no way to say any of them. Madison watched us in silence. Finally, she looked up at me, “I’m telling Dad!”

  I looked over at her. “Really?” Madison wasn’t usually one to narc on me.

  She gave me that look that only a little sister can. “No. I’m sorry, too.” For an eight-year-old, Madison could be downright inscrutable sometimes.

  Dad returned about an hour later, looking shaken. “Did you guys know that it’s happening in other places, too?” he asked.

  “We saw it,” I said. “Stacy got us onto the cable nets.” Mercifully, he said nothing about her being on board. Nodding, he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. Sitting down, he started to tell us how the colony was organizing a boatlift evacuation for people on the mainland.

  “No one thinks that it’s 100% safe but they aren’t giving us a choice. The President’s declared martial law.” So now, in addition to pirates, the Trash Man and whatever else is going on with Dad that he doesn’t want to tell me, we have martial law, the mainland is in chaos and we’re supposed to try to go to shore in this rickety tub. Can anyone else say ‘between a rock and a hard place’?

  “You’ve gotta be kidding,” I said. “We can’t make the mainland with our engines.”

  Dad sat there with his head down between his shoulders, staring at something no one else could see. It was one of those times where I could see what he must have been like in prison. He wasn’t a large man but he had a certain strength that reminded me of a Rottweiler. For all his strength and ability to survive prison, this type of emergency was beyond him. I could see that he was scared, really scared, of something. Maybe he wasn’t telling us everything.

  “What is it?” I said finally.

  He sighed. “The Coast Guard is ending their zone enforcement of the water south and west of us,” he said. “They’re moving in to assist with the emergency and have informed the colony that quote, ‘it should not expect further assistance’.” Madison looked confused but my heart sank.

  I never got a straight answer out of Dad or Miguel about what Dad was involved with after that visit from the pirates before Madison arrived. Dad had called it ‘harassment’. “The Coast Guard patrols these waters,” he had promised. You could even see the cutters off in the distance every few days. “Anybody tries anything … the Coast Guard is right there.”

  At the time, it made us feel better. Now they were going away – there wasn’t anything to stop these guys except Miguel and that big huge gun. Our world had suddenly become even more dangerous.

  “So what does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” He said, “we’re in trouble. Bad trouble. I give the pirates one o
r two days tops, and then they’ll come for us.” Silence ensured as my stomach turned to water. Dad had told us some hoodoo stories about the pirates, about them capturing small boats and what they did to the crews. I read something similar in an old paperback Dad had lying around…Clear and Present Something – I can’t remember the title.

  “Julian’s got his gun,” I said. “The sniper rifle?”

  Dad nodded. “He’s a good shot, too,” Dad added. “The very last time pirates came around, he was up on top of the Gun Range and just let them come in. When they were in range, he fired one shot and punched a hole through the front of the boat. The bullet went through the entire boat and buried itself in the engine block; stopped the entire thing in one shot.”

  He sat back on the couch and pushed his fingers through his hair. “But he won’t be here this time,” Dad said. “He’s going with us.” There was silence in the room for a minute.

  “This is going to sound dumb,” he said. “But how good are you driving this thing?”

  “Driving the boat?” I said. “I’ve never driven a boat.”

  “You’ve driven the C Minor.”

  “The C Minor is a wakeboarding boat, Dad,” I said. “This…” I waved my hand at the air “is a ship.”

  Dad shrugged. “Just a question,” he said. He sat up and stood, going to the refrigerator. I could hear the door open and the can snap. I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration – just like Dad to reach for the beer when we had a problem.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. Something was missing here. “Shouldn’t you be driving the boat?”

  “I can’t,” he said with a sigh.

  “Why not?”

  He was silent for about a minute, sipping at his beer and staring at the wall. It looked like he was trying to make his mind up about something. “I’m in a bit of trouble,” he said finally. “Your friend, the Trash Man, is an undercover DEA agent and he’s trying to bust me.”