Jack, pondering over his rendezvous beyond his beloved horizon, steered with a bottle of rum in hand and mumble-humming over and over, "Ah, this is where I be...a pirate's life for me," until Gibbs urged him to surrender the Pearl's helm to him. The hour grew late, but there was a nice stiff running breeze promising to carry the ship onward. Ever onward to where nobody except their sentimentally sloshed captain knew.
He squinted into the bottle that was almost empty and pouted as he stepped aside to let Joshamee, Jack's devoted first mate, take over. Gibbs said with a sigh, "Ah, Jack, me boy-o, it is my unqualified opinion that you could do with a bit of rest."
Swaying from side to side, but remarkably not about to fall down, Jack haltingly replied, "Rest? Rest? There's no rest for the..." His voice trailed and he frowned in that roguish, boyish befuddled way of his.
"Wicked? Captain?" Gibbs camouflaged his snicker by coughing.
"No! Not what I was going to say!" Jack insisted, stumbling against the Pearl's weathered wheel, which Joshamee had tight hold of. The ship rolled to port as a huge wave buffeted the majestic sailing vessel, sending her knavish seafarers scrambling. They laughed and cavorted while Scrum played and sung a lively tune as a full moon appeared across the bow.
"Aye, Captain Jack, this be a lively shantee you're partial to," the broad-faced man with a kindly, almost genteel nature, put to Sparrow.
Jack gave Scrum an indulgent wave of his deeply-soiled hand.
The crew's bellies were full and one and all were of a mind to sail with Sparrow, follow wherever he led them, because there was none better than Captain Jack. He could be demanding when there was cause for him to be, but he didn't have it in himself to be harsh. Customarily outlandish, and endearing, hence his grand appeal. He had a mind to follow the stars and not be governed by the whims and wiles of fate, nor the dictates of maps and charts. He'd make his own way, been doing so ever since he'd been a plucky lad.
Currently, they were bound for a certain island where a pretty, Spanish castaway might still be, Jack hoped. As improbable as that might be; but stranger things Jack had thoroughly seen many a time before.
"Steady as she goes, Captain," Gibbs reported, casting a devil-may-care eye upon a skirring Jack.
"Aye. Then, I shall retire to my quarters to lay me head down and share my bed with another bottle of rum."
The ship juddered, riding high upon another proud wave and Sparrow nearly flagged, saving himself from a close-up with the deck in the nick of time.
Gibbs eyed Jack charily. "I'd go easy on the rum."
Filled to the gills with alcohol, he rarely ceased craving more. But it was never oblivion he was after, nor release. It was peace of a very rarified kind, yet predictably elusive.
"Why must I go easy? Rum's me bestest friend, and I'll have you know that, thanks to Hector, though his death untimely, quite, I won't have to ask the infernal, most dreaded question of all times: 'Why's all the rum gone?'"
That running joke was growing older each time Jack made mention of it. Gibbs frowned, giving the helm a sturdy turn as he replied, "All I'm asking is you go a little easier. It's not a criticism, more a request."
Of the many bottles that were in the Pearl's hold, a great number of them still remained, safe and sound. Hector had truly known how to hoard rum. If Jack and the crew embraced a bit of temperance, perhaps the supply would last them quite a while. Or, not; all of them, except for Gibbs, who hated the thought of being a rummy, were notorious drinkers.
"Request denied," Jack flouted, turned tipsily on his right heel and shashayed-staggered away as he disembarked from the poop deck. His bottle of rum never slipped from his hand. Far from that happening owing to the stranglehold he had on it. Suddenly, all before he could exhale another breath, little 'Jack,' Barbosa's monkey, and still the bane of Jack Sparrow, ran up the length of Jack's body to find its favorite resting place atop the long-haired pirate's shoulder. The 'evil beast' buried its face into the niche it loved best, Jack's neck and made monkey-sounding noises of contentment.
"It would seem Barbosa's mascot has found a new home," Gibbs jibed, giving the boat wheel a commanding jerk. The calmness of the sea was deceptive as this seasoned sailor well knew. The wind continued gathering strength, driving the Pearl ever onward without letup.
"Let it be known," Jack huskily spluttered and slurred, "that I've still a mind to feast on this nasty beast!"
Furry, little 'Jack' tried swiping Sparrow's bottle of rum away from him, and Jack retaliated by jerking violently to cast the monkey off his left shoulder.
"Just kidding," he said under his breath to the simian. "I hear tell monkey meat is tough."
The clothes-wearing chatterbox grinned at Jack in its own endearing way.
"And if you've a mind to sneak into my cabin whilst I sleep, think again."
The monkey protested, lifting his tail and switching it in time to its staccato shrieks.
"I'll have none of your wretched discontent," Jack sniped. He beat a hasty retreat to his quarters before the little ape who thought he had a right to be as bold and as mouthy as he wanted to be could catch up with him. Once Jack locked his cabin door, he would revel in the luxury of his cabin being a monkey-free-zone once more. Not five minutes later, Jack lay sprawled on his bunk, quaffing more rum. But instead of feeling greatly woozy still, a sudden clarity of thought, coupled with astonishment, seized him as his cabin stopped spinning before his watery eyes.
"Jack..." a disembodied voice said proudly with a certain lilting, seductive Latin flair.
Hiccuping and gasping at the same time, Jack was sorely startled. He held his breath longer than he ever thought he could. "An..." He shook his head from side-to- side like a madman, abruptly halted the incessant head-wagging and froze with his mouth agape.
Did she know? How could she? Well, maybe her knowing wasn't a monumental mystery, truth be told. Since having made his decision to embark on this journey, she'd been on his mind constantly. Not even oceans of rum could wash away the memory of her from his eager mind. Her fire burned within his heart. His compass led the way, but it was a mere servant to what his mind and heart wanted most.
"Do you think you'll find me...after all this time? What makes you think will?" Though absent in the flesh, her voice substituted for her posturing.
"An-Angelica..." Jack mumbled, trying to sit up in his bed, but faltering miserably. The rum bottled slipped from his hand, but not a drop stained the unwashed bed covers. He'd drained the bottle long ago. "S-show yourself!"
"Why do you search for me, Jack" the voice posed, deliberately meant to tantalize.
"Be-because wh-what I did t-to you w-was un-un-unthinkable," he admitted with eyes too unfocused to see, but desperately scouring the cramped surroundings trying to glimpse the unseeable. "Over these years, I realize, I did you a most egregious disservice. I prayed you were still alive." Was he really so drunk? He wasn't the most reliable judge. This last bottle...how many did it make? Having lost count long ago, he didn't see how it mattered. "I take it then you must still be alive," Jack groggily presumed.
"And what makes you think your small apology can appease me?"
"You mean I'm not appeasing you?" he countered sweeping his cabin again with wild abandon once more. He stuck his head beneath his bunk and laughter filled his cabin.
"No, Jack, you're not appeasing me...but you are amusing me, as you always do."
"That I believe," he muttered, getting out of the bunk to stand with his arms extended at his sides and his hands wide open. What was he expecting? That she appear to fill them? "Angelica!"
"Yes, Jack."
"Is it truly you?"
"Are you still so very charming?" the voice, its sultry cadence making Jack's heart beat even faster, challenged.
"When once we're together again, my sweet, I'll let you be the judge," Jack enjoined. A part of him, long buried, began to throb with life again. He had no words that could justly convey how much he'd missed her after so long a time. Her face, her neck, those lips, like ripe pomegranates, beckoning him to lose himself in them.
"And am I what you want most...now?" The voice dragged out this last inducement, landing comfortably in Jack's receptive mind. "My sweet...I never stopped loving you, Jack. I wouldn't know how..."
"Aye, nor I, you," he confirmed, whirling around, all too willing to swear that those phantom words had been whispered directly into his ear. "Angelica. We're no longer adrift. No longer cursed. I'll find you."
"I found you."
"Ah, then, love, perhaps you'd make finding you, literally, easier by telling me just exactly where you are? Perish the thought that you're still marooned on that desolate, footprint of an island I ill-conceivably left you on."
The voice chuckled and replied, "Where I am...you've been before."
"I have?" he questioned non-sensibly, raising two fingers to his mouth to worry his lower lip. Muttering more to himself than his spooky, audible visitor, Jack said, "I've been to too many places I'd sooner not revisit, ever again."
"No? You wouldn't return to at world's end? Not even for me?" the voice appealed, its whine stabbing Jack to his heart as it skipped many beats.
"Why on earth are you there, fair, Angelica?"
"Journey here, and you'll find out. Hurry, Jack. Or lose me for all eternity," the voice pleaded as it died out.
"Angelica, Angelica!" he bleated, but all went silent. He stared blankly at his cabin door, wishing in all preposterousness that she'd somehow come through it. "At world's end, you say? Bugger!" He fell back upon his bunk, muttering that word over and over until he fell into a fitful, tempestuous sleep.