Robert Mason - Chickenhawk - Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

The dolphins stayed with us for half a day and moved off toward the southeast, to wherever they’d been going before they met us. I had the feeling we had been a kind of dolphin tourist attraction, a diversion on a long trip.

At sunset, a cruise ship passed us, coming to within a hundred yards of the Namaste . I got out the binoculars and watched a young couple standing at the railing, dressed in their cocktail-hour clothes, holding drinks. The guy waved, the girl looked at us with concern. We must have looked awfully tiny to them. We certainly felt tiny. Each of their twenty lifeboats was twice as big as the Namaste. The Love-Boaters walked around on their gyro-stabilized, speeding behemoth like they were partying on the front lawn of a country estate—tent pavilions, strings of glittering lights, waiters, guests sipping martinis and chattering about business and sex. We were sailing at seven knots, but the cruise ship passed us like we were anchored. “Dammy,” Ireland said. “How does something that big move that fast?”

The wind held steady and strong for two days before it began to slacken. We slowed to three or four knots in the middle of the Caribbean. Still running with the wind, the relative wind—the breeze we felt—was almost gone. The sun began to fry us. It was difficult to believe that just two weeks earlier we were freezing in Jacksonville. Now we were trying to stay cool wearing swimsuits or nothing. The resulting sunburns made us feel even hotter.

On Christmas day, we made a special meal: noodles, peas, and canned chicken. I read the letter Patience had dated for Christmas:

… and I suppose you found a tree to decorate somewhere in the ocean? Ho, Ho. (Christmas humor) I miss you more than I can stand. I missed you even before you left. This is the second Christmas you’ve missed. Don’t let it happen again! I love you. P.

Yeah. Christmas in Vietnam. Now this. The two events seemed related. Both were in the tropics; both happened while I was on missions I didn’t want to be doing. I felt lonely for Patience and Jack. I felt like a failure. If I was any kind of provider, I thought, I wouldn’t have to make them put up with brainstorms like this one. I resolved that I’d make up for it after the trip.

The trip was my panacea. Every problem I had was going to be solved with thirty thousand dollars. I’d have time to write; we’d be able to pay off the car; I could add on a small addition to the cabin so Jack would have his own room; we needed a new well. Thirty thousand would cover all that with plenty left over. The scammers kept saying: Wanting; having. I wanted lots of things; I was going to have them; if we could just make this work.

Early the next morning I was alone on watch. I stood on the rail amidships, holding on to a stay, leaning over the sea. Warm water splashed my feet. I was naked, and the sun was already hot on my skin. I was brown now, acclimated. I felt like I was born to live here. It was a glorious feeling, bare sun-browned skin caressed by tropical winds, sprinkled with sea spray. I felt like a dolphin must feel—the sea moved by fast, foaming, and I felt like I was swimming, gliding effortlessly through the water. I was part of it—the water, the sky, everything. It was spiritual. I felt a golden glow flood through me and, suddenly, I had an erection. Like those dolphin guys had the day before—a hard-on for life, I guess. The thing just popped up, jutting out in the breeze, wavering over the sea. A couple of quick strokes was all it took. I watched my froth fall back as the Namaste sailed onward. I looked at the spot for a while, expecting to see Venus rising from the sea, standing on a giant clamshell, wrapped in golden hair, her hand postured modestly. She never did. You have to be Zeus to pull that one off.

By the fourth day out of Saint Thomas, John was getting jumpier. He took to scanning the horizon with the binoculars much of the time. He was Captain Ahab looking for Moby Dick. In the afternoon he called out that he saw a ship. As we got closer, we could see it was a three-hundred-foot rusty freighter cruising across our path, sailing northwest. As we watched, though, it changed course abruptly and began coming toward us.

“I don’t like that shit,’’ John said. He went below and fetched the Winchester.

When John came back up with the rifle, he levered a round into the chamber. “Who do you think they are?” I asked.

“Don’t know. But I don’t like the way he changed course all of a sudden. Pirates use boats like that.”

Pirates. That got my attention. We stood on deck, hanging on to stays, and stared at the boat coming our way. It was steel, long as a football field. How on earth could you defend yourself against that? One rifle against a steel ship? That’s like pissing on a forest fire. “Should we go overboard if they attack?” Ireland asked.

“Wouldn’t do any good, Ramon,” John said. “They’d either shoot you in the water or just leave you to die.”

I see us firing a few ineffectual shots against their hull to warn them off. Ping. Pong. They open up with a fusillade of rifle and automatic weapons fire. We duck below and lie on the deck as the bullets crash through the cabin. Then it’s quiet and we know they’re alongside, getting a line on us. We feel the Namaste bump against their hull. We hear them jump on deck. Footsteps run fore and aft. A shadow appears at the hatch. John blows one of them away as he comes down the ladder. Pow! The guy screams. We hear a loud shout and some angry muttering. There’s a long silence. Then we hear the forward hatch opening. We have two entrances to cover and one gun. Then a shotgun pokes in through the cabin skylight above us. I feel weak as it explodes.

Ireland and I looked at each other. The ship now bore down on us, closing the distance between us, fast. I felt the butterflies of fear fluttering in my stomach. I’d gotten shot at a lot in my life. I didn’t like it. And out here, no door gunners, no help available, I felt naked. I looked down. I was naked. I went below and put on my jeans so I’d at least not be humiliated as well as killed. I came back up and stared at the ship. It was near enough to see that no one had painted it in years. It was solid rust. A bilge pump worked hard, pouring a constant stream of water out the side, just above the waterline. The ship was close enough to see a name on the bow, but there was no name. John might be right.

“Can’t we call them and make a deal?” I asked.

“These guys don’t make deals, Ali. They don’t have to.”

“This is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“What do you mean?” John said.

“We come down here. We know there’re pirates everywhere. And we have no way to defend ourselves? What kind of plan is that?”

John glared at me and looked back at the freighter. We saw a crewman waving from the bow of the ship. He wasn’t waving for us to stop, he was just waving. The ship continued past us without slowing. When we hit its wake, the Namaste bucked and we started laughing.

“False alarm,” John said.

“I wonder why they did that. Change course all of a sudden.” I said.

“They were pirates,” Ireland said. “But then they got up close enough to see the awesome Ali and the mean Ramon and the beeg fucking Juan! Scared shitless! Waity, say the pirate capitan , too much for us pirate guys. We boogie, find easier pickings up north.”

Since he had the gun loaded, John decided to start shooting at stuff in the water. He tossed empty beer cans ahead of the Namaste and blasted them with the rifle as they came back past us. We all took turns, killing bottles, cans, anything loose. Blam! Blam! What fun. Bring on those fucking pirates! We shot up about thirty rounds before John put the rifle back in its case and stowed it under his mattress.