Coffin Island (21 page)

“
Why won’t you let me drown
in peace?” The Red Lady pouted.

“
I’m the captain of the
ship,” I said. “Get out of my wreck.”

“
That death doesn’t belong
to you,” Madison said.

“
You can’t expect that
wretch of death with the icy fingertips to take a murderous
stowaway down with it when it has refused the rightful Captain of
this magnificent ship,” Professor Coffin growled.

“
Not in this world,” Madison
said.

“
This world has much bigger
plans you,” I said.

“
The telescope with the
all-seeing eye hints at it,” Madison said.

“
The glass eye has some sort
of symbolic import,” Professor Coffin marveled. “I wonder what it
is.”

“
Shall we begin this
fascinating adventure that the glass eyeball suggests?” I
asked.

“
We have to get droopy
drawers out of the shipwreck first,” Madison said.

“
I can’t muster up the
courage,” The Red Lady said from below deck.

“
You’re too much of a coward
to take the coward’s way out,” Madison sneered.

“
We’re all cowards here,”
Professor Coffin said. “Come on out.”

“
Join your people,” I
said.

The Red Lady climbed out of the
shipwreck. The bleeding in her lungs seemed to be fully clotting
now. Humanness had probably saved her life. Now if I could only get
my hands on a guillotine. Where was the French Revolution when you
needed it? Also what to make of that creature in Doctor Fast? Was
he just the boogeyman or what? What is a character that never
reveals itself? I suppose it doesn’t exist. Boogie on boogeyman,
boogie on. You don’t exist.

Chapter

“
You drank this world into
existence,” Madison said. “What do you have to say for
yourself?”

“
Speak up,” I
said.

We were now stuck on the shoreline
boulevard. We were waiting for the mailman to show up with a check.
Perhaps a bribe would do the trick in this Third World of
witchcraft. Where were the corrupt authorities when you needed
them? In the meanwhile I figured we would torment The Red
Lady.

“
Or forever hold your peace,
madam,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “It is time to be judged by your
peers.”

“
I thought you already
judged me,” The Red Lady said. “How can you judge me now that I
have come out of the shipwreck? I have faced being a witch. I have
faced being a womb. I have faced being a hitch. What more could I
possible face? Haven’t I given you everything that you wanted? I
deserve to be let go now.”

“
You haven’t answered for
Old Havana in glass just yet,” Professor Coffin sniffed. “All the
blame has been pinned on me. Quite unfairly I might add. I need to
defer a bit of it for my conscience’s sake now that I have
one.”

“
Stop trying to steer your
guilt onto the old broad,” Madison said.

“
You can’t expect me to
shoulder my own guilt,” Professor Coffin said.

“
It rolls right off your
back,” Madison said.

“
How else could I walk?”
Professor Coffin said.

“
What do you have to say
about Old Havana in glass?” I asked.

“
How do you feel about
drinking Old Havana in glass into existence?” Madison
asked.

The Red Lady stiffened like a ship’s
figurehead. However she wasn’t much of a talisman for good luck.
How to read this wooden woman?

“
Is this a reflection on
us?” The Red Lady asked.

“
A refracted one, I
suppose,” I said.

“
Stop badgering the
witness,” Professor Coffin bellowed. “That’s my job as her
attorney.”

The Red Lady blinked Old Havana in
glass into her soulless eyes.

“This is our fault because we drink too
much?” The Red Lady stammered.

“
What do you have to say for
yourself?” I asked.

“
I thought I was on trial
for murder,” The Red Lady said. “I don’t care that I drink too
much.”

“
What is your plea?”
Professor Coffin asked.

“
I need a drink,” The Red
Lady said.

“
That’s it,” Madison
shouted. “You have nothing more to say for yourself.”

“
Make it a double,” The Red
Lady shouted.

“
You see?” Professor Coffin
said. “I rest my case.”

“
That’s your excuse,”
Madison snapped.

“
I need a drink too,”
Professor Coffin grinned. “Four fingers if you please.”

“
We’re pirates,” The Red
Lady agreed.

Maybe they weren’t running our test. Or
they had just gone off-kilter.

“
Finally,” Professor Coffin
said. “There is a sensible pirate to have an adult beverage with.
Let’s get a nightcap in Old Havana in glass to celebrate our
victory over youth and ignorance before it sinks into the ocean
like Atlanta.”

“
I thought it was Atlantis,”
I said.

“
Atlanta,” Professor Coffin
confirmed. “Custer sank it during the Moonshine War.”

“
I bid you pupils, adieu,”
The Red Lady said. “Cocktail hour calls before the end of this
world.”

“
It’s always happy hour for
adult pirates,” Professor Coffin agreed. “Pupil pirates need not
apply.”

“
It’s always the witching
hour too,” Madison snorted.

“
It’s five o’clock
somewhere,” I shrugged. “Even I could use a toot.”

“
Probably go down like
razorblades,” Madison said.

“
It’s a grim beverage to
begin with,” I agreed.

“
Magical rum is a horror,”
Professor Coffin confirmed.

The Red Lady clamored over the side of
Doctor Fast. A glass telescope popped up out of the shoreline
boulevard like a mushroom. The telescope tried to catch her eye.
However The Red Lady ignored the all-seeing eye of Crypt Island.
The glass peeper got stood up by The Red Lady. There are some
things in this magical book that you just cannot
explain.

“
Don’t you want to see where
you’re going?” I asked. “Aren’t you the least bit
curious?”

“
It’s a bit refracted
compared to peering in your book at Coffin Island,” Professor
Coffin said. “However it makes up for it with brevity.”

“
You need to look through
that telescope to see your future,” Madison said.

“
You’re going to get lost in
this world of glass, madam,” Professor Coffin said. “I can’t be the
eyes for both of us.”

“
You can’t pave your own
path if you look through that glass,” The Red Lady said. “I’ve been
here before.”

“
That’s how you break the
magical leash,” I marveled.

“
You ignore witchcraft,” The
Red Lady shouted.

“
Thanks for telling us,”
Madison said.

“
I thought I was going to
kill you,” The Red Lady said.

“
Wouldn’t we have seen it in
the glass?” I asked.

“
I hadn’t thought of that,”
The Red Lady said.

“
You’ve been here before?” I
asked.

“
You’re all doomed,” The Red
Lady said.

“
We’re doomed?” I
asked.

“
I don’t like the sound of
that,” Madison said.

“
You’re the one that is
walking away from your fate,” Professor Coffin snuffed.

“
I’m going to drink myself
blind,” The Red Lady said. “Then kill myself.”

“
Get back here and look
through your glass like a man, you old fraud,” Professor Coffin
shouted.

“
There goes the Venus of the
buccaneers,” Madison snorted.

“
The final hook of piracy,”
I said.

“
You’ll never get me to look
through that glass,” The Red Lady shouted. “I’m drinking myself
blind and then killing myself. That’s my future.”

“
We heard you the first time
in the past,” Madison said.

“
We don’t buy your act,” I
said.

“
We’re steaming towards the
future,” Professor Coffin proclaimed. “Against my will, I might
add.”

“
I’m traveling into the
past,” The Red Lady shouted.

“
Boats against the
whatever,” I shrugged.

“
Who are we to judge that
murderous old biddy?” Professor Coffin asked. “Come back here for
more judging, you old bat.”

“
We see if something pops
out of a doorway in Old Havana in glass,” Madison said.

“
It better not be a
gentleman caller,” Professor Coffin huffed. “I should have boarded
that shipwreck when I had the blasted chance. Give the old rape a
whirl.”

“
You could have seized life
by the hook,” Madison said.

“
She was a fetching zombie,”
I said.

“
Take her on a date in your
coffin if she turns back,” Madison said.

“
That blessed box is
old-fashioned and not commodious,” Professor Coffin growled.
“Please do not touch upon that tender spot again.”

“
The guy talks about
pillaging,” Madison snorted. “But he gets tight about his
coffin.”

“
I don’t know if he’s
running our test,” I laughed. “He’s just too screwy.”

The Red Lady limped down an alley into
Old Havana in glass. She had to briefly use a wall for support. She
appeared to be polishing some blood off her bag lady shoes with her
right hook. It was heartening to see that the old broad still cared
about her appearance in spite of her horrible looks. Vanity was
still alive and kicking in that rotten shell. The old horseshoe
crab still had it. She could still eat dead flounder in the
shallows.

I was feeling optimistic though. The
old murderess was a cause for celebration. She was down and out in
Old Havana in glass but she wasn’t a quitter if you didn’t count
the planned suicide. She was on the hunt for that one last toot at
the embarkation gate for the afterlife. The last rum before she
boarded the great beyond. Who could argue with that?

Although there didn’t appear to be any
bartenders for the pour. Or any poison for the glass. Perhaps the
far side was just beyond her reach. One last shot before the great
beyond was looking like a decidedly long shot. That green light on
the end of the dock with the ogre manning the lamp was looking
decidedly red. But I couldn’t help but admire the underdog lurking
in the kennel of her soul. Only a fool wouldn’t applaud that. Give
it up slow clap. Snap those fingers beatnik style. Pass that jug
around too. Why not throw Miles on the stereo?

Chapter

“
Magic doth make a hideous
bedfellow,” Professor Coffin declared. “It reminds me of the old
days when I used to climb into the sack with a savage with a bone
through his nose. Back in my whaling days in New Bedford when I was
chasing the pink whale.”

“
I thought it was white,” I
said.

“
Pink,” Professor Coffin
confirmed.

“
Professor Coffin,” Madison
snorted. “Stop joshing us.”

“
It’s true,” Professor
Coffin bristled.

There were shipwrecks splintered all
over the glass breakwater of Old Havana in glass including Doctor
Fast. I was no longer viewing that astonishing craft as my vessel.
It was just another gentleman’s trash. Something for the magical
dump truck to haul off to the magical transfer station. What’s
another shipwreck in a story like this? I could easily shrug it
off. The more shipwrecks the merrier, I thought. What’s a skeleton
coast without any bones? You’ve got to have ivory on that coast.
It’s not called the Ivory Coast for nothing. The primordial sharks
would never tolerate a Carrot Coast. That’s for the killer
rabbits.

I was also trying to view the shoreline
garbage as optimistically as possible. I didn’t need another
gentleman’s garbage weighing me down. I wasn’t thinking that the
magical dump truck had been delayed. Or that the magical dump truck
had broken down. Or that the dump had exploded in a cacophony of
fire. The magical midden had been cordoned off and declared an
unfit pit befitting anymore refuse due to a raging underground
inferno of horrific proportions. I wasn’t thinking anything like
that. How could a pessimist survive in this hideous world? Hope was
the flame that was keeping the flicker alive. It was the magical
candle that couldn’t be blown out. It just kept relighting itself.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be a cruel joke, Happy Birthday.

I was viewing all the garbage that was
littering the shoreline of Old Havana in glass as a favorable sign.
The garbage was a physical demonstration that there was human life
in this world. Human life was alive and thriving. Garbage was a
very good sign once you looked past the eyesore. The dead don’t
litter. Garbage equals civilization. The more refuse the merrier.
Let’s trash the joint.

However there didn’t appear to be any
survivors picking through the rubbish that was awaiting pickup from
the magical dump truck whatever the delay. There weren’t any
survivors clad in trash bags sifting through the wasteland. Where
were the mendicants? Were there no holy vagrants in this world?
There weren’t even any dump seagulls feasting on the refuse.
Raining guano down on the holy mendicants clad in trash bags.
Shouldn’t there be at least one dreaded creature from The Great
Chain of Being strolling along this grim shore? Asserting its
horrible nature.