Terese Svoboda - Pirate Talk or Mermalade

Ive seen boats as big as this whale. Ive seen gryphons the same size, with teeth growing in even as they were taking their last breath.

You have not. And not a live one.

Ive been to sea, Ive seen all youre supposed to, being at sea. I am sixteen, after all.

If youd stayed at home, you wouldve seen to Ma. Id be a pirate twice, with two voyages under me, if I didnt have that.

Quit your carping. Go stand on its middle. Maybe it will release its wind if you jump on it.

For sure it will stink to heaven if I jump on it.

Lets poke out its eye.

Its a wonder youre not tired of poking whales, aroving on the ocean like you do, with all the new sail.

Heres the stick lets do the eye.

Capn Peters says theres luck in a whales eye. Some men use saws on such as the eye, to examine the socket and take away the skull too.

You told this Capn Peters about this whale?

Capn Peters can see it himself. Hes anchored out beyond the neck, nearly done scouring the fresh-wrecked Abingdon. Hell come.

Our greasy luck! Then the sooner it dies the better, and not for anyone but us to collect it.

Its alive all right. Look at the eye.

Help me with the stick. A donkey could haul it out, where could we get a donkey?

If we had a donkey I wouldnt be walking the beach looking for rope to catch the mussels on, would I? If we had a donkey, you wouldnt be shipping out every time the wind blew and leaving me here with Ma, myself only in short pants still and no cutlass.

We need a donkey. The smell alone will bring Peters.

Do you believe in whales? I mean, that they talk?

Two fiddles can talk. One calls, the other says Yes and then some.

Whales dance when theres boats coming with harpoon.

The way pirates do on the gallows.

Not all of them.

Theyre crying whales, not singing. Poke here.

They swallow the pennywhistle and dance on the tips of their tails on top of the water. And sing.

Whales cry about their future like all creatures worth killing. Theres a tear now, with Peters coming. Look I can make it dance without singing.

Let it be, its starting to bleed.

Ill let it be with a cut of the knife. If only I had a good one, if only Ma hadnt sold that bit of a blade while I was gone.

Shes sold all her brooches, down to the tin-and-garnets.

She sold the true baubles after you were born or gave them up, cleaned out by whoever she had after you had a father, cleaned out clean as a pike in a trough.

They use beetles to clean the skulls when theyre empty. Capn Peters says so.

Peters, Capn Peters would he be the one seeing Ma now?

Hes seen all of her, if thats your actual meaning. How huge those skull-cleaning beetles must be, so big they cant walk after all that eating, beetles that could eat all of every one of the colonies.

Slippery here, whoa.

Capn Peters has got his glass on us now. There, over the wave.

No.

Tease me like you dont know hes watching. Play foot-in-the-water. Hell think we are but careless boys and wont beat us when he sees us.

We are but boys. If I only had a knife

If you grouse and slaughter the whale before him and he balks and whines, Ma will tie herself to the rafters and I will have to cut her down. Its a poor revenge for her living from one man to the next, though she swears Capn Peters is her utter last.

I told you to get her set right, to take Ma to someone while I was off at sea, a woman with a cure.

She wouldnt go, she said shed have no business with someone like that, she didnt need no one other than Father. She talks to Father from the rafters where you can see the sea out the little window, she talks to you out that window too.

She doesnt know who Father is.

This be true, but still she talks.

This fish is leaking like a ship come ashore.

Whale, its a whale, not a fish. And if you would quit your poking at the eye, it wouldnt leak so much. Poking it like that makes the sound it makes worse.

You talk like a sea captain with your Dont this and Fish that, a bloody captain, the kind I dont take to.

Its the life of the sea, you said. Yo, Ho, Ho, you said.

I will give you another punch to match the first.

It breathes hear it? Capn Peters says they are cousin to us.

I cant hear anything while you blather on about Capn Peters.

I say we leave it alone because Capn Peters will pay us to chop it up. Theyre bound to want the steaks and oil even if it be old, and some of the bone to hang their hats on, and bone for those who truss up the women.

Thats real work, all that chopping.

Aye.

The bone is all I want I can carve The Apostle on the Desert into the bone.

I can carve that one cut meeting another.

You are a stupid boy. Look it thinks it is a creature of the land now, it wriggles so. It wants to walk about on its tail.

With the next big wave, lets push it in with our backs.

Lets kill it.

Die, die.

Whatre you whispering?

Nothing. Die, die, or theyll get you, you whale of us all, you fool whale.

You are whispering.

Ill whisper if I want to.

The whales dead anyway. Why else would it be on the beach?

Not breathing like this it isnt dead. Not yet.

Look, Peters is bringing his hooks and axes. And a cutlass! Theres a knife.

Its soapy-feeling on the outside.

Pitchforks and pries. Lets poke it through to the brain before they get here, lets poke it to make it dead before they poke it, so we can claim it and get the bone. I am grown, after all.

Die, die.

Why do you cry like a girl?

Im not a girl.

Whale-lover, then. Crybaby.

Listen to it breathe.

I cant hear anything but Capn Peters and his men beaching loud like six blacks banging dishpans.

Its breathing big.

There Ive got the stick through, no thanks to you.

It still breathes.

If I hang on it here and pull down, the whole side will rip and theyll know its ours. Give me a hand

Ma, theres rope in my soup

Eat it or you cant watch the hanging.

I cant, not a drop more, Ma. All the chewing hurts my teeth.

Its bone, thats all. Bone against bone. Chew it up, then spit it into your hand. See a pig clavicle or a horse bone, not rope. Sit still and stop your wheezing and sneezing and snot-dribbling.

The drummings so loud today, my head hurts.

Old Hubble is getting his practice, best at the dirge in all the colonies Id say.

There at the bottom of my bowl see?

Its a bit of chew. If we sit just right, maybe well see the beardtips flame again. I do love the rope.

Ma.

Any less punishment and the ocean would be crowded with rogues.

Put up a rag to curtain it. Father mustve been a pirate, I hate these hangings with such a fever.

Eat your soup. And the bones too. I sold yesterdays rope for those bones. And wipe your nose on my skirt. Your father, a pirate what will you be thinking next? Im on the lookout for a better man than that, boy, even Peters only takes boats that broke.

Makes a person want to go to sea, your soup.

Youd be your brother then, and curses to you. Hark heres the catch o the day, the pirates walking.

Brother is not so much at sea now.