His Little Buddy

 

“His Little Buddy”

I

     At long last, after too many days being tossed about tempestuously in the Suncrest Ocean, The Waylaid Maiden approaches the Bazban Bay.  The bounty from this fishing excursion was plentiful, but an unexpected storm battered the vessel’s sails and cast the ship painfully far from the coast.

     The ship coasts westward, the outline of Bazba’s sandstone buildings silhouetted against the setting sun.  The salty aroma of the air feels like home to the denizens of The Waylaid Maiden.  Many days of rationing their food and drink have left the crew ravished.  Morale brims as they approach their homeland.

     One of the deck hands stands idly with his broad pinky wedged into his ear, dislodging crust and debris.  His mouth is dry and his veins themselves feel parched. He sighs as he looks at the distance between himself and water below.  If only he could have just a sip to satiate his enduring thirst.

     “Oi, Dorvid!” calls Patsy the deck hand.  “Pay attention.  We need yer help if yer wantin’ yer share of the loot.”

     Returning to the task at hand, the broad-shouldered deck hand reaches out and rotate a pulley which wrenches the final haul of their subterranean loot up to the deck.  Out of the green-blue waters emerges a net in which wriggle an amalgamation of trout, bass, and even some scallops. 

     As the deck hands unload the loot, Dorvid hears a strange sound.  Even as the mess of silvery scales and the gray-blue shells clatter around on the deck of the ship, he hears a dull thud thud thud.

     “Hey, uh, Is someone knocking on the door?” he asks to anyone patient enough to listen to his slow, meandering speech.

     “We’re outside, what are you talkin’ about?”

     “I mean, is someone knocking on the door to the cabin or sum?”

     Thud thud thud.

     “Don’t know what yer talkin’ ‘bout buddy,” replies Dorvid’s fellow deck hand.  “Now let’s get these goods stowed away.”

     A row of barrels and crates line the wooden wall where the captain’s cabin juts out from the deck.  Patsy brings things to Dorvid, who begins tossing the flailing fish into their respective containers.  He dutifully checks that he’s not mixing the fish when he puts them away.  Trout with the other trout.  Bass with the bass.  Scallops with the scallops.  Well, that one’s easy enough.  If he messes up again Captain Teller will let him have it.  For a little man, the captain sure is scary when he’s fuming.

     As he unloads and sorts, Dorvid hears it again.

     Thud thud thud.

     This time it’s closer.  It’s like a little heartbeat pounding against the shell of the clam he holds.  Dorvid’s dimly aware that clams are living creatures—at least, that’s what he’s been told—but they’re not supposed to beat on shells or knock on doors or anything like that.

     His curiosity gets the best of him.  He sticks both thumbs at the crack between the scallop’s shell and pries it open a bit.  As he looks within, he sees two beady little eyes staring back at him.

     “Oi, Dorvid!” Patsy scolds.  “Hurry up now.  We’ll be finished in seconds flat if you just focus.”

     The clam snaps shut. 

     “Oh, sorry about that Pat.”

     Dorvid tucks the strange scallop into the pocket of his striped shirt as surreptitiously as his clumsy hands will allow.  Patsy was right.  After a few minutes of focusing, their task of sorting has finished.  Patsy and Dor Dor slide the crates and barrels back to the wall of the captain’s cabin, their work concluded until they reach the docks.

     Thud thud thud.

     It’s like he can hear his heartbeat in the pocket of his shirt.  He looks over his shoulder and makes sure Pat isn’t looking his way.  Then he slips below deck and goes back to his cot for some solitude, avoiding eye contact with the sailors and deck hands as he does.

Once he’s sure that he’s alone, he grabs the clam from his shirt pocket and cracks it open fully.

     Instead of the soft pink-white meat he’d normally find in a scallop, when he opens the clam he sees something that resembles purple little creature.  It looks almost like a tiny person whose waist is embedded in the pink-white meat that is common in these clams.

     The little person has tiny purple arms sprouting off their torso. They have a little head with beady black little eyes that look both relieved and scared as Dorvid looks at them in wonder and awe.  There’s even a minuscule mouth at the head’s center.  The top of the head look almost like a crown that is attached to the purple flesh.

     Those little arms wag and wave desperately, pointing indiscriminately. The little creature runs its high pitched mouth. 

     “Yada yaka yad yaka aya yakan!”

     Or something like Dorvid.  Doesn’t speak the language, whatever it is, but he wishes he did.

     “What is it?” he asks.  “Are you hungry?  Yeah, me too.  Can’t tell you how long we’ve been away from home.”

     “Yoodle yaka yon daka!”

     “Are you thirsty?  Boy, me too.  We ran out of water a long time ago.  The other guys have been drinking wine.  But I don’t like the wine.  It tastes good but it makes me angry and sad.”

     “Yood yan yaka don yak,” the little creature proclaims.  They cross their arms indignantly.

     “Oh.  Did I somethin’?  You mad at me?” Then Dorvid addresses himself, muttering, “Uh boy, what to do what to do.”

     His shrewd calculations are interrupted when Patsy approaches his stomping footsteps spooking Dorvid.  The deck hand whispers “I’ll be right back,” before shutting the clam and tucking it back in his pocket.

     “There you are, Dor,” Pat says.  “The captain’s lookin’ fer ya.  Says you were s’posed to clean the deck before we dock.”

     “Oh jimmers, you’re right!” Dorvid says, nearly breaking out in a nervous sweat.  He beats a hasty retreat back to the deck.

     The captain’s really gonna let him have it now.

 

II

     Dorvid navigates the deck on his hands and knees as he dislodges filth, grime, and seaweed that has been caked onto the wood from days of pulling in fish.  The clam in his pocket seems to weigh a ton as it sags in his shirt.  He can’t stop thinking about the little creature he saw inside.  He can’t stop wondering why the captain wants to catch the little thing and sell it.

     He looks out of the side of his eyes to the barrels full of scallops pressed up against the wall of the captain’s quarters.

     Does he know? Dorvid wonders.  Has he seen the little people too?  Why does he catch ‘em them?  It’s not right to catch things just ‘cause you’re bigger and stronger.

     As he scrubs, he finds himself huffing and puffing angrily, the broad strokes of his hand leaving scuff marks where he was supposed to be cleaning.

     Oh no!  I messed up.

     How did he get so angry all of a sudden?  It’s like he drank a lot of wine again, but he knows he didn’t.  That’s why he’s so thirsty.  So stinkin’ thirsty.  He wishes he could just reach his hand down into the water and bring up a refreshing scoop of that water from the Bazban Bay.  But no, they yell at him if he does that.  He’ll keep scrubbing algae and seaweed and salt that has crusted on the deck.

     As he scrubs, he slips and the clam that houses his little buddy drops from his pocket, clattering as it hits the deck and slides around with the pulsing of the waves.

     “Wait, come back!” he cries as abandons his brush and lunges to the clam.  Dorvid is oblivious to the strange looks he’s getting from the other members of the crew.

     “Is he trying to keep some of the captain’s loot?” one of them asks Patsy.  “We’re not allowed to keep what we bring in. He knows that.”

     “I’ll go talk to him,” Patsy says before stomping over to Dor Dor and giving him a lecture that he has heard before.

     “I’m sorry Pat,” Dorvid says, averting his gaze from the stern consternation in Patsy’s eyes.  “I didn’ mean to.”

     “Well then put the clam with the rest of them,” he says.  He watches as Dorvid goes to the barrel full of scallops and places this one atop the pile.  “Good.  We’ll be home soon, then you can buy a scallop with your earnings.  That’ll be nice, won’t it?  Just wait a bit and you’ll be able to buy all the scallops you want.”

     “You’re right.  Thanks Pat.  I’m sorry.”

     “Don’t worry about it,” his friend says patiently.  “We all make mistakes.”

     When Dorvid is alone with his scrub brush again, he thinks about his little buddy.  All trapped and scared in the barrel. Waiting to get sold to the vendors in Bazba.  The little buddy probably misses their family.  All of the scallops in that barrel probably miss their family, just like the sailors on the ship.

     It’s not right, he thinks, that hot anger rising to a boil.  It’s not right.

     As he scrubs, he can hear the deck hands whispering.  He knows they’re talking about him. Always making fun of Dorvid.  That’s all they do.  He thought Patsy was his friend, but this just tears it.

 

III

     Night falls before they reach the docks.

     The city glimmers like a jewel as torches alight all around the streets and avenues.  The lighthouse beams its light down at them like a second sun, its fire burning bravely into the night.

     Dorvid knows what to do.  He won’t let his buddies get sold.  He won’t let his little friends get eaten.

     He goes below the deck.  A lantern burns outside the empty kitchen.  The cooks have gone up to the deck to enjoy some wine with the other crew members before they arrive at their long-awaited destination.  This means that no one is in the kitchen.  This means there’s no one to stop Dorvid from picking up the jar of grease.

     Dorvid knows about grease. 

     He unscrews the slippery lid of the jar and spills it onto the floor of the lower deck, his heart mourning.

     Dorvid, why are you doing this?  The captain is a good man.  You make good wages.  You shouldn’t start fires.

     No, Dorvid.  The captain is a bad man.  He captures little people.  He sells them to people can eat them. 

     Even as this debate rages in Dorvid’s skull, he tosses the lantern onto the pool of grease and watches the glowing embers spread into a roaring fire.  The blazing heat scares him, so he turns and runs back to the deck.

     He wants to shout Fire!  Please, someone help!  We’ll sink before we reach the dock!

     But he remembers his little buddies.  He can’t let them down.

     He waits until hears the panic spread. They smell the smoke.  They don’t want to be stranded in the bay and have to swim back.  They lose all their precious fish if that happens.  The panicked deck hands man their various stations, some dousing blankets to toss on the flames, others fetching sandbags to accomplish a similar effect.

     No one bosses around Dorvid.

     No one sees him go to the ship’s stern. 

     No one stops him from dumping out all the scallops from their barrel into a lifeboat.

     No one knows he’s lowering himself into the bay with all his buddies.

     “Don’t worry, guys,” he assures them, “your family won’t miss you for much longer.”

     He lowers the little rowboat until it hits the dark waters.  He sloshes about unsteadily, the entire floor of the little vessel covered in clams. 

     Dorvid grabs the oars and starts to paddle. He paddles fast.  He puts as much distance between him and The Waylaid Maiden as possible. 

     After flailing the oars around until his arms burn, he hears Patsy’s voice.

     “Dooooor! Doooor!  Where you goin’, bud?”   

     Dorvid cranes his neck and looks back to the ship, where Patsy waves his arms his overhead as he calls out to him.

     “Turn around, Dor! It’s dangerous to go out there alone!”

     He paddles faster.

     “It’s okay, little buddies, you’ll be back home in just a sec.”

     Then he hears it.  The rhythmic splashing of paddling.  Not his oars, but someone else’s.  He turns and sees another lifeboat.  Patsy and another deckhand paddle as fast as they can.

     Captain Teller has one leg propped on the edge of the lifeboat.  His arms are crossed.  His eyes are dark.

     In a panic, Dorvid begins to paddle as fast as he can.  Even with his head start, he can’t compete with two oarsmen.  Then he remembers the little buddy.  He stops rowing and opens one of the clams.  Beady little black eyes look at him with woeful resignation.

     “Yimmer yab yana yak,” the thing says pitifully.

     “I know, I wish we had more time too.  But this is where it ends.”

     He closes the scallop and tosses it into the bay.  He then grabs armfuls of the clams and scoops them up, throwing them overboard.

     “What is he doing?” he hears behind him.  It’s Captain Teller.  He sounds angry.

     Looking over his shoulder, Dorvid sees that the captain and the other lifeboat are right behind him.  Scared for his life and thirstier than he could imagine, he dives into the bay, taking big gulps of the dark water as he submerges.  He dives further and further, pressure mounting to a painful crescendo in his ears.  He doesn’t care. He can live with his buddies in the glittering castle at the bottom of the bay.

     Before his lungs draw in salt water, he is yanked forcefully from the bay.  Someone holds him off the side of the rickety lifeboat.

     He gasps and heaves and wants to cry.

     “What in the hells do you think yer doin’, boy?” 

     It’s that flinty, livid voice of Captain Teller.

     “I just wanted to help my friends,” Dorvid explains, hardly able to get the words out past the lump in his throat.

     “Help yer friends?  Is that what you were doin’ when you set fire to my ship?  Were you helpin’ us when you stole my haul and tossed it into the bay?  Damn you, Dorvid!”

     Dor Dor winces and prepares to be struck by Captain Teller’s ring hand. 

     “Please, Captain,” Patsy says, “have mercy.  The lad’s just had too much salt water.  He ain’t in his right mind.”

     Before the flow lands, the Captain’s fist slows to a halt.  The tired old man sighs and pats Dorvid’s head.

     “Damn it. Pull him in.”

     They do so.  Dorvid hangs his head as they row back to The Waylaid Maiden.  The captain is mad at him again.

     He wants to go him.   

     He wants to drink water.  

     He wants to go to sleep.