Friday, September 21, 2007

Salty, Vol. 2

South American folklore has this to say about Venezuelan cilantro ("Venzo" for short, according to a survey of recent police detainees): it is a powerful anxiolytic, capable of soothing the remorse and anguish of a man whose entire family has just been murdered; it cures Tetanus; and, being so easily concealed in common South American food dishes, it works wonderfully as a date rape drug. It is also more addictive than heroin.

Saadik, having split his emergency stash of the magic cilantro between himself and Enzio, for the moment no longer feels the inconvenience of being aboard a sinking boat; nor does he feel threatened by the bull shark aggressively snapping at the hull. His mind is filled with scenes of a lush rainforest paradise, where he is being pursued by savage and extremely horny Amazonian women. The doomed boat upon which he stands seems a thousand miles away to him right now, as does his zipper-busting erection, which Enzio could dependably hang his golf bag on.

The golf bag, however, remains gainfully employed. Enzio is still driving dozens of golf balls with his three wood into the great deep, even as he hears the supporting lines of the mast bust apart one by one and the deck begin to fracture down the middle. Being as the balls have each been stuffed with sawed-off match heads, they burst into dazzling fireballs at the top of their trajectories. Eventually the explosions attract the attention of a nearby shrimping vessel, but it won't get here before this little skiff becomes a watery grave.

Enzio doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he finds himself surprisingly absent of fear, as if having made a truce with his miserable fate at the bottom of a shark's stomach, when all of the sudden he hears a noisy splash, and turns to see that Saadik has cast himself into the water.

"Saadik, good God man!" Enzio cries, beholding the shark thrash wildly upon his seaborne host. In moments Saadik has already dropped below the surface, the vicious beast surely tugging him down to his doom. Enzio looks desperately on the spot where Saadik has plunged, seeing now only thick wreaths of foam rippling outward.

"Crap, I've killed the captain," Enzio mumbles frantically. He doesn't mean in action, but in effect, knowing all along that the wrestling moves he taught Saadik weren't really a plausible defense against sea predators. Who would have thought Saadik would actually try to engage a bull shark? How careless of Enzio to instill him with that false confidence! Oh well, too late to make a fuss about it now. Indeed, with the cilantro's benzodiazepines still coursing through his sympathetic nervous system, Enzio's worry is slowly succeeded by happy forgetfulness, and he goes back to imagining himself teeing off with Tiger and Phil at Torrey Pines.

Then, in a most dramatic and awful manner, Saadik emerges from the briny blue. His limbs are motionless, back oriented skyward, head pulling stubbornly beneath the water, as if tethered to an anchor. The bulky, hazy form of the shark is before him. Enzio, watching his friend float limply on the surface of the water like a discarded rag doll, is seized with an apprehension that no amount of Venezuelan cilantro could relieve.

Suddenly, Saadik's head whips fiercely out of the water, his face pale and strewn with seaweed. His countenance, though, much to Enzio's astonishment, is not aghast at all; instead, Saadik grins a most maniacal grin, and a whitish ooze dribbles from his mouth. The shark seems unusually relaxed, even though Saadik is grasping it fiercely by the tail.

"Dude," Saadik exclaims boastfully, "I think I've found the clitoris!" His eyes are wild, slightly divergent, darting around as if searching for a larger audience. His tongue caresses his upper lip with a sleazy deliberateness. Then, taking a deep breath, he plunks his head back under, burying it in between what appear to be the shark's pelvic fins.

Enzio begins to speak, then stops. His mouth is agape with shock; it doesn't seem to be capable of forming words. He is trying to make rational sense of the perversity he has just witnessed, which is, of course, impossible. Several seconds later, Saadik thrusts his head upwardly once more; the shark remains docile, like a castrated sheep. He is now turning the shark over on its back to straddle it.

"I'm hot for this shark, baby," Saadik says hastily, in a sort of nervous fever, "and I've got a job to do." In a single swift motion, he rips off his tattered cargo shorts, which had barely hung onto his hips anyway, and puts his veiny wooden shaft on prominent display before making the next dive. The wretched shark flutters its tail beckoningly.

"This," Enzio whispers, oblivious to the seawater now rising above his knees, "is the most fabulous thing I've ever seen."

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