by Robert Brown
I ran into the intricately carved building, and around a corner to catch my breath. Vines and branches were tearing the place apart slowly over hundreds of years. My eyes darted quickly around for a hiding place or a way out. I noticed in an alcove behind me that a large, silent and hooded head of a cobra was rising angrily out of a crushed pot he’d been sleeping in. At this point the first of the British soldiers plunged into the hall. The cobra struck at me, and having been staring right at him, I tried to jump back and tripped.
It’s a good thing I did; something about the angle my leg caught on the fallen bricks threw me to the ground much faster then I could have on my own. The cobra, missing me, leapt right on the soldier. The solider let out a scream (was that the Wilhelm Scream??) and the startled snake bit him. The soldier brushed the snake frantically from him and ran out of the tunnel with an “oooh! Ooh! OOH!” Poor guy, he’d surely die of that bite a lot slower than he would have with a bullet.
At this point I noticed a hole in the ceiling above the alcove, and I clamored up. Once on top of the temple I found myself in a knot of branches and leaves, and I crept through them across the rooftops back in the direction I thought the city must be.
An hour later, I found myself back inside the city walls, and discovered the battle pretty much over. Daniel had what remained of Robert Clive’s forces on their knees at gun point. Their rifles had been placed on a cart that was being wheeled out the front gate. Clive himself stood in his luxurious, but bloodied, uniform looking disgusted at us all.
“How DARE you! Some of you even look English! Explain yourselves before I have you in irons!” he said. I got to hand it to him, he had balls.
“I’ll explain, “ I said. “You think your power has given you immunity. You followed orders expertly enough to allow yourself to be god of this city. It all worked, as long as you didn’t think about the monstrous things you were ordered to do. Since the order came from above, you figured no one could hold you responsible.” I leaned in close. “Well, think again.”
The city of Arcot was returned to the people of India. With this new foothold, Chandra’s forces gained size and strength. As the rumor of our attack on Robert Clive’s forces spread across India, it seemed to have the effect of uniting the people of India in a way they hadn’t been before, and their pride strengthened them. Never again would another force take control of their country. Well, not for a couple hundred years, anyway.
Everybody was thrilled with the outcome. Everybody except Lilith, that is. She stomped about for days, grumbling to any of our crew that would listen to her about how she wasn’t “allowed” to do anything in the battle, grumbling how much better it would have gone had she played a larger part.
She grumbled to me about it once, to which I responded, “You determine your own level of involvement. If you have something to contribute, please do. It’s not my job to invent a way for you to be useful.” I suppose I might have said too much but dammit, I want to enjoy success, not listen to someone bitch that our success wasn’t attributed enough to them. She, of course, stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
We stayed in the city for a couple weeks, resting and repairing, and healing. One night, very late, and after a huge celebration with way too much drinking, Kristina came into our little apartment in the city looking tired, but angry. “Something’s going down wrong,” she said, pointing at the door “The crew seems mad as hell. They are saying some very bad things. You need to get out there! It sounds like mutiny!”
“What the hell!?!? What could anyone be mad about!?! All we’ve been doing is laying around accepting praise and food for weeks!” I was drunk, and half asleep, but I felt my face getting red with anger. Emotions come premature when you’ve been drinking.
I threw a shirt over my shoulders, and stumbled out of the apartment while still pulling on my boots. My face was warm with drink, and my mind was foggy.
I found a group of most of the higher ranking crew sitting around a couple tables in the main square. Everyone but Doctor Calgori, who would have gone to bed hours ago. It was pitch black, around 3 a.m., and by the multi-colored lantern light, I could see the tables were strewn with empty bottles. I pulled up a chair at the end of one table. Tanner sat at it, with Daniel, Mongrel, Jean-Paul, and Lilith. All but Lilith had dark looks on their faces. She wore a look of calm, defiant victory.
“So, what are we talking about?” I asked. I meant to say it calm and collectedly, but thanks to the rum I’m fairly sure I blurted it out angrily and defensively.
“Don’t play stupid, Capt’n!” Mongrel growled. “We’re on to ya.” Everyone scowled with red eyes. Lilith spun a finger in her drink carelessly, and licked it.
“Seriously, Daniel, what’s going on?” I asked. Daniel was the professional here, I could ask him.
“Here is the thing,” Daniel began in his official ‘calm things down’ voice. “The crew knows what you’re planning. And they don’t like it. We need you to know one thing: if you go through with it, the next time we are in battle together, we are not going to fight with you.”
“WHAT!?!” I was baffled. “Then we’ll all die! My god, what do you think I’m planning?”
“You are planning to get rid of Lilith.” Tanner said, face red with anger, fists clenched.
“What? Why would I do that?” I asked. Now Lilith was making eye contact. She was daring me to deny it. I took a breath, and started slowly. “Honestly, no, I wasn’t going to ‘get rid of anyone’. Why would I want to? Every thing is going perfectly. We’ve had success at everything we’ve done!”
“You’ve always hated me! You won’t let me do anything, onstage or during missions!” she blurted out . “You’ve been planning to leave me here in the city, or sell me into slavery! You know I would be a better captain than you, so you keep me hidden.” She lashed out at me, her tone dripping with poison and self pity.
“What the hell? No! I haven’t been planning any such thing! Honestly, I don’t really think about you that much!”
“That was cruel, Robert!” Tanner declared blackly. “Why won’t you let her do anything during missions?”
“Look, I just assign people jobs based on their skills and what needs to be done. If we don’t need a belly dancer during a mission, I don’t have a lot for her to do.” I paused “She gets most of the attention when we play concerts! Lilith, people love you, and you don’t even do that much! You should be happy about that!” I was trying to console and calm her though frankly, now I was thinking getting rid of her was a good idea.
“Look, you guys are threatening mutiny over something you think I might eventually do. I had no such idea in my head. But mutiny during a battle will kill us all!” I paused “There is way too much drink at this table, and in us. None of us handling this well. You have to know I have no plans of getting rid of anyone!” I finished.
“Well, if you do…” Tanner threatened, “Don’t expect us to stand by you.”
I stood up, a look of apprehension and puzzlement on my face. The pretty little girl was unhappy with her lot, and was attempting to change her lot by throwing a tantrum. A mutiny would be caused by any actions the crew perceived as me doing anything wrong to her. Part of this was true, I didn’t have a huge use for her, but that didn’t mean I was attempting to get rid of her either. She was fine as she was, but now, she was a time bomb waiting to go off. The trigger was me trying to get rid of her, so all I could do was wait for it to explode.
I spent the night by myself on one of the castle walls. This should have been a victory, but somehow I emerged a villain. I watched the sun rise, contemplating my options. I’m not sure I had any.
I pulled out my journal, and sketched some lyrics in it:
My Life
My love, my life, my band, my wife.
I got lost. I get used. Take the praise, and abuse.
Am I the hero in my own day dream?
Or am I the villain, are things as they seem?
WHAT THE HELL W
AS THAT?
After Arcot, we refueled, and re-crewed. The Ophelia didn’t actually lose many lives, but in the weeks that followed we were so pampered in the city of Arcot that many chose to stay. The city, once cleaned up, was beautiful, and we spent a lot of time on deep carpets, eating curry fed to us by beautiful girls in colorful silk saris. I’ll be honest, it was hard to leave, and not everybody was willing to go. We lost more men to the beautiful young women of India than we lost to Robert Clive’s soldiers.
I found the crew also spent a lot of time selling things they’d stolen in 2006. Flashlights, iPods, sneakers, you name it. Despite the fact that these goods were not paid for in my time, I suppose this is an honest trade route. Trading through time; buying products where they are common, and selling where they are scarce is the essence of “trade”. And this trade became a big part of how we paid for things we weren’t given. Selling antiques, or future-artifacts to another time became part of our business. Still, a little voice quietly whispered in my head, don’t let Calgori find out.
After a month we finally departed, and by this time some of our crew had been replaced with brave young lads from the city. Next to the sunburned and scarred pirates we now had brown skin, turbans, punjabi-pants, and curved scimitars next to the long straight British blades. They all joined us on our quest through time to right the wrongs of Mankind.
We continued month-after-month, looking through history books we had taken to find injustices of the past. We’d then travel back to a time when we were technologically superior to our opponents, and we’d snuff out the injustices we saw there. Time after time we would eliminate misdeeds, and time after time would we wipe the tarnish from history. Preventing scabs by stopping the wound from occurring.
People from those times and cultures would join us and add to our crew, which in turn added to our knowledge of history and to our ability to overturn wrongs we saw in the past.
We had become some sort of super-chronological heroes; at least in our own eyes. We had more success than failure, but there were plenty of embarrassing moments. The longer we “helped” the more often we’d encounter people who didn’t want our help.
Also, I was beginning to see that heroics requires a forced naivety. I’ll explain:
Imagine a hypothetical valley with one river and two parched cities who need the water. If one city diverted the river to save its people and crops, the other city would go without water. This deprived city would in turn fight to survive. War.
“Why not share the water?” you might ask. Well, in this hypothetical struggle, imagine there was only enough water for one city’s people and crops. Who, then, is the villain, and who is the damsel to be saved? It became harder and harder to find an obvious “right side” to defend, and we learned that most often both sides were right.
It felt like heroes weren’t wanted, or welcome. And sometimes it felt like we’d force ourselves to choose one party’s perspective, just for the rush of ending the week feeling like heroes again. Try not to think about that other city.
As far as the crew went, things were tense. Deep inside I now carried the bitterness of their threatened mutiny, and a fear I would do or say something wrong that would bring it out again. I made the crew “vote” on everything, and I wouldn’t even voice my opinions, for fear of what would happen if they disagreed with my vote.
I was still called “Captain” but often I wondered if it was said ironically. It seemed the term “captain” now meant, “someone to handle all the uncomfortable decisions nobody else wanted to think about, and someone to take the blame when things went wrong.” I certainly didn’t feel I was in charge anymore, or got credit for our successes. I seemed only responsible for negative outcomes. If I gave an order it was followed…but only if they were going to do it anyway. If they didn’t feel like doing it, they would give me a weak excuse of why they didn’t like the idea, and walk away.
I was captain, it was supposed to be my choice, but it stopped feeling like I even had a say.
Things with Lilith started to get a bit better. I think she was enjoying her victory. I tried to pay more attention to her, since it was that or wait for her to stage another possible mutiny. The result was she calmed down a bit. She befriended Kristina, and hung out with the two of us often. Yeah, fun, right?
This was not enjoyable for me. It’s not that she wasn’t clever, or witty, or fun to be around. It’s just that I felt like I was walking on eggshells filled with gunpowder: step too hard, and we all would die.
One evening, as I was piloting the late shift through a bank of thoroughly drenching clouds (toward a city we were told would have replacement canvas for our sails and gas bag) Kristina, Lilith and I stood on deck. Lilith had drawn some sketches of some ideas she had. Plans she was making for our next mission, things she thought would make the airship more stable. Plans that really didn’t sound like they were going to work, but I nodded and smiled and said, “Sure, we can talk about this with the rest of the officers, and see what everybody thinks. Lets see if Calgori likes that idea, that’s sort of his call, but I think it looks great! Nice work!” I tried to make it sound as if I liked the ideas, without committing to any of them. I tried to always agree, while neither committing nor condescending. I didn’t want to crack the egg and loose a foot.
Finally, Kristina got tired. She’d stopped responding to the endless soliloquy of self-aggrandizing, yet worthless, ideas pouring out of Lilith. All at once, in the middle of one of Lilith’s sentences, Kristina blurted, “I’m tired, I’m going to bed”, and she tromped below deck.
This was uncomfortable. I was now on my own, to walk over the explosive eggshells by myself. I couldn’t excuse myself since someone had to steer the boat.
She went on explaining her ideas, verbally patting herself on the back for things either the rest of the crew had already thought of and dismissed, or would never agree to attempt. While talking, she leaned in close to show me her sketches under the lamplight.
I zoned out. I started to become acutely aware of everything but what she was saying. I could hear the soaking wet lanyards creaking as the ship slowly rocked back and forth, swinging from the airbag on which it hung. I could feel the canvas of my pants sticking wetly to my thighs, the sleeves of my coat sticking to my arms. I could hear the mild hissing and popping of the propane lantern above me, as it struggled to push light through the fog. And I could feel Lilith’s chest press against mine…And then it happened. She kissed me! She kissed me, right on the goddamn mouth! Just when I was slipping into a beautiful zen moment of ignoring the crap out of her, she slipped up into the space between my arms and the captains wheel, and that size 2 Judas kissed me!
I let go of the wheel and took a couple steps backwards, “What the hell was that?” I blurted out “Are you trying to get me into trouble?”
“No”, she said, skillfully pouty.
“Then what the hell was that?”
“Well,” she paused, probably noticing the horrified look of a trapped animal that was carved into my brow. “I made a pact with myself. I decided I would have no more regrets in life” she said in the same polished and self-aware tones she always used, as if she had rehearsed all her lines weeks before performing them.
“But I thought you hated me?” I said, still horrified. “You told me you hated me! You told the crew you hated me!”
“That’s the problem. I think I liked you too much.” she said.
“Bullshit,” I wasn’t buying this. “Look, I’ve been very nice to you. Whatever you’re doing right now, I don’t deserve it. I haven’t done a damn thing wrong to you.”
“You don’t believe me?” she pouted again, stepping toward me. “You don’t believe I’m infatuated with you?”
“No, I sure as hell don’t,” I said resolutely, stepping backwards into the mast.
But then an odd thing happened. She started to get red in the face. Somewhere under that perfectly controlled persona a real emotion was forming. This might be
one of the first non-rehearsed displays I’d ever seen from her. Anger, sadness, possibly even embarrassment? Whatever emotion was about to show, it was giving me a hint of pity.
“All I’ve been doing is trying to get your attention! So you’d notice me,” she said with forced evenness, but her voice started to crack a little.
I stared blankly at her for a second. Honestly, the pause was me asking myself, Is this her best performance yet, or is this real?
“Well, you’ve sure as hell got my attention now!” I said “You’ve had most of my attention since Arcot! I mean, what the hell do you want from me?” I asked, but that was a mistake! She stepped in close again, slipping her arms under my open great coat and around my waist, and I saw her eyes close and her face came close again.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said, “Now hold on!” I held her back.
That’s when the eggshell broke.
Her face went red, her eyes squinted, and in a constrained voice she said, “Fine.” In that “fine” was a threat, and I already knew she could deliver. She stomped below deck. How someone so small can cast such a cloud of poison and anger around her, I’ll never know.
Later that night I wrote the beginnings of some lyrics in my journal;
The Ballad of Captain Robert
Captain Robert took his men
And flew to Prague and back again
Some fell off, some dropped dead
And some put bullets through their head
A skeleton crew is what came back
