Débrouillard
By Matt Peters
Published 2011 by Beating Windward Press LLC
Copyright © Matt Peters, 2011
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
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Story
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Débrouillard
Donatien told me I was a débrouillard; some French word that meant someone-who-makes-everything-work. Donatien lived aboard a thirty-five foot catamaran in the slip next to ours called the Jollie Justine. He sailed from paradise port to paradise port living off rental property in Montreal. One night he told me all he did to earn his fortune was buy up the old government tenements, renovate them, and lease them out as luxury apartments. Anyone could do it, he said. When I complained about not having the money to buy a tenement building in the first place, he called me a débrouillard.
But, as I tried to figure out a way to sail the Siren’s Song back to Cape Canaveral, Florida, I wondered if Donatien thinking of me as someone-who-makes-everything-work was just a blurred impression from our late nights of drinking rum and making story in his cockpit. The captain had quit and was flying back to the States in a few days. His hippie son was more interested in backpacking through South America than sailing through the Caribbean. But I couldn’t quit, not this time. So, since I was supposed to be a débrouillard, I swallowed my pride and tried a wild card.
I called Rich in Virginia Beach, but got his answering machine, so I left a message asking him to fly down to Venezuela and help me sail the Sirens' Song home. I’d call him back after dinner and a few drinks at The Rose.
I saluted the guards in the guard house on my way through the marina gate. They looked up from their coffee and waved. They knew me, I’d become one of the boat people who lived in the Marina de Colon. Captain Joe and I had planned to be in Venezuela only a week, just long enough to pick up his son Chris from the Peace Corps and resupply. But the sail down was rough on us and the boat; we pulled into Puerto La Cruz seasick, sunsick and boat-sick. We’d been in port for two months recovering and making repairs. Puerto La Cruz was one of Venezuela’s resort centers. It reminded me of Daytona Beach: nice white beach lined with palm trees; great weather all year around; main drag crowded with touristy shops, hotels and seafood restaurants; and nothing to do but drink if you live there.
I walked down the Paseo de Colon towards the Pizza Hut where I was meeting the captain’s son Chris. Twilight and herds of tourists crowded the paseo buying souvenirs from the artesanos that set up tables of hand crafted trinkets on the boardwalk.
The Pizza Hut loomed over the paseo; a three story temple to home. Families fresh from the beach and tourists off the ferry from Isla de Margarita crowded the lobby. I skipped the front counter and headed upstairs to the dining area.
“Hey Kendall. ¡Mira! Over here.” Chris called from a booth in the back corner, the furthest from the indoor playground and the children squealing like banditos. A large pizza and four soft drinks sat in front of him. He had his hair slicked back in a neat ponytail and was wearing a button down shirt. Normally, he wore a holed T-shirt and his hair was loose and scraggly, but our friend Luis had fixed him up on a blind date.
“Did you talk with your friend?” Chris asked as I sat down.
“No. Got his machine,” I said. “I’ll call him back later tonight.”
“He’d really fly down here?” Chris asked.
I pulled a slice of pizza onto my plate. “He can’t resist; he’s just like me,” I explained. “We planned to get a boat ourselves and sail around the world after high school. We got jobs as busboys and saved all our money our whole senior year. We’d saved eight grand by the time we graduated high school.”
“What happened?”
“A girl,” I said, shrugging. “I moved to Florida with her and he went to college.”
“His girl?” Chris asked.
“No,” I shook my head. “A friend of both of ours. He never made a move so I did.” I shrugged again.
“Think he’s still pissed?”
“Na,” I shook my head, hoping not, “it was years ago. I took a drink of my first soda, the tiny thing. All the drinks in Venezuela were half the size of those in the States; even the cans and bottles were smaller. So we ordered double drinks to compensate. “You really should sail home with us,” I told him.
“Not after all the trouble you ran into on the way down,” Chris said, shaking his head. “Hell, if it was too rough for dad, I won’t make it. I’m no sailor.”
“It won’t be that bad heading back,” I said, giving Chris one last try in case Rich was still hurt. “You and I could make it. We’ve got the GPS and the auto-pilot. We’ll have favorable wind and currents. Captain Joe said he’ll pay expenses to get the boat home.”
“But I know dad; that’d be straight home,” Chris said. “We couldn’t stop anywhere for long and that’s not my idea of traveling. I want to see things other than water.”
“No Chris, it’s beautiful; the deepest, purest blue you’ve ever seen. And so peaceful, out in the middle of nothing with no worries and no troubles. Just the wind and the water and the stars and nothing to do but relax.”
“Wouldn’t you rather see South America?” Chris asked. “Let him sell the damn boat and come with me,” Chris said. We can have just as big an adventure trekking through South America. I still want to check out Colombia and Ecuador. Then we can cut through Peru to Chile and over to Argentina. Loop back to Paraguay to show you the Peace Corp center in Asunción and then to my old village. God, they probably tore down and scavenged my house already. But then up through Brazil to hit the Amazon and Trinidad and then we fly home.”
“I don’t know, that sounds great for you and all, but I don’t speak that much Spanish.”
“You’re learning,” he said. “Hell, come along just for the women. The women, Kendall. Forget Gaby, the women.”
“It’s not like that with Gaby. She’s cool.” Gaby was a Venezuelan student I’d been hanging out with, one of the few local women I met who spoke English. I met her through a couple of artesanos named Jesus and Raul. I had stopped by their table on the boardwalk to look at leather wristbands. Gaby sat on the seawall behind them, listening to a walkman. Neither Raul or Jesus spoke English, so she translated our bartering. I ran into all of them later that night at The Rose Cafe, the local bar we avoided tourists in. I introduced them to Chris and they invited us to join them. We sat with them until closing discussing rock music, what it’s like being a traveling artesano, and Cuban politics. After Carnival, Raul and Jesus moved on to Caracas, but Gaby stuck around to wait out a teacher’s strike at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. We spent a lot of time together and I figured she was interested in me, but never made a move because I couldn’t read her enough to be sure. While she spoke English, her body language was still Venezuelan.
“I’m not saying she isn’t cool; I’m just saying the women in South America should be enjoyed. Come with me.”
“I’ll think about it if Rich doesn’t want to help me sail back.”
We finished eating and headed to The Rose Cafe where Chris was meeting Luis and I would wait for Gaby. We walked along the boardwalk to check out the tables; hoping a new artesano had come to town with something different to sel
l, but didn’t see anything new by the time we reached The Rose. Luis sat alone on the veranda at a large table. Well, not entirely alone, he had a monkey on his shoulder. “Hello, my friends,” he greeted us.
“Hola mi amigo. ¿Cómo estás?” I said as best I could.
“Very well, Kendall.” Luis pointed to his shoulder. “Say hello to my monkey.”
“Hello, monkey.” I held out my finger and the monkey shook it. “What’s its name?” I asked as Chris and I sat down.
“Her name is Coquito,” Luis told me. “It means little coconut. I tell the women I name her that because I find her in a tree by my house.” I nodded in agreement, following along. Luis smiled, “But really I bought her in a store and call her ‘coquito’ because it’s like ‘coqueto’, which means ‘flirt,’ and she helps me meet the women.”
“Of course,” I said. When I met