Fugitives

I have found over fifty years of sailing around the world that fugitives of all sorts gravitate to boats as a way of hiding from authorities. I would know. I was a fugitive from myself yet not wanted by the law but so emotionally disconnected, my head put out a warrant for my heart. 

There is a beautiful disconnectedness about sailing. Ocean as far as the eye can see. I have met and been absolutely surprised by sailors I have discovered were fugitives from the law. 

I met Amos Hardy on the dock in Puerto Vallarta. I was coming into the slip from Cabo San Lucas after a rough, windy, and rainy couple of days across the mouth of the Gulf of California. I stood off in the bay while a squall roared through pushing the boat back out to sea. The squall lasted thirty minutes. The deck was washed of salt. The fresh tropical water spilled out of the gunnels. The tropical sun turned the whole place into a natural steam bath. I found the slip where I was going to stay for a couple of days. As I approached the slip, my mate, Alex stood ready with the lines. Fenders were down for a port too docking. That is when I saw Amos for the first time. He hustled off a 32-foot Bay Liner to catch our lines. He was dressed in a white business shirt, unbuttoned to the third button from the top. His shirt hung over his natural round belly. He was no athletic figure and never was. He was more pear shaped. He wore a pair of pink shorts and black loafers. This wasn’t the outfit you expect from someone on the dock catching lines. 

He caught the bow line and started to pull the line very hard. I yelled at him to just tie it off. He looked up at me puzzled. I could see he wasn’t comfortable with taking orders. He smiled a thin sort of smile. My mate stepped of onto the dock, my other mate, Joe, who was sleeping came up the companionway stretched and yawned, then hopped onto the dock taking the stern line with him. We kissed the dock oh so gently and Amos let out a cheer of “Well done Captain! I’m American!” 

I greeted him and thanked him for helping with the lines. He was nice. He asked where did I come from… Where was I going. He hoped I had a good trip down from the “USA.” You can always tell a new traveler, especially Americans they always seem ready to join other Americans, finding the foreign experience to taxing. Americans are not alone in this behavior. The English tend to flock. 

Amos invited us to his boat for a drink. We were happy to be on the dock after the rough ride. 

Amos spun us a story about his trip down the Baja. He drove his Bay Liner from Los Angeles. As he was telling his story, he ran his hands through his thinning hair. He was a stressed-out man trying to be cool. Alex told me later he felt sorry for Amos. He was way out of his element. I asked what did he think Amos’s element was? Corporate was the simple answer. 

Amos asked us all out to dinner. Alex begged out of the dinner claiming a headache. Joe who was just 20 years old didn’t want to hang out with his elders. I went with Amos to dinner. All through dinner he was searching out for threats. I could see he was wanting to confess something. Just before the main course of steak and potatoes he broke down and cried. 

He was an accountant for a school board. He stole money from the school board for years. He referred to the theft as salary compensation. He wasn’t getting paid enough and he had to support is family. His wife spent too much and the two kids needed a lot of dental work. He didn’t think anyone would notice. He added bills for a service company he owned but didn’t do anything for a little over a million dollars of false building. He claimed his was going to pay it all back. It got out of hand. His supervisor approved the payments over and over again without asking why. I asked him if he had any of the money left? He had this relatively new Bayliner he was hoping to sell but instead he drove away from the dock and kept going and here is where he landed.  

Anyone who has sailed the Baja coast knows there are not many places to get gas along the way. Those few gas stations are far enough apart that you need a bladder or barrels of fuel. Carrying gasoline on deck is a dangerous proposition. Diesel is okay, but gas that’s just crazy. 

Much to his credit figured he wouldn’t get far without doing something. At this point he was a fugitive. The Sherriff had gone to his door to arrest him. He dashed out the back door when he heard the knock. He was wearing his business suit and the shirt he had on. The shorts were own board. 

He drove down the 101 to the 405 and parked his car at the airport long stay lot. He took the bus back up to the marina. His biggest anxiety was that the sheriff’s harbor patrol would be alerted, and he would be nabbed. He arrived at his slip in the dark. He started his boat and left quietly passing under the watchful eye of the sheriff’s station. He headed South towards Mexico. He had his driver’s license and six hundred bucks in cash and his credit cards.  

This was the 80s and the instant reporting of your card was still delayed. Amos knew he need to use the cards before they were cancelled. He was desperate. He filled up in Ensenada. He was again lucky not to be caught or have his boat impounded. He used his driver’s license to fill up saying he got off course and had mechanical trouble. He didn’t know he was in Mexican waters and need fuel to go back to San Diego. This was a plausible excuse. He got his fuel. He made down to Turtle Bay. He arrived with fumes. The range at 10 knots is 346nm according to the brochure. Amos told me he was praying all the way. The next leg was to fuel in Mag Bay. Santa Maria is a little town where a few big sport fishing boats operate. I asked him if he had any charts? He didn’t he relied on a book he bought at the Ship’s Store the local chandlery. Sometimes ignorance is luck. 

He made it to Cabo San Lucas. He filled the boat and talked with a broker. The broker and ex-pat American told him he couldn’t sell his boat because it was wanted along with the owner the US law enforcement. The broker told Amos he would tell the harbor master if he doesn’t know already. He quietly advised Amos to get on his boat and go.  

Amos ran out of the office in a panic. He drove is boat in the direction of Puerto Vallarta. The boat ran out of fuel 50 nm from the coast. He drifted for a couple of days. He confessed to me and to God that he was wrong. He promised he would turn himself in and take his medicine. He swore on his knees looking up to the heavens on a boat tossing in the ocean couldn’t be a fugitive from justice. At that moment a Mexican fishing boat came by to see if he needed help. They towed him into Puerto Vallarta. His prayers were answered. Sort of…. The fisherman offered him a good price for the boat. 

He thought. Okay. He needed money right away. Half the value of the Bayliner was better than nothing at this point. 

When I sailed up and docked my boat, he was waiting for the fisherman to come back with the money. 

“Did you get the money?” I asked. 

“Yes.” He was smug about his affirmation. 

“That’s great, isn’t it?” I couldn’t tell but I supposed he didn’t get the money and he wasn’t even able to afford this dinner.  

Then he hit me with the bomb. “Can you take me with you?”

The wind blew through the open-air restaurant. The iguanas screamed. The screeching sound of reptiles faded with the onset of a thunderous squall. Amos looked so helpless. I could see in his eyes I was his last bit of luck if I would just say yes. 

It was a big ask. Amos didn’t know how risky taking a fugitive on board was for me and the owner of the yacht. Our side could and would lose everything. I would be jailed, and the boat impounded. 

I leaned over the table with soiled dishes, steak bones and chewed steak gristle. “Go home.” I whispered. “Be with your family.” “You are still young.” 

He was in tears. His big round sunburned cheeks glistened with tears of relief. He choked. He coughed. Gathering a deep breath with a wheeze he asked, “I’m not good at this fugitive life, am I?” 

I gave him money for plane ticket home and cab fare. I put him a cab and sent him off to face his consequences. I didn’t hear about Amos for twenty years. He was discovered running a dive charter business in small island in Polynesia. He never went to the airport. He married a beautiful woman who came to dive from New York. He was recognized by a school board member when one of their friends were showing them pictures of their dive vacation. 

Fugitives have narratives. Some fugitives are running from other powers and not the law. Teddy Rawlins is six foot three and solid as a rock. He looks more Sicilian than most Sicilians. He says he was Irish, English, and Bostonian as if Bostonian is a part of a genetic heritage. He wears a Boston Red Sox hat tilted back on his head. A black tuft of hair curls out from under the bill over his forehead. Deep set chocolate-colored eyes give him a sadness and vulnerability about his presence. Make no mistake he was anything but vulnerable. He was a predator. 

I was in a café in Antibes France drinking coffee and going through the Herald reading the American news. I was reading the box scores.

I learned to read box scores from my grandfather who was a sportswriter. I could recreate the game in my head. The Phillies are my team for better or worse. They lost last night to Pittsburg, 2 to 1. They lost the lead in the eighth because of a hit batter by a rookie reliever. The next batter hit a double driving in one run making it 1 to 1. With the pitcher batting, why was the starting pitch still pitching and batting no less? I found the box score from the day before where they played a double header both went into extra innings. He was the last guy standing. The pitcher hit a single and drove in the run. Final score 2 to 1. 

A shadow fell over the paper. With the sun at his back, he stood over me like a gunslinger from and Italian spaghetti western and said, “Who’s you rooting for?” 

“I’m a Phillies fan.” 

“Good.” A guttural “good” exhaled like the air from a punch to the gut. “If you were a Yankees fan, I wouldn’t be your friend.” 

He sat down across me. “You from Philly?”

I said yes and he launched into a story about driving to Philly in a school bus with his band. He played guitar. His thick hammer like fingers made me doubt the truth of statement. Later I learned he was actually a pretty good player. They were on their way to Florida when they when they ran off the road in a snowstorm. The bus happened to have a ton of pot in false compartments in the floor of the bus. The band left the bus in the middle of a cloverleaf exit and walked to a holiday inn. The left a note that they might be back after the storm. They stayed in the Holiday Inn and played in the lounge for a week. The band who was supposed to play was stuck in Altoona in a snowstorm. 

Teddy would go on and on with stories. Most were very funny, almost always there was drugs, rock in roll, and mishap. If Terry liked, you, he really was a loyal friend. If he, didn’t you were lower than scum. 

Discerning the truth about Teddy was like reading a box score to a baseball game. The information was there in names, positions, innings, hits, type of hits, runs scored, RBIs, innings pitched, etc. 

The truth as much as I could discern after hundreds of hours of hanging out with Teddy was something like this. Teddy grew up with a kid nicknamed “American Express” because he was welcomed everywhere. He was the son to a notorious gangster. Teddy got sucked into that world. Teddy started a construction company to build houses in the Boston area. Teddy was a master cabinet maker. He was so good with wood he built many redesigned cabinets on mega yachts. He is in demand. 

American Express was his partner and borrowed the money from his father the gangster so he and Teddy could buy land and build houses. The deal went sideways from there. American Express didn’t work with Teddy. He preferred to do coke and play in the band. When the loans came due Teddy was responsible. American Express had spent most of the money on coke. The mobster father wasn’t going to press his degenerate son, so he blamed Teddy for everything. One day while on a building site, Teddy was installing cabinets in the kitchen when two mob thugs showed up to teach him a lesson. The lesson went all wrong. Teddy defended himself. He put both thugs in the hospital. He walked away from the site and boarded a plane for Europe. He settled in Antibes. At first, he kept a low profile. After a while his mother had extracted a promise from the next-door mob boss to leave her son alone. He made one stipulation that he never see his face again in Boston. Teddy has lived in Antibes for the last thirty years a fugitive.

Fugitives come to be fugitives because of different kinds of crimes. Amos was a really a con man. Teddy wanted to preserve his life from predictable retribution. David Taylor on the other hand was a thief, possibly a murderer, with absolutely no redeeming morality. He was bad. He was in every sense of the word a pirate. David Taylor was wanted by Interpol and Scotland Yard for robbing a bank, theft of boats, and suspected murder. 

I didn’t know all these nefarious acts when I first met David. I learned about them when an Interpol agent stopped by my boat while I was fueling my boat in Antigua. I had just crossed from Europe and David was one of my crew. We arrived two weeks earlier. I hadn’t seen him since he got off the boat. He had a British passport. I cleared him with the rest of the crew. The Interpol agent a Belgium man who looked like a policeman with his black dress shoes, slightly scuffed and low on the heels, a tie and a sports jacket that was never in style no matter he thought. He was completely out of his comfort zone in the yachting world. He asked me where he was going? I didn’t know. But the agent seemed to be suspicious of me for aiding a known felon. 

David said thanks for the ride and left. I saw him briefly speaking with another skipper outside the Incanto Restaurant.  

The agent told me what he was wanted for, and I was shocked. He was considered dangerous. I had just spent a month and a half with the man, and I didn’t see that coming. 

In the yachting world there are lots of people wanting to escape from their world. Lots of 20 and 30 somethings who started down the corporate path only to get frustrated with their progress and take a hiatus crewing and traveling the world. David seemed like that sort of guy. 

He was clean cut. Blond hair blue eyes five-foot ten, athletic build, quick with a smile. The Agent’s description of David. 

I could see David in a corporate setting. He was bright and articulate. He spoke fluent Spanish and French. He was well educated or as he said ironically as well educated as the English school system would allow a coal miner’s son. 

David was a good sailor. You can always tell very quickly experienced sailors. They take to the task whether trimming a sail, hoisting an anchor, or helming. I knew David was my kind of people or so I thought. 

My family came from Wales. My Great Grand Father was an orphan from the Isle of Man. He was brought to America by a Dutch family who gathered kids to work for the family in the coal mining business in Scranton. My great grandfather, Nathan was indentured until he was 25 years old. Like other kids from a working background, he was very savvy in the ways of the world where his classmates from upper income families were not. 

He spoke of having a daughter. He was sad he had to be away from her, but his ex-wife made life impossible for him. He decided one day to take a break from all the pressure of modern life and find his footing. 

I liked the concept of finding one’s footing. Some people don’t possess the disposition to be on the sea. They find land as a better place, but a man with sailing in his blood finds a rolling and pitching deck of a ship the perfect place for finding his footing in life. David understood. 

I met him in Rhodes Greece. I was looking for crew to come to the Caribbean. He was quick to sign on. I felt I was lucky to have him. Finding experienced crew can be difficult. In all my crossings looking for competent deliver crew as a major task. I tried agencies and they didn’t work. I liked picking up guys and sometimes girls with enough competence and personal responsibility to stand watch while I get some shuteye. 

David demonstrated his skills on the deck and navigating. He asked the right questions and became maybe one of the best mates I ever had over 50 years of sailing with crews. 

I have heard plenty stories about men whose lives went wrong on land who come to the sea to live a wonderful productive life. They may be a bank robbing, thieving, murderer on land, but on the sea, they are the perfect sailor. This is not an unusual story. I hoped it wasn’t true.

Before the Agent stepped off the fuel dock. He walked on the dock like one walks on ice. I said you will never catch him. The Agent nodded saying we will. 

The years passed as they do. Moving from one side of the Atlantic to the other. Plenty adventures stacking them on top of one another blurring the memories. The image of David hoisting the main stayed in the fore front of my memory. Maybe it stayed because he was accused of such violent crimes. I don’t know. I wanted to trust my instinct believing that he was falsely accused, but why did he run? Does running prove guilt? There is a certain logic to it. 

I grew up in Philly. I spent the last two years of high school in Bay Village Ohio. Home to the Dr. Sam Shepard murder. For those who don’t know the brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Sam Shepard was accused of killing his wife. He couldn’t prove his innocence for years. Eventually he did. The television series the Fugitive staring David Janssen and the movie by the same name stared Harrison Ford are based on this sensual murder. I lived a couple of doors down from where the murder took place. I have always been amenable to the escapist story. 

I later caught a glimpse of David in Trinidad sailing a catamaran. He was alone from what I could see. I called to him. He turned and looked in my direction and waved. I am sure he recognized my boat and me for that matter, but he was working a new narrative to say he was free.    

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