Débrouillard

asked.

  Gaby looked at her luggage and back at me. “I talked with my friend in Caracas today. The strike ended.” She took a sip of her drink. “School starts in a few days. I have to go back. I am taking a bus to Caracas tonight.” Caracas was Venezuela’s capital city. It had skyscrapers, a subway system, an international airport, and shattered my misconceptions of South America as a Third World continent. Gaby’s family lived in Puerto La Cruz, but she attended the University of Central Venezuela in Caracas. The teachers at the university were on strike, so Gaby had been enjoying a kind of extended spring break.

  “When do you leave?” I asked.

  “At one. I get to Caracas in the morning.” Gaby tilted her glass, watching the yellow slush slide around inside.

  We sat quiet for a few moments; I pretended to listen to the band. They played an awful version of “Hey Jude.” The singer tried to sing in English, but I don’t think he knew what he was saying. He just mimicked the sounds of the lyrics. One song on their play list had the lyrics, “Off to never-never land,” but he sang it as “off to naber-naber land.” They fit perfectly in The Rose.

  “Do you know if you’re leaving?” she asked looking into her glass.

  “Not quite.” I took another drink. “I have to wait to call my friend back. He’s going to tell me when he’s coming down to sail the boat back. I can’t wait. It’ll would be great to sail with Rich again.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Who is he?”

  “A sailing friend from the States. We were going to sail around the world together when we were kids.”

  “What happened?” Gaby asked.

  “We grew up and went different ways.” I took a drink of my beer. “I wonder if Captain Joe’ll pay for his ticket down here.”

  “Airfare is cheap,” she said. “You can fly from Caracas to Miami for two hundred mil bolívares.”

  “Yeah, but Rich is coming from Virginia to Caracas,” I said. “That might be more.”

  “Yes, but you can fly from Caracas to Miami for cheap.” She stared at me and I looked away. “Come to Caracas with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can meet up with Jesus and Raul at Bellas Artes. You can work for them making jewelry. We can hang out again and I will really show the city to you.”

  “Gaby, I have to sail the boat home. I have to finish this trip.”

  She put her glass down. “You don’t have to, you want to.”

  “Yeah, I want to. I sail. That’s what I do.”

  She looked at me. “What are you going to do if your friend says ‘No, I don’t want to sail your silly boat’?”

  I looked at my empty bottle and slid out of the booth and stood up. “I’m going to get more beer. Do you want anything?” I asked, hoping the subject would lighten by the time I came back.

  “No,” Gaby stared at her glass. “I am fine with what I have,” she tilted it so the last bits of yellow slush clumped together on the bottom.

  I weaved my way through the crowd to the bathroom, then to the bar. “Dos más Polar, por favor,” I said, paid the 1000 bolívares and made my way back to the booth. Gaby was gone. I thought maybe she went to the bathroom, but her luggage was gone too. I walked outside with my beers. Chris, Luis, and the French girls still sat on the veranda. Coquito slept curled up in Stéphane’s arms. “¡Mira! That way, jefe,” Luis pointed down the Paseo De Colon. “And esmoking.”

  “What the hell did you say to piss her off, man?” Chris asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, looking down the paseo, not seeing her. “I asked if she wanted a drink.”

  “Did you ask her in Spanish?” Luis laughed. “Your Spanish is not too good. Who knows what you might have asked her.”

  I looked down at him and concentrated, “Pregunto en Inglés, Luis.”

  “See, you even say that wrong.” Luis, Chris, and Stéphane laughed.

  I stepped toward the paseo.

  “Relax, Kendall. I only kid with you. I don’t know what made her mad. She is a hothead.” Luis pointed down the paseo again.

  “Where’s the bus station?” I asked.

  “Drink your Polars.” Luis motioned for me to join them. “Sit and laugh with us.”

  I drank half my first Polar in one swig and joined them. They paired off and talked in couples. I petted the monkey. We finished our round and Luis ordered another, and another. I kept checking my watch. Close to ten I stood up. “I have to make my phone call, it’s nine back home.”

  “Nonsense,” Luis said. “This is your home and it is ten. Stay and drink.”

  “No, I have to make this call,” I said. “I have to find out when my friend is coming down. Then I can plan my trip home and Chris can take off across the country.”

  “Kendall, stay here and work for me.” Luis tipped his bottle at me.

  “Maybe. If Rich can’t come down. Ciao,” and I left.

  Lightheaded and warm, I walked down the boardwalk. Most of the artesanos had packed up for the night. A few people stumbled between hotels, casinos, and touristy tasca bars, but mostly the paseo was quiet. I waved to the guards at the marina gate. They were busy talking to a woman in a floral print midriff and tight black pants and didn’t wave back. They weren’t very good guards, but always nice if I wanted a free cup of coffee or a lady for the evening.

  I walked to the phone and punched in the code to get an English speaking operator. I rattled off my credit card number and pin and waited for the connection. “Did you think about it?” I asked when Rich answered. “When can you come down?”

  “I’m not coming, Kendall.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why the hell not?”

  “You can’t call and expect me to drop everything to come and help you out after six years.”

  “But this is our dream, Rich” I told him. “You and me, a boat and the high seas. Long John and Captain Red!”

  “You stole that dream, remember? I don’t trust you.”

  “Don’t be like that Rich. I’ve changed.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll get tired of the whole thing and fly home from Puerto Rico, no thanks. I have my own life now, and I don’t need you fucking it up.”

  The line went dead.

  “Rich?”

  I put the phone back on its cradle and walked down the marina dock. As I passed the Jollie Justine, Donatien called out from the cockpit where he smoked a cigarette. I walked to the edge of the dock and Donatien invited me aboard for a drink.

  The cockpit was practically a patio, ten feet wide with cushioned seats lining the edge. Donatien sat against the stern with his feet up on the table. I sat in the pilot’s chair and could see into the large cabin below. It was decorated in dark teak and resembled the living room of a really nice hotel. Catamarans; I thought, the way to go, spacious and stable. I swiveled the chair to face Donatien.

  “How are you tonight, Kendall?” Donatien took a long drag on his cigarette and poured me a rum and Coke.

  “Mal. Muy mal. Extremely un-chévere.” I took the drink from him. “I’m not doing good at all.” I took a long drink.

  “Women?” Donatien smiled.

  I told Donatien about Rich saying no. And that Chris wasn’t interested in helping, either. We agreed no one could sail the Sirens' Song all the way back to Florida alone. In Donatien’s boat sure, he had done it several times. But the Jollie Justine was built for blue water passages, while the Sirens' Song was more of a fair-weather, coastal yacht. I told him about Chris trying to drag me through South America and Luis offering my a job at Holiday Charter. I even mentioned the possibility of going to Caracas, of hanging out with Gaby, Jesus, and Raul, and being an artesano. Donatien drank and smoked and listened and nodded. “But I really wanted to sail home,” I said. “Just to be out there again.”

  “I know what you mean,” Donatien lit another cigarette. “There was this one moment off of Martinique,” he said. “The moon was there, and every star too, because there weren’t any of these lights.” He ge
stured at the marina lights and to Puerto La Cruz across the water. “The boat had that blue cast from the night and the phosphorescents. A good breeze blew and I just wished the time would stop. It was perfect.” As Donatien talked a naked woman walked from his cabin to the head. Beautiful Venezuelan women were always on the Jollie Justine; at least one a night, sometimes two.

  “I’d love to have the money to travel like you.” I said. I spun the pilot’s chair around and grabbed the wheel. “Sailing all over, going where you want, when you want; seeing the world.” I looked over the cabin roof. “I’d love to live your life.”

  “But you do,” he said. “Here we both are in the same place, money doesn’t matter.”

  “Money doesn’t matter to you because you have it.” I said and he smiled at my remark. “It allows you to do what you want. Me? I have to go where the work is. I’m always someone’s crew.”

  “But you are still living the life you want. And you are here; where I am. And I have all this money you value. Don’t you see? You can do anything. Whatever you do, it doesn’t matter. I told you, you are a débrouillard,” he took a drink and stared out at the dark water. “Remember that.”

  “But I tried. There is no way to sail the boat home. I can’t ‘make it work’ alone.”

  “No, you miss the meaning. It is more than that. It means, someone-who-just-goes-and-makes-everything-work. That is you, a débrouillard. Wherever you go and whatever you do, everything works out fine.” He poured himself another drink and continued. “You can sail Captain Joe’s boat home,” he continued. “You can