(Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean)
Just the Way it Should Be
There was always something about Tortuga that drew Pintel to it. Although he was never sure, or even willing to give much thought to the matter, his gut feelings told him that this fascination had nothing to do with cheap rum and abundant ships, but everything to do with his past.
His father, Edward Pintel, had been a pirate all his life. When he was thirty-four, he'd met a woman named Abigail in Port Morant, and although he never married her, he'd loved her enough to return to the Jamaican settlement as often as possible and had had two children with her. Robert and Rebecca, to say the least, had inherited most of their traits from their father, and had always been more than a handful for their mother.
Despite his frequent absences from his family, Edward had in no way forsaken them for his life of piracy. Not a month had gone by without a visit from him, and as the years progressed, those monthly visits had gradually turned to weekly visits. For the seafaring buccaneer, life was beginning to permanently set a course towards land.
And then, abruptly and all too soon, Edward Pintel had ceased to exist. Abigail never learned what had become of her lover, but after nearly two months had come and gone with no sign of him, she'd begun to suspect the worst, and in her panic and desperation, she'd made a choice that would forever change the fate of her two children. She'd taken them down to the docks with her, bartered passage for three onto a merchant ship, and sailed to Tortuga to search for him.
In the end, Abigail never found Edward, and had died on the pirate island from an overwhelming case of Tuberculosis. Robert and Rebecca Pintel, still teenagers at the time and not having a penny to their names, had then taken up work on Tortuga; Rebecca had become a prostitute, and Robert, following in his father's footsteps, had taken to the sea as a pirate.
So the best reason Pintel could give for his attachment to Tortuga was that it was where his career had been launched. But regardless of the reason, Rebecca knew just the same that her brother would eventually return to this haven, and that was how she was able to more or less track him down eleven years after their explosive confrontation.
Pintel had barely taken two steps from the dock when he spotted a slightly stooping, middle-aged man stiffly—but quite quickly—making his way over to him. He was a black man of average build, draped in raggedy old garments, and his bushy hair was just beginning to gray at the ends. The figure pointed a rigid finger at Pintel, and as he spoke, he showed an empty space where one of his front teeth used to be.
"Aye! You dere! You!"
Pintel stared dumbly at him for a second, not expecting a greeting. "Me?"
The other man came to a halt right in front of him. "Are you Robert Pintel?"
"…Wot if I am?"
Taking this response as a yes, the older man turned to stare back in the direction that he'd come from and gestured sharply with one arm. "Aye, boy! Get over here!"
Already hopelessly confused, Pintel squinted through the evening darkness to follow the man's gaze. Several meters away, he caught sight of a much smaller figure approaching them now, slowing its already dragging pace every few steps to peer anxiously behind it.
It was a child, and a scrawny one at that. The boy looked to be no older than ten, with wide, inquisitive blue eyes and a dark blonde bird's nest of hair sprouting from his bobbing head. The youngster hardly gave either of the two men a glance as he came to stand at the bushy-haired fellow's side.
The man nodded eagerly as he pointed to both the boy and Pintel. "Alright," he said with unmasked impatience. "Now you're togeder!" With that, he turned to hurry off again.
Pintel blocked his path. "'Ey—'ey, wait just a second!" he shouted. "Wot're you tryin' t'pull on me 'ere?"
"I'm not pullin' anyting on you," the man answered irritably. "Look, mate, three days ago, some lady came up to me wit dis boy an' told me to leave him wit a fellow named Robert Pintel. Gave me a description dat looked just like you."
The dumbfounded stare returned to Pintel's face, now mixed with his own impatience. "Who was this?
The other man rolled his eyes to himself. "I don't know who she was," he exhaled with frustration. "But she was short wit dark hair and she knew who you was."
Pintel's face went blank as he tried to think. Who would want leave a kid with him?
The skinny lad still had yet to acknowledge anybody. He seemed to be searching for something, turning his head left and right with an anxious expression, scanning the bustling throng of pirates around him with his sharp eyes. He saw no familiar faces in this crowd…
A startling possibility leapt into Pintel's head just then, and he met the bushy-haired man's eye once more.
"Was she…sort of a heavy woman?" he asked.
The other man nodded, now recalling this overlooked detail. "Aye. She was a little bit stocky. Stocky wit dark hair."
Stocky with dark hair…
Realization suddenly dawned on him, and Pintel looked like he'd just been slapped across the face. Completely dumbstruck, he whipped his stare away from the impatient man and gaped down at the child as if he had only now noticed him standing there. The dark blue eyes, the slightly arched back, the fidgety hands… they were all distinctive traits that confirmed his young identity beyond any doubt.
This was Rebecca's son.
Pintel shook his head just then, furrowing his brow as another understanding grasped him. "Oh, I don't believe this," he growled. "You're tellin' me that this woman…is expectin' me to take this kid off 'er 'ands?"
"Aye," the bushy-haired man said curtly. "Dat's what I'm tellin' you."
"Well 'e ain't my son!" Pintel whined. "Why the blazes is she tryin' to dump 'im on me?"
"I don't know, I'm just sayin' what she told me to say!"
The shorter pirate sneered. "Oh yeah? Well you can tell her when she comes back that I ain't interested!"
"She ain't coming back!" the other man snapped. This suddenly got the young boy's attention, and he looked up at the dark-skinned fellow in startled silence.
Pintel blinked. "Wot?"
"She left her kid standin' next to me and said she was goin' to da western shore and dat she wasn't bringin' him wit her. And den she told me to look for a short, stocky man wit long brown hair named Robert Pintel and turn the kid over to him."
The burly man shook his head again, quicker than before. "I'm not takin' the boy."
But the bushy-haired fellow's mind was made up. "Well then you two can figure out what to do. I ain't got the time to hear it!" With that, he spun around and hurried off without so much as a farewell glance.
"Oi, wait a second!" Pintel shouted after him in unexpected alarm. "Don't leave me wif—! … You can't just—! … I…"
His calls never reached their intended listener. Dazed by this unfavorable turn of events, and even feeling a bit panicked, the pirate began whipping his head side to side in a fit as he searched for some possible way out. To his dismay, he found none. Then, with no other option left, he looked down at the ten-year-old standing in front of him.
Pintel acknowledged the boy reluctantly. "…'Ello."
In turn, the lad miserably moved his gaze from the departed man's direction and glanced drearily up at the stout, balding one in front of him.
"'Ello," he mumbled back.
Pintel raised his eyebrows with mock sincerity. "Good-bye."
This said, he turned to leave as well, but then stopped as another thought crept into his head. He quickly pivoted back around and snidely met the boy's eye again.
"Oh! An' if yeh happen to see yer old lady again…call her a fat ugly rat." He pointed to himself. "From Robert."
The other said nothing in response, and lowered his head glumly with downcast eyes. He was a downright pathetic sight, standing there with his empty, listless expression. It seemed like he had lost all desire to live at that moment.
Pintel rolled his eyes. How could anyone be depressed about never having to see that piece of filth again? He would have gladly given away half of that year's plunder to have the same privilege as this little idiot! But as he stood there, watching the slouched figure before him, his spitefulness started to wane. Pintel couldn't avoid sympathizing with the boy, even with his rather detached sense of what 'sympathy' meant. After all, he also knew how it felt to be left with nothing, thanks to Rebecca Pintel.
"Got sick of yeh, did she?" he asked in a softer tone. "Figured out she 'ad no use for yeh and just dumped yeh in the road?"
The youngster looked back up at him sadly. "I fought she'd come back…"
Pintel nodded to himself as he glanced at the ground. "Don't feel so good, do it? Knowin' wot she done?"
The boy shook his head.
"Good. You're a smarter fellow fer knowin' your old lady's a lousy blighter. A stupid blighter!"
"Stupid blighter…" the other echoed. Even in his despair, the words sounded funny to him.
The older man nodded again, firmer this time. "You just keep sayin' that, and you'll be good to go."
Feeling that this was enough to end their transaction, Pintel turned and calmly walked away. The boy watched him go, reflecting deeply on the strange piece of advice that he'd just been given. Then, after only a second's hesitation, he followed after the man.
They went on this way for about a minute, the leader trudging along, unaware of his follower, until Pintel was seized by a strange intuition that told him he wasn't alone. Sure enough, he turned around an instant later and found the ogling child trailing directly behind him.
"What the bloody 'ell are you doin'?"
The boy lowered his head timidly at this unfriendly greeting.
"Well?" the man demanded stormily.
"I don't know where t'go."
Pintel narrowed his eyes, studying the youngster further. "…What's your name, son?"
No answer.
"You know? Your name? What that blighter used to call you when she were around?"
The kid lifted his head. "Well…she sorta gave me a couple names."
"Like what?"
The younger one shrugged. "Sometimes she'd call me 'Kid,' or 'Boy,' an' sometimes she'd call me 'Lad.'"
Pintel shook his head impatiently. "No, no, no, those ain't names yeh li'l nitwit! Wot she call you besides all that?"
Again, there was no answer, and the grimy little face went blank. The older man took note of this.
"She even call yeh anything else?" he asked oddly.
"…I guess not," was the boy's sheepish reply.
The pirate frowned just then. No name? He could see that there was no lie in those bulging eyes; Rebecca hadn't even bothered giving her own son an identity. True enough, Pintel had never particularly liked his own name, but the idea of not having one at all was something unheard of. This poor stupid lad, with no word to call himself, probably hadn't felt a single scrap of dignity in his entire life. And somehow, Robert Pintel bitterly felt that this needed to be rectified.
"She mention yer old man's name at all?"
The youngster paused in thought for a moment, then bobbed his head yes.
"Aye…she fink e's name were Ragetti. Sumfin' Ragetti… no first name…"
"Then I says that makes you a Ragetti too," Pintel pointed out. "So you do gots a last name, at least."
The boy gawked up at him, utterly surprised.
That was it. For the lad, those words were the last thing he'd needed to hear to make up his mind. He had barely known this strange man for more than a few minutes, but in those few astounding minutes, the man had treated him like no other person ever had. He'd addressed him. He'd given him advice. And now he had given him a name.
So when the pirate turned and walked away a third time, the boy, now Ragetti, scurried after him without any hesitation at all.
Even then, Pintel still tried to childishly avoid him; when he heard the footsteps approaching, he began walking faster and strained to keep himself from glancing over his shoulder. Pretty soon, though, the speed walking turned to running, and when this also failed to put distance between him and the pest, he whirled clumsily around and bid a final farewell to his dying patience.
"Oh, will you get away from me you mangy li'l runt!"
Ragetti shrank back. "Where should I go?"
"I don't know!" Pintel growled. "Go site-seein'! Go climb in a barrel or run around wif the dogs for all I cares!"
But the lad, hunched almost in half, didn't budge. "I already done me a good bit a' that," he said flatly. "Runnin' around w'the dogs..."
Pintel straightened himself to his full height. "Well, I don't plan to have any more fleas on me than the ones that're already there, so why don't you run around wif 'em some more?"
"I jus' figure we gots more in common than they does."
"Oh? An' how you figure that?"
Ragetti shied away a little. "Well…we bof doesn't like stupid blighters."
If it hadn't been nine o'clock at night, Pintel would have told him off further, but the fact remained that he'd been slaving away on a ship bound for Tortuga for two days now, and he was just too tired to argue any more. He'd already tried three times to leave this boy behind, and he had a feeling now that he was never going to get rid of him tonight.
He squared his jaw. "Fine," he grumbled, angrily giving in. With that, he stomped away, defeated, disappearing into the tavern at his right.
Grinning, Ragetti hurried in after him.
----------------------------------------------------
There were many remedies for travel fatigue, and in over two decades of pirating, Pintel had learned that no doctor's prescription could ever do the job quite as quickly or entirely as that one medicine that all buccaneers turned to in their times of need: rum.
"Oi, mate!" he shouted to the bartender over the surrounding uproar. "Gimme a pint!"
A moment later, a sloppy, overflowing mug of the brown beverage was thrust into his hand in exchange for a bronze coin. Letting his heavy shoulders slack, Pintel leaned forward over the bar and lifted his brew to let the healing commence.
"Arrr!"
WHACK!
He jerked his head to the left just in time to witness the man seated beside him all but topple off of his wooden stool, then spring to his bare feet and return the blow that he'd received in the back of his head. The man's opponent, clearly looking for a fight, bared his teeth as he grabbed the first fellow by his shirt collar and yanked him away from the counter. Without a word, their fistfight staggered off into the rowdy crowd, leaving the unlucky man's drink sitting at the bar.
Pintel raised a single shaggy eyebrow as he observed the lonely mug. "Guess 'e won't be needin' this, then." Calmly, he reached over and took the abandoned rum for himself. A free one.
No sooner had he done this than Ragetti had spotted him, and eagerly climbed up onto the now empty stool beside Pintel. The youngster's eyes drifted immediately to the half-finished mug in front of him.
"What's 'at?" he asked inquisitively.
"It's rum," the other mumbled back.
Ragetti looked up at him cautiously. "What d'you do wif it?"
Pintel wasn't even looking at him anymore. "Yeh drink it."
There was a pause in the conversation, and Ragetti slowly took the mug by the handle. Then with a wary sniff at the draft, he lifted it to his lips and took a huge swig, expecting it to taste like regular water. Instead, he received a nasty surprise from the bitter, strong brew in his throat, and he immediately lurched forward coughing and gagging loudly.
Pintel watched this almost comical scene silently through the corner of his eye, then shifted his glance ahead, indifferent.
"Well yeh better get used to it," he muttered. "'Cause I drink it."
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(A much longer chapter than I expected, but it's a pretty important one. I just couldn't resist throwing in that little bit in the bar at the end!)
