Panama Hatch

By Waran Payce

Roy meets some rich kids in a saloon in Las Cruces on an early Sunday morning. They're on a "Pub Crawl" to Panama to see the canal change hands, but all the driving is getting in the way of their drinking. Roy agrees to be their driver, but it turns out to be more than he bargained for.
If its not the police or the guerrillas, it's the rich kids; his arrival in Panama is not a sure thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waran Payce
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466082113

Waran Payce

Waran Payce has been writing all his life; everything from grant proposals, which are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, to course curriculum, to song lyrics, to short stories. He is old enough to have had a draft lottery number (he chose not to go), and young enough to remember what it was in seventy-two, (fourteen). An avid reader since he learned how, he was inspired at an early age by Kerouac's classic "On the Road", and chose to emulate Dean Moriarity's madness. The following forty-some years have been an unending parade of new locations, new job titles and new wives. In the early eighties he sold all his belongings and moved to Belize, where he pursued a Gilligan life-style with the intention of staying forever. The attorney general had other ideas, so he returned to California. He ran unsuccessfully for President against Ronald Reagan while living in Texas, and taught at a tech school in Tennessee. He currently lives in a canyon outside Stone City, CO.

Book preview

Panama Hatch

a Roy Harper adventure

by

Waran Payce

Second Edition

Copyright 2010 Waran Payce

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1)

Roy’s bladder woke him from a dream that left him feeling as though he’d lost something important. Staggering, half asleep, still a little drunk from last night, he found the porch in time to relieve himself; his brain wouldn’t allow him to think of anything but his body’s need until he did. As the pressure was released, he slowly became aware of the crimson shaded light that was beginning to show around the edges of his world. The guest house of the estancia where he was staying, as long as he wished, was located high enough in the hills above Santa Catalina that when he sat in his rocker he saw the entire town, what there was of it, all the way past the beach, beyond the Mosquito Gulf, to the Caribbean Ocean, stretching to an indeterminate horizon.

The motor launch of the Eastern Star, a tramp steamer that had been carrying cargo along the Central American coast for far too long, was just pulling away from the jetty, curving through the shallow waters of the bay to the mother ship, anchored offshore in deeper water. Tomorrow he would be taking that ride as well, having joined the crew to work a passage home. Today he had resolved to make the most of his last day in Panama.

The bartender, a burly man, ebony black, with cornrows in his long red hair, was washing last night’s glasses behind the mahogany bar in the hotel cantina, when he heard the doors swing. He held up his hand, calling out that they were not yet open, but when he saw that it was Roy he waved him in. Enrique took one look at Roy’s face and began to mix a Bloody Mary, sliding it across the bar as Roy sat down. That one’s on the house, son. You look like you need it.

Thanks, and a tomato beer too, with a bowl of that chorizo and eggs. Tell me, Enrique my brother, if you had only one day to live, what would you do?

Around here? he asked incredulously, as though Roy had asked him about flying saucers. Are you dying, my brother?

Goin’ home tomorrow. I’m shipping out on the Star, workin’ my way back.

That’s the hard way to go, bro; you’re going to earn that passage. Are we so bad that you want to leave that much? I thought you liked it here.

I love it here, but I’m out of pesos, and they won’t let me work.

Your house is free!

I can’t eat the house; anyway I believe that I have just about worn out my welcome with Poppa Carl. The rich kids were his nephews, and once they left his obligation to me was conditional. I believe I have strained it to the breaking point. When this opportunity with the boat came up, I jumped at it.

So you’re leavin’ tomorrow.

Uh-hunh.

After all these months.

I’m outta here!

If you didn’t want to be here, why did you come in the first place?

The voice in the supposedly empty bar took them both by surprise. They turned simultaneously as they absorbed her words. Standing in front of the bar stood a young Indian woman, who appeared to be waiting patiently for an answer to her question. Her long, black hair was as shiny as a flake of obsidian, and fell around her shoulders, setting off her smooth bronze skin. The simple green shift she wore did nothing to conceal her well-formed figure. Even in the dim light of the bar it was apparent that this was a very striking woman.

Close your mouths boys, she laughed, apparently well aware of the effect she had on men. Finally Roy collected his wits enough to ask,

What did you say? She