Crumbles and Gumbles

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With his left eye clamped on the brass monocular and his right eye splashed with sea salts, Christopher Columbus felt the sting of a long, drawn-out mistake.  Seven months had it been already?  Eight?  He had etched a tally on the wooden plank above his bedpost with a rusted nail, but sickness fell quickly upon him and loosened his grip on the days.  Having recently recuperated from his ailment, he did not know if he had been buried beneath his bed quilt for a moment or a fortnight or more.

Gabriella, his forbidden love from the Italian shore, draped herself on his weary shoulders, placing the entire weight of her being on top his still-weak shoulders.

“Do you hear him?”

The sound of the swelling waters boiled in his ears.  “I only hear the distance and the moans of the ship,” he said.

Gabriella chewed her gum next to his face.  “Leif’s been talking shit about you for like, two fortnights now.”

Christopher lowered his monocular.  “He has caught up with us?”

“Yeah, Crumbles,” she cooed, poking the tip of his nose.  “When you were sick he caught up.”

“Please refer to me by my proper name.”

“He doesn’t like Crumbles?” shouted a deckhand from the prow.

Gabriella pressed herself closer to him.  “I thought it was cute.  You can be Crumbles and I’ll be Gumbles.  Crumbles-short for Christopher and Gumbles-short for Gabriella.  See?  It’s cute.”

“I thought of it!” The deckhand shouted.

“Pshh …” snorted Gabriella.  Then yelling through Christopher’s already aching head, “You wish you thought of it, Dino!”

“You’re full of it!  It was my idea!” Dino yelled back.

“You only thought of calling him Crumbles!  I’m the one who came up with Gumbles!”

“Crumbles was the start!  I started it!”

“And I finished it, and it’s only the finishers that count!”  Gabriella turned her attention to Christopher.  “Isn’t that right, Crumbles?  Only the finishers count?”

A blistering pain shot through Christopher’s forehead.  He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into his temples, which only made the sensation worse.  Opening his eyes, Gabriella, still hanging from his neck, blew a pink bubble inches from his face until it popped and stuck to his cheek.

The pain in his forehead sharpened.

On a particularly cold January’s day, the town of Genoa all crowded tightly inside the worn-stone chapel, some for salvation, others for heat.  Christopher sought guidance.

In the pew before him sat Leif Ericson-a man who had to duck to enter most buildings and ate uncooked meat.  Exotic furs of slain creatures draped his hulking, red haired body and horns, strong like a ram’s but branching like tree limbs, sprouted from either side of his steel helmet.  He treated handshakes as competitions.

Leif was a friend of Christopher’s father.  The two were legendary crusaders back in the day, back before Leif slaughtered a wealthy Persian and Christopher’s father wed his grieving daughter.  While he settled down in Genoa and started a family, Leif disappeared across the Atlantic.  “Probably burning exotic cottages filled with peasants,” his father would say, wistfully.

And now, after years of absence, Leif was back, professing he discovered a New World across the Atlantic.  All of Italy buzzed with the possibilities of riches and fertile lands just over the horizon.

“There are forests of precious metals.  The tree trunks are stuffed with gold and the leaves coated in silver.”

“The sun stays out all year and it never snows an inch.”

“Fertile crops grow over your head.  You can get lost in them!”

Not all believed.  Some said that a New World did not exist, that a westbound ship would find nothing but the wrong side of Asia.

Leif wanted to go back.  Christopher’s father refused to accompany him, explaining that his youthful years of plunder were behind him.  So Leif targeted the next best sailor he knew: Christopher.  Everyone in the crowded chapel lowered their heads in prayer, except Leif; he turned and gave Christopher a toothy smile and a big thumbs up.

“Yár knöw yár’d be eh græt sælor, Chröistofer,” Leif whispered between the shivering worshippers and the filtered stained-glass light.  “And yár’d get first dibs on whootev’r yöo find.  Yár cood snáp yár öwn neck with the amoont of guld yár be uh wearin’ ‘roond it.”

Christopher lowered his head more and pretended not to hear.  He remained unconvinced of this New World fairytale.  Did the peoples of Europe truly need another one to fill with conceited royalties and helpless peasants?  The evidence for it came from nothing more than a half-crazed Norsemen, and he wasn’t willing to risk drowning in a merciless ocean just for the rantings of a Scandinavian lunatic.  Plus, his only experience sailing came from the stories his father would tell of his “better years,” always told with cursory glances at his mother.

After mass, Christopher slipped into the courtyard to avoid giving Leif his answer.  With his eyes on his scurrying feet, he walked blindly into a passing nun.

“I apologize for my inconsiderate haste, sister.  I should watch where I am going.”

“Don’t sweat it,” said the nun, punching him in the shoulder.

Christopher, unaccustomed to the colloquial gesture, rubbed his sore arm in bewilderment.  “You hit me?”

“Eye for an eye, bump for a bump.  Consider us even.”  Her smile reminded him of a distant memory clouded in mist.  Disappearing behind the chapel doors, she left behind a quiet scent of funeral roses.

Christopher spent the bulk of his day along the Mediterranean docks, watching the ships come and go, come and go, the men singing songs of women and storms and remorse.

During the evening meal, the Columbus’s gathered around the table and pestered Christopher about accepting the position as Leif’s first-mate.

“Leif is giving you a wonderful opportunity,” said his mother.  “You could bring this family no more honor than sailing for Italy.  You’d be good at it, too.  You’ve got your father’s good looks, you know.”  As she spoke, she tapped her silverware on her plate, unconsciously emphasizing every prickly syllable.

“What’s the boy need with my good looks out on the sea?” asked his father, letting his cheap wine dribble down the stretched collar of his shirt.  “There aren’t mermaids out there he’s going to be wooing.”

Christopher’s mind was elsewhere, outside of the conversation, floating down the street and into the chapel.  That nun.  Her smile.  He had seen it before.  But where?

“I’m sure there are plenty of nice girls in the New World,” said his mother.

“This isn’t about getting a date, Naida.  This is about conquest.  If there’s anything he’ll be needing out there, it’ll be my strength to destroy whatever savages he comes across.  One wrong move and wham!” he slammed the table with his fist.

“Don’t you care about our boy’s pretty face?  He’ll need a pretty face when the King celebrates his return and parades him around the country.”

“Don’t call our boy pretty.”

“You don’t think he’s pretty?”

“I said don’t call him that!  Cause you’re calling me pretty when you say he’s got my pretty face!”

“I think you’re pretty, too, Donatello,” said the mother.

“I’m warning you, Naida,” the father said lifting his knife.  “Don’t call me pretty.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a man being pretty.”

“There’s everything wrong with a man being pretty!”

“Sheesh, Donatello, will you lower your voice?”

“I will not lower my voice and here are three reasons why!  One!-”

Christopher left the house before his father listed, yet again, the three reasons why he would not lower his voice.  Anyway, he had consented to help Leif load the ship for departure as a means of buying himself time.  Outside in the cold and familiar night, he found Leif near the docks, carrying several barrels in the crook of each arm.

“Chröistofer!” Leif exclaimed, letting the barrels smack against the hard earth.  “So harve yár mæd uh disishoon yet, yár peppermoont glubber?  Don’t yár keep me ön soospense mooch longer; yár knöw me hært cán’t táke it.”

“I still have not,” he said.

“Yár knöw whoot me göt in these here bárrels?”  Leif groaned trying to lift them all off the ground at once.  Christopher helped as best he could.  Liquid sloshed inside the containers.

“Thár fool öf ále!”  Leif grinned.  “Ánd this here is oonly uh bit öf the stásh.  Oot ön the Ántlæntic, uh mán cán get as slöp-dood droonk ás he woonts and nöbood around cán tell to ‘em to stoop.  I’ve göt doozens öf these cráwnch-babies álruddy in the ship’s hull.  Whát hápp’ns tö them is solely oonder the örders of the first-mæt, no questions ársked.”

Christopher never drank, but his father did.  After coming home from the fields depressed, he’d take a swig of the stuff until he was too blind to see his own woes, then fall over onto the floor and smile at the ceiling.  At what was he smiling?  Christopher never knew.  At least, for the moment his father found contentment in his life, and knowing his father to have happiness allowed Christopher to have happiness.  Though the contentment was short lived, and soon his father went back to feeling the drudgery of his existence and expelled the happiness from his mouth into an odorous mess in the kitchen for his mother to clean.

“If I only desired cyclical and predictable activities, then you would find me in the fields gawking at each new moon.”

Not exactly knowing what Christopher meant by his strange comment, Leif gave a throaty laugh and said, “When yár doon with the moon, stoop by me hoose ánd let’s fárj a dæl.  The Noo Wárld isn’t göin’ to discöver i’self!”

On his way home, with his arms sore from labor, Christopher passed by the candlelit window of the convent.  Curious, he crept up to the glass-the women inside skittered about in their gowns, readying themselves for bed.  But where was the girl from before?  The one with the smile he had known so well despite not knowing it at all?  He pressed his nose to the frosted glass, surveying with no result.

A sturdy kick bruised him along the lower ranks of his spine, crushing his nose into the glass.  He fell to his side in agony as a silhouetted figure stood over him.

“This whole town’s full of perverts.”  She spat on his face.

Between gasps of lost breathe, Christopher said, “I am no … pervert by any means … of the word.”

“I mean, I’ve seen perverts before, preying on married women and kids.  But nuns?  That’s low.  That’s lower than low.  You’re one rock-bottom pervert.”  Her scolding seemed not as disgusted as it did teasing, as if this were a game to her.

“Please, let me explain.”  He tried to stand, but the woman forced him down with her surprisingly strong foot.

“No need to explain; I already got it all.  You’re some pervert kid who grew up in a family of perverts-father a pervert, mother a pervert, kid brother and kid sister, both perverts.  Probably non-Christian, too.  You Pagan?  Dancing around fires, sacrificing virgins.  That’s what this is about, isn’t it?  You need some human sacrifice to your Pagan gods?  So Mr. and Mrs. Pervert sent Pervert junior to pluck a fresh one off the tree.”

“I am no participant in perversions or demons.”  Throwing the foot off of him, he struggled to his feet.  “My name is Christopher of the Columbus family and I demand that you let me explain myself!”

“Wait a second …”  The acid in the girl’s voice evaporated.  “You’re that boy from earlier today.  The one who doesn’t watch where he’s going.”

And she, Christopher discerned from the visibility allotted by the window, was the girl whom he searched.  A smile crept on her delicate face, instilling in him a desire to touch her lips.

“You’re lucky it’s my turn to take out the garbage,” she said, showing off the plastic bag in her hands.  “If one of my sisters found you skulking?  Boom! Right in the nuts.  No mercy.  You’re lucky I just aim for the spine.”

“Yes.  Lucky.”  He rubbed the throbbing spot on his lower back.

“What are you doing here, anyway?  Besides just being creepy.”

Christopher couldn’t so casually reveal his puzzling memory in front of her.  Not so abruptly.  So he said, “Leif wishes for me to join him and sail to the New World.”

“Sounds more fun than the convent.”  She began to walk away with her trash bag dragging behind her.

He reached out his hand.  “Wait.”  She waited.  “I wish for you to accompany me.”

Her laugh was effortless, like honey dripping down the back of his throat.

“Can’t.  I get sea-sick.”

The wheels of Christopher’s mind never stopped spinning, a restlessness he prided himself on, but for the following weeks, the wheels froze as if trapped in amber.  His mind became stuck in thoughts and images of the girl in the convent, of the two brief encounters, of how he still could not solve the origins of the memory from whence she came.  He had not seen her around Genoa before-nuns rarely strayed from their holy grounds and Christopher rarely strayed close to them.  Maybe he met her in another town.  Another country.  Another life.

But she-Christopher snorted bitterly, he did not even know her name-she had already committed her life to the lord.  She was not to become his life’s counterpart, the inhabitant of that empty spot reserved for his heart’s infatuation.  Before the relationship had a chance to be seeded in the earth, its roots had already been trampled by the lord’s steeds.

So he drank.  He poached the stash of cheap wine belonging to his drunkard of a father and drowned himself in its sour embrace.  When his father came in through the door, Christopher expected a beating for encroaching on what did not belong to him.

Instead, he got a sweaty, approving slap on the back and a “Pour me one, kiddo.”

Together, Christopher and his father grew dizzier and happier, taking turns pouring and glugging and choking back urges to expel the contents of their stomachs.  “Stay deh ‘ell down,” his father yelled at his own protruding belly.  He told Christopher of his years as a sailor, of the exotic beaches he traversed, of the beautiful women he stabbed to death, of the majestic feats of architecture and culture that he watched burn to the ground.  Losing their vision together, falling onto the floor together, getting judgmental stares from the mother together-it was the first bonding moment Christopher ever had with his father.

The second bonding moment came a few hours later when they, together, puked in the kitchen.

It seemed that not only his smelly innards covered the floor but also his jovial mood, soaking into the floorboards and being mopped up by the frustrated yet unsurprised mother.  The depression of before, with an added sore stomach and sensitivity to light, came back in a miserable return.  He looked to his father; an hour ago they treated each other as old friends, but now his father felt distant.

“Naida,” the father moaned.  “Close the window shades.  The sun’s killing me.”

“The sun’s almost set, dear.”

“Close the shades.”

“You knew this was going to happen,” she mocked.  “Like it happened yesterday and the day before that.  And like it will happen tomorrow.”

“Naida!  Close the damn shades!”

Christopher could not tell if it was the yelling or the vengeful drink that sickened him.  He stood up to leave, but a ray from the setting sun pierced his retina like a lemon-soaked dagger.  Unable to move or to think straight, he fell asleep on the floor.

When Christopher awoke, Leif and his father were standing over him, laughing and smacking each other on the back.

“… because of you, Christopher,” said his father.

“Tö Chröistofer!  Whöt a splush-coiled sægale öf uh mán he is!”

He rubbed his hungover eyes.  “What is this revelry?”

“I thought I was over it,” said his father.  “My adventures, my youth.  Look at me, an old man who gets drunk alone.  But you Christopher-I forgot how great it feels to drink together.  With other men!”  Leif cheered.  “With comrades!”  Leif cheered.  “With the sun beating down and the waves crashing over the deck and the future open to possibility!”

“With wömen yár stæl froom thár fáthers!”

They cheered and laughed.

“Don’t worry, son.  You can stay in Genoa with your mother.  I’ll be sure to bring you some souvenirs from the New World.”

“Wömen soo-vuh-nærs,” added Leif.  “Woink woink!”

Christopher, in horror of the consequence of his indecision, fled into the wind-tossed evening, but not before packing several pairs of clothes inside of his balled-up bed quilt.  He marched across Genoa, summoned the nun from her convent, and explained his intent to sail to the New World with her.

“You’re a crazy person.  You know that right?  That you’re crazy?”

“My sanity is as solid and rational as it has always been,” said Christopher.

“Then you’re drunk.  Or stupid.  Maybe both.  Because if you think lurking around the convent will not get all of Genoa suspicious, then you must be drunk or stupid.  There’s already people talking-”

“Let them talk.  Their idle chatter will mean nothing once we are long gone across the ocean.”

“We aren’t going across the ocean!”

“And why not?”

“Because.”

“That is not an argument.  That is denial for denial’s sake.”

“Well, give me a second to think of an argument against.  God, you just kind of threw this on me all of the sudden.”  She folded her arms as the winds caused her gown to flutter around her feet like white-foamed waves breaking on the shore.  And the more she thought, the more wet her eyes grew and the deeper her cheeks reddened.

“Admit that you have no reason to deny my proposal.  Admit that you hold contempt for this familiar and tasteless land, that adventure floods your heart with excitement.  And the longer you hesitate, the more I know these to be truths.  So take my hand and let us flea this awful place.”  With this, Christopher passionately took her hand, which she slapped away.

“I haven’t packed or anything,” she said.

“I will help gather your possessions.”

“You realize I’m a nun, so you don’t have a shot at me.”

“I have no intention of disrespecting you or the lord.”

“Ugh, I’m going to feel like shit being on a boat for so long.”

“Nothing that cannot be cured with experience and time.”

Christopher took again her hand in his, though this time she did not fight back.  Just then, the door to the convent opened and a biblically-older sister approached in shock.

“Sister Gabriella!  Are thou whoring thyself out to strangers?”

Gabriella.  So that was her name, that phonetic blessing that gently held and defined her entire being, like the sturdy cocoon withholding the secrets of a delicate insect.

“Don’t call me a whore, Sister Angelica.”  She frowned.

“I’ve seen you with this boy before.  Whores are not allowed in a house of the lord.  Your carnal sins will be dealt with upon the morning. Until then, get inside!”

Gabriella shook her head in disbelief at the insults slung at her.  “You know what, Sister Angelica?  I quit!  Because Christopher here is going to take me to the New World and we’re going to have a hell of a better time than in this boring dump.”  She turned to Christopher, using a polite tone merely as a weapon against Sister Angelica, and said, “If you would be so kind, Christopher, as to help me gather my things?”  They quickly bundled up Gabriella’s clothes inside Christopher’s quilt as Sister Angelica spouted off bible quotes concerning the terrible fate that awaited whores.  They left the convent with Sister Angelica still shouting at their backs.  Gabriella stopped and turned, for a moment frightening Christopher that she had a change of heart, but instead of groveling before Sister Angelica about the error of her ways, she clenched her hand into a fist and raised the center finger.

Christopher did not understand the significance of this gesture, but he found delight in how furious it made Sister Angelica.

They found it easy to convince the ship’s crew to let them on board.  Having known of Christopher’s previous candidacy, they were easily persuaded by his words that he had accepted the position as their first-mate despite having rejected it only hours before.  Knowing Leif and his father would soon be arriving, Christopher commanded that they set sail immediately.

A particularly bulky deckhand with a pile of greasy hair shading his deep-set eyes said, “Leif said we would be leaving tomorrow.  Leif said he would be joining us, but I don’t see him.”

“What is your name?” asked Christopher in a stalwart confidence Gabriella’s proximity instilled in him.

“Dino, sir.”

“Well, Dino, the belly of this ship is filled with barrels and barrels of ale.”  The mouth of every deckhand salivated.  “I delegate that you are now in charge of it.  What do you say about that?”

“I … I don’t know what to say,” Dino fumbled.

“Then say nothing and let us be off.  To the New World!”

The sailors cheered and began to prepare the ship for departure.  By the time the sails filled with the fresh evening gusts and the ship propelled forward into the thick, blue waters, Leif and Christopher’s father arrived at the port.

“Whát ön ærth yár döin’?!” he bellowed from the shore.

Over the roar of the tide and the croon of the ship, Christopher yelled, “I must have forgotten to inform you: I accept your offer as first-mate of this here vessel.  Expect my return in a few years with a new ship made with a golden mast and sails of silver!”

“You can’t do this, Christopher!” yelled his father.  “Turn that ship around right now!  I will not stand and watch my son become a thief!”

Gabriella, cupping one hand around her mouth and the other around Christopher’s waist, shouted back, “So?  What are you going to do about it, dumbass?”

What Leif and Christopher’s father ended up doing about it was pursuing after the vessel in a tradeship made for transporting livestock.  Christopher, not exactly knowing how to pilot a ship, had a difficult time outpacing Leif’s relentless pursuit.  The Scandinavian would approach Christopher’s vessel with his own, shout brutal and confusing insults in his direction, then generally lose pace and disappear.  Despite Leif’s mastery on the ocean, the tradeship moved slowly under the weight of the cows and horses stuffed in the hull and was not equipped for speed like the warship Christopher had commandeered.

Overall, the fear of capture did not bother Christopher-if anything, he felt a liveliness never before experienced.  And Leif seemed less concerned with violence than with shouting at Christopher strange, nautical insults.

“Yár be soon in uh squid’s böm belleh för hárf a noon night, yár dung-slárp!”

“Cán it be thát yár moother and foorher ræsed yár like uh French pöwlywág?”

“Soon as I be in yár fárce, yár will scream and poot like moont Vesoovius!”

What did upset Christopher’s disposition was Gabriella.  It did not take long for them to begin arguing about rationing of the food, what to do about Ericson, and whether or not a New World truly existed.  And after every argument, Gabriella would slyly smile and hold onto him cheerfully-she enjoyed being confrontational.  It was a hobby of hers.  A sport.  And she did it with every sailor on the ship, as well.  Most grew weary of her endless debates, her going on and on about one side of the argument and once the sailor gave in to her side, she would just switch sides and attack again.  Only Dino enjoyed her abrasive style, and the two became good friends, much to Christopher’s displeasure, as he now had two people constantly plotting against his rhetorical demise.  The doubt of his brash decision to partake in this journey soon turned to illness, and when he recovered, he found Leif Ericson and his father closer than ever and his regret heavy like a horse’s yoke being pulled behind him.

Gabriella scraped the gum off Christopher’s cheek.  “What should we do, Crumbles?”

“We have no weapons,” he said.  “The cannons were not yet loaded when we departed the shore.  We have only speed and patience.”

“We could throw something at him,” she said.  “Those barrels of ale in the hull-we could toss them.”

“That won’t do any good.”

“You don’t know that, Crumbles.”

“Please stop calling me Crumbles.”

The ship shook violently and they fell onto the deck-Leif sailed his ship grinding into the portside of theirs.  “Höw’d yár like thát öne, yár whále’s böm báfoon?” he yelled.

“First-mate Crumbles, you have to do something,” yelled Dino.  “He is damaging the ship pretty badly.  And he’s got something in his hand.”

“It’s probably alcohol.  He sounds drunk,” said Christopher.

“He’s lighting it on fire.  He looks like he’s going to throw it.”

It took Christopher a few moments to realize what was about to happen.

“Nope,” called Dino.  “He’s stepping back-oh lord he threw it!”

The bottle of alcohol smashed onto the deck, and a flame quickly woke up like burning corpses rising from a hidden grave.

“Dino,” yelled Gabriella, “gather all the sailors and get the barrels of ale from the haul.  We need to mount a counter attack, stat!”

“That’s not going to do anything,” argued Christopher, which like the alcohol to the flame, only ignited Gabriella.

“We have two options: we either catch on fire like scared rats or we go down kicking and screaming.”

“Surrender Christopher,” yelled his father.  “Stop acting like a child!  This isn’t a game anymore!”

Christopher ignored his father.  “Our men cannot throw barrels hard enough to damage anything but our reputation.”

“Crumbles, go jump overboard if you want to be the kind of kid who just surrenders at the drop of a hat.”  Then she hugged him tightly and kissed him on his throat.  He knew she didn’t really mean it, that she was just toying with him, but for a brief headaching moment, he considered submerging himself in the water.

The flames covered  most of the deck now, and the sailors with their barrels in hand emerged from the bowels of the ship.

“Get ready to throw on the count of three!” yelled Gabriella.

“Hur hur hur,” laughed Leif.  “Yár thunking yár bárrels will poot a dent in me cráwft, yár skæ dwelling bird foons?”

“Stop it, Gabriella.  This won’t work.”

“One!” she shouted.

“We are wasting time when we should be finding a way to put out the flames!”

“Two!”

“It was a mistake bringing you along!”

“Three!”

“If I truly did know you from before, it is from a nightmare!”

Leif’s ship crashed again into Christopher’s, and the quake rattled the sailors just as they were about to throw.  Instead of crashing into Leif, the barrels full of flammable alcohol dropped, rolled into the flames, and a sound like the earth folding in on itself resonated painfully inside the soft tissue of Christopher’s skull.

There wasn’t much left after the explosion.

Christopher was alive, clinging to driftwood, a ringing in his ears.

This he knew and not much else.

Up ahead, land appeared.  It could either be the fabled New World or just Asia.

He did not know what he wanted it to be.

The New World.

Asia.

He did not know what he wanted

but he knew that it might not matter and that

in time

he would get what was coming.