#your playground is a graveyard and you do not stand on the shoulders of giants

[immanentise]

After a long lotta soul searching and psychoanalysing, I've concluded that I currently feel best about being he/him agender afab (& am likeee 65-35 fem-masc for presentation atm) which feels like a parody of tumblr users going too far with labels. And yet.

Like I can show you my working out here, and yeah, I think therapy might be helpful for me to get a more stable sense of self, but it's what I feel works best for me at the moment.

Now how do I integrate this self-discovery into the way I speak French....

[racingtoaredlight]

Beans & Toast: Coast to Coast

“Jesus Christ, dad...she was a grade below me in high school!”

Connie du Pont’s breakfast was still steaming as she laid into her father’s romantic interests for the thousandth time.  He absolutely stank of cheap tequila and forgotten evenings, sitting down at the table to eat the fluffy scrambled eggs his daughter whipped up in the trailer’s meager kitchen.

“What, no bacon?”

***

The Somali coast, the Malacca Strait, the Caribbean...none of these places can hold a candle to the level of piracy around the Niger Delta, off the coast of Nigeria in western Africa.

It’s a pirate’s playground.  Where in other parts of the world, piracy can bemore about force, the Niger Delta is different.  Like border collie’s herding a flock of sheep, pirates can herd massive ships into the seas just off the western coast, and at that point, size and security don’t matter when you find yourself on your home turf.

The geographical location made pirate’s security a lot easier than the urban coastal towns in the Philippines or on the eastern coast of Africa, giving them free reign to operate with little interference.  But it’s the geographical features underneath the Atlantic in this stretch that give the pirates their biggest advantage.

Shallow waters dotted with rocky obstacles all over, it can be a disaster for a large ship manned by a captain unfamiliar with the submarine terrain.  Thousands of ships have met their fate in this stretch of the ocean, laying bare to the elements in a nautical graveyard.

You don’t see massive cargo ships steam through this part of the world.  It’s just too risky.  The Somali coast sees exponentially more traffic than this part...and yet despite that, three times the amount of ships are hijacked here.  It’s rare to make it through this stretch without at least being harassed, let alone attacked.

***

“Oi don’t want no part of this, Beans.  You hear me?  Oi’m not fockin’ around.”

Frank Toast had stared death down for a living, and now he’s absolutely petrified.  Beans didn’t judge the man he’d spent the better part of his career chasing around the world.  He’ll never forget hanging onto Toast’s arm, Toast dangling over the edge of a bridge after a high-speed chase down the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

It was the look...the “gotcha” smirk on Toast’s face as he clinked a set of handcuffs discretely hidden on his wrist onto Beans’ arm, mutually assuring any potential deaths.  A man like that doesn’t have the capacity to feel fear, in Beans’ experience.  And yet, here they were.

Beans thought about all those classes he took on the way to getting his PhD in Criminal Psychology.  About how the mere option of dying an anonymous, undignified death would be something a man with an ego like Toast’s would do anything to avoid.  About how, in their own personal experience, he couldn’t imagine Toast backing down from anything if it would guarantee his freedom.

***

The former Chocula sat in deep waters, the Nigerian coast visible through a set of strong binoculars.  Through another pair of binoculars, Abeo Chukwu-Ojhogar watched a Zodiac boat be lowered and begin to speed in his direction.

His nameless ship...rusty but sound...bristled with AK-47′s and Chinese-made RPG’s wielded by a crew who’s oldest member couldn’t have been past 20.  At 26, Chukwu-Ojhogar is already somewhat of an elder, a legend among the pirates in the region.

Just as the sun is about to set, the Zodiac pulls up alongside Chukwu-Ojhogar’s boat and two commandos wordlessly heave four giant black duffel bags before speeding off.  When the Zodiac returns to the former Chocula, Chukwu-Ojhogar hits his ship’s floodlight and escorts the cargo ship to its eventual target.

It was a good day.  They had agreed on two bags, not four.

***

“Jesus Christ, will you give me a break, darlin’?”

Preston du Pont was not an official member of the du Pont clan, something that he never was able to get over no matter how comfortable and affluent a life he had.  The illegitimate son of Pierre du Pont and his father’s Honduran nurse, Preston was a bastard child of aristocracy.  Shoved into the closet with fistfuls of cash, and forgotten by his family.

Dalton, Harvard, MIT...Preston blew through these schools, fueled by the chip on his shoulder.  He joined the Army, flew recon missions for MACV SOG in Cambodia and Laos, changing his last name to du Pont to piss off his father before he became Delaware’s governor, much to Pierre’s chagrin.  He even adopted a southern accent and lived in a trailer, to prove some point to the man who Preston knew didn’t care.

Working clandestine missions for the CIA for the next two decades, and all the years of drinking and whoring took its toll psychologically, because physically he didn’t look a day older than 60.  By the early 2000′s, he had set up a little private gig with his kids Connie and Tommy, contracting to intelligence services for covert logistics and intel work.

While Tommy might be the best pilot in the family, something Preston would begrudgingly admit, Connie is the brains of this operation.

“These eggs are shit, hun.”

***

Beans can’t stand Nigel Fitzsimmons.

The attaché from MI-6 was everything he couldn’t stand regarding the modern state of the intelligence community.  Mincing, overly bureaucratic, his overbite, it takes every ounce of Beans’ patience to keep from losing his temper every time he hears Fitzimmons’ pathetic rapping on his cabin’s door.

Deep breath, “yes Nigel?”

“Mmm...yes...good evening, sir.  I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Beans’ glare said more than any words could.

“Anyways sir, the prisoner says he has something he would like to discuss.  Should I set up the room?”

The way Fitzsimmons asked if he should set up the room pinged Beans’ instincts.  He thought to himself why he would find that strange?  Is it the way he asked?  Does he have an ulterior motive for setting up the room?  Why wouldn’t he just set the room up?

He steps into the interrogation room’s foyer, observes Fitzsimmons adjusting Toast’s restraints, and quickly stops the recording and disconnects the encrypted satellite link to MI-6.

***

“Dad, we got a message.”

“From Abeo?”

“Yea.  He’s escorting a bunch of mercenaries down the western coast of Africa.  Says they’re headed for Cape Town with a hijacked cargo ship.  White guys, not pirates.  Well equipped and trained.”

“No shit.”  Preston smiles to himself, while typing on his phone.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you texting Uncle Ben again?”

“Heh yea.”

Preston’s half brother has taken out numerous restraining orders, but when you’re sitting on an eight-figure trust fund with friends up and down both the diplomatic and intelligence communities, that’s not going to stop you from tormenting your family.  Preston shows his daughter the text.

“OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS?!?”

“Lighten up, hun.  Tommy thought it was hilarious.”

“It’s not funny, dad.  Uncle Ben is a sweetheart and...wait...TOMMY SHOULD NOT BE TEXTING YOU WHILE HE’S ON A COVERT MISSION FROM A CLANDESTINE PRISON.”

“That’s why we got you in charge, Con.  You’re the steak, we’re the sizzle.”

***

TO BE CONTINUED