Limekiller!

JACK LIMEKILLER

by Peter S. Beacle

Limekiller? Christ, of course I knew Jack Limekiller — used to come in here all the time. Canadian, right? Canadian. Skinny kid, drank Montejo Dark mostly. Looked older than he was, or anyway you had that feeling about him. Lord God, Jack Limekiller. I haven’t heard that name in. Christ, who remembers? Limekiller. Damn.

He bought a boat. That was it — Limekiller bought some kind of a small boat. Quit his job, picked up his check, shot it all on a boat, with a bit left over to throw a party in here for his friends, the night before he took off. I remember, I couldn’t keep from asking him, “Limekiller, what the hell you want with a boat? You know how to sail?”

“A little,” he says. Then he grins at me. “No, not really. But figure I can learn.”

“Oh right,” I says. “No problem. Where you planning to study at, Captain Limekiller, sir?”

“The Caribbean,” Limekiller says, rolling it out. “Pirate country. Buried treasure country. Duppy country.” He told me what duppies are, and I’ve been trying to forget ever since. “Pm going to plop my boat down in the St. Lawrence, point her south and just keep going until I bump into something. There’s a place called British Hidalgo that sounds about as far from Canada as a Saskatchewan boy can get. Maybe that's what I’ll bump into, British Hidalgo.”

So I says, “Well, good luck, captain,” and we drank to it. I says “Don’t forget to write. I got a nephew that collects stamps.”

Weird thing is, he didn’t forget. I still get a postcard anyway sometimes. Really pretty stamps, too, with birds and fruit and stuff on them. Old Jack Limekiller. Damn. Tell him Pete says hello.