PERCY'S PLUNDER

CHAPTER I

A bright sun-baked gentle breeze wafted the soft, sweet smells of magnolia blossoms through the air as the moments near lunchtime ambled slowly forward; this while the purveyors and hawkers of goods, wares, notions, potions, and services clog and shuffle their heavy brogans along the newly hewed and plug-fastened boardwalk. Yet even now, just a gentle coin toss and a short roll away on the newly hewn boards, fate and a bit of bad luck will meet a discordant coincidence inside the four corners of the dingy sailor’s pub, where mostly half-drunken and stuporous sailors languish and idle their time away between voyages. The pub, nestled in its own private world still now as always, was irreverently alive and loud with chatter as the harsh echo of gruff male voices vibrated in an inharmonious symphony with their wicked female counterparts. And the stench inside this den of iniquity was a fruitless concoction of human odors that seemed to perfume the atmosphere’s intent and gave all good folks reason to speedily pass by its doors at a quicker pace than was at first comfortable. We paused a peek inside as some of the more-able sailors were standing and talking, gesturing broadly to impress the loosely attentive whores; they barked and wagged their tails in thoughts of lust and copulation while slurring their speech in lurid whales tales and competitive banter. The darkened pub was a cluster of rickety chairs and moldy wooden tables, all dirty and stained by remains of leftover foods and spilled rum, beer, and ale. Some of the men stood like abandoned stone fortresses—quiet, silent, and unattended—while others were attended by the slovenly mannered, rough-talking sailors in various positions of loose and shameless repose as the half-naked-tossed-dress-breast-exposed wenches plied their lascivious trade in the darkened corners. While still others lounged with their legs and limbs sprawling spiderlike open, heads tossed back or to one side or the other, mugs in hands and laps or spilled on the floor at their heels, feet propped up on empty chairs or vacant spaces on the tables themselves.
Deeper inside at the last table in the farthest corner, away from the door and the daylight, sat two men: one, Captain Neville Percy and the other was his personal flunky, a childlike behemoth named Nelson. Nelson, his man Friday, was a large man and the bigger by far of the two men; he sat like a sentry, facing Percy with his right shoulder angled at the pub door, a for-certain shield, guarding his charge against molestation or some unwelcome intrusion. This while Neville Percy, his mentor, faced the door directly. As they sat quietly, Percy rubbed the days’-old beard stubble on his face and chin when he mused aloud to Nelson, “Their flesh is ripe for the draggin’ of me bones across them, aye, boy?”
Nelson sucked his teeth, making a sound as if he was sucking the marrow and the half-cooked blood juice from a handheld steak bone at the end of a ravenous meal.
“Aye, Captain, they be ripe and ready, that I’d say.”
At which point, the slightly tipsy captain Percy fainted annoyance as he playfully, but with manly force, backhanded Nelson with a slap at the larger man’s shoulder. With trouble keeping a straight face, the often-garrulous captain growled, “Be careful, you big dumb oaf, one of those lovelies is to be me wife someday soon, and I’ll be the partner and equal to the high and mighty Thaddeus Williams, I say.”
Nelson retreated and was as contrite as a cowering young child after having just displeased a scolding parent.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I meant no disrespect.”
The captain, who was only half-serious with the scolding to begin with, quickly forgave and stroked his boyish lackey about his tousled locks like a pet dog.
“Aye, lad, ’tis but a dumb but good-hearted fool you be most any ways. Let us not be worried that this sets us back and apart. We still be like two peas in a pod, son, two peas in a pod.”
For a while, the two men sat quietly, drinking their rum as all about them—at the tables and in the darkened corners—the activity and chatter persisted, unrestrained and unabated; the sounds indeed had its own music about it. But then—like a black cloud passing in front of the sun—without notice or warning, an instant quiet enveloped the entire space; and like a large hand placed over a small talking mouth, the noise was muffled, and the silence was complete as it was sudden. Presenting itself out of the morning sun, a figure belonging to a man, not just any man but Thaddeus Williams, appeared in the doorway of the pub; like a bad omen, he stands there—his face and head inside while the rest of him was out—until his eyes adjusted to the dim light, and his nose adjusted to the new smells. A most fastidious man was he, and being so, he—in all their recollections, them being the recollections of any of the sailors inside—had never made an appearance at the pub, which then was their only sanctuary from his ofttimes menacing words and judging eyes. But here on this day, the sartorially splendid Thaddeus Williams—dressed in the latest and best of English fashion—was standing there in all his finery in the doorway at this filthy sailor’s way station. As he awaited the period of adjustment, his eyes strained and squinted as if staring at an ugly weed in the middle of his beautiful English garden at his sumptuous plantation home some half-day ride from town. He grunted disapprovingly and a bit in amusement, but mostly it was in disgust as the edges of his mouth turned a frown at the nonchalance and open display of debauchery.
These were his employees, and as they were of a different class, they were uncomfortable being seen at their most comfortable at the comparative other end of the social evolutionary scale; they are like children as he was like a parent. But Thaddeus recovered quickly and remained mildly amused as he, after a very pregnant pause at the door, strolled in and headed directly toward the corner where Captain Percy and his man Nelson sat.
As he was already facing the pub door, Captain Percy, of course, spotted his employer, Thaddeus Williams, immediately when he stole their only light; and after the shock of quiet that had so suddenly shaken the entire room from the comfort of its previous activities, he, like everyone else, did scramble to right himself in the most favorable image possible given the circumstances. After taking his moment at the swinging half doors to the pub, Thaddeus then strolled like the cock of the roost as both sailors and wenches scrambled to make room for his passage. Without hesitation, or acknowledgment of the many familiar faces, he headed straight for Captain Neville Percy’s corner table. As Thaddeus regally strode the last few steps to the dimly lit corner, Percy nervously fumbled in a flurry of connected and disconnected motions; subconsciously, he pushed his beverage away. He shook his head for hopes of immediate clarity, but with little success, alas, a cloud still remains. Then, like a scolded child, he tugged at his garment in a futile attempt to sharpen his disheveled appearance—yet a second sad failure in as many moments of attempts.
As the sole and wealthy owner of the Williams Trading Company—an importing and exporting company specializing in agricultural crops going out and slaves coming in—reached the table, the uncomfortable captain Percy, caught between sitting and standing, nervously extended his unwashed-for-days, greasy, dirty hand. Thaddeus was unfazed; while holding his doffed glove in the remaining gloved hand, he unhesitatingly extended his bare hand and took and shook the nervous captain’s hand heartily. Yet even in this manly and seemingly egalitarian gesture, and his democratic words to follow, Thaddeus was pained to hide his obvious condescension.
“Do not push your beverage away on my account, son. Drink hearty now, Neville, for my darkies are loading the cargo as we two speak as we shall sail the morning tide on the morrow.”
The captain was caught completely by surprise twice in the same scant moments: First, to find himself and his haughty employer in this same low place at any time was a shock not yet absorbed. And second, now to hear the news of their imminent departure—on the morrow’s tide—as it was weeks ahead of what they normally do, and he was clearly not expecting this sudden change in their usual schedule.
“Aye, sir, it is a lot sooner this time than normal that we sail.”
Thaddeus was unperturbed by the reference to a change in schedule; he can only shrug his shoulders to the captain’s weak and insipid protest.
“Then I’d say it is better sooner than later that you be about collecting your sailors because my darkies have been loading the Manchester’s hulls all morning.”
As Thaddeus took his exit as haughty and ceremoniously as he had entered, Neville rose slowly and deliberately up from his seat as the last bit of the sailors talking was silenced again by his rising—he was their absolute leader by the sheer force of his presence, and ofttimes merely by sheer force—and as such, all their private attentions did now defer to his public actions as he stood and cleared his throat for order. Then Neville’s eyes pan the room as their focus met familiar faces and with more than a hint of sarcasm born on the scorched wings of his own humiliation—this dingy place of debauchery was his sole domain and had been encroached upon by his better. It was not a law. It was not written anywhere, that’s for certain. It was in fact axiomatic, a truism, a tradition; why, it was as well-known as it was equally well-known that all blacks were somebody’s property, whose places were theirs, and there were few. Thaddeus and men like Thaddeus, they all had other finer places for their privileged families; there were so many for them and the others like them. Yet for men like Neville and the other sailors, the hovels, shacks and shanties, the alleys, the stables, the low pubs, and the woods—there they were at home and at their ease. They all knew this, and he as their leader had been much slighted as this place by the office he held was headed by him; to hide his embarrassment, he applied the heavy hand as he then spoke tersely to his men.

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