| My mother bore me on Tortuga Island, notorious West Indian pirate haven, in the year 1670, and named me Molly. She kept us in silver by playing doxie to the rogues and rovers who sojourned there. |
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Even as a small lass I often trailed her into the unpaved street, hanging well behind, knowing that if she saw me she would send me home. Smoke rose from cook fires, carrying odors exotic, and lewd shanteys spilled from the doors of the taverns as I walked through the dust and the drunken crowds. Rowdies waved pistols, cracking off shots, and revelers set off hissing fizgigs made from moist black powder. Other children, progeny of whores, loitered about; fruit vendors speiled frightning tales of scurvy to the sailors; boatwrights sawed, hammered, scraped, shaved, and sneezed at dense Carribian hardwood. |
| Keepers of pierside taverns knew and welcomed mother, for she oiled their palms liberally. Other wenches resigned themselves to servitude under these same owners of lecherous dens, but mother was a piranha none dared cross. | Feral and robust, she rigged herself out menacingly for her hunts: a snake, the bronze handle of a dirk, nosed its way up between her breasts, and two tiny pistols with mother-of-pearl handles nestled in her silken waist sash, flint tipped hammers cocked and set to give spark. (She limped a bit from having winged her own ankle; but she had also fired both pistols, with deadly effect, into roudy customers who had thought to misuse her.) |
Copyright © Michael B.Stevens, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005. All rights reserved. Format modified Aug. 2005