CRASH SITE AMAZON P. 4

Rough seas are much like a woman. Except without a viable uterus. Admittedly some women are also without a viable uterus. Rough seas are like those women.

Voyaging through the Corniphlo Pass is always challenging. Far more sinister than the Bermuda Triangle or the Klegrhoomp Straight. The Pass scrambles men's brains and irrevocably interrupts brunch service. The Wayward Trope is a plucky vessel well equipped to command the waves, stormy winds and precipitation. Salisbury is a well-regarded captain who once won the Arthur Stinbritches Award for most accomplished man of the sea whose body is 83% or more covered in scar tissue. We have nothing to worry about. But still, I can't help but feel there is a bad omen somewhere in the voluminous bucket of upchuck next to me.

The last time I traveled through the pass was Easter 2005. We had just returned from a very successful expedition to the forbidden caves of Horatio Benevietrez in the Xajihu province of Uruguay. We had feasted for days on the enormous chocolate Easter Christs that are part of the Fiesta del Cristo Muerto in that area and my stomach felt as though a tube had been inserted directly into my intestines and molten brownie had been poured in until it was overflowing simultaneously from my nose and anus. And yet I did not vomit that time as we traveled through the Corniphlo Pass and we arrived safely back to the States. This time I had eaten only oatmeal, dry toast and 7-Up and yet my room stank of bile-marinated steak-umms wrapped in moldy bacon and left behind a radiator for several hundred thousands years.

As I finished the hour's vomiting Salisbury's first mate knocked on my door. I was alarmed to see him as his appearance is extremely alarming. “Ditkovski,” he said, his voice even more dirty, dark and gravely than I had imagined. “I to talk to you.”

I slowly opened my door. His face was streaming with tears.

It was clearly a trap and so I steeled my loins and girded my abdomen and the action made me so nauseous that I had to sit down on the floor.

“Ditkovski,” he said again. “I love. I love and I no see. I love and I no see.”

“Yes,” I said, grabbing my cramping stomach. “I understand completely with just the amount of words you've used so far. It will all work out. Let's talk about it more tomorrow.”

“No,” he said. “No. I must to talk more. I must to hear you. Tell.”

I patiently explained that I was currently barfing. He waited until I had finished.

“Love,” he said. “Hurt,” he said. “Love hurt.”

“Yes,” I said, the taste of pork taquitos swimming in pools in my jowls, “I see. Love hurts. You should write a song about it. You've sparked on a universal truth.”

“Cinq,” he said. “Cinq,” and his tears turned to sobs.

Cinq. French for 'five.' Also, a bearded, long-nosed French mercenary and part of The Sept, the world-class troupe of assassins we hired to protect us in the treacherous reaches of the deepest Amazon. Which did he mean? Which one 'love hurt?' It had to be the number. This was the fifth time his heart had been broken. Or he had been playing dice and five was his point and he missed it.

“Love,” the man sobbed. “Love Cinq. Loved Cinq. Romantic loved Cinq. Many, many orgasms. So much love! Now --” He couldn't even continue.

“Oh, very sad person,” I said, realizing I did not know his name, “Cinq is not good enough for you. He's really mean. He specializes in killing invalids. You can do better.”

“I kill invalids!”

“Yes. That's alarming. You're meant to be. Tell him your true feelings.”

“Years past, many years,” he said, “I meet Cinq. Algiers and many murders and we meet. Dark, he is, stormy, a loner. Protecting, he, a German baron hiding. I, me, to kill baron. Baron in wheelchair and tube to breathe. We fight. Blood drawn. Hearts beating. Breath. Blood. Love. Morning he leave. Now, to I this ship -- Wayward Trope -- and he, to this day, to here. Why? Why!? I say to him, I say to him, 'hello.' He turn his head and now I no see. Love, Ditkovski, love. True love. Never before and now --” he shuddered, “never again.”

“That is just tragic,” I said, tears streaming down my face.

“Yes,” he said, snot pooling in the ledge above his upper lip.

“But why do you come to me?”

He reached into the back of his shirt and produced a nine inch knife I recognized as a panther blade. He handed it to me. “Back,” he said, “below shoulder.”

I looked down at the blade solemnly and nodded. I hugged the man, our bodies locked in a deep and meaningful covenant of murder and vengeance. When he had left I locked the door, pushed every piece of furniture against it and called Benvolio's room.

“What is it?”

But I couldn't speak. I looked down at the blade in my hand. Covered now in what was once toast.





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