Jamaican Wedding Part II

When the crew finally hauled Macho Man back on board the catamaran—covering his nudity with a life jacket—he was so angry they had to subdue him with rum and tie him to the deck railing. He tried to tell the deckhands about the spear gun and his missing shorts but he was so frothed up that they couldn’t make out what he was saying. This of course saved my ass. His woman knew what was going on though and she paced angrily back and forth in front of her tattooed lover shooting me looks that would have melted the ice build up off an artic oil tanker’s deck.

The Captain, not one to shy away from a dangerous situation, walked up to Macho Man and began poking him with a snorkel.

Macho Man howled. “You mother fucker. When we get back to the resort I’m going to kill you.”

His girlfriend took a swipe at the Captain but despite his considerable belly he artfully dodge it and poured a margarita on her head.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” DB said. “They’re going to have to release him at some point.”

The Captain produced a Red Stripe, seemingly from thin air and finished it off. “Sometimes you have to give the devil a titty twister and dare the fucker to come after you. Otherwise life can be pretty dull.”

Summer’s eyes narrowed with concern. She hadn’t really seen this side of the Captain. DB had always managed to shuffle him away just before the trigger slipped and the barrel –always aimed straight at chaos—hit its mark.

Summer took DB’s arm and pulled close to him. “You know we’re out here on a boat. If Macho Man gets out we’re trapped with him and all his rage.”

At rare times I can be nearly rational and at that very moment I decided to try to make amends with Macho Man. I would rescue his Euroshorts from the side of the boat where they were stuck with one of my spears…okay, maybe I just wanted my spear back and giving the shorts back was a secondary consideration.

I finished off my rum and Coke. “DB I’m going to need your assistance.”

“Sure, what do you need?” DB asked.

“I’m going to need you to dangle me over the edge of the catamaran by my ankles so I can pull my spear from the side.”

“Right…uhm, isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“Everything in life is dangerous. Hell, I could die from eating a contaminated bag of spinach. Going out by getting sucked under a catamaran seems like a much more manly option.”

DB set his rum and pineapple juice on the bar. “Good point. I’ll get Ernie and Claude to help. My dad can distract the deckhands.”

“How will he do that?”

“He’ll dance.”

“Dance?”

“Who do you think taught me the Mic Jagger chicken dance?”

“Right. I’ll see you at the bow. Oh and make sure the Captain doesn’t know what’s going on. He’ll screw everything up if he finds out.”

“He’s still poking Macho Man with a snorkel.”

We both looked over at the Captain who was now doing some sort of odd ritualistic like dance around Macho Man. I was sure that in his head what he was doing made perfect sense and really that’s all that mattered in the Captains world.

“Okay, lower me down,” I said. “In thirty seconds pull me up whether I have the spear and Euroshorts or not.”

“Got ya,” DB said.

DB found a rope and tied it to the railing and then to my ankles. “If I would happen to die I’d like you to tell my Mother I want her to take care of my Chihuahuas.”

DB pushed me overboard. DB, Claude and Ernie—another member of the wedding entourage—then pulled me up so my legs were out of the water. I adjusted my mask and as the salty spray hit my face. It occurred to me then that what I was doing was perhaps not the smartest thing I had ever done but before I could protest I spied my spear and the Euroshorts on the side of the catamaran. I tugged at the spear but being upside down I had trouble getting any real leverage.

I pulled my head out of the water. “I’ll need more slack.”

DB and the boys slowly lowered me deeper into the water. I was able to twist my body around so that my flippers were against the side of the catamaran and the spear was between my legs, my head out of the water. Just as I was about to pull I saw a deckhand approach my friends and suddenly they let go of the rope. I fell back and the spear came loose. Macho Man’s Euroshorts fell over my face like some sort of gaudy disco veil. I was swept back behind the boat and pulled along on my belly.

I tore at the Euroshorts and as I did so I felt something odd. Through the material of the shorts I could feel it was a disk. My first thought was that it was probably a Guns and Roses CD or perhaps some cheap Jamaican porno Macho Man had picked up somewhere in Montego Bay. I would have little time to ponder this discovery though for to my right I spied a boat coming towards the catamaran. I stuffed the Euroshorts into the back pocket of my own shorts (I know it’s gross but I had little time to think about what I was doing). The other boat pulled up along side the catamaran. Either they hadn’t seen me or figured I was part of some knew water sport craze that was sweeping the Caribbean for they didn’t pay any attention to me.

“Next we will be stopping at Margaritaville,” one of the deck hand said.

I looked out over the clear blue water towards the shoreline and saw a strange building that looked somewhat like the playhouse on the old Pee Wee Herman Show. This was singer Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, a chain of cheeseburger and Margarita joints that has sprung up in the Caribbean and other various locations so that Americans could feel at home getting drunk and fat in any country.

The first thing I noticed was a steep water slide on the face of Margaritaville which started four stories up and at the very end dropped eight feet into ocean. I knew the Captain should be kept as far away as possible from this contraption but of course he would head straight for it, the constructs of his being allowed for no other reasonable alternative. The Captain would not be denied any of the forbidden fruits that were off limits to less daring men with such petty considerations as morals and a sense of dignity limiting their actions.

The other boat docked next to our catamaran. With my diving knife in hand I dove below the surface and cut the rope from my legs. I then swam as long as I could under water and surfaced about fifty yards away in the roped off swimming area of Margaritaville.

In the swimming area were two floating trampolines and I swam over to one of them and climbed up on it. I watched as my friends got off the catamaran and the men from the other boat approach the captain (the actual captain of our vessel). They talked to him for a moment handed him an envelope and climbed aboard. Immediately they made for Macho Man who by this time had procured a towel to cover his nakedness. I could hear him all the way from where I was some 100 yards away.

“Someone shot my shorts off with a spear gun and got the CD, Mr. Timball.”

His girlfriend grabbed his arm and pulled herself close to him. “It’s true. I saw it.”

A very short man in a black linen shirt and dark wrap around sunglasses took a step towards Macho Man. The corners of his lips rose slightly and he laughed but he most definitely wasn’t happy. “I asked you to do only one thing and that was to hold onto that CD. That CD is worth more than your life. Do you understand that?”

Macho Man hung his head, water dripped from his Fu Manchu. “Yeah.”

“Well, then where are the shorts?”

“In the side of the boat right here.”

“Well, why are they still there?”

“I was naked.”

The Timball smacked Macho Man. “Well, then you’ll get them now.”

Macho Man’s girlfriend stood. “He’s not going in there for you.”

Timball snapped his fingers and two big goons in identical red Adidas sweat suits grabbed Macho Man’s girlfriend and set her down on the dock. “Go, and don’t look back,” one of the goons said. They then grabbed Macho Man by the ankles and lowered him over the side of the boat face first. They held him in the water for some time and then when I was sure he was drowned they yanked him up.

Macho Man came up gasping and spitting. His towel fell down and he quickly pulled it back up.

Timball tapped his foot impatiently on the deck. “Well?”

“It’s gone, Mr. Timball. It was there when I got on the boat.”

“For your sake they’d better not have been lost at sea.”

“They couldn’t have been. They really were stuck in there good.”

Timball raised the heel of his snakeskin boot and drove it into Macho Man’s foot. Macho Man fell to the ground grasping his injured foot. “Who shot the spear and where is he now?”

Macho man spun around on the deck of the boat like a bad break dancer, holding his broken foot. “I don’t know. He must be up in Margaritaville.”

“Well, I want the CD back and I want this guy dead no matter what.”

Mr. Timball and his goons turned and looked up at Margaritaville. They studied the giant water slide outside, the patrons enjoying drinks on the deck. I noticed the Captain was at the top of the water slide finishing off a 32 ounce margarita. He handed the empty cup the water slide attendant and then he spotted me. I tried to sink down into the trampoline.

“Hey, Professor, up here.”

All at once, Macho Man, Timball, and his goons turned and looked at me lying on the trampoline.

“There he is,” Macho Man cried.

The Captain dove into the water slide and I waited for him to come out at the bottom but he didn’t. Somehow he’d gotten stuck inside.

I dove into the water and swam straight for the bottom. Next to one of the anchor ropes that held the trampolines in place was a rock. I lifted it and put the gold Euroshorts and CD underneath it. If this Timball character was going to kill me then I figured the CD must have been very valuable and I would need that leverage to negotiate with if they caught me.

I broke the surface of the water and just as I did the Captains red, white and blue Speedos slid out the end of the water slide but still no Captain…