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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion Nov/Dec 2012 - Key West, FL

Chapter 6th: Of Saturday morning, Featuring breakfast with madPete
Photo: Captain Jim
madPete in a rare serious shot (which sounds like a cheesy morning TV show); Yet another meeting that turned out to be just what the surgeon ordered; A bit of the Mercury Trial; Some post trial analysis; Why your author gave Mae some of his dirty linen; Stories from the world of Deadeye; Heading over to the docks to spend the battle on the Sarah; Of Zatara De LaVega and her many skills and Of Frank, the reluctant pirate.

madPete called, suggesting we go out for breakkies. Who am I to turn down such an opportunity? Breakfast, for the record was fine. madPete and I went to Croissants de France although neither of us had a croissant. We talked of sailing ships, and sealing wax and cabbages and kings and then went our separate ways. I rented a bike because I tore the absolute hell out of my feet yesterday walking on the coral. (My feeeet!) Thank God I had brought my rope sandals with me – they saw me through the rest of the weekend all the way until I left the island on Wednesday. I had almost left them behind, thinking they would not be very good on the coral chunks that crop up everywhere you walk around the fort, but I am happy to report they work quite well, coral or no.

When I arrived in camp today and noticed there was yet another meeting taking place. (There are a lot of meetings this year.) I wanted to talk with either Scarlett Jai or Lily Alexander about getting on the Danger! Charters
Photo: Mission
Scarlett Jai Explains Something Important at the Ship Meeting on Saturday boat with Stynky. Since Scarlett was running the meeting, I decided to listen in and wait for an opportune moment to be obnoxious and interrupt. As I stopped thinking about which moment that would be and started listening to the meeting discussion, I realized that this was the Boat Planning Meeting! If it were not for blind luck and other people's willingness to make allowances for me, I don't think I'd ever get to do anything. The say God protects fools and little children and I am equal parts of both, so I guess I just get lucky this way.

Scarlett was explaining the rules and duties of the pirates on the ship and... oh, look! Something shiny! I wandered around the meeting and took several pictures of those paying serious-minded attention to Scarlett. So I wouldn't forget, I had first expressed my preference for being on Stynky's ship during the wrong part of the meeting. (Scarlett was talking about working with the tourists and helping to recruit people for the trip while on land, I believe.) As soon as the part about boat assignment came up, she said “We all know Mission wants to go on the Sarah, now who wants to be on the Jolly Rover II?” With that, I decided to go wander about since I had a berth.

Photo: Mission Scarlett Addresses Her Favorite Ship's Crews

Photo: Mission Some are More Favorite Than Others

Photo: Mission Tury and Gwen Listen Closely

I went over to the sally port where the dance had taken place last night and caught the tail end of the Tryal of the Mercury crew. Now I didn't actually see the trial. In fact, if I'd have been there, I would have been amongst the accused because I am technically a crew
Photo: Mission
My Remote Correspondent at the Trial Along with
Wendy, Brig, Lex & Keira member of the Mercury. But your ship's surgeon is a lazy so-and-so who decided to have breakfast and then return to his condo to upload more of the text version of this Journal before showing up at the fort. The point being, I have no idea what happened at the trial, except for the very end. So I asked my editrix and now remote correspondent Mae to fill me in on the details since she was there the whole time.

"The audience was composed of mostly curious members of other crewes. The accused were shackled, led in by Jack Roberts. The judging panel included Captain Sterling and Dorian Lasseter, with Israel Cross playing the part of witness. William Red Wake and Iron Jon were accused of sundry acts of privacy, details of which Roberts related to the crowd. The charge which drew the most giggles was that of escape from prison via the impersonation of a clergyman. The accused were acquitted on terms of no concrete evidence of their crimes, and warned to stay clear of the law."

That was pretty clear and straightforward, isn't it? Of course, this is no way to tell something like this, so it is fortunate that I am here to fill in with the color commentary. Let's read through it again, with added color.

The audience was composed of mostly curious members of other crewes. The accused were shackled, led in by Jack Roberts.

Photo: madPete
The Accused Protesting their Innocence As they were leaving, William Red Wake said to Jack, "JUDAS! You sold my HIDE! You want to know who's son you are? You don't, I do, everybody does... you're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you!"
Jack is made of stern stuff and he ignored the insult.
The judging panel included Captain Sterling and Dorian Lasseter, with Israel Cross playing the part of witness. William Red Wake and Iron Jon were accused of sundry acts of privacy, details of which Roberts related to the crowd.
They included "the crimes of murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and post offices, the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting their wives and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money..."

Iron Jon interrupted at this point, protesting, "I'm an honest farmer!"
To which Dorian Lassiter replied, " Cut it out. Cut it out! So you're an honest farmer, recognize this man?"
Here he produced a wanted poster.
"Me?"
"Yeah, it's you!"
"Hey, who said so, huh? You can't even read! Roll it up, roll it up! I'll give you a good idea where you can put it!"
There was an uproar, which Captain Sterling quieted with a piercing glare.

Photo: Mission
The Judges Consider the Mercury Pirates and their Witness Jack Roberts looked at Captain Sterling, who said, "Proceed."
"*Ahem*" ...impersonating an officer of the Spanish Royal Navy, impersonating a cleric of the Church of England, sailing under false colors, arson, kidnapping, looting, poaching, brigandage, pilfering, depravity, depredation, and general lawlessness."

The charge which drew the most giggles was that of escape from prison via the impersonation of a clergyman.

In their defense, not-Captain Red Wake said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female guests - we did. But you can't hold a whole pirate crew responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole pirating system? And if the pirating system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our institutions in general? I put it to you, John - isn't this an indictment of our entire society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the Spanish Main!"

Photo: madPete
Post Trial Analysis and Revelations Well, who could answer that? The accused were acquitted on terms of no concrete evidence of their crimes, and warned to stay clear of the law.

See how much more exciting it is with color commentary? (A bit less factual, but definitely more exciting.) You may wonder at how I can do this without having been there. It's a gift, instilled in me by sitting for more hours than I'd care to publicly admit, watching my favorite DVDs.

Everyone dispersed after that and hung around outside discussing the finer points of the trial. It was here that I learned from Captain Sterling that if I had shown up in time, I would have been the only one found guilty. See what I mean about fools and little children? (The joke here being that the surgeon was usually found not guilty because he was considered a pressed man, forced to serve the pirates against his will. I personally do not really see what would be funny about this joke.)

Speaking of Mae, since she was there and I knew I'd be wandering off to go sailing soon, I pulled several dirty shirts out of my bag for her to clean.
Photo: Mission
Lex, Keira and Mae with Mission's Shirts (Yeah, I know, all you women are thinking, 'Isn't that just like a guy?') However, this was not entirely untoward on my part as Mae’s role this year is as a laundress. She had been cleaning the same two care-worn rags over and over again, and she told me that she was hoping some people would bring her dirty clothes to wash for them. (Why can’t I find a woman like that? And also one who likes to help me make undead props ...explore the grossest possible aspects of 17th century surgery ...getting caught in rain ...is not into health food ...but is into champagne. While I'm at it, I wish I had a pony, too.)  

I did hope she wouldn't use too much starch, provided they had found the Great Starch Mines of Africa by the early 18th century, of course. Actually, Mae did explain the process to me, almost none of which I remembered. Fortunately, she emailed me the recipe for the 'detergent': "Gravel on the bottom, then pine straw. Ash goes on top of that, and water is poured over the top to filter the ash into the tub."

She put some of this into the bucket of water and then worked the cloth in the bucket to clean it. Then she would take it out of the bucket and spank it with a wood paddle as punishment for getting dirty in the first place.

Ha ha. Just kidding! No clothing was harmed in the making of this Journal! Spanking is done to loosen the weave of the cloth so that it releases the dirt more readily. Rinse and repeat. Then the clothing is hung on a line to dry. When I got my shirts back, the actually smelled better than when I wash them in my machine at home.

Photo: Mission Mae Explaining Soap

Photo: Caribbean Pearl Working the Cloth

Photo: Mission Loosening the Weave

Photo: Mission Hanging Mission's Blue Shirt

Photo: Mission
Frank Guesses 8 Pieces of Wood Chucked I wandered back over to the meeting (which was still going on) just in time to learn that we had been broken into groups to brainstorm just how much lumber a Maromota monax (or whistle-pig – no seriously!, also known as a ‘woodchuck’) could throw, toss or 'chuck' if he was so capable of ‘chucking’ such wood. Ha ha! No, we were actually trying to figure out how to get all the crew members over to our assigned ship. This proved to be second in difficulty only to determining what variety of pizza toppings will make a large group of people all happy at the same time.

Since I had rented a bike, I volunteered to just ride myself over to the Sarah. Frank was also riding his bike (being a local he naturally had a bike) and I thought about asking him if he wanted to ride over with me, but by the time I was done goofing around, he had already left. (Frank seemed sort of like a reluctant pirate to me.) I left the other people in our group - Stynky, 'Handsome' Devlin, Captain Henry Belanger and Zatara De LaVega to figure their plans out. I went over to chat with Deadeye, he who restored Becky's clothing. (Huzzah!)

Photo: Mission
Deadeye's Boots Deadeye is always a font of curious stories that fit well in this Journal, so I just listened to him for a bit to gather info. For example, someone was asking if the boots he was wearing were the ones he got in 2008. He explained that he had gotten those boot several years before that from his jousting troop. (Of course he belongs to a jousting troop!)

None of the rest of troop could fit their calves into the boots, so he was given them - and then made fun of for years afterwards because
Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Deadeye Salutes You! t he had such skinny calves. (Those jousting troops and their wild sense of humor, eh? (No, I don't get it either.)) Deadeye went on to explain that when he first joined the troop, he didn't know how to fall off a horse. Then he corrected himself. "Falling off wasn't a problem, it was learning to land."

I also learned that Deadeye has a son who is going to be a chaplain in the Marines. "Think about that - it's the toughest job in the unit. You're the only guy who doesn't get a gun when landing on a beach." (Admittedly, I had never thought of that.) His son had come to visit him so Deadeye took him on a tour of the fort. Deadeye said that his son had asked him to tell him everything about the fort, so they spent 7 hours touring the place. That's a lot to learn about the fort! After they finished, his son repeated it back to him, which drew a group of interested tourists. Hearing the fort history in such rich detail, they wanted Deadeye’s son to show them the stuff he was describing, so they led several tours through the fort, spending the whole day there.

Photo: Mission
Two Key West HS Lobsterback Students I wandered around the fort a bit more that morning, taking photos. I thought I'd share a few here before we leave for the boat and adventures at sea. The picture at left is of two of the local Key West high school students who had volunteered to help out at the battle. It led to a discussion on Pirate Surgeon's Facebook Fan Page amongst several students. This led me to try and imagine what it must be like going to high school in a place like Key West.

Photo: Mission
Greg Hudson Serenades Flamingo Slippers "Want to go to the football game on Saturday?"
"Nah, I'm going to go shoot cannons at pirates at the Fort."

Iron Jon's girlfriend Paula (a fellow Mercury crew member) showed up with her mom on Saturday. I only talked with them briefly, but since her mom was in town and Iron Jon's mom happened to be there the week following as well, Iron Jon and Paula got married.

I ran into Denice and Calamity Grace while walking to my bike. (They can be seen below right in a badly focused photo I took.) These are two of the women in Deadeye's mysterious coterie. In the week following the event, Denice sort of recruited Rachel into the group by inviting her to something at Deadeye's place called 'Fight Night.' A fight night club?

Photo: Mission Paula and Her Mom Working the Mercury Tent

Photo: Mission Charlie's Ankles - Sandi, Wendy & Diosa

Photo: Mission Denice & Calamity Grace

---

Photo: Dianne Mueller
Jaunty Mission on his Pirate Scooter Rentals Bike (They Sponsor the Event) Our group began to filter out of the tent and I decided it must be time to go to the boat. On my way out of the fort, I ran into Captain Henry Belanger and Zatara De LaVega who were walking over to the Danger! Charters boat dock. (I didn't literally run into them, you understand. That would hurt.) They hooted at me and said I was going to get there too soon. I answered that I was going to stop by my condo to pick something up on the way, so probably not.

But, of course, my condo stop didn't take too long because I was eager to get down there and see what was going on. I ran into them again on Simonton Street, causing them to holler at me again. So I doubled back and walked my bike which gave me the opportunity to talk with them.

They are both involved with the Beaufort Pirate Invasion. Zatara told me she was in charge of event fund raising. Color me impressed. Volunteer event fund raising
Photo: Don Dunbar
Captain Henry Belanger and Zatara De LaVega at the Fort is no easy task. She was apparently quite good at it, raising thousands of dollars for this year's event. She was actually too good, because the event coordinator has since told her that she is to do nothing else for the next one but fund raise.

In other news, Captain Belanger and Zatara hung around the Keys for a week or so after the event when he decided to pop the question. First Reggie and Krystian, then Iron Jon and Paula, then DB Couper and Anna Maria (sort of... we'll get to that) and now Henry and Zatara. This was a weekend that led to many people becoming betrothed. It must be something in the water.

Arriving at the Key West Custom house, behind which was the Danger! Charters World headquarters, I split off to park and lock my bike because the boardwalk that led to the Danger! Charter World Headquarters had serious-looking signs explaining that bikes were strictly prohibited there. So I found an inconveniently located bike rack and chained the bike to it.

Once on the boardwalk (stopping only briefly to purchase a scoop of Key Lime Ice Cream), I spotted Zatara, Henry and Frank in front of the Danger! Charters world headquarters, aka the ‘tiny shed.’ (Well, I have been assuming it is their world headquarters. If it isn't, it should be.) I was immediately struck by something sitting directly across from the shed. You have no doubt already seen this coming. There, right in front of Danger! Charters HQ was the largest bike rack I have ever seen. Many times larger than the Danger! Charters Headquarters, in fact. No bikes on the boardwalk, my eye!

Photo: Mission The Pirate Bike on the Far Away Bike Rack

Photo: Mission The Multitude of Bikes Across the Sidewalk

Photo: Mission Danger! Charters HQ

Our job at the boat dock was to encourage the tourists passing on the boardwalk to take the Danger!
Photo: Mission's Camera
Mission and Zatara Lawn Gnoming Pirate! Cruise with us. Zatara was a natural at this. She could call out to people in that carnival barker sort of way that demands your attention.

She also did this thing where she would just stand there in the middle of the sidewalk and point at the little Danger! Charters World Headquarters shack. People would look at her, look a little puzzled then look at the D! C World HQ and continue looking a bit puzzled. Sometimes she’d yell out, "Made you look!" and laugh. She explained to me that she had been in charge of bringing people into a booth at several events and that the pointing thing was her 'Classic Yard Gnome Ploy.' (She also mentioned that she had had a that the looked like a yard gnome's which she wore while doing this at Ren-Faires.) Our tourist gathering efforts paled in comparison to Zatara’s, so the rest of us kind of milled about, looking a bit sheepish.

Photo: Don Dunbar
Frank Trying to Convince a Tourist Frank had taken it upon himself to chat up... er... chat with all the attractive female tourists in an effort to get them to sail with him us. He was actually a fairly quiet sort of person, so I decided to learn about him.
Photo: Mission
Frank at Sea Quiet people often have such interesting stories to tell, if only you can get them to tell them. I asked him where he lived. Key West. He had come to Key West six weeks ago from New York City because "I fell in love." When he got here, however, the girl gave him the cold shoulder. So he started figuring out what to do with his life now that he was here.

Frank is a writer, copy-editor and English tutor. He had just written "a frank article on what it's like for a writer/editor to be newly arrived in Key West," which they published on the front page of Solares Hill. He explained that he went from week-to-week deciding whether he would stay here or not. "I live on peanut butter and coffee - it's kind of like being in grad school again." When I asked him how long he'd been reenacting, he laughed and said, “You're kidding, right? About 18 hours. I just threw this outfit together when Jai asked me if I could help out."

See? Interesting.

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