A Captain's Duty

was going to see you again. And then the darker thoughts would come. A voice in my head would say, ‘He could die, these things don’t turn out well.’ I would have to push those thoughts away, but they always came back.”
    By late Saturday night, the pressure and the disappointment got to Andrea. As much as she loved my sisters, the songs and the humor were wearing on her. Finally, she couldn’t do the jokes anymore. She couldn’t play along with the laughter. It just wasn’t funny. One of my sisters said to her, “Oh, you’re going to make so much money from this, you’re going to retire.” And Andrea snapped. “Do…you…really…think,” she said, “that Richard got on that lifeboat so we could be millionaires ?”
    Saturday was a huge letdown for Andrea and the rest of my family because nothing happened. Now Sunday seemed like the last chance.
     
    Back on the boat, all of a sudden I heard this electric sound, like a humming. It sounded like a drone or an electric engine. The tension in the boat ratcheted up in an instant. The pirates scattered and ducked away. I looked over at Young Guy and there was just abject fear in his eyes.
    The pirates ran up and slammed the hatch doors closed.
    It’s coming, I thought. They must see boats on the water aiming at us. Maybe whatever the navy ships had lined up to hide…
    The Leader barked something to Young Guy in Somali. He came over and sat across the aisle from me. That seemed to alleviate the fear in his eyes. He began clicking the AK-47 trigger and smiling with mad-dog eyes. Tall Guy began opening the gas cans and tying the hatch latches with bits of rope. Musso ran over with a rag and tied it around my eyes. I brought the side of my head down to my shoulder and managed to pull the blindfold down.
    The Somalis were peeking through the hatches. I heard noises outside—the electric motor sound and engine noises. The pirates were getting their guns ready, pulling out the clips, checking them, slamming them back in. They clicked off the safeties. Fear was like a physical presence in that boat.
    The Leader stayed away from the cockpit and all the pirates slunk back as far into the rows of seats as they could, pushing their backs up against the hull. They were trying desperately to get out of sight. Occasionally they would look out the windows, but almost immediately they’d duck back into their hiding places, as if they were afraid of being picked off.
    Musso pulled into the shadows and saw me with the blindfold off. He slapped me, hard, across the face.
    “You do that again, you be sorry!” he shouted.
    My cheek was stinging, but I was happy to get a rise out of him. I smiled.
    “What are you going to do,” I said, “shoot me?”
    We heard the noises again. Musso glared, but he was too scared to mess with me right then. He ducked down and slunk back into the second row of seats. Now all the pirates were out of sight, except for Young Guy. He didn’t want to leave me. He was giving me serial-killer looks, with the gun pointed right at my chest. He put the blindfold on and again I pulled it down. The gun muzzle was within two feet of me.
    I was in the third seat from the rear, port side, on the aisle. With the ropes, I couldn’t get out of harm’s way. I felt like a piece of beef in a butcher shop window. My fear was spiking. If the pirates were scared, there had to be a reason. It’s strange to see people with guns show abject terror.
    All of a sudden, I heard quick shots. It sounded like an AK. I couldn’t see who was firing, but it was close.
    I realized the pirates had opened up the forward hatch and fired at a navy ship. The shots seemed to puncture the tension. Now they slowly came out of their hiding places. After a few minutes, Tall Guy even managed to fall asleep in the front of the boat.
    I needed to take a piss.
    “Hey, I need to go the bathroom,” I said to no one in particular. “I need the bottle.”
    Ever since the escape attempt, they’d been making me piss in a bottle. They wouldn’t let me near the door anymore.
    “No,” the Leader said.
    “What did you say?”
    The Leader waved his hand dismissively.
    I screamed at the Somalis that they were going to pay for this, that they were going to die in this boat and they were nothing but pirates. They hated that word.
    “Shut up, shut up!” the Leader screamed at me.
    “I won’t shut up. You’re nothing but freaking pirates and that’s how you’re going to die.”
    He