I think we’ve been together too long, and I notice that when I’m around Jack, I use the F-word more than I usually do, and I mimic his wiseass attitude. I hope he’s not rubbing off on me. I’ve got enough problems.
When Jack Colby first came aboard The Maine looking for a job, wearing a T-shirt that said: “Wounded Combat Vet—Some Reassembly Required,” he said he’d heard I was ex-Army, and in lieu of a résumé he showed me his DD-214—his Army discharge paper—which he kept neat and safe in a plastic case, as it was an important document, loaded with military acronyms that defined his service. Box 13a told me that he’d been honorably discharged in 1969, and another box showed me he’d served a year overseas. Among his decorations, medals, and commendations was the Vietnam Service Medal, the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. I recalled that his home of record was Paterson, New Jersey, and that his last duty station had been Fort Benning, Georgia. Jack’s service number had an RA prefix, indicating Regular Army, meaning he’d volunteered for a three-year stint. His MOS—Military Occupation Skill—was 11-B, meaning infantry, and his Related Civilian Occupation said, “None.” Same as mine. He’d attained the rank of Private First Class, which is not much rank after three years and a tour in Vietnam, and I deduced that he’d either been busted or he had a problem with authority. Probably both. But he had received the Bronze Star for valor and a Purple Heart, so I hired him.
I imagine that Carlos knew that Jack was ex-military when he was searching for idiots to go to Cuba, and I also wondered if Jack would be up for a late-in-life adventure. Carlos said that Jack’s life would not be in danger, which was true regarding the fishing tournament, but not true regarding sailing out of Cuba with sixty million bucks onboard if Cuban gunboats were on our ass. If we made it that far.
Well, we’d see what Carlos and his clients had to say. If nothing else, I had lots of experience calculating the odds of survival, and as we used to say, any odds better than 50/50 were too good to be true. And the biggest clue about how dangerous this was, was the money. They weren’t offering me two million dollars to walk into the Bank of Cuba with a withdrawal slip for sixty million.
“What’s on your mind, Captain?”
“Just thinking about the Cuban Thaw.”
“They’re all fucking Commies.” He quoted from one of his T-shirts: “Kill A Commie For Christ.”
“You been to Cuba?”
“Hell, no. Place sucks.”
“Could be interesting.”
“Yeah. Like ’Nam was interesting.” He remembered something and said, “Hey, I saw a great T-shirt on Duval.” He smiled. “?‘Guantánamo—Come For The Sun, Stay For The Waterboarding.’?” He laughed.
Jack’s life was becoming more and more informed by T-shirts. I guess if you don’t own a car, you can’t collect bumper stickers. But Jack might be onto something: The Book of Life was a collection of T-shirt jokes.
I didn’t know much about Jack’s life after he’d left the Army and before he showed up on my boat, but he told me he’d stayed in Columbus, Georgia, after his medical discharge because of some local girl whose husband had been killed in Vietnam. He wound up marrying her, and I assume the marriage ended, because he was here alone, though he never mentioned a divorce. Maybe she’d died.
As for my own love life, I was once engaged to a woman—Maggie Flemming—from Portland whom I’d reconnected with on one of my Army leaves. We sort of grew up together and my mother approved of the lady’s family, which was more important than approving of the lady.
Long story short, my two overseas deployments and my stateside duty stations kept Maggie and me apart, and then my hospital stays and rehab put a further strain on the relationship. Also my head was in a bad place, and when you’re screwed up, you screw up, and that’s what I did, and I took off for Key West, where nobody notices. My mother was disappointed about the broken engagement, but my father didn’t comment. As for Key West, they both thought I’d be back soon.
As for Portland, it’s a nice town of about sixty-five thousand people, historic, quaint, and recently trendy and touristy, with lots of new upscale bars and restaurants. In some ways it reminds me of Key West, mostly because it’s a seaport, though nobody swims nude in Portland, especially in the winter. The family house, a big old Victorian, is haunted, though not by ghosts, but by memories. Portland, though, was a good place to grow up and it’s a good place to grow old. It’s the years in between that are a challenge to some people.
But maybe if I scored big on this deal, I’d give it another try. Maggie was married, and my parents were still crazy, and my brother had moved to Boston, but I could see myself in one of the old sea captain’s mansions, staring out to sea . . . I actually missed the winter storms.
I finished my Coke, stood, and looked down the long dock, but I didn’t see my customers. It was possible they’d had a conversation and decided that Captain MacCormick wasn’t their man. Which would be a relief. Or maybe a disappointment, especially if no one else came along with a two-million-dollar offer this week.
Jack asked, “Where are these Beaners?”
“Jack, for the record, I think Mexicans are Beaners.”
“All these fucking people are like, ma?ana, ma?ana.”
“No one around here is good with time, either, including you, gringo.”
He laughed.
Jack’s world view and prejudices are a generational thing, I think, and he reminds me in some ways of my father, who grew up in what amounts to another country. Jack Colby and Webster MacCormick are unknowable to me because their screwed-up heads were screwed up in a screwed-up war that was different from my screwed-up war. Also, I had the impression from both of them that they’d like to go back to that other country. My generation, on the other hand, has no nostalgia for the past, which was screwed up when we arrived. In any case, as my father once said to me in a rare philosophical moment, “Memories about the past are always about the present.”
As for the future, that wasn’t looking so good, either. But it might look better with a few million in the bank.
I spotted my customers at the end of the long dock. Carlos, an older guy, and a young woman. “Our party is here.”
Jack swiveled his chair around. “Hey! She’s a looker.”
“Look at me—and listen.”
He turned his attention to me. “What’s up?”
“Carlos, the lawyer, has offered me thirty Gs to charter The Maine for the Pescando Por la Paz.”
“Yeah? So we’re going to Cuba?”
“I haven’t accepted the job.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted to speak to you first.”
“Yeah? Well, I accept.”
“You will be skippering The Maine.”
“Me?”
“Right. You sail to Havana for a goodwill stop, then a place called Cayo Guillermo for the tournament, then home. Three fishermen onboard, and—”
“These three?”
“No. Just shut up and listen. They’ll supply you with a mate. It’s a ten-day cruise. I’ll give you half.”
“Yeah? I’ll take it. But how come you’re not going?”
“I fly to Havana. Then meet you, probably in Cayo Guillermo.”