Mojo - 31. Chapter 28: Gordon’s Ultimate Love-Act

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Chapter 28: Gordon’s Ultimate Love-Act

 

We stood at the stern handrailing; the pool party was long dead, and Gordon had slipped on his sweatpants and a tee-shirt. We were the last on deck and would soon head off to our little, cramped crew cabin to crash, but for now, we simply enjoyed the quiet and each other’s company.

“Look.” I pointed up to the sky. “The stars have gone to bed too.”

“Yeah,” Gordon mused without energy, “it’s a lot more cloudy than it was.”

We both gazed west. An inky-black formlessness in that direction seemed to further blur the definition of horizon, sky, and water into primal chaos.

“Hey,” Gordon said.

I smiled, the kind a person does when they are caught rouge-handed. “Yes?”

The boat heaved like it was riding a giant swell; the sound of the engine became louder for a moment as the props had less to push against.

“You okay? You seem distracted, Kohl.”

I was, but I lied. “I’m fine, just thinking about the fake-ass nature of everything.”

Gordon laughed. “Oh, thinkin’ about everything is your definition of ‘fine,’ huh?”

I draped my arm around his shoulders. “You probably didn’t hear it, but after you got up from our table to put your clothes on, Sadeeq told Lloyd his Leavenworth Matron wasn’t a true story at all.”

“No?”

“Nope. The mad poet revealed it was actually his screenplay, and wondered if Lloyd knew any showbiz types Sadeeq could pitch it to.”

“Yep.” My boy nodded gently with the sways of the sea. “That’s pretty fake-ass all right. And I halfway bought that story as real too. Just goes to show, you can never be too careful with what people say and the way they act.”

I let go of my boyfriend and stepped a pace away. Lightning streaked off the starboard side.

‘Oogh,’ I thought. ‘That comment comes really close to the heart of what’s on my mind.’

“Kohl, for God’s sake, what’s eating you?”

“You going to force me to say it, even if I vowed not to?”

‘Well, you better say something.”

The boat pitched heavily again, this time in the other direction.

“Okay, here it is then.”

Thunder crackled like spitting bacon.

“I saw the way you were flirting with him.”

“What! Flirting with who?!”

“Sadeeq’s hustler boy, that Frances-Michelle.”

“You mean Michael-Francis, but Kohl—”

“For all I know”—I was stupid with anger—“you were playing secret foot-rub-footsies with him under the table. Believe me, I wanted to pop down there and see for myself.”

“Oh. My. God.”

The dark sky split open and lit half his face again; thunder cackled immediately while the wind picked up and pelted us with the first drops of icy rain.

“I saw you – you can’t deny it.”

“And you call Amergin mad. You and your fucked-up jealousy, Kohl, I swear.”

I brooded in silence a moment, wiping the rain or tears away with my hand, not knowing or caring which they were.

Gordon touched both of my lower arms. “Are you even serious right now?”

The ship’s engine slowed; the rumbling coming through the soles of our feet lessened; more lightning and thunder intruded publicly on our private scene. In the meantime, the rain picked up and began slamming into our bodies at a forty-five-degree angle.

All of a sudden, I regretted my upset: maybe I was building a mouse-hill from a mountain again.

“Kohl?”

“Well….” The boat lurched back to the left and nearly toppled my boy into my arms.

‘Fuck it.’

I reached out and embraced him firmly. Instant fulmination, like an old-fashioned photographer’s light bulb, lit up every nook and recess of the stern deck brighter than midday for a moment.

“Kohl,” he said very calmly and close to my rain-soaked lips. “Sadeeq and that guy went off together to fuck, didn’t they? And I’m here with you, aren’t I?” Gordon – my sweet boy – was halfway between pissed and tender. Grumbling thunder from the horizon sounded like the Cyclops in his cave while Jason and company were escaping.

“Yes,” I admitted lamb-like, all my fury gone.

“Good. Just remember the big things.” He suddenly smiled, just as a big rolling wave made the ship lurch to portside.

“It’s always the same old same old with you.” He laughed. “I should have gotten a peace treaty with you too. Even if you only handed over a dollar for each flare up of your jealousy, I’d still be a millionaire in no time!”

More lightning broke, and as I kissed him, thunder instantly crackled right over our heads.

 

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A couple of sleepless hours later, Gordon lay in my arms. We were fully dressed, in the bunk of our crew cabin with the light on, and counting the perilous swells like sheep jumping off a cliff.

The engine slowed even more, and now and then the lights flickered in a moment of menace, which it did again right now, but came back to 90% almost instantly. At such times of looming darkness, I was forced to think of something I’d suppressed. However...time seemed….

Hugging my boy tighter, I said, “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. While you were saying your good-nights to Trọng, Sadeeq and Michael-Francis, Lloyd came up to me at the handrail. We looked out, across the waves together, and he said something to me.”

“Oh. Was it serious?”

“Yes. That’s why I thought it best to play mum and not let you know. But he told me:

 

“‘Remember how I said earlier, in the lounge when we agreed to our ceasefire, that I can forgive and forget?’

“‘Yes….’

“‘Well, it’s true, but I still have fear in my heart.’

“’Fear of what?’ I asked.

“He sighed. ‘Poseidon and Priapus each alerted us of where we’d find you.’ The drug lord turned his unflinching gaze on me. ‘I may be a professional killer, but I’m not a cruel man. I can’t say the gods are the same. However, I accept knowing I might suffer the penalty I’ve spared the two of you.’”

 

“What do you think that means, Kohl?”

I swallowed down my distress and shrugged, knowing even my boy’s willingness to believe me was not enough to hide my anxiety concerning his wellbeing.

Our cabin went dark all of a sudden. The rumble through the rivets and steel plates of the Ekdíkisi sputtered to a grinding halt. All was quiet as the ship rocked helplessly on the stormy seas.

“Oh, my God,” Gordon said.

An emergency light went on over the door moments before an intercom crackled to life. We tried not to panic.

 

˚˚˚˚˚

 

The announcement had been for all passengers and crew to put on life vests and proceed to our emergency escape positions. That was all well and good, except that me and my boy had been stowaways until a few hours ago, and had no idea where to go or what to do.

Now, holding onto the slippery handrail and trying to climb our way up to the boat deck, we kept pausing because the vessel was dead in the water and buffeted this way and that in the howling throes of the storm.

We’d managed to find one life vest under the bunk in our crew cabin, so I personally strapped it on Gordon and told him not to take it off under any circumstances.

The boat deck, which is called that because it’s where passengers board the rescue craft if need be, was total bedlam when we finally got up there.

Crewmembers tried to keep passengers from being terrified, but found it was a hard task. That was mainly the boat’s fault, for foundering as she was, one moment the ship was blown in the eddying direction – pounding everyone on the starboard side of the boat deck with punishing rain and hurricane winds – and then after a few minutes, she’d list hard to port as the Ekdíkisi’s prow pointed vaguely to the dark and menacing Mexican shoreline.

One bridge officer appeared unexpectedly. He had with him a megaphone and announced to the sailors: “Hurry! We’ve lost all power and are being driven into the underwater reefs offshore. Don’t panic the passengers!”

All the passengers within earshot screamed and began to fight one another for a spot in a lifeboat. Me and my boy, who’d been standing back, feeling confident we’d get a spot once the crew started to load themselves, began to wonder if we should join the melee.

The battery-powered davit motors started to lower the first full lifeboats near us. The ship then steadily began listing to starboard, obviously taking on water. We held onto each other and the handrail attached to the wall.

As the boat commenced to right herself, me and Gordon thought about making a move.

Suddenly – with winds screeching and lightning and thunder stronger than ever – Lloyd and Trọng were in front of us; the Vietnamese guy was with small luggage, including his repatriated, precious Gucci bag.

Even through the din of the storm, the sea captain’s angry words were crystal clear: “It’s all your fault!”

Without warning, the strong man bent his knees and reached out for Gordon’s arms and legs.

A second later, he’d picked him up, saying, “A sacrifice must be made.”

Trọng screamed, and both me and him launched ourselves at the crazed man heading towards the boat-deck railing. He was going to toss the teen boy into the drink.

The ship had no intentions of staying level, and quickly listed in the opposite tack from before – to port – or away from the direction Lloyd wanted to go.

The drug lord slipped on the soaked deck boards, and wound up losing his balance, unintentionally throwing the boy into my arms. Trọng came up to our sides.

We moved back towards the wall as the ship slowly returned to horizontal again.

Lloyd, looking like a man possessed, got to his feet and exposed a lot of the lower whites of his eyes as he tilted his head down and stared boreholes through us.

“Atonement must be made, or we all die! Hand him over.”

The stalemate set fast, as Trọng tried to shield Gordon from Lloyd’s view.

The sea captain faked us out, reaching right but ducking left, where he had a clear shot to grab my boy.

Just then, the Ekdíkisi violently rocked starboard again, right as the winds moved the prow south, and brought our side of the ship into the full wrath of the tempest.

For a moment, a strange, time-frozen moment, Lloyd stood perfectly erect. An oddly resigned placidness came over his face. An instant later, fulminating lightning lit up the scene like midday again, and I swear to you, something like dark, invisible fingers reached up from the top of a crashing swell to latch onto Lloyd.

Another impossibly long second passed, and the drug lord was swept backwards off his feet and into the waves a few stories below.

The three of us ran to the railing, Trọng naturally distraught and crying out simultaneously for help for his partner.

More anger from the sky lit up the scene, and we saw the drug lord tossed like a ragdoll in the churning foam. His light-colored clothes remained visible to us when the darkness returned, and we helplessly watched him be swirled round and round, and eventually swallowed whole by a whirlpool.

Trọng screamed, but just then, a sailor grabbed him, throwing his Gucci into the waves, and tossing the man into a full lifeboat. The crewmember jumped in himself, and the vessel started to lower.

Me and Gordon watched it, only becoming aware that it was the final lifeboat once it got halfway down.

The rain pelted us again, and just then, mid-side along the port hull, the ship struck a reef, hard.

We grabbed onto the railing and each other; the lifeboat crashed into the side of the ship, and terrible screams erupted.

Gordon and me looked over the side, and the boat was still lowering, only now rolling its gunwales over the surface of the Ekdíkisi, and threatening to spill out all the passengers and crew into the water.

Just then, the boat careened off the reef again, hurling the lifeboat upright onto the swelling seas. A second later, the lines were detached, and me and my boy were left alone on this doomed vessel.

With every swell now, the boat listed less and less; it was clear her hull was rapidly filling with water.

Walking at near forty-degree angles into the brunt of the rain, me and Gordon clung onto one another and began climbing up to the top deck.

Hanging on for dear life, we got as far forward as we could go, for now the swimming pool at the stern of the boat began to slip into the sea.

“Oh, my love, I’m so sorry,” I told Gordon. “If not for me, you’d be safe and sound in Aptos, probably with a decent boyfriend and happy.”

“Kohl—”

“It’s too soon, my boy. Did some great plan unite us only to see us ripped from life before we really had a chance to live it on our own terms – to build our happily ever after?”

The boat turned back away from the storm, as if the keel was affixed to something underwater, creating a pivot point. But, the ocean continued to rise up to our level.

I told him, “The sea is swamping our boat, baby. It won’t be long now, so, please – please – come here and give your man one final kiss, before the angry fury of Nature severs our embrace of life.”

Gordon didn’t come to me. In fact, he disobeyed me completely and undid the clasps of his life vest.

“No!” I shouted, but my boy instantly hugged me, and with a deft hand, lashed the ties around my waist and midsection. We were two within one life preserver.

“Oh, Gordon,” I mumbled, feeling tears sting my eyes.

And then, just as I had asked, he kissed me. “Kohl, listen to me now. Whatever happens, we’ll be carried to our fate, together. If we’re to die today, then we’ll be united in death; if the sea turns merciful and washes our bodies to shore, then I hope some kind stranger will see us, and pile stones over us through pity, but will keep us together. If the sea has no such heart, still we’ll be sunk to the bottom in our bond, and let the indifferent sand cover us over, together. Either way, Kohl, our love won’t die with us.”

He could say no more for my tearful kisses stopped up his mouth.

Just then, the boat neared a critical angle as it rotated Gordon and I back to the tempest’s dreadful anger, and we slipped.

While we were sliding and grasping out to hold onto something, anything, I must have hit the back of my head…and…remembered no more, other than suddenly feeling very wet and sinkingly afraid.

 

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