Twisted Cross

“Just grab the poor bastard’s ankles,” Blas said. He needed Sal’s help to drag a dead man to the main deck.

    “We can use this man’s extra blanket.” Sal, still feeling guilty, was desperate to improve their situation. He slept huddled and cold every night with a constant rumble in his guts.

   “You loco? I’d rather freeze,” Blas said. He wrapped his hands in rags before he touched the dead bodies, then went back to work.

   “Freeze if you want,” Sal said. Blas was so particular about what he touched, ate, drank. Did he think he was on a cruise for his health? “If I don’t get some sleep and something warm to eat, you’ll be tossing me overboard soon.”  Once on the main deck, they waited for the Brothers to finish their prayers before they could pitch the poor fellows into the graveyard of the Atlantic.

   “You know what bothers me? Whenever I hear prayers for the dead, I think of the Brothers on the road to Santiago.” Sal’s stomach turned over when ravenous sharks approached the corpses. Each time he saw a body set adrift, his own fragile notions of God floated further away.