The ocean air has a certain emotional connotation which springs forth for me. It’s distinct and it carries with it memories of special trips and rare outings to the edge of land. Perhaps for someone who had grown up and lived at sea, the same would be true with the city for them?
This thought stuck with me so I pursued it:
“Hey Tony, did you grow up at sea at all? I mean you seem to your way around a boat fairly well…”
Tony finished wrapping a particular piece of rope around a particular knob on the main mast of the small sailboat – the whole thing seemed like quite a complicated process.
“Listen, Fucko, I like you cause you’re funny and you come in handy sometimes, but if you’re gonna stand around not help me, then at least don’t talk to me about the work I’m doing. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do Tony” I answered, “What I don’t get --and we’ve gone over this before-- but what I don’t get it, is why we have to use a sailboat to begin with.”
Tony didn’t answer, but instead went back to adjusting some ropes on another section of the boat near by.
“I mean, Richie’ll give you/us pretty much whatever, and a small gas powered boat wouldn’t be out of the question.”
“I know, but that’s not the question.” Tony answered over his shoulder before he resumed talking, more to himself this time.
It was hard to hear him over the sudden arrival of a procession of knocks on the side of the boat by the cool night water. The redundant distraction drowned out my companion’s voice – it didn’t matter, I’d heard it all before anyways. Something about meditation. I let my mind wander out to sea a bit, contemplating the specifics of our position on this day and time. I found being on a boat at sea in the depths of night to be interesting because you can only see your immediate surroundings. It’s almost as if entire civilizations could be just beyond that playful darkness.
“Alright, let’s get this done” Tony said finally already starting towards the small cabin door. He was a rather large guy, as would be expected for someone of his profession. The sight of him opening up the small door with his massive scarred hands was slightly amusing.
"Whatever… " I declared lazily, looking back out to sea a little anxious – this time pondering what lie under the surface.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the next part of out little boating sessions.
However funny Tony had looked crouching to pass through the small cabin threshold, he looked substantially less funny when he re-emerged dragging an Irish looking fellow by his short brown hair. Thankfully Tony had taped something into this particular man’s mouth so his screams of pain and frustration were muffled to a fair degree. Also, the water knocking on the side of the boat helped to cover up the pre-death wail of the untimely fellow now sprawled about bound on the main floor of this sailboat in the night.
I watched as Tony got out his gun and fired off a shot into the air. The man immediately stopped squirming around and Tony grabbed him to lean him up against the main mast. “Alright” he said simply, staring into the man’s eyes.
“So what’s the deal with this one?” I asked somewhat inquisitively, interjecting into what was likely the most fearful moment of the bound man’s life.
“Well, little Freddie’s been trying to take me out – he’s been watching me.”
“You sure?”
With this Tony gave the prisoner a bash to the forehead with his pistol. The gash send blood spilling down his face quite rapidly. Still, the placement of the cut sort of made it look worse than it was. “I’m sure” he said tucking the gun under his armpit for a second to pull out some paper from his left jacket pocket which he proceeded to show the now bleeding man before him.
“Alrighty…” I responded, remembering the other times Tony was ‘sure’.
The prisoner actually seemed to calm down a bit as he tried to squint through the blood enough to read what was placed in his face. From what I could gather Tony’s culprit wasn’t even really sure what he was looking at, or what to make of it. Perhaps it was playing dumb. Perhaps it was the blood.
Perhaps this was just ridiculous to the core.
Tony stood, tossing the papers at the bound man leaning against the boat mast. Turning off the safety on the slightly bloody gun he proceeded to take off as much of the ill-fated fellow’s head as he could before the clip ran out. Quite messy. I had seen it many times, although this time it seemed to be unnecessarily messy.
At that point it didn’t matter anymore.
“Fucker” the large man muttered, walking over to the side of the boat to toss the gun into the water. That particular word was the last one I decided to allow for big Tony. When he turned back around I unloaded a clip of my own, from a gun of my own into Tony who, luckily for me, tumbled backwards off of the boat and into the water. This at least interrupted the monotonous thump of the waves against the side of the boat for a couple seconds.
I walked over to where Tony had fallen in to gaze into the murky liquid; already it was indistinguishable from the rest of the sea; already that heartless bastard seemed to be fading from my thoughts. I had long since justified being the one to put an end to his incessant paranoia and I gave these thoughts only brief appearances before my attention turned to it’s final destination – my own growing paranoia. I did not have to watch Tony mow down what were likely innocent people any longer, but now I had to deal with covering my ass.
I now looked out at the world with a slight uneasiness. I didn’t realize it would be so general.
I write this letter in the cabin of a sailboat that I’m unable to really drive, in the breaks of my newborn efforts to learn how to do such. I think now I realize too late what Tony felt.