America 1982-Chapter 35: Another Desperate Pauper Taking a Risk

"Is this what you achieve after four hours of part-time work every day? If I were the owner of this fishing boat, I wouldn’t pay you a cent," Melanie said, covering her nose with one hand and waving the other constantly to dispel the fishy smell on the small fishing boat.

Tommy Hawk, a clip pinching his nose shut, expertly checked the various equipment on the fishing boat: the electrical circuits, generator, coolant, sails, rigging, fish hoist, water pipes, battery, spare fuel, and spare battery. Hearing Melanie’s words, he said, "Mr. Rocco Waldman originally promised to lend me another fishing boat I had cleaned up myself for a sea breeze, but he changed his mind at the last minute and went to sea in that clean boat himself. This is his another boat, I haven’t had time to clean it up yet. It was actually my job for today."

"There are two policemen looking this way on the pier, Tommy," Melanie said, surveying the surroundings and suddenly speaking up, "Do they know what we’re about to do?"

Tommy glanced up and indeed saw two young bike patrol officers stopping to enjoy the breeze. He looked away and continued to tidy up the rigging. "Why don’t you go and ask them yourself?"

"Me? Ask them?" Melanie didn’t catch on immediately.

"Officer, good afternoon." Tommy stood upright and waved vigorously at the two bike cops, shouting with the teasing tone common among the fishermen, "How about it, fancy a trip on the boat? We’re planning to smuggle some American goods to Cuba, and bring back a couple of hot Cuban chicks, make a big fat profit!"

"Make a good haul, kid. I hope I live to see you return from Cuba with a full load," the policeman on the shore waved back and chuckled, "Also, before you head out to smuggle, I suggest you clean up that wreck. I need to remind you, if that boat goes to Cuba, it would be a disgrace to Americans. Plus, Cuban women do have taste; they’re not blind and won’t board just any old junk."

Melanie was so startled when Tommy Hawk openly told the police they were going to smuggle that she stood frozen in place, only relaxing when the policeman responded, "Have you lost your mind, Tommy? What if the police suspect you..."

"Auntie, if the police believed me, he’d be the one who’s crazy." Tommy Hawk entered the cabin, skillfully started the fishing boat, and headed towards the dark blue ocean: "A smuggler who doesn’t want to self-torment would absolutely not use this kind of old, manual steering fishing boat. It would take us six or seven hours just to go and pick up the goods. Dennis’s mom, the nearly two-hundred-pound Mrs. Hebers, could even beat us there if she mastered the technique of cycling on the sea surface."

"How do the smugglers retrieve their goods?"

"For the real smugglers, time is money. Their speedboats only take two to two and a half hours to get from the port to the processing ship, then another two and a half hours to load at least four hundred cases of cigarettes and sail back to land. Three round trips cover the cost of buying a speedboat. In three days, they could earn enough to buy a mansion in Boston," Tommy Hawk, having adjusted the course, lit a cigarette and looked at Melanie beside him:

"After hearing all this, do you still think you deserve the title of smuggler? I’ve told you many times, we’re just poor devils who sell cheap cigarettes. We’re not wothy of sullying the name of smugglers."

Melanie was a bit nervous when she first went out to sea, but as Warwick disappeared behind the horizon, a continuous stream of fishing boats could still be seen, just as Tommy Hawk had spoken. The public frequency intermittently carried the fishermen’s vulgar jokes or off-key singing, not nearly as desolate and lonely as she had imagined. This allowed her to gradually relax.

Only when night had fallen, the spotlight on the boat was shining, and Tommy Hawk started reporting his position on the public channel, did Melanie, nearly suffocated with boredom, understand why the police didn’t believe they were smuggling to Cuba. They were far too slow. Castro could have died of old age and Cuba might have completed its revolution before their boat would even drift to Cuba.

"Take a seat, we’ve arrived," Tommy Hawk said after ending the radio conversation once again.

Melanie, wrapped in a cotton coat and dozing off, raised her head and took in her surroundings. This time, without needing Tommy Hawk’s indication, she saw a cargo ship as big as a mountain in front of them, with the giant logo of Marlboro printed on its hull and bright lights showing people and machinery constantly moving on board.

There were many transfer barges with strong searchlights anchored around the cargo ship, continuously loading goods onto the barges, which then dispensed it to the arriving boats. Several speedboats had just been loaded next to the barges and roared away across the black ink-like sea, leaving white trails in their wake, vanishing into the night.

Melanie witnessed the entire process of a speedboat approaching not far from her fishing boat, docking next to a barge, quickly loading the cargo, completing the handoff, and then disappearing from her sight.

What shocked her more was that while the other speedboat had already vanished, the fishing boat she was on—which Tommy had boldly told the police he’d take to Cuba to smuggle—was still crawling along, unable to get near the nearest barge.

"I now understand why you said Mrs. Hebers could outpace us on her bicycle, and why the police wouldn’t believe what you said," Melanie said with her eyes wide open: "We don’t deserve it."

They finally approached a barge slowly. Several employees dressed in Philip Morris Company uniforms, wearing headlamps, came over and shouted at the fishing boat:

"Guys, this is a tobacco processing ship, not a fish transfer vessel. You’re the second fishing boat tonight, did your fishing company switch industries or something?"

They thought Tommy Hawk’s fishing boat had docked in the wrong place. Tommy, clad in a thick, wind-breaking raincoat, stepped out of the boat: "Carlo Leon, I called earlier, Mr. Will from Miami referred me."

"Carlo Leon?" The leading employee, hearing Tommy’s words, looked down at the reservation information in his hands with the help of the light above his head: "It shows here you need two hundred cases."

"That’s me," Tommy nodded and said.

After checking the order, the employee looked up at Tommy and said, "Then you need to pay me forty thousand dollars."

Tommy Hawk handed over the forty thousand dollars Melanie had mortgaged to the employee. After the count, the employee passed it to a colleague responsible for taking payments, instructed some orders through the walkie-talkie, and soon, two hundred cases of cigarettes were transferred over by the crane on the barge, into the cargo hold of the fishing boat, without any need for manual labor—making Tommy Hawk marvel once again at the capitalist’s attentive service.

"Buddy, remember to boost your boat’s power for your next trip, the time it takes to do business with you is enough for me to load three speedboats," the employee from the tobacco company joked at Tommy Hawk as he watched the old-looking fishing boat depart.

The fishing boat left the barge, set its course, and began to sluggishly move north, heading toward the Gulf of Maine. Melanie, excitedly inspecting the cigarettes, turned around to head back to the cabin and found Tommy steering the boat with a somewhat strange expression, as if pondering something:

"What’s wrong?" Melanie asked.

Tommy said, "The worker on the processing ship said I was the second fishing boat to dock tonight."

"So what? What’s odd about that?" Melanie asked, puzzled.

Tommy took a swig of whiskey to ward off the cold and said, "It means that there’s likely another pauper out there who’s as desperate as me."