Manning showered and shaved while the water perked in the ancient Mr. Coffee. The water dripped through so slowly that the resulting brew was black as mud and tasted like tar. An ex-girlfriend suggested he use it to strip the rust off his beloved Jeep. He liked his coffee just like his women, he told her, hot, dark and strong. Then he laughed. Very few women who heard him ever laughed or stuck around long enough to try and change him. After dressing in his usual khaki cargo shorts and washed out aloha shirt he headed into town on the shore road. He slowed down when he got to the Town Pier and scanned the row of bleary-eyed men huddled under the roof around a brazier with a battered coffee pot on its grate. Manning beeped the horn and Bunny detached himself from the group, his jaw wagging as usual, his enthusiastic wave barely acknowledged by the Venezuelans. “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” Manning said when Bunny settled in the passenger seat. “I don’t, mon.” Bunny turned his ganga-red eyes to face Manning. “It’s the spiritual connection of the downtrodden we understand. The brotherhood of the spliff, mon.” He dug in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a joint just as they drove past the Customs office. “Put that away, for God’s sake,” Manning said. “You want to give those tight asses an excuse to arrest us before we’ve made our score?” He pushed Bunny’s hand down and held it until the younger man stopped trying to put the joint in his mouth. “I hear you, mon. I put it away now. Don’ get all in a ruckus.” Manning glared out the scratched and spotted windshield. “How unlucky could I be to get myself a helper like you?”
--Barbara
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