Chapter 10: Captain Jack’s

“Where is this place?” asked Steve Oliver.

“It’s called Captain Jack’s. I saw it when we went into town this morning. Babs said it had really nice seafood. We can drive if you want, but it’s close enough to take the shuttle or walk,” replied Brenda.

Steve shrugged. “Are we going as a group?”

“No, it’s just us. Babs said she and Tully were going to pack some dinner and head way down the beach...” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows at that. “And Liz and Bob were going somewhere else in town. He’s allergic to seafood, of all things!”

“Kind of sucks if you are vacationing on an island,” commented Steve. “What did Babs tell you?”

“She was planning on getting something to go in a cooler, along with a couple of bottles of wine. Then they planned to hike down the beach and have a moonlight picnic.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Especially if you spill anything. Babs said you have to let somebody else lick it off!” she laughed.

“We’ll have to try that some night,” he replied, grinning.

Brenda snorted. “You just keep dreaming, buster.”

Steve smirked at her. “I don’t know, Brenda, but you’ve gotten a lot more adventurous since we got here. Who knows what you’ll do next?”

Brenda shook her head and smiled. That was quite true. She had never been topless in public before, but she had done that earlier in the day, and then had done anal with her husband, which had been an even bigger no-no. Considering the speed with which her moral fiber was collapsing, she’d be hosting a gang bang by the end of the week!

“Just get dressed. You can fantasize later,” she told him.

Steve laughed and started going through his drawer. “We need to sort through the clothes tonight. This might be our last week, but we need to do some laundry. We can do that in the morning, before I go out.”

“Do you need some help tomorrow? We can do the laundry early, and then head out to collect your samples. If we work at it, we might have enough time to get back and hit the beach before it gets dark,” she said.

Steve nodded in agreement with that. First, going to the laundromat with Brenda would make laundry time seem to go faster. They had planned for a three-week vacation/expedition but didn’t bring enough clothes for three weeks. Instead, they had to plan some ‘maintenance’ time, visiting a laundromat every three to four days for a quick load or two. They had done laundry back on Maltesano the day before taking the ferry to Haka Nuva, so they were due.

Likewise, if they did the laundry first, and then Brenda helped in the field, they might be able to spend some time on the beach afterwards. The seasons, or the lack thereof, was one of the strangest things about the tropics for Steve Oliver. It was the summer, and back home in Albany it might be light from before six in the morning to almost nine in the evening. In the winter, it was the reverse, being dark most of the day. In the tropics, so close to the equator, there simply weren’t any seasonal variations during the year. It was light from about six in the morning to six in the evening, and only changed by an hour or so over the length of the year. By seven-thirty it would be dark.

Brenda decided to sort laundry before going out. She knew that neither of them would be in the mood later, and it would waste time in the morning. She grabbed the laundry from the clothes pile in the corner and quickly sorted it into three small piles - lights, darks, and coloreds - and tossed things into some small laundry bags they had packed. Steve helped, and they were sorted inside of five minutes. As she finished, Brenda said, “Babs says that they don’t take their luggage home with them. They ship everything back.”

“Everything?”

“Pretty much. She says they carry, like, one set of clothes and their toilet kits in a carry-on, but everything else they ship ahead of time and then they ship it home at the end of the trip. If it doesn’t get there for a day or two, it won’t matter.”

“It’s got to beat schlepping everything through airports. What about the luggage?”

“Can we ship that, too?” she asked.

“Maybe. Let me give that some thought. I’ve got plenty of shipping labels. It might all end up at the university, but it would sure beat lugging it all around.” Then he gave her a wicked grin. “Of course, if it ends up there, your bikinis and nighties will probably end up being opened up and examined by a bunch of grad students.”

“Won’t that be a thrill!” she laughed. “Wait until they see the puka puka roots I’m shipping home.”

“Hmmm?”

In answer, Brenda reached into the nightstand and pulled out a large and sturdy specimen. “You need to pay attention to the botany, Steve. From what I’ve seen, this could be the most important plant in the entire island chain! If you want to know why all the women are smiling, this could well be it!”

“We’ll have to be on the lookout tomorrow,” he said, smiling.

Brenda looked through her recent purchases and grabbed a long beach cover-up she had purchased in town. Both Babs and Liz thought it looked too pretty to just wear at the beach, but it was also a little too risqué to wear out, at least back home. Now, without the kids around, it might be good for an island getaway. She took it into the bathroom, where she had some cuticle scissors in her toilet kit; she used them to cut off the tags. After a very quick shower, she dried off and pulled the cover-up on. It was a wrap style, but with a tie on the inside and one on the outside holding it together. It was also cut low in the back and had a lot of slits up the legs to mid-thigh. It wasn’t sheer in the sense that it was transparent, but it was obvious that Brenda was all that was under it. She went back to the bedroom and grabbed her high-heeled sandals, to give it a dressy look.

Steve was pulling on a sport shirt and stopped to whistle. “Very nice! That’s new.”

“You like it?” she asked.

Steve made a twirling motion with his fingers, and Brenda turned around. “Very nice.”

“It’s not too, I don’t know...”

“Not for you and me here in the South Pacific. Back home, it’ll probably get you stoned. I like it.”

“It’s supposed to be both a dress and a beach cover-up.”

“So, it’s perfect for a moonlight picnic. Is that what Babs was wearing?”

“No idea. Whatever it is, I got the impression she wouldn’t be wearing it for long. Enough about your fantasies about older women! Let’s go! I’m hungry.”

Steve laughed and grabbed his keys and wallet. He escorted his wife down the hall to the elevators, and down to the lobby, but as they got there, the shuttle bus was pulling out. He looked over at the girl at the counter, who gave a sorry look and informed them the next bus would be in fifteen minutes or so. “Come on, I’ll drive,” he told Brenda. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the Land Rover. He held the door to the outside open, and after Brenda had gone outside, followed. Holding hands, they walked to the parking lot and got inside. Five minutes later, with Brenda giving directions, they were parked outside of Captain Jack’s.

Steve got out of the Land Rover, but just stared at the place for a moment. “It’s a tiki bar,” he commented. It looked a little seedy.

“Welcome to the South Pacific, Steve. The place is full of them. The Four Seasons hasn’t gotten around to starting a Haka Nuva franchise.”

Steve snorted and shrugged. “Probably not.”

“It’s supposed to be a landmark. You can’t visit Haka Nuva without going to Captain Jack’s.” She grabbed his hand.

“Well, just be warned. If pirates come through and demand all the women, I am just pointing at you and saying, ‘You’ll be sorry!’”

Inside, they were quickly shown to seats. The place was clean, but old, and looked like it had been around for more than a few years. It had all the requisite ‘tiki crap’ on the walls, but Steve thought it looked different. Back home, if you wanted to give your restaurant the feel of a tiki bar, you could just order the décor from a catalog. This stuff looked authentic. There was a blue marlin over the bar that looked like somebody, or something, had bitten off part of his tail, a bunch of surf and fishing paraphernalia on the walls, and a pile of coconuts in one corner. They weren’t fake coconuts, either. As they were being seated, a bartender came around the bar and grabbed one of the coconuts out of the pile. Then he set it on the bar and reached over, grabbing a machete, and ‘THUNK,’ the top of the coconut went flying!

“I wonder what kind of drink gets a fresh coconut,” said Brenda.

“Not sure. I think the pirates will have a fight on their hands if they come in here. Or maybe the pirates own the place.”

The waitresses were a mix of Polynesian and Western girls, and the dress code involved short sarongs, bikini tops, and flip-flops. Nobody cared if you smoked. Nobody cared if you had one too many and had to get thrown out by the bouncer, an overweight Samoan covered in tattoos. Nobody cared if a couple of guys started arguing at the end of the bar and started arm wrestling. Dinner was some excellent seafood and a few strong drinks. At one point, Steve commented to Brenda that if Hemingway had gone to the South Pacific instead of Cuba, this was the place he would have hung out at.

Towards the end of the evening, Steve asked their waitress, Molly, if there was actually a Captain Jack. Molly laughed and hooked a thumb over her shoulder towards the bar. “I’ll get him for you.”

A stocky, medium-tall man in his late forties in need of a shave came over a few minutes later. He looked much like the restaurant, a little weather-worn but not quite in danger of falling over just yet. “How you folks doing?” he asked.

“Good. Are you Captain Jack?” asked Steve.

The man snorted and said, “There hasn’t been a Captain Jack since the 1880s or so. I’m Joe Trask.”

Steve’s eyes popped open. “The 1880s! This place has been around that long?”

“Pretty much. I ought to put it on the back of the menus, but that’s where I keep the list of silly drinks for the tourists.”

Brenda blushed. “That’s where I found this,” she commented, pointing to her Tahitian Mango Daquiri, a frothy frozen yellow concoction.

Trask laughed and made a loud whistle, attracting the attention of Molly. He made a circular motion over the table, and Molly gave him a thumbs up. Then he grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and sat down across from Steve. “Nothing wrong with tourists. Somebody has to pay the bills around here.”

“If this place started in the Nineteenth Century, you’re obviously not the original owner,” said Steve.

“Some days it feels like it, but no, not me. Captain Jack was a British sailor who landed here in the 1850s, but the specifics are a little vague. Same with Captain Jack; nobody’s even sure if he was even a captain, or whether he mustered out or deserted. Anyway, he built the first place.”

“The first place?” asked Brenda.

Joe nodded and grinned wickedly. “Captain Jack tended to both drink to excess and chase women. That worked out for him most of the time, but he had the misfortune to get drunk one night and start flirting with the sixteen-year-old daughter of the captain of a visiting French brig. More than flirting, too, if you get my drift. Her mother tracked them down in a grass shack down by the beach and chased them back to town, where the girl’s father trapped him here and challenged him to a duel. Dad was also drunk, so the pair of them started blasting away at each other with a pair of six-shooters, killing each other and knocking over a few kerosene lanterns and starting a fire. Burned the place to the ground, with the pair of them still inside.”

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Steve.

Molly brought over another round of drinks, along with a coffee for her boss. “Hako sweetened it for you, Joe.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Trask said to the girl and sipped it appreciatively. He winked and smiled as the pretty girl walked away. After that, he turned back to the Olivers. “So, anyway, that was the first place. Weirdly enough, the girl showed up at the inquest with a marriage license, though how legitimate that was is questionable. She ended up owning the place. She rebuilt it and kept it going for many a year. Rumor has it that she died in her sleep fifty years later, but not by herself. She was on her fourth husband by then, having worn the first three out. The last fellow was thirty years younger than she was and seemed to have more stamina.”