The Risk Taker

A group project by Jameylee Taylor, Katie Morton and Barbara Force

The Risk-Taker

 

            I stopped the car near the barb-wired fence at the bay. The brakes of my white Honda squeaked as I pulled up and turned the commercials down on the radio. Tonight, ale calmed my butterflies down. It was time.

            This was the beginning of what I had been planning for weeks with my two closest friends, Allen and Calvin, and I knew I was ready – I hoped I was ready. As the night grew quiet, I gathered the courage to step out of the car, silently closing the door behind me, and refusing to look back. Glancing at the shrub across the broad empty street, I approached the guardhouse to the naval dock I had watched for weeks.

            I felt the bulge of the cold silenced pistol in my coat pocket. It felt awkward in my trembling hand as I lifted it into the still night air. Before the entrance to the base, there stood a young naval guard. For a moment I felt sorry that I’d be taking so many years from him. My hand aimed from afar at his face. I dragged the trigger back, my index finger weaker than ever, before I heard a snap. The young body fell.

            There wasn’t a lot of time, I knew, so I whispered our code word – “Land ho!” – toward the bushes. I half-ran to the first boat I saw, hearing both Allen and Calvin’s footsteps not far behind, beating into the ground. The boat was a large steel ship, a dingy compared to the others, but still manageable for only three men. Standing there, looking at our booty, I tried grasping at reality. They caught up and brought me back to the task at hand.

            We crawled up the steps into the cold blue ship. Taking over the cabin, we really felt in charge now. Calvin’s fierce eyes found the various controls in front of us. His hands became a tornado; I couldn’t keep track of what he was doing anymore.

            He was the one who wanted this the most. We were anarchists. It was time to prove our point, prove we would stand for the rights we’ve been deprived of – freedom, happiness. No one was going to stop us now.

            The floor beneath me became unstable. I figured Calvin had gotten the ship to move. A blend of sudden movement and the rush of emotions made me dizzy. Lethargy, blurriness . . . Soon I felt the floor against my cheek..

            When I gained consciousness, we’d been far out on the sea. Allen was standing over me saying too many words too fast for my comprehension. I couldn’t remember fainting. The scene was too much to take in.

            Soon I was breathing again and took control of the plan I’d set up so long ago. With the wheel now in my hands, my two friends began to fill me in. Calvin had dark hair and bright eyes. His voice was higher than most men, but he was first, and foremost, my best friend. Allen and I were close as well, but he was more of a friend of Cal. That was fine with me, though, so long as he obeyed my orders. He had green eyes highly contrasting his pale white skin and light red hair, like a gemmed mushroom.

            The two filled me in on the U.S. ships that made a feeble attempt to catch us. However, we soon escaped American waters and they were forced to let us go. I’m sure if we ever showed our faces in the States again, we’d be seized and hung by nightfall. I took another swig of alcohol.

            We were heading for a small island near Brazil. By the next night, we’d be basked in Brazilian sun with beautiful exotic women and real rum.

            The three of us took turns sleeping and running the wheel. I still felt a little dazed from my fall, so I rested first. The boat rocked gently as I drifted to sleep. Not long after, I felt a jolt. I flung forward in my bed. The boat had stopped.

            Why?

            I began to run up the stairs to the deck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Harsh wind whipped our ship. My brown hair became daggers jabbing for my eyes. Clouds as black as ash swirled in the sky above us, sending down menacing bolts of lightning. The ship didn’t stop, per say. Instead, we were spiraling head first into the center of a –

            “Whirlpool!?”

            I panicked. Who was piloting the boat? My heart pounded in my head and I ran over the rain-soaked deck – nearly slipping into the ravenous waves now below me – and finally go to the cabin. I ran to the navigation area to find that Allen was asleep next to a bottle of rum, right next to the wheel whirling out of control.

            “Damn it!” I screamed, kicking Allen in the back of the head. He awoke, startled. “We’re driving ourselves straight into a whirlpool! Go! Get Calvin!”

            The wheel fought with me. I couldn’t steer the ship away from the death trap. Thunder rolled over the waves and lightning strived to strike us down. I couldn’t allow this to happen. I was the captain – I had to save my ship and men. Allen and Calvin rushed across the deck, tying any boxes down and watching for damage. A steel ship didn’t have much to be mindful of.

            The wheel had overwhelmed me after only a few minutes. I tried desperately to fight the whirlpool, feeling my strength leave with ever passing second, but nature was winning.

            “Calvin!” I roared.

            My muscles screamed for me to release the wheel. I couldn’t take much more of this.

            Both of them rushed in and struggled against the wheel alongside me. Thunder bellowed louder, almost deafening. Finally, as the wheel budged, lightning rushed across the deck. The controls were rendered useless. We were going to die.

            As the center swallowed us headfirst, we tumbled about the cabin. My head smashed against the opposite wall and blackness began to seep into my vision.

            “Don’t let us die . . .” I gasped out, watching my friends slump down against the floor . . .

 

            A headache. My skull was pounding, reminding me not to drink so much, and especially not to pass out. My eyes creaked open to see a light filtering down through a porthole.

            “A porthole?” I mumbled groggily.

            Then it hit me, harder than the wall during the storm. Images flashed of the gun in my hand, the recoil and the bullet taking the life of a young man. Only then, when the guilt stabbed at my heart, did I remember where we were.

            “Butch!” Calvin called to me. I wiped my hair out of my eyes. “Butch, where the hell are we?”

            Calvin was only slightly bruised. He held his forehead in his hands while glancing out the window. I reluctantly stood up. Looking out of the porthole, the sea looked calm, but different. I saw an island I couldn’t recognize, as well as an antique wooden ship, clearly weatherworn, and even more clearly belonging in some rich man’s harbor more than a strange beach. Black sails, repaired with white patches, tapered in the air.

            “So long as the Navy . . .” Allen started. He struggled to his feet and stood by my side. “Hah! Look! They think they’re pirates!”

            I felt numb again as I stared harder at that black sail. Those weren’t patches, or sails for that matter; they were skulls and crossbones emblazed on rugged flags.

            “Psh. We have a Navy ship,” Allen hinted.

            I scowled at him. “Do we look like pirates?”

            “With titles, we can,” Calvin added.

            Debate arose. In moments, I was Captain with Calvin deemed First Mate. I had proposed Allen be the swabby for letting us get into this mess in the first place, but Calvin and he decided on Second Mate instead.

            We stopped the ship near the shore, unsure if it could get any closer. Once we could see the ship up close, I started wondering if we were doing the right thing. The plan had been to raid the ship, possibly stealing everything on board. I thought we had been doing this a lot as of late.

            Up close, I saw that the antique pirate ship was as rickety as it looked. It was old as hell, especially next to our massive steel beauty. Someone seemed to have nailed any board in any which-way together and called it a boat. We found their rope ladder on the hot sands and pondered if it was as crumby as their ship. It held well enough, and in seconds, we were on board their ship.

            “Arr!” came a voice from before me. A man with what looked to be a peg leg and an eye-patch stepped out of the antique cabin. “What arr ye scurvy dogs doing on me ship?”

            Other men appeared before us, each with beards and maimed limbs. The sight of such burley rogues stole our breath. We panicked and revealed our MK 54’s and submachine guns and shot a round into the deck.

            “Arr!” the captain whined. “Why ye be shootin’ me ship?”

            “It’s our ship, now,” Calvin declared. “Get the hell off!”

            A second man, wearing no shirt or shoes, stepped forward. “Like hell we be walking arr own plank ye scuppering barnacles!”

            Allen rose his gun and shot the man without hesitation. I didn’t have time to think. The other pirates stepped back, having only their close-ranged sabers to fight with. The pirate was alive, but his hand bled heavily.

            “It appears, men, these bilging slimes be having outnumbered us in guns,” the captain declared. “Arr, take me things ye lily livered scalawags.”

            No other pirates wanted to be shot. They stepped back while Allen and I rummaged through their barrels and below their decks. We took rolls of fabric (rainbows of silks, a prism of satin) trunks of gems (even the dainty ones) and several bottles of rum. When we finished unloading, it was a miracle we were able to row our boat back to the Navy ship.

            “Ar!” the captain yelled from afar. “What be yer name, ya scurvy cur?”

            “Captain Butch!” I yelled back. “Never forget it!”

            We hardly had room to pack all of the booty on our ship. Calvin was at the wheel, but none of us knew exactly where we were headed. We didn’t know when we were headed, either.

            Was it possible, I wondered, lying on a cot below decks, that the lightning and the whirlpool could suck us back in time? I dismissed it. Perhaps all of this was a crazy dream and we’d wake up rich in Brazil. Well, while this dream lasted, we’d milk the fun cow for all of its worth.

            The next day was almost exactly like the first. In the midst of the open seas, we saw another ship. This one flew a red flag with crossbones. Its crew had rugged men with peg-limbs and eye-patches, equally as maimed as the last, and a captain standing on his equally antique ship.

            They fired on us without yelling obscenities, but the iron cannonballs hardly dented the first layer of steel plating. Calvin pounded some buttons in the navigation area and summoned a torpedo, and another. The first sailed in the complete wrong direction, but the auto-targeting kicked in and blew a hole in the pirate ship. They quickly surrendered all of their goods and golden doubloons to the trio. Then they were off.

            A month passed by on the ship. Soon the days seemed more and more like each other – maiming pirates and looting their ships, then sailing quickly away. We didn’t see land once since our first raid and began to miss it. Allen started to stink first, and then Calvin smelled like a dumpster. Our clothes sorely needed a Laundromat. I’d give up all of our doubloons if Allen would just touch some soap.

            Then, it happened again. Just as we saw a tinge of green on the horizon, the ocean opened up. The storm rolled from over the island like a prowling animal, with thunder stabbing the salty air and lightning clicking its nails on the wave crests. This time, Calvin was at the wheel. I trusted him with our lives as Allen and I started tying down our booty down below. Golden coins started pouring from our chests and barrels. The fabric unwound from its wooden rolls.

            “Butch!” Calvin yelled. “I can’t hold her!”

            “I don’t want to see the Renaissance days!” Allen cried.

            He was stronger and more determined to save us. I let him run up to the wheel with Calvin and continued my work down below. Just as everything was packed tightly in the back, the ship rotated ninety degrees. My neck bent against the wall. I fell into the fabric and watched the familiar blackness return.

 

            When we awoke, we weren’t alone. Back at the bay dock, our ship was rusted and dented from the whirlpool. The entire US Navy, along with some news reporters, stood around us. I didn’t feel the arms holding me up, but I saw Calvin holding his face in his hands and the defeated look in Allen’s body.

            “ . . . Reporting live. Butch McGuffey has just awaken after this century’s worst case of grand theft auto. These three men stole a United States Navy ship and disappeared from satellite view for over a month after shooting and killing Private . . .”

            I faded back into pleasant darkness. Perhaps it was that last concussion, but I never was able to completely snap back into reality, whenever that was. I woke up in a courtroom filled with cameras and flashing lights, but all I could see were my dejected friends and men dressed in suits. I woke up again in a dainty, cold prison cell with an IV in my arm. Finally, I woke up in a glassed-in chamber. Cameras faced me as I sat numbly in a wooden chair. In the corner, a priest in black wardrobe read from the Bible. A man in a white coat held a needle to my bicep.

            “Do you have any last words, sir?” he asked.

            “I be dyin’ wi’ nay regret ye scurvy land lubber!”

            And that, I suppose, was the end.