familiar yet unfamiliar, roared like a separate small storm in an iron corner of the mess: a manly, rolling baritone playing the part of a mouthwash battling the quickly vanquished and squealing nemeses, Placa y Ginjivitis. Next, barely audible above the roar of rain outside, came the mournfully hushed, feminine tones of “Cruz de Navaja” by Grupo Mecano, a song Esteban had frequently heard over the radio and on jukeboxes in Nicaragua: he sat back against the bulkhead, eyes shut, immersed in the soft, floating voice more than in the lyrics of betrayed love and murder, the female, whispery singing like a voice long lost inside his own memory …
Outside, in the shielded but puddling passage between deckhouse and rain, Capitán Elias barbecued the steaks while José Mateo stood by his side, giddily enfolded in the embrace of oncoming inebriation. He’d traded his steak away for Bernardo’s second beer too, and was feeling happy, repentant, and sentimental all at once: the story his newly aroused blood was telling him had somehow awakened a warm and unfamiliar wave of self-love in the cook.
“Tengo un problemita con alcohol, mi Capitán,” José Mateo announced, in a swollen-chested, decorous tone. “Y el problemita es este: La verdad es que, pues, lo quiero mucho.”
Capitán Elias glanced at José Mateo with a bemused smile, said that while he liked alcohol too, he probably wouldn’t go so far as to say he was in love with it, though who knows, sometimes you don’t realize how in love you are until it’s too late, no? And the cook cackled, nodded his head, and said, “Así es, mi Capi.” Elias went back to his busy barbecuing, shuffling partly cooked steaks onto a pile at the edge of the grill and pulling others over the red coals.
José Mateo shrugged his shoulders heavily, folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and narrowed his eyes; then he raised his chin and said almost defiantly, “Two bottles of rum a day, or of tequila, as much beer as I could hold, that was never a problem for me …” Claro, he’d been in too many drunken brawls in cantinas when he was younger but had survived them all more or less intact, blown all his money on puchilachas in brothels now and then, woke up lying on some sidewalkin a foreign port city without his wallet a few times, that was all. But always a ship waiting for him, a place to sober up and sleep it off and get back to work, he could always count on that, mi Capitán. But the last job he’d had, on the
Tamaulipas,
there was a radio operator, a Mexican called El Peperami, híjole, as bad a drunk as me. The ship spent two days taking on cargo in Vancouver. And he and El Peperami, they’d been into the city, drinking all through the night and into the morning, but they made it back somehow. And as the ship was still loading, they got another bottle of tequila and a fishing rod, went and sat at the end of the pier, behind some containers piled up there. When their crewmates finally found them, they were both passed out cold. They loaded them like two large sacks of cement onto the prongs of two forklifts, which two dockworkers drove back to the ship. And then they were put inside a cargo net and hoisted up on deck at the end of a cargo hook. And that’s where he woke up, out on deck at night, shivering with cold, El Peperami snoring away beside him, both of them still inside that net, the ship plowing out to sea … Until that hijueputa of a Norwegian capitán came by, told them they were fired. They were put off at the next port, Anchorage, Alaska. Carajo, qué humiliación. For all he knows, El Peperami is still there, working on one of those offshore fish-canning factory ships. But he used up the rest of his money flying back to Managua, a big mistake, mi Capitán. Has a little house there that he lets an old aunt and her daughter live in; he’d had hopes of marrying that cousin but, bueno, it hasn’t worked out. Has a small fortune in now totally worthless
Outside, in the shielded but puddling passage between deckhouse and rain, Capitán Elias barbecued the steaks while José Mateo stood by his side, giddily enfolded in the embrace of oncoming inebriation. He’d traded his steak away for Bernardo’s second beer too, and was feeling happy, repentant, and sentimental all at once: the story his newly aroused blood was telling him had somehow awakened a warm and unfamiliar wave of self-love in the cook.
“Tengo un problemita con alcohol, mi Capitán,” José Mateo announced, in a swollen-chested, decorous tone. “Y el problemita es este: La verdad es que, pues, lo quiero mucho.”
Capitán Elias glanced at José Mateo with a bemused smile, said that while he liked alcohol too, he probably wouldn’t go so far as to say he was in love with it, though who knows, sometimes you don’t realize how in love you are until it’s too late, no? And the cook cackled, nodded his head, and said, “Así es, mi Capi.” Elias went back to his busy barbecuing, shuffling partly cooked steaks onto a pile at the edge of the grill and pulling others over the red coals.
José Mateo shrugged his shoulders heavily, folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and narrowed his eyes; then he raised his chin and said almost defiantly, “Two bottles of rum a day, or of tequila, as much beer as I could hold, that was never a problem for me …” Claro, he’d been in too many drunken brawls in cantinas when he was younger but had survived them all more or less intact, blown all his money on puchilachas in brothels now and then, woke up lying on some sidewalkin a foreign port city without his wallet a few times, that was all. But always a ship waiting for him, a place to sober up and sleep it off and get back to work, he could always count on that, mi Capitán. But the last job he’d had, on the
Tamaulipas,
there was a radio operator, a Mexican called El Peperami, híjole, as bad a drunk as me. The ship spent two days taking on cargo in Vancouver. And he and El Peperami, they’d been into the city, drinking all through the night and into the morning, but they made it back somehow. And as the ship was still loading, they got another bottle of tequila and a fishing rod, went and sat at the end of the pier, behind some containers piled up there. When their crewmates finally found them, they were both passed out cold. They loaded them like two large sacks of cement onto the prongs of two forklifts, which two dockworkers drove back to the ship. And then they were put inside a cargo net and hoisted up on deck at the end of a cargo hook. And that’s where he woke up, out on deck at night, shivering with cold, El Peperami snoring away beside him, both of them still inside that net, the ship plowing out to sea … Until that hijueputa of a Norwegian capitán came by, told them they were fired. They were put off at the next port, Anchorage, Alaska. Carajo, qué humiliación. For all he knows, El Peperami is still there, working on one of those offshore fish-canning factory ships. But he used up the rest of his money flying back to Managua, a big mistake, mi Capitán. Has a little house there that he lets an old aunt and her daughter live in; he’d had hopes of marrying that cousin but, bueno, it hasn’t worked out. Has a small fortune in now totally worthless
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