Chapter two

The little kid just stood there staring. I decided to wait for him to speak, it stood to reason that the ship was all his, after all. So I waited, since I was used to waiting around. I looked him in the eye, and all the while he maintained that dead-yet-angry look, staring right back at me. He wasn’t really anything to shout about, he was obviously a runt, and I couldn’t help but smile at him a little. I mean, the little fellow was standing there all alone, doing nothing.

While I waited, I tried to imagine what he could have been doing moments before I barged into his stateroom. Could it be that he was meditating? No, he had no look of contemplation, no penitent pose of a genuflecting monk, and he looked slightly uncomfortable to me. It couldn’t have uncomfortable to him though, for he showed no strain at all. Nevertheless, he looked rigid and stiff, as a statue, and he wasn’t about to break. It was an epic staring-contest really, and he was about to win.

I blinked. Nothing at all changed about his demeanor, so I rewarded his patience by introducing myself.

“Hello there, little man,” I said. “My name is Lester.” The little man continued to look right back at me, but now there was a bit of movement going on behind his eyes, as though he was processing my spoken words carefully, thoughtfully.

“I couldn’t give two shits,” the boy said, with perfect diction I might add. “What the hell are you doing under my ship?” In light of his enunciation, I thought of correcting his grammar, telling him that the proper way to denote my location would be to say, “On my ship,” but I stuffed the impulse. He was pissed, and I intelligently surmised that it wouldn’t be wise to test a runt who appeared to be harboring a Napoleonic complex. Unfortunately, I was left without any genuine response to his question, so I opted to play the waiting game once again (Surely, I would lose a second time, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead).

He didn’t want to play any longer. The boy said: “Fine. I’ll do the talking. You don’t belong here, do you? I went over the muster just five minutes ago, and the men I’m expecting couldn’t include you. That means you’re either a last-minute addition to the passenger list – highly doubtful – or else we’ve picked up a rat.” The boy stopped, offering me another moment of silence to explain myself. I was arrested, still I couldn’t speak, and therefore – in my inability to generate a verbal response – I held out my hand in order to shake his. He looked at me like I was retarded.

Just like black dude however, this fellow seemed to recognize me too, despite what he said.

“Okay, no need to defend yourself right now, Lester,” he said, depositing a bit of irony into the way he pronounced my name. “I’ll chalk it up to a lack of intellect. You’re a deaf, semi-mute stowaway who somehow floundered his way onto this vessel.”

“Stowaway?” I blurted out unconsciously.

“Yeah, it’s another word for ‘Rat,’ on my ship.”

“What were you up to in here?” I tried to inquire, to gain some intelligence about his personality, his likes and dislikes. He looked at me with his calm eyes again, as if that alone would answer my question. When the moment passed, he noticed that his visage had failed to answer my question at all. Perhaps it worked with the other crew members, but I wanted a real answer to satisfy my curiosity. So he threw me a bone.

“They put me here when I haven’t got any shit to do.” He spoke of himself as if he were a utensil, a broom in a closet, a power tool unplugged and at rest. I didn’t buy it at all; he was putting on airs. Obviously, he had heard me trying all of the locks in the hallway, and sought to surprise me when I burst into his storage unit.

He’d hardly finished cursing when the floorboards began to shake; the ship was pulling up anchor and preparing to set sail. “Great. Now I can’t dump you, as I’d wished. I guess I’ll have to find something for you to do around here.” The little guy muscled his way past me and out the door. Strong little bastard!

“Wait!” I turned to face him, with a shout.

“No, you wait,” he said. Great, more waiting. “Stay here, I can’t have you snooping around, fucking up the delicate balance of my fine ship.”

“Sure, but at least tell me your name,” I said quickly.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no name.” Ridiculous.

“How do people address you?”

“You will call me Dex. I might not listen to you though, because you’re a fuckin’ rat, Chris.” That’s not my name, I thought immediately, I told him that my name was Lester. Should have known right then it was a dream. He waited as if to gauge my response to his misnomer. I must’ve revealed something when I looked back at him, because he was grinning like a cat that ate a canary.

“It’s Lester, remember?” I said.

“Oh, right. Lester.” Dex’ voice oozed with sarcasm. He believed my name was Chris.

With that he slipped out, slamming the door behind him. Once again, I assumed the door to be locked on account his speech and my aforementioned idiosyncrasies. Here I am again, alone, I said to the musty deckhand’s quarters.

Still, I couldn’t imagine what the little fucker was doing all by himself in here.