Terese Svoboda - Pirate Talk or Mermalade

Coals!

Just a quick burn.

My leg.

As soon as I have you trussed, I’ll toss the leg over and goodbye, just like that. Goodbye in the dark and good riddance. Then I’ll steal the bo’sun’s false leg if he hasn’t rolled off, and make you a new one, bye-the-bye, to fit. A leg you can jew up a dance on the spot for the ladies — but hold still now and stay quiet and quit that bleeding.

Four hundred gold pieces?

If there be a pirate left to pay you for the leg. The ship be ours now, and all its little treasure to split between us. There’s a squall in the dark that’s coming for us, but the sails still be strong. We could be in for a flip.

The ship’s leaning on her shoulder already, the fish will be climbing my boots by dawn.

Boot.

Aye, the one.

The ship sails itself.

Having to haul the fly-besotted enemy overboard, it’s another offense against us.

They could’ve left the charts.

They could’ve left the sails unslashed, the rigging primped and the rudder sound.

Where are we? We’ll never see our shores again in this drift, unless we are taken and hanged.

Hanged.

Will you shut that parrot up?

Hanged.

Hold the beak.

The governor himself sat with Shanks and Luggams, and refit their ship in sight of Boston harbor. I heard the mate tell of it.

Home is not Boston harbor.

If we could but steer home.

It’s not so far off when it comes to measuring from sea to sea.

A visit home is your grave day.

O’Maury, O’Mallory, they grow their own crosses—

They sit on the shore a-counting their losses

The lassies come begging with boils on their -

And still you keep dancing

And still you keep jigging

Praising the glory of the Cutlass King’s lashes.

You made that up.

I made it up while Luggams slept, and sang it in my sleep while he forbade it. I love to sing. I learned from Ma’s husband, the sixth.

Hanged.

You know, in another week, I’d have had a solid gold cutlass. We were going up against the King of Cutlasses in a week, the great pirate of España with his knives of gold.

Soft knives, that, in solid gold.

Oh, yes, he would have been our next except you had to practically bleed to death, wriggling round the deck like a briney shrimp, chasing me with your leftover leg.

Shrimp, never.

Hanged.

I’ve heard of a parrot that could recite all the rivers in Africa.

There’s enough talking between the two of us.

But if you were to—

I’m not dead nor drowned in the drink yet.

Tis’ a fine leg I made for you, yours is. It’s the table that’s not much anymore.

I fear my stump is spoiling. Even the spoils you took are spoiled.

That ham they had!

The velvets stood up with mold.

I look nice enough in them, my stitchery done best without the wash of blood.

Butchery, not stitchery.

Hanged.

Shut up! Shut up! I can’t stand it.

Our dead foe taught it, to lash himself with warning.

“Save the cook” is better. That’s what I’d teach it. Every time before I stick someone, I ask Cook? first, not brother.

A spate of brothers and all of them like you, with your time pieces a’rusting, and foul, desperate boats.

Hanged.

Brothers all, brothers who will make you drink seawater soon enough.

You knew that would bring up the pearls. They were all I had from two years of repairing watches. Now all I have is my leg, the lost one, swimming beside the ship. Would that it would guide us.

By the by, you are free now. Free of the pirates’ hold.

Free to die? I swore, didn’t I?

Hanged. Hanged.

It’s a smart one, to fly off so fast as that.

You should never have released it.

It’s taken such a liking to you. Pretties your shoulder.

Begone! Begone! It’s just waiting to see if I die of my leg. A bird of prey.

The game then, before it returns.

Black teeth — Queen of spades.

Blind eye — My deuce.

Nine o’ hearts — Pegleg.

Bit pecker — Double sixes.

Fiver — Hook hand.

Pieces o’ eight.

You win.

At least the bleeding’s stopped.

Pull down the canvas to shade me. I hate all fish though I could swallow a white-fleshed one now, I could.

Hanged.

It’s just come back to check on your leg.

Hand me the poker. With the cutlass and the redhot poker, I’ve got twice the chance of killing it.

Take care, your leg’s not — and the wallow of the boat—

Never mind the leg. I’ll get it, I’ll get it. It’s not so high that I can’t — with this poker—

Watch out! The deck there — the rope—

Once more — I’ll get it sure this time, I will — If I have to hear its gallows’ talk once more, I’ll—

You missed by a length.

I’ll throw this belaying pin at you too, I will, if you don’t stay quiet. I think I nicked the wing of it. A nick and a jab, it was, and a good one with the poker. You don’t see the bird now, do you?

I don’t see the poker neither.

I would sleep but the pain — every wave jolts it — I can’t abide the pain in my leg. Or what it once was.

Calm yourself. You’re bleeding again.

That is not the death smoke that the priest makes, smoke traveling from the far yonder of the boat?

Not incense, no. But smoke it is. Where did you throw that damned hot poker?

Not far enough, not overboard. I can see the fire rising.

I love an island.

I love an island with a bit of wood on it.

Yes, we could use a bit of wood, deserted and empty as it is.

With my leg burnt to ash, I think of wood more than you, I ponder quite a bit over wood.

I would have paddled my own soul to heaven and back for you to get at the wood of our skiff but it drifted. I pressed hard at the oars but our boat stood still with you screaming Fire! of your leg.

I was afeared you had forgotten me.

It was enough to drag your sizzling leg ashore with that cutlass trying to drown us both. Who could see the bloody shore for the smoke of the boat burning and your leg? I couldn’t. I was glad for the island, happy for dawn at last.

It’s not just the dunes, the dunes suck down the prince of legs, it’s this stick I suffer forward on, this twisted length of rotten driftwood you think is so bloody perfect.

You wouldn’t want a leg of palm. The Queen’s ton it would be. Real wood will float in from the boat. Just wait.

I’ll crawl from one end of the island to the other, from leeward to windward, that’s my waiting. Cannibals wait, I can’t.

You are an idiot.

Tis true. Soon enough a lost shrike or a pigeon or that Hanged will come flying over the island and instead of eating the seed in its beak like a glutton after all its flying for days and days with nothing at all for food, it will drop its seed over a soft patch of sand where the seed will take root and sprout and then branch over our heads to make a place for the gluttonous bird to rest in after all his flying for days and days. Just for me a fine leg will be grown from the tree which we’ll then saw down in great haste, having waited as we must, fully for twenty years, but having eaten the bird some years back.

Sea almonds! Wherever I step.

I thought they were stones of a rough sort, hampering my way like every anthill and crack.

Your cutlass could break them open if I could but use its rubied hilt or its broadside.

It is all I have, in protection — and to practice my carving. We must get a gull to drop these almonds from high onto a rock.