The Great Willie Young vs. The Sea Snitches

The following is an excerpt from a cracked journal originally belonging to someone known only as “Francois.” Most of it was written in a sort of French/Haitian Creole, and has only recently been translated after being discovered in a mysterious boat found floating unmanned in the Caribbean. No one knows how long this Ghost Ship sailed the sea, but its condition indicated that it must have been out there for some time.

He comes to the village sometimes, appearing as if by magic from the sea, always from the shadows of a deep fog, like some god from another dimension, bearing gifts of great fish and toys for the children. The children call him Papa Guillaume, others call him Great, but I simply call him Willie. He is my friend.

I have known him since I was a child, and my father says that he knew him since he too was a child. This seems impossible, but we have learned not to ask questions. It is simply enough to reflect in his light.

One day Willie came to the village. His man was with him, Heinie, and as usual Heinie brought beers for all the men, and even some of the young boys who were allowed to taste after the men were deep in their cups. It was during one of these late nights – I remember because a young boy vomited and some of the men laughed, but Heinie got upset at the boy for “wasting good shit” – that Willie took me aside and told me that he needed my help.

“How could I possibly help you, Willie?” I asked.

“My friend,” he said, resting a hand on my shoulder and in that hand I felt an almost impossible love, a force and a warmth that radiated through my very being and made me understand, if only for a moment, the immense power and glory of the universe, the serenity of its eternity which makes all else meaningless, a trivium obliterated by its magnificence and bliss. “It is within you that the destiny of the future lies.”

I did not know what he meant, and it has taken me years to even begin to understand, but I believe that I do now. But that is something to be explained later.

I awoke early the next morning. Heinie was still “sleeping”, and I helped Willie carry him to their boat, a hardy – yet not ostentatious – fishing vessel. I had said goodbye to my young wife. I told her I would return soon, but we both had tears in our eyes for we did not truly know or understand what the future held. I would have gladly sailed forever with Willie, and if that was what he asked of me, then I knew I must sacrifice even love. He did not ask this of me, of course, for Willie is not a cruel man and understands that the beating of our hearts is the only thing that matters even in the eternity of the timeless universe. It is the timelessness of the universe, its essence, its everything. It is love. Willie is love, and he would not deny it to another.

We set off that fateful morning, and it took some nerve to ask after several hours where we were going.

“We goin’ to Miami, baby,” was all Willie said, a smile on his face. We spent the rest of that morning fishing. Heinie eventually stirred and spent at least fifteen minutes pissing off the back of the boat. I wondered at it all, but just before noon, the fog around us cleared, the sun shone brilliant in the sky and a second boat appeared.

“Cubanos,” Heinie grunted as he pulled yet another beer from a place I could never figure.

I squinted into the distance, and was shocked to see a bearded man with a cigar hanging from his mouth. It was Castro himself!

“Dumb motherfucker,” Willie said under his breath, but his smile never wavered as he signaled the second boat closer.

“Do you have them?” Castro called out.

Willie just nodded and then unwrapped several large packages. Swordfish. Giant ones. I had never seen fish so magnificent. Willie just looked at them for a moment, sorrow in his eyes, before handing them across to Castro’s men.

Castro inspected them, and I swore I could see . . . lust in his eyes. He smiled. “Very good,” he said, and snapped his fingers. Moments later, his men were delivering several crates to Willie and Heinie. The men nodded at each other, and Castro and his boat soon receded into the distance.

When he was gone, Willie sighed as Heinie opened the crates. I was stunned to see bags of cocaine and automatic weapons. What was going on here?

“Listen,” Willie said, “my friend, I do not pretend that this is not complicated, but rest assured that these guns and these drugs have a purpose even if small-minded folks do not and cannot understand. The world is very strange, and has become very evil. We must defeat it by confronting it on its own terms, by providing those who have nothing with the tools to survive in that world. Their enemies, the rich, the powerful, have all the weapons. No more, I say. These rich monsters threaten them and control them with this . . .” He gestured towards the cocaine, which Heinie was in the midst of “sampling.” But if we take that power from them and give to the people without taking money from them, without taking their dignity, then the so-called “powerful” will have no real power.”

I almost wanted to weep. It made sense. Willie always made sense, and I thought of my own village, of the poor men and women forever subjugated by the rich, by the powerful, how they bowed their heads to men with guns and gave what little money they had to them simply so they could have that which the powerful themselves had forced on them. A man may be poor, but if he lives simply, without want, without the need for the so-called “luxuries” which enslave him, he can have a free heart. I understood what Willie was doing. Giving power back to the people, giving them medicine and a “luxury” without taking from them in return. It was an extraordinary act, one which could potentially break the vicious cycle which keeps men enslaved.

We set out for Miami that afternoon. Heinie continued to “sample” the cocaine until Willie made him stop. By then Heinie was grinding his teeth and ranting about both Castro and “those Miami Vice motherfuckers lookin’ like a couple of bitch-made [horrible slur redacted]”

I was confused. “Isn’t Castro on our side?” I asked Willie.

Willie shook his head with disgust. “All that motherfucker cares about is fuckin’ them swordfish. His people are poor and broken too, forced to fish all day for him just so he can get his dick wet. But one problem at a time, my friend. One problem at a time.”

As night began to fall, Willie ordered Heinie to cut the engines. A fog seemed to descend upon us again, and Willie motioned for us all to be silent. Through the fog, I could see the lights of patrolling ships.

“Coast Guard,” Willie whispered. “Or Miami police. Same thing,” he said with a shrug. “They all pigs.”

“Fuckin’ pigs,” Heinie said, his hoarse voice raw with emotion, his eyes still wide from the coke. He put another beer to his lips.

As the lights from the patrol ships faded, Willie shook his head. “They out in force now, fuckin’ pigs. They even got some white boy with ‘em, last I heard. Called Marino. Supposed to be their new hope, some cracker ass motherfucker from up North. Soulless shit, man.”

Heinie shook his head and chugged the rest of his beer at the very mention of the name. “That motherfucker,” he said. “He reminds me of him, Willie. He reminds me!”

“I know, Heinie,” Willie said. “He ain’t that motherfucker Brees, but he close enough.”

Brees?

Willie turned to me. “Brees is a motherfucker in New Orleans. Or at least he will be,” he said with a shrug. “Time is complicated, brother. Don’t worry about it.” And so I didn’t.

A short time later, a school of dolphins appeared alongside the ship. For a moment, I marveled at them, but this was broken when Heinie started flinging empty bottles at them. Before I could even ask what he was doing, Willie had pulled an AK from one of the boxes and fired at the dolphins. I was shocked to see several of them floating dead after.

Willie turned to me, face lined with agony. “I don’t like it,” he said. “But these are sea snitches!”

“Fuckin’ sea snitches!” Heinie said.

Willie shook his head sadly. “They been humanized,” he said, “all so that they’ll do what their human masters want and snitch on ships comin’ in and out of port. I don’t like it. I hate it! These were once proud creatures, noble and beautiful. I used to swim with them!” His voice cracked with the agony of the memory. “My own mama was part dolphin!”

“His own mama!” Heinie shouted.

“Settle down, Heinie,” Willie said as we passed the floating dolphin corpses. “We gotta keep quiet.”

“Are all dolphins sea snitches?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

Willie shook his head. “Nah, man. Just these soulless sea snitchin’ Miami Dolphins.”

And so we passed them in mournful silence, reflecting on the cruelty of man and a world willing to taint such beautiful creatures for its own selfish ends.

We arrived in Miami that night. The port was crawling with more pigs, but they were easy to see. The dumb motherfuckers were dressed in colorful pastels and white blazers. We were able to ease past them and dock. We quickly unloaded the crates of guns and cocaine into a waiting truck driven by a “runner” Willie simply called “Johnson.”

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Young,” Johnson said, a smile on his face. “I know how to run past these fools without any problems.”

We all laughed, and Johnson soon disappeared into the night, ready to deliver guns and drugs to the people who needed them. It was then that Willie took me aside and told me he needed something important from me.

“My friend,” he said, “this is a lot to ask. But I need you to stay behind for me, here in Miami, to help oversee our operations. I’ve already left word with your young wife and she’ll be here in the morning, along with your closest friends and relatives.” He smiled at me. “I should wait for her to tell you this, but I want you to have a happy first night here in America. My friend, she’s pregnant! And it’s a boy!”

I wanted to ask so many questions, but I found myself overwhelmed. I just nodded as both Willie and Heinie clapped me on the shoulder and offered congratulations.

I was saddened when Willie said that he had to leave, but Heinie offered to stay behind for the night and “get shitfaced” with me. “Maybe we even find them Miami Vice motherfuckers and kill both some pigs and some sea snitch dolphins tonight!”

All I could do was smile and nod my head. I was having a boy. I wondered what to name him. Willie was obvious, but I did not dare be so audacious. I looked at Heinie. As crazy as he was, he was a good man. “Heinie?” I asked.

“Yeah, baby?”

“What’s your real name?”

“My real name?”

“Your birth name,” I said. “You know, your Christian name?”

Heinie laughed. “I ain’t no Christian, son. Well, I’m down with Jesus, but not them kiddy diddlers who use his name. Motherfuckers! They just as bad as the pigs and the sea snitches!”

“Heinie?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, right man, my name. It’s Ricky,” he said with a smile.

Ricky. I nodded. It was a good name. Ricky Francois. I thought of my grandfather then. I had spent my entire childhood at his knee. He taught me what it meant to be a man. His name was Jean. Ricky-Jean Francois. Yes, it was a good name. And for some reason, I knew that if I raised him right here in Miami, taught him the proper values, taught him to understand that the pigs and sea snitches were the enemy, that one day he too would fight for what’s right. Ricky-Jean Francois. My son. And Godson of my friend, The Great Willie Young, who I know one day I will join again on the endless sea as we sail into the horizon of eternity, an eternity of love.