Tugboat Man and the Lost Continent

Thank God! the mental image of my dreary, boring old mom as a fertility priestess was weirding me out.

Carla finished with, "On the other hand, the happy combination of the genes of those two people made you as close to pure Atlantean as any person who was not born there."

She added, "It simply took the presence of another Atlantean to activate those genes. Our arrival must have triggered yours. It's like turning on a beacon."

Just to shift the conversation away from me I said, "How DID you get here? Are you all 13,000 years old?" I might as well go along with the program. At least THEY believed that they were from Atlantis.

Carlos was amused by that question. He said, "No, we were all born there. And we live in New Atlantis now, which no human will ever find. That is where we rebuilt after we lost the war."

So it WAS a war that sank the place.

He said conversationally, "We appear to be immortal because we live so long. And we have the capacity to move through time."

He added idly, "Humans will discover that ability in the next Century."

Carlos looked at me and said, "That was what we were doing when we fell into the timestorm that you rescued us from." Timestorm -- interesting word? I knew that whatever we had encountered was not natural.

He went on with, "But we have normal Atlantean life spans. The difference is that, Atlanteans live very long lives, hundreds of times longer than humans."

He looked at me like he wanted to make a point. He said, "You've read the bible -- right?" I responded with, "Well... I've read the 30 page condensed version on the internet."

Carlos said, "Didn't you ever wonder how those people in the Old Testament could live for hundreds of years -- Methuselah was over a thousand years old when he died. He was one of us. But he died young."

Okay, that made a certain amount of sense. Even though I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of a guy dying young at age 1,000. But I wanted to follow the rabbit-hole to its logical conclusion.

Carlos continued with, "We have known many of the great people in history because we had reasons to spend time in their era. We don't meddle. But sometimes we have to get involved for everybody's sake. Mainly to protect ourselves from discoveries that would change human history."

He added, "For instance Maria was the concubine of Alexander the Great. His exploring in the Tien-Shan area was getting too close to the location of our hidden City. And she was sent to convince him to go back to Sogdiana. Can you imagine how human history would have changed if Alexander had discovered New-Atlantis way back then?"

Maria muttered under her breath, "He wasn't so great. And, he was mostly gay."

Really???!! I had been in the same hole as Alexander the Great???!! I felt a pang of jealousy. I don't know why. There was absolutely no way any of this could possibly be true, But I loved the woman and I didn't want to share her with anybody. Even a fantasy, Legendary Conqueror.

I said, "Atlantean has to be a different language but you all sound like Americans." THAT was one of the main reasons why I knew that the entire family was nuts.

Carlos found me very amusing. He said, "Of course we do. But we communicate at the intuitive level. You are hearing sounds. But they are registering in your brain in your language. So there is never any linguistic barrier with us. You will develop that capacity very quickly yourself now."

THAT I understood. Maria had already spent so much time in my head that it was like she lived there. And she must have been up there at the time because she said brightly, "We have to go now. I am going to spend the rest of my time with Tug. Just tell me when you are leaving."

And that was exactly what she did. It was another two days. But in that time we just kept getting closer and closer. We made love, we talked, we cuddled and we wandered hand-in-hand through the streets of Alice Town. We even spent one night with the jolly folks at Sandy's.

But for all of that time it was just her and me in a bubble. It was hard to describe the feeling. It was raw, abandoned passion and unadulterated tender harmony in a single package. I was infatuated.

Everybody feels alone at some point in their daily life. But that all-to-familiar phenomenon just didn't occur while Maria was around. And I am certain that the same was true with her. Because there was a constant presence in my head that was just radiating joy and contentment.

It was also radiating increasing sadness. I know how she felt. She was going to leave me. She assured me that it would be a very short time. But even that was far too long. I was wondering how a person as feral as I was eight months ago could be turned into such a needy son-of-a bitch in a mere four days. But the fact was that Maria was as central to my wellbeing as oxygen.

The moment finally came. We had spent the night together just cuddling like a couple of newborn puppies. We had fucked the life out of each other shortly before that. But the last act was a skin-to-skin bonding exercise.

A voice in my head was begging me not to forget her. And I was telling her that she was my life -- I would never forget her.

I was going to follow their gleaming white boat out to sea. But I only got as far as the passage between the islands when a tearful voice in my head said, "Don't follow us. It's too difficult already." So I blasted them a salute from the tug's siren and turned back toward Browns.

~

Nonetheless, for the next four days there was a constant loving presence in the back of my mind. Then that presence was gone in an instant. I assumed that they had made the jump -- or whatever it was -- along the time-space continuum. So I didn't think anything more about it.

I dug in to endure. I went back to my old habit of cruising the internet. And on the fifth day it was all over cyberspace. A big luxury yacht had blown up and sunk 200 miles southeast of Bermuda.

The flash and explosion had been reported by both the Liberian flagged oil tanker MV Hardeman and a flight of GR9A Harriers, off the Royal Navy's Invincible. The Invincible immediately dispatched a Westland Sea King to the area. But there was no evidence of survivors. The call sign of the doomed ship belonged to the MV Triton, Montero's ship. Terrorism was suspected.

I am sure that everybody has a moment when they come to grips with their own impermanence. It might be a close call in traffic, or a dire diagnosis, or even simple introspection. But at some point in your life you will come to realize just how utterly insignificant and perfectly pointless your life is within the scope of the cosmos.

The loss of Maria and her family did that for me. It outright vaporized all of my certainties. And the only thing I knew for sure was that my existence was meaningless.

I had spent my whole life alone. And I thought I was happy. Then an illusion had appeared and taught me what it meant to love. It was an exhilarating feeling. But now, I had to accept that existence was transitory. The problem was that I was going to have to live as many miserable days as I had left without Maria.

I simply lay down in my cabin and cried. I didn't want anybody to see me. Because the Tugboat Man is a nerd. And nerds don't show emotion. But I was rapidly retreating to the citadel that had anchored my life's defenses -- withdrawal from the human race. And my heart was becoming a dark impenetrable rock of absolute alienation. Nobody could touch me. I was alone and bereft.

I had been out of circulation long enough that Reg finally came by to see what had happened. Everybody on the island knew that Reg was the only person I would allow on my boat without permission.

He found me passed out drunk on the floor of the lounge. He could have done the humane thing and put my sodden ass in the shower. But instead he dragged me to the gunwale and tossed me into the ocean. THAT woke me up and sobered me up. I climbed back on board spluttering.

Reg said, "What's with you, mon? Where you been?" I said, "She's gone Reg." He laughed and said, "I can see that." I said, "No -- she is gone as in dead."

His entire demeanor changed. The real Reg was a highly intelligent and focused individual. He said, "How do you know that? What happened?" I said, "It's all over the internet. Their boat blew up so spectacularly that they are investigating it as a terrorist incident."

He looked at me sadly. I asked myself, "What did I do to deserve a friend like this."

Then he brightened. He said, "You can't sulk for the rest of your life. It's a matter of self-respect mon. You have to pull yourself together and get back to living life. Would Maria want you to be like this. No!! You have to LIVE for her mon!!"

I laughed ruefully and said, "It wasn't much of a life until SHE came along. So that should be easy to get back to." Reg said, "It all started out at Sherry's Mon. What you need is a little fried lobster and some cold beer."

I was so violently hung over that I almost retched in the back of my mouth at the thought of food and alcohol. But Reg's good humor was infectious. Even if I DID think he was putting it on for my benefit.

So I started my life all over again. I did it by trudging up to Sherry's with Reg. I had just discovered a phenomenon that I thought would never affect me. An irrevocable sense of loss. When you let another person into your life, you are taking the risk that they won't always be there. I had gambled with my first attempt and crapped-out - big-time!!

Maria gave me the strength to face things. The fact that she loved me made me a better person. But she was gone now. And there was a part of me that was missing. It was like fate had hacked off a leg and I knew that it would never grow back. So the challenge was learning to walk one legged.

The gang at Sherry's was going about its business -- eating, drinking and talking. It was one o'clock in the afternoon and the ambience was cheerful - to say the least. For the first time since Maria's death I had a sense of the sun beating down on me and the heat of the day. There was a beautiful onshore breeze and the sand under my bare feet was hot and reassuring.

We found a table on the deck and Basil and a bunch of his friends immediately came over to join us. They all knew the story by this point. The creole population doesn't have Atlantean ESP. But whatever it DOES have is effective; everybody knew. And they were all trying to jolly me back to some approximation of my former self.

It didn't work. I tried to acknowledge them. These were really good and decent people. But I was just so mired in my loss that the only thing I could think about was how completely empty the endless parade of days in front of me looked.

Finally, Reg shooed them all away and sat down facing me. His eyes were like black marbles. And I got a sense of how personally strong he was. He said in a tone of voice that was totally different from the happy island creole character that he affected, "Listen to me. You honor somebody's memory by how you carry on your life without them. Not by moping around like a little girl."

Then he paused and said thoughtfully, "Maria would hate the way you are acting. You WERE a valuable member of our community -- liked and respected. Now you are a pathetic victim. Do you think that you are suitably honoring your lost love's memory? Because frankly I don't?"

I thought about it. He had a point. Grief is a self-indulgent exercise. You do it to get over the loss of a loved one. But it only works for your benefit, not theirs. They are dead. They don't need it. You go through the grieving process in order to help YOU get over the loss. And so it was about time I grew a new set of balls.

I swore that I was going to get back to my happy life before Maria. Maybe I had dreamed my interlude with her anyhow. But whatever it was I found that I was much more capable of controlling how I lived my life. Now, my mission was to honor hers.

Knowing Maria had made me into a much stronger and more self-reliant person. It was like the situation with my boat. I was terrible when I started out; tentative and frightened. But in order to become proficient at anything you have to exercise self-discipline and practice a lot. So after a sufficient repetition and with a dollop of determination I grew into a master ship-handler.

I had spent the first thirty-one years hiding in a basement. Thanks to Maria and the island, I found myself turning into a proto-adult. I was dreadfully lonely. But at least I had my self-respect back.

~

I think that I was asleep when it happened. It was like a transmitter suddenly blinked on. And I was dreaming of Maria. But it was like she was alive and reaching out to me. I heard, "I have returned my love. And I am waiting for you. But you must come to me. The Elders insisted."

I sent a probe in her direction, "Where are you?" She sent back, "If you are truly Atlantean you can find me."

I was only half awake but it was like a location instantly appeared in my head. And I knew exactly where I had to go.

Even though it was night-time I wasn't going to waste a second. I had all the ocean navigation capability I needed - including radar and a full tank of diesel fuel.

I jumped out of the bunk, threw on a pair of boat shorts, cast off the mooring lines and fired the starters for the diesels. They awoke with their usual cough and roar and I backed out of Browns headed for Cayo Guillermo and the People's Democratic Republic of Cuba.

I didn't know why Maria was there. And frankly I didn't care. All I could think of was, "She's alive!!"

At full throttle, I reached Marathon Key by sunrise. I topped off the tanks and took an additional 55-gallon drum of fuel on board just in case. The run down to Cayo Guillermo is just over 12 hours. But I didn't want to arrive in broad daylight. Especially off the coast of a Country that had a habit of shooting at uninvited guests. So I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep before I shoved off again.

I reached Cuba's twelve-mile limit at 3 AM. I had been communicating off-and-on with Maria since she had first established contact. We didn't need radios to do that. She sent me a burst picture of a beautiful and sophisticated woman on a Portuguese passport flying into Havana from the Azores. Then renting a car and driving to the Hotel del Sol, which is right at the tip of the cape. The car would be there in the morning. But Maria would NOT be.

It made a lot of sense. The place where I was picking Maria up was separated from the Cuban mainland. And it was about as deserted as you could get. That was a good thing. Because I was pretty sure that once I turned inside the twelve mile limit I was going to draw a lot of attention from the Cuban military.

Even at full speed it was going to be at least two hours before I could pick Maria up and get back into international waters. Worse, if they thought I was doing something illicit the Cubans might follow past the twelve-mile limit. And although my tug was a former Navy vessel it was not going to outpace a warship.

I had been running east by south-east since I made landfall at the Cayo Romano light. Maria was in my head constantly now, marking her location. I began a course that angled in toward where she was waiting.

It was as dark as the inside of my hat, with just the ambient illumination of a half moon and stars. It was very hot and humid and the air reeked of the tropics. Cuba itself was a menacing presence in the distance.

I was at maximum RPMs as I crossed into Cuban territorial waters and pounded toward shore. My radio lit up with a warning. For some reason I knew they were telling me that I was trespassing. That was odd in-and-of-itself. Since most of the time I have a hard time understanding English, let alone Spanish.

They obviously had me on radar. I was running without lights hoping that they couldn't get anything in the area to intercept me. Because being blown up by a missile, or spending the rest of my life locked up in Canaleta Prison wasn't really on my "bucket" list.

There was a constant chatter from the radio now. It sounded like they were trying to vector one of their Pauk Class Frigates onto me but it had to come a long way from Havana.

Fifteen minutes passed and I was near enough to the beach to launch the skiff. It has a ninety horsepower Mercury and it can fly when It is at full throttle. The Cuban shore was dark and forbidding. I was desperately searching the beach for a visual.

Then she reestablished the connection. I relaxed and followed her thoughts. I would have never found her otherwise.

She had waded out past the initial surf so she was standing almost chest deep in water as I got next to her. I held my hand down and she grabbed it and literally vaulted herself into the back of the skiff without my stopping. It was a maneuver I had only seen the SEALs do.

It would have been a touching emotional reunion except the Cuban Navy was out there somewhere. And they were frantically looking for us. When we got back to the tug I didn't even bother to recover the skiff. I simply tied it to a cleat, scooted up the ladder to the pilot house and firewalled the throttles.

We were about thirty minutes from safety when I heard it off in the distance. It was an MI-24 Hind. With the exception of the American Apache, those are the most fearsome gunships in the world. And its GAU-19 Gatling would make mincemeat out of us if they found us.

It was searching to the southeast, which was the direction I had originally been headed. So I immediately changed course to run further northwest. It would take a little longer to get out of Cuban waters. But I was running away from flying death.

We only had ten minutes to go when there was a burst of chatter from the radio and the Hind swerved in our direction.

We had run out of time.

It was coming directly at us at 200 miles an hour. They had us on radar and were vectoring it in for the kill.

The Hind's attack attitude was so close to the dark sea that we lost visual on him. And he was moving far too fast to reacquire him.

I was bracing for the storm of 12.7 millimeter shells to start ripping into the pilot house. When he appeared abruptly overhead and swooped past like a bird of prey. But, there was no gunfire.

Then I sensed Maria next to me. She was in the crew's heads. And she was sending them a picture of an empty ocean. The Hind circled back far to the southwest and then flew inland. I could hear the pilot telling his control that we were a false positive because there was nothing out here.

She turned to me, her fiery amber cat eyes luminous with love and said, "I'm sorry about how close he had to get. But our cloaking powers have a limited range." Cloaking powers? What next???!!

I would like to say that we immediately rekindled our love on the pilot house floor. But we had just cleared Cuban territory and one of their frigates was still chasing us. Worse, the gauge was telling me that we were going to run out of fuel before we got too much further along.

We had been running at full throttle all the time we were in harm's way and my thirsty diesels had been gluttons. So I set a course for South Andros Island. It was the nearest location to where we were.

I could cadge a little diesel fuel on the east coast there. The irony did not escape me that Andros is one of the other places associated with Atlantis- like Bimini. I wondered if that was why Maria had been dropped where she was.

In the meantime, I had to interrupt the joy of our reunion while I pumped 55 gallons of smelly diesel fuel out of the spare drum and into the tug's tanks. That's the problem with life. Reality just keeps intruding on all of the romantic bits.