Disclaimer – Disney owns the entire franchise of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Kids Say the Darnest Things
The Keeper of the Code scooped the remainder of his meal from his plate and wolfed it down before polishing off his rum. He then lay back on his bunk in Shipwreck Cove for a nap. As he did so, he brought his hand up to brush a stray braid from his brow. The familiar glint of that plain gold ring round the ring finger of his left hand brought a grin to his face. He wondered how his wife was doing. Wife. He hadn't seen Jenny Wren in a bit but it was odd to think they were connected somehow by a pair of unassuming rings. And it was all because of Jack.
Teague never saw the need for the whole joined in holy matrimony till death do us part gig. He was certain that Jenny Wren did not care about that ring on the finger and seeing that Granny Grace has yet to hang his severed head from the yardarm… Besides, Teague was certain he would shoot the priest halfway through the ceremony for long-windedness. It was only in Jack's eighth year that he gave serious thought to his and Jenny's matrimonial status. It all started one day in the Cove when they were in port.
"Git outta me way, ye little bastard!" a drunk bellowed at Jack. Jack fled, but not before relieving said drunk of his purse. Teague chuckled and glowed with pride at his son's daring. True, he could be a handful at times, but which lad wasn't up to some kind of mischief at least half the time? Lads be lads…
"Ya watcha yerself, ye pox-ridden son of a whore!" Stepping out of a nearby forge, Granny Grace replied to the insult to her grandson by smashing the drunk's head with the Misty Lady's new anchor, which they had been collecting from the smith.
"Da, da, what's a bastard?" Jack asked.
Before Teague could come up with a reply, Granny Grace continued. "That's what ye are, Jackie lad."
"Why am I a bastard? Is it because me hair is black? Is da a bastard too?" Jack asked innocently. Granny Grace roared with laughter as she shouldered the anchor.
"A bastard is someone whose da and ma ain't wed… Relax, Jackie, most of us pirates are bastards…" Grace O'Nelly grinned. "Besides, it is a tad troublesome for a pirate man to hold a wedding when he could jus screw some wench or whore…"
"What's a wedding?" Jack asked. "I know screwing is what Granny Grace and Jonny Smith get up to in the bilges…" Teague pretended he did not hear that last bit about their cabin boy and the cook.
"Let yer da tell ye that. He knows more about wedding than little old me," Granny Grace replied.
"Well, a wedding is when a man and a woman decide they'd get together and start a family. They go to their parish church and hold a ceremony with a big feast afterwards for their friends…" Captain Teague tried to recall what he could of those weddings he had attended as a child, way before he became a pirate.
"A feast, with food and games and all? Sounds fun… why didn't da and ma have a wedding?" Jack asked.
"Because they couldn't find a church…" Teague lied. There had been a church near the tavern where Jack was conceived. There was a priest there, at least until Blackbeard shot him. "Ye don't need no wedding to start a family…"
"Right," Jack nodded in agreement. "What's a church, da? Is it like Mother Carey's tavern?"
"Santa Maria!" Granny Grace laughed and slapped Teague on the back. "They are full o' questions at that age, aren't they?"
"No, Jackie… A church is, well…" Teague floundered. Like the average pirate, Teague was not religiously inclined and hadn't seen the inside of a church since the time he looted a Spanish mission chapel when he was still slogging it out as a crewman.
"A church is where folks go to pray to God. They go sit and listen to the priest talk and read from a Bible…" Granny Grace started.
"Does this priest tell funny stories?" Jack asked.
"No, he talks about how everyone is going to burn in hell," Grace O'Nelly said with a wicked twinkle in her eye. "So Blackbeard got bored and shot him."
"So why do folks wanna hold a wedding in church and listen to someone telling them that they will go hell?" Jack summed up. "I would hold a weddin' on a ship! Why can't we hav a weddin' on a ship?"
"Because we need someone to marry, and yer ma is not on board…" Teague was starting to feel his nerves fraying. He seriously wondered if it would be against any rule in the Pirate Code against gagging a chattering offspring and tying him to the mainmast.
"Maybe Johnny Smith and Granny Grace can get wed… Or Honest Tom's cockerel and that nanny goat…" Jack suggested solemnly. "Or maybe the old rum barrel and the cooking pot…" The crewmates in earshot were trying unsuccessfully to stifle their chuckles at Jackie's words.
"Tell ye what, capt'n," Grace slapped Teague on the shoulder. "Next time we cross paths with Jenny, you pop her de question. If she says yes, Jackie lad's going to stop being a bastard."
It was the very next day that the Misty Lady and the Bloody Sunday crossed paths. Teague ran to the side after ordering his crew to steer his vessel alongside Jenny's. Before he could get round to asking her to marry him, Jack's shrill voice called out over the sound of the waves and wind.
"Ma! Ma! Da's gonna ask ye to marry him so dat folks will stop callin' me a bastard!"
Teague turned red in the face as Jenny gawped. Granny Grace roared with laughter, as did both crews.
"What's a bastard, Brother Jack?" Jack's little sister called out innocently. Li'l Willy had joined her mother on the deck. She climbed onto the bulwark to better see her da and brother.
"Well, I am one, and ye're one too!" Jack replied. His innocent reply had the crew rolling on the decks in mirth.
"Well, I never!" Jenny Wren shook her head. "No one's calling my children bastards! Eddie, have you got the rings?" She then gave orders for boarding.
It was an odd wedding ceremony that was held on the decks of the Misty Lady that fine day. Wee Jackie and his sister Li'l Willy watched in glee as their parents stood before the mainmast where the Bloody Sunday's chaplain and Jenny's brother, Rev Rab Two-knives, had them wed. The rings were plain metal, forged from some iron manacles which happened to be lying about the Bloody Sunday. Jenny Wren managed to dig out a white dress for her wedding gown while Teague simply made do with his best clothes, the set which had the least stains on them. Jenny had popped her little girl into a frock while Jackie protested heartily at being forced into pair of leather shoes. Jackie also decided he did not like weddings that much then.
The bridal couple were liberally doused with rum in lieu of rice and Jenny tossed a bouquet of rope and rags instead of flowers. It landed in the lap of her cousin Rosa, after bouncing off the head of the Misty Lady's gunner. Rosa and the gunner then adjourned to the bilges where Teague supposed Rosa was seducing the hapless salior.
What Teague did not really enjoy was receiving the congratulatory slaps on the back from the crewmen. The slaps from Jenny Wren's brothers were particularly vigorous. Teague was certain, at least he hoped, that Rev Rab did not mean to knock him clean down the stairs. The slap from Granny Grace broke his shoulder and knocked him out cold and there he remained for the next two days. By the time he awoke, his new wife had long sailed off in search for Spanish gold, leaving him with that iron ring round his finger as a reminder of his new marital status. He would later replace their rings with a pair of gold ones, since iron tended to rust.
Author's Notes:
BTW, Li'l Willy is Jack's little sister Wilhelmina. She lives with her mother Captain Jenny Wren and they are OCs.
