Flotilla

by Daniel Haight

  After my shift, I was puttering around the Horner and stretching out some hoses when the Bible Belt Lady appeared and had something she needed to speak with me about. I was surprised since we hadn’t had anything to say since Dad introduced us on the first day of the summer. “She’s from the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Dad had explained. Her family arrived earlier this year and Dad had pointed out the Shakedown Boat with the crosses and vaguely Biblical phrases painted over the windows in white liquid shoe polish. After the introduction, Dad told me to avoid them unless I wanted a lecture. What did she want?

  “It’s about that den of vice your father is working in,” she said, upset to the point of tears.

  “Den of vice?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be smart…what did that mean?

  “That’s right,” my self-appointed conscience said. The charm of her Missour-ah accent was blunted by the trailer-trash lecture she was giving me. “That place is an abomination to our community and no self-respecting parent (she was looking right at me when she said it) would let their kids go work on there!”

  “Well, good,” I said. “The Gun Range sells beer but I don’t drink it.”

  “I’m talking about the casino … the Dixie Whatever!”

  “Dad works on the Dixie but I don’t,” I replied. “He doesn’t let me come aboard.”

  “Why couldn’t ya’ll have something like Branson?”

  “Branson?”

  “Branson, Missouri,” she said. “They had all you wanted out of Las Vegas except for the gambling and the nekkid girls.” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that … I always want to crack up when someone says ‘nekkid’ instead of ‘naked’.

  I know she was probably trying to pressure me into convincing Dad to give up the casino when (or if) he returned but that wasn’t going to happen. Dad would give me and Madison up before he gave up such a cherry gig. Who was she to suddenly start giving me all this advice, anyway? I was suddenly in charge of commentary on how Dad lived his life? Go take it up with him, not me! I was working myself into a towering rage of self-righteous hate at this crazy bag when someone joined the conversation.

  “So in other words, they had everything you wanted out of Vegas except for everything you wanted out of Vegas,” a voice said from over my right shoulder.

  I saw the little wheels turning behind her eyes and she recoiled in outrage. I didn’t even have to turn my head, I knew who it was. The clink of a Zippo and the smell of an unfiltered Camel simply confirmed it.

  “I was talkin’-“ she began.

  “I know,” Trash Man said in a soothing voice. “But right now, Jim and I need to talk about how we’re going to keep vice and other bad stuff out of the Colony. There’s a committee being formed, you know.”

  “A committee?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Trash said, pointing back toward the Phoenix. “Go on up to the main office and ask about it. They’d be glad to have you as a member.” Her eyes lit up and she muttered a ‘thanks’. Then, she started to quickly shuffle off as fast as her shower shoes would allow her on that wet dock. Trash tasted his smoke and squinted toward the horizon, watching her go. “That’ll keep her busy,” he said finally.

  “Thanks,” I said warily. I was happy to get away from that crazy broad but what did he want?

  “It was nothing,” he said. “This gives us a good chance to get acquainted. How’s your Dad? I was sorry to see him go.”

  Trust the old fool to say something to get me upset. Of course we were freaked out since he left and every passing minute added to the tension. We were ending the third day after everyone left. No word from Dad, Mom, my grandparents or anyone and we were pulling our hair out. The news wasn’t getting better as things really started to let go on the mainland. Madison and me … we wanted to be heading for shore even if we had to do it pulling the docks behind us. We wanted our Dad back, we WANTED OUR DAD BACK. I wanted to scream it in Trash Man’s face. Why was that so hard to understand?

  He was waiting for me to say something. When I let a few minutes go by, he goes: “So, nothing?”

  “No,” I said glumly.

  “That’s a shame…hope he’s okay.” He paused, just letting the smoke blow through the air at my face. “So, how much do you know?”

  “Huh?”

  “The drugs, kiddo,” he said, finally confirming my suspicious about Dad and his sudden rise to wealth and prominence. “How much do you know?”

  “Not much, I guess,” I said bitterly. He nodded, taking his time and not rushing anything. He stood there like there he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “We’ve been watching your Dad for a while,” he said. “He’s got his thumbs in everybody’s pie. Drugs, gambling … maybe even the illegals they got running through here. It’s gonna make life difficult for everybody when he gets back here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “A look around,” he said. “You really don’t know anything about the drugs? Does he keep any on board?”

  “No … not that I know of.”

  “Can I look?” he said, moving to the Horner’s cabin door before I had a chance to say no. Was that how it was supposed to work? I started to protest but before I got a word out, he said over his shoulder: “Aren’t you supposed to be up on the Phoenix or something? How come they didn’t draft you?” My protests died after that. He had me and we both knew it.

  He quietly stepped inside the Horner and his first obstacle was Madison bundled up in her nest of crappy blankets. She was staring daggers at him. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said gently. “How are you doin’?”

  “My Dad’s not gonna like it when I tell him you were here,” she said sharply.

  “I know, baby,” he said smoothly. “It’ll just be our secret.” He started rummaging through the entire boat, opening cabinets and poking under mattresses. I wanted to tell him to get out but what was I going do if he brought the Pac Fish people down on us?

  “Jim,” Madison said. “Stop him.”

  “I can’t,” I replied miserably. “He might get me drafted.”

  I followed him as he checked every drawer and potential hiding place on the boat. He finished with the upstairs and moved into the lower decks, starting with Dad’s room and then moving into ours. He was efficient but it still took over an hour to toss the place. He looked everywhere on our boat for drugs, even my underwear drawer. This was so weird and creepy, what was I supposed to do?

  I went back to the salon and sat on the couch with Madison. We couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t bear to watch him to it either. It felt like we were being violated. To cope, I held onto my knees and I just kinda … I don’t know, went somewhere else. I pretended this wasn’t really happening and we were watching it happen on a movie.

  We heard a lot of drawers slamming open and closed, stuff getting overturned and something made of glass breaking in Dad’s stateroom. God knows what he thought when he tried to look through the Junk Room. It felt like it had been going on forever when he appeared again in the lounge. He looked at us briefly and then let himself out without a word. We watched him walk away and then disappear around a boat … headed toward the Phoenix.

  I spent the rest of that day on pins and needles waiting for the Security team to show up and cart me off. Every footfall on the docks outside, every voice I heard was the team preparing to raid us. I was planning to hide by jumping into the water and hiding. I even wore my wetsuit under my clothes and exhausted myself trying to watch out every window at once.

  After an hour, Madison got tired of it. “If they were gonna do it,” she snapped, “you’d be gone already.” We both started arguing in heated whispers, me telling her to ‘shut up’ and her telling me ‘stop it’. We started throwing little slaps and punches around and it was about to become a full-blown sibling brawl. Then a fist clanged against the back door … bringing our fight to a screeching halt. I leaped for the deck hatch that led to the front of the Horner and the water when a voice stopped me. It wasn’t one of the Se
curity guys.

  Madison opened the door to one of the Gloucester West fisherman. I guess he was too old to go along with the boat lift. Maybe he was hiding like we were. “So where’s ya dah?” he asked angrily.

  “He’s gone,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “You tell him I got a markah in that I want paid off or else.” A ‘markah’? What was that? And why was he threatening us? God, I swear this place is crazy!

  I had reached my limit of crazy today. First the nutty religious broad, then Trash Man and now this. Outrage gave me some courage and so I decided to ask.

  “Or else what?”

  “Whattaya, gettin’ cute with me?” he demanded. “All’s I gotta do is walk over thea and this boat’ll sink right out from undah ya. You along wit’ it if yoah not careful.” His East Coast accent was tough to follow when things were calm but nearly incomprehensible to me now, angry as he was. He pointed a talon-like finger at my chest and poked it for emphasis. “You tell him ‘Eddie says we’re squaah’ or I blow the lid right off and I don’t caah who goes down wit’im.” He reached out and gave me a slap across my face. I jumped back, startled and rubbing the spot … it hurt but the suddenness of it was what shocked me. “Get smaht with me again, I’ll slice yah balls off.”

  He disappeared and I felt myself beginning to cry as I watched him leave. Who were these freaks? The neighbor culture that I’d grown so comfortable with here was suddenly gone. All that was left was a bunch of sewer rats … a bunch of sharks circling and moving in for the kill now that we were alone. The tears were standing in my eyes but I couldn’t let it show.

  “Stop it,” I told myself…trying not to break down and cry. When the tears did not go away, I tried slapping myself. “Stop it!” The first one didn’t hurt that much so I did again, harder. Then I did it again and then again and again and again. I was slapping and pounding on my forehead until the tears were gone … it took a while. When I was calm again, I went back inside to find Madison drawn up and looking at me in fear from the couch.

  “I’m okay, Madison,” I said. “I … I just can’t cry right now.” I left to my room and start looking around for Dad’s shotgun. I found it and loaded it – my time on the Gun Range had taught me that much – and then I set it by the salon door.

  “Don’t touch that thing … don’t even look at it,” I ordered Madison sternly. She stuck her tongue out at me but she didn’t argue. We didn’t talk after that for the rest of the day. People continued coming to the door to ask about Dad, the Dixie, the Gun Range or whatever. The really freaky ones were the sketchy-looking fools, nobody wanted to ask about drugs but it was obvious what they were after.

  Meanwhile, Security teams were rumored to be still looking for people to round up. You’d hear the kids of the Colony singing “Phoenix Patrol!” and then suddenly the docks and upper decks would empty of people. It would have been funny to watch if the situation wasn’t so serious. You’d hear the cry from far away and any kid under 10 would take up the sing-song. You’d suddenly hear “Phoenix Patrol, Phoenix Patrol!” and then less than 30 seconds later there’d be nobody anywhere on the rings. Better than a fire drill … it was like yelling “Five-Oh!” on the block in LA.

  We steered clear of the Phoenix but I still had the same problem: I had to call Mom. I went back to the Gun Range for another shift, thinking that I would try to make a call from there. Miguel’s wife was parked on the lounge sofa with a Long Island Iced Tea in a plastic stadium cup in one hand and an automatic rifle across her lap.

  She helped herself to something in the hidden gun rack one afternoon and it never left her side after that. She called it something… S4, M4, A4 …I forget which. Nasty looking thing, that’s all I knew. She nursed that drink all day and refilled it whenever it got shallow. I manned the counter but nobody came by. I spent my time surfing the Internet on their slow satellite connection – it was awful. No info on Mom or Dad but the situation on Shore was still getting worse. The sun was dipping low on the horizon when I finally screwed up enough courage to ask her to borrow the phone.

  “Wha?” she said, slurring a bit.

  “The phone, ma’am,” I said, going for the respectful-kid thing. “I need to call my Dad.”

  She looked a little bleary and confused but finally said, “Oh yeah, here.” Reaching into the pockets of her stained white tennis shorts she tossed me her phone which landed about halfway between us.

  “You’re not bad looking,” she said quietly when I bent to pick it up. “You ever think about me?”

  I was stressing about my Dad and missed what she was talking about. “Huh?”

  “You’re kinda hot,” she ventured. “Ever get lonely?”

  My jaw pulled back into my throat when I realized what she was saying. Ugh. I mean, UGH…I gotta deal with a drunk broad trying to put the moves on me on top of everything else? I don’t even know her name and she’s coming onto me! Miguel’s wife was a white chick, maybe this side of hot trailer trash with the blowsy blonde hair and a rack that might have been interesting if it wasn’t sagging for the floor. Her butt was fat, not badonkadonk fat, just fat. Gross, if you will. Anyway, I just played it off and ignored her but managed to put the call through finally.

  I let the phone rang to voicemail three times before I finally left a message. “Mom, it’s us. We’re here and Dad’s gone to shore on some boat lift. We need you to come get us. Call me…” and suddenly I realized I had no idea how she might get ahold of us. “Just call Pacific Fisheries and put a message through. Hope you get this … bye, Mom.”

  I left a message and moved on, calling Mom at the house, on her cell, then Marty’s cell, then her work number and then Marty’s. Nobody picked up and it was just kinda mechanical – I’m glad I had all those numbers memorized. Miguel’s wife watched me in silence, cradling the wicked-looking rifle in her lap and sipping daintily from the stadium cup full of hooch. For the next 20 minutes, I sat there waiting for the phone to ring, but nothing happened. No pickups, no nothing, no call backs.

  We both continue watching the news in silence. She finally fell asleep on the couch with the rifle in her lap after an hour of no customers. I slipped out to go back to the Horner. I was half-hoping that Mom had gotten our message and that a Security team would be loading us up to leave. Half-hoping? Nah, I was praying for it. I really wanted to be out of here … if it wasn’t for Madison, I would jump in the water and start paddling right now. We ate another dinner of cold canned spaghetti and then I had Maddy sleep next to me in my stateroom. My back was starting to hurt from sleeping on the floor in the living room and I wanted to keep an eye on her.

  I fell asleep at some point because the next thing I knew it was one in the morning and the general alarm was a-HOO-Gah-ing out into the foggy air. “What the -“ I started to say and then I jumped when realized what was going on. Terror pushed up through my nose and I vaulted out of bed, not even touching the ground between my bed and the stateroom door.

  “Colony Patrol – man your stations. This is not a drill, repeat, not a drill. Bogies approaching.” The voice droned again, a scary repeat of that other time a month ago. “All individuals in the dock area, stay in your boats and lock your doors. Do not attempt to go outside for any reason. CIWS systems are armed and preparing to fire.” The echo rolled out into the distance while I grabbed Madison and we made for the hiding place I made in the Junk Room a few days ago. I pushed old cartons of records aside and shoved Madison into the space.

  “What’re you doing?” she whined. “This stuff smells gross!”

  “Shut up,” I whispered fiercely. Pulling the boxes into place behind us I threw an arm over Madison and pulled her close. It was a tight squeeze. We would have had more space if we were sharing a sleeping bag. I could hear the buzz of small boat engines approaching us and in the darkness it was … terrifying. The boats were on us and then we could hear the feet. Male feet, some bare and some wearing heavy clod-hopper boots, slapping and clunking around the docks and
boat decks. They had slipped in between two boats maybe three or four spaces away before we even knew they were there.

  Before this year, I thought it was hilarious, the idea of pirates out here. Pirates were guys who stole software or took over cargo ships in Africa. Who ever heard of pirates off the coast of LA? All of Dad’s talk about ‘colony folks being good at taking care of themselves’ echoed in my head but none of it mattered now. Now he was gone along with half of the Colony and we were laying here in the dark like two scared puppies.

  I heard the staccato rip of gunfire – a machine gun and then the louder crack of something else…Maybe a shotgun. “Is that Dad? Is that Dad?” Madison wanted to know. It might have sounded like a dumb question but she had a point, kind of. Who doesn’t want their dad to be nearby when there are scary things around?

  We could hear another motor launch near the back deck. Several voices were shouting in Spanish and I could hear the boat scrape the sides of the Horner as they squeezed in between us and the next ship. The pirates grabbed handholds and pulled themselves over the railing – glass was breaking and sudden shouts as they entered the boat next door.

  Terror … abject fear. I thought I knew what it was to be scared, but I didn’t have a clue. Madison and me huddled tightly together and listened. I could hear them crashing around kicking in doors and breaking glass. No screams from the residents. They must have been there to smash and grab, not hurt anyone. I started to breathe a sigh of relief … maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. But then there was another sound.

  My heart kicked up another hundred beats when I heard a soft footstep on the back deck of the Horner. No way was it Dad or Riley … I knew what their footsteps sounded like. The back door quietly clicked open – it was rarely locked – and then he was inside.

  The footsteps were evil – soft and light – someone didn’t want to be heard even as his amigos were busting things up next door. I heard the hissing sound of someone lightly dragging their fingertip along the bulkhead. We both started breathing shallowly as the step stopped at the door of the Junk Room. The creaking doorknob turned slowly and the door opened.