Chapter Eleven: Legal Counsel — Part 5

As it turns out, ChoCho’s singing is mostly monotone, and carefully paced. He sings with such caution primarily because he is conscious of the fact that his voice cracks when he deviates from four precise but unrelated notes. Nobody in the crowd can speak Japanese, but it is doubtful that any of them would recognize ChoCho’s language as Japanese even if they could, given his accent, word arrangement, intonation, and odd sense of rhythm. He is careful to choose his words, it seems, or at least, he pauses with meaning while still matching the pace and timing of the song. ChoCho’s voice, however, is not alone: It has the company of Blake’s percussion and Daria’s cello.

Blake has taken to tapping on the porch with his hands while Daria works her bow carefully, her entire body lost in the motions of playing. Her fingers drift across the low strings and into the ghost harmonics, falling with an eerie sense of eroticism toward the bridge and the bow. The three actually sound good together, partially because ChoCho is able to express considerable emotion despite his neutral tone, but also because Blake has perfect rhythm, and Daria seems to have become almost one with her instrument of choice. Jynx is reminded of her English teacher’s description of a traditionally performed Greek play, the words spoken in pace, the story told without candor, resulting in drama or comedy with a depth that could not otherwise survive in the presence of outward emotional expression. After ChoCho sits down, Kevin and Daria are up and singing a sad little dirge about a sailor’s love of the ocean, and Joe has joined in, his raspy voice longing for the sea.

Sometime during the song, the sky above them breaks momentarily into rain, and those who were standing out in the open move under the porch. Running water, after all, is no longer an issue, so chill rain, while beautiful to hear, and watch, lacks the quality of a hot shower where cleanliness is concerned. The rain has come down hard and fast, and those not closest to the porch are drenched in cool water. Jynx is farthest out, and by the time she’s under the porch, she is dripping wet and shivering, her shirt sticking to her skin. They have moved indoors to continue their festivities, and Jynx looks down and notices that despite it being cut from black satin, her shirt has become transparent enough to see the details of the pink and black lace design accenting her bra.

George and Jude are singing even as Jynx pulls off her wet shirt, cuddling in between ChoCho and Kevin on a living room couch, their combined warmth pushing the goose bumps from her skin. ChoCho lays his head on her shoulder, ignoring the chill water in her short hair, and Kevin absently puts his arm across the top of the couch so he can touch both Jynx and ChoCho at the same time. The feeling of two heartbeats, each slightly out of synch and on either side of her, brings back a fresh set of goose bumps more related to heat than cold.

Blake has been kind enough to get her a towel for her head, and she dries off her short hair before looking for a place to set the towel aside. Blake takes the towel to the laundry, then returns to sit on a love seat next to Joe. The two are talking by touch, so the rest of the world might well not exist. Pretty soon Daria needs a break, so she puts her cello away and Blake signs something to Jon and Teri. He then sets a beat on the coffee table, and Joe breaks into a drunken rap reminiscent of Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew. Teri and Jon, who apparently have sung with them before, are breaking in with odd percussive vocalizations that end in words that like ‘rum’ and ‘shank.’ Soon everybody is eating and talking, Daria having pushed herself in between Jynx and Kevin. Soon she’s leaning on Kevin, and Jon is sitting with her legs spread open by the back of chair. In a few moments, the five of them are drinking hot sweet buttered rum and laughing at all of Jon’s crass jokes. Kevin has his arm across the couch, and is gently stroking ChoCho’s arm, while Jynx has her arm around Daria, one hand resting on Kevin’s shoulder.

With a sudden loss of rhythm and rhymes, the rap song dies down to conversation, and people start to fade lazily onto their couches, leaning against the walls, or in some cases retiring to the corner of the room where nothing, at the moment anyway, resides. ChoCho soon discovers that he’s the only sober person in the room, and so takes a moment to observe without listening to the words, the new world of faces he finds himself in. George and Jude are sharing a large glass of bourbon, and he suddenly realizes that the two must be lovers, though neither of them are holding hands, nor saying or doing anything outwardly to suggest to the world that they might be intimate. It is as if they have had to hide everything about themselves for so long that it has become as natural as breathing.

Jon and Terri, he realizes, are quietly sequestered in the corner of the room, and their behavior, though far from lewd, makes him wonder if they can pass as the only straight people in the room. The two of them are passing a bottle of wine back and forth, and talking in rough whispers about their plans for the doctor’s office. Joe and Blake are, as always, touching as they talk, their hands moving with a sort of drunken slur. There is a lust in their motions, and ChoCho doubts that they will be sitting on the love seat too much longer. The thought of them calling it a night makes him wonder what his night with Jynx, Daria, and Kevin will bring.

In time George and Arpie are talking, and have drifted in front of the foursome on the couch. Jude must have gone to sleep, and it looks like George is about to head that way as well. George must have been talking ChoCho up, because he’s brought Arpie over specifically to talk, or perhaps to say goodnight, ChoCho can’t honestly tell which. “Tomorrow, ChoCho and I will be getting with the tech and start reworking the jet engines.” George says to Arpie, who is suddenly suspicious. “We’ll send a scavenge crew out next week for parts. I was hoping you could head that up.”

“What does the boy know about jet engines?” Arpie asks.

“He knows enough to have a really good idea how we can get the things running without fuel.” George says. “I want his hands involved with its creation.”

When Arpie looks sidewise at ChoCho, ChoCho just taps his head with an index finger. “Serious Brains,” he says, as if it explains it all. “Unless of course we can’t get it to work, then it’s all just a major waste of time. But I think we all have a lot of time, ya know.”

“It’ll work.” George says. “I’ve done the math. We have the power supply, the concept is technically sound, the power storage media is in full production at a government facility two hundred and fifty miles north of here. It’s just a matter of parts and mods.”

“Damn right it will work.” Kevin says in his drunken loud voice. “Don’t you doubt that ChoCho’s a genius.”

ChoCho looks at Kevin without actually moving his head. Daria is giggling at Kevin and trying to put her fingers to his lips. Jynx has conked out completely, her head tilted back on the couch, and she looks like she might start snoring at any minute. Arpie considers the moment, realizes that of all the people in the room, ChoCho is the only one who hasn’t gotten totally sloshed. These things, combined with his calm way of seeing things makes Arpie hopeful.

“I’ll need a list, of course.” Arpie says.

“Of course.” George smiles, handing him a sheet of paper.

“This list has locations, for once.” Arpie sounds suddenly relieved. “I’ll get with the Team Leader on it. We should have what we need in by tomorrow afternoon.”

Yes, they are cheesy. Yes, they are sexist, and yes they have EXPLICIT lyrics. What kind of pirate rappers would Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew be if none of the above applied?