A PLEASURE SHIP MOVED SLOWLY across open waters. The Brothers Jetstream didn’t take vacations. Way too much heinous stuff for vacations; things people know about but try to pretend otherwise: movie industry’s just a front for a secret vampire cabal; The Brothers Grimm? Their short stories were warnings. The brothers aren’t dead. They teamed up not two weeks ago with the Brothers Jetstream. Much ass kicked that day. Much ass. Came as close as the space between a gnat’s ass to finally getting rid of the False Prophet Buford.
Raffic the Mad Buddha’s absence, however, made all the difference.
Regular Joes got tired and took vacations. Tired for the Brothers Jetstream was escaping the Bermuda Quadrangle, dodging angry resurrected dead folks, uncovering lesser known cabals (deep down folks knew about the vampires but it was a lot easier to stick a head in the sand and scapegoat Jews rather than admit a bunch of psycho blood-suckers were actually responsible for some damn good box office), or having to deal with the Thoom.
The Thoom were stupid. They thought Scientology didn’t go far enough.
Seagulls, aware of the buffet aspect of cruise lines but not bold enough to land on deck, whirled past the ship’s bright venting stacks. Ramses Jetstream watched one glide lazy eights.
He took a deep breath, scratching his scarred fingers through a rough goatee.
He was trying hard to relax.
Being dark-skinned was at times tiresome too.
For example: he and his brother wanted to procure cold ones for two of the loveliest women in seven dimensions, black, white, brown or green—and there were some damn fine green women in the world—and they’d been understanding of the busy Joyeux Voyage cruise ship, but the wait staff was performing its interpretation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, zipping to youngish tan things as if guaranteed a fierce lay despite the commanding presence of the Brothers Jetstream.
So Ramses spoke up a little louder.
And got the one moment finger.
The resigned weight of a sigh dropped his chest. He was more patient than Milo, but that didn’t make him patient per se.
And seagulls weren’t interesting in the least.
Ramses Jetstream had little choice but to reach back and smack the college out of the boy when he gave him the one moment finger a second time.
The Shadow clouded men’s minds. Ramses Jetstream calmly slapped the fye out of you.
Same effect. Nobody who saw it believed he had actually done it, and thereby negated the experience within a collective null-time bubble. A genetic trigger shunted the slappee into a personally localized alternate universe exactly to a point before the slap so he/she wouldn’t have to deal with the reality of his/her dumb ass.
Sounded like a lot of work.
But didn’t a brother get some drinks?
Virgin mango daiquiris for both ladies (one of whom looked on in appreciative silence), hot tea for Milo…
“Tea?” said the waiter. It was eighty-four degrees on deck.
“In a tall glass. Hot. You got Earl Grey?”
…and an orange soda for Ramses.
“Are you enjoying your first cruise?” Ramses asked one bikini-ed lady.
“This isn’t my first cruise,” she said, the younger of the two women. “I mean, I don’t get out as much as I could,” she said, and shrugged. “How’d you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
“Slapped the shit out of him and he just snapped back and took your order.”
He and brother Milo glanced at one another. She saw and remembered it. Ramses was impressed. “It’s got to do with the multiverse,” Ramses started, but Milo saved the moment with a quick interruption.
“Are you going to dinner with us tonight?” he asked. The brothers and the ladies had run into each other several times over the last three days’ recuperation in the guise of planning and regrouping, and had become de facto ship buddies during no-strings lunches and impromptu games of chess. They were lovely diasporic queens on a crassly commercial cruise who put everybody to shame (including that skinny supermodel wannabee passengers sort of thought they’d seen in some catalog but weren’t sure since everybody was shooting collagen in their lips and asses these days).
Milo and Ramses warmed to them immediately. The Jetstreams were tired and glad to be back in the fold of civilization, however numbing, just this brief while. Home was two more days away.
“When did you want to eat?” asked Yvonne, the older of the two. She had military dog tags which, on her, didn’t seem out of place with an orange swimsuit and floral wrap.
“Meet you in open-air dining at nine o’clock,” said Milo, hoping the glint of sweat off his bald head wasn’t off-putting. Another nice thing about these ladies: all they needed was a time and it was a date.
On most Atlantic cruises there was at least one person guaranteed to shout a daily “Dolphin!” alert.
“Dolphin!” shouted Susie Saindon from New York.
Her shout was relatively close. The younger woman, Neon Temples, burst from her seat and grabbed her friend’s wrist. “Nine o’clock.”
The Brothers Jetstream watched them run off.
“Ramses,” said Milo.
“Enjoy the moment, brother.”
“I like them.”
“So do I.”
“Damn,” said Milo. He settled in his deck chair. The younger one was physical perfection. The elder: more athletic, a little taller.
“Let’s make sure we don’t do so too much,” said Ramses.
~~~
Neon decided to broach the question Yvonne had advised her against. “So what do y’all do?”
“Not talk about work while eating,” said Milo.
“Whale!” somebody shouted but the ladies kept their seats.
“And for fun?” asked Yvonne.
The muscle definition in Milo’s arms was distracting. Yvonne couldn’t look at him without wanting to wrestle.
“Something inside that was always denied for so many years,” Milo sang.
“She’s having fun,” said Yvonne. “A Beatles man.”
“Name the album and you can have my last shrimp,” said Milo.
Yvonne speared the shrimp with her fork. “Revolver.” She smiled. Half the fat flesh disappeared in one bite.
He retaliated against her defenseless flounder. “Sgt. Pepper.”
“You sure?”
“Another whale!”
“What are they spotting out there?” asked Neon, squinting toward the darkness.
They dined under a huge, lit canopy. The dark Atlantic night seemed like sky brought to ground. Patches of moonlight dappled in rippling, silent spots.
“Blowhole spray. Hear more than see it,” said Milo.
“Whale snot,” said Neon.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Like I wanna see that.”
“People pay money to see that,” said Milo.
“White people pay money to see that. Personally, I’m on this cruise to eat, sleep, and walk around in a bikini.” She and Yvonne high-fived. “Who feels me?”
“And meet nice people,” Yvonne added.
“I’m glad we’re nice,” said Ramses.
“Your brother’s nice. I don’t know about you,” said Yvonne.
“I look better than him,” said Ramses.
“I’ll give you that,” she said.
“Big ass whales!”
The voice wasn’t shouting this time; it was screaming.
“Hello?” the screamer said, clearly a “hello” of panic. “Whales!”
“Dammit,” Milo muttered. He shot up. Whales could be royal pricks. He stopped short of the screamer, who was being swarmed by cruise staff. The ocean was almost a fountain square with blowhole geysers jetting at irregular intervals. Milo estimated thirteen big sumbitch whales forming a moving semi-circle less than fifty yards off the cruiser’s port fore. Their huge backs broke the water like islands. The call had already gone above decks to cut speed.
He found a deserted section, grabbed hold of the fat safety railing, and launched.