The Mentor (29 page)

And, there
was no way my hidey-hole at the entrance of the crate maze would be very safe
much longer.  Whizzing between the boats and the crates were four rough
terrain forklifts.  Had I not seen these types of vehicles close up some
years ago during a brief stay in Florida, I would have guessed them to be some
sort of fortified Jeep.  Each looked as though it was built from iron,
with an open cabin, no roof but a high canopy made from steel beams.  If
memory served me, they could lift nearly three tons.  These guys meant
business.  And sooner or later, one of those big beach-eaters was going to
head my way to pull one of the crates I’d seen stacked in a small, short wall
on the other side of the road.

I’d come in
at the north edge of the uncharted, crude port, most of the activity taking
place on sand and concrete (where one ended and the other began was anyone’s
guess) up and to my left.  Just south of me, there was a recess in the
crate wall—a concession to a small cluster of trees that had avoided
destruction.  That seemed like the only choice available to me that would
provide at least some cover.  

The sand
groping at my bare feet, it wasn’t a very long run, probably fifteen yards, but
it felt like an eternity.  I didn’t dare turn to look toward the docks,
the machines or the shouts of the men because my pale face would probably glow
like a lighthouse in the dark.  

Shuffling
along faster as fear gripped my chest and throat, all I wanted, was to be
hidden in that burst of trees.  Yet, as I got within a couple yards,
forcing myself to take deeper breaths, a most disturbing sensation was making
its way down my nose and throat.  But terrified of being captured, I
didn’t dare stop and instead dove between skinny trunks.

Thankfully—
and these are the moments that even an atheist might wonder what sort of
benevolent entity had been watching over them—I didn’t fall and roll or land
face first on the horribly rank and sodden ground.  My knees and feet took
the brunt of the slop of sewage below me.  

Momentarily
wrapping myself in denial, my mind began creeping toward the realization that
the Port-o-let salesman had not yet penciled this particular workplace into his
long, circuitous route, so it came to be that this lush patch of trees, bush
and grass had become the leaning post of many ‘a men.  

And, I'm no
one to judge, but these guys needed to back off the dairy a bit.

Moving fast
but gingerly deeper into the darkness and away from the more spongy parts,
gagging from the smell, I began to wonder if, in fact, these trees had been
here originally… or if the sudden collection of moisture and fertilizer had
prompted their growth.  There was no way for me to tell how long the
slapdash port had been there, but the skinny trees could be no more than a few
years old.

Creeping
along slowly, my hands found the back wall of the small cavity and moving
across its edge, I stopped when the boats were visible again. Taking few
chances, I barely inched my head out to scan further down the beach for another
place to hide that was, say, less shitty, but then I froze as voices began to
come closer.  

In less
than a second, my back was pressed against the rear wall again, and I crouched
lower to the ground where there was less light, bringing the essence of the
make-shift potty closer to my nose.  My stomach began to turn somersaults.
 Luckily, I hadn’t eaten in a very long time.  In fact, over the past
few minutes I’d been hit with a cold light-headedness, which indicated either
my blood sugar was in the cellar or an allergic reaction to the effervescent
bouquet of poop perfume.

There were
three of them, chattering away as they came up to the tree-potty.  My
nerves would have been flailing like kite streamers had it not been for the
fact that, now steeped in fermenting sewage, my brain had begun shutting down
many of my unnecessary systems.  The focus now was simply not to pass out.

My head
down, hands tucked under my armpits, I listened, trying to pick words out.
 It’s tough deciphering a foreign language casually spoken between people
familiar with each other because they don’t really enunciate their words like a
chesty, militant French teacher does.  Oh, to only have Madame Granderson
with me right then.  She of the belittling scowl and tight turtleneck sweater.
 The feel of her disapproving left breast as she leaned against my wanton
shoulder while pointing out my repeated conjugation errors.

A throaty
laugh brought me back to the present crisis.  The three men could have
been arguing or reeling off jokes—I couldn’t really tell yet.

The guy on
the left, less than fifteen feet from where I was squatting in the dark, was
laughing about something.  A couple one-eyed glances told me the other two
didn’t look so happy.

The
cheerful one was heavy, sweat stains on his shirt like he’d tucked a dark green
pillow under each arm.

Closing my
eyes, I concentrated on trying to pick out any familiar French words.  I
heard either “hair” or “horse”—unable to remember which it was.  Then,
“lemon”, I think.  And
recherché
in French: “searching.”

The
tallest, in the middle, pointed at sweaty-fatty, and thankfully enunciated each
word, trying to make his point.

I picked
out “boat” and “money” and “people” and a number, which seemed like it might be
high.  French is a confused and confusing language so when you numerically
get to, say, eighty, there is no “eighty,” per se…. instead you say
“four-twenty”… so when you get into the very large numbers, what sounds like
someone laying into you with a long, nasty admonishment simply turns out to be
the current time and temperature.

Whatever,
he was going on about…

Hold on.
 A big number of, what?  People with money?  On a boat?

It seemed
possible the fat guy was getting ribbed because he had some cushy gig shuttling
people from somewhere along the shore to a yacht or cruise ship, maybe anchored
a ways out.  So, the other guys are hauling bat guano or something and
this smiling dude, he’s hosting Mr. and Mrs. Howell.

While some
of the bits were probably wrong, at least some of it had to be right.
 And, if nothing else, I had a vague idea of what to do next.

New goal:
Follow the jolly mariner and sneak aboard the ship.

Then, when
we get to the boat with the money people, I slip over and give them a story
about getting robbed in town, left with no money and no ID, I call the American
consulate.  

Slightly
elated, it sounded like a minimally serviceable plan, albeit one that at any
moment would naturally go terribly wrong.

When the
three began to stumble away, relieved, the tall one punching fatty on the
shoulder (or possibly wiping his hand), I tried to trace the vector of my guy
to see where he was headed.    

Finally,
something in my favor: my boat was on the far right—beyond it only dark beach.
 That’s where I was going to board.  

Slipping
from the darkness of the trees, I darted low and ran as quick as possible
through the heavy sand back toward the entrance to the crate maze.  A new
and unpleasant squishy sensation between my toes did not slow me as much as it
made me nauseous.  

The boat
wasn’t the smallest there but far from the largest of about a dozen or so.
 It had been moored to a cement platform with cables from its hull
strapped to a row of shimmering dock cleats, listing the boat slightly to one
side.   The vessel had settled a little lower in the water than the
others, and the deck was pretty sparse save a couple of fishing chairs.

There was a
captain’s nest, and it looked like below that could be the sort of area where
cocktails were occasionally served.

Perfect.

Crossing
past my earlier hiding place, I slipped into the near total darkness on the far
side of the crates, then spun around, ignoring the slime lubricating my toes. 
My breath quickened a little at the sight of how far I would have to run before
finally diving into the cover of the ocean water. Easily fifty feet—a long way
to go as hungry, thirsty and exhausted as I was.

The earth
rumbled around me, and the sand on the concrete looked like water splattering
in a greased skillet.  Then—
a roar
— as one of the camouflage
colored, monster forklifts erupted from the crate maze.  Had I been
standing at that spot again, there’d be nothing left of me but a red smear.

That’s when
I saw the beam of a spotlight coming up behind me.

A second
forklift, taking the beach route.

Having just
thanked my lucky charms that I hadn’t been in the maze a moment before, I
quickly swung around and hid at the mouth of it once more. Again, the ground
shook as the vehicle growled, approaching with increasing intensity.

I braced
against the inner crate wall, waiting for it to burst across the sand like the
other had.

But, then
the whine of a hydraulic lift split the air, the plaintive melody against the
rhythmic chords of a diesel engine.  Whatever this guy was picking up, it
was just opposite of where I was standing.   

“So, he’d
be faced… this way, toward the crates,” I whispered to myself.  This meant
there was a chance to get behind the vehicle.  Maybe.

Little time
to think it through, I leapt forward, arched around the stack of crates that
made up the lip of the maze, caught sight of the huge machine working on a
crate with its blazing spotlight focused on work at hand, and rolled across the
sand, into the darkness.  

Now out in
the wide open for the first time, my body was casting long shadows across the
beach, the brilliant moon low in the sky.  In a running crouch, fighting
the heavy sand, my freshly lubed toes no great help, I finally made it to the
rear of the vehicle.

The back of
the driver’s head was just visible above me.  The lift was retracting
slowly, coming back down with its crate, and my options were very few at the
moment.    

There was
no way I could possibly clear fifty feet of beach without being seen.  The
only option, then, was to catch a ride with one of the forklifts.  This
close now, it wasn’t readily apparent how to do that.  There wasn’t much
of an area to grab onto and, seeing how these guys were driving the huge
vehicles at top speeds, I’d need something really solid to get a good grip on
or risk becoming road kill.

My heart
nearly stopped at the sound of the clanking above me and, terrified, I braced
for the impact.

But, the
vehicle didn’t move.  Wincing, I looked up.   

The driver
was trying to light his smoke, but his lighter was shot, so he was banging it
on the metal seat beam by his head.  Trying to beat a flame out of it, I
suppose.

Looking
down from my black-lunged friend, I spotted a metal loop just behind the right
tire.  It was probably used for towing but, to me, it looked a lot like a
handle.

And, with that
thought—and likely because of a lack of water, food, sleep— I bent down and
grabbed it with both of my blackened and scabby hands.

I laced my
fingers around the loop, instantly beginning to second-guess my rash decision—
Wait,
this is, isn’t this..?—
But that line of thinking cut short as he threw the
vehicle into gear, backed up, and I went under the machine.  

Chapter
Sixteen

My
chauffeur was an expert, only reversing far enough to allow his payload to
clear when he turned.  Still, being dragged underneath a belching,
rattling twenty-five thousand pounds across the cold sand was an experience
lesser men would have probably… well, they probably would have been bright
enough not to do it.

Without
even stopping, the machine then jumped forward, and lying there, I watched my
hands pass back over me, then my head and chest lifted from the sand as my body
was folded into two—

“Aw, hell,”
I breathed hollow

—and, at
that point, the only way to avoid being snapped in half was to either let go or
spread my legs as wide as possible.

Inexplicably,
someone in my head decided upon the latter and for the first time in my life,
after years and years of occasional and far less aggressive attempts to
accomplish this feat, I did the splits.

However, as
you might guess, any joy brought about by this accomplishment was mitigated by
the wailing pain of my inner thighs and the curious, yet unconfirmed departure
of my testicles, possibly having taken refuge somewhere inside the body cavity
via my navel.

Seconds
later, I was being dragged behind the vehicle, my bloodless fingers clamped onto
the metal hook.

We were
racing toward the shoreline, the sand biting at my chest and stomach, and the
grit and dust filling the air around me to where I couldn’t even breathe.
 Even in this tiny, diesel generated sandstorm, I held fast, thankful for
the cover of the spray, white-knuckled to the racing machine.

Most people
don’t associate sand with pain.  Sand is the sort of thing you lie in next
to lapping, frothy waves.  Sand is what children make castles from and
occasionally (and, hopefully, just temporarily) bury each other in.
 “Sand” even sounds soft.

Not this
stuff.  Every bump felt like some mob heavy was whacking my ribcage with a
thick garden hose.

After ten
seconds or ten minutes, the driver made a sudden hard bank left and my grip
broke, and I twisted and spun like a figure skater leaping high above the ice
as my body tumbled across the hard sand, the dizzy-vertigo spell shocked to a
halt by the blast of frothy, cold seawater.   

In two feet
of ocean, I maneuvered up to my hands and knees, spitting out snot and
saltwater while fighting the rip current.  Whatever it was, at that moment, I actually
felt truly happy for the first time all day.

“Wow, that
actually worked,” I said—realizing that one would liberally have to include ‘
getting
oneself run over by a small tractor’
in this new definition of ‘worked’—
and crawled slowly through the darkness toward the big boat, only my head
bobbing across the water.  “No way that shoulda worked.”

Getting
closer to the hull of my destination, I tried to pick out if there were any
voices above me.  But as I strained to listen, the cacophony of sound
coming from the beach, along with the roar of waves around me, this turned out
to be an impossible task.  

Bobbing
toward the tail of the boat, once my fingers got to the hull it took a little
effort to fight the will of the current.  There was nowhere to grab onto,
the walls wet and slick, and I was worried about ending up underneath it.  And,
having hit my daily quota for being overrun by motorized vehicles, I focused on
the alternatives. 

At the
stern, there was the ladder I’d hoped for.  My fingers tentatively went
up, grabbing the cold, metal rungs.  Slowly, hand over hand I inched up
onto the boat.

At the top,
I peeked over and saw that my jolly driver was loading a crate onto the deck
with the help of three crew members, each of them dressed in dark green
overalls, no shirts (I briefly wondered if somewhere in West Africa, the
opening act of some low-budget ladies cocktail night had gone missing that very
evening).

The crate
might be diapers or cocktail weenies, I didn’t know.  What I did know was
that everyone seemed focused on the crate so, taking my chance, I snuck aboard
and headed for the first set of stairs downward.

The plan
was, as soon as we went and picked up the passengers (if I’d worked it out
correctly) and they started filing back on, I’d mingle back in and begin
weaving my tale of treachery.  

“
Robbed?
”
they would say, mouths agape.

“
Yes
,”
I’d reply, sipping a clear cocktail poured into a short plastic cup and
brushing my dirty clothes for effect.  “
Took everything.  Well,
everything I had on me
.”

“
Dreadful
,”
some woman would respond.

“
I’m
just happy to have my life and my health, my dear friends
.”

And they
would all nod and we’d get crocked, mulling over this wisdom, bouncing along
the whitecaps, heading back to the comforts of the ship.

But
standing in the dim light dipping below deck into the lower cabin, these
quarters were rather cramped.  How many people could they actually get
aboard this hunk of junk?

Boxes were
stacked, uneven and sloppy, to the ceiling.  The cheap plastic table in
the center of the room, bolted to the floor, was littered with cigarette burns.

“What sort
of operation is this?”

One
particular breaker shuffled the boat, a “bubbly wave” someone recently had described
it to me, and my hand shot out and grabbed the edge of a small cupboard to keep
my balance.

That’s when
I heard footsteps above me, getting louder, coming my way.

My
surroundings didn’t lend themselves to creative ideas about concealment: a
battered old fridge, a skinny broom closet, half-open crates, rags scattered
across the floor… nowhere great to hide.

There was a
small pantry next to the fridge and, voices now accompanying the footsteps
above me, my stomach gave those choices two big thumbs up.   Before the
first foot hit the stairs above me, I was in the pantry, door closed.  

A pantry!

I turned
for a moment and looked at the offerings.  Most of it was unrecognizable.
 One item in front of me was familiar and, somewhat reluctantly, I grabbed
the can labeled “Spam.”

Peeling
back the metal lid, my fingers cut into the fake meat, scooping bits into my
mouth (I didn’t remember it ever tasting so
good
).  I watched as
two men from the deck began hauling in armfuls of supplies.

Supplies,
in this case, would be a polite word for guns.

Bits of
Spam were dribbling off my lip and chin, and I nabbed each salty, oozy morsel,
shoveling them into my mouth.

Maybe these
guys were just cautious.  These were, possibly, standard security measures
for little boats like this in big, scary waters.  At least, if they’d been
bringing food on, I would have likely been caught in the pantry and could have
ended up with a fist thrown into my greasy Spam-face.

More
supplies: grenades, rifles and rocket launchers.  

At that
point, I’d decided a punch in the face would have potentially been a more
desirable alternative.

By the time
I’d half-finished my tasty faux meat, all the little bits were falling into
place (not just the ones on the tips of my fingers).

In fact,
not too long ago, I’d seen CNN reports on this very thing at the tire store.

Sure, we
were
going to a cruise ship.  It seemed that part I’d gotten right.

But there
weren’t any passengers to shuttle from some island party.  No cocktail
weenies.  No clear drinks in plastic cups, no comforting words.

These guys
were pirates.   Pirates with rocket launchers.

We were
headed to a ship to either rob or ransom it.  A boatful of pirates hopped
up on “lemon” “horse” was preparing to rob, kidnap or rob and kill the “money”
“people.”  It was so obvious, now.  Except the “lemon horse” bit,
which I was pretty sure I’d gotten entirely wrong.

Either way,
having escaped African gunmen, then pursued through a sun-scorched village,
becoming a stowaway on a truck traveling high-speed down the worst road ever
constructed and, essentially, being run over twice by an all-terrain fork lift,
I was now going to make it close enough to actually
see
my salvation but
never get to it.

At that
point, my militant shipmates would terrorize the ship, maybe even sink it,
or
the cruise ship was going to whip out some hidden cannon, just under the
lifeboats, and splatter our limbs across the top of the ocean.

Too
exhausted to be scared anymore, I was just happy, for the moment, to have the
Spam.

NAUSEA WAS
BECOMING A factor even before stuffing the fourth or fifth handful of
maraschino cherries into my mouth.  Not exactly sure how much time had
passed, I estimated it would normally take a good fifteen minutes to properly eat
four cans of Spam, a jar of pickled tomatoes (could be onions), three candy
bars, a packet of dry gravy washed down with a pull-top can of chicken broth
and now most the supply of cherries.

A twelve
year-old must shop for these guys.  What I wouldn’t have given for a
turkey sandwich and a lettuce wedge at that very moment.

Sometimes
you have to take the small victories and, as fast as the boat bounced across
the sea, I’m proud to have gotten most of the food in my mouth.  The rest
of the meal, time permitting, I could eat off my shirt.  

My first thought
that didn’t involve food was that the pantry was a very bad place to be for
very long.  Surely one of the pirates would want to come down for a can of
olives or crackers for the parrot.

Then again,
as fast as we were moving, it didn’t seem these were the sort of fellows to pop
down for the quick pre-rape-and-pillage finger-foods.

How was I
going to get off the pirate gunboat with a breath left in my body?  At
least, back on land there were some very horrible options available to me.
 Speeding across whitecaps, there was just the one alternative.  But
going over the edge, even in a raft, would be suicide, so I eliminated that
choice despite the small chance of satisfying my penchant for small, deserted
islands and endless days chatting with best-friend volleyballs.  

The ship
somewhere ahead of us, it seemed, was still my best option. 
Only
option.  However, since joining the crew of Captain Blueballs, it seemed
getting the cabin with the balcony and ocean view on the next ship was growing
less and less likely.

A horn
blast nearly stopped my heart!  

Not like a
Toyota or even a Trucker Abe’s Freightliner.  And, again, something about
it was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.  It seemed those years that had
gone quiet in my mind—the blind spot after the accident— were shaking off some
sort of dampening material and finding their rhythm, their voice, once again.
 I didn’t honestly know if that was a good thing, or if I would regret
remembering some of the things I’d heard but lost for the past few years.

The engine
wail of our boat dropped an octave, and the craft shifted slightly to stern as
it slowed.  It appeared we’d come up close to the target ship, and,
another horn blast, the captain or some keen-eyed crew member was sounding the
alarm.

Another
drop in the boat’s power and for the first time since we’d left the shore, I
could hear the sounds of churning water around us.  Poking the pantry door
open, a little at a time, I finally stepped back into the galley area.
 The dim light swayed above me like a carnival hypnotist’s watch.
 What was the next move?  There was no question that the time for
taking some control over the next few minutes of my life was short.

A voice,
echoing across the water, was amplified by a loudspeaker just above me.  
O.
Captain, My Captain
was barking out angry, hateful words in French.
 Which, sure, sounds somewhat redundant but I know a little of the
language and, thus, am trained to hear the difference.

The pirates
were making their threats and demands.  There were no more than five or
six of them aboard, so the number of passengers-cum-kidnap-victims couldn’t be
more than a few times larger.   Even with their weapons cache, how
many people could a handful of men legitimately hold?  

I sneaked
up the metal stairs and peaked out.  Two men stood on opposite sides of
the deck, rifles across their backs and pistols in both hands.  Between
them, I could just see the top of another man’s head.  Above and behind
me, someone was popping their rifle, as the skipper manned the loudspeaker.

In an
inexplicably sublime moment of calm, I looked up at the deep night sky, and my
breath caught in my chest at the sight of so many stars.  Just beautiful.

A few more
steps up, the two gunmen in front of me laser focused forward, it looked
possible to slip up and whip around to the back of the boat.  I tried to
remember the topside layout, but the constant chatter of threats above me made
it difficult to recall anything.  If I were to sneak out, would the man at
the wheel see me?