She walked straight down the middle of the long pier, ignoring the yells of the fat man running behind her. The girl was winning the race when another figure stepped in front of her.
"Sorry Missy but I can not let you go," he said, "The fat man will fire me for sure." He lowered his eyes, looking down at his bare feet, adding, "¿usted entiende que no es nada personal?" Standing in the middle of the walkway, arms crossed legs spread apart, he was not going to let her escape. Washing and polishing the gringo's boats was the best job he'd had.
The girl never broke her stride, only said, "Sure Manuel, it's nothing personal." With that she grabbed the collars of his worn shirt, and brought her knee up into his groin with more force than her slight build should have allowed. Maintaining her grip on his shirt, she pulled him forward, off balance, then pushed his rigid body off the pier. She hesitated only long enough to see his head bob to the surface.
"You damn bitch," the fat man screamed behind her, as he steadied his bulk against a piling, gulping in the humid air. "You owe me," he yelled again.
Walking faster now, she turned her head just enough to acknowledge the man's pleas, shouting, "I paid you, you SOB, we're even." The fat man's head slumped, sweat from his forehead, dripping on the wooden planks.
Along with owning the docks, the fat man was the loan shark to every fisherman and gringo boat bum down on his luck. Everybody owed the fat man something, so she knew it wouldn't be long before his buddies showed. She had paid him for the repairs, much more than they were worth, but he had always wanted more. The girl glanced across the tiny cove; she saw a group of men, wildly pointing at her, as they boarded a small trawler. One man was throwing off the tender lines when a couple of puffs from the diesel stack told her they were getting underway. "Shit," she thought, "I've got to move my ass." With another hundred yards to her moored cat, the young woman kicked into a sprint. If the fat man had finished the promised work, she might have a chance to escape. She knew that with the tide out, it would be impossible for the trawler to cross the sandbar, with much speed anyway. On the other hand, her catamaran could handle as little as eighteen inches under the twin hulls, and was very fast; the girl might still make it out. She leaped the last eight feet off the rotted planks, landing hard in the cockpit, and began tearing off the mainsail ties. As the big sail fell loose, the girl cranked the winch with all her strength, hiking the bellowing Dacron taut. The cat leaped forward in the fifteen-knot wind when the mooring lines brought it to a stop.
This is where I enter the story. I was one of those boat bums down on his luck, working off a never-ending debt to the fat man. I'd reached this broken down Mexican harbor three-month earlier with a blown head gasket and a crippled ketch. Several years of gales, thunderstorms, and disrepair had the old girl leaking so badly that I had to bale her hour by hour. With nothing else to do, on the evening high tide, I sailed the ketch onto the beach, laid her on her side, and went looking for help. That's when I met the fat man. Over a few beers, he convinced me he could get the parts for the diesel, all I had to do in return was work off the debt in his yard. Since I was good around boats and money was tight, his plan was my only option. As the weeks past, I realized the fat man was not anxious for my departure. The parts always seemed to be just a few more days away.
After two months of working in the dank holes of countless fishing trawlers, I had the inevitable face to face one evening. "Pardon me, Don Marujjo, would you know when my boat parts will arrive?" I asked, showing the respect he demanded from all his underlings.
The fat man turned, faced me, trying to place my face with my debt, and finally answered, "Ah Senõr, you know, these things take time. I was sure they would be on the bus today-maybe tomorrow." He stiffened when I didn't nod then added, "You know you cost me a lot of money. There's the room, the food, all the beer, yet I've been very generous to you."
Without a clear idea of how to extradite myself, I rushed on, "Senõr, I live in the back of the tool shed; the shrimpers and trawlers give me their culls; what little I drink is earned from sweeping the bar." My rage building, I blurted out, "You pay me nothing, and I doubt the parts are ever coming."
Ignoring my outburst, the fat man looked up, squinting in the glare of the sun, and questioned, "When do you have time to sweep the bar? You're supposed to be working for me. If you have that much time on your hands, maybe you're not working hard enough. How do you expect me to buy expensive parts for your boat when you slack off?" Then he added, "Maybe you need to get back to work before I forget my generosity. Finish the work on that girl's catamaran."
I was below, hooking up a wiring harness on the cat's engine when I heard a thud, then frantic movements above. The boat started to accelerate, then came to an abrupt halt. The sudden impact sent me sprawling over the motor, striking my head against the bulkhead. "What the hell is going on?" I yelled, feeling the knot on my forehead growing.
The girl heard the commotion below but had other things on her mind. The lines were straining at the cleats, taut from the pressure of the wind in the sail. She leaped to the stern, cut the mooring, then scrambled forward to server the bow line. As the last threads of the nylon rope parted, the cat leaped forward, again knocking the man onto his back. The girl kicked the wheel over enough to clear the piers, then started wincing the large foresail. The Ginny caught the wind, and the cat accelerated. The woman looked over at where she thought the trawler would be and was surprised to find it past the shoal, making steady progress to cut off her escape. To save her lead, she recklessly wove through the anchor rode where a dozen shrimp boats were sitting, barely missing their buoys, and ignoring the curses the fishermen yelled.
The trawler had reached the cut, and was turning to block the entrance when the two boats met. The large boat's crew was sure she would turn to avoid the collision, after all, she was only a little gringo girl. They stared in disbelief when the woman slammed the wheel over at the last possible moment, brought in the mainsail tight to the wind, forcing the cat's starboard hull out of the water. The catamaran's cables were shrieking from the strain as the two boats closed for the inevitable collision. Then the aluminum skin of the sailboat's hull, now four feet above the water, screeched and tore along the side of the trawler's rigging as they flew by at eighteen knots. Then it was over. The twin-hulled craft settled back on its keels, passed through the breakwater, and out into the immunity of the Gulf.
