Author: Jeremy Jerschina

Once upon a time, a time long lost, a time long forgotten, a time long replaced by other times, the sun rose upon the hamlet of Bayonne.

“Hearty morning, eh?” grumbled Erik, the restless Norseman, as he laced up his dragon-skin galoshes.

“Not too chipper there, mate, are you?” Birdbeak replied, grinning ear to ear, as he glanced over the detailed map of the legendary Newark Bay.

“No more, no less,” interjected nonsensically the eminent Captain Q, who was at the time adjusting his weathered, off-beige captain’s bucket hat. Finding the proper angle in relation to the sun’s current position in the pre-noon sky, he added, to a little more satisfaction, “We shall row despite the loss.”

“What loss, boys?” The three sea-hardened sailors heard a cavernous voice. Looking about, they saw nothing. Suddenly, with the gallant cry of an eagle, the barbaric neigh of an eager horse, and a blinding flash of white-and-red light, appeared the voice’s source. Mace disembarked from his noble steed, still half-asleep (the warrior, not the horse) and three-quarters dressed (“Who needs shoes!” he’d always say).

“No matter the loss,” replied Captain Q, having found a fourth for his crew. “Now we sail!”

“You dastardly fool!” cried Erik, to the utter bemusement of the Captain. “We have not yet even reached water! We must accrue a stronghold on the mighty Newark before we tell tales of its conquering.”

The Captain shrugged, as Birdbeak laughed, as Mace stood puzzled. “Not the great deep Newark! You must be mad – all know the great vessels that battle in its raging torrents. The vile creatures that inhabit its waters are famous to the ends of the earth – or at least Hudson County! I thought we were going to take a ferry across the pond at the Park of Stephen R. Gregg.”

“Led yourself astray, I see, little Mace,” chuckled Birdbeak. “We men here have endeavored to…”

“Conquer the fort of Admiral Monstro!” all three sailors exclaimed in conscious, if not pre-planned, unison, and granted to each other sailor pounds.

In the next few minutes, Captain Q, Birdbeak, and Erik all enlightened poor, unsuspecting Mace about the parameters and exact entailments of the trepidatious operation. The Quartet of Doom, as Erik reckoned they should fashion themselves, were to cross-navigate the treacherous Bay of Newark and board the Shooter’s Island, a haunted ship graveyard and alleged hideout of the notorious and unnaturally aged Confederate Admiral Monstro.

Mace started to show a tinge of discomfort on his face. “I’m not sure this is such a good…”

Captain Q, the sage, grabbed Mace, who was still three-quarters dressed and shoved him into Birdbeak’s ancient automated carriage, an exhibit Birdbeak had stolen from the International Museum of Ancient Roman Transportation.

The other two crew mounted the rickety stagecoach as it slowly and not so surely began to propel itself toward Ye Olde Route Four-Forty, an old dirt road on which cattle often grazed.

The next day, the automated carriage brought the eager sailors to The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company’s Bayonne bazaar. From behind the gargantuan storehouse of assorted groceries and other useless commodities, the Quartet of Doom planned to launch their tried and true knørr, which had on several occasions sailed the Atlantic Ocean under the command of Erik’s ancestor Leif Erikson.

As the four easily thrust the longship into the waters of the perilous Newark Bay, they felt an ominous presence overcome them. The three sailors might have fled in fear if not for their gallant Captain, who, his ocean-washed hair tearing in the wind, his prominent moustache reflecting the rays of the merciless sun, encouraged them: “Do not fear, crew. If peril ensues, know I will be the last man to leave the boat. No Kraken, no sea serpent, no, not even Admiral Monstro will force me to turn my back in fear to abandon my crew and ship!”

The men who moments ago might have gladly buried their heads under the sand behind the mighty A&P’s parking venue now looked like the most dogged of sea dogs, and hurtled onto the eager seas.

In minutes, their ferocious rowing brought them within sight of the mythical Island of the Shooter. They could see the jagged coastline of the rocky bastion that housed a legend.

Suddenly, Erik watched in awe as a horned tail cut through the water by his ancestor’s vessel like a torpedo. With incredulity he watched as the tail lifted itself like the arm of the Statue of Liberty and took a swing at the Viking Pride of the Atlantic. The creature struck but once – Mace ensured of that, as he drew his lance and pierced the foul appendage before it swiped once more at the sacred knørr.

Birdbeak surveyed the damage. The floor of the ship was damaged, with water already spreading to the ends of the ship. However, Erik did not lack knowledge of the emergency provisions available on Leif’s Joy. Grinning, he opened a secret compartment in the main sail and reached in. Seconds later, he withdrew his hand, and with it a gleaming roll of Viking™ Duct Tape.

“You gotta love the Vikings, dudeseph! They think of everything…” He continued heralding obscure innovations of Scandinavian origins, as Birdbeak shook his head.

Speaking in an archaic and esoteric lingo, Birdbeak scolded Erik, “You natter ad nauseum, good sire.”

Mace added, “Perhaps you would interest yourself in preserving our lives rather than the cultural heritage of your Cold North.”

Erik rolled his eyes and utilized his boat repair skills to patch the gaping hole. Though by this time, the water in the boat had reached a dangerous level, the crew quickly worked to bail it, using Captain Q’s gargantuan clogs as buckets.

Their current work done, the Quartet of Doom returned to the oars and rowed on. It did not take long for the next obstacle to appear on the horizon.

From the mist which had formed during the water-bailing incident, emerged two battling ironclads. Captain Q immediately recognized them – the USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack.

“Blast!” he shouted. “There is no doubt left in my mind that we are approaching Admiral Monstro’s hideout. He is calling up ghosts of the past to defer us from out journey.

As the ironclads appeared to be entering a ceasefire to eliminate the strange Viking ship they saw emerge from the fog, an unexpected, miraculous occurrence took place. Darkness enveloped the three ships as the sun was blotted out.

“Strange,” Captain Q muttered amazedly, “there was no eclipse-causing syzygy supposed to occur at this time on month.”

“O Captain! My Captain! Stop pondering on the eclipse and let’s use the cover to escape from the jaws of death!” one of the crew beseeched the thought-smitten figure.

Immediately, he sprang into action, and the duct-taped knørr sped off further into the dark waters of the Newark.

As light returned on the glorious sailors, they were shocked to see that the iron beasts of the Civil War had disappeared, along with the thick fog in which they battled.

The crew grew tired as they neared the shore of Shooter’s Island. Suddenly, the vessel groaned to a halt.

In fear, Erik looked into the water. His fears were confirmed, as he saw that Odin’s Messenger had been caught by what appeared to be a booby trap of sorts.

All the crew’s eyes fell on their Captain. He fumbled for words. “We have not yet been defeated!” he finally mustered up.

As a fanfare rose from behind the island and the water around the longship began to rage, he added, “Now we have been defeated.”

Admiral Monstro’s seafaring cavalcade approached the boat. The crew dreaded what would follow. Legend had it that the Admiral would take his prisoners to the lair of the feared Kraken, where he would force them overboard into its gaping jaws, hungry, grasping for flesh.

Monstro, a tall, gaunt, imposing man grayed with age, stepped onto the deck of the Norse Bullet, set his stare on the longship’s commanding officer. In a seething voice, he as-if-gasped, “It seems your ship has become a hazard to the navigation of other boats in the Newark – particularly mine. Won’t you come along and I will correct the problem?”

Captain goaded his crew off the Scandinavian Sojourner, and, as previously promised, he was the last to leave the ship.

A dense feeling was ubiquitous onboard Monstro’s blockade runner. The Quartet of Doom, to put it lightly, was doomed, doomed to a death worse than any other imaginable.

The blockade runner, with the knørr in tow, cut through the waters of the Newark. Admiral Monstro, growing eager, glimmered with joy, “No eclipse to save you this time. Lances will be of no avail here. Oh, and save the duct tape for another occasion.”

“What a cornball, Captain. Reminds me of you,” Birdbeak whispered.

The runner sped along. The crew saw, perhaps for the last time, the docks, houses, factories, parks, apartments, churches, old ladies with dogs of Bayonne, to which they had all grown accustomed.

“Look at that strange figure sitting at that dock out yonder,” Mace said, in an effort to salvage the understandably decaying mood. “It looks somewhat like –”

All of the sudden, the Quartet of Doom was standing on the dock they were just gazing at from afar.

Electricity seemed to be sizzling off the bodies of all four of their wet, terrified bodies.

Mace, not noticing the fifth individual, exploded, “All right, guys! Someone keeps cutting me off whenever I try to –”

The fifth person spoke, “Forgive me, son. I figured you might like this here dry dock a bit better than the jaws of death Monstro has intended for you.”

“I was right!” Mace exclaimed in amazement. “You’re…”

“King Chase…” the quartet muttered, astonished.

“That’s King Chase the Fisherman, sonny boys,” the man replied as he took a swig from his bottle of root beer and cast another line into the Newark. “And, frankly, I haven’t been having any luck for the past nine weeks I’ve been out on this dock in Castle Boatworks, so I figured that I’d actually do something productive.”

“You mean… But that’s not… Totally illogical… There’s not a single piece of empirical rationale… Incredible…” Captain continued to fumble for words.

“If you’re asking if I rescued you raggedy bunch, the answer is yes. Now if you could kindly get off my docks, my little buoys, I think my luck is about to change.”

“I just have one question, King Chase,” Captain Q said cautiously. “How did you cause an eclipse to occur?”

“Eclipse, lad? What are talking about?”

“Well, didn’t you send the eclipse to save us from the dueling ironclads but a few hours ago?”

“Son, I have not the faintest…”

Grinning, Erik piped up in the background, “Your Majesty, I think I know who helped us out with that fortunate event…”

The quartet slowly began to walk away, wearied by the toil, treachery, and hardship of voyage. They boarded Birdbeak’s rickety cart as it rode off toward the cow-grazing fields of Four-Forty. Needless to say, they lived happily ever after.

- Notes to Reader

: The above story was based on true events.

: A photograph of Birdbeak, Captain Q, Erik, Mace, and their mighty seafaring vessel (pictured from left to right) is preserved for posterity at the following web address: http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2104/boating10206yc5.jpg