The Curse of the Lost White City

by James Gray

  Barker leaned up against the yacht’s tall mainmast and watched as the frame of the gigantic blue travel lift wheeled slowly across the shipyard. It was carrying the new arrival in its straps. Judging by its looks, that two-masted schooner would be in the boatyard for some time. As the crane turned, Barker noticed the small Québecois flag that hung limply off the stern. He scowled. He disliked French Canadians. He had been born in Alberta and was brought up believing that the Québecois were troublemakers. In fact, he didn’t like English Canadians, either. They always acted as if they were squeaky-clean. “Those nice Canadians, aren’t they friendly!” people would exclaim. That made him sick, because they were as bad as the Yanks and even more hypocritical. One thing was certain: He would never go back to the Land of the Maple Leaf and the Beaver, not on his life. Not as long as there was that arrest warrant for tax evasion hanging over his head. Screw that. He was much better off in Honduras, where he was anonymous and free.

  He took another puff of his cigar and went below deck. A dark-skinned Garifuna girl from the other end of town was trying as best she could to tidy up the yacht’s chaotic main salon.

  “Chica,” he shouted over the intolerable whine coming from the Shop Vac that she was pushing around. “Come here, I’ll show you a spot that you missed. It’s in my cabin.”

  The girl switched off the vacuum cleaner and followed Barker along the narrow corridor to the master’s suite. She knew exactly what spot he was referring to.

  THE CHIEF

  “Hey Chief, enough of this slavery for today. The heat is killing me.”

  The Chief was up in the forepeak trying to put some order to the mess of tools that lay on the cabin sole. It had been another long, hot afternoon and we were both thirsty. I went into the galley and fixed two glasses of rum loaded with lime juice and ice.

  “Come on. Let’s go sit up on deck and get some air. Viva Honduras,” I said, and took a long drink of rum.

  “Yeah,” he said, lowering his glass, “that does the job.” The Chief was no stranger to Flor de Caña.

  We talked, catching up and telling stories while the shipyard grew quiet and the night crept in. Now and again, a couple of soldiers would walk by on patrol, each with an American-made combat rifle hanging by a strap over a shoulder. The shipyard or boatyard, depending on the size of the vessel in for repairs, was an essential part of the Honduran Navy and its responsibility to look after, even if half of the boats there were privately owned.

  “You know, I was down here once on a freighter in the seventies,” said the Chief out of the blue. “I had shipped out on a bucket from Halifax. We headed south and delivered half a load of asphalt to Tampico, Mexico, and then came down here to Puerto Cortés and emptied the rest. It was my first real voyage at sea. There wasn’t much to do on board except bang off the old paint with a chipping hammer and cover up the rust with primer. That’s all I did. Most of the guys in the crew would just dream of collecting enough cash to jump ship, but that wasn’t my goal. I just wanted to travel, and was convinced that working on a ship was the best way to see the world. I can remember coming in to Puerto Cortés because I lost my virginity here. I must have been about eighteen and she must have been twice that.” He swallowed more rum. “But after that, I really learned about the female species through trial and error.”

  “More errors than trial I bet,” I said.

  “Well, let’s just say I made a lot of errors, believe me. Now I’ve found a magic formula. Handle with care and in small doses,” he said, and smiled.

  “Like between runs at sea?”

  “Sure, because there aren’t too many hanging out down in the engine room. That’s one of the hard-core realities about working aboard a ship. Even so, I loved every minute of it back then, but after a while, it just turned into a job. You can get lonely.”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,” the Chief said. “But in this boatyard, you’re going to face other problems that are a little more down to earth than feeling lonely. Like getting the job done as fast as you can. Don’t get stuck in this place. It could bring you under.”

  “Here? I’ll be out of here in a few months.”

  “I hope so. But if it starts to get complicated, put Numada back in the water and leave as fast as you can. If not, this whole scene will eat you alive.”

  We talked until evening and slowly ran out of rum and words. I don’t know what time it was when I finally fell asleep, but for a while I kept thinking some more about how the lifestyle I had adopted was maybe more than I had bargained for.

  The gunshots began after midnight. Because of the distinct hollow echo they made, I thought they might be coming from the big hangar at the far end of the boatyard.

  “I’m sure glad your boat is made out of steel. I’m going to lay low,” the Chief whispered.

  He disappeared through the hatch in typical Chief fashion and I sank back onto my own bunk, and the noise slowly faded away. Gazing up at the stars through the opening overhead, I began to meditate on the prospect that I could be stuck in that crazy boatyard for a while so I had just better make the best of it.

  The next morning, a fellow came by. “Hey, Numada, you guys getting set up all right?” Uninvited, the stranger climbed up the long ladder and slipped under the shade of the tarp. “Ronnie Rackman the name,” he said. “I repair boats.”

  “My name is Jacques Legris.” We didn’t shake hands.

  “Jock?”

  “Not Jock, Jacques. It’s French for James.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jock. Are you in for a refit?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m working on a list of things to do.”

  “I know what you mean. Might take a few pages. This boat of yours is sure gonna need a shitload of work. You try to do it with those toys you have as tools and you may be here a long time. I can promise you that. But I have five guys working and I can get more any time I want. And we are fully equipped for any kind of work you need.” He was standing too close to me. “See that?” He pointed a stubby thumb at a dark green motor sailor just ahead. It must have been about eighty feet long. I tried not to look impressed.

  “Big boat, big problems. But who does it belong to anyway?”

  “A businessman in Tegucigalpa. He’s almost never here, but his associate lives aboard full-time — sometimes alone, sometimes with a woman. You’ll meet him one way or another, but it’s better for you if he’s sober.”

  “He sounds like a charming situation. I’ll try to stay out of their way,” I said.

  “You can try, but nothing ever happens the way you want it to around here. You’ll end up meeting them sooner or later.” The guy was standing too close to me; his breath smelled like raw onions.

  “What kind of work are you doing for them?” I asked.

  “Renovation, and lots of it. We’re installing a big watertight hatch on the foredeck. We also took out a few cabins and made a large cargo hold. More practical for hauling things.”

  “A small cargo ship with sails. Good idea. What do they plan to haul?”

  The guy didn’t answer. Just then the Chief came out on deck and rinsed himself off with the hose. “Jesus, it’s hot down there in the hole. Jacques, my man, you have a few minor problems. The engine cooler’s perforated big time; you’ll need a new one.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  The mechanic wiped himself down with a dirty towel.

  “You’ll have fun finding that here,” said Ronnie.

  The Chief turned around.

  “Chief, this is Ronnie. He fixes boats.”

  “What kind of engine are you working on?” asked Ronnie.

  “A Perkins 436M,” grunted the Chief.

  Ronnie Rackman stole a look inside Numada’s main cabin. The floor had been lifted and the top of the engine removed. An impressive cluster of greasy tools, dirty rags and engine parts was scattered about. He whistled.

  “Looks serious.
If you want some free advice, I suggest you consult my diesel mechanic. He could give you guys a hand.” That sounded kind of strange. After thirty years working as a full-time diesel mechanic, there wasn’t an iron horse on the planet the Chief couldn’t repair.

  “No thanks, buddy, I’ll figure it out sooner or later. Trial and error, you know.”

  “Sure, you’re the boss,” Ronnie said without looking at him. I changed the subject.

  “You hear shooting last night?” I asked.

  Ronnie smirked. “Sure did. Some of the boys were talking about it this morning. They caught two gay corporals going at it like hamsters behind the big hangar. Some guys started shooting over their heads for fun. It’s just too bad they couldn’t have wired them up to the grid. At the rate they were going at it, the electric company could’ve made some extra voltage.” He laughed. “Down in this neck of the woods, if you’re queer, you don’t want to get caught out in the open with your pants down, especially on the naval base.” He looked at us both. “You know what I mean?”

  “Not a bit surprised, but don’t worry. We’ll be careful,” the Chief said flippantly as he opened a bottle of water and swallowed half a liter before disappearing back inside.

  Ronnie looked at his watch. “Gotta go, buddy, but by the way, if you ever require some weed or anything stronger, I’m not hard to find.” He started down the ladder, then stopped. “And if you ever want to get laid, I can set you up, too. Women only, though.”

  From inside, the Chief muttered, “What a jerk.” He came back on deck. “Is he really gone?”

  “Yeah, it’s clear.”

  “Good.”

  We sat down and began to size up the work to be done, but Ronnie Rackman was right about one thing: I was going to need a few pages because the list was long.

  “First of all, you’ve got to pull the Perkins and take it over to the shop — where they can take a real look at it,” the Chief told me.

  “Pull the engine?” Shit.

  “Sure, it will be much easier to work on. Besides, once it’s out of there, you’ll have a chance to paint the engine compartment and put in better sound insulation. By the way, you’ll also need a new propeller shaft. This one is ready for the scrapyard.”

  “Ouch.” It sounded painfully expensive.

  “Yep, they’re probably going to have to machine a new one and that will put you back at least a year’s worth of rum.”

  “Are you serious? So at least a grand. Ok, what next?”

  “The engine needs another head gasket and an engine support has broken off.”

  “Yeah, I saw that up north when I stopped in Punta Allen.”

  “There’s plenty of rust underneath the floors as well. You’ll have to do some cutting.”

  “It didn’t look that bad the last time I checked.”

  “It’s bad now, believe me. But this is as good a place as any to get it done. Hope you got some bucks stashed away in your mattress, though, because this is gonna take some.”

  “Yeah, right.” I was trying to stay positive, but long streaks of rust stained the deck. The plastic port lights were fogged with age and needed replacing. The bow pulpit had been bent out of shape as a result of a collision with a dock in the Bahamas. Everywhere I looked, it was bad news. Ahead of me loomed weeks of grinding and scraping.

  “Too bad I’ll be leaving soon,” said the Chief. “You’ll be okay, there are lots of guys around here ready to work. You just have to find the right ones.”

  The Chief pointed at Esmeralda just ahead of us. Our new buddy Ronnie was on deck talking to someone who looked like the boss. He occasionally pointed over to Numada.

  The Chief laughed. “You can always ask that guy.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll find my own crew.”

  It was already midmorning and the temperature was pushing the thirty-six-degree Celsius mark. The air was heavy and still. The only movement was the sea, gently swelling up against the big cement wall that protected the yard. Out in the bay, four huge cargo ships sat at anchor. They were waiting to load up with bananas. Over to the left, two rusted hulks lay half-submerged with only their deckhouses above the waterline. Perhaps they had been victims of a hurricane or had just been dumped there and forgotten.

  As the sun rose, the yard came to life. As we removed the sails from the booms, several young soldiers beat their clothes on a stone and rinsed out the soap with cold water from a tap fixed to a cement sink. Between the abandoned US Navy gunboats, someone had rigged up a long clothesline, and rows of shirts and dark jeans hung drying in the sun. At least the military ships in dry dock had some practical function. The US Navy had built and used this base to train and equip local troops to go in and stop communists from taking over Central America. This was all during the Cold War, when the only good communist was a dead communist. After the deals had been made and the treaties signed, a few hundred thousand innocent victims lay in unmarked graves. As is usually the case when wars end, foreign influences departed, leaving the shell-shocked survivors to try to figure out what the fighting had been all about.

  The Chief’s ten days of vacation seemed to evaporate like a puddle of rainwater after a tropical shower. On his last evening in Puerto Cortés, I decided to take him out for dinner in town. After washing up, we took a taxi to a small Chinese restaurant that the driver had recommended. Inside, the place was empty except for the owner’s family, who ate quietly at the far end. Through a hole in the wall, we saw two guys working around a big iron stove that kept sending small explosions of orange flame up toward the ceiling. We sat down and tried to figure out the menu, but we needed help from the owner, who finally suggested that we try meal number six. Number six seemed to be like number four and number three and even number one. It took a long time to prepare, and twice the chefs almost set fire to the restaurant. We were glad to be sitting by the front door. The only things Chinese about the food were the chopsticks and the fortune cookies. There was even a typo on the Chief’s fortune: It read, Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far.

  “Some kind of joke?” said the Chief, looking perplexed.

  “Don’t look at me. It’s your cookie.”

  My fortune cookie read, Here and Now.

  “Simple enough,” I said, and I slipped the piece of paper into my pocket.

  “Fortune cookies, come on. Let’s get out of here,” said the Chief.

  At around midnight, a gale barrelled in from the north. When the tarps we had strung up to shade Numada began flapping wildly, the only thing I could do was to dash out and cut them away. The boat shook a little, then a lot. My dry-docked schooner was braced by big timbers tied together by a network of heavy nylon rope. There wasn’t much else to do but hang on and hope that the whole thing wouldn’t topple over.

  The Chief was up at first light. He packed his bag. He had a plane to catch and a ship waiting for him in Québec City. All he had to do when he got there was to climb on board, go down in the hole and take care of a couple of huge diesel engines for a few months. The freighter would be doing the milk run from Montreal to Newfoundland. Together we went out to the road and stood in the shelter beside the guardhouse.

  “Well, Jacques Legris, I hate long goodbyes.” At that moment a taxi appeared from around the bend and he flagged it down. “Señor, aeropuerto por favor,” he told the driver. (To the airport please.) But just before climbing in, he turned and said, “Save a little work for me.” He got into the front seat and slammed the door.

  “Hey Chief, I owe you one, amigo.”

  “Don’t mention it. And try to stay out of trouble.”

  The car sped away. I felt lonely watching that old, beaten-up taxi disappear around the bend in the road.

  THE HUMAN ZOO

  It rained heavily all that week, so I had to work inside. I got down into the cupboards under the sink in the galley and cleaned them out. Then I started to bang at some of the rust from the inside of the hull. It flaked off like shale. I cur
sed a little, then banged and pounded until the pots and pans fell off the shelf above. Cakes of rust fell out from everywhere. And it was just the beginning.

  When the rain changed from a downpour to a drizzle, I wandered around the waterlogged boatyard. Scattered around the place were a few other people working diligently on their own problems. At the far end of the yard, there was a peculiar guy calmly sitting under a fair-sized fiberglass hull. I stepped out of the rain and joined him.

  “Another day lost,” he said to me as I waded through a puddle of muddy water. The man was in his mid-seventies. He was bald, wore frameless eyeglasses and had a Mahatma Gandhi look to him.

  He stood up and shook my hand. “My name is Ben, I’m an Israeli.”

  “Jacques. I’m a Québecer,” I said.

  “Ah, so you are Jacques.” At least he could pronounce it right. “I already know your name and what boat you arrived on. News travels fast here in the yard. But everything else is slow. The workers won’t be here today, they weren’t here yesterday, and they probably won’t be here tomorrow.” He took his glasses off and cleaned them with his clean white T-shirt. “You know, I’m a philosopher. We have always a different way of seeing things. I’ve been living here at the boatyard for two years now and I kind of like it. You know why? It’s the perfect place to study the human animal. Sometimes, I feel like Charles Darwin. Why go any further to study human evolution? Here, we have it all. From the very primitive to the most advanced, but the latter is harder to find around in this place. Ha! It’s a human zoo and I like zoo life, especially this kind.” The man seemed mildly crazy, a kind of rare misfit, but interesting and intelligent at the same time — perhaps someone whom I could count on if things turned sour.