Clam Comes into the Chips

Memory blurs—I can’t recall exactly what took me down to Nassau, Bahamas on this particular occasion. Some sort of monkey-business I imagine. I’d planned on flying in and out the same day.

Last time I’d been there—some six months previous—my old diving buddy, Alex 'Captain' Clam had been camping out aboard his nineteen-foot Seacraft runabout at the Nassau Harbour Club. I had a few hours to kill before my flight back to Miami so I took a cab to the Harbour Club and asked after Alex at the bar.

Captain Clam

Any other time I’d had cause to make inquiries after my friend Clam, I’d always noticed a degree of disdain accompanying the reply—a wrinkling of the nose as if at an unpleasant odour. But on this particular occasion the bartender was strangely deferential. “Mister Clam? Yes SIR! Pier One, berth A.”

Tied up at Pier One, berth A was this monster of a power boat. She was around eighty feet long and rather handsome for a stink-pot. Ahh, thinks I—Clam’s got himself a captain’s job. But I was proven to be wrong.

I took myself aboard, banged on a door and a few minutes later Clam emerged in a silk, monogrammed dressing gown. “Lawson,” he exclaimed upon seeing me. “Welcome aboard my new vessel. We’ll take her for a spin around the island.” Clam had always held the vague belief that he was the re-incarnation of W.C.Fields. In his everyday speech, he affected the deceased actor’s unique drawl.

Well, in the six months since we’d last seen each other, this seemed like an extraordinary step up the financial ladder for him; from sleeping under a tarpaulin aboard a nineteen-foot runabout to this?. “Your fortunes appear to have improved considerably since I last saw you,” I remarked when we got under way.

“Ah, yes,” he replied with a wide grin. “Let me tell you how I got this little baby…”

I jumped in quickly to cut him off. “I’d rather not know, Alex.” I knew it must have been something shady and, as one never knows when one might be summoned to give evidence in a court of law, I've always considered it better to remain ignorant of certain matters.

Clam's New  Vessel

By the end of our voyage we were getting close to the end of a bottle of rum and Clam invited me to stay on. I had nothing pressing happening at the time, so I did—for two weeks.

But there’s no such thing as smooth sailing where Captain Clam is concerned—a week into my vacation, the vessel was seized by the Bahamian authorities and a watchman put aboard to make sure it didn’t leave the dock.  We were, however, permitted to remain on board until matters were sorted out.

Clam gave me a rather colourful version of the circumstances behind the seizure, painting himself as the wronged party. But then the Captain was prone to telling an occasional fib—even to his friends. I later discovered that he’d put a down payment on the boat and sailed off to the Bahamas, neglecting to complete the transaction.

As it turned out, the night-watchman—an amiable chap who went by the name of Lincoln—was a bit of a lush. No, I lie. He was an out-and-out lush. (and coming from me, this is quite a compliment). Clam and I conducted experiments and discovered that Lincoln would imbibe anything put in front of him.

So, Clam and yours truly plotted to exploit this weakness: We would re-take the vessel on Lincoln's watch. Our plan was to feed him alcohol until he passed out then sneak away around one in the morning. We’d drop him off at one of the out islands then head for the open sea. We even bought a mosquito-proof tent so Lincoln wouldn’t be drained of blood while he awaited rescue.

The morning before the planned recapture of the vessel, I happened to emerge from the breakfast-room at the Harbour Club to find Clam on the public phone. I caught a snatch of his conversation, “…a drunk. Lawson and I are taking the boat tonight...” Clam was incapable of talking softly—half of Nassau could have heard him. I gave him my darkest scowl of disapproval.

When I moved away, I spied Lonnie Pinder lurking in a doorway. Lonnie was a local who kept his boat at the Club and harboured a deep hatred for Clam for some reason. He was grinning wickedly—he'd obviously heard Clam’s every word.

That evening, at the change of the watchman shift, there was no sign of Lincoln. A new, rather serious-looking fellow had taken his place. When Clam offered this new man a drink, he declined. “No thank you Captain,” he said with a smirk that told us everything, “I’m not partial to strong drink.”

Needless to say, Clam lost the vessel.

Edited by Davina