Desperation Reef

Which is less than it takes him to check belowdecks for Mae, or Bette, or whoever else might be aboard this fish-reeking, cigarette-smoke-steeped trawler. He scribbles his number onto a Tsingtao coaster.

“Mae! Mae!”

But no Mae, and back on deck Casey sees Smoker, fully drenched and lurching up the ramp toward the boarding gate.

“Tell Bette she owes me a chocolate Lab named Mae.”

“You should take down video. Going viral. Bad for business.”

“Soon as I get my dog back. And I want enough money for a good phone. You tell her that.”

He presses the coaster into the man’s cold wet hand. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. But I do expect her call.”

He’s at the Barrel an hour later, still midafternoon, transferring his hundred-plus-pound tuna fish from his cooler to the walk-in refrigerator in the restaurant kitchen.

In the Barrel’s third-story office/apartment, Casey showers quickly, balancing his phone on the aluminum shower top, just out of spray distance. When he’s done he posts another round of Mae pictures on all his socials, pleads for sightings, be-on-the-lookout fors, any clues no matter how tenuous as to where she might be. His Mae posts are going viral on more than one platform but the false sightings are everywhere and useless.

He sends out another CaseyGram with pictures of Mae and pleas for help.

Someone has seen something! he writes.

But what if Bette Wu doesn’t call?

His Woodland Street home is a small 1950s cottage surrounded by walls of purple bougainvillea, and yellow, red, and white hibiscus. Some of the blossoms are already folding in for the night.

He takes his laptop to the bistro table in his backyard, profuse with bird-of-paradise, potted plumeria, succulents, and a fragrant center-yard tangerine tree now heavy with fruit.

An hour later he’s removed his posts, blogs, and videos from every platform he uses. Goes through his accounts once more, to make sure. But he wonders what real good this is going to do for Bette Wu and her fellow pirates, considering how many thousands of them have already viewed, forwarded, liked, forwarded again, around the Internet, around the world. Hasn’t the damage been done?

While he’s at it he checks his brother Brock’s Breath of Life Rescue Mission feed, reads another vitriolic exchange between Brock and Kasper Aamon, the founder of Right Fight.

Brother Brock Stonebreaker, it was great to see you up in Mendocino.

My pleasure, Aamon-you looked more intelligent than you do on Fox.

You look like the same slimy dude who bores his congregation at the Breath of Life Rescue Mission for hours on end. I know that because some of my Right Fighters live practically right next door to you. They tell me it’s a squalid pit, your alleged church. A slum. A black hole, a barrio.

Why don’t you come by, slip a couple grand into the collection plate sometime?

So you can give it away to the pathetic, pregnant, drug-addicted minorities you love so much?

Sure! Be happy to.

You’re a sick donkey, Brother Brock. A waste of white skin. Just look at you, with your plantation hair and your ink and your fat wahine wife.

Careful now, Kasper — your stupidity is showing through, again.

I think we should meet face-to-face again, Brock. Maybe clear the air a little.

I’d rather step on a rattlesnake. Don’t waste my time. I could be helping someone who needs it.

Like you helped tie off those disease-riddled junkies shooting up in the drug cafes in San Francisco? I saw the video. That’s the kind of help you mean?

Kasper, lose the hate for people you don’t even know. Then find someone to care about, other than yourself.