This scurvy crew aren’t your average pirates: they stand in line at the dry-cleaners for a start. But when they come ashore in a small coastal town and start leading the children astray, upstanding citizens don’t know what to do. The main problem is the pirates’ charismatic captain, Narky Jack, who’s won the heart of the town’s good-time girl and doesn’t look like he’ll ever leave …
Narky Jack
Michael Spring
Illustration: Louie Stowell
The pirates are inconveniently situated for the harbour, and this spring, they have begun to let everyone know. The situation, when the wind from the mountains sweeps the scent of pines over their cabins, gets worse day by day. The pirates are restless. They need the salt tang of the sea.
No one is sure what to do. Their swaggering is unnerving. The bars and supermarkets run out of rum.
They spit at the feet of the townsfolk, most of whom are upstanding individuals, apart, that is, from Tess, the beautiful, dark-haired prostitute who has a flat above the dry-cleaners with en-suite facilities.
The pirates, with their lack of sea-faring adventure, seem to have an unnatural quotient in terms of desire.
Tess’s business is booming and she thinks she might have to bring in help. There is talk of her taking over the lease of the dry-cleaning shop below. Ron, the owner of the dry-cleaners, is doing well too. The pirates, when visiting Tess, find it convenient to drop off their silken ruffs, nankeen trews and waistcoats heavy with embroidery to Ron. For payment of a substantial premium, Ron agrees to rush the cleaning through, ready to collect when they leave. Heaven forfend though, that he should scratch a silver button or pull a silken thread.
Tess is sporting more jewellery these days. She has very full breasts and the low-cut gypsy tops she wears reveal much. Pearls, the size of plovers’ eggs, nestle snugly in her décolletage. She has a jewel in her navel the size of a musket ball. It sparkles when she laughs, and the soft brown skin of her belly ripples like the surface of a tropical inlet when a silent zephyr rustles the beachside palms. There is a heavy gold chain with what looks like a regal crest around one of her shapely ankles. Her long dark hair hangs in unrestrained, glistening ringlets, cascading over her shoulders like a bolt of silk. It is a dark, flowing mass. It is like sin.
Someone suggests that she might be prosecuted. What for, someone else asks, for having too good a time?
The children of the town have taken to spitting and, in imitation of the pirates, they swagger and refuse to drink anything but rum, mixed with a little Coke, it is true, but rum nevertheless. They slap their thighs and guffaw when asked for homework assignments or to help with the washing up.
The local paper, the Argus, rails at the uncontrollable children. It blames the parents, but its anger is driven by a lack of advertising revenue. Both Tess and Ron have withdrawn their 15 centimetre double column spaces and the stores have stopped advertising their summer specials owing to the increased demand.
The town council meets and it is suggested that they send for Eric Bumppo, a noted gunslinger who has cleaned up more than one Western town. When Eric’s letter arrives though, they find that his terms are outrageous. He charges per bullet used as well as a retainer and an hourly rate. He has to have an indemnity against possible prosecution under health and safety legislation.
Tess and the pirate captain, Narky Jack, are often to be seen together in profile, at night, at her window, behind the flimsy blinds and illuminated by the flickering scented candles with which Tess lights her room. A crowd gathers outside the dry-cleaners on most evenings. They gasp when Narky Jack whips away her stays with a single stroke of his scimitar. Tess can be heard to sigh. It is a sigh that encompasses the history of the world. She sinks into his arms. The expectant crowd applauds soberly.
Narky Jack finds unsigned notes from the townsfolk enticing him and his crew to sea once more. They tell him of unarmed merchantmen carrying scrip, banknotes and bullion. They advise him that tankers full of crude are cruising less than a mile offshore. They offer handsome terms should said vessel be surrendered up the coast where storage facilities are available. The letters give him notice of fast cutters carrying the source code of certain market-leading software products, which would be worth a king’s ransom in the Far East.
Nothing moves him until, in June, he receives a note which says that the Daughters of Albion are on their summer cruise, and gives a map reference where they can be found on the following Wednesday. The Daughters of Albion are young ladies from a college renowned for their skills in science. They are young, pure and dedicated to the advancement of knowledge.
Soon, the pirates are gathered. Buckles are polished. Blue, pink and purple frock coats emerge, still in plastic from the dry-cleaners, from mahogany wardrobes in the cabins where they are housed. Wooden legs are lacquered and screwed back into place. Parrots are brushed. The pirates grease their pistols and the ends of their moustachios. No one eats garlic, or the cheeses mellowed from ewes’ milk. They wash.
The pirate vessel, the Flying Falcon, leaves harbour with all sail raised, gun ports open. Narky Jack waves a cursory farewell to Tess with his tricorn hat, but they both know that whatever it was they had together is over.
Things gradually return to normal. The children no longer take rum in their Coke and get moaned at from here to breakfast time. Tess gets used to entertaining the town councillors and tradesmen once more, even though their ways are quieter, and more restrained. Faking orgasms again becomes second nature to her. No longer is there talk of her hiring a girl to assist with the oral work. Ron’s dry-cleaning business carries on, unhindered by plaster shaking from the ceiling as it used to when Tess entertained Narky Jack.
As for Narky Jack, he and his colleagues have retired to a large house in the Indies with the young ladies, where, reputedly, they have taken up golf. The Flying Falcon has been scuppered somewhere offshore, a playground for fish.
Michael Spring was educated at Queens University in Belfast , Northern Ireland , but lives and works in London now, where he helps to run a small design and marketing company. He has had work published in small press titles in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada and Volume magazine is going to print the first chapter of his unpublished novel (Northern Soul) later in the year.
Illustration by Louie Stowell: http://loustow.wordpress.com/
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