Flamingo Hunters of the mid-Atlantic

The tramp steamer lay anchored in the lee of the many islands that dotted this briny estuary. It was night and the stars were faint against the rising steam of dusk that the forest beyond exhaled. Gideon Klimm stood on the deck besooted, his limbs lined by the strident light streaming from the gas lamp. He fluidly walked to the lamp, and then awkwardly examined the life congregating ‘round the lamp, then strode back to the binnacle. Flamingos, a dirty business, a perversity of trade, an anachronism from a bygone age. Tomorrow they would go up the river. Brian would be waiting, that is, if he hadn’t subsumed to his monomania.

In the kitchen below deck, ‘Pretty’ Olle was putting the finishing touches on the tuna soufflé that was to be the entree for the evening. Olle was pretty nervous, execution of his recipes was wearing thin, like his coulis.

In the hold, the party was starting up, the tinsel and the lights were on, the punch was ready. Imelda Macgillicuddy was getting all her favourite songs played right now, before the hoi polloi came in with their dreadful requests. In the dim mini-disco ball light she weaved and did that side step, snapping her fingers. Olle came in, slinking in the shadows, bearing the amuse-bouches that would be the solace of Macgillicuddy when the evening turned proletarian. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, Olle could tell with his practised eye that by the way that she moved that she was ignoring him. He traipsed to the tables that lined the hold, set the plates down. Olle looked up to the dj, to the turn tables, to the mini-disco ball. His hand went out to the cooler of beer, and pulled out at bottle. The fish dying in that cooler the other day wrapped their dying revenge around that bottle, clinging to the glue that held the labels to hard glass. Indifferent, he flicked off the cap with empty plastic lighter, marked by the teeth from many different crowns. He looked at Macgillicuddy, his arm stiff, the elbow out, pulling the bottle from his face, the left leg easy across the stiff right, the edge of the table supporting the back. He looked at and thought Christ this woman.

Olle set the bottle rocket on a trajectory to his face again, the HMS Cooking Lager righted itself to avoid jettisoning its payload, Olle wangled over the dance floor and shouted above 80s Norwegian pop hits

‘You wanna play a drinking game? It’ssa lot of fun, and he turned to see that hold had filled with dancing mates and scientists, he pulled Imelda to a table were the kitchen staff were sitting, their black-white check trousers under a red check table cloth.

‘Tell the lie, it’s called.’ He said over his shoulder as he inched his chair over tothe tabel

The evening blurred into the grey morning.

All that was left of the night was the slowing falling snow against the decklight. The money and the beer.

The grey morning was enveloped in mist, and the snow caught everyone by surprise. Gideon switched on the motor, and the ship nudged itself into the flurry. Wafts of fitful steam came from the galley, and carried the whiff of breakfast, a mix of eggs and smoked mackerel. The tramp steamer looked for the river.

—Easy as getting into a fight with the missus.—thought Gideon Klimm