Captains Outrageous (4 page)

6

I
T WAS A PRETTY INTERESTING WEEK
. I paid off the little bit I owed on my worthless truck, had my stitches taken out, went by the hospital late morning to see if I could look in on Sarah Bond, and they let me. She had just been out of intensive care a couple of days, still in serious condition, able to see visitors, but not long.

I slid in there and saw her sleeping. Her head was swollen, her face was dark blue, and her lips were puffed and cut and there were stitches all over and wire contraptions and tubes and such. Her hair was oily and pulled up and clipped. A portion had been shaved and in that spot was a red swelling in the shape of a boot heel. Her eye was patched over with a large gauze pad.

It hurt me to see her.

“Thanks for coming by.”

I turned. It was Elmer Bond. He was entering the room, had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit this day, a colorful tie, a kind of off-color white shirt. He looked like what he was worth. Several million bucks.

“Elmer,” I said. We shook hands.

“She’s actually much better. They keep her pretty doped. The pain. Then she’s got to deal with the recovery, therapy, you name it. It could go on for a damn long time. Bless her heart. Her mother can’t even look at her. She goes into hysterics.”

“I just wanted to drop by and see her, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be checking from time to time.”

“I kind of wish she was awake,” Elmer said. “I think she’d like to see you. I’ll tell her you came by.”

“Sure. Like I said, I’ll check back. Maybe when she’s out of the hospital. Now that I think about it, it’s best she doesn’t see me, anything to remind her of the other night might not be so good.”

“She’d want to see you.”

“Give her my best, will you?”

“Sure. You enjoying your time off?”

“Just starting. I’m going to pay off some bills and go on a cruise.”

“Something you’ve always wanted to do?”

“No, not really, but I got talked into it by a friend of a friend. I’m going to take Leonard with me.”

“Have the best time possible. And Hap …”

“Yeah.”

“You ever need anything. Anything. Come to me. I’ll do the best I can.”

“Thanks.”

“Enjoy every penny.”

“Sure.”

I took a last look at Sarah and went out of there, on down the elevator, out to my car, her shattered image in my head, tears in my eyes. In that moment I wished I had just gone on and shot and killed the cocksucker.

*    *    *

I drove over to Charlie Blank’s place. He was off that day and had invited me to lunch. Marvin Hanson was going to be there. Former lieutenant on the LaBorde police force. He had been in a terrible car accident, then a coma, and had finally come out of it. After months of rehabilitation, he was much better, but in a wheelchair. The only time I’d seen him since the accident was at his house, and he was comatose then. I regularly asked about him, kept up with him through his best friend, Charlie.

After their separation, Charlie had let his wife have the house. He was living in a trailer on a couple of acres he was buying. It was a pretty nice area, actually. Out by the lake with some trees. When I drove over there it was a warm day and Charlie was sitting in a lawn chair by an outdoor grill and a picnic table. Hanson, looking very thin and pale for a black man, was sitting in the wheelchair. He was wearing a baseball cap that said
ASTROS
on it. When he saw me, he gave me a kind of sly grin.

“You and Leonard burned anything down lately?”

His voice was a little weak, and he talked out of the side of his mouth, as if his face and lips were too tired or lacked the muscles to form words.

“No, haven’t had any matches,” I said, shaking his hand, which was surprisingly strong. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I drove my car into a goddamned tree, that’s how.”

I sat down in a spare lawn chair. I could smell meat cooking on the grill.

“What are we having?” I asked.

“Steaks,” Charlie said.

“Man, that’s uptown.”

“Not where I bought this meat. I said we were having steaks, I didn’t say they were any good. I got a feeling this meat might have come off horses found dead at the pony rides.”

“You’re looking pretty good,” I said to Hanson.

“Liar,” Hanson said. “But had you seen me before, you’d know I really am.”

“I did see you before, but you were, to put it politely, sleeping.”

Hanson nodded. “It’s been hell. Good thing about it, me and my wife have reconciled and the feeling’s come back in my dick lately.”

“Then your worries are over,” I said.

“Not quite. I want to have sex, it’s an ordeal to get situated, and though I got the feeling back and the ol’ weenie has got some steel in it, I haven’t got any thrusting power. By the time me and Rachel get set, I’m worn out.”

“He’s getting some tingling in his legs,” Charlie said, getting up to fork and turn the steaks. “That’s a good sign.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“I’m working with a physical therapist, and I’m studying martial arts. Shen Chuan and Combat Hapkido. There’s a guy here teaches both systems to the disabled. I’m a little too weak right now to learn much, but it’s helping me out. It’s building strength in my wrist and arms. My physical therapist recommended it.”

“That’s good,” I said.

“I won’t be going back to work at the cop shop, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Not the least little bit. I wasn’t all that loved anyway.”

“I hear that.”

“And, Hap, I suggest you watch the kind of trouble you get in from now on,” Charlie said, “ ’cause I’m quitting myself. Turned in my notice. A month from now, I’m on my own.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Me and Charlie are forming a business,” Hanson said. “Private Investigations. Charlie’s the legs, I’m the brains.”

“Ho ho,” Charlie said.

“Damn,” I said. “Real private eyes. Charlie, does this mean you’re gonna get sapped a lot and fall into dark tunnels and get laid all the time by strange blondes with long sleek gams?”

“I can do without the sap part,” Charlie said, “but the rest of it sounds all right.”

“You guys are serious?” I said.

“Hanson and Blank, Private Investigations,” Hanson said. “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Blank and Hanson, Private Investigations,” Charlie said, “has a nicer ring to it. Don’t you think, Hap?”

“You’re not getting me in on this.”

“We’ll flip for the name,” Hanson said.

“Not if you’re flipping the quarter,” Charlie said.

“I think that’s great, guys. Really.”

We ate the steaks, a salad, and some bread Charlie had warmed in the trailer oven. They drank beer and I drank ice tea.

Charlie had been joking. It was good meat and well prepared, medium rare with a touch of salt and pepper. We ate, talked, and laughed a lot. When the meal was over Charlie went inside the trailer and made some coffee. Me and Hanson bullshitted a little. Charlie made a couple of trips out. First he brought coffee for Hanson and me. Then coffee for himself and a Tupperware container filled with Hostess Twinkies and cupcakes. “I damn near pulled my thumb out of joint trying to open this damn Tupperware lid.”

“Childproof,” Hanson said.

“Probably,” Charlie said. “You know, I shouldn’t eat this shit, but I got like a serious problem about it. I like it.”

We ate Twinkies and cupcakes and even though Charlie had told Hanson about my adventure at the chicken plant, I told it again, then I told them about the cruise.

Charlie said, “Well, finally, you and Leonard are off to do something where the worst trouble you can get into is cutting a fart in the dining room.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Ain’t it grand?”

7

J
OHN HAD TO
DRIVE
us over to New Orleans to catch the ship. We got there a day early and took a hotel near Bourbon Street and walked along and watched people wander about. I had once been there during Mardi Gras, and the place was nuts. People everywhere, women exposing their breasts, yelling, floats, the whole nine yards. But this night was not a total waste. We did get to see some guys wearing makeup, hear some great jazz music over at Preservation Hall, and we ate some good crawfish at a place called Mike Anderson’s Seafood.

On the way back to the hotel a drunk naked man took a leak against a wall and staggered into a bar and didn’t come out.

“Do you think he just went in and ordered a drink?” Leonard asked.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said, “and I wouldn’t doubt they gave it to him. He’s probably in there sitting at a table sipping whiskey with one hand and playing with his ding-dong with the other.”

“For an old Baptist boy,” John said, “this is just a little too close to Sodom and Gomorrah for me.”

“Yeah, Hap,” Leonard said, “we better get John back to the hotel before he wakes up naked in an alley with a black leather whip handle up his ass.”

We went to the hotel and took our rooms. Me in mine, John and Leonard together. Where we were staying was in the French Quarter, and because of that, we were paying more for location than convenience. The joint was clean and not nearly as primitive as my place, but then again, I was paying one third of my monthly rent for one night in this cracker box and down below I could hear drunks who seemed more than happy to collect like crows and sing show tunes beneath my window.

I even went to the trouble to open my window and yell at them once. One of the drunks, wearing a gold lamé shirt and pants so tight his dick looked like a cucumber in Saran Wrap, looked up at me and said, “Oh, honey, lighten up.”

He was right. I was tense. I also hated hearing those morons sing under my window. He and his crowd moved on, and across the street I saw a tired black prostitute trudging along in a red dress that started just below her navel. Her wig was slightly askew and her shoes looked designed to hurt her. She walked in a manner that didn’t invite business, but appeared more an invitation to a fist-fight. She clicked on down the street and out of sight.

I watched TV for a while and thought about Brett. The last thing I remember was seeing the first fifteen minutes of the remake of
Cat People
and wishing it was the original, and then it was morning.

We met in the lobby, went over and had bignets and coffee at the Café du Monde, and took a short cruise on a riverboat that took us past the place where the tour guide told us
Hard Times
with Charles Bronson had been filmed.

We arrived back at the dock early afternoon, had lunch at a hamburger joint, went back to the hotel, got our luggage and John drove us to the dock. When we saw our ship, the
Sea Pleasure
, sitting in the water against the dock, it was a little disappointing.

“I was expecting something bigger,” Leonard said.

“It’s big enough,” John said.

“Well, it isn’t like on TV,” I said. “You know, like those commercials where everyone is dancing on board and fish are jumping and there’s a rainbow and stuff.”

“It’s a smaller cruise line,” John said.

“You mean cheaper,” Leonard said.

“Does that mean we don’t get the dancing fish and the rainbow?” I asked.

“We get a fish floating belly-up under a rain cloud is my guess,” Leonard said.

“You guys are always such pessimists,” John said.

“That’s because pessimistic things happen to us,” I said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Like our cruise boat is smaller than everyone else’s.”

We were standing outside John’s car with the trunk open. A couple of guys in white steward suits and hats had come over to take our bags. Leonard and I didn’t want them to. Considering we only had one apiece, we figured we could handle it. They stomped off without our bags or the tips we might have given them.

“They look disgruntled,” I said.

“Long as they keep it to themselves,” Leonard said.

Leonard reminded John how to care for his pet armadillo, Bob. Bob had been with Leonard for a year now, and the damn thing was like a dog. It stayed in the house during the day, holed up under the bed or on the tiles in the bathroom right by the toilet. By night Bob roamed the woods and rooted holes in Leonard’s yard. It came when Leonard called and would curl up in his lap. I always liked to remind Leonard armadillos were the only animal that could carry leprosy, other than man, but this had no impact on him. Leonard liked that big armored rat.

“Well,” John said, “have a good time.”

Leonard and John kissed. I felt a little uncomfortable. Two men kissing still sort of jacks me around, especially with me standing next to them. Too much East Texas Baptist background, I guess.

Leonard, knowing this, said, “John, give Hap a little peck on the cheek.”

“No,” I said, holding up a hand. “I wouldn’t want to steal any of your sweetness away from Leonard.”

Leonard cackled and John smiled. Leonard said, “At least we didn’t give each other blow jobs in the lot here. Isn’t that what everyone expects of queers? Blatant sexuality in public places?”

“That, smooth dancing, and interior decorating abilities,” John said.

Leonard and John hugged and kissed again. John got in his car and drove away and Leonard and I hauled our bags into the terminal. We stood in a long line there, showed our passports and papers, got our room key, eventually boarded the ship.

Our room wasn’t quite as small as a Lilliputian clothes closet. There were two very narrow beds and a wound-colored curtain that opened on a solid wall. Since we were in the middle of the ship, I should have expected that, but somehow I had hoped for a porthole and a sea view.

Then again, since I didn’t really like water that much, especially the ocean, I decided I was better off without the porthole. Then I started to wonder what in hell I was doing on a ship. Just reading
A Night to Remember
, I had gotten seasick.

How had I talked myself into this? I had done some dumb things, but outside of agreeing to rescue a whore and kill people in the process, this was the dumbest thing I had ever done.

Well, there was the time I talked Leonard into going to Groveton during a flood to deal with the Ku Klux Klan. And there was the time we tried to get a stolen treasure out of the Sabine River bottoms. My idea again.

Come to think of it, my life had sort of been a series of dumb ideas. Some of them mine, a few Leonard’s. Hell, I had even voted Republican once in a Texas governor’s election.

We put our suitcases on the bed and took out our clothes and hung them in the closet, which was a gap in the wall with a metal bar for a clothes rack.

We put our suitcases in there too. It was a tight fit. We put our shaving kits in the bathroom. I took time to brush my teeth and put the book I was reading, along with my reading glasses, on the nightstand, which was bolted to the wall.

We sat on our beds across from one another. I looked over the itinerary they had given us as we entered the ship.

“Well, here we are,” Leonard said.

“Yep,” I said.

“We haven’t left dock yet, have we?”

“Nope.”

“Are you bored as I am?”

“Reckon so.”

“They have movies on this ship?”

“I read how they did when I got the original stuff from the cruise line, but this itinerary they gave us, I was just glancing through it. Looks like we don’t have movies. Wait a minute. Here’s a few, but you watch them on the TV.”

“TV?”

“I don’t believe I stuttered.”

“I heard they had theaters, regular movies, you know.”

“John tell you that?”

“He did.”

“Did he say they had them on this ship?”

“He don’t know from this ship.”

“There you are. We got the tub of cruise lines. Our luck is still in, Leonard. Only it’s bad luck.”

“Oh well. What are the movies?”

“The Postman.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man.”

“I seen all this shit and didn’t like it on the big screen. I could get my money back on that
Postman
, I would. Least the other one had some good fistfights. Or was it gunfights? It kind of runs together. But that
Postman
, I thought maybe I was in some kind of purgatory with popcorn. Someone had locked the door there would have been suicides. What else is there?”

I read off the two remaining movies.

Leonard said, “That last one sounds promising.”

“It says it has subtitles.”

“God. Next to sitting next to someone wants to talk about crystals and astrological signs and the nature of their diseases, I like subtitles better. But just.”

“French subtitles.”

“Guess that beats subtitles in Ebonics.”

“Hey, we didn’t go on a cruise to watch television or movies, did we?”

“I did.”

“That’s not the proper spirit.”

“What kind of spirit is proper? I thought I’d just hang out, read, and watch movies.”

“You can. On TV.”

“Yeah, maybe one movie out of four.”

“You git what you git.”

“I wanted a big screen, Hap.”

“People in hell want ice water.”

“How long before dinner?”

I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, then the itinerary. “Two hours. You hungry?”

“No. Not really. Anything else going on?”

“Shuffleboard will start shaking in about half an hour.”

“Want to go up on deck?”

“Sure, maybe we can swim back to land before we actually disembark.”

“There’s a thought.”

We locked our cabin, went up a flight of stairs, then another, and finally onto the deck. It was a pretty afternoon out, starting to gray some, but there was still plenty of light. Our ship had started to sail.

We leaned against the railing and watched the New Orleans dock retreat.

“Didn’t a ship run right into this dock once?” Leonard said.

“Yep,” I said. “Couldn’t stop.”

“In a hurry to get back to land, I figure.”

“Think it’s too late to swim for shore?”

“ ‘Fraid so.”

We stood on the deck until the dock and New Orleans were out of sight and the brown water turned blue. Then there was no more dock or New Orleans visible, just the water and our ship pushing into the Gulf and the night coming down soft and the Gulf air sweet with the occasional bite of dead fish, and there was the Gulf itself, washing hard against the ship, washing us steadily with the assistance of a great engine, on out to the deeps.