A PLAN GONE AWRY (an excerpt from “The Inept Adventures of Captain Stump”)
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007Chapter 57
A PLAN GONE AWRY (an excerpt from “The Inept Adventures of Captain Stump”)
The captain boarded the ship with that wry smile on his face that he would get when he thought he’d done something intelligent.
“I am a genius, Lester. A genius, I tell a you! Now, no one will ever be able to get the map from my possession! I, and only I, will be able to find the treasure. And no one will be able to wrest the location from me because the location is found somewhere that I and ONLY I have access to,” raved the captain laughing to himself like the crazed pirate he thought himself to be. “That treasure will be mine before you know it. And then I will be rich, and you’re pirate lives will be more pleasant because I will be happier. Hoha hoha HOY!”
Lester was all excited. He liked the idea of the captain being happy. He didn’t throw too many people overboard when he was already happy. The men would surely like this. “So Cap’n, where did you hide the map? I mean’s so you won’t lose it and such. After all every time you’ve got’n your hands on a prized piece of ‘formation you’ve lost it or forgotten where you put it. You’s don’t trust any of us wit’ it none either. So what’s the plan?”
Stump looked at Lester incredulously. How can a guy with such a refined and intelligent sounding name sound like such a buffoon? That had always baffled him. He had taken him on board to begin with because his name sounded like that of a smart man. His parents must have been looking at the wrong child when they named him at birth, he figured. More interesting to Stump, though was how he could ask a question that obviously belittled the intelligence of the captain himself with such excitement and joy like if he was expecting a lollipop!
“Lester, I’ve had you on board for a long time, right?” Lester nodded excitedly understanding that this must have meant that he hadn’t gotten thrown overboard yet. “You also seem to be a pretty,” here Stump hesitated to make sure he could get the word out, “trustworthy… pirate, I would say.” Lester blushed, something that Stump found terribly unpiratelike, but he was too giddy to let that bother him now. “I have decided to let you in on my little secret. I have destroyed the map!”
Lester clapped and hooted loudly, “You ARE a genius captain! You’ll never lose a map that no longer ‘xists! You shoulda thought of this much sooner. I knew I did the right thing answering that ad in the “Daily” for the ‘pprentice years ago. I’m proud to be your right hand guy, Cap”.
The Captain had never had the heart to tell Lester that he had never put out an ad for an apprentice. Lester, he found out later never did have a good sense of where he was and that must have led him right to Stump just minutes after he’d thrown his last first mate overboard knowing that everybody else was too afraid to be the next one. Fate. That’s what it was. What was not fate was the volume of Lester’s voice when he told the captain what a good idea it was to destroy the map. Two of the shipmates standing close by heard this and let out a loud, ‘WHAAAAT?”
Captain Stump stared Lester down like a mouse stares down a piece of limburger cheese… he knew that what was before him stunk, but he needed it to survive for the moment. Anyways, the ship was still docked and a man named Lester could surely swim to the pier from the side of a docked ship, in his estimation. He slowly turned away from his first mate and addressed those nearest him knowing that news of the destroyed map would spread quickly.
“Men, don’t be alarmed. The treasure is still at hand. I’ve never steered you wrong before (of course you’re all new to this crew so that would have been impossible) and I won’t steer you wrong now. I know the location of the treasure and that location will never leave my being. You see I’ve decided to put it in the only place where no one would be able to take it from me.”
With that, Stump pulled up his sleeves to show what appeared to be portions of a map tattooed on his arms. “I have separated the map into sections and painted them permanently on my being so as to not lose the map. I’ve also devised a way to know the exact order which I must follow to reach my destination. The map has been dispersed into 14 pieces throughout my body, and only I know the order to follow these steps! If I were to ever be captured it would be impossible for anyone to figure out how to reach the destination without my help, for there are at least 25 different orders in which the pieces can be placed and that would really start a crazy chase throughout the Bermuda Triangle now wouldn’t it? Haho Haho HAYY!” The captain laughed.
Lester again congratulated the Captain on his genius, “Wow Cap’n you’re really smart, isn’t you? I mean seventeen pieces! That means that there are 87,178,291,200 different orders they can place your limbs if you’d be chopped into itty bitty pieces and somebody wanted to find the treasure! Either that or they’d have to find the tattoo artist who painted you all up. But what are the chances of that?”
Stump looked at Lester with a blank stare, as did the crew members who were fortunate enough to be within earshot during Lester’s little soliloquy. “What was that you said?” asked Stump.
“Yeah, there are 87 billion different ways you can order 14 things, in this case limbs, I think, unless they’re elsewhere, but knowledge of factorials and permutations clearly sta…”
“NO, YOU MORON! THE OTHER THING!” interrupted Stump.
“Other thing, other th… oh about the itty bitty pieces? I mean if there ARE only 14 tattoed areas, then maybe itty bitty wouldn’t be too accr…”
“LESTER!!!! THE ARTIST?!?!?!”
“The artist? Never met him, but he does good work, from what i see there on your arms there. It must have taken him forever. If he were a dishonest guy he probably could have memorized the map as he tattooed it on you. But he being a landlubber an’ all, treasure probably don’t mean much ta ‘im.”
Stump looked at his men. They weren’t much smarter than Lester. He made sure of that. But even they seemed to be thinking the same thing he was. They needed to go pay a little visit to a certain tattoo artist. Stump cut off their thinking. “Men, we have a tattoo artist to find and make artwork of! Now, give me a second as I try to find out how to get back to his shop.”
Stump wasn’t a religious man, but suddenly he found himself praying that the tattoo artist hadn’t left yet… so he could kill him.
TO BE CONTINUED…
