Michelle has the long-skirted swagger of a spinster schoolmarm, the kind of woman whose corset you could really sink your teeth into. She appeals to Gutter’s sense of chivalry with her distressed damsel antics, but Gutter admits he shat out his manners long-ago, about the same time he stopped giving a damn about Cleveland dames. Michelle pleads for Gutter’s help. Her sister is missing.
Fresh into port, Vic and fellow rescue diver, Mosby, participate in bar games with fellow backpackers in Australia.
On the dark beaches of Florida’s Gulf Coast, Vic Neverman celestially navigates to a bar filled with whiskey revelry, butchered song and unrequited love.
Destinations are not always intended. Vic finds himself on the wrong side of Lake Michigan, trying to make the most of an evening in port, only to find himself zigging when he’d rather be zagging.
Karma Café is a Euro-trash hippie joint with hypnotic cocktails, framed portraits of large-breasted mermaids with anaconda tails, a television airing delayed soccer matches, ceiling fans circulating the sweet scent of sweat-opium-patchouli and a food menu catering to those on the Ayahuasca diet. Of their cocktails, I recommend Peru’s national drink, the Pisco Sour.
At the End of the World, all are barefoot. The sand floor is midday hot at midnight. Tropical air is thick and combustible from the airborne sweat & rum swung from the bodies of dancers. The mood is frantic, panicked and carnal with a backdrop of impending doom. It is a ramshackle bar atop of a rocky outcrop surrounded by a swelling ocean during the twilight of man’s dominion over the earth. The end is near and there is a growing concern I will not live to see the climax.
Uncharted Dives 