Deleted Scenes - Snapshots from the Bad Side #1

This is an old blog post from last summer that I never got around to publishing. I publish posts like these with the tag 'Deleted Scenes' [don't ask me why...I don't know]. Point is that it helps you understand what my home is like and why it is so hard to be where we are right now.

He scored a tight 180 on the water and we were heading south again in seconds. Within a minute, the boat for home was a small dot in the distance. I had not moved in all this time, holding onto the railing and staring at the going-home boat. I was hoping that somehow, everybody would come back and laugh at the elaborate prank being pulled on me. With every passing whitecap, that dream looked less and less likely to happen.

After a few minutes alone inside, Greg called to me. “Want some dinner?”

“I guess.”

“They sent us a care package to tide us over,” he explained. Hoisting a plastic grocery bag filled with paper take-out boxes, he handed it to me. “Warm these up in the galley and I’ll join you in a few minutes – we don’t have to change course for at least an hour.” I opened the bag to find that, when you were making an illegal run into Mexico for prescription pills or whatever, they fed you good. Viet Pho, noodles, chicken and vegetables were neatly organized in different packages. They even included some egg rolls and mustard.

Greg walked in as I pulled steaming plates from the microwave. “Ah, the simple pleasures,” he commented. In an under-the-counter cooler, he pulled out a beer for himself and a soda for me. “Help yourself,” he added. We sat and ate, Greg used old lacquer chopsticks while I stabbed pieces of meat with a kiddie-size plastic fork.

“Know what we’re doing?” he asked, chewing a broccoli spear.

“…no”, I cautiously replied. This whole deal was twitchy and, frankly, I was too scared to ask.

“It’s no big deal,” he reassured me. “Last minute deal for some extra meds…Viagra or something. Anyway…they asked us to come back for it and I said okay.” He took a sip of his Pho, looking out to the vast horizon beyond the galley windows. “I’d just go back myself, but the cops know me. I can’t just motor back into the harbor without a good reason.”

“And so you need me to lose my wallet?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “Actually, you really did lose your wallet because you’re going to go to one of the places you visited today – a cop will be escorting you – and they’ll hand you the wallet you misplaced. Now, the next part’s tricky. The wallet will be empty and you’re going to start a fight with the guy or girl who hands it to you. You need to make enough of a stink so that the cop believes you but not too much so that he feels like taking you into the station for a statement. Got it?”

With a sinking feeling, I was realizing that Dad had buried me in something up to my neck. “I knew I should have held out for three days,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Dad,” I explained. “I told him I wanted three days off of pen patrol and he got me down to one day.”

“Ha!” he laughed. “Rick puts you into this caper and all you get is one day off?”

“Yeah,” I answered bitterly.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You do this favor for me and I’ll make it worth your while.” We were both silent for a while – I was considering what Greg had in mind. I’d watched enough movies to know that the drug dealers would kill the guy who was doing the favor as often as they rewarded them. Would he try to hurt me?