happy hour

        Mango and Jimmy-Scamp were sipping Whitbread Ale in the pantry.
        "You know, Cap counts his Whitbread like Mister Scrooge."
        "Not when he's up in his room all the time," Mango snickered. "Mooning over Hannah and Mister Radcliff. The old fart is beside himself. Calling upon his Orishas. I can't stand it."
        "Don't listen then."
        Bang! The side screen door of the pub.
        Jimmy-Scamp chugged the last of his ale, burped, and declared, "It's happy hour!"
        "Happy happy happy."
        Mango hid a Red Stripe inside his tropical shirt, ice cold against his tummy.
        "Hold the fort, Jaime."
      


                                                                                        *


        Mango passed by people entering the pub. Fat white people. He went outside where he found Mister Radcliff and Hannah were seated at the Cinzano table.
        "Sit down, lad," Mister Radcliff beamed. "I was just telling Hannah about Horseshoe Crab Key."
        "OK."
        "What's that under your shirt?" Hannah asked, one eyebrow arched.
        Sheepishly he withdrew the stolen bottle of beer.
        "Very disrespectful, Mango," she clucked.
        "Well, let me reiterate about Horseshoe Crab Key," Mister Radcliff interjected, letting Mango off the hook for the moment. "The lad here was very upset with me a few months ago."
         "Upset? That's not the half of it, sir."
         "I know."
         "You were going to sell it to some Dubai corporation. And they were going to develope the key. Tear it all up to make room for condominiums."
         "Not quite. I was seeking a developer. My plan was to create another Fire Island. A hedonist's paradise where anything goes. I was prepared to spend like there is no tomorrow, which there isn't."
         Hannah scolded: "There is that fatalism again."
         "As I was saying. The Dubai people fled the moment Saint James Academy filed an injunction. Moral
grounds, and all that."
         "What happens now?" Mango asked.
         "Nothing. I own the property. Upon my passing you and Hannah will inherit lock, stock and barrel."
         "Oh my god," Hannah gasped. "Mango, did you hear that?"
         Mango misted over. Tearfully, he hugged Mister Radcliff and kissed the gentleman's cheek.


                                                                               *


        A sunburned man with wide-set pig-eyes lunged into the pub. He walked five paces and jammed on his brakes. His wife skidded into his rump. "Holy shit!" He proclaimed in a baritone Alabama drawl, "There's more jungle bunnies in here than a Tarzan movie!"
        Silence dropped like an opera curtain. Jimmy-Scamp turned to see who could be stupid enough to make such a remark. He saw a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and dressed in a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
        Pig Eyes singled out Jimmy-Scamp: "Hey boy! Look here. Me and the wife want a booth. You hear?"
        For an instant Jimmy-Scamp felt like punching the bastard. Then he broke into his best Steppin Fetchit. "Yassah boss, eyes heah yuh."
        "Make it snappy."
        "George," whined George's wife. "Don't make a scene."
        "I ain't making no goddamned scene."
        There was one vacant booth in the Jolly Roger. And it was reserved for Cap.
        Jimmy Scamp said, "Ain no booths, boss. Hafta fine yo place outside."
        "How about that one?"
        "Nawsuh."
        "Look here, you black--"
        "Cool it, mate." The voice slammed shut like an iron maiden. No options offered.
        In Cap's  hand was an antique belaying spike.
        He added, "Let's all go out to Hannah's patio. You'll like it a lot better."
        Pig Eyes heard the menace in Cap's voice.
        "Sounds reasonable."
        

                                                                                             *


        At the bar a woman wearing a crimson turban sat with a man covered in a Panama Hat. Mango went to her and said hello while ignoring the man of mystery. "May I help you?"
        Her alabaster face reminded him of a theatre mask.
        "Yes," she answered. "I would like a Tom Collins."
        "Coming right up." He was almost gone when the man snagged Mango's arm.
        "Make that two."
        "Yes, sir. Two Tom Collins."
        The woman smiled and said to Mango, "I have a distinct notion you don't work here."
         "Correct you are." At her implied behest, he decided to linger. She was a shapely forty-something in a revealing crimson halter-top.  Her culottes were tan and snug in the crotch.
          "We're on holiday," she began. "A kind young colored boy told us not to miss having a drink at the Jolly Roger while in port."
          "He was ribbing you, madam."


                                                                                        *


        Not too far from them at the bar sat a statuesque young black man. He radiated joy and good will. His smile was a message from heaven. He was drinking ginger beer with a blond nordic-looking woman with an eye patch. She was telling Jimmy-Scamp to light some citronella flambeaux on the patio if the mosquitoes became a problem.
         "I'm sure I can find some. Thank you, Miss Jenny."
         "Do me a favor. Play this CD when you can."
         He looked at the plastic case and grinned.
         The woman in crimson noted the clothes worn by Eye Patch.  Blue denim cut-offs and a khaki army shirt. Sun and seawind had streaked her hair without mercy. French braid.
         Suddenly the sound system captured everyone's attention. Marianne Faithfull sang in a sandpaper cigarette-corrupted voice. "And the ship. The black frieghter--"



                                                                                         *


         Seated alone on the patio, Mister Radcliff gazed serenely at the sea. Beyond the seawall breakers crunched in moonlit majesty. Cap was out of Pinch, so he donated a bottle of his best Ron Metusalem. Smokey, golden, and smooth. Cap called it Burnt Rum.
         Filled with blissful serenity, Mister Radcliff thought: I have nothing more to ask. Thinking thus, he
decided to smoke his last Virginia Number 3. A nearby frangipani clattered in the breeze.


                                                                                    *


        George's wife looked across the patio at the man in a rumpled seasucker blazer and khaki Bermuda shorts. His frayed planter's hat completed the slob Tory ensemble. Somehow she was reminded of a character in a Graham Greene novel. A burnt out case. Such was the aura of doom.
        She called to him. "Good evening!"
        "T'is pleasant."
        His accent thrilled her. A trace of a smile trembled upon his lips.  He saluted her by tipping his hat.
        "Who the hell is that you're talking to, Wife?"
        "A gentleman."
        "Looks like a queer to me."
        Suddenly she screamed, "George! Look!"
        Furtively something moved in the shadows beyond the croton hedge. A man, creeping like a prowler. He sniffed the air like a hyena. A scent of carrion in his nostrils.
        George's wife was beside herself in terror. "George! Everybody!"
        Smelling of the sheep manure he had delivered to the groundskeeper at the academy, Raggedy Man leaped the hedge. Well practiced at his game. He strode quickly up to George.
        "Gimmee money, Mon!"
        "I will NOT!"
        "Yes yes. Gimmee now!"
        "Scram, you fucking nigger!"
        "Jah-hoo-vah!" The Rastafari's expression was crazed, fierce, and merely a fright-mask.
        George's wife thought of that painting of John Brown of Kansas.
        At that moment, George pulled a blued snub .38 from his pants and shot twice. One bullet burned through Raggedy Man's right armpit. The other socked Mister Radcliff in the head.