Orphan Pirates of the Spanish Main Read Online Free Page A

sits on Sunday mornings and watches his flock pass by, imagining them feeling guilty for silencing the truth and banishing the messenger. That Unitarian guilt can be some nasty stuff. It comes at you from all directions, and no ritual can resolve it. His pug Clyde’s in my lap. I’m rubbing his belly, and he’s wiggling and snorting.
    Bill’s glad to take care of Myrna and Avatar but is eager to discuss other matters. We haven’t had a chance to talk since Katyana and I got married.
    â€œWhat’s it like?” he asks.
    â€œWonderful,” I say.
    â€œI can imagine. She is so fucking hot.”
    It’s obvious we’re not talking about the same thing. “She is that, but we’re not fucking.”
    â€œYou’re kidding. Why not?”
    â€œFor starters, I can’t.”
    â€œWhat do you mean you can’t?”
    â€œCan’t. Dick no work. Since the prostate surgery. The surgeon says it should, but it don’t.”
    â€œWhat about drugs?”
    â€œRead the possible side effects sometime. I can verify those and more, but what they didn’t do was stiffen my dick. I was seeing blue and turning red. I felt like a cartoon character. All for an increased risk of heart attack. One’s enough for me, thanks. Trust me. There’s worse things than a limp dick.”
    â€œI had no idea.”
    â€œIt doesn’t come up in casual conversation. Besides, it makes people uncomfortable.”
    Bill pauses to think about this, about how he does indeed feel uncomfortable. “So I don’t understand. Why did you marry her? You figure you’ve married so many times, what’s one more?”
    â€œI married her for the same reason I have always married. I love her.”
    â€œWhy on Earth did she marry you?”
    â€œShe wanted Dylan to have a father. I claimed paternity. Dylan’s legally my son. By marrying we seal the deal legally for him, even if we divorce later.”
    â€œYou’re nuts. Why would you do a thing like that for her? You hardly know her. She’s crazy on top of that.”
    â€œAnd you’re not? C’mon Bill. We connected. She saved my life. I was headed for the abyss, and she turned me around. It’s a small thing, to make their lives easier. They’ll have a place to live and a tidy sum when I’m gone.”
    â€œYou make it sound like it’s next week.”
    â€œIt’s always next week, next minute. You have to live now. You can’t wait around until you’re a better person to do the right thing. Katyana told me you used to hit on her. Would you fuck her if you could?”
    His eyes grow huge at the thought. “In a heartbeat.”
    â€œBut you wouldn’t take her in, marry her, help raise her kid?”
    He makes a face. Am I nuts? “Who’s the real father?”
    â€œA rock star who denies paternity, her ex, who would put up a stink if she pressed it. He doesn’t want to complicate his assets and piss off his current girlfriend with a son. I have very simple assets and no girlfriends, and I rather like having a son.”
    â€œYou change diapers?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œGod, I hated that.” Bill and his thirty-something son are what he calls “estranged.” He always makes it sound like the grinding wheels of fate have yielded this sad result, symbolized by the middle finger his son raised to him in ninth grade, calling him a hypocrite and his church “stupid.” Sounds more like adolescence and a pompous dad to me, but I’ve never had a son. It was in his quest to understand his failed relationship with his son, as he calls it, that Bill first discovered his alien origins.
    So the son never heard the sermons that got his dad bounced from the pulpit. I wonder what son would think of father now, a sad faraway look in his eye that might be for his son, for his flock, or it might be the blanket loss of dementia,