Peter E Pete staggers to the hammock. Another trying day with ungrateful tars and scallywags. Two small sloops bound from Jamaica and all the rum ya could swally was all she wrote. Rum punched, one and all they blather on about not enough coin jingling the trouser as the pillage turned glum. He remembers the days in old Main Brook , a welcome sight after weeks at sea and the hearty and hale at Fred's Lounge, a place before it's time. Plunder a plenty back then but the scarce times came fast as kings and queens fell, and no privateer knew who to trust. At anchor in Spirity Cove, he sensed his days were numbered as the leader of his loyal but frustrated crew. Maybe time would soon come to take Con up on his offer to buy that small inn in St John's, become a publican. A few more raids, enough pirated bounty to ease into a landlubber's life. The slow trough shifted his hammock a...
Bay of Fires On Joo Chait road In Geylang, Scanlan steam boated his days away, claypotted many nights all in trying to become a better cook. This was his first stop on a trip around the world of sorts, stepping outside his familiar cooking environment. Head down, often yelled at for not speaking, what could he say. He did not speak any of the languages and was still surprised that he got hired, for cash as a dishpig. All he wanted was to absorb, take in this day to day grunt work that would make him a better cook. He hoped, as this was why he left the safety of cheffing in Canada. His job here became a mixture of washing dishes, claypotting and steamboating, as he liked to call these two popular ways of cooking. On a day off, wandering around the old colonial buildings of this part of Singapore, he came across a small shop, pumping out a salty fragrance that had pulled him inside. Above the counter a sign in English said “Otah”, all the others were he ...
Peter E, Number 2 Pete thought of the boucan on those breezy warm islands south, the smell pulled you to the firepit, poulet grille charred in coals and rum by the barrel, you ate ,drank, and lazed the day away, yet here he was cold, tossing about in a bunk off the coast of Newfoundland heading back to that harbour of grace. He should have listened to Pikey and sailed the Happy Adventure back south. For now all he could do was dream of the warm swelter, the food, the tars and wonder if some day he would find it again. He turns over with the swell, and dreams of a lost love, of Shiela.
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