There's nothing worse on a ship than a windless day, especially with the Caribbean sun poking on your head harder than a coconut being thrown at full speed. Most time, it is nothing serious. If it lasts only a day, you do awful tasks that needs a windless day, like cleaning the hull or mending the main sail. If it lasts two days, you resign yourself to wash and scrub the deck while dreaming of mutiny because your captain is not sweating under the sun, no; he has fun imagining shapes in the clouds while clinging to the arm of his co-captain. On the third day, you're bored to death. There's nothing more to do, so you just go around in circles on the burning deck, wondering if you're doomed to drift for eternity, or who you'd eat when food runs out, and if you'll drink human blood when there's no more water.
Sailors have wild imaginations when they're bored.
For now, Oluwande tried to forget how hot it was by fanning himself under the stairs, out of the sun. On the other side of the ship, Jim was sharpening his knife, looking for a fight. They considered the absence of wind and the heat a personal affront, but they would not put on their hat, no. Jim thought the sun should apologize for bothering them and pretended they were not getting red all over their face and neck. Oluwande glared at them, to no avail. On days like that, it was tiring to be Jim's friend.
Lucius collapsed next to Oluwande and groaned.
"Is there nowhere on the ship we can escape the heat?"
"Not today."
Lucius sighed dramatically but did not get up. He looked in Jim's direction.
"They don't get hot in that sun?"
It was Oluwande's turn to sigh.
"It's Jim we're talking about. Nothing stops them. If there was a way, I would use it all the time."
"Were they like that before? I mean, before there was a Jim. When they were..."
"Bonifacia? If you knew what I do!"
A knife landed right between his legs. A second embedded itself in the planks of the deck and Lucius's pants, two fingers from his crotch. Jim was listening closely to their conversation. Oluwande and Lucius exchanged a look of terror. Blood had deserted their faces and other parts of their anatomy.
Jim got up and walked to them with a falsely happy step. Their hand hid in their large coat's pocket, where they hid more knives. They still wore the coat, despite the heat, and were sweating profusely, but Jim still knew how to look threatening under any circumstances. Blood came back to some parts of Oluwande's anatomy. Jim or Bonifacia, they had always been intimidating. Before meeting them, Oluwande didn't know this kind of behavior could affect him like that. But Blackbeard terrorized him without making him sweat with desire, so it was probably just Jim who had that effect on him.
Jim slowly kneeled to look them eye to eye and held out his hands for them to give the two knives back. Oluwande swallowed. Someday, someone should make that look illegal before it wreaks more havoc. Oluwande wished he could be that threatening. It would have saved him a lot of trouble in the past, but every time he practiced, he only made Jim laugh. According to them, it gave him the look of a wet dog, so Oluwande stopped trying.
Oluwande retrieved the knife and handed it back to Jim. It disappears inside their coat again. The second knife joined the first when Lucius did the same. At least his hand shook more than Oluwande's, he noted with satisfaction. Maybe Oluwande was building a resistance to Jim's bullshit.
The latter offered them a satisfied grin but did not get up. Their glare made Lucius break quickly.
"We weren't doing anything! I was just asking a question, which is within my right, and..."
"Go away, cabrón."
Lucius didn't have to be told twice. He fled and disappeared into the ship like he had a thousand devils on his heels. Oluwande was tempted to do the same. At least Jim wasn't staring at him anymore. They were making sure Lucius was leaving and looked like they were wondering if they should send their third knife right between Lucius's shoulders.
"He wasn't doing anything wrong," Oluwande protested on behalf of his friend before he added in a weak voice "Neither am I."
Big mistake. Jim was looking at him now. Oluwande could have sworn they were fire in their eyes.
"¿Qué te pasa? This is my story and you want to tell it to this... this pendejo?"
"Actually, it's our story, since you never told me anything about your life before arriving in the Republic of Pirates," retorted Oluwande. "And even if I knew this part of your story, I would never tell it. It's yours. But there's no harm in telling a little story about you and me."
Jim looked away and went to lean on the railing. Worried, because he thought he saw pain in their eyes, Oluwande joined them. Jim had pulled out one of their daggers and was driving it angrily into the railing, again and again. Oluwande decided it was wiser to keep quiet and wait until Jim had something to say.
He didn't have to wait long.
"No harm done?" Jim repeated. "When they found out what was in my pants, these idiots thought I was bad luck or that I was a mermaid. Now they treat me like one of them again, but if you tell them stories from when I was Bonifacia..."
"You don't want them to see you like that again, I understand."
"Si. And that's what's going to happen if you do. You didn't even think about what I thought about you telling them stories about us. Did you think I liked you too much to be angry with you? You have no right to play with my feelings like that."
Oluwande wanted to raise his eyes to the sky. He, playing with Jim's feelings? What a good joke. He was so madly in love with Jim the entire crew teased him when Jim wasn't there.
"Did you really think they would not ask questions about you? You're the most interesting person on the ship, even with Blackbeard here. It was only a matter of time. And if you thought I would give a bad image of you, you don't know me that well. And apparently, me neither."
He turned his back on Jim before he could say words he would regret and took refuge inside, far from their knives and their stupid face. Jim truly was the worst person who was ever seen on land or sea.
The others were downstair, around the table, fanning themselves and each other. No one was talking about the damn weather for once. Everyone was listening to Lucius telling how Jim's knife almost ripped off his manhood.
"I nearly pissed myself!" Lucius complained when he was done. "Look at that hole they made in my pants!"
The others let out a chorus of terrified and impressed cries at the torn crotch.
"They terrify me, I swear. I almost became a eunuch! Do you believe that?"
Oluwande sat among them.
"You find Jim's dangerous now? You saw nothing! The first time I met them I almost pissed myself and I nearly die too!"
They all went quiet. Almost by magic, a mug of bad beer landed under Oluwande's nose.
"Do tell," Frenchie begged. "You can't say that and leave us on that!"
A glance to the right and left reassured Oluwande. Izzy was not there. He may have been angry enough to tell this story without Jim's permission, but never so angry as to give the man ammunitions.
"Imagine," he began after taking a sip of the beer and pushing the disgusting drink as far away from him as possible. "The Republic of Pirates, four or five years ago. It was before the gentrification, so every street was a cut-throat."
The door flew open, startling them all. Jim entered, their eyes still filled with lightning. No one said a word when they drank Oluwande's beer and moved to the other side of the room, where they sat in the shadows. Even though they could no longer see their face, everyone knew Jim was daring them to continue the conversation. Suddenly, Oluwande missed the awful beer. Alcohol would have given him courage. Shit. Oluwande could be brave if he wanted to. Oluwande had courage. He was a pirate, and the captain told them so many times that they were the bravest men that he could have ended with. He said it so often that Oluwande was starting to believe him at least a little.
"So. It was four or five years ago. Terrible year for piracy. It rained all the time. Ships were sinking one after the other because of the storms... We were having a hard time! Well, when I say we, I was just working on the docks. I helped load and unload ships. Tiring work, meager pay."
"And worse food," summed up Roach.
"You don't say. I hadn't eaten for two days, but I still had to work if I wanted my pay for the week. My stomach made more noise than church bells and I had to carry this enormous box to the other side of the platform, alone. No one was helping me. The others dockers were in the tavern, away from the rain. We had just moved a barrel so heavy it needed three people to do the job and nearly broke our backs, so they decided they needed a break. I wanted one too, but I needed the money more, so I was working alone on that pirate ship. I'm getting tired, and there's this crate which is too heavy for me to move alone. So I start to think and decide it'll hurt less to push it down the gangway."
He stopped himself. Maybe he should have thought more before telling this story. It really could hurt Jim's standing among the crew. He saw Jim, but couldn't see their face in the shadows. Oluwande sighed. He had gone too far to turn back. He had to take the plunge.
"The crate's heavy. Instead of sliding down the gangway, it falls sideways and shatters onto the dock." He let another moment of silence pass, just to increase the suspense, like the captain did with his stories. "Do you know what was inside?"
"Jim!", shouted three or four different voices.
Oluwande felt Jim smile in the shadows. He shook his head.
"You're wrong. Nah, what falls is like ten or fifteen boxes of dried cakes and candied fruits. The pirates I was helping had boarded a ship delivering sweets from England to the good society of Port-Royal or elsewhere."
"That wasn't worth nothing," Roach laughed. "Pirates don't like sweets."
They all loved them since they started working for the captain, but that was another story.
"Normally, yes, but I was starving. Starving!"
"And you love to eat so much," Black Pete teased him.
Oluwande did not deny it. He rubbed his stomach in agreement. Another drink and a piece of bread flew in his direction to motivate him to continue.
"What would you have done?" he asked, biting into the bread. "I jumped so quickly after these boxes that I almost broke my leg. I take off my shirt, even if I'm freezing under this pouring. I use the shirt to put as many boxes as I can inside, like it's a bag. Bad thing I'm so busy I forget to look around."
"And you should have."
"And I should have, because the scene didn't go unnoticed. The guys who were supposed to help me heard the noise and poked their heads out of the tavern. You can imagine how happy they were! But no luck for me, they didn't want to share what I found with me. And worse, the ship crew woke when the crate broke and they really didn't want to share. Here I am, shirtless, my arms full of biscuit boxes, between starving workers and bloody pirates and they're all ready to kill me for these biscuits."
A howl of laughter ran through the crew. For pirates, they weren't bad guys, but they always laughed at other people's misfortune. Oluwande let them laugh at his expense for a little while, then resumed his story.
"I can't tell you how scared I am! I'm thinking of jumping into the water, but I don't know if the boxes are waterproof and if I can swim with them in my shirt. I can't move, I can't think, but I know this: I'm dead."
"How did you get out of it?"
They were so captivated that they forgot about Jim! Even Jim, who knew the story perfectly, had stepped forward and looked like they were hanging on his lips. Oluwande didn't know he was such a good storyteller. It must have been the captain's evening readings that had inspired him.
"Do you remember the barrel that weighed like a hundred pounds? The lid falls to the ground. Two knives spring out, tack, tack! Two pirates fall onto the dock, a knife stuck in their bellies, and I'm staying there, wondering what just happened and if I'm hallucinating because of the hunger, when there's that voice coming from the barrel. "Por dios", I hear, "Move away tonto, I can't aim if you're in the way!". My legs act before my brain and I curl into a ball, wondering since when hallucinations talk in Spanish. "Give me the gun of one of these morons. I don't have that much knives on me." I do what the voice says, lie down to grab a pistol, and send it toward the barrel. The barrel falls on its side, a hand grabs the pistol, a head emerges, and bam! bam! Two more men are on the ground. "Can you run fast?" "Like now, right away?", I ask. "Faster than a horse, I think. "Well, prove it, run!" I grab my boxes and run away from the ship, the pirates, and the workers. They are still too stunned to react, which gives me a few moments head start. Some biscuit boxes fall out, but you don't see me stop to pick them up. I hear running behind me, so I run even faster, and there's the voice from the barrel again. "They're right behind us. Don't stop running. We need to lose them if we want to live!"
Oluwande stopped to look at his friends. They were all staring at him, mouths agape. He never had such success in public.
"Did you get out?" Frenchie asked.
"Of course, if he tells us that!"
"It was Jim, yes? Say it was Jim!"
It wasn't Jim. It was Bonifacia Jimenez. Oluwande had recognized a woman's voice from the beginning, but he didn't correct Frenchie.
"Of course it was Jim," he replied instead. "A knife in each hand, a smile on their lips, Jim. I had half the harbor on my tail, and they were still the most terrifying people I saw all day. Needless to say, I almost fainted, except that they looked ready to slit the throats of all these guys who were running after us to steal me, even though we didn't even know each other. Fortunately, I know the area like the back of my hand. I pull them by the sleeve, we slip away into an alley and the wannabee killers pass by us without seeing us."
They had collapsed against the wall, hearts pounding from the effort. When Oluwande had finished catching his breath, he had stared at the person in front of him while she was doing the same with him. Oluwande did not tell what his first impression of Bonifacia was.
He could, but what good would it do to anyone if he said his breath went short when he saw that tiny woman with long, dirty, unkempt hair? His mother had always said his heart was too big and that the day he fell in love, he would fall hard and quick. She had been right. Oluwande had fallen in love right that moment, but no one needed to know that, not even Jim. Especially not Jim, if they thought Oluwande would have described them as the woman they were then, too thin, too dirty, her eyes full of suspicion and with bruises on her face. Someone had beaten her, more than once. She looked almost frail. He could say so to the others, but it wouldn't do that to his worst enemy. People could be whatever and whoever they wanted. Jim wasn't at their best when they met, but Oluwande wasn't either.
Yes, Bonifacia had seemed fragile to him and he had wanted to protect her, but it was a false impression because of Bonifacia's sex. A woman was supposed to be weak, so she seemed weak to him. She had cured him of that false impression in less than a minute. After that, he would always be careful with first impressions.
"And then?" Lucius asked. "They didn't try to murder you to steal the food?"
Oluwande sniffed. They knew Jim too well.
"They tried, of course. Put a knife to my throat, right when I hold up a box for them to share. The box got stabbed. I let it go, and the knife fell to the ground. You could say my nice proposition disarmed Jim, right?"
A grunt came from the shadows, but Jim put little animosity into it. They must have liked the story. At least, it had not displeased them, which was enough for now, because it meant Oluwande would live. He just had to finish the story.
"I must not have made too bad an impression because that night they ate and slept at my house. The next day, we broke into the house of a retired pirate. I don't even know how they convinced me to do something so stupid."
"Maybe because you're always a bit of an idiot when Jim's concerned," Frenchie said with a big smile.
The others laughed in agreement. Oluwande could not say they were wrong, nor could he hold back a smile. He accepted the teasing with good spirits, then let the conversation move to a different topic. He only listened with one ear, his attention elsewhere.
When he saw Jim discreetly leaving the room, Oluwande also slipped away. Too caught up in their conversation, the others didn't pay attention or try to stop him. Once on the bridge, he found Jim leaning on the railing, staring at the immensity of the ocean with false indifference written on their face. Oluwande sat down next to them and stared shamelessly at their profile, wondering what was worrying them so much. He could see Bonifacia on their face, but Bonifacia had been as fierce as Jim. No one would have mistaken Jim for anything other than Jim, even without their ridiculous wax nose. Jim was Jim, to Oluwande, to the captain, to the crew, and to the entire world, if it dared to stand in their way. Oluwande could have told the others about the only time he saw them in a dress. It wouldn't have changed their opinion of Jim, despite what they thought.
But maybe it was easy to think so when he wasn't like Jim. Maybe he would be touchy if he was in their place and wouldn't want to hear about the past either. He shouldn't have gotten so angry at Jim's distrust. It was too easy to blame the heat and the lack of wind.
"I'm..."
Jim cut him off.
"It was a good story. You told it well."
"If you're in it, it's a good story."
Oluwande bit his lips. He shouldn't have said that. What kind of moron was he? Jim was going to make fun of his romantic heart again and pretend they didn't know what Oluwande felt. Instead, Jim laughed softly.
"I see what you mean. You're in my best ones too. In fact, you're in the only stories that matter to me."
They let their head fall on Oluwande's shoulder and resumed their contemplation of the ocean. Oluwande found he could not move or breathe. He was stuck there, having to watch Jim's hair move gently in the breeze that was finally blowing. It was torture. It was the best place in the world, and Oluwande wouldn't have left it, even for all the gold in the Caribbean.