The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker

whose secret way of recognizing each other at sea was for one pirate crew to call out, “Where d’ye hail from?” and instead of replying that they were from Kingston or Liverpool or Southampton, the crew of the other ship would cry, From the sea! And so they’d know they were pirates too. Alec liked that.
    And there was the fun of landing on a new island—what would it be like? Was there any chance there might still be pirates
lurking around? Alec had played on beaches where the sand was white, or yellow, or pink, or black, built castles on all of them and stuck his little pirate flags on their turrets. Jolly Roger , that was what the flag was called.
    Jolly Roger was also what the deckhands called Alec’s daddy when he seemed to be having more than usual difficulty walking or talking. This was generally after he’d been drinking the tall drinks Cat would shake up for him at the bar on the yacht. Sometimes Cat would put a fruit spear in the drinks, cherries and chunks of pineapple skewered on long wooden picks with the paper pirate flag at the top. Sometimes Daddy’s eyes would focus on Alec and he’d present him with the fruit spear and yell for more rum in his drink. Alec would sit under Daddy’s tall chair and eat the pineapple and cherries, making faces at the nasty stuff they’d been soaked in. Then he’d carry the Jolly Roger pick back to his cabin, where he had a whole hoard of them carefully saved for his sand castles.
    It was a shame the rum had such an effect on Daddy, because going to get it was always fun. The Foxy Lady would drop anchor in some sapphire bay and Sarah would put on a halter top and shoes, and put shoes on Alec, and they’d go ashore together in the launch. As they’d come across the water Sarah might sing out, “ How many houses, baby? ” and Alec would look up at the town and count the houses in his head and he’d tell her how many there were, and she’d tousle his hair and tell him he was right again! And they’d laugh.
    Then there’d be a long walk through some island town, past the gracious houses with window boxes full of pink flowers, where parrots flashed and screamed in the green gardens, back to the wappen-bappen places where the houses looked like they were about to fall down, and there would always be a doormouth with no sign and a dark cool room beyond, full of quiet black men sitting at tables, or brown men sitting at tables, or white men turned red from the sun. In one place there was a green and red parrot that knew Alec’s name. “Smart Alec,” it called him, to his delight and the amusement of the quiet men. In another place there was a big mermaid carved out of wood, with flowing hair and bubbies nearly as nice as Sarah’s. Everything smelled new and exciting.
    Different as the details might be, the visit was always the
same: he and Sarah would go in, and the quiet men would greet Sarah with welcome and a certain deference, almost awe, as though she were a visiting queen. Invariably a man in an apron would come out, bringing a lemonade for Alec and a glass of white rum for Sarah, and sit at a table with them while his helpers loaded crates into a battered old vehicle. Alec seldom understood what was being said, because people talked differently on different islands; but whether they were in the Caribbean or Polynesia, Sarah always spoke to the quiet men in their own language, as perfectly as though she’d been born among them.
    When Alec had finished his lemonade, they’d go out into the sunlight again and the man with the apron would give them a ride back into town with the crates. The crates were nearly always stenciled CROSSE & BLACKWELL’S PICKLED GHERKINS.
    And nearly always, they’d spot a stern-looking black or brown or white man in a white uniform, pedaling along on a bicycle, and Sarah would hug Alec tight and cry out in a little silly voice: “Oh, nooo, it’s a policeman! Don’t tell him, Alec, don’t tell him our secret!” This always