A Man Between Sunset and Wisteria

By Ryan Christopher

Jake is a man tormented by his past and finds solitude in adventure traveling with his close friends Trevor and John. While sailing in the Caribbean they make a startling discovery on a mysterious island in the Southern Bahamas. Included in their discovery is a strange gold medallion and the journal of a sailor. On a return journey Jake sails back to the island with additional friends, including an old love interest now dating Trevor. Unfortunately this time the trip doesn’t encounter smooth sailing and it isn’t long before Jake realizes that the journal they found seems to be predicting their future. The same calamities that the sailor recorded in the journal are now happening to them! Jake finds himself desperately trying to unravel the mystery of the island in order to escape the clutches of the Caribbean.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Christopher
• Release date: Jun 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311261816

Ryan Christopher

Ryan Christopher writes and paints in the Paseo Arts District of Oklahoma City. He draws much of his inspiration for writing and painting from the multitude of adventures he has taken over the years. Ryan has lived in many states across the West and traveled around the world extensively. His favorite destination is the Caribbean.

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A Man Between Sunset and Wisteria

Published by Ryan Christopher at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Ryan Christopher

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http://www.RyanChristopherArt.com

Ryan Christopher

A Man Between Sunset and Wisteria

CHAPTER 1

Narrow streams of blood and water flowed rapidly over the surface of a wooden floor, at first separately like miniature creeks over a weathered plain, and then concurrently as they intertwined and mixed in poetic fashion somewhere in the middle. The ship balked and staggered at its own momentum, then pitched violently upwards. When it came back down the whole of the galley shook with a sudden and tremendous force so that the utensils in the cupboards rattled furiously in their place. The blood and water stream, now fed by several dire tributaries, abruptly overturned upon itself mid-flow and changed course in sequence with the movement of the ship. It flowed back down along the floorboards beneath the heels of my sandals, beneath my legs, and chilled them as it ran quickly up the base of my shorts. Again the ship began to pitch upwards to the heavens and the stream commenced the seasonal process all over again, picking a hasty path across the floor, bending around some obstructions, flowing over others.

I opened my eyes.

It was dark.

My head was killing me, something that was immediately apparent. The yellow beam of a dying flashlight lay upon the floor in front of me and was cutting the darkness just enough to allow a brief survey of my dismal surroundings. The room was strewn about with white shards of broken ceramic cups and plates, brass shell-casings that rolled mindlessly about with the ship, water-soaked books: Abbey, Woolf, Hemingway, and three human bodies. I assumed that they were dead.

The light cast deep shadows into these morbid surroundings while outside a storm was seething. The ship crashed back down again, groaning laggardly under the entire weight of itself. A wave of seawater simultaneously breached the bow and spilled down into the galley. It splashed and poured around my legs and cascaded out onto the floorboards, diluting the blood. The ship rolled uncontrollably starboard, while the galley shook violently and the utensils again protested furiously in vain.

I was sitting wet upon the floor with my back against a wall near the stairwell. The lugubrious galley was in front of me. My vision was blurry and I could see stars forming bright, white clusters that were focusing in and out of my sight.

Breath in deeply. Try to regain a mindful head. Keep calm.

There were several pitch and rolls of the ship. I could focus enough to attempt standing, all the while my heart racing. The back of my head was throbbing, aching, nagging, the insides feeling as if they were pressing their way out, escaping their necessary prison. I put my hand there to feel about and held it before my eyes; it was covered in blood. I quickly checked the rest of my body, unclear as to what had happened or what was happening presently. Blood was stained upon all of my clothes. It was free and smeared about my arms and legs in a savage and murderous fashion. I tried to stand immediately, startled by the sight of the blood, but had to balance hard on the stairwell railing to rise up even a little. A torrent of rain was falling through the wide-open door above and bursts of lightning periodically illuminated the galley. I saw the bodies again. A loud crack across the sky CRRCKKKKK, filled the ship with brilliant white light, followed by a low and rumbling thunder that vibrated anything not holding firmly to something else. The very soul of the ship shuddered amidst the unrelenting fury of nature.

Two bodies were near the table- two males. I see her in the back! She was laying in a slump, her left arm stretched out in front of her, the right folded beneath her body, motionless upon the floor. The blood stream continued its movement all the while upon the floor, renewed and revitalized from a seemingly endless supply of fluid. She was facing the opposite direction and I therefore did not know if she was alive. I made my way towards her, holding onto the table, the sink, and then wall. In my stumbling I fell over the other bodies in front of me. The first was a slightly overweight man with a thick mustache whom I did not recognize and whose pudgy, gray face was badly beaten and bloodied. I checked for a pulse anyway, but there was none. His skin was cold, his black, bloodstained hair was matted against his forehead. I could smell the thick, sweet smell of blood and the sour smell of his clothes as I stepped over him, eyes wide and lifeless.

Everywhere was death. The man next to him was laying face down, three shots to the back, blood spattered against the wall opposite. I stepped over him and fell to my knees when I got near her. I put my fingers to her neck. There was a pulse and fortunately quite strong. When I rolled her over, she looked at me with her still conscious eyes and whispered something inaudible. I moved closer. A crack of lightening illuminated her face; it was terrifyingly vivid. The vision of her is forever burned into my mind, blue eyes shaky and fearful, pale face hauntingly stained about with crimson, lips trembling rapidly- begging me. There was a gunshot to her right side and she was still bleeding from the dark orifice.

She coughed. I put my hand over the wound, reached up and grabbed a towel that had been left to dry upon the sink, and applied pressure. She winced at the touch and clutched my right hand. Darkness suddenly began to close around my vision like a slow shutter-lens. My upper body faltered a bit and I put my free hand out to brace a fall against the floor. When the skin of my hand made contact with the cool ocean water, the darkness disappeared and I was fine again.

The boat continued to pitch and roll uncontrollably. I didn’t know if anyone else was alive. I sat up- breathe, breathe, breathe- reached laboriously for the pills in the left pocket of my shorts but the bottle was gone. Where the hell is it? The smell of blood wafting through my nostrils, a swift air of urine, the rolling of the ship and my injuries made me ill and I vomited violently upon the floor. I gushed into the blood and water, light white-like diluted milk, which quickly formed streams and ran about. I spat three times, blew the bile from my nose and wiped my mouth across with my arm.

Help me Jake, she whispered.

I looked down and then towards the galley door, then down. The rain and seawater continued to pour in through the opening and the wind howled like a scorned demon above.

What happened? I questioned.

I, I don’t remember.

Who shot you?

She looked down at the wound as if she had forgotten momentarily, but made no reply and lost consciousness. Standing was again a great chore and powered only by pure will and determination. My shirt was torn, I noticed, and the medallion I wore around my neck was also gone. I was utterly confused and disoriented but knew I had to reach the console and get the ship under control. The darkness closed in around my eyes another time. I fought hard by squinting my eyes and holding the sides of my head, trying to keep the insides inside. It was vanquished for a moment, but then returned with a vendetta and I immediately collapsed to the floor.

From my new vantage point I could see the man with the three gun shots a little clearer. His familiar gold watch caught my attention and then I realized at once that it was Trevor. I was sick again. It was no good. I couldn’t figure it, I couldn’t do anything to rectify it and so I just stared at the ceiling as the shutter closed around my eyes and the boat pitched

up

and

down.

CHAPTER 2

I can distinctly and equivocally recall to mind the first time that I visited the Keys and how it felt, like a distant memory or love from the past that all at once became familiar again, conjuring forth from my heart those subtle, sweet and warm feelings that occur sporadically throughout life, ensuring that every second of every minute is indeed quite worth living. It was fate that I should end up there, of course I never imagined that it would occur this soon.

On that first adventure to the Florida Keys ten summers ago, we drove a cramped rental vehicle from the Houston airport down and around the Gulf of Mexico. When we finally approached the mainline of Florida, with its sporadic, tired orange farms and crowded coastal shores, I was utterly sick to my head of the tree-walled freeways of Alabama and Georgia.

We picked up my brother at the Miami airport and just kept going. When we left the mainland on the second day of driving, the whole of the world seemed a little dream and the road itself sagged until it was almost level with the ocean, inviting us in. From my relaxed vantage in the passenger seat, the car appeared to glide across the water until it gave way to the ocean breeze and then lifted onto a series of bridges connecting the long line of Keys. I rolled the windows down and methodically inhaled the humid ocean air like a drug.

Every muscle of my body twitched, vibrated and bounced with excitement. On the right were remnants of the railroad viaducts and rusting steel trestles, ghosts now, skeletons forged unwillingly into existence by the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. I wondered what it was like when that horrifying and colossal beast lumbered ashore, bringing forth a hellish fury, washing away massive portions of the tender railway and leaving unmitigated disaster in its wake.

On that day when my eyes first fell upon the Keys, much like today, the sky was brimming with clouds and the ocean drab. It wasn't until late afternoon that the sun finally burst through the clouds and the real beauty of the Keys was revealed. Suddenly! The waning sunshine poured as passionately as spring rain down from the swollen clouds into the shallow blue water, electrifying and illuminating the sea forthwith in all manner of blues and greens, an ecstasy of turquoises, teals and cerulean glass, deep cobalts, sapphires from the bottom blues of still mountain lakes, vibrant living blues of lovers reaching eyes, blues that only exist hidden in deep crevices of the artist’s imagination.

A camera, of course, could do no justice. I felt quite silly for doing so, rather I tried time and time again unsuccessfully to recreate the images before me, knowing all the while that I could not encapsulate the emotions, the feeling, the euphoria.

"Look at this! Look at this! I’d say to anyone who would listen upon my return to the boring middle of America, You should have been there! It was amazing! Life changing! Surreal!"

"Uh-huh. Looks nice."

……

In Key West, where time and traffic both slowed to the rhythm of the tides, and the streets narrowed, and the sun set across the sea, we drove just to drive until it was dusk. The house we stayed in for the week off of Duval Street was quaint and beautiful and reminiscent of everything old Key West. It had been like going through a monumentally dull hell to get there, but life was now understood and it felt as if all of my many questions could be answered.

From that first experience I knew that I wanted to live in the Lower Keys one day, just far enough from Miami to be a pain in the ass for anyone living in the city to drive down to. I imagined the drive was much like driving from Denver to Grand Junction, only worse. The two-lane road from the mainland to Key West is a long trip. It begins in Key Largo, continues past Islamorada, through Marathon, and ends in Key West- all told, about a four-hour drive from Miami. A pain in the ass for the average, cumbersome person.

I moved to Summerland Key last spring, about seventy five miles from Key Largo, twenty-four miles north of Key West, and 2,230 miles from Denver. It has been almost a year since. My house is a lovely twenty-year old home that sits alongside one of the many canals that wind through the islands, allowing easy access to the ocean. I have a small v-hull motorboat that was primarily used for fishing most of its life. It has a quaint center console and a small roof over the top. Sometimes when I get ambitious I will take it into Key West if I don’t feel like driving, and sometimes sleep in it if I drink too much.

One thing was for sure: I did not miss Colorado and its dry, thin, static-charged air. Later in life, sometimes after the burning summer months when I grew lonesome for snow-filled gray skies, I visited my brother in Montana. I found that my fill of snowflakes was usually satisfied within a week or less, and then it was time to return to my home in the Keys.

Today was one of those brisk, nebulous winter days, with a low sun and steady wind blowing in from the east. Dressing to the weather, I resolved to take the boat down to Key West. I grabbed my wallet and keys on the kitchen counter, checked the level of my prescription bottle and swallowed two pills without water. The canal was only a few steps off a large wooden deck just outside the back door. The deck was in desperate need of restoration but I just never made time for it. I hate carving out time for such boring tasks.

My humble boat sat idle in the dark-green canal water, tethered only by a short length of stained and frayed white rope. In the bottom of the boat was a set of snorkeling gear (heavily discolored by the sun), an old fishing pole, a spare can of gas, an oar, and an anchor, all of which I consider essential. I scooped out some rainwater that had collected in the bottom with an old plastic container and then started the motor with relative ease. I sped down the canal, at first past the Caribbean colored homes and docks that decorated the sides of the canal, then through the thick protective mess of tangled mangrove trees, and finally through the islands of mangroves scattered in the shallow waters between the keys. The boat cut clean and true across the clear water that was now rapidly being subjected to some incoming weather.

The water was not its usual effervescent self today, rather it was in a tempestuous mood and the sun was presently blocked by dark clouds making it a dull, turquoise color, barely revealing the rocks and small corals that lay below the surface.

A short time later I powered the boat past Sunset Key and then eased the throttle back as I approached the dock down a little ways from the Conch Republic Restaurant, which was and always had been a favorite of mine. I tied up on a free piling and observed several large fish swimming from underneath the dock around me. The water here was very clear for a harbor. I walked over and took my familiar seat at the ocean-side end of the bar.

Jake!

Corey. How’s it going?

Hey Jake, you want to come out with us Friday night? he said through his cropped, wiry beard that was a kind of root-beer brown that had been faded by the sun.

I’m down. Just give me a ring.

Sounds good man. Your brother in town this week?

Nah. He hasn’t called me for a while.

Cool, cool man, if you see him tell him I said hi.

No problem.

Alright well, I’ll call you brother.

Sounds good Corey.

He hurried off to the back with a tray of empty bar glasses and a sense of urgency. Calling or receiving a call from Corey is always interesting. He spent most of his time here at the bar and he didn’t own a cell phone. Not sure why. So that being said, it wasn’t all that unusual to receive a call from the Republic at all hours of the night. Then if you had to return his call, you called the Republic and asked for Corey. Everyone knew who he was, he was the hippie waiter here who wore a beanie every day of the year, and one of those people that I seemed to have a lot in common with but somehow just not enough in common with to become really good friends. I wonder what the spark is that cements a really great friendship? Shared experiences? An exact and shared desire for exact things in life? I don’t know, but that was Corey: an acquaintance just on the verge of a full-blown friendship waiting for the mysterious spark.

He had an old, beige Landcruiser that I once tried to buy from him but he wouldn’t part with it and I don’t blame him. I also knew that he lived in the upstairs room of an old home on the east side of town with his young brunette wife, who was working at the Starbucks on Duval and who had studied medicine before dropping out her second year. They had been married a year and a half. He worked at the Republic and they liked to dive during their time off. That was about it. That’s what I knew.

The bar itself was a giant rectangle in the middle of the restaurant, which afforded almost anyone a seat on any given night except for the weekends. It was early afternoon and there were relatively few tourists today; apparently nobody was interested in drinking. This struck me as an odd decision to make, what else was there to do on a day like this? I thought it equally strange that the number of tourists was low. It was January, and January is usually when people from the mainland fantasize about vacations. Not the real vacations that they can afford in the summertime with kids to the lake and grandma's house, but the type of vacation where you make love on some beach at twilight; the type most don’t bother to invest in; the type that they should invest in. Naive and unimaginative tourists always seemed to come down to the Caribbean islands in the winter months to escape the weather at home, but that was the worst time to be here; the end of summer was the best. The water was still warm, there were fewer people, and no chance of winter chills. Bliss.

Afternoon Jake, whiskey?

You got it. Nothing fancy please. Just Jack on the rocks.

The bartender, Kilian, was also a relatively new acquaintance of mine and to be quite honest I still didn't know if Kilian was his first or last name. His friendship status was that of Corey’s: no spark. For sure he was the epitome of island life, donning longer unkempt chestnut hair, covered in most cases by a much sun-worn red cap, short-sleeve faded t-shirt, swim shorts and flip-flops, worn in by his weight, blackened and shiny by his feet. An acoustic Martin guitar was usually in his hands when he wasn't working. Kilian was by all means fully equipped in the event that a sudden party was to erupt or Jimmy Buffet himself walked through the door looking for a rhythm guitarist. Cheeseburger in Paradise. On his left forearm was a drab tattoo, already grayed with time, of a giant squid grasping and squeezing to bits a whaling ship in one of its tentacles. His right arm had all manner of smaller, nonsensical tattoos that appeared to me to have no rhyme or reason whatsoever and knowing him, probably didn’t.

Kilian was brash and unapologetic about his lifestyle and mannerisms, which danced freely across the border between what society considered moral and immoral and as you can imagine, some people found quite offensive. On top of all of this he was also extremely passionate and gregarious when he needed to be and so I think that helped balance everything out, but all of it was just fine with me. I appreciated his honesty and fastidious attention to mundane details, such as the exactness of grenadine in a tequila sunrise or what the ocean ‘felt like’ before he went snorkeling.

He wasn’t full of energy and bouncing around with all manner of notions and schemes like my friend Trevor was. Kilian’s thing was stoicism. He listened, he talked a lot, he laughed, he yelled, but he never ever rushed anything at all. If he were ever stabbed in the chest, he would probably talk about how it felt, lament that the party was probably over now, and then decide that maybe it would be wise to have a doctor look at it. It’s a strange thing to say, but true.

Of late we had been spending lazy Key West afternoons at the Republic discussing sailing, personal adventures, and pirates and that sort of thing. I suppose it would be more correct to say that I spent lazy afternoons at the Republic talking sailing, adventures and pirates and that sort of thing while he labored. I enjoyed his company and he seemed to enjoy mine.

Although whenever the discussion and fascination with pirates came about- it was just something that I never fully understood. To glorify pirates, as the tourist industry so often does in the Caribbean, is a peculiar thing. It desperately determines to uphold the fantasy that living like a pirate and not owning up to the responsibilities of a job is the ultimate position to attain to in life. This deranged fantasy is of course minus a host of rancid, delusional yet bothersome, minor details: don’t pay mind to the syphilis! Short life expectancy? Huh? What about the rat-filled prisons, hangings or murders? No, no, what the hell is wrong with you! I said I was a pirate. Just focus, focus, focus on the parts involving reclining on a perfectly maintained and manicured ship with polished brass and polished exotic women.

You would of course be taking begrudging orders from a cool and collected captain who could be a total asshole at times, but dammit if you didn’t respect the hell out of him, and of course the fucking cliché green parrot who always spouted off in terms of rum and obscenities, and who did what and when at the most inappropriate times but at least he could pull the cork from a bottle of wine. This is all not to mention the gold and bedazzling, shining jewels you were assuredly to find, barely escaping from the British while doing so in dramatic, over-the-top glorious, legend producing-fashion. Did I also mention that your friends always survive? And that guy you didn’t know too well at the canon? He’s dead. No mind- what do you care? You’re a fucking pirate! Probably stole your rum anyway. The next