CV Rick

Montana Jones' Last Adventure

Now we come to the end of our tales about Montana Jones.  I've taken you along as he avoided bill collectors, dumped his car in the harbor, and cut off his own finger.  I've shown you how ornery he is and how deserving of disdain, even ridicule – provided you are out of reach.  The question remains, what happened to Montana Jones? Where is he now?

Always the opportunist, Montana was fishing the Banks in August of 2005 when a tropical storm over the Bahamas became a big storm by the name of Katrina.  He followed the news and when the dikes burst, Montana was sitting in the bar with the rest of the fishermen discussing how awful the situation was, and how badly the government botched the job. 

“They ought to have supply and hospital ships follow storms like that right into the coast.  That way they'd be right on site with what everyone needs,” Steve Burnap said.

A light went on in Montana's mind and he jumped off his barstool and took off out the door that very minute.

His plan only took a day to implement.  He offered his boat as collateral on a loan and gathered together every cent he owned.  Then he called in favors and borrowed money from everyone he knew. Montana Jones was going into the supply business. 

Montana Jones and the World Series

Remember when Boston played the Yankees in the 2003 AL Championship?  I do and I'm not even a baseball fan.  In the third game of that series, Roger Clemens

faced Pedro Martinez and Montana Jones decided he needed to watch the game in a bar.  Montana hates the Red Sox - a minority position in Gloucester, Massachussetts.

He drank a full bottle of Grey Goose at his apartment and then he got into his Cadillac and drove down the road.  There isn't anyone in town who doesn't know Montana's car.  For one, it's pink - a long, low smooth pink ride, like a Mary Kay reward car.  He likes driving a pink Caddy because it gets attention.  Besides, no one's fool enough to make fun of Montana Jones.

He scraped the right side on some parked cars out on Middle and he overcorrected on Washington and scraped up the left on the other side of the street.  I must be really drunk, he thought. 

All the way up the highway he swerved from the right to the left.  Cars honked their horns and moved out of the way and he made his way to the bar where he knew there was going to be trouble.  He'd make sure of it.

He ripped into the parking lot still doing over forty.  He took off a rearview mirror and ruined two paint jobs going in and then put the Caddy into a spot too small for it, scraping up one of those little pickups; a Ranger, he thought.  He had to scoot over to the passenger side since he couldn't open his door far enough to squeeze out.

Montana Jones' Missing Finger

Montana Jones tells the guys at the bar that he lost the tip of his left ring finger in Vietnam; tells them that he got the purple heart and then laughs that they give out purple hearts for the smallest injuries. “But if its enemy fire, it's enemy fire, right?” he asks them. 

More often than not someone will buy him a drink and toast to his service.   

“Here here,” Montana will say.

But we know better, don't we?  Montana never went to Vietnam.  The extent of his service was a quick stint in the Coast Guard aboard a Cutter followed by an arrest for smuggling ganja in from the Caribbean.  Who ever heard of a bullet taking off the tip of a finger? 

Here's what really happened.

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I was really in debt.  It looked like I was ready to lose the boat and I couldn't sink it in the harbor for the insurance money on account of the fact that I'd already done that one time just a year earlier.  I was desperate.

So I walk into my attorney's office.  I got this Jew lawyer, see.  They're the best kind so that's what I got.  I says to him, “Bennie, what's a finger worth?”

“Excuse me?” he says like he didn't hear the question. 

“For the insurance, if I was to lose my finger in a fishing accident,” I says to him. 

“Montana Jones, don't you dare do what I think you're going to do.”

Montana Jones and the Korean's Fishing Net

“What we're talking about here is a net that's two miles long and costs around twenty-thousand bucks.  It reels out for thirty minutes to sometimes an hour,” Montana said.

“And you lost it?” Jimmy asked.

“I think I'll start at the beginning, thank you.”

*****

These Korean fishermen were looking for an engine man to go with them out to the Grand Banks for a few days while they fished cod.  I was in between jobs so I hired on and out we went. 

Now being an engine man meant I had to earn my keep, right?  So they had me all over the boat.  First I was spooling the net, then stowing gear and I got a little tired, so I go below and unhook the distributor line. Then when the engine chokes up a few minutes later these little Koreans come up to me pointing and coughing or whatever they do for speech. 

“Yeah, yeah,” I says and go below to work on the engine.  Since I have a nip – you know, a pint of whiskey – it takes me a couple hours down there clanking and shuffling.  Then I reconnect the line and the engine roars to life.  Now these Koreans think I'm the shit.  So they leave me alone while I putter the time away on the engine. 

That was until we get out to the tail of The Banks and they want to run out the net. So I go up and operate the winch for them. 

Montana Jones and the Fighting Baboon

Alright everyone.  I tried to write the story of Montana Jones and the baboon, but I couldn't do it.  The problem isn't that it's not an interesting story, it's just that I can't put it on my blog.  The fact of the matter is that it was a different world in 1971 when the incident happened.  Back then animals were treated badly and few cared.  Back then handlers were bringing bears around to wrestle people in bars and there were small operators charging people a few cents to see lions caged up in the parking lot.  Back then it was a bit rougher, somewhat wilder, and a whole lot crueler. 

So, when Montana Jones went into the Armory Club on a Friday night and paid his five bucks to stand in a ring for one minute with a baboon, there wasn't the stigma that we have today.  He did it for the prize money, three hundred bucks.  And he did it because he was Montana Jones and that means he wasn't afraid of anything. 

I started writing the story like I heard it.  The bar was grimy, the baboon's handler was as shady and disreputable as Montana and probably just as drunk.  The chalk square on the floor was ten feet on a side and one by one the baboon had dispatched opponents.  Because of the muzzle, the animal couldn't bite and because of the chain it couldn't pursue anyone outside that box, but inside the square he could tackle, attack, and maul human beings.

The reason I couldn't continue writing the story is because I can't glorify that sort of cruelty and the telling of it seemed to glorify it.  The fact is that a man shouldn't be able to stay in the square with a baboon. The primate's arms are so strong it can outpunch any prize fighter who's ever lived.  It's main weapon was it's slap, a lightning quick practiced blow upside the head that dazed some and knocked out others.  After the slap, the baboon would then push the men right out of the ring.  The fights didn't last a minute, they didn't last fifteen seconds.

Montana Jones Sells Shrimp in Maine

“Did I ever tell you guys about the one time I got scared for my life?”

Everyone in the shed laughed.  Montana Jones, fireball of Gloucester, meanest man to ever fight in the Crow's Nest scared.  It was almost inconceivable.

So he began his story.

 

In the early days it was hard to get work on the boats.  But being a resourceful guy I found ways to make ends meet. 

Montana was gearing into the story, taking quick sips from his bottle of Grey Goose at each breath.  His eyes though, that's where his fire was, in his eyes.  He picked up speed as he remembered the events.

My friend, Ace Greery had a job on a shrimper.  One night we was talking about the business and he tells me about all the shrimps they can't sell.

“What the hell?” I says. 

“What the hell indeed, Montana.  We can't sell the dead ones, just the living ones. That's why we've spend so much work keeping the hold clean and the aerator working.  The dead ones aint't worth shit.  That's where the money goes for a shrimper over the side with the dead ones.  You try to make it up with the live ones.”

“Can you get me some of the dead ones?” I ask.

“What for?”

“I've got a plan,” I tells him. 

 

Montana leans back and takes a long drag on a Cuban cigar.  He gets them from someone on the docks.  It's a myth that we don't have trade with Cuba.  Cargo is moving up and down the Eastern seaboard all the time, just not always on the docks.

Montana Jones Drives His Car Into the Harbor

“Did I ever tell you about the time I drove my car into Gloucester harbor?” Montana yelled through the door of the Ground Squirrel.  The Ground Squirrel was formerly a shed that had grown into the unofficial clubhouse of a large group of friends who gathered every Friday night to drink and tell stories.  Montana sat in the yard outside the narrow door because Bill didn't want him inside getting drunk, starting fights, and messing up the decor. 

“Ah, we all know about that one.  You dumped your car for the insurance money. How many times can you screw over insurance companies in your life, Montana?” Bill hollered back.

“Insurance money?  Lot your know you little Irish fuck.  That car didn't even have insurance.”

“Then you're dumber than I thought.  Dumping your car in the harbor like a retard.”

But I was intrigued.  Why in the hell would Montana Jones drive a car into the harbor if it wasn't for the insurance money?  “Tell me about it, Montana.” 

The room issued a collective groan, but Montana launched into his tale. 

“It was this 69 El Camino, see.  The one with the big block 396 engine and she was Jet Black and all  shiny like the dome on a drunk little Irishman.” he began.

And we were off into another story a Montana Jones.

Montana Jones and the Bill Collector

Montana Jones paced the length of his tiny Brooklyn apartment with a bottle of Grey Goose in his left hand. His right arm was in a sling. 

“I told the doctor that we needed to come to an arrangement,” he said in between sips from the bottle. “I told him that I wanted him to fix my shoulder just a bit.”

“Just a bit?” I asked.  “Why in the hell would you want your shoulder operated on just a bit?”

“Well, Rick it's like this, as I told the doctor.  I want to be strong enough to lift a bottle of Grey Goose to my lips, but not strong enough to be able to go back to work full time.  See?”  He smiled and took another sip.

“I told the doctor that he'd be doing both of us a favor.”

“How's that?” I asked.

“That is precisely what the doctor asked me.  I told it to him like this.  If I can go back to work then they're going to have one pissed off, drunk Irishman piloting a tugboat in the harbor.  It's just safer and in the public interest to fix me up enough to drink and no more.”

Montana Jones is both a laugh riot and the scariest man I ever met.  He stands about five foot eleven and probably weighs four hundred pounds.  But for all that fat, it's covering muscles an ox would envy.  He's a brute of a man and deceptively spry. 

“Montana, should you be drinking so much?  Your girlfriend is coming over soon, isn't she?”

“That's exactly why I should be drinking so much,” he says. “I want to be three sheets to the wind when she gets here.  That's the only way I can stand talking to the broad.”

He walked back to the living room where I sat in a Lazy Boy recliner.  “Rick, did I ever tell you about t that dumb-ass bill collector who came calling?”

I nodded because it wouldn't matter if he'd already told me the story or not, when Montana Jones wants to tell a story he goes ahead and tells it.