THE CONFERENCE

THE CONFERENCE

The meeting was held at the San Sebastian National Trust Public and Private Meeting Facility Room. The sign above the door stated this and I was still a bit fuzzy in trying to put all of those words in context. The afternoon turtle hangover-remedy stuffing my insides created a lethargy that put the fluorescent lighting of the hallways into a venue that could not be on some Caribbean island but maybe somewhere in the Midwest. The night’s blackness outside the tinted windows isolated my thinking even more in mixing up my geographical fix. I had to take a few deep breaths and look around at the solemn line of people passing through the thick oak doors, which silently swung open and shut. I entered to find a small group of aromas and bouquets surrounded by neon lights and stark white, sterile walls. There was a three inch band of trim around the three sides of the room I could see. Empty folding chairs stood at attention behind a large square of adjoining straight tables. There was nothing in the centre, but a podium was set upon a table at what was to be the speakers’ platform. Behind this were several photos of a beautiful schooner. I went to the photos.

She was gorgeous. Fine lines of sheer that began at a moulded stern of blended shadows sitting low in the water waiting to begin, and to finish with the upswing of bowsprit that challenged the heavens as an equal. Her masts were solidly raked giving a proud air to sea-kindliness. She was magnificently white, a worker queen, the Odyssey. I was in love.

There were eight photographs of her, all taken during local turtle fishing boat regattas or anchored off San Sebastian and I knew her within two minutes of looking at them. I had never thought of Caribbean islanders having fine vessels. I thought of the Haitian sloops that landed off Florida, or Windward inter-island cargo carriers from adventure movies with bulky planking and never enough canvas to offset the weight they appeared to have. That was it. Nothing more. Yet, here was the Odyssey racing other schooners of refined lines, some clipper bowed, some spoon bowed like her. All were cutting water and leaving very slight ruffles of passage aft of their beams. And they were all pulling sail with tiny caps of white playing in the seas.

I was turned around by a hand on my shoulder and led to a folding black metal chair with my back to Odyssey and my face facing a full house of people sitting and standing. They were focused on me, with slight mumbles to each other about me. Nathan was talking to me but I had to concentrate to understand what he was whispering.

‘…and that is what we have against us now. So, you just tell them who you are and what you would bring to the discussion.’

He went directly from me to calling the meeting to order and having their chaplain provide an expounding sermon to open the meeting up. Amens, lords, and hot damns were yelled at the podium for the entire five minutes of the sermon. Nathan and the Sergeant-at-Arms went through the Minutes of the last meeting and the protocol quickly with everybody passing and seconding everything quickly as well.

‘This is what we are here tonight to talk about.’ He was pointing his thumb over his shoulder toward the Odyssey photos. ‘She is our last significant line of real heritage. She tells us who we are because of her base, her foundation as who we are. Today, my ladies and gents, we are just shopkeepers and servants. Yes, we are making some bucks, and a lot lot more than what our fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers could ever dream of making on a regular basis, (he whispered) except maybe through a little salvage or piracy (everybody put out a polite laugh and snicker, even a clap went out), but that money has changed our colour from bronzed by the sun reflected off the tortlin’ grounds to the pale of no time to go to the beach even for the rakin’ in of all that cash…’

Nathan put his hands on my shoulders from behind me. ‘We have the opportunity to use some of that money to bring some of that colour back to our skins, maybe not ours but to our children… maybe ours too. We can purchase her and bring her back to San Sebastian, where she was born and longs to return; after all, we all want to go home, don't we? ‘Didn’t you, brotha McField, when you went up there to Chicago and made your fortune in lumber? Didn’t you, Teebo, when you sallied over to Nicaragua without a dime to your name and started loanin’ money you didn’t have and now are the owner of, how many you gots… seven banks, yet you live here? And you (he pointed), and you (he pointed)? You’all knows what I am talkin’ about… you all wants to see our Odyssey nestled nice and at peace here in her bed right out in front of this building like she did in the days of old…’

‘Nathan and…’ a man’s voice called out from amongst the gathered. I looked about and found an older man, dressed well with light-coloured suit and tie, rising, ‘…we all knows and loves da Odyssey, mahn. I stopped on every isle and cay in that scattering as I sailed her numerous times down the Banks and back, up to Key West, and around the Main from Venezuela to Nicaragua. You knows me fer daht, yes?’

‘Captain Eubanks has the floor’ Nathan announced for the sake of the Minutes.

‘Now… I ain’t a mahn ta put too many woids out der, so I wants ta say dis.’ He looked around the room and came back to Nathan’s eyes. ‘All dese ol’ Rangers is in need, forgotten by they’s youngins and shoved aside as woithless and politically incorrect. Dem Rangers done built this land of our’s with they deaths, they wounds, they health, they own poverty…now…yes. Daht is where money has ta go foist. Before some mem’ry of a boat, no matter how good she be… she is still jes’ a boat. But, a man… a man ist a man, mahn. Theys breathes and laughs and cries out fo help but cain’t say nothin’ fer da pride in dems.’ Captain Eubanks sat suddenly as though tired of the talking as too much action.

The assembled began a slow roll of clapping that developed into everybody standing to nod heads and clap hands with force. Nathan held up his hands for silence and the clapping subsi

‘I hope you got that, Bubba.’ He looked toward the Secretary, who sat in glasses and rolled up white shirt sleeves. He nodded to Nathan. ‘Thank you, Captain Eubanks. I appreciate more than most, given the position I am in and the information that comes across my desk, what we are not doing for our former Rangers. I see the Odyssey as a constant reminder to both our public and the visiting public that those men are still here and in need of assistance… and better, of a reinforcement of their pride. Nobody has stood up as they should to assist them yet. But, you see Odyssey out there sailin’ or just at anchor and you cain’t hide, can ya?’

Nathan rested his hands on my shoulders again.

‘I wants to introduce you to the man to help us do this right. I want you to give Rod Piketorn, my brothel, a warm welcome. Lots of mouths dropped open and lots of clapping started, marching to a crescendo that welcomed me and exited my hangover. I was enveloped with warmth sent to me in smiles, wide eyes, radiant faces and even tears from strangers. I did not know what to do and all I could think of was if my face was as black and blue as this morning showed, and I wondered if I had combed my hair.

The clapping stopped suddenly as I noticed Nathan’s upraised hands above my sides. ‘Rod is goin’ ta bring us the Odyssey. He will represent us on the voyage back. He has blue water experience and is a journalist who specialises in maritime history. What more could we ask for?’

The clapping started again with conversations shouted between the audience and hard-pointings at me.

The crowd became quiet when they heard that Rod wasn't from Sebastian Island. Everybody looked completely confused and I know I looked completely confused.

‘Rod is a San Franciscan whose papa is my papa. Don’t cha see? He can be one of us while he is an American. No discredit can be shown down upon us if somethin’ fucks up on the voyage back?’

A long-jawed, dark man rose from a chair on the right side of the room. ‘Sorry, Nathan, but I don’t see what you is sayin’. He, (he smiled warmly at, and nodded to me), and welcome home, Rod, he ain’t one of us but he is one of us and that mean he ain’t a discredit? Could you please elaborate on that?' ‘Make note, Bubba, that was Cyril Bean asking those very good questions, or question. Now, what I am sayin’ is Rod here has the knowledge to bring the Odyssey home but you knows this owner wants ta have his own crew with only one of us aboard. So, say Rod here gets drunk and beats up a po’liceman or somethin’? It ain’t nothin’ on us. An, as you can see by his face and if you’all was at Sherley’s last night and can bear witness, this man can fight and will fight. He just like us but if one of us was ta beat up a po’liceman the world would come down on us, no? Tourism, what happens there? Bankin’, what happens there? Get my meanin’? Me and Cop’n Henry talked it over last night and figured it to be win-win. We just needs the money to buy Odyssey. But, look at Rod appearin’ here yesterday as the godsend we was lookin’ for. Look at it like divine provenance, yes lord.’

When I was chosen without saying a word to be in charge of the history of the San Sebastian Islands, there were two claps, then five, and finally many. We did a lot of drinking that night and late the next afternoon I boarded my plane back to San Francisco with a happy blur of spots of memories about my last hours in my new homeland.

On the plane I was special. I knew I had a future. I knew there was something solid in my life’s future. I knew I was going on a noble quest. I had lived for this all of my life. I looked around the cabin for somebody to tell it to and decided that I did not want to say anything to anyone, even the stewardess who was mechanically smiling and who I knew would never remember anything I said.

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