Author: John Stark

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy), and Big Jesse were only halfway up the path to Santana’s old cabin before they received a noisy, but warm, slobbery, K-9 welcome but the milkmaids kept their distance. “Wild dark eyed,” Delilah . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) had just found himself pulled into a full body clutch by the stark-naked, suntan-lotion-covered arms of Miss Lillie, when he was suddenly shocked back into the real world by the sound of the hatch cover sliding . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy), Jini (Dave’s mom), and Miss Lillie (Jesse’s friend from Lexington, Kentucky), were rail down aboard the Dream Weaver and hard charging towards British Tortola. Sea turtles nonchalantly crossed their . . . 

Dave, (everybody called him Shark Boy), helped Lillie aboard Dream Weaver while his mom scurried about the main cabin putting things in order. After Lillie descended into the cabin Dave put the hatch boards in place and slid the hatch cover closed . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) pulled apart the big lobsters, removed their heads from their tails, broke off their barbed feelers, removed their mud veins, and slid the tails down the board to Chef Pierre. Pierre chopped them up with his big . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) could hardly wait to see Jesse—he thought the final bell was never going to ring at school. He wanted to be on board when they did the shake down run on Jesse’s new boat.

Jesse had named his boat Shark-Boy, . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) scrambled aboard the Flying Circus, tied the painter to an aft cleat, and in one long breath tried to tell his dad, the Captain, about the huge shark that had attacked him. Because of its humongous size and color, . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) said good-bye to his friends on Lovango as a brilliant Caribbean sunset cast long shadows across the cart path leading from the top of the hill down to the boat dock.  He had noticed three of the four girls’ . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) was back at school after his hunting trip to Indiana, but not happy about it. His final hour of math class seemed like it would never end. Although he had a lot of homework assignments, he thought he could get . . . 

Dave (everybody calls him Shark Boy), and his dad-the captain boarded a plane at Detroit Metro Airport homeward bound for Saint Thomas, U.S.V.I., but it was not before a lengthy encounter with airport security over the wood clad cases of canned venison . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) and his dad the Captain said good-bye to the runaway monk Lambini, leaving the monk still protesting that he could not possibly produce what had been demanded by the Japanese yakuza cook at the Chicken Ranch—at . . . 

The closer Dave and the monk Lambini got to the shack, the faster they walked, but it still wasn’t fast enough for the girls from Amsterdam. Normally, the Japanese Yakuza mobsters made them walk three steps behind them, but now the girls started . . . 

Dave’s pace quickened when he saw the puffs of dust shooting up from the rock pile. At last, this was it! It was the same place that had appeared in his recurring dreams, and it fit every detail that Santana had once described to him.

As he approached . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy), finished hoisting the main sail and stretched it tight with one last powerful pull on the spool handle. A careful sailor, he then coiled the halyard, secured it to a cleat on the side of the mast, and returned . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark boy) was supposed to keep the barnacles cleaned off the bottom of his dad’s boat, but Hurricane Earl’s onslaught at the end of August, followed by one tropical storm after another, and then long periods of generally . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) awoke at first light and took his dad’s dinghy ashore for breakfast. On his way back to the Flying Circus, the sun was out but the seas were running high, too high to dock anywhere on Lovango. And the . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) and his friend Ryan—led by Dave’s father the Captain—walked out of Boss Penny’s Bar into the dark wet night, and headed for the Captain’s boat shack. With a flashlight they located the barrel full of . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) and his father sat in the cabin of the Flying Circus looking at one another as they listened to the tropical storm from the east intensifying. The wind in the rigging changed pitch until it was screaming . . . 

The secretive conversations between Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) and his dad were cut short when Jenny opened the hatch cover. The wind was howling, rain started coming in, and she was clearly agitated as she shook the water from her rain . . . 

After Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) had escorted Labelle to Jessie’s place and seen her safely inside the gate, his next thought was how to get out to his dad’s boat. He had come ashore on Jessie’s boat, which left him stranded on land. . . . 

As darkness descended on the boat shack everybody finished eating their fill of fresh fruit and seafood. Dan removed the copper kettle from the fire and rekindled the glowing embers with fresh cedar branches. Island rum, limes, and Jessie’s Mason . . . 

As Dream Weaver approached her mooring ball, Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) hurried forward with the boathook, snagged the mooring line and secured it to the Samson post. While the charter guests gathered their cameras, suntan lotion, . . . 

After all the Amsterdam clients were on board and safely situated, Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) removed the cover on the mainsail, made ready the sheet lines and the roller reefed headsail, and positioned himself by Dream Weaver’s . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy), and Ryan kicked off their boat moccasins and laid back on the port and starboard cushions while they talked about reoccurring dreams. Ryan, it seems, was having one particular dream that really troubled him.

It . . . 

After a brief moment of anger over his mother’s malady — the chronic alcoholism into which she had fallen — a wave of a certain kind of relief passed over Dave the Shark Boy. As long as she was in Big Jessie’s powerboat, Jessie would keep her . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) finished scrubbing the Weaver’s teakwood deck and invited Ryan below deck while he straightened up the cabin’s galley and put things in order.

“Have you seen my Mom?” asked Dave.

“Yes, she was with some . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) eased the Dream Weaver close to Lovango’s dock and shoved a big boat fender in place to keep the hull away from the roughly constructed pier. As he disengaged the gearbox and turned off the ignition, . . . 

Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) and the hungry monk were motoring Dream Weaver toward the place on Lovango’s coast where they could dock and take the path that led up to Santana’s old shack and the chicken ranch. Suddenly the downrigger . . .