3

We went into the parlor. I knew right away that something auspicious was coming. The only time we used the parlor was for weddings and funerals. Mother sat me in one of her ghastly carved wood chairs, while she and Julia sat opposite, on her dreadful horsehair sofa. Julia was wringing her hands with anguish.

Mother began without preamble. She said, "We had word that the Gibbs was lost in the hurricane of fifty-seven." I said, "So that explains why the town was surprised to see us."

Mother looked ominous. She said voice dripping disdain, "It was Esau Briggs who brought us the news. He said he heard it in Baltimore City."

Briggs was one of our old social set. His dad was an oil speculator and investor. Briggs junior traveled up and down the coast, buying up options on the proceeds of voyages. I said, "He was almost right. We weathered it out in Ocracoke. But it was a near run thing."

Then it dawned on me. I said, "Did the news cause much distress here?" Mother looked even grimmer, if that was even possible. She said, "Most of us were used to it. We've been through it before. But your bride hadn't."

She added even more ominously, "The news nearly killed Faith. We told her that it was just a rumor, nothing would be certain until you didn't come back. But she just couldn't be consoled."

Mother stopped and looked at me with what almost seemed like pity. Then she continued with fury in her voice, "Esau Briggs devoted all of his time to consoling her."

Julia burst into tears. I was speechless. I said, "Briggs was comforting Faith?" Then it hit me, "NO!! IT COULDN'T BE!!"

Mother said with intense anger, "There is no easy way for me to tell you this, son. But Faith died in childbirth two months ago. It was the disgrace that killed her."

It took a moment. Catastrophic, news is like that. The implications take time to percolate into your brain. Mother saw my face. She hastily added, "Briggs is in France. You'll never find him. Everybody knew you would kill him."

Then she got a harsh look and said, "I don't need to tell you that this is God's judgement. So, accept it" She added in a kindlier tone, "Faith's buried in the Congregational cemetery if you care. We wouldn't allow her to be buried in our churchyard"

It was like being submerged under a breaching whale. The pain was devastating. I couldn't bear it. My little Faith, the love of my life, betraying me with that snake. All light went out of the world. I was a big strapping boatsteerer. But I broke down in tears.

Mother was visibly disgusted by my display of weakness. That was when I understood why Julia was there. She rose, walked over, gently gathered my head to her bosom and we sobbed together. She kept repeating over-and-over, "Faith found out that you were still alive when the Concord pulled in. All she wanted was your forgiveness."

Suddenly, I got the claustrophobic panic that you get when you're drowning. I thrashed my way to my feet and ran panicked out of the house. Both women called out, "Jacob!!"

The rest of the day was a blur. My heart was dead. I remember stumbling down to Faith's grave. I had to confirm it. There was a nice headstone. Her family loved her. It was a hot, cloudless summer afternoon and I just sat on my wife's grave cursing Esau Briggs and the God who would let this happen.

Then I thought about what my mother had said. I was nobody special. So, why was I involving God in the discussion? It was Briggs who owed the bill!! There was only one option. That is, if I ever wanted to be free of the burden of Faith's infidelity. I needed to find Briggs and kill him. It would be my life's purpose.

Hence, with murder on my mind, I went down to the waterfront, drank dark rum in a shadowy corner of a filthy sailors bar and passed out.

*****

I slowly opened my eyes. The gloom and smell was pervasive. I was disoriented. I had a splitting headache and my mouth tasted like the bottom of a blubber vat. I sensed that I was at sea.

I was lying on a floor with a huge man standing over me. It was his boot to my ribs that had awakened me. I jumped to my knees to avoid the next kick. The room spun and I threw up what felt like a gallon of cheap rum. The guy hit me with a roundhouse right. I fell to the floor and he went back to what he had been doing earlier, which was kicking me.

I was more puzzled than hurt. The last thing I remembered was my head hitting the top of the table in an anonymous whaling tavern. Then, the next thing I knew I was getting the shit beaten out of me in what was obviously a ship's focsle.

I hadn't lost a fight in my life and I wasn't going to lose one now. So, I rolled away from the next kick and sprang angrily to my feet. My head hit an overhead beam and I went out like a light. Some fights you lose.

I came around a couple of minutes later. The face that was hovering over me was the ugliest sight imaginable; and I'd looked sperm whales in the eye. He was taller than me, over six-two and he must have weighed close to two eighty.

He was completely bald, with a full beard that looked like a bushy head-of-hair had slipped around to his chin. He had mean, piggy eyes and he was missing an ear, which might have been related to the scar across his face. He had on a ragged captain's swallow-tailed coat and he smelled like the bilge after a long voyage in the tropics.

He gave a nasty laugh and said, "Welcome aboard sailor. I wanted to introduce myself."

I wiped the blood off my mouth and said testily, "Who the hell are you and what the hell am I doing here?" The giant laughed, made an ironic bow and said, "John Quincy Adams at your service... AND you've just joined the triangle trade."

The unpleasant fellow in front of me was clearly not the seventh president of the United States. But I got the joke. John Quincy Adams's nickname was "the Abolitionist" and the triangle trade was still going strong; even though it had been banned in England and America for over a half century.

Cotton and rum went from the U. S. to England, cloth, guns and trinkets went to Africa and slaves were shipped to the U. S. The legal penalty in Great Britain was death. But you could get extremely wealthy if you were successful. Of course, the profit was all for the owners.

Nobody in their right mind wanted to crew a slaver. The only thing a crew member got was regular beatings or hung from a yardarm, if he were caught. It was just my luck that they'd found me passed out; when they were looking for somebody to shanghai.

The captain said, "You're a sailor. What do you do?" I said, "None of your business." Which earned me another rap in the mouth. I said grudgingly, "I was a boatsteerer."

He looked skeptical and said, "You're kind of young to be doing that ain't you?" I said angrily, "I don't give a shit what you think. My wife's dead, and I'm fixin' to join her." Adams got a beatific look on his face, chuckled and said sardonically, "I can help you with that."

That was how I became a maintopman on the good ship Princeton College. It was so-named, because Adams claimed that he had been a student there. He might have been. He was a very smart man. Except he was also creepier than a belfry full of bats.

He could actually quote Latin phrases, or at least I think it was Latin. I barely spoke English. So, foreign tongues were out of my reckoning. But when it came to humanity, he was a total headcase. Adams hated everybody.

The ship I was on was a ninety-foot, square rigged brig of two-hundred-and-seven tons burthen. It had a crew of twenty, which was dangerously sparse for a ship that size. And I was one of the few experienced hands.

Hence, in weather fair or foul, I was the guy who got sent aloft to trim sail on the topgallant yard. That was the most dangerous work on the ship. The pitching of the mast was magnified up there and the deck was a long way down.

*****

I was chained up while we were loading and unloading in Plymouth. It was below-decks where they kept the African cargo. I was bound with another unfortunate. He'd also joined the crew via the abduction method. Except he was a landsman who they'd snatched off a pier on the Chesapeake, while they were loading the tobacco.

The manacles kept us from jumping ship. They had plenty of those handy, given the ship's real purpose. We actually became friends of sort. I suppose it was the brotherhood of misery. We were both literally and figuratively in the same boat.

We talked for hours in the dark of the hold. His name was Springfield and he called himself a preacher, which meant that he had no useful skills. But he could read and carry on a sensible conversation. He'd never had a woman in his life. Being frail and poor, was no way to attract a mate. So, he was very interested in my situation.

I told him about Faith and her betrayal. He said, "But your wife thought you were dead, right? She had no further obligation to the marriage vows if you were dead." That hurt a lot. I wanted Faith's actions to be purposely immoral, not the result of a regrettable misunderstanding.

Springfield asked puzzled, "Do you think that feller made up the story?" I was sure that the slimy son-of-a-bitch had fabricated it. Every young man in New Bedford wanted to slip their hand under Faith's petticoats. But sadly, there was also clear-cut evidence to the contrary, since we HAD nearly foundered.