Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (12 page)

“You’ve always hated me! You won’t let me do anything, onstage or during missions!” she blurted out . “You’ve been planning to leave me here in the city, or sell me into slavery! You know I would be a better captain than you, so you keep me hidden.” She lashed out at me, her tone dripping with poison and self pity.

“What the hell? No! I haven’t been planning any such thing! Honestly, I don’t really think about you that much!”

“That was cruel, Robert!” Tanner declared blackly. “Why won’t you let her do anything during missions?”

“Look, I just assign people jobs based on their skills and what needs to be done. If we don’t need a belly dancer during a mission, I don’t have a lot for her to do.” I paused “She gets most of the attention when we play concerts! Lilith, people love you, and you don’t even do that much! You should be happy about that!” I was trying to console and calm her though frankly, now I was thinking getting rid of her was a good idea.

“Look, you guys are threatening mutiny over something you
think
I might
eventually
do. I had no such idea in my head. But mutiny during a battle will kill us all!” I paused “There is way too much drink at this table, and in us. None of us handling this well. You have to know I have no plans of getting rid of anyone!” I finished.

“Well, if you do…” Tanner threatened, “Don’t expect us to stand by you.”

I stood up, a look of apprehension and puzzlement on my face. The pretty little girl was unhappy with her lot, and was attempting to change her lot by throwing a tantrum. A mutiny would be caused by any actions the crew perceived as me doing anything wrong to her. Part of this was true, I didn’t have a huge use for her, but that didn’t mean I was attempting to get rid of her either. She was fine as she was, but now, she was a time bomb waiting to go off. The trigger was me trying to get rid of her, so all I could do was wait for it to explode.

I spent the night by myself on one of the castle walls. This should have been a victory, but somehow I emerged a villain. I watched the sun rise, contemplating my options. I’m not sure I had any.

I pulled out my journal, and sketched some lyrics in it:

My Life

My love, my life, my band, my wife.

I got lost. I get used. Take the praise, and abuse.

Am I the hero in my own day dream?

Or am I the villain, are things as they seem?

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

After Arcot, we refueled, and re-crewed. The
Ophelia
didn’t actually lose many lives, but in the weeks that followed we were so pampered in the city of Arcot that many chose to stay. The city, once cleaned up, was beautiful, and we spent a lot of time on deep carpets, eating curry fed to us by beautiful girls in colorful silk saris. I’ll be honest, it was hard to leave, and not everybody was willing to go. We lost more men to the beautiful young women of India than we lost to Robert Clive’s soldiers.

I found the crew also spent a lot of time selling things they’d stolen in 2006. Flashlights, iPods, sneakers, you name it. Despite the fact that these goods were not paid for in my time, I suppose this is an honest trade route. Trading through time; buying products where they are common, and selling where they are scarce is the essence of “trade”. And this trade became a big part of how we paid for things we weren’t given. Selling antiques, or future-artifacts to another time became part of our business. Still, a little voice quietly whispered in my head,
don’t let Calgori find out.

After a month we finally departed, and by this time some of our crew had been replaced with brave young lads from the city. Next to the sunburned and scarred pirates we now had brown skin, turbans, punjabi-pants, and curved scimitars next to the long straight British blades. They all joined us on our quest through time to right the wrongs of Mankind.

We continued month-after-month, looking through history books we had taken to find injustices of the past. We’d then travel back to a time when we were technologically superior to our opponents, and we’d snuff out the injustices we saw there. Time after time we would eliminate misdeeds, and time after time would we wipe the tarnish from history. Preventing scabs by stopping the wound from occurring.

People from those times and cultures would join us and add to our crew, which in turn added to our knowledge of history and to our ability to overturn wrongs we saw in the past.

We had become some sort of super-chronological heroes; at least in our own eyes. We had more success than failure, but there were plenty of embarrassing moments. The longer we “helped” the more often we’d encounter people who didn’t want our help.

Also, I was beginning to see that heroics requires a forced naivety. I’ll explain:

Imagine a hypothetical valley with one river and two parched cities who need the water. If one city diverted the river to save its people and crops, the other city would go without water. This deprived city would in turn fight to survive. War.

“Why not share the water?” you might ask. Well, in this hypothetical struggle, imagine there was only enough water for one city’s people and crops. Who, then, is the villain, and who is the damsel to be saved? It became harder and harder to find an obvious “right side” to defend, and we learned that most often both sides were right.

It felt like heroes weren’t wanted, or welcome. And sometimes it felt like we’d force ourselves to choose one party’s perspective, just for the rush of ending the week feeling like heroes again.
Try not to think about that other city.

As far as the crew went, things were tense. Deep inside I now carried the bitterness of their threatened mutiny, and a fear I would do or say something wrong that would bring it out again. I made the crew “vote” on everything, and I wouldn’t even voice my opinions, for fear of what would happen if they disagreed with my vote.

I was still called “Captain” but often I wondered if it was said ironically. It seemed the term “captain” now meant, “someone to handle all the uncomfortable decisions nobody else wanted to think about, and someone to take the blame when things went wrong.” I certainly didn’t feel I was in charge anymore, or got credit for our successes. I seemed only responsible for negative outcomes. If I gave an order it was followed…but only if they were going to do it anyway. If they didn’t feel like doing it, they would give me a weak excuse of why they didn’t like the idea, and walk away.

I was captain, it was
supposed
to be my choice, but it stopped feeling like I even had a say.

Things with Lilith started to get a bit better. I think she was enjoying her victory. I tried to pay more attention to her, since it was that or wait for her to stage another possible mutiny. The result was she calmed down a bit. She befriended Kristina, and hung out with the two of us often.
Yeah, fun, right?

This was not enjoyable for me. It’s not that she wasn’t clever, or witty, or fun to be around. It’s just that I felt like I was walking on eggshells filled with gunpowder: step too hard, and we all would die.

One evening, as I was piloting the late shift through a bank of thoroughly drenching clouds (toward a city we were told would have replacement canvas for our sails and gas bag) Kristina, Lilith and I stood on deck. Lilith had drawn some sketches of some ideas she had. Plans she was making for our next mission, things she thought would make the airship more stable. Plans that really didn’t sound like they were going to work, but I nodded and smiled and said, “Sure, we can talk about this with the rest of the officers, and see what everybody thinks. Lets see if Calgori likes that idea, that’s sort of his call, but I think it looks great! Nice work!” I tried to make it sound as if I liked the ideas, without committing to any of them. I tried to always agree, while neither committing nor condescending. I didn’t want to crack the egg and loose a foot.

Finally, Kristina got tired. She’d stopped responding to the endless soliloquy of self-aggrandizing, yet worthless, ideas pouring out of Lilith. All at once, in the middle of one of Lilith’s sentences, Kristina blurted, “I’m tired, I’m going to bed”, and she tromped below deck.

This was uncomfortable. I was now on my own, to walk over the explosive eggshells by myself. I couldn’t excuse myself since someone had to steer the boat.

She went on explaining her ideas, verbally patting herself on the back for things either the rest of the crew had already thought of and dismissed, or would never agree to attempt. While talking, she leaned in close to show me her sketches under the lamplight.

I zoned out. I started to become acutely aware of everything but what she was saying. I could hear the soaking wet lanyards creaking as the ship slowly rocked back and forth, swinging from the airbag on which it hung. I could feel the canvas of my pants sticking wetly to my thighs, the sleeves of my coat sticking to my arms. I could hear the mild hissing and popping of the propane lantern above me, as it struggled to push light through the fog. And I could feel Lilith’s chest press against mine…And then it happened.
She kissed me!
She kissed me, right on the goddamn mouth! Just when I was slipping into a beautiful zen moment of ignoring the crap out of her, she slipped up into the space between my arms and the captains wheel, and that size 2 Judas kissed me!

I let go of the wheel and took a couple steps backwards, “What the hell was that?” I blurted out “Are you trying to get me into trouble?”

“No”, she said, skillfully pouty.

“Then what the hell was that?”

“Well,” she paused, probably noticing the horrified look of a trapped animal that was carved into my brow. “I made a pact with myself. I decided I would have no more regrets in life” she said in the same polished and self-aware tones she always used, as if she had rehearsed all her lines weeks before performing them.

“But I thought you hated me?” I said, still horrified. “You
told
me you hated me! You told the crew you hated me!”

“That’s the problem. I think I liked you
too
much.” she said.

“Bullshit,” I wasn’t buying this. “Look, I’ve been very nice to you. Whatever you’re doing right now, I don’t deserve it. I haven’t done a damn thing wrong to you.”

“You don’t believe me?” she pouted again, stepping toward me. “You don’t believe I’m infatuated with you?”

“No, I sure as hell don’t,” I said resolutely, stepping backwards into the mast.

But then an odd thing happened. She started to get red in the face. Somewhere under that perfectly controlled persona a
real
emotion was forming. This might be one of the first non-rehearsed displays I’d ever seen from her. Anger, sadness, possibly even embarrassment? Whatever emotion was about to show, it was giving me a hint of pity.