Captain Jack for President

Late in the afternoon, Jack pulled The Pride up to the dock. There was a flurry of activity as his crew immediately began to offload the catch of the day. It was not one their best days of fishing, but it wasn’t their worst either. Brady, Jack’s first mate who took the day off, ran down to the docks when he saw Jack pulling in. He hustled from bow to stern securing the mooring lines to the dock and set the ship to shore gang plank in place. When Jack was done logging the fuel and oil readings, he locked down his Loran receiver and stored his private charting maps, complete with the course tracking to his favorite fishing grids in the ship’s bridge safe. On his way off the ship, he yelled over to Brady to make sure he got an accurate weight of the catch and to compare it with the weight they read onboard. “And if we had your luck with us today, mate, we might have done better! And Brady!.... When you’re done, you can meet me topside at Moby’s for a coffee. I’d like to brief you on today’s operations to see if we can figure something better for tomorrow. You are back on board tomorrow, right?” “Yes sir, got it Cappy! I’ll see you in a few!” Jack walked in to the Marina’s Ship Shop to get cleaned up. Jimmy Winston was there to greet him and hand him some fresh soap, a face cloth and a hand towel. The face cloth and hand towel were clean, but very well used. It’s amazing how these towels had not fallen apart from so much use over the years. Jack remembered them originally being white, though now they are as grey as weathered cedar. Jack figured that as long as they were clean and didn’t smell like old gym socks, they suited the purpose. “So Jimmy... What’s up at Moby’s? He doin’ anything special today?” “Special? Not that I know. Why do you ask?” Jimmy Winston was up at Moby’s earlier in the day for lunch. Jack knew this because Jimmy always had his lunch at Moby’s, and today, Jimmy seemed a bit more fidgety, somewhat giddy like a little school girl. “On my walk over here, I noticed a lot more people than usual mulling around Moby’s. I just figured that perhaps he had some sort of wedding party or something going on tonight. I just don’t recall seeing anything on his calendar at the nook this morning.” “Nope, nothing that I know of. Sorry Jack.” Jack knew that Jimmy wouldn’t lie to him. Jimmy wasn’t like that. It didn’t matter if the news was good or bad, Jimmy would always give you the straight scoop. But something was different today. Something was up. Perhaps he simply asked the wrong question. It might not have been Moby who had something going on, and if that was the case, Jimmy wouldn’t offer up any more information than you had asked for. But Jack sensed something different in the air, Jimmy was just not giving up the intel on it. You don’t fish the ocean for several decades without learning how to smell when a storm is brewing, and Jack’s senses were tingling. … When Jack was done washing up, he strolled on up the short grassy knoll to Moby’s figuring he would get a cup of Dave’s famous joe and catch up with Brady before heading home for a nice hot bowl of clam chowder. As he approached the door to the bar, he could tell there was quite a debate going on inside. By the looks of the parking lot, some of the folk on the outskirts of town even came to join in on this one. That’s something that didn’t happen all too often, but when it did, it often offered up some very interesting entertainment for Jack. At times like that, he would get his coffee and find an empty table off in a corner, keeping to himself; he would just listen in to what all the locals were stirred up about. When Jack walked through the door, he was surprised by how many people were sitting around the bar watching the TV. Whatever was going on, it had to be pretty big. Moby went out of his way to rearrange the tables and chairs in order to squeeze in more people, and yet even more were standing around the overcrowded bar watching a new television. At some point during the day, Moby had gone out and picked up a sixty inch flat screen TV, possibly just for this particular event; or perhaps he had it delivered. Jack couldn’t decide which idea he favored to believe at the moment. He thought he would simply ask Dave later on if and when he got the chance to talk with him. Jack didn’t want to conjure up some thought, have it leak out and then find it to be a bad rumor. Nope, that wasn’t how Jack operated. He would keep his mouth shut until he learned the truth right from the source. The television was airing an interview with Senator Spelling and President Jeffers. It apparently wasn’t a formal debate though there was certainly a cadre of debating going on. As typical of political news, WIGL’s Cindy Walker was facilitating a discussion about what qualifications are necessary within the makeup of a good US President. Naturally, each had their own self preserving interests in mind. Anna looked back from the pack and saw Jack standing in the entry way. Jack gave her a quick wink and a sidewise nod of his head, trying to direct her to his favorite corner for his late afternoon coffee. However, Anna didn’t respond as she typically did. Instead, she gave Brian a sharp shoulder bump to get his attention and re-direct it to the back, towards the back where Jack was standing. All of a sudden, there seemed to be an instant hush of the crowd as folks peered back toward Jack. The hair on the back his neck stood up. Something was up, and he was apparently the guest of honor. The last time Jack had witnessed such a reaction was when one of the Scottsdale twins visited Moby’s after putting his brother in the hospital during a fit of rage over some tramp from out of town. Just as William Scottsdale did back then, Jack felt as if he should turn around and leave, but something made him stay. The air of the crowd was not the same as it was back then. Back then, it was very apparent that the crowd disapproved of how William dealt with his own brother. There was a heavy bitterness in the crowd back then. The feeling here was more like that of honey, trying to draw in the worker bees. For a moment, Jack stood still and stared back trying to think back if he had done something inappropriate, but he came up blank. “Don’t EVEN tell me yall drank all the coffee! That would simply ruin my night altogether.” Jack’s dry sense of humor drew a cast of smiles which seemed to break the ice. This night, even Becky was in on it. She walked over to Jack, wrapped her arm around his in a tender way and lead him over to where the crowd was standing, watching the scene on the larger flat panel that now hung on the wall. She apparently didn’t want him hiding in his corner. “All right folks, what’s going on here? Did I forget to pay my tab this morning or something? I know it’s not my birthday, and y’all know I don’t celebrate it any how. I know my ship didn’t sink ‘cause I just left it back at the dock with Brady.” Suddenly, his heart felt like it sank into the pit of his stomach. “Did my brother pass away?” and Jack started to shake a little, his knees felt wobbly and he drew in a deep breath. “Noooo….” Anna said, giving him a smile and a jab in the shoulder that almost pushed him over in his knee-weakened state. Now he turned to being a little irritated since it certainly didn’t seem like there was any big deal, “Then what in God’s good name is going on here?” Brian put his arm around Jack’s shoulder, “Absolutely nothing my old friend.” Jack started to feel better at this point since this was not out of the ordinary for Brian. At least he was acting normal. “We were just wondering if you had heard any of the crap these buffoons were spitting up. They’ve been at it nearly all day, and quite frankly, it has a bunch of us here a bit concerned for the future of this nation.” “I can’t say that I have heard all that much today. As you know, I was a little busy trying to navigate my ship and crew. That typ