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Isaiah Jones versus the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

First Quarter Moon: Occurs around Day 36.

Days 39-45: Explore Castries, St. Lucia

Explore the island of St. Lucia.

‘Key West to the Bahamas; an unplanned stop in Cuba’

‘The Bad Guy’

“White shirt now red, my bloody nose

Sleepin’, you’re on your tippy toes

Creepin’ around like no one knows

Think you’re so criminal

Bruises on both my knees for you

Don’t say thank you or please

I do what I want when I’m wanting to

My soul? So cynical

So you’re a tough guy

Like it really rough guy

Just can’t get enough guy

Chest always so puffed guy

I’m that bad type

Make your mama sad type

Make your girlfriend mad tight

Might seduce your dad type

I’m the bad guy, duh

I’m the bad guy.”

-Billie Eillish

“Keaton always said, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him.” Well, I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.”

-Verbal ‘The Usual Suspects’

Three days ago, Starbuck and Isaiah found a dinghy adrift at sea 20 miles off the coast of the Andros Island in the Bahamas, with an unconscious, dark-haired, bikini-clad woman onboard bleeding out from a gunshot wound in her side. After rescuing Naomi Galatea Cabala, bringing her aboard the Exodus, and tending her wounds, when she regained consciousness, they discovered she had been adrift all night. The antibiotics Doc Brown, the veterinarian in Key West, had given Isaiah for emergencies saved Naomi’s life. After some discussion, she persuaded Isaiah to transport her to Havana, where she has friends who will give her a place to rest while she recovers and resupply his boat.

Isaiah, Naomi, and Starbuck, the ship’s unofficial first mate, celebrated after surviving the ship’s first storm together. Now, with Naomi on the mend, they plotted a new course to Havana. Naomi had been honest and told the boy what she does for a living, but what she does not tell him is who she does it for.

What she does not tell Isaiah is that she is currently in the employ of a 413-pound, six-foot-nine-inch, one-eyed, albino pederast named Polly Laveau Ovejero. Dead Eye Polly is a soulless apex predator, a pure psychopath driven only by his lust for absolute power, domination, and vengeance.

On the surface, he is a genteel, soft-spoken, charming, erudite conversationalist who still speaks with his Creole mother’s accent under his Cuban father’s native tongue. Autodidactic, bibliophile with a fondness for twentieth-century post-modernist, The Algonquin Round Table, and American Gothic literature. He has cultivated a taste for rare French vintages, the transgressive impressionist paintings of Paul Gauguin, and exotic top-tier cruiser yachts. Milo, the boy who was killed when the two of them attempted to steal a catamaran in the Bahamas, Bimini Isles, was his son.

Big Polly loves Tom Wolfe’s esthetic thus his ensemble, he always wears white Armani suits over a crimson silk shirt, with a matching pocket square, a black necktie, and a white panama. His only jewelry his late father’s freemasons ring and a Saint Martin de Porres relic inlaid gilded crucifix; the rosary a gift from his holiness during his 2015 visit to Cuba to see Fidel and his brother after kneeling to kiss the ring of the Albino.

Even after surviving 3 assassination attempts, he refuses to wear body armor. He is perpetually surrounded by 4 heavily armed guards that you can see always equipped with semiautomatic machine pistols and a cadre of half a dozen prepubescent boys in white track suits with serrated curved daggers hanging from sheathes on their narrow hips, their heads shaved except for a topknot worn in a bun. Each wears a heavy golden choker. They sit around him at his feet as if they were his pet dogs. The men with the machine guns were all once the boys with the daggers.

The son of a Creole Vodun Priestess, Ophelia Marie Laveau, and her lover, a Cuban gangster, Domingo ‘Big Popi’ Ovejero. Educated by his mother in the ways of the old gods and taught to fight by his father in the Louisiana Bayou, he returned to Havana after his father was killed in a shoot-out with the DEA and his mother imprisoned for life. He was made a ward of the state of Louisiana. He ran away 3 days later at age 6 and began making his way to family in Baton Rouge. When he was old enough, he began working first as a look-out before working his way up to an enforcer for local syndicates until he left for Florida, before he made his way to Cuba.

Polly Ovejero was a big boy who grew to become a very large man with a natural propensity for violence that serendipitously aided his ascent to the upper echelons of power in the Louisiana underworld. The Albino learned to use the night and his unholy visage as weapons of terror, instilling fear in his enemies before they ever met him. He only operated in the night and was careful to never be seen in the daylight.

The armaments he wielded were a pair of custom platforms of the finest British manufacture, handmade Holland & Holland modified ‘Noble’ over and under, loaded with .470 Nitro Express rounds. The twin guns Afrikaans Ebony and etched silver handles inlayed with the bones of his progenitors forming a pair of lethal reliquaries christened Santo Padre and Madre Reverenda (Holy Father and Blessed Mother; Shango and Ogun, iron and thunder ) held only 2 rounds each, giving him a total of only 4 shots before he must reload, but then again, he is firing .470 Nitro Express rounds made specially for elephant guns. To date, he has never needed more than those 4 bullets to get any job done.

Over the last 25 years, he has succeeded in exterminating all opposition, both domestic and international. After surviving attacks by the world’s most powerful criminal organizations, the Cartels, Cosa Nostra, and Ninkyō dantai and the rest, Dead-Eye Polly Ovejero now reigns as the unrivaled head of the Cuban mobs, the Caribbean Isle boss of bosses, and despite his surprisingly high-pitched lisping Truman Copote-esque voice, he, like Mike Tyson in his prime, is the personification of terror. He once casually killed a man in front of Naomi as they negotiated the price of a boat she was selling by snapping the poor bastard’s neck with one hand as effortlessly as if he were breaking a pencil in two.

Dead-Eye Polly was not going to be happy to see her return, not only empty-handed but with bad news; she knew he was going to be furious when he found out Caesar was dead. The only thing that could make things worse would be if he found out from someone other than her. Naomi had been racking her brain for the last few days aboard the Exodus as they sailed west towards Cuba, trying to figure out a way to escape his wrath and pay off her gambling debts to him and his cohorts before she and Isaiah reached Havana. Now, they had run out of time. Finally, she decided she had best tell the kid everything before they reached Cuba.

“Mira, Naomi said solemnly. Isaiah, you saved my ass back there and didn’t turn me in to the authorities in the Bahamas, so I need to tell you the truth. The whole truth about me … gambling debts … about the people I owe money. That boat would have covered it, and they would be out of my life, but now, with Dead Eye Polly’s son, Ceasar, dead. This is the kinda’ guy that will slave you out to the Russian oligarchs or Saudi oil prince or worse make you the star of his next movie. He makes snuff films.

The men in his employ, his Boi’s, he affectionately refers to as the Sons of Sparta, a mongrel army of orphans and street urchins he personally rescued, adopted, and trained to protect him. Most had never even owned a pair of shoes or eaten two days in a row before he adopted them. He is the first person to ever show them affection, and they, in return, view him as a father figure, a savior, perhaps even a god. To them, his word is law. They cannot be bribed, bargained with, or reasoned with; their loyalty is unshakable. They would not only kill for him, but they would also die for him.

The sisters at the orphanages turn a practiced blind eye to his distasteful proclivities, along with his cannibalism, indulged in as part of his ritual as a Santeria High Priest since he is their order’s most generous donor. He has everything from the priesthood to policemen to politicians in his pocket. Do you understand the kind of man we are dealing with if you come with me to Havana?

Men like him rise to power in every war-torn, impoverished hovels throughout human history. When I was in the Army, they sent people like me to hunt and eradicate his kind. That is most of what we did back when I was in Delta Force. But now, she shook her head slowly as she sat down beside the gangly black 16-year-old kid who was the captain of the Exodus.

Naomi began absentmindedly scratching behind Starbucks’ ears as she spoke. I’ve been trying to figure a way to get out of this monster’s debt and not get killed or worse by this guy, but I gotta be honest, Miho. There is a good chance that this psycho will kill me and whoever happens to be with me when he finds out his only son is dead. I can’t let you get involved in this, so drop me near the coast in my dinghy and I will go see him and if he doesn’t murder me, I’ll be back to resupply your boat but, Naomi said remorsefully, if I’m not back in 24 hours I need you to promise to leave and never look back.

“I’m coming with you,” Isaiah said immediately, having already resolved to help her. The lanky black teen looked at her with his mother’s emerald eyes full of empathy. “If I walk away now, it’s no different than if I had left you adrift in the dinghy to bleed out.” He shook his head slowly, no to the idea. “No. He said, looking at the maxim above the skull tattoo on her left arm emblazoned in the banner, “Death before Dishonor.” My momma raised me better than that.”

Naomi could see that there was no talking the kid out of this; he spoke with total conviction. He was an honorable man. There are not many. She exhaled a relieved breath, despite her bravada a part of her glad not to have to do this alone.

“OK, just don’t say anything. ok, Isaiah, let me do all the talking. Naomi looked up and grinned. I have a plan.”

Summer 1999, Saturday evening, 11 men and 2 women traveling in 4 white Range Rovers with Louisiana license plates park in front of the finest gunroom of its kind outside of London.

“This shop is one of only 2 Holland & Holland stores. The original is in London, their lone satellite store located here in Dallas, Texas, as their home in North America, we offer a full gunsmithing service, gun fitting, valuations, and histories.” The obese cowboy in a grey vest and slacks with snakeskin western boots smiled jovially at the gargantuan negro albino’s entourage.

“We did not travel all this way to get the company spiel from some no-named redneck.” Dead Eye Polly said as his entourage entered the Dallas Holland & Holland gun store on Preston Ave. This being the only location for the esteemed weaponsmiths outside of London and inquire what are the largest pistols manufactured. He was 23 years old at the time and had just left his mother’s grave. She was the last woman executed in the electric chair in the state of Louisiana.

The man behind the counter, Bobby Joe Robertson, is a local gunsmith, but they are here to see the company man, the one who stays in the back of the store. “Now, fetch me the Englishman, then piss off, boy.” Bobby Joe looks at the humongous one-eyed albino planked by two veiled women also dressed in white, mumbles a yes, sir and presses the buzzer under the counter.

A minute later, an elderly, bespectacled, bearded old white man wearing a tweed vest with matching slacks, brown oxfords, and a translucent emerald visor atop his balding pate appears from the rear of the shop. With a sweep of his hand the towering albino gestures towards a pair of Holland & Holland ‘Noble’ over and under big game hunting rifles in the glass display case on the far wall “make those into a pair of pistols.” the two ivory veiled sanitaria priestesses each place a stainless-steel box containing the bones of his mother in one and his father in the other on the glass countertop.

Mister Gerhard Pennington opens each box, peeks at its contents, and looks up over the steel rims of his round spectacles.

“I understand, my condolences, Señor Ovejero.”

“Thank you, Ek kan aan jou aksent hoor dat jy nie van Engelse geboorte is nie, hè, schat?”. Polly lisps with a smile.

“You have an excellent ear, sir. I was born in Pretoria.” Pennington continues, “This will require that I take the full measure for the holsters and bandolero, and I will need to take a measure of your hands as well, sir.” The little man stooped with age, reached into his vest pocket, and produced a yellow cloth tape measure, the type one would typically see used by tailors. “Remove your coat and armaments, sir, and will you be wearing body armor or Kevlar vestment of any kind?

“No,” Polly replied, a knowing smile spread across the bearded face of the gunsmith.

“Excellent, all rites and rituals shall be observed, the conversion will take three weeks. They will be ready upon your return. Munitions?”

Polly gazed down at Gerhard with a pale blue eye. Replying in a dulcet tone.

“I will require several additional cases of the .470 Nitro Express rounds with the order.” The diminutive Englishman adjusted his glasses, then quickly scribbled a few notes on a small notepad before returning it to one of his vest pockets.

Might I inquire exactly how you learn of my services? Gerhard asked. The albino showed the aged, wrinkled gunsmith the ring on his left pinky.

“This was my father’s.”

“Ah, of course,” the old gunsmith said, nodding slowly as he fingered the Mason’s ring on his own left hand.

-About the author:

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.