Fiction: Francis and Jeffers

Seph · 11th September 2006, 11:19am

They lived an acceptably normal life out there. Well, if you consider normal to be stuck on a boorish navy ship seemingly wandering the unforgiving, icy sea then you could perhaps surmise their life as a normal one. A burning horizon could be seen from the main deck, and for those who had the time to gaze longingly at it, the sun was again preparing to fall once again behind an array of bloated, red clouds in the distance. Jim happened to be standing at the very edge of the main deck—admiring such a sight in a pose somewhat reminiscent of Jack and Rose of ‘Titanic’ fame. The fact he was on the deck alone complicated things slightly, so he merely decided he was a solitary Jack. “No Rose. She had the better pose of the two.” he concluded absently, stretching his arms out and leaning forward from the bow.

He decided Jack was a bit too gay looking and had thrown himself off into the sea, for reasons best known to himself. Jim had never cared for Titanic. He had a tendency to change vital details where he saw fit.

Jim’s eyes were fresh with tears and he hadn’t been on onion cutting duty this week, although the fact he was on toilet unclogging duty offered nothing in the way of consolation. Watson approached from behind. Jim jumped slightly and hastily stepped to his left—having mysteriously found the time to back away from the bow and find the space in which to step from—introducing Watson to the romantic sunset. (One must be careful of men from behind … after all, it is the navy)

In realising that it was his good friend Watson, Jim reluctantly broke away from his Jack and Rose moment and dried his eyes on his navy-blue sleeves while Watson wiped his mouth.
“Why the tears?” Watson inquired with a fading smile.
“Oh it…it’s nothing really” Jim lied.
“Oh come on…it has to be important if you’ll miss spin the bottle. You haven’t even joined us for a game since you started.” His smile flared up again.
“But Watson, this is an all male ship” He answered with a voluntary twitch.

Jim was actually very proud of his twitch. He spent long, isolated hours practicing it. He used it in difficult or embarrassing conversations, timing it to ensure he drove away any difficult topic that may arise. It came in handy during the late night heart-to-hearts in which his shipmates would find appropriate to divulge their often frightening and occasionally illegal, yet innermost, desires. It had already saved him from several homosexual proposals, for which Jim was eternally grateful.
“So?” Jim’s twitch had failed.
“So…I’m a straight man.” Jim almost convulsed this time.
“So am I,” continued the blissfully ignorant Watson, “but when in Rome. Just come on—it’ll be fun.” A phrase Jim had never developed a fondness of.

Jim looked thoughtfully into the sky. There was a lone cloud making its way across the sky at no particular pace with no clear heading. A completely care-free and a notoriously relaxing image. Jim knew what to do.

“Sir.” Jim declared some short time later.
“Yes sergeant?”
“We require a new lieutenant, sir” Jim also declared.
“Why, may I ask?”
“Watson has just seen fit to leap to his own death over the front bulkhead, sir.” Jim declared. Jim was very good at declaring. He felt warm inside in knowing this.
“Oh…did he mention why, sergeant?”
“I do recall him mentioning something along the lines of ‘AHHHHHHHHHHH YOU PRICK’ at a very loud volume, sir, if it’s of any help.”
“No that’s quite alright. I shall attend to it later. Dismissed.”

The Captain on this particular fine vessel was a great man. He ran a tight ship and ran it well. He was a hit with the ladies and commanded the men well as was more or less expected.

By day.

By night he leapt valiantly around the ship in varying shades of unflattering spandex, silently watching the ship's few decks for signs of crime and generally maintaining justice, in what he imaged was a chaotic environment. He went by the name of ‘El Capitan’ and had both a wonderful motto and bold theme music, blaring of grandeur and strength, for his crusades. He couldn’t however get the hang of fighting crime – which, as fortune would have it, happened to be considered an extreme rarity on an uninteresting navy ship in the middle of no specific sea. To heroically combat this issue he simply outlawed basic aspects of life and instated custom laws such as ‘No audible noises at night’, ‘No use of eyesight after dark’ and ‘All personnel must salute the mysterious ‘El Capitan’ regularly’ though no clear disciplinary action was really enforcing it.

Obviously the whole crew were very aware that ‘El Capitan’ was merely a product of the captain’s refusal to take his pills again, but humoured him in the interest of both parties. In all fairness to the crew, it is fairly amusing to see a 62 year old man leap about your ship at night in bright spandex with the serious resolve to police the night. I recommend you try it sometime. Gruesome, but amusing I’m sure you’ll agree.

“Commander Jeffers.” The captain called.
“Yes sir?”
“What news do you have to report today?”
“Well sir, Sergeant Jim has been spotted crying on the bow a number of times and suicide rates by way of leaping into the sea are up 300%, predominantly from the bow.”
“Hmmm.” The Captain pulled a face implying he was in deep thought. As it would happen, the Captain had drifted off into considering what colour El Capitan’s costume was…red or that fake, new red: maroon. It also occurred to him he had never actually seen El Capitan. Further confusing him as to how he knew what his costume looked like.
“Sir? Are you alright?”
“Err…yes. Sorry, I drifted away there.” claimed the captain with furrowed brow and eyes searching the immediate area for something solid to hold onto. “So…I would usually ask Watson about Jim, but I’m afraid I can’t.” The Captain lied.
“Umm…why, sir?” A puzzled Jeffers inquired with a twitch. Don’t worry though, it was completely involuntary.
“Because I … err … It’s my turn in spin the bottle and I must be off.” And the Captain left hurriedly.

The real reason for his avoidance of Watson over the past few weeks was rather simple. The Captain never did have a perfect memory and feared that he had forgotten how to pronounce Watson’s wife's name. He knew Watson was waiting to catch him off-guard about it so he tried his best to avoid the situation.

And he smelled really bad. Really, really bad.

The Captain was also in a separate dilemma involving Watson. He yearned to shout at Watson. Really yell at him.

The reason being that Watson was always naked.

Everybody assumed it was on account of Watson’s apparent tendency to rip all clothing from his body and launch it over the side of the ship wailing, whenever he saw the colour blue. A somewhat peculiar and unbefitting condition to suffer from in the middle of a blue sea it would seem—especially with the daily requirement of a blue uniform. His condition was assumed to be caused by a big blue boogie-man that invaded his dreams. The truth was it was cancer.

“Hey Jim.”
“Yeah? What is it Jeffers?”
“Since you’re here, why have you been crying a lot lately?”
Jim opened his mouth as if to reply, but instead looked out the window. He was deliberating whether to divulge his dark, secretive reason or whip out a conversation stopping twitch.

He looked Jeffers in the eyes.

Jim suddenly realised something.

Jeffers had a really big nose. Jim laughed inside. It helped.

“It’s because … the … Captain …” Jim struggled to speak. It may have been the live raccoon he ate earlier, but it calmed down after a swift punch to the stomach.

“I was … standing on the main deck with him. I asked him when dinner was ready and he replied … he … he said… do…don’t twiddle your thumbs.” In saying this, Jim put his head in his hands and wept uncontrollably.

Jeffers stared at Jim. However, Jeffers had drifted off himself and was currently deciding whether the guy on the Monopoly® board looked like his uncle Terry. He didn’t though. Well, they both had moustaches but that was about it. Jeffers cleared his thoughts and shook his head lightly. Jim had left the room three hours ago. He slowly turned to see El Capitan standing proudly in the doorway, his erect form thrusting forth a hairy pot belly into the room from restrictive and confusing attire. He appeared to be clad in maroon spandex. His face likened the very colour as he bellowed a new theme song of sporadic falsetto counter melodies, with excitement and intensity. He appeared to be trying to break the sound barrier, his throbbing facial veins, the very windows of the room or Jeffers’ face with volume. Come the end of the 3rd movement, El Capitan soothed into a swaying strings section of the song and ended rather abruptly, breathing heavily. After some time of huffing, spluttering and gradual recovery, both Jeffers and El Capitan stood facing each other in a somewhat content silence—neither one sure of what came next but both of a resolute expression of blank enquiry. El Capitan appeared to be waiting for some sort of response with his steely, bold gaze whereas Jeffers seemed subtly bemused.

After some time El Capitan leapt away stiffly and heavy plods faded away into the ever present hiss of the boat cutting through the night sea. Jeffers closed the door and poured himself a drink.