THE BOOTLEGGED BILGE PUMP OF THE BRENDA LEE MAY
Deep in the season when hurricanes blow
west from the Atlantic toward Pamlico,
when rain comes in sheets and lightning streaks down
through windows and doors ‘cross Hatteras town
folk often speak of the scoundrels in grey
who bootlegged the bilge pump from the Brenda Lee May.
These scoundrels in grey were all that remained
of a Confederate unit whose honor was stained
by waylaying cargo from blockade-running craft
be it nails or gunpowder or propeller shafts
which they bartered to federals of the same ilk
for whiskey and rum and stockings of silk.
What began as a game progressed to a scam
and thence to a con and the group, to a man,
survived the whole war in luxurious ease
by playing both sides with actions of sleaze.
Condemned by both sides — but not very hard –
for both sides were supplied with whiskey and lard.
With the end of the war the twin band of thieves –
those receiving the goods and the ones who deceived –
took products in from the Caribbean isles
and distributed them inland and all the while
dodging the tariff because custom inspectors
were on the payroll as were dockside assessors.
As in all things that make money and plunder
luck comes like lighting accompanied with thunder.
It came in the form of beefsteaks and ale,
lambchops and sugar, glass sheets and nails.
But until 1920, the dollars were lean
for there was a limit to the sale of green beans
and lamb chops and nails and sugar and spice
and even the perfume which made matrons smell nice.
But come the new year the law opened the door
for scoundrels and schemers to provide so much more
and thus in the course of all things bought with cash
the band began the import of liquor in casks.
The dollars did flood in this trade of the illicit
for the thieves had a payroll immune to the visits
of marshals and mayors and investigative police
for all were on payroll from grandfather to niece
and so widespread was the cash there was never fear
the long arm of John Law would ever draw near.
Schemes only work well when seeds of deception
are planted in soil primed for conception
and once in the ground they grow like a weed
overspreading the field and fulfilling all needs.
But the soil also breeds the roots of a rub
and rot comes from below not atop as a bud.
Fateful it was on a dreary, wet day,
into Hatteras port limped the BRENDA LEE MAY,
a cargo-rich vessel with rusted hull studs
and no tools aboard to plug the incoming flood.
While in the dock some thought it a hoot
to steal the ship’s bilge pump while in a toot.
The mighty fall not from an invasion
but the ongoing abdication
of the chance, ever small, of eroding walls
and infestation of termites, even though small,
who will open the bricks to let barbarians in
to discovered only in a battle din.
As the cargo-rich vessel had no jurisdiction
it called upon those who had an addiction
to order and law and shed not a tear
for those in the business of the transport of beer.
Like incoming storm with hurricane’s course
the United States Coast Guard landed in force.
The fault of all scoundrels is lack of perception
for disaster grows in the same strength as deception.
Both seeds find root in the same fertile soil
to blossom together as their stems enfold
and a single misstep brings the house of cards down
leaving nothing but shards decorating the ground.
Or, in this case, along the seashore.
The Coast Guard came in like meteors
and destroyed all whiskey and barrels of beer,
along with the Scotch and all of the cheer
of seventy years of dodging the law
brought down by a lone act of scofflaw.
Courtesy of the BRENDA LEE MAY
the cabal ended up a flatten soufflé.
Honest is not easy but flaunting the law
will invite to your world a fatal flaw
and it only takes one act lead to decay
like bootlegging of bilge pump from the BRENDA LEE MAY.
[Steven Levi’s mysteries can be found at www.authormasterminds.com.]
