Buccaneer Dan: Chapter 1

Buccaneer Dan was known for being fierce, as fierce as he was good-looking. Everything about him was fierce. His dark penetrating eyes under his well shaped eyebrows, his weatherworn skin, and scruffy face made him look fierce (and ruggedly goodlooking). The fact that he was armed from top to bottom also added to his fierceness. He had two pistols stored under his long red overcoat, a blunderbuss on a string sashed around his shoulder that was usually partially hidden behind the conical Asian straw hat he kept tied around his neck, a blade at his waste, and a dagger stashed in one of his boots.

As an example of his fierceness, he once went to port and got acquainted and cuddly with a pretty gal. He got in a fight with her boyfriend and ended up slicing him clean in half right in front of everyone there in the pub.  ​​

​And this wasn’t even the first time he sliced someone in half. Sometimes he would slice from the head down and other times from left to right (on occasion it would be right to left but seeing as how he was left handed, it was easier for him to go left to right). One time he accidentally cut his first mate in half when this first mate got in his way when they were boarding a vessel to plunder. Normally Buccaneer Dan wouldn’t have minded cutting his first mate in half, but this particular first mate was wearing Buccaneer Dan’s favorite hat that this particular first mate borrowed after he lost his hat when they were fighting the native barbarians off the coasts of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. And this time Buccaneer Dan cut him in half from the top down so he also sliced his favorite hat in half. Stories like these helped spread Buccaneer Dan’s fame as the most fierce buccaneer of all time.

Buccaneer Dan was known for being fierce because he cut people in half somewhat regularly. That’s pretty darn fierce. He was also known for being good looking. This was primarily so for three reasons. First, he was born good looking—call it blessed with good genes. Second, the physical requirements of being a buccaneer helped him stay in great shape. Finally, the women folk seemed to like him pretty well. For these reasons, he was known as the most good looking. Thus, Buccaneer Dan became the most fierce and good-looking buccaneer of all time.

No one in the isles of the Gulf or the waves of the Atlantic wanted to be on Buccaneer Dan’s bad side—which was pretty easy to do. Buccaneer Dan’s first mate after the particular first mate that borrowed Buccaneer Dan’s hat that Buccaneer Dan accidentally sliced in half in the process of slicing that particular first mate in half found out what it was like to be on his bad side…

“Behold, tis I that come before thee to speak
doth now we go beyond the open shores
to plunder brothers? But with fantasy
do we treasure more gifts not beg’vn us,” said the first mate that was after that particular first mate.

“What did this man just be saying to me?!” shouted Buccaneer Dan.

“I think,” replied his smart crewman educated in economics, “that he’s asking if we are going to rob another ship for treasures that won’t actually be of lasting value. I’m not too sure though because he was speaking in Shakespearean iambic pentameter so it really doesn’t make much sense to the layman.”

“To the what?” responded Buccaneer Dan with a scowl. He didn’t know what a layman was but he didn’t like the sound of it.

“Uh, to a person who is most fierce and good looking is what I mean to say…”

“Tell me what ye sayed once more!” Buccaneer Dan barked to his Shakespearean first mate.

“Prithy thee me to press once more thoughts I have
my mind sincerely fastened to hold secure.
A more better objective may it be
to seek treasures beyond the Earth’s…ugh!”

“That be all ye say!” retorted Buccaneer Dan as he sliced this first mate in half from right to left (one of the truly rare times he had done that). Blood spilled all over the deck of their junk* ship that they commandeered when they were fighting the native barbarians off the coast of the Yellow Sea in Qingdao, China. They baited a giant hook with the body of this first mate and threw it into the ocean behind them. About ten minutes later they caught a man-eating great white shark** and cooked it up. Buccaneer Dan had the cook make some shark fin soup; he loved shark fin soup anytime he could get it. He shared it with his crew. “Food it always be better when ye share it with yar crew,” toasted Buccaneer Dan, “especially if it be shark fin soup.”

“Aye, ye most fierce and good-looking,” the crew responded in unison.

Buccaneer Dan really did enjoy sharing his food. However, to keep with his reputation of being fierce, he often had the cook put poison in one of the portions whenever he did so. It also gave them more bait to catch man-eating great white sharks with and thus more shark fin soup for Buccaneer Dan.

Buccaneer Dan turned to the crew Economist. “What be yar name, matey?”

“Solow, Robert Solow. Informally known as Econ Bob in the buccaneer community.”

“Robert Solow…that rings a bell…hmm…Robert Solow?” Buccaneer Dan gasped. “The famous Nobel Prize winning macroeconomist and father of the Solow neo-classical growth model with endogenous technological change?!?”

“No, no, that’s not me. You must be mistaking me with another Robert Solow. I am quite good at economics and analytical thinking in general across multiple disciplines, though, just like any economist.”

“And how be yar aim with a musket?”

“Some say I am better at shooting a musket than I am at economic theory and they are probably correct. And let me just say I am very good at economics.”

“That be much impressive,” Buccaneer Dan said nodding his head in approval. “Will ye be me first mate, Econ Bob?” though he was more appointing than asking, “Need I a man of smartitude, accuracy, and analytic prowess such as yarself does be possessing.”

“Yes I will.”

And with that Buccaneer Dan got a new first mate.

He liked the smart econ first mate much more than he ever liked the Shakespearean first mate. Not only was Econ Bob a smart guy, he also looked like a smart guy. He was clean-shaven, tall, and had a laser straight part in his dark blonde hair. “How did me be getting the Shakespeare guy in the first place?” Buccaneer Dan thought to himself as he scratched his head.

“Where be we going now, ye land lubbers?” Buccaneer Dan yelled*.

The crew of 33 buccaneers huddled together at the dining table. One buccaneer spoke up, “I think we should go to the Spanish Isles to steal some silver as the ships come to harbor.” Then he immediately died from the poison the cook put into the soup. He fell flat on his face hitting the deck with a loud thump. Most likely he would have considered himself unlucky, but everyone else thought that was quite fortunate because this buccaneer was an outspoken liberal who always made the first suggestion and criticized everyone else’s accusing them of ignoring the facts. And though they were stouthearted buccaneers, it would sometimes hurt their feelings to have their ideas trampled upon in such a manner.

“What if we were to go search for mermaids in the lagoon once more?” suggested the buccaneer with three eyebrow rings who they called Three-ringed Guy. He braced himself for criticism but then remembered the outspoken liberal just died.

“A mighty fine idea,” replied Buccaneer Dan, “mermaids they be most cute and flirtatious.” He didn’t actually know that though. They’d probably searched for mermaids a couple dozen times without ever seeing one. Three-ringed Guy swore that he saw one once when no one else was looking, but he was too childish and gullible to really be taken seriously. Case in point, he drank too much ale the night Buccaneer Dan signed him into his crew in Saint-Malo, France and woke up with those three rings in his eyebrow. Buccaneer Dan convinced him that he had been in a serious accident and that those three rings were holding his scalp on and that if he removed them his scalp would fall off leaving his brain exposed to be eaten by birds—which they would surely do. Either way, they all believed that mermaids existed and really wanted to see one.

“Say, is something burning?” one of the buccaneers in the huddle asked. With all those buccaneers huddling together, it was hard to tell who it was that had asked that, but one would assume that it was Smithee since he had the largest nostrils in the whole group.  His upturned nose made it even more convincing that it was him. Only it wasn’t him since he had died while they were commandeering their ship in China. So no one ever figured out who it was. Regardless of that fact, all the buccaneers stopped and sniffed the air.

“Why yes. It does smell like something is burning. In fact, it smells like the burning of teak wood,” commented Econ Bob.

“Arg! Our ship truly be made of teak—a common wood of monsoon forestation growth in south east Asia,” Buccaneer Dan added.

“I’m beginning to think that I shouldn’t have stored the extra barrels of gunpowder in the galley*,” said Three-ringed Guy as he blankly stared towards the galley at the stern of the ship.

All the other buccaneers joined in the blank staring. Time seemed to freeze as they waited to see what would happen. However, time did not actually freeze…

KABOOM!!!

The ship blew into a million pieces flinging buccaneers, shrapnel, and debris everywhere. One extra long and extra sharp piece of shrapnel impaled five buccaneers at once right through the guts of four of them and in the groin of the especially tall one making a buccaneer shish kebab. Man-eating great white sharks love buccaneer shish kebabs and they were eaten as soon as they touched the sea. One of the Asian and one of the European buccaneers splatted together with such force that it looked like they combined into one person making what Buccaneer Dan surely would have called a Eurasian.  However, they did not survive so they weren’t called anything but dead. The galley knives and sporks made an awful mess out of a dozen or so buccaneers. It looked like a big pile of ground up beef with cut up pieces of cloth distributed intermittently throughout was flying through the air. It turns out that man-eating sharks are not big fans of ground up man meat due to concerns about bacteria contamination.

​Buccaneer Dan, Econ Bob, and Three-ringed Guy were blasted away. “Three-ringed Guy, ye be most careless and childish,” Buccaneer Dan said as he flew through the air. Although this predicament would usually make Buccaneer Dan, or anyone, quite upset, Buccaneer Dan had a soft spot for Three-ringed Guy and his childish, ​careless actions. He took a moment to reflect on how he met him…