“Provisions,” Charlie said to Arlan and Tommy as he set his bags down. Charlie looked around and asked, “Where’s Captain Jay and Lisa?”
Captain Jay and Lisa had gone for a walk earlier. Tommy had suggested that they would be screwing on the beach someplace because it was too crowded around the dock. Arlan laughed, causing Tommy to say that when Jay and Lisa returned scratching the mosquito bites on their asses then he would be proven right.
“They’ve gone for a walk,” Arlan said and glanced at Tommy, who had a big grin.
“Put these three bags on the sailboat,” Charlie told Desmond and then carried one bag onto his boat.
Ten minutes later Captain Jay and Lisa returned.
Captain Jay scratched his ass and asked, “What’s the plan?”
Tommy and Arlan exchanged glances and laughed.
“What’s so funny, Rookie?”
“Nothing,” Arlan said and noticed the bracelet he’d found where Lisa went into the water was back on her wrist. “That’s a nice gesture,” he said, nodding toward Lisa’s wrist. “More sentiment than I’d have ever expected from you.”
Tommy laughed.
Captain Jay frowned.
“How was your walk?” Arlan asked.
Captain Jay scratched his ass again and said, “None of your business.”
Charlie, who’d been on his radio, stepped onto the dock and said, “Forrest is flying in and bringing a crew to sail the Happy Hobo to Tortola where it will be in dry-dock for a while to fix the damage Boiled Bob inflicted on it. He’ll be landing in an hour or so. You can fly back with him or come with me to Dominica. I’ll need some help with Bob.” He then turned to Desmond and said, “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
The two men shook hands. Desmond nodded to Tommy and Arlan and left with his men.
Charlie looked to the rest of the group and said, “Who’s coming with me and Bob?”
“What’s that mean?” Arlan said.
Charlie smiled and said, “I called Winston up on Dominica. It turns out the government owes me a favor for helping to stop a coup by a bunch of racists from Canada and the US who tried to take over the country a couple of years ago. Winston called in the favor and was told there is a nice foster home that will take Bob. No questions asked.”
“When are we leavin’?” Captain Jay asked. “You’ll need help with the boat. You’ll get lost without my navigation skills.”
Charlie smiled and said, “We’re leaving as soon as you get us untied.”
Arlan watched Desmond and his men drive off. He then looked out into the bay and thought about St. John for the first time in a fortnight. He doubted anybody missed him, or Tommy or Captain Jay, or cared where they were. News that Lisa had been abducted had already been recycled and likely forgotten or dismissed as rumor. That’s the way islands are, he thought. People come and go, and those who live there give everybody the same privacy they take. With no TV and little daily news service, most island residents would know little of what happened on Grenada. Arlan looked back to the mountains, where a few smoke plumes drifted, and smiled, not at the insanity of war, but at the thought of returning to the peaceful insanity of his island, where he had a project to run and a house to take care of. He looked to Charlie’s boat and Captain Jay readying the bow line. St. John would have to wait a few more days. He wanted to see this thing through to the end. Tommy could handle the project for a few days.
Arlan looked to Tommy and said, “I think you need to get back with Forrest to check on the project and Frank.” Arlan thought about inspector Blake and said, “I wonder who won the beauty contest.”
Tommy laughed and said, “I’m s-sure his daughter looked good in the d-dress.”
They both laughed at the thought of seeing Blake’s daughter, the size of an NFL lineman and always smiling, popping out of the dress Arlan had bought for her.
Arlan shook Tommy’s hand and said to Charlie, “I’ll come along to watch Bob. Tommy needs to get back to make sure our contractor hasn’t gone broke and sent everybody home. He’ll fly out with Forrest.”
Charlie and Tommy shook hands, and Charlie said, “Desmond will be back with Case and Henry a little later. You can get a ride to the airstrip with him. Forrest is expecting a passenger or two for the ride back.”
“N-no problem. I’m g-getting tired of boats anyway.”
Charlie smiled, then looked to the others and said, “Once we’re on Dominica you guys can take your boat back to St. John. I need to stay on the island for a while to round up all of the weapons the Dreads have collected from the Cubans.”
Lisa hugged Tommy, then stepped onto the trawler behind Charlie. Arlan and Captain Jay untied the bow and stern lines and prepared to push off.
Tommy stepped close to Bob and said, “Y-ou take c-care of yourself. And k-keep your r-rudder dry.” He then hugged Bob, who kept his arms rigid at his side, completely lost on the dynamics of a hug.
Instead, Bob whispered into Tommy’s ear, “Thank you.” He then backed away with a grin and said, “K-keep my r-rudder dry, k-keep my…”
Before Bob could repeat it a third time Tommy took his arm and led him onto the boat. He stepped back onto the dock as Arlan and Captain Jay shoved off and stepped onto the boat.
Bob saluted Tommy as the boat rumbled away from the dock and into the bay.
Epilogue
The boat ride to Dominica had been uneventful. Forrest and Tommy had buzzed them with the Aero Commander on their way north. Lisa could not warm up to Bob, not because he wasn’t charming, in his own way, but because she couldn’t get past his uncanny resemblance to Boiled Bob. She and Captain Jay had stayed behind at Charlie’s home in Portsmouth when Winston had come to take Bob to his new home.
Charlie and Arlan went along and had been impressed with Bob’s new surroundings. A wealthy Brit, whose family had owned his estate on Dominica for five generations, and his wife had recently lost a mentally challenged son in a boating accident. The son would have been about Bob’s age, and the estate was set up with a live-in nurse, security and a plethora of activities that would keep Bob happy for a lifetime. The couple and Bob had hit it off immediately.
It was time for Arlan and Charlie to leave, and Bob, still wearing his floppy bush hat, saluted each one after an awkward hug. As Charlie and Arlan walked back to Winston’s car, Bob followed them and said, “You are both my big brothers.” They turned to see him salute and then skip back toward his new home and foster parents.
Arlan took a flight to St. Thomas the next day, leaving Captain Jay and Lisa to return to St. John on the dive boat. He hoped they would take their time and turn it into a romantic trip. Upon landing, Arlan called Tommy from the airport and asked him to pick him up at the dock on St. John. He’d be taking the noon ferry from St. Thomas.
Arlan had a good idea what to expect when he arrived, and the island didn’t disappoint him. The tranquil island’s village of Cruz Bay came alive twice each hour—ten minutes before the hour, when the ferry was loading up to go to St. Thomas and twenty minutes after the hour, when the ferry crossing Pillsbury Sound from St. Thomas arrived at Cruz Bay.
The ferry that left St. Thomas at noon bumped the Cruz Bay dock twenty minutes later, and the passengers disembarked. The few tourists that were on the ferry stood on the dock looking confused. Locals greeted friends with big smiles and fist bumps and waited for the boat’s crew to offload boxes of provisions they’d purchased on St. Thomas.
Arlan walked down the dock and took in the familiar smells and sights of home. He looked across the bay to Gallows Point. The construction was taking shape, and he hoped that he’d done the right thing by tearing down the old cottages and building a new project. Time would tell.
“Okay, Arlan, me son?” Beaver, one of the taxi drivers who’d walked onto the dock to solicit fares from the tourists, asked when he passed Arlan.
“Okay, Beaver,” Arlan answered.
Tommy had parked the Jeep near the ticket booth and was holding court with a couple of local carpenters in the small, open-air bar a few feet away at the end of the dock.
Arlan stepped up to where Tommy leaned on a recently varnished wood bar, and Tommy handed him a cold Heineken, still talking to the carpenters. One of them nodded to Arlan and said, “Hey Arlan. What’s up? You been off island or something? I haven’t seen you for a few days.”
“Just a short trip. No big deal,” Arlan said and took a drink of beer.
“You missed the news of the invasion then.”
Arlan raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Yeah, Reagan went into Grenada and squashed it. Something about Bishop being executed.”
The other carpenter broke in and said, “No. I think it was to rescue some American students.”
Arlan and Tommy looked at each other and smiled.
“I guess I missed it,” Arlan said.
“Hey, did you hear some rumor about Lisa being kidnapped?”
“Yeah. I heard about that,” Arlan said. He then added, “She and Captain Jay took his boat down island for a few days. That’s all.”
One of the carpenters laughed and said, “I figured so. This place is one rumor after another. Glad nobody really gives a damn. That’s what makes it such a great place to live.”
A couple of locals walked by and said, in unison, “Okay?”
All four said, “Okay.”
The short, homeless Willie, wearing a dirty T-shirt and baggy shorts with holes where the pockets should have been, stumbled up to the bar and sat on one of the few brightly painted stools on the other side of the carpenters. The bartender rolled his eyes and asked, “Willie, do you have any money?”
“No.”
The bartender looked toward Tommy and Arlan, who both nodded. The bartender shook his head, reached into a cooler and pulled out a can of Old Milwaukee beer. He placed it on the bar in front of Willie and said, “You only get one, and then you’ll need to move on.”
Willie smiled and took a long drink and then mumbled to himself, something locals were used to.
A tourist couple, fresh off the ferry, sat at a small table near the road, their bags resting on the ground near their feet. Arlan had seen them recoil a bit when Willie stepped up to the bar. They nervously looked at the other customers and, when they saw that nobody else in the bar paid Willie any attention, they relaxed, each taking a drink of peach-colored slush from plastic cups. They quickly resumed watching their surroundings through tourist masks—the uneasy smile at everything and everybody, hiding their giddy nervousness of being on the friendly but unfamiliar funky island for the first time. Arlan had seen the look hundreds of times. He smiled and wondered if he’d had the same look the first time he stepped foot on the island.
One of the carpenters turned back to Tommy and Arlan and said, “There’s a Halloween party at the Backyard tomorrow. You shouldn’t miss it. Those parties are always great.”
Arlan smiled and remembered last year’s party when a local artist, originally from Connecticut, walked into the popular bar and forgot it was Halloween. He walked to a storage closet, returned a few minutes later with a wet mop on his head and declared he was a white Rasta.
Tommy said, “Maybe we’ll s-see you th-there.”
“Sounds good to me,” Arlan said.
“Okay. Okay,” the carpenters said and walked across the street to the park.
The activity that accompanied the arrival of the ferry had dwindled. Most of the taxis had gone, and a handful of vehicles belonging to locals who were loading boxes of provisions were pulling away from the dock and starting their trek through the village, dodging chickens and dumpster dogs, and up the steep mountainous roads to their homes. The vehicles’ occupants smiled and shouted “Okays” to pedestrians they passed whom they knew, which was just about everybody.
Willie continued to mumble and looked around the bar. Locals knew that if they made eye contact with Willie during one of his mumbling sessions, he’d launch into a diatribe about whatever was on his mind. The tourist couple made the mistake of looking at Willie, who then decided to raise his voice and ramble on about Maynard and his big knife and that he was going to kill that bad mon the next time he saw him.
The bartender and a handful of locals shrugged and went about their business. The tourist couple dropped their smiles, grabbed their bags and walked to the park across the street, leaving half-full drinks on the table.
Arlan and Tommy watched and smiled. They finished their beers and walked toward the Jeep. Tommy stopped and said, “W-wait a minute.”
He turned back and patted Willie’s shoulder. Willie smiled and shut up. Tommy leaned in and said, “You d-don’t need to worry a-about Maynard ever again.”
Willie looked at Tommy with bloodshot eyes and chugged his beer.
Tommy turned and walked with Arlan to the Jeep.
Arlan looked back at Willie and asked, “Do you think he understands?”
“D-does it matter?”
Arlan sighed and looked out into the bay.
After a moment he asked Tommy, “Is Frank still on the job?”
“B-believe it or not, he is. And h-his full crew is there t-too.”
“Damn. That’s surprising.”
Tommy grinned and asked, “Y-you know what’s m-more surprising?”
Arlan shrugged and said, “What?”
“Blake’s d-daughter won the b-beauty contest.”
They both laughed as Tommy backed the Jeep into the road and drove up the hill toward Gallows Point.
THE END
About the Author
David Culberson grew up in a small town in Middle America. After a higher education in a warmer climate, he spent the next four decades living and mixing with the cultures of the Caribbean, Mexico and the Great Lakes, where he pioneered and built several low-impact, sustainable resort properties.
He currently lives with his wife and Border Collies on Lakes Michigan and Superior and keeps a home on the Caribbean Coast of Mexico.
A Fortnight of Fury Page 23