Somewhere off the Coast of East Africa…

March 31st, 2010 by Dean Lockley | Posted in Somewhere Off the Coast of Africa... |

Ch. 1

“Arrr matey’s! And who be these land lovers I see before me?” I leaned in close, my unpatched eye gazing menacingly into the amused face of a thirteen year old boy from Plainsberg, Ohio. “Welcome to Captain John’s Ship O’fun and Sea Food.” I motion behind me to Maria, “Our house wench shall seat you now, the show be starting in ten minutes. Beware if ye be sitting in the first two rows, yeh shall get splashed by the water and may be taken prisoner by the infamous Peg Leg Parsons. Please, no flash photography.”

The nice looking family with the trappings of tourists smiled politely and took a picture of my get up, passing beyond me to follow Maria to their seats. I motioned to one of the other greeters that I was going out back and made my way through the kitchen that stunk of sea food that wasn’t the catch of the day, at least not of that day.

Once I got outside I wriggled my left hand free of the fake hook and pulled the falsely stained teeth out of my mouth. I lit a cigarette. “Fuck.” I muttered under my breath as I shook my head and looked back out to the parking lot, the tops of cars shining above the fence that separated the dumpster in the back from the sight of the road. I took a long drag of the cigarette and watched the smoke float softly and gently for a moment, becoming an illuminated cloud by the twelve foot neon pirate falsely animated to be fishing ontop of the sign before being whipped away by the stale salty sealess breeze. “ I’m getting to old for this shit.”

I took the hat off and tossed ontop of a worn old plastic folding chair as stale and crusty as the wind there behind the dumpster and yanked the wig off. I scratched my head, forcing my fingers deep into my sweaty matted hair, aerating my scalp. I wondered if maybe my hair didn’t need a vacation too. I turned around and looked out toward the dirty piece of swamp land we advertised as our seaside location. I took a drag and watched the smoke whip past me in the direction of the land. “Can’t say I blame you,” I said under my breath as I turned back to the restaurant.

The door opened and Maria smiled at me, asking for a drag of my cigarette. I smiled handing it over to her. She drew it to her lips trying to be seductive. Two year s should’ve taught her by now that it wasn’t going ot work on me, but I guess you can’t blame a gal for trying. “You better get back in character, show’s starting soon.” She blew the smoke out pursing her lips and veiling her eyes slightly. I never should’ve fucked her that first week.

She offered the cigarette back to me as I picked the wig up off the ground where it’d slipped through the whole in the middle of the folding chair, where the plastic material had grown too worn and brittle. I shook my head. “Finish it,” and grabbed my hat and the hook in my hands as I walked back into the door. I stopped at the doorway looking out into the swamp, catching the gleams of the setting sun off its molding waters.

“Oh, and the little girl at table five is having a birthday so don’t forget to get the confetti blaster before the third act.” she said as I paused in moldy reflection.

”I gotta get out of Florida”

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Three hours later and the show’s been over for about an hour now and the last of the night’s customers are finishing up their burnt Sea Bass Escapades. Maria offered me a ride home and I politely refused. Can’t blame a gal for trying. “Alright, well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Captain,” she with a little wink and I watched her go and shook my head, my hand blindly reaching to my keychain and a beaten scratched gold ring that I kept with my keys. I went into what they called the break room backstage. There were rows of beaten lockers, rusting and covered with scratches and graffiti. I hung my hat on the hook with my name above the locker and slipped the wig ontop of the shelf to dry off before tomorrows show and I knew that one day I should take it home and wash it, but, then again, there was something more authentic in it if I didn’t.

I checked behind me to make sure I was alone and reached into my right boot and pulled out my old Grandfather’s silver flask that he had carried with him when he’d gone off to get drunk and shoot at Koreans. I’m pretty sure it was for the war, but, then, again, my Grandfather had had quite the reputation as a rabble rouser when he’d been a kid. I took a long hard swallow and thumbed a dent that he’d always sworn was from a bullet, from the day the flask had saved his life, but my Grandmother said was from when he crashed the motorcycle coming home drunk.

“Ay, Johnny, boss, he wants to see you.” I smiled at Armondo and nodded, offering him a pull from the flask. “Fucking gordito!” he said with a laugh, going back to finish the last of the dishes.

I shrugged and slipped the flask back into my boot, tossing the eye patch blindly into the locker before heading to the manager’s office. I stopped in mid-step to get a better look at some caricature graffiti that’d been tattooed on the one cheap table with rotten wood that along with the lockers made up the break room. It looked like Captain John getting fucked up the ass by a giant marlin. “Huh. A new one.” I whispered to myself. And rounded the corner out the door to the manager’s office, the door open just before the employee exit so that I couldn’t have slipped out if I’d wanted to.

The manager was a short balding man named Jonah Williams who made everyone call him Mr. Williams. He’d been made the manager in 1984 and had been there ever since. I stopped in the doorway to look at him and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was ever a time he’d dreamed of more than managing a third rate sea food restaurant in a fourth rate town in West Florida. If he had, he’d given that dream up sometime no later than ‘95 and instead demanded the respect he thought he’d earned. After all, it was his idea to place the ad that claimed the restaurant had a romantic seaside atmosphere. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and up his skull till it met his hair halfway to the back of his neck, giving it the effect of a polished cue ball, before he noticed me in the doorway.

“You wanted to see me Jonah?” I said stepping through the door and watching with a little amusement as he furrowed his eyebrows, the deep wrinkles traveling his extended forehead as he did whenever I called him by his first name.

“John, I’ve told you before how much I hate when you don’t call me Mr.-” he started to complain.

“Right, sorry Mr. Jonah.” I said, fighting to hold back a grin, though I could feel the right side of my mouth twitch up, barely noticeably, into a slight sneer.

He sighed inaudibly and shook his head before continuing, “Now, you’ve been with us for a long time John-”

“That’s Mr. Nelson.” I interjected to his frustration.

“You’ve been with us for a long time,” he paused, staring intently at the faded varnish on his desk top, “Mr. Nelson,” I smiled politely, “and, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Jerry, has left us to go back to West Florida Heights Community College, so we need a new star actor to play Peg Leg Parsons.” he leaned back in his chair, creaking for want of oil, “You think you’re up to fill his shoes?”

“Shoe.” I corrected.

“Right, well, shoe then?” he didn’t seem to get the joke, or if he did he chose to ignore it. I decided it made the game more fun if he just didn’t get it.

“Well, I don’t know Mr. Jonah. Can I have some time to think about it?” I pulled a beaten pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and offered one to him which he seemingly offended declined.

“Yes, yes of course you can. But I’ll need to know by the end of the week of course.” he seemed to be looking for some piece of paper on his desk.

“Should I wait till Thursday when I work again, or should I try to get you at home?” I backed towards the door slowly. “Does your cell phone get good reception inside that whale?”

“Excuse me?” he looked back up surprised to see me still standing there. “Oh, right, yes we can wait to hear by Thursday, but earlier would be better.” I shook my head and wondered if he’d just heard the joke one to many times to notice it anymore.

“Well thank you for the offer Mr. Jonah, and I’ll get back to you Thursday. Is that all?” I said as I fished through my pocket for the lighter.

“Yes, yes, thanks for stopping by, that’s all John-”

“Mr. Nelson.” I cut in to correct him again.

“Goodnight Mr. Nelson.” he said with a half wave, his eyes already back on the paper on his desk.

I shook my head as I left the back door, actually feeling kind of bad for mocking him. Sometimes, it really is just too easy.

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I got to the bus stop just as the bus pulled up and walked past the boat hands and fishermen sun soaked with sweat and sea water filling the bus with the smell of salt and fish guts, their won t-shirts stained with proof of their occupations. I passed the old men in tattered clothes whose hands still shook from a long time fight with cheap rum and cheaper wine and now they waited in Florida on busses and retirement shelters for the death they are too young to embrace and too old to fight.

Finally I found an empty seat near the end of the bus, across the aisle from a dark skinned Cuban who, even after all these years in Florida I still wanted to call Mexican. Racism’s a tricky thing to change. Behind her were some punks she tried to ignore by turning up her iPod and slowly their leers slipped to heckling whispers and teenage giggling. I shook my head and secured myself into the corner for the half hour ride through the swamplands before we got the tourist’s fisherman’s wharf, where the fish market stands before empty piers in an attempt to seem authentic without letting middle American suburbanites to see the fates of the fish they devour at home.

And so through the cooling night’s breeze still heavy with the day’s humidity the bus sailed silently, the old men and fishermen never wavering their stare from the familiar seat back of the seat in front of them. The windows open and emitting the only light in the darkness of the swamp, we shot through the night. A gust of wind and something moved on my peripheral and so, turning I watched the wind whip delicately, playfully the white skirt of the little Cuban girl across the aisle from me. I only stared for a moment, unable to fight the instinct to take in the form of those tanned, toned legs before my eyes drifted north and caught her repulsed stare and something in those hurt eyes reminded me of my long ago Rita. I blushed and turned away and pulled out a worn old copy of a Conrad collection which I only feigned to read while I felt my cheeks grow hotter and I fought the sudden urge to tear up. I don’t know why Mikey thought moving here would make me forget her. Fucking Mikey.

And Fuck Florida too.

I need to get o9ut of her.

Half an hour later the bus drops me off two blocks from the tourist wharf and I walk the last block through the trappings of a small Florida fishing town. Vacationing fisherman down from New York or Boston carrying seldom used fishing rods and tackle boxes, some shining and unused, others, relics of fallen fathers worn and used over a lifetime’s passion, freshly dusted from their ornamental resting places on a shelf in the garage. The bars were loud, were always loud, from the clashes of insurance adjusters in town with their pals from Connecticut and the former fisherman who take up residence to wait for old age to finish the job the sea and the drink had long ago started.

I reached a white stucco building, the paint brown from the unseen stain of time and walked up the two flights of outdoor stairs that seemed awkwardly attached to the outside of the building. Somewhere in the distance I heard an old man singing “Jimmy Buffet, he don’t live in Key West anymore…” and opened the door to room 302, my apartment.

The place was empty, which was good. I didn’t need to deal with Mikey, or Paul for that matter, right now. I turned on the TV, grabbed a joint and headed in to take a shower.

By the time I got out of the shower the joint was gone and the Daily Show was on. Something about Somali pirates but they made the correspondent, the British one, dress up and sing like some old Gilbert and Sullivan routine. I stopped to watch and laughed before heading into the kitchen. At least the don’t make me sing.

I got a beer, sat down on the couch and, putting my feet up on the piece of driftwood we used as a coffee table, started to relax when the phone rang. It was Mikey, I didn’t answer it. Instead I took a long sip of beer and drifted off into a nap.

I don’t know how long I was asleep but it couldn’t have been long. Mikey came bursting into the apartment, with Paul in tow, and carrying a metal detector, his cargo pockets nearly bursting with change. “Big Jackie!” Mikey said as he threw himself onto the couch next to me. “I got it! We’re gonna be pirates!”

He was drunk.

“Already am Mikey my boy. Got me an eye patch and the whole nine yards.” I reached groggily, still waking up, for my beer.

“No, seriously, there’s tons of pirates now, they’re just in Africa, it was on the news!” Paul came out of the kitchen, tossing Mikey a beer which he opened, sucking the foam out before it spilled onto the floor. Most of it at least.

“In Somalia? No man. No. Fuck that. Somalia? I mean- Somalia? So-mal-ia?” I put my beer down staring at him.

“Yeah, yeah, Africa. That’s in Africa right?” Mikey glanced up to Paul for verification. Paul nodded, grinning.

“You’re drunk Mikey.”

“No I’m- Yeah, okay, maybe a little bit but-” I interrupted.

“Yeh see? And when you get drunk you get all ‘Let’s be pirates!’ or ‘Let’s become big game hunters!’ or ‘Let’s be treasure hunters!’ and then we move thousands of miles to end up working the same crappy, go-nowhere shit jobs we had when we left but in a shittier part of the world. Fuck it man! Fuck Somalia, fuck Florida and fuck pirates Mikey!” I took a long hard swallow of my beer returned my gaze to the television commercial about Neanderthals with hurt feelings. “And fuck cavemen too.”

Mikey and Paul sat there for a moment or too in silence before Mikey sat back with his beer. “So we’ll put you down as a definite maybe, then.”

I laughed.

Fucking Mikey.