The first time Pirate Jenny met Johnny Luck she was out on the mangrove flats in The Skipper's old Evinrude put-put skiff. And he was larking around in his dinky catamaran. Snorkle-diving. Combing the sea floor for odd beauty. This was a remote part of the island and so he enjoyed being naked. At the moment she passed by he was sipping a bottle of Red Stripe and reading a paperback novel about roustabout socialists by Nelson Algren.
"Yow!" He jumped up to retrieve his shorts.
She thought his genitals were the longest dangling male treasures she had ever seen. She laughed merrily and saluted him.
"Top o'the day."
"Ma'am--"
He wriggled into a pair of khaki jammers.
"How's your lighthouse coming along?"
"Excuse me?" His smile was pure sunshine.
"Sorry. We've never met, but I know who you are."
"And you are?"
"Friends call me Jen."
The attraction between them was immediate and enormous. She grinned and rubbed her perky sunburned nose. Her salt-stiffened hair rippled like flax in the breeze.
"You know about my restoration project. Cool."
"It is that, Johnny Luck."
*
The Cabo Verde lighthouse had been destroyed during a hurricane that plowed under several islands before slamming into the highlands of Cuba's Oriente Provence. The storm stalled and degenerated and then moodily swung up to harass the Florida Straits. By then the ancient lighthouse was carbonized rubble of timber and brick. One local pescadoro mourned it and said we would miss it as much as the Mediterranean world missed the wondrous lighthouse at Alexandria. His name was Johnny Luck. And, yes, he had received a European education.
Our man had no money to restore the lighthouse. He began searching for a grant from an international charity. He began asking for support from wealthy benefactors in the States. He was connected to well-intentioned people from Oxfam to Jimmy Carter's Habitat For Humanity. He had dated a Bangladeshi woman from UNESCO years ago in Paris. He rang her dire office in New Dehli and explained his situation. She wasn't able to arrange anything financially but she did offer some advice. He thanked her and asked her how she was getting along. She said her current lover was a civil servant who demanded cashews with his rice.
An island Quaker family visited him one day and said they would gladly donate labor.
The father was a rugged fifty-year-old and the mother was a stout woman able to heft large sacks of grain. The boy, a gangly teen, could hammer nails from any angle while maintaining one comfortable position. Thus he could go all day without tiring. They arrived early in chambray shirts and denim overalls, rolled up their sleeves, praised the Lord, and commenced work. Johnny Luck provided bread, cheese, ham and iced tea. Served with his uniquely endearing smile.
Johnny Luck found he did not need to buy most materials. He and his volunteers would scrounge around and root up fieldstone, seashell, even loose pavement. He could not acquire cement for free, but the Quaker man knew how to make lime. It made a splendid cheap substitute. A turtlediver came up with a mud kiln, and so they were able bake their bricks. Before long, he had kids scrambling around, filling carts with Nature's bounty.
*
"You know what it's beginning to resemble?"
"No. What?"
"Coit Tower."
A night wind gusted in from a troubled sea and sent the gentle island breezes aloft. Pirate Jenny lighted a citronella candle and a cone of sandlewood incense and hoped they would not be extinguished. Johnny Luck was serving one of his fish creations: amberjack sauteed in a large blackened pan with a blend of wine, herbs and spices. Food residue in the pan was part of the magic.
She hated fishbones. And was quite fussy about how a filet should be prepared. Oh how Doctor Suskind could filet anything from salmon and trout to red snapper, grouper and yellow tail. An orthopedic surgeon, he wielded a deft blade. Knife in one hand and a goddamned martini in the other.
"Did I ever tell you about Doctor Suskind?"
"Many, many times. Unsurpassed."
Without warning she began to sob. He drew her into a consoling hug. "There, there. Thinking of Ol' Doc Suskind, yeah, baby. Brought it all back. The Skipper and everything. I'm sorry, hush now."
"He had that heart-attack, out there fishing with--"
"It's The Skipper. I know. I know."
"They found him on a fucking bus bench!"
*
From her veranda they could view the cove. The water there was black as squid's ink. A footpath led down a hillside through pearly sand and whispering seagrapes to the pier. Wavelets slapped at the timbers and were beginning to show foam. In the far, far distance the powerful combers of the Caribbean rolled beneath a brilliant quarter moon.
He handed her a plate with sizzling lemony amberjack filet.
"No bones." His smile was infectious. Again.
"I trust you."
You should do as my mother, he had told her. Honor the feast day of Saint Blaze. Go to Mass and the priest will place crossed candles by your throat and bless you. After that there is no danger of choking on a fish bone.
But I'm not Catholic!
"We're in for a blow," she said, observing clouds scudding past the moon, whose sharp scythe resembled the prow of a Viking ship beset by a capricious storm.
He made no comment until he got the record player working.
"Listen to this," he said. "I found it at Ben Gunn's music shop. An old Judy Collins."
"Pirate Jenny!"
*
Beneath his deconstructing dreadlocks Johnny Luck's ebony face shown like a holiday lantern.
Tarbutton eyes danced with unending mirth. This joyous attitude earned him a cornucopia of small fortunes each bright day.
The fish melted in her mouth. Nary a bone.
So delighted was she, she blew him a kiss.
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