Chapter 67: Complicated

Every evening we would go out to dinner. There are a number of small inns and restaurants in Governors Harbor, although none of them are very fancy. A lot of them are just bars that offer food, usually seafood. That was fine; we didn’t have to get dressed up and we both loved seafood. Besides, the island is small. It stretches almost 90 miles long but is really just a big beach in the middle of the ocean, and there are maybe 10,000 residents in about a dozen little towns up and down the length of the island. The biggest is Governors Harbor, but that can’t be more than a few thousand people, with the rest spread all over, and the only industry around is fleecing Yankees of their dollars.

So, we helped them out by going to dinner every night and having a few drinks in the bar. After dinner we often would go back into the bar for a few more drinks, or maybe find a different bar and have a few drinks there. I kept my drinking under control but didn’t mind if Marilyn wanted to get a little crazy. Friday night we stayed out late, after the storm had passed, and did a little bar hopping. Like any vacation town, weekends are the crazy nights, and my wife was no exception. On the way home she got silly and began playing with herself and demanded that I pull off the road and take care of her. Always a gentleman, I did just what she asked me to do!

Saturday Mrs. Wilkes was away, so we had the place to ourselves. We did the dinner and bar hopping routine again, this time parking in a central spot in Governors Harbor and walking from bar to bar. We would have one drink in each bar and then move along, seeing the sights and simply enjoying the beautiful Caribbean night. Over dinner, Marilyn said, “I almost wish we didn’t have to go home.”

“Charlie might notice in a few years, don’t you think?”

“I said almost. We’ll have to bring him down here someday.” I simply smiled and nodded, but I didn’t answer, so she asked, “You don’t agree?”

“No, I agree. He’d love it. What kid wouldn’t?”

“Do you think we could do that sometime?”

“Sure,” I told her. “Whenever you want to. At least until he gets in school.”

That made her smile, but then she gave me a curious look. “By then we’ll probably have another child or two. What about then?”

“What about what? If we bring one down, we’ll probably have to bring them all down.”

Marilyn nodded. “Here?”

“Wherever. Listen, give me a few years and we’ll buy a place down here. How about that?”

That shocked her. Her mouth opened and nothing came out! Finally, she said, “We can do that?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Here?”

I shrugged. “If you want to. Let’s look at a few other places first before we get too attached to any one place.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s make a deal. For every family vacation we take, let’s also take a mommy and daddy vacation, like this one! For the next few years, we’ll try different places. When we find an island we like, we can buy a place.”

“Can we afford that? I mean, can you afford that?” She gave me an odd look as she asked that question.

“I can afford it, which means that we can afford it. Still, I’d prefer to wait a few more years. How about we wait until I’m worth about a hundred?”

“A hundred?”

“A hundred million. Probably another two or three years. Shouldn’t be any longer than that. I don’t know what these places cost, but they have to be more than our place back home.”

Marilyn stared at me briefly, and then just smiled and shook her head. “Do you hear the way you talk? A hundred million dollars? What was your original plan? To become the first billionaire artillery captain in history?”

I had to laugh at that. When she said it that way, it really sounded ridiculous. “Nah, I’d be at least a major by the time that happened!” We both had a laugh at that, but then I commented, “Actually, I wouldn’t be the first billionaire in the service. You know who Sam Walton is?” Marilyn gave me a curious look and shook her head. “He’s the guy who started Wal-Mart and he made a fortune doing it. One of his kids didn’t want the corporate life and went into the Army. He was a Green Beret in Nam, I think. I know he got a Silver Star.”

“Huh. You know what that means?”

“What?”

“That you weren’t the only screwed up guy in the Army!” she laughed.

I had to laugh. “Not hardly!”

We finished our dinner, and I asked Marilyn again if she had thought about the house back in Westminster. I had packed our housing plans books and I told her we would have to look at them in the morning. Marilyn has a horrible tendency towards procrastination. She was perfectly happy with being presented with a fait accompli that she could complain about for the rest of her life, and beyond.

After dinner we started walking, going from oceanfront bar to oceanfront bar. It was Saturday night in the islands, and things were kind of loose. For some people it was their first night on the loose, for others it was their last chance to get nuts before heading back to the States. We were the oddity, people going from midweek to midweek. Eleuthera isn’t a big tourist spot relative to Nassau, but there are still several small resorts and hotels, and you can fly there direct from Miami without having to change planes in Nassau. The crazy and rich Americans were on the loose, and the locals were out in force to help them get more crazy and less rich.

It was after eleven when we entered a place called Blackbeard’s Parrot. Lots of fake pirate crap on the walls, lots of drunken American tourists at the tables and the bars. By midnight all the casual people had packed it in and gone back to their hotel rooms, you know, the thirty-somethings who went out for a drink while the kids watched television and slept. Now it was the hard partiers. I was ready to pack it in myself, but Marilyn was having a fine time, and ordered herself another rum punch every time the waitress came around.

I was still nursing my drink, although my wife was on her third, and I laughed as she came back from the ladies’ room and joined a conga line that was snaking its way through the room. When she came back, she ordered another rum punch. “You are going to be sorry for that tomorrow morning!” I yelled to her over the din.

Marilyn laughed. She had worn a sundress with a tube top tonight, and she jiggled her tits at me inside the dress. “You’re an old fuddy duddy!” she replied. When I rolled my eyes at her and groaned, she just laughed some more.

“Here, your turn to watch your shit.” I pushed her purse across the table. “Nature calls and I have to answer.” I stood up and headed towards the back of the bar, past a young blonde laying on the bar with her boyfriend doing tequila shots from her belly button. Christ, what next? Jell-O shots? I kept moving back to the bathroom.

It felt like I was standing there at the urinal about a year, pissing everything out that I had been drinking since dawn. Eventually, a gallon or two lighter, I zipped up and headed over to the sink and combed my hair. No, I didn’t wash my hands. Old joke:

Two fellows go into a bathroom and take a leak side by side. Afterwards one guy goes and washes his hands. When he notices the other guy leave without washing up, he says, ‘When I was at Harvard, I was taught to wash my hands after going to the bathroom!’ The second guy nods and goes, ‘Well, when I was at Rensselaer, I was taught not to piss on my hands.’

I straightened myself up and smiled at the bloodshot eyes in the mirror. I was still holding my own, but Marilyn was going to be so hungover in the morning! Laughing to myself, I left the bathroom to see what mischief my wife could get into now. As I walked past the bar, the blonde had been joined by a brunette friend who was also getting shots licked off her. Now, if I could only get Marilyn up there, and get a few photos, I would have blackmail material for the rest of our lives!

That was when all hell broke loose!

I heard a high-pitched scream and then Marilyn’s voice yelling, “STOP! THIEF!” and a black guy came running towards me, in a direction that looked like he wanted to run out the back of the bar. I just sort of vaguely noticed he had a couple of purses in his left hand, but Marilyn was still screaming, and at least one other woman had joined in. I never even thought about it, but as he ran past, I raised my left arm and whipped it forward, and caught him across the throat in a move known in football as ‘the clothesline.’ I also put some force into it, as much to make sure I stayed on my feet as anything else. I caught him straight across the throat and his head and neck came to a complete and utter stop. His legs and torso, however, kept moving, with the amazing effect that his legs came out from under him and kicked upwards, and then he slammed down to the floor, hard and dazed.

If only that had been the end to it. Unfortunately, I had seen this guy sitting at a table with another guy, a white guy, and they seemed to be a ‘salt and pepper’ team of thieves. He yelled at me and came forward swinging. He also was carrying a purse in his arm, and that went whipping towards me. I stepped back and caught his arm as it went around, then grabbed it and twisted him up and over, and dumped him upside down on the floor. I kept twisting, though, and dislocated his shoulder, taking him out of the fight. Thief Number One was starting to get up again, so I kicked him in the face and busted his jaw, and he was lights out. Then I kicked Number Two and busted his knee.

“CARL! BEHIND YOU!” Marilyn was still screaming, and I turned to see what her problem was. As I did, a third guy swung at me, and he wasn’t carrying any purses; he was carrying a large knife! Apparently, the team was actually three guys, two black and one white, with one being the backup for the other two. The knife flicked past me twice, as I backpedaled and screaming women blocked my path. Jesus Christ, what a clusterfuck!

My attacker seemed to know what he was doing and was feeling aggressive about it. I guess the plan was to punish me for fucking with his buddies and then try and get them out of there. The knife kept slashing at me, but not wildly enough to act upon, and a few times he came close. Then he made his mistake, when he lunged forward, hoping to skewer me on the point. I twisted to his outside and wrapped his arm up, breaking his wrist and his elbow, and then I lifted him up and rammed him backward and down, throwing him to the floor and following him down. His head bounced on the barroom floor, and I pulled my hand back for the coup de grace, and then hands grabbed me and pulled me away.

I struggled for a moment, wondering just how many attackers there were, when Marilyn came around in front of me, a look of horror on her face. “Carl! Stop it! It’s all right, it’s over! You got them!”

Seeing her in front of me was like a bucket of cold water to the face. “Wha ... what?”

“It’s over, you got them,” she repeated.

Behind me, the guy who had me wrapped up said into my ear, “It ovuh, mon! Dey down!”

Outside I could hear the peculiar sound of a European style police siren winding up as it got closer. I sagged down and turned to face the guy behind me. He was a gigantic black guy, and I recognized him as one of the bartenders. “It’s over?”

He nodded and loosened his grip on me. “Yah, dey down, mon. No more, mon!”

The bar was total chaos by now. The two girls on the bar were now cowering behind it, the second robber was screaming on the floor, most of the bar’s clients were streaming out through the front, and to top it all off, a squad of police came barging in through them. I just leaned back against the bar, shaking as the adrenaline washed through me. Marilyn crept through the crowd and came over to my right side and wrapped her arms around me. At that point Marilyn leaped away and stared at her hands. They were red and wet. “Carl! You’re bleeding!”

“What? No, I’m not! I can’t be!” I shook my head. “That must be someone else’s.”

“No, it’s not!”

I looked down at my left side, where Marilyn’s hands had been. Big mistake! My left bicep and my entire left arm were red. “Oh, shit!” That third guy, the one with the knife, must have been better than I thought.

I fished out my handkerchief and slapped it on my upper arm. It looked like I had a long cut across the arm, maybe not that deep, but deep enough that I was bleeding steadily. I looked over at my wife and she was white as a ghost. I glanced back behind the bar and saw a sink. “Honey, I’ll be fine. You go back there behind the bar and wash your hands. That dress is too pretty to ruin.”

“Carl?”

“Go wash up. I’m not going anywhere.” I had my hand clamped on my arm, trying to keep up pressure. It hadn’t hurt before, but that was changing quickly. Now I was at the stinging-like-a-bitch stage! Shit!

That was about the end of the evening in the bar. I think we turned out the entire police force on Eleuthera that night, at least a half dozen, along with a few ambulances. I spent most of my time calming Marilyn down. Nobody even asked me any questions. A large Bahamian cop grabbed me by my right arm and tugged me outside and put me in the back of a police car. Marilyn demanded she go with me, and she went in the other side. Then he drove us to a different part of town. To be fair it wasn’t a very long drive.

We stopped in front of a brick building, but that was about all I could see. I figured I was at the local jail, but the cop who had hauled me away wasn’t saying anything. He just took me by the right arm and hustled me inside. It looked like a hospital and had that medical institution smell. Marilyn followed along behind us. A woman in a white uniform pointed to a room down a small hallway, and we went in. There was a medical table in the center of the room, and I was led to it, so I climbed on and looked around.

Marilyn was standing there next to me, holding my right arm like she would never let me go. “Come on; get up here next to me.” I scooted over as best I could.

Marilyn hopped up next to me. “Where are we? What’s happening?”

I gave her my best smile, even though my arm was really starting to bug me, and I was still dripping blood. “Well, either this is the local hospital, or the local jail has a really great medical plan!”

“Jail?”

“Maybe the Bahamas have coed jails! We could be cell mates!”

“We’re going to jail?” Marilyn looked scared.

I shrugged. I looked over at the cop who had brought me in, and was still standing in front of the door, blocking any escape. “Do the Bahamas have coed jails?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but he smiled. I leaned over and whispered in Marilyn’s ear, “If this is a jail, it’s a hell of a lot nicer than the last one I was in!” Marilyn’s eyes opened wide at that. She was sobering up very quickly!

After five minutes, a guy in a white coat came in. “I’m Doctor Bellinger. Let’s have a look, shall we?” Doctor Bellinger was as black as the ace of spades and spoke with a distinct British accent, so I figured he came over from England. Then again, on some of the islands, they end up trying to out-British the British. He peeled the handkerchief off my arm, and pulled my shirt sleeve up, which only started the bleeding again.

“Hold on, Doc. Let me take off the shirt.” I winced as I moved my arm around, but I got the shirt off and tossed it on the floor in the corner. It was a lost cause in any case.

Bellinger poked and probed at the cut for a minute, and then said, “Well, you’ll need some stitches, but it’s not life threatening.” He pulled out an oversized band-aid and slapped it on my arm, and then said, “I’ll be back. I need to see to your other handiwork in the meantime. They need to get sent to Freeport. A helicopter is on the way.”

Great! That didn’t sound too promising, especially since he was calling them ‘my handiwork.’ This wasn’t looking all that positive. I think I really stepped in it this time! I suddenly felt very tired.

I climbed down off the exam table and went over to the sink on the side of the wall. I washed the blood off my hands as best I could, and then dried off with some paper towels. Not only was my shirt cut up, my chinos were red with blood on the left side and ruined also. I needed to rest, but unless I wanted to lie down on the floor, the exam table was it. I looked it over, and then pulled an extension out at the bottom and cranked the top half into an elevated position. Then I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the table. Marilyn curled up at my side, very nervous. Our silent guard stayed by the door.

I woke up a few hours later when the door to the exam room opened and the doctor came back in. I shook Marilyn awake and we both sat up on the exam table. Marilyn’s face showed that she had been crying. I just hugged her with my good arm and said, “Everything will be all right. Just you wait and see.”

My left arm was starting to throb. Bellinger didn’t help it when he yanked off the bandage, he had slapped on me earlier. The wound started bleeding again, and he examined it closely, and then he began opening drawers and cabinets, setting up for the stitches. Thankfully, he pulled out a hypodermic needle, so I suspected I would get some pain shots first. Some places I’ve seen, that’s sort of optional at best. “Not too deep, and fairly clean, so we’ll simply scrub the wound out and give you about six stitches. How does that sound?”

“Fine by me, Doc. Do we get to leave then?” I asked hopefully.

He snorted at that, and a glance over at the cop showed him smiling. Well, it was worth asking.

“Now, this might sting a little.” The next thing I knew he had squirted something on my arm and was rubbing a small brush over it. Sting? A little? It felt like my arm was about to come off! The blood started flowing again, and I suspected Bellinger was getting back at me for screwing up his night.

I swore under my breath. “Doc, if that’s what you call a little sting, I don’t want to be around when you think something is going to hurt!”

“It’s a good clean wound. We’ll let it drain a moment, and then start sewing you up.” He washed off the surface again and rubbed some Betadine on it. Then he filled his syringe with Novocain or something and started injecting me around the cut. That didn’t feel all that good either.