“Not me. I just don’t want Dilly the Destroyer at the helm.”
“Our sailmasters are men,” Ester explained, “because they own the boats.” I saw Jan’s eyes light up, but I wasn’t overly eager for another flogging before the mast real soon.
“Where does one purchase a cat-o’-nine-tails these days?” I asked. “The Haight?”
“No Captain Bligh crap, Hetta. These guys don’t yell or anything, and they’re super instructors. I’m getting off in an hour, why don’t you guys meet me at the yacht club and check it out for yourselves?”
11
The Jack London Yacht Club, appropriately located on Jack London Square, was in an old two story building overlooking the Oakland Estuary. A sailmaker’s loft at one time, now the interior was all polished mahogany and funky atmosphere. Jack London would have considered it a suitable hangout for trashing his liver had it been there when the great writer was penning and ginning.
Posters depicting Jack London’s boats, dog, and book jacket covers were scattered around the room, but my favorite was a snapshot of the man himself. He was wearing what appeared to be a leather aviator’s jacket. His hair was windblown around his handsome face, and he sported a roguish grin that personified his roguish reputation. Beneath the photo was a poem he wrote summing up his take on life:
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
As I read the great adventurer’s self-fulfilling words, I couldn’t help but think I would have liked the bounder. With my penchant for bounders, maybe even loved him.
Jan evidently had similar thoughts. “Gee, Hetta, his philosophic attitude on life reminds me of yours.”
I wasn’t all so sure I cared for the comparison. After all, old Jack, for all his brilliance and wanderlust was, like his prophetic ode indicated, a literary flash fire who flamed out before his excesses extinguished his talent. A victim of his own immoderation, he died at forty and didn’t even leave a beautiful corpse.
“Not really. I mean, I do admire his give a damn attitude, but don’t you wonder what he could have accomplished if he’d lived longer and taken better care of himself?”
Jan gave me a meaningful look and said, “Food for thought, Hetta, food for thought.”
We shook off our moment of thought and proceeded to the bar, hoping for food. The jukebox played a Jimmy Buffet number and a man was performing some kind of jig on top of the long, mostly empty, bar. Ester didn’t seem to notice him.
Jan and I took barstools as far away from the skinny sailor’s gyrations as possible while Ester went to the office for a copy of the rules and sailing schedule for Women on the Estuary.
“What can I get you ladies?” asked the Filipino bartender. Paul, according to his nametag.
“Draft beer for me, unless you have something to eat besides peanuts,” I said, warily eyeing the dancer grind his way towards us.
Paul glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t mind him. He’s drunk. Kitchen’s closed, but Ester can raid the fridge for you. Should be something left in there from last night’s buffet. Also, in case you’re interested, we have splits of champagne on ice. Cheap.”
I liked this club already. “Great. Champers for me, then. Uh, does he do this bar dance thing often, Paul?”
“Oh, yes.”
Ester returned, waving papers. “Good news. WOE has a sail next Sunday. If you want some fun in the meantime, the yacht club is sponsoring a beer can race Wednesday night. Wanna come?”
“What do we have to do?”
“Drink beer.”
“We qualify. Uh, don’t look now, but Popeye is jigging our way.”
Ester’s eyes followed my head nod and she yelled, “Hey, Jacky, show ‘em your twin screws!”
Jacky smiled, turned, dropped his pants and gyrated the twin propellers tattooed on his bony butt.
“I’m thinking we’ll like it here,” I breathed. “Do you allow dogs?”
“They’re mandatory.”
* * *
RJ looked mighty nautical in his new red, white, and blue doggy life jacket and rum-keg collar. I had tried a black patch over one eye, but he kept shaking it off. When we were introduced to Frank, the owner of the boat I was to crew on for the evening’s beer can races, he scratched RJ’s ears and fondled the rum keg. “Welcome aboard, mates. Can this pooch handle a winch? It looks a might blustery out there, and we’ll need all paws at the ready.”
“I can leave him in the car if you want me to. If you think he might get in the way.” After the Dilly thing, I was all too willing to please.
“Naw. I have a nice bunk that’ll fit this salt just fine if he gets bored with the race. Although it should be exciting with a breeze like the one we’ve got tonight. I’m surprised they haven’t canceled. Now, what position do you feel comfortable handling?”
Remembering attack winches, flailing booms, billowing sails that threatened to put one over the side, and heaving decks, I said, “Bartender?”
* * *
“Wasn’t that a blast? My boat won!” a breathless, pink-cheeked Jan asked when we met at the yacht club bar after the race.
“Jan, my boat T-boned another one and we were disqualified.” My cheeks were red, too. With mortification.
“Oh, dear me. How did it happen?”
“Don't ask.”
“Cheer up, sailor, there’s men about,” she whispered, nodding down the bar. “Oh, look, there’s Lars and Bob. The ones we met in Berkeley? Remember? You gave Lars my card and he called me. We never did get together for lunch.”
“Who? Oh, them. What? No girl children with them?”
“Be nice. And no, they seem to be alone. They see us. Smile.”
Lars beckoned us to the other end of the bar where the slap of leather cups on mahogany announced a round of Liar’s Dice. More interested in Jan than dice, Lars bowed out, leaving his brother, Bob, and eight others to the game.
“So, did you two enjoy the race?” Lars asked. Tall and portly, dressed in a white anorak and white pants, he resembled a friendly, handsome, polar bear.
“I did,” Jan breathed. “Hetta’s boat porterhoused another.”
“T-Boned,” Bob interjected, taking his eyes from his dice long enough to glare at me. “And it was my boat. Wasn’t that you driving? You and the hairy guy with the red, white and blue jacket?”
“Uh, yes. We’ve got to quit meeting this way.”
Bob continued to look at me for a few seconds while my cheeks flamed redder. A hint of a grin passed his lips before he turned back to his game.
Lars shrugged. “My brother hates getting hit. Let’s go get a table.”
I glared at the back of Bob’s graying, blonde head and his leather bomber jacket. I had noticed, when he’d turned to glower at me, a patch over his heart that read, Robert “Jenks” Jenkins, USN Ret.
“You two go ahead,” I said, signaling Paul for a split of courage. I sipped stars while studying my prey.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know I’m no great beauty, but I have been known to attract a man or two in my day. And I certainly wasn’t used to being snubbed by them. The challenge was set.
Painting a sincere look onto my face I sidled up to Robert “Jenks” Jenkins, United States Navy, Ret. “I’m really sorry about hitting your boat. I couldn’t see because of all those sails.”
Bob nodded, looking straight ahead, not at me. “Ten fives,” he said. He was called up by his neighbor and threw out a die with a snort of disgust.
I tried again. “Jan and I recently joined the club. Don’t you find it ironic we should
meet again so soon?”
“I guess.” Bob pounded the bar with his leather cup and peeked under it at his dice. “Eight sixes.”
“Well, it was real nice seeing you again,” I said sweetly. “Oh, by the way, does the ‘Ret’ on your jacket stand for ‘ree-tard’?”
“Fifteen fives.”
* * *
Due to the late hour, we decided it was better for Jan to spend the night on my side of the Bay rather than drive home in RJ’s VW, or brave BART and then a city bus. Like many city dwellers, Jan did not own a car.
“What do you think of Lars?” she asked as we drove into the hills.
“I think his brother’s a prick.”
“Lars says Bob’s not all that bad. Maybe a little...distant.”
“Distant? Mount Kilimanjaro’s distant. This guy’s on Mars. Son of a bitch invented aloof. So what’s his story? Married? Gay? Child molester?”
“None of the above. No serious significant other, either. And Lars just broke up with someone. They invited us to go sailing one day.”
“They? Us?”
“Lars figures he could drag Bob along.”
“Oh, he does, does he? What am I, a charity case? I think not. I’d rather go out with Dilly.”
“I’ve already arranged it. Dilly’s delighted.”
12
My doggy desperado’s hearing, for which many neighbors, including a few Oakland Raiders, Warriors, and A’s, turned out in case he needed character references from some of our city's finest athletes, went in our favor. We played the paw card.
Craigosaurus, veterinary witness extraordinaire, testified that RJ, now on Prozac and painkillers due to his debilitating and terminal illness, was neither a future threat to the United States Government nor society in general. In fact, he said, were the alleged pup, er, perp, to again escape house arrest, his medical condition and medication would render him incapable of terrorist activities. Like Jeepjacking.
The accused fixed the judge with a dewy-eyed look, raised his paw and licked the large knot on his foreleg. The only dry eyes in the joint belonged to the alleged victim. His were mean and beady.
Mr. Fujitsu, my neighbor and other star witness, said his hedge was undamaged, and at any rate, he liked my dog better than he did the postman, a Korean whom he suspected had a prejudice against those of Japanese heritage. Not that anyone except me and his wife, Mariko, could understand a word Mr. F. said. Despite years in California and an extensive English vocabulary, his accent was atrocious. He was getting up a fair head of steam when the judge got a word in edgewise and politely, but firmly, cut Fujitsu-san’s tirade short.
We were let off with a severe warning and fined two hundred dollars, the cost of fixing a cracked headlight on the Jeep. I was to regain mail service the next day even though as we left the room, Mr. Kim—obviously a sore loser—shook his fist and shouted some very nasty things at us. I think.
As it happened, RJ’s triumphant romp through the halls of justice coincided with our Fifth Annual Raymond Johnson Coffey Adoption Bash and Weenie Roast. Friends, neighbors, and their pets attended the yearly fete. Cats were excluded due to RJ’s propensity to eat them.
The do, as most “dos” do, had its origins as a small gathering of friends to celebrate RJ’s good sense in adopting me. He must have known I needed a friend.
Not long before RJ made this wise decision, Japan Airlines had dumped me onto the tarmac at SFO in a psychological body bag. Two years in Tokyo as a resident project engineer had taken their toll. The disastrous Hudson affair, coupled with an unusually heavy work and party load—seven days a week, twelve hours a day at work, and drinking four of the other twelve—sent me to the brink of a breakdown. The final blow was delivered by a back stabbing, corporate climbing, home office desk jockey who managed to become my boss. The work problem devolved into an ego murdering coup de grâce that sapped any remaining vitality I had left. I was plumb burnt out. And had developed an unreasonable hatred of soy sauce.
Already at an all time low-water mark, I returned to the United States to find my house trashed. The renters had fried every appliance, including the hot tub pump and heater. They’d left the place so filthy I had to live with Jan for three weeks while I cleaned two years of scum, grease and, in the master bathroom, some very strange gunk better left unidentified. I ripped out the carpets. Painted inside and out. Fumigated. Mr. Clean and I became intimate. Then, and only then, did I call the movers to deliver my furniture.
I knew I’d feel better when I was back in my home, surrounded by my own stuff. What I didn’t know was the renters had also failed to notify my rental mismanagement firm of a nasty roof leak. All of this led to what I call—organ fugue here, please—The Day of the Rat!
It was raining buckets as the movers carted in a vanload of both stored and shipped-from-Tokyo belongings. Water poured through my kitchen roof into hastily purchased galvanized tubs. Although the moving guys had covered my new carpet with butcher paper, I suspected tracked-in mud was leaking through. My spirits were soggier than the weather.
After seeing the indoor waterfall, the moving company boys mumbled something about their minimum wage salaries not covering electrocution. They hastily dumped crates and boxes all over the place and skedaddled. Even if they had been willing to risk death by roof leak, my now ex-employer, a multigazillion dollar corporation, was too cheap to pay for unpacking. Especially since, shortly after reentering the United States, I found myself exiting their badly decorated offices under a cloud of suspicion.
In between bailing out my kitchen and mopping mud, I had managed to find a set of dry sheets and a pillow, but my bed was still chunks of brass scattered hither and thither. Way too tired to contemplate its reassembly, I planned to crash on the couch.
“Tomorrow will be brighter. This too shall pass. Every cloud and all that crap.” I chanted. The clichés and mantras were to prevent me from standing under the cascade in the kitchen and sticking my finger in a socket.
Right before dark I found candles, a wine glass, and a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, the perfect complement for my box of poulet frit à la Colonel Sanders. Extra Crispy only hours ago, but no longer so. I finished off the last doughy drumstick and called Jan.
“Man the pumps,” I wailed, “I’m sinking.”
“Everyone’s sinking. The worst Pacific Storm in decades, they say. It quit raining here. How’re things over there?”
“I’m looking for my snorkel and fins.” I told her about the roof leak. “My TV’s not hooked up yet. What’s the forecast?”
“No more rain tonight. Probably no more, period, until the next—" My scream cut her off.
“What is it, Hetta? What happened?”
“Rat!”
“Mouse?”
“No, Jan, R-A-T! And he’s looking at me. He’s fuckin’ huge.”
“Calm down, Hetta. Where is he?”
“Between me and the front door.”
“Throw something at him.”
I looked around for something to launch, then thought better of it. “Jan, if I scare him and he hides there’s no way in hell I can sleep here tonight. I want to know exactly where he is. I want him . . . hang on.”
Behind the couch was a storage box labeled, “Family stuff.” I reached over and ripped off the tape, making a noise which sounded to me like an oncoming freight train. But the rodent did not budge. I removed several handfuls of plastic peanuts, rummaged through more,, and pulled an antique wooden box into my lap. Slipping the latch on the case, I removed my .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from her—in my family, guns are “her”—padded felt bed.
The police special’s cartridge belt and holster were also coiled in the box, smelling, even after two years in storage, of saddle soap and gun oil. I opened the loading gate on the .38, slid six bullets into the cartridge holder, and eased the cylinder shut. Pushing off the safety, I whispered a little prayer that two years in storage didn’t cause the gun to detonate in my hand. Shakily, I stood
up, took a straight-armed, two-handed aim, and slowly pulled the trigger.
The rat’s head disappeared in a halo of red, as did a large chunk of plaster in the wall behind him. And my new paint job. My ears rang, but I could hear Jan screaming into the phone. I picked up the receiver.
“I got the dirty rat bastard,” I said, pleased I hadn’t lost my touch. All those years of murdering beer bottles on fence posts had finally paid off.
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 7
