Caribbean's Keeper (4 page)

Allison stopped him. Another classmate from the academy, she’d been on the ship for two years with Cole, but had worked for the engineering officer. Her choice in jobs was a calculated decision on her part to avoid Walters and she was smart for doing so. Allison was always nice to Cole and watched with compassion as Cole was repeatedly raked over the coals by the command. Most of the junior officers avoided him, but Allison was always kind and could joke around with him after his beatings were through to raise his spirits.

She asked, “Cole, where are you going?”

Cole smiled and looked over his shoulder in the direction of Duval Street. “Potts just fired me. Apparently he had a suitability board behind my back and the Coast Guard opted to let me go. I figure I’ll find a hotel for a few nights then sort things out from there. I’ve got a few months’ pay from the severance, so I’m good for a while.”

Allison gave a slight nod as she pieced together that Cole had just been kicked to the curb.

“Cole, I’m so sorry. Can I do anything?” She asked with a friendly voice and her tone asked much more than a simple question. Cole realized he would miss their friendship and in his last few minutes aboard the cutter, Allison was saying just as much.

“Nah, I think I’m better by myself.”

Allison hugged him and held both his shoulders with her hands, saying, “Come out tonight. You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t.”

Cole knew she was worried about him and agreed to meet later that night. Cole didn’t show it, but he was worried about himself as well. With that, he took one last look at
Delaney
and turned for the pier.

Chapter 2 – The Conch Republic

COLE WALKED DOWN the aging pier away from
Delaney
with his eyes partly focused on the bright blue water of the small harbor, home to the Coast Guard’s fleet of cutters and boats that patrolled the Keys and the Florida Straits. The morning air smelled of salt and subtle hints of gasoline mixed with engine oil carried along by the gentle breeze. A cruise ship’s whistle sounded in the distance, signaling one either arriving or departing from the downtown waterfront, only a 15-minute walk away. He slowed to keep the sweat from building too fast and looked with half-hearted curiosity at the evenly spaced patrol boats tied up pierside. Their white hulls and orange Coast Guard stripes were clean and well maintained, a testament to the orderly discipline of a seagoing military service—the same one that had just kicked him out. Blue fitted canvas covers were lashed down over their deck guns as the small flotilla bobbed gently and baked under the climbing Caribbean sun. Their mooring lines were neatly made up to rusted cleats bolted to the pier, while a radio played country music from inside the garage of the small-boat station as petty officers and non-rates tended to their daily chores. A half dozen or so of them tinkered quietly on an engine of one boat as Cole passed within earshot without saying a word. A resting black lab with tired eyes, the mascot of sorts for the station, looked up at Cole from the shade of a palm tree and rolled over slowly, going back to its morning nap. It was warm, the breeze was light, and the bright sun reflected off the turquoise water and the bleached concrete, forcing Cole to squint as he walked. In so many ways, it was the ideal Coast Guard lifestyle.

From there, Cole passed through the side gate that led to a shortcut downtown. He had come and gone through that gate more times than he could count, often drunk and stumbling back to
Delaney
after a night of partying with the crew. The port calls always came and went too fast.
Delaney
had patrolled for weeks in the Florida Straits, working all hours of the day and night interdicting migrants in everything from homemade rafts to stolen power boats. Their near-daily interdictions were interspersed with the occasional search-and-rescue case that broke the monotony of law enforcement. The crew’s reward for their hard work was Key West for a night, maybe two at most, and only long enough to fill the ship’s tanks with diesel, replenish the food stores, and give the crew a night to blow off steam. The entire crew always worked at a furious pace to finish up the odds and ends of tying up, focused entirely on their first taste of alcohol, loud music, and debauchery that waited for them downtown.

The truth was that Cole felt relieved to pass through the gate again, this time without the looming last call that always signaled his impending return to the ship. Once off the base, he made his way down Trumbo Road, right around a corner, and onto the wooden boardwalk that wrapped itself around Key West’s inner harbor. Most of the party catamarans were already gone for the day. So too were the dive boats, all making their way out to the reef overloaded with amateur divers and their rented gear. The charter flats boats floated quietly in smaller slips next to the boardwalk. Their captains, most devoid of expression, passed the time either sitting at the consoles with their tanned bare feet up on the wheel, or seated on benches along the boardwalk, watching and hoping silently for some business to materialize from the morning foot traffic.

The boardwalk was slowly coming alive, but still quiet as most of Key West’s residents and visitors were asleep or at best slowly working their way to a state of low consciousness. The bartenders were busy cutting limes and lemons, and their bar staff carried cases of beer back and forth, filling up the ice chests before the start of another drinking day. Cole stopped briefly at Turtle Kraals to watch some tarpon swim under the dock and disappear into the depth of the basin before he continued on his way downtown.

It was now approaching 11 o’clock and Cole’s seabag weighed heavy on his shoulder. His back wet with the onset of a good midday sweat, Cole realized he had nowhere to go. The sting of failure and the weight of the unknown once again grew heavy. Ahead was the open-air Schooner Wharf, an oasis of sorts, and Cole knew from experience that its rum drinks were always a good blend. Dropping his bag at the bar, Cole eased himself onto a heavy wooden stool and followed a seam of the wooden bar top with his fingers, his elbows pressed against the rail. Soon thereafter the bartender approached without a word, knowing from the expression on Cole’s face that he was there for business.

“Rum and Coke please, with a lime.”

The bartender, a slender older woman with a leathered face and unkempt hair, looked at him for a moment before replying with a coarse voice, “Honey, we call that a Cuba Libre around here.”

Part biker chick and part hippie, she smiled as Cole acknowledged with a smirk, “I’ll have one of them as well then, please.”

She brought his drink in a small white plastic cup and a wedge of lime rested atop the mountain of ice now stained dark with a bubbling blend of Coke and spiced rum. Cole squeezed the lime and drizzled its juice over the ice, stirring with his pointer finger. Taking a mouthful for his first sip, Cole held it for a moment, relishing the burn of rum and the fizzle of soda, before swallowing and setting the cup back down. Nearly a third of the drink was gone. He looked slowly over each of his shoulders, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Key West. It had a certain charm to it, a mystery that never quite revealed itself until one was dizzy from drink and burned by the sun. All too often it came as a fleeting moment of clarity amidst a drunken haze, and was all but lost by the next sip. Key West’s allure was addictive and, with drink in hand, Cole had his first fix. The bartender brought him a second without asking and Cole took well-spaced smaller sips, taking his time as the rum warmed his core and slowed his worried mind. His momentary mild panic eased to a passive bliss as the rhythm of Key West became increasingly louder.

Almost an hour had passed. The crew from
Delaney
would be on Duval Street by now. The bars along the boardwalk that Cole loved so much were an afterthought for them. They wouldn’t reach the Schooner Wharf until well after midnight, as they made their way back to the side gate. Cole liked the inner harbor more than Duval Street and always tried to steer the party crowd there earlier in the night, rarely with any success. He thought Duval Street, while an experience in itself, was more a sideshow than the real Key West. And so Cole sat, content among strangers, for a few more hours as he tended to his dizzy mind.

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The sun passed overhead and worked its way west in choreographed fashion for the sunset party at Mallory Square. Cole paced himself, managing the rum on his brain and making small talk with the passing patrons that came and went throughout the day. Feeling the first hint of late-afternoon air, Cole settled his tab and slung his sea bag over his shoulder once more. Past the boardwalk, he finally hit Duval Street. The uncontrolled chaos of Key West was bursting with energy. A cruise ship, two perhaps, were most certainly tied up as sun-burned tourists nearly stumbled over top of each other while sipping fruity drinks and making their way from bar to bar. They wore straw cowboy hats, flower-patterned bathing suits, and Hawaiian shirts. Pure joy beamed from their faces as they soaked up each warm second of a vacation they had probably been waiting on for months.

Intermixed were the Key West regulars—misfits in normal society who had run from all over the country to call the Conch Republic home. They moved with purpose, towards their shifts as bartenders, bouncers, strippers, and entertainers. Their faces wore years of hard living, and not yet on the clock, they made no effort to hide the toll of decades under the sun with substances running through their veins. Cole slowed amidst the human traffic and ducked inside the lobby of the La Concha hotel. The front door closed behind him, the sounds dissipated, and the tidiness of its lobby was a study in contrasts. The air conditioning almost gave him a chill as it cooled the beads of sweat on his chest and back. Walking up to the desk he asked about a room for a few nights. The receptionist smiled, swiped his credit card, and sent him on his way with a plastic room key in hand. Up an elevator and down the pastel-themed hallway, he opened a door and walked into his dark room. Dropping his sea bag on the floor next to a king-sized bed, Cole opened the curtains overlooking Key West.

The room was silent. Floors below, Duval Street was booming. The bars were blasting reggae and Jimmy Buffett and top-40 dance songs. People were drinking, screaming, yelling, and thinking to themselves that this must be heaven on earth. Farther down the road, performers were taping together their makeshift stages at Mallory Square, hoping to God that the impending audience would be generous with their tips. Bartenders were busy shuffling back and forth, filling the never-ending orders for drinks and bar food. From his room, Cole felt nothing. There was no rush, no sense of urgency to quell his thirst, no need to hurry for anything or anyone. It was far removed from
Delaney,
and he relished the feeling. He looked forward to sleeping for hours in that bed, with its clean linen and warm comforter. He walked over to the thermostat, cranked it down a few notches so that he would sleep well under all the blankets, and picked up his sea bag.

Dumping it out on the bed, he took the few sets of clothes he had with him and put them away in drawers and hung the button-down shirts on hangers. He had six t-shirts from
Delaney
, each a faded blue with the crest of the ship over the left breast. Folding each up the same way he’d been taught at the academy, he put them away in drawers as well, and then tossed the sea bag over in a corner. With a brief respite from the madness of Duval Street, he found himself drawn back into it and the clean cool fragrant smell of the room seemed too artificial for his liking. The bass of a dance song was a faint bump in the distance, and Cole headed back down to the madness.

Walking again through the lobby, he passed through the front glass door and stepped out into the noise and the smells. Not too far down Duval Street, he took a secluded corner seat at Fogarty’s and ordered the fish tacos, a dish he ate each time the opportunity presented itself. Sipping on a rum drink, he ate quickly and in silence, having not eaten anything since a bowl of cereal on the messdeck earlier that morning before his last watch. The moment wasn’t lost on him. Like a prisoner freed from jail, this meal tasted better than any he’d had before. Cole had eaten the same plate dozens of times, but on this occasion it lifted his spirits.

With his belly full and his teeth numb from the booze, Cole settled his bill and descended again into the absurdity of Duval Street, ready to say good-bye to his shipmates and occasional friends from
Delaney
. They were easy to find at Fat Tuesdays. More than a dozen Slushee machines churned behind the bar, each a different color but remarkably similar in taste after one had consumed enough of them. The dozen or so junior officers were in the middle of the bar like a pack of wolves devouring a young deer. Walking up the steps, Cole laughed to himself at the sight of them, already drunk and smiling like it was the best night of their lives. He saw in them a new camaraderie. Perhaps it had been there all along. The thought saddened him for a moment, but he pushed it aside and put both his arms around Wheeler in a gentle headlock of sorts, as the whole crowd seemed happy to see him alive and smiling.

Wheeler hugged Cole with strong arms and shook Cole’s shoulders after he let go.

“Brother, I owe you for the apple thing.”

Cole shrugged, “Don’t sweat it man. I was screwed either way.”

Wheeler looked down to hide his discomfort before replying, “You got a bad deal on this one Cole. I would have done the same thing off Colombia.”

Cole laughed, saying, “No you wouldn’t, Wheeler. You don’t make my kind of mistakes.”

Wheeler hugged Cole again and they both smiled, then turned back into the fray. Cole took solace in Wheeler’s appreciation.
If only the past two years had gone that way
, he thought.

The party went on through the night. The crowd meandered down and back up Duval Street, stopping sometimes for ten minutes and other times for two hours. Beers intermixed with rum drinks passed from hand to hand and Cole enjoyed his last night with the wardroom. Potts, Walters, and OPS were nowhere to be seen, and Cole’s former shipmates let their guard down a bit around him. But even as they smiled and laughed as friends, underneath it all was an unspoken distance between Cole and his former shipmates. They all knew he’d just been kicked out. And as the bars began to shut down after midnight, Cole found himself on the receiving end of half-assed high-fives and handshakes. Allison gave him a long hug and wished him all the best, and Cole knew she meant it. He thought for a moment to try and kiss her, but things were confusing enough so he fought off the urge. He preferred her friendship over drunken lust. Under the lights of a sidewalk painted with neon signs, Cole parted ways and walked alone back to La Concha.