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“Treasure”, Logan says.
“More specifically?” Alice asks.
“More specifically it’s a skull”, Logan says, picking it up. “But not just any skull.”
“It’s the skull of a pirate”, Jack says, taking it from his brother. “The most feared man in land or water.”
“It’s a little small”, Alice says. “It looks more like a monkey skull.”
“What he lacked in size, he more than made up for in ferocity”, Jack says. “He killed any man that crossed him, women and children too. He killed cats and ate them while they were still warm -”,
“Eeeuuuwww”, Alice says cutting in to express her disgust.
- “and he lived until he was a hundred and seven.”
Jack passes me the skull. “He amassed a fortune throughout his life, but money and wealth wasn’t important to him”, I say. “The only thing he cared about was the woman he loved who disappeared one day, never to be seen again. To the grave, he took the only reminder he ever had of her, a necklace made of the finest jewels even the greatest merchants in history would struggle to find, passed down through her family from generation to generation.”
I take off the bracelet adapted from a necklace I’m wearing, which was a less than ten dollar thrift store purchase, and pass it along with the skull back to Logan. I’ve always liked it, but now I realize its true purpose.
Logan feeds the necklace through the eye sockets and out through the mouth, tying it to make sure it’s secure.
“Brooklyn was where his life ended, walking the streets in search of his one and only true love, until the heartbreak finally destroyed him”, Jack says.
“What happened to her?” Alice asks.
“Some say she deserted him, others say she took her own life, those more cynical say she was killed at the hands of a rival. For years afterward there were reported sightings, and even today it’s not uncommon to see a ghostly figure waiting on the docks for her fierce pirate to come back home from sea.”
“And him?” Alice asks, “Where is he buried? I mean, where are we going to bury him?”
“Red Hook”, Logan says without thinking.
“According to the legend”, Jack begins. “He went mad through heartbreak, poked his own eyes out with the necklace, pulled the thing out of his mouth, and then fell into a grave of his own making never to return again.”
“That’s so gross”, Alice says. “But it doesn’t explain how we know where he is.”
Jack and I look at each other. “He left a map”, I say.
“Why would he do that?” Alice asks.
“In case she ever came back”, I say confidently, as though the answer is obvious.
“A map so clever that the only person who could decode the location of his burial site and retrieve the necklace of the finest jewels anywhere in the world, was his one and only true love.”
“That’s clever”, Logan says, passing the skull back to me. “Even I’m starting to believe it.” He shuts the trunk of the car and the sound echoes in the street around us. “Now we need to go and bury it.”
“That’s the easy part”, Jack agrees. “The treasure map to find it might not be so easy to complete.”
“That’s on you three”, Logan says. “I’m just the guy who does the heavy lifting.”
“You two”, Alice says. “I’m just the casual observer.”
We pile into Logan’s car, which is so full of dust and archaeological tools I have to clear the seat before I’m able to sit down. It feels kind of odd resting the skull in my lap, but considering it’s now buried treasure in the story we’re in the middle of creating, there probably isn’t anywhere else as secure. I just hope we don’t get pulled over by the police, which considering the state of this car is a distinct possibility.
“We’ll bury it tonight”, Logan begins, “and then start the rumor mill going tomorrow. Sightings of the woman, what’s her name?-”
“Rosalie”, I chime in.
-“Rosalie, exactly”, Logan says. “And then we’ll make sure the map somehow gets discovered. Thrift store purchase anyone? Get all that on Facebook, Twitter, social media, Jack can sort that out, and then see what happens. The fun part is obviously burying it, the rest is kind of less exciting.”
“The fun part is making the story”, Jack says. “Seeing how big it can get.”
“To be honest, the fun part is digging it up, but we can’t exactly do that”, Logan responds.
“I think both of those things are going to be fun”, I say, hoping not to sound too much like a suck up. “I’ve never buried anything in my life, certainly not a skull, so I’m pretty excited about that part. But then Jack is right too, making the story that goes with it and seeing if anyone works out the clues is pretty exciting in its own right, you’ve got to admit that.”
“Finding stuff is awesome”, Logan agrees. “So whoever the lucky person is to do that, I’ll be excited for them. And I love following stories, without the stories, there wouldn’t be any treasure to find, I just suck at creating them.”
We pause briefly at a stoplight, the dogs in the car alongside us pressed so tightly against the window their noses look like liquorice wheels.
“Do you think it’ll work”, I ask, when we’ve pulled away, the huge expanse of prospect park coming up on our right.
“Of course it’ll work”, Jack says confidently. “If the conceit is good enough, the pay off always works.”
“What if they never find it?”, Alice asks. “You know, we bury it, we go to all this trouble to build a story around it, make a treasure map and start a rumor and still, after all that, no one finds it, what happens then?”
“Nothing”, Logan says, his eyes on me through the rearview mirror. “A monkey skull and a thrift store necklace stay buried in the ground forever, and while a legend grows about the fiercest pirate ever to set foot in America, you, Jack, Penny and myself all get a kick out of doing something different. If nothing else, it’s a bonding exercise.”
“It’s a unique dating experience, I can tell you that”, Alice says. “No-one’s taken me out to bury a skull with them.”
To my left I can see the expanse of the Red Hook channel, and what must be Bayonne or St. George in the background. It’s late enough that the sun has already set, but a nearly full moon spills everything in a soapy white light it’s relatively easy to see the outline of the mass of land beyond the bay.
“There’s an abandoned factory right near the water’s edge at the end of one of these streets”, Logan says as we cruise around looking for it. “It’s the perfect place to hide it.”
I’ve never been to this part of town before. It looks run down and forgotten about, kind of like an old film set at the back of a studio lot, left to deteriorate after its final use. Even the dogs digging around in the rubbish feel like a nuance left over from the writing team who brought the whole thing into existence. If I didn’t know that this was New York, I might have thought we’d gone back in time. Massive warehouses with company names I don’t recognize built into the brickwork, boarded up brownstones and patches of fenced off yard over-run with towering weeds. It’s the perfect setting to bury a legendary pirates skull in.
“We need a name”, I say. “Every legend has a name.”
“It has to be dynamic”, Jack says. “Believable, powerful.”
“Logan”, Logan says. “Logan of Brooklyn.”
His laughter is infectious. “I can tell why you became an archaeologist”, I say.
“What’s wrong with Logan?” he insists. “It’s a noble name. It means strong willed warrior and protector. It’s better than Jack. Solid, enduring, and firm. It sounds like the advertising slogan on a piece of Ikea furniture.”
Again, we all fall about it laughter. I can’t quite work out whether Logan is being self deprecating or he’s actually being serious. Either way it’s hilarious.
“Alice should choose the name”, Jack says.
“No way”, Alice says. “I suck at choosing names and I don’t want the responsibility. Unless you want your cat eating pirate to be called Lily-Rose that is.”
“How about, Dead-Eye Jake”, Jack says.
“It’s better than Lily-Rose”, Logan says.
