The Unpublished PROLOGUE
It was our first full day at sea and the old tub was bobbing on the water like a cork. The engine sputtered and coughed and I felt a little like Katharine Hepburn in “The African Queen.”
Georges was wearing old cargo shorts, an orange T-shirt with the Rolling Stones tongue logo on the front in blue and red and a pair of ancient leather sandals with soles made from old tires.
“How old are you?” asked Clarence.
He laughed with his gap-toothed smile. The sun glinted off his gold dental work.
“I’m ancient,” he said. “Che accompanied himself on an old ukulele that was decorated with little cherubs that had been hand painted around the edges of the instrument. They were wearing grass skirts and they had eyes that had seen too much. Che had a lovely tenor voice. There was an American with him who played harmonica beautifully. He was an old Black man called Sweet Corn Vellotte. Together they made intoxicating music.”
He spoke English with an accent that was difficult to define. At times it sounded French and others purely American. He spoke to the five crewmen in some version of Swahili I couldn’t identify. The men avoided him as much as possible.
“Here’s the song,” he said. Then he sang; “Some like it short, some like it hung, some like it in the twat nine months young.”
He sang it seriously as if he was singing a hymn.
“How about that?” he said.
“It’s catchy,” said Clarence. “Brief but memorable.”
“ That’s an e.e. cummings poem,” I said. “Although he wrote ‘shot’ instead of ‘short’ which I think makes more sense.”
“You can think whatever you want,” he snapped. “I heard it from Che Guevara and that’s the way he sang it. Who cares about e.e. cummings that lower case pretentious bastard? Yes, I’m a literate man. There is a lot of time to read at sea. You’re not calling me a liar are you?”
“No, not at all,” I said.
“Because that would not be wise,” he said. “Out here a man’s word is sacred. It’s all we have my friend.”
“Well, in any event that’s a great story,” I said.
“No, not in any event. Only in the event that you believe it to be true,” he said leaning toward me.
“I have no reason to doubt you,” I said.
He looked at me for what seemed like a long time before he spoke.
“Good,” he said. “Now it’s your turn Big Man. Tell me some stories. I want to hear stories that nobody has ever heard before. I want to hear tales of true love and high adventure and maybe a little pussy.”
