Wishes Can't Die, Grit Can

You read somewhere that money is the most valuable thing a person can have. That's not true. People are. Then again, it really depends on what type of people you're talking about. Of course this also varied based on how serious you were. 

For you, all it took was a firm grasp of details and a bunch of green. Nice, clever, susceptible, delicate. Whatever qualities came with your client, as long as they had enough green, they were useful to you. 

Others, of course, were far more serious and humanity was a burden they dispelled early in their lives. You knew quite a few back at the Mothership, where others of your kind assembled in stale fraternity. It didn't matter whether the client was rich, poor, nice, angry, or even careless. Criminals had a use for every type of fool. Poor, nice, angry, suicidal, or even sheer carelessness. Criminals had a use for every type of fool. 

That's the only thing all victims had in common: foolishness.

≥≥≥≥≥

You were hesitant to agree to the man's deal, even though he seemed far more nicer and honest than others. You told him that you were already busy, but out of some state of boredom you remained on the line.

What accent did that man have? Mexican, Spanish. Obviously something coming from either Spain or South America. You had heard it often enough and you liked it. The heavy stress on the vowels coupled with a seductive delivery of a phrase, however simple or stumbling the English was. Perhaps that's why you stayed on the line for him.

He then offers you another zero to his previous number, likely out of desperation for his family or something. This is an offer that, as much as you hate to admit it, is better than anything at all this week. Business seemed like it was going to crash and burn at any moment, but the spontaneity and misfortune of people was something no man could predict.

"The Vedado playa on Havana, yes?" A woman takes the phone and reaffirms in better english.

"Thanks." You say sarcastically. Nice to know there's more than one man in the fucking world who needs his woman to speak for him.

"5000 are you sure?" Again, it wasn't a good price for my liking, but it would probably be a fantasy to ask these people for everything but their clothes.

"Alright. Vedado beach, Cuba. Meet there in two days, and a three day trip to Florida. Better be there with all your shit. Five minute window." You finished, even though you guessed they'd probably not understand most of what you said.

You suddenly remember and slap the phone back to your face.

"Don't call this number again."

You hang up.

≥≥≥≥≥

Your eyes blink to protect your eyes from the splash-back of the waves. Your Narco-Submarine cuts across the surface like an ice skate. Although it's nearly four years since it was commissioned to you, it glides fast and certain with the grace of a train dancer about to win the state gold medal.

Your vessel in question was not actually given, but more of a cached gift. You didn't want to be spending all of your day organizing cargo or being bullshited by burly proletarians. And all the while, a common scuffle across the men was being unable to distinguish the smell fo the sea from the smell of the musky ship, or your own armpit puddles for that matter.

You asked a friend named Tony if he had ever smelled the raw yet natural scent of the sea and remembered it.

"Imma sure I don't, Damon. My nose can't smell nothin no more except the strong stench of these salmon we're eating here." Tony said while devouring the slimy skin with his fingers.

You rolled your eyes. You were hoping for a memory, a time where Tony fell off his speedboat and swimming back, or taking a shower off the coast of some beach after meeting another client. But no, just like everyone, Tony was a product of drudgery and had no excitement awaiting him. You got back to eating.

One would think that you would've just quit asking. Quit trying to extract something new. But others had your disease too, they asked you your stories. In contrast, you told them a minute long tale, which more than likely branched into fictional territory.

You gazed down at your compass to notice the needle ticking to the eleven hand, prompting you to return down the hatch and steer accordingly.

≥≥≥≥≥

"What's your crew name, what is your station, and where the hell you've been?", asks Captain Hash when you return from a 3 day run to Mexico.

"I'm Damon Armaros, i'm a smuggler like the rest of this crew, and I was out on an independent job, making money that I earned myself." You answer in front of Hash and his mates, like an accused in court. 

Hash steps forward. "Don't think I don't know what you mean. I remember ever crew member who comes aboard. Just watch your attitude and remember your place, Triple A&R."

After a smirk at his immature and non grammatical remark and a gruff dismissal, he stumbles off and you go back to business.

You are left alone at the rim of the ship, metamorphosing into a silhouette as the dark colors everything black. You keep your phone out, always on and ready for a client to give you a break from this hell.

God, you wanted a vacation but you knew that was naive.

No one backs out, unless they want a lot of enemies.

≥≥≥≥≥

Something was bothering you lately. Why was the best part of your day with clients? You got plenty of solitude on your trips delivering drugs across the sea, and an unhealthy amount of time around familiar faces, but both bore no differences to you.

Whatever immigrant it was, wherever their destination, as soon-to-be hostages of the MotherShip, or new people of America, you always found them fascinating.

Maybe it was their stories, after all you hear the same one a hundred times here. You had never bothered to ask your passengers their stories.

You look in your chipped, smeared mirror, hoping to mull and meld these thoughts together in a plan. Instead you see your pimpled face, topped off with a bird's nest for hair, and you're disgusted with what you are, yet unmotivated to change.

'What difference would it make?' you say. 'You can't ferry hostages to safety, and if you're not going to change, ain't no way you're to convince any of the crew members to do better.'

You decide to quit an go to sleep. Try to. It isn't your fault.

≥≥≥≥≥

Aboard the MotherShip, a place where most Atlantic surfing scum gather to sleep and work, you look out at the Coast Guard who is scrutinizing your boss's license, id, and other fake shit. Is there ever going to be a month where we don't run into them?

Fortunately, all ocean police had fallen for the id's, and any time the searched the ship, all the cargo was hidden. Immigrants, guns, drugs. The best commodities the world had to offer.

You look up at the sky. the sun still beats down on you, bringing your attention to the sweat on your temples and stemming from your soaked hair. You imagine yourself to be that sun, cycling in the same course and purpose, bringing hope to some and frustration and fatigue to others.

But where the sun and you differ is how it carries its duty out happily, without any shame or desire for renewal. The thing close to the latter was your side job of nearby immigrants that contacted you on your cell phone. It was good to know that honesty to clients would pay off.

Looking at the sheen hull that gives a distorted reflection you resolve right there: you were going to get a new story from your next client.

Doesn't have to be life changing, but it better be more provocative than any in the past year.

The next client would be your most worthwhile.

≥≥≥≥≥

Find ways to relate and make friends, not just to children. Tell him your story and he may likely follow. Don't make them feel uncomfortable, they're already embarrassed at resorting to bootlegging. Ask your client about his life, family or work.

No. Never about work.

You don't want to speak to an undercover copper. But of course you always inspected your clients cargo before admitting them.

Most importantly don't try to defend yourself. No point. Honesty makes friends. Real friends.

≥≥≥≥≥

Your trajectory was clear as you steered the near-submerged submarine eastward, a rather uncommon direction for most immigrants but you do it like another job.

Your passenger, a 20 something english girl, promised 2000 to get her over to her country from America. Said her family needed her back after her 'long trip'. Somehow you deduced that among her choices to drop out and waste what little money she had, your paycheck was likely from her father out of shame.

Any sensible parent would be ashamed of turning to a smuggler to save their daughter's negligent ass.

But examining her, you notice in spite of her black-headed fleece, wrapping her shivering demeanor, she has a face you have not recognized since Julia. A face of remorse yet determination to make things right. Brave girl, both of them.

You walk over and ask her what she plans to do.

Unfazed, yet caught off guard, she responds. "My parents are probably gonna beat my ass to death after seeing me like this."

"Well surely it can't be so bad. I mean, they paid me, a smuggler, to get their daughter back, right?"

She lets a smirk slip, likely feeling at ease with a person who can admit their poor state. After acknowledging, she hands you the real shit. "My brother is paying you the money, but I just hope mom doesn't find out it's him. He 's been nothing but good to me."

You finish it off by giving her reassurance that it will work out, a futile tactic that you know as well as her will amount to nothing when faced with your demons.

You said the same thing to Julia, and you couldn't help her Neulasta. Now she's dead, and you're stuck in the desperate deal you made to get her drugs to survive. A nest of bottles, syringes, and doomed men.

You try, but you can't figure out anything more to say to her. What else could be said?

You failed, try again tomorrow.

≥≥≥≥≥

'Well, I'm admitting this is my fault' you say to yourself every night in your packed quarters.

Good intentions and poor judgment brought you here. You couldn't afford medical care for her, your shitty parents saw to that.

Now you're cut off, so what do you do with no hope? Find some way to occupy your short attention span. Keep your mind invested in the stories of others. Don't just help them, but make them feel better about the situation.

Make your clients feel as though it's going to work out, and the illegality of smuggling is for their best interest. Who gives a shit what the world thinks.

It's only those you care about that matter.

Learning from them is your only goal now, so you'd better succeed, at least, at that.

Make a list:

Make them feel reassured about the situation (however grave)

relate to them as best you can (relating can bring about a more interesting story)

don't make an enemy, but a friend (friends can help with networking)

Do the Damn Job

The third I was counting on the third to be accomplished at all.

≥≥≥≥≥

"¡Madre, ganía mi gorra por mi cumpleaños! ¿Porque dejamos en Espana? MADRE!"

Great, now you had to face stupid reality again after drifting off into a habitual haze that was forbidden on the MotherShip. But wait, don't revert back to complacency.

Your glance shifted to the Cuban party of five that sure as hell delivered on its promises like most clients. $4,000, coupled with their oversized T-shirts was proof to indicate that they clearly sold everything they had to cross the Atlantic.

One of the children, a boy of about 10, came up next to me. "Señor, señor. You really a pirate? Mi madre says you are." He asks with such innocence that would have made a woman laugh.

Rather than dismiss him as you often did with incessant children, you grin, bend down, and give it another whack. "I'm a guy who gets people where they need to go safely."

The boy leans in after checking on his family's distracted state. "Mis padres say you pirates are bad. That you kidnap people and are not to be trusting. But you seem different."

You sigh and nod. "Well, I try to be. So don't worry, you're gonna be fine. All of you."

The boy stumbles back to his family against the thrash of the submarine. You prepare to help him, but he adjusts himself and makes it to his mothers arms. God, you wish you could remember the last time that was you.

You feel more accomplished, but still like shit. Nothing changed, for you or him. You then huff at dumb luck, when you realize you're approaching the Texas border, the closet destination 4 grand could get you in this weather.

≥≥≥≥≥

'Okay stop.' You say to yourself. 'You're going through all of this and then what. You hear the woes of all these desperate people, who by definition are nefarious, and think it's going to make things better.'

You know better than that at this point. Nothing can reignite the feeling that you had with Julia, or the life you could have had were it not for you love. Out of one cycle of boredom, and into another.

Yet still, are you destined to remain in this cycle forever, a filthy prison with bars made of hopelessness?

Go through your mental checklist

Make them feel reassured about the situation (however grave)

Check

don't make an enemy, but a friend (friends can help with networking)

Check (kids count)

relate to them as best you can (relating can bring about a more interesting story)

No

Do the Damn Job

What do you think?

≥≥≥≥≥

"What are you looking so content about mister A&R!" Hash yells at you coming out of the dining hall. "One of our immigrant boats was just raided near Cuba, and you've been missing for days without answering a goddamn call!"

You remain controlled, yet the fear remains. "I called Captain Frank to see where you boys were at and said I'd be there in a few days."

You march past him but he hurts you. "Don't make me send you to cargo control. If they catch any one of us, the rest of then the drugs, immigants, and all of it gets pounded."

"I just made extra money on a man from England. Give me a break!"

He scrunches his face. "You're a good smuggler, make good money. But don't you ever miss a raid again! You hear me."

Feeling boosted in an odd way by the story you feasted on from that last delivery of immigrants to France, you sass him. "Aye aye, Captain Hashy!"

You're still treated like the filth you are, but this proves something vital: others' opinions do matter.

≥≥≥≥≥

You would have told him that the man you delivered to France had exchanged his life story with you and vice versa.

"So, you're like a secret agent or something?" You ask friendly to the stubbled faced man who looks like a homeless Harrison Ford.

"Well, the imports we intercepted at the Coast were from France. I'm here to find where the ship came from, and if any other smugglers are in view so I can detail where and when."

It was clear he was in some division of law enforcement, so you dared not reveal the MotherShip, but he told you he had a family and he kept up with football. You watched the Patriots and Eagles on the ship with the crew when you could spare a moment. It used to give you the feeling that we weren't entirely out of touch with the world.

"So why ask me to take you 20 miles southward. Couldn't you just take a cop boat or something?"

He chuckles like he did before when you related your past squabbles with Julia to him and his wife. "They asked me to do this without too many people involved, Watercrafts are too obvious. Plus you're the nicest smuggler I met."

Shock, solidarity, and warmth. He's by far the most interesting yet.

Keep going. Maintain this, and something good will follow.

≥≥≥≥≥

Stop before you reach the docks of the harbor where the MotherShip is bringing aboard supplies as quickly as panic allows. This is the only time in 3 months where your surrogate family makes port.

Recheck your list over your past batch of trips:

Make them feel reassured about the situation (however grave)

Don't have to anymore. Your clients are all tough, and they can take care of themselves.

Don't make an enemy, but a friend (friends can help with networking)

Haven't had a single one that you did make angry. Most of them warmed up to you too.

Relate to them as best you can (relating can bring about a more interesting story)

A bit harder, but you sympathize with most of their struggles. It was never easy for you either younger. When you can't, you don't pretend you know anything, because you don't. Make conversation.

Do the Damn Job

It's not even a damn one now.

≥≥≥≥≥

So the job doesn't change. Your knowledge of immigrants' lives has miraculously made you feel better. What's more you now have people who remember you. People who may recommend you to more victims of anguish. But don't think of this as a way to boost your business. try and regain that lost emotion. What was it?

Satisfaction? No.

Wellbeing?

Your Macro-Sub means something new. It has a more rich and profitable purpose than moving people land to land. Leaning on the rail of the MotherShip, icy wind that used to nip you to insanity, doesn't seem so boring as it used to. You learn to chew on the stories you collect, memories, friends that quite potentially will remember you.

So remember this when you peer over the ship, the sea spraying in your face like always. You're not looking to be a hero. You seek to connect with yourself. The roar of the waves, grunts of the crew, and voices of immigrants are your meditation.

You don’t move ahead or back now. You just be.

➾➾

So, at the end of all this, the cycle continues, but you've broken through one already. No telling what may follow. It's like the motto of the MotherShip: no one leaves this business. This business is you. It takes a few more trips across the Atlantic, and a few more rotten meals of salmon and mollusks to consider your stance.

You're no hero, but you are getting better.

One time you think you saw the first English girl, this time with her family on the pier after getting a couple away. Her face was shy, yet her wave showed more gratitude than anything she said before. You wave back and give a stupid salute that makes her smile. You smile back.

That distant encounter prompts you to look at reality dead in the eye and savor it. The rugged crew, yellowed teeth and faces of insensitivity and gray morality. Makes you think of how unfortunate the hostages are, to be held prisoner by men who could care less about their lives (except in money's case).

Shit, did I look like that?

You look at your cell phone that was lying inactive in your hand. Never before had you used it to call back a client. You think back to your one friend, the 'agent' you dub him. You may be no hero, but he sure as hell has friends that are.

What do you do after you expose your 'family', allow the nearest country's guard to impound The MotherShip, and are left with no job. One thing's for sure, you won't waste your life again.

"This is my penance Julia." You say. Time to get to work. The cycle will never stop.