No, No, No! (BALZ)

[Brag]

Balz surveyed the measly camel shade. Then looked at the old man in the eye. He wanted to say, you son of a flowering whore in Arabic but he didn’t even know how to say it in Japanese. So he said, “Bleah!”
“Do you speak Spanish?” the old man asked.
“No,”
The old man pointed a finger at Balz, “You have said no in Spanish.”
“No, I’ve said no in Portuguese.”
“No, no, no. You have now said it in English.”
“No, I never say no in English. My last no was in lyrical Italian.”

Balz turned and strode toward his boat. This has been a lousy port to visit. He would sail to Sur, which in Spanish meant south, but to get there one had to sail north, which didn’t make much sense in Spanish but maybe it did in Arabic. One needed the seven pillars of wisdom to understand the ways of this legendary area. At least that was the title of the book by T.E. Lawrence, Balz was determined to become more heroic and legendary than the famed Lawrence of Arabia.

Lawrence, bah! How could someone called Lawrence be a hero? Now, Balz had a heroic ring to it. Balz of Arabia, that was a name that on dark Arabian Desert nights camel herders could sing to their camels.

Balz reached his boat. Pleased not to see Birdnard, he pushed his boat into the gentle waves of the Arabian Sea, raised the sails and headed for Masirah Island, thankful that Birdnard was not sitting and crapping on his boat.

No sooner Balz turned north, a screech filled Balz’s heart with dread,
Birdnard swooped over the boat and let out a schplot of poop dead center of the boat.

“You dirty bird,” Balz shouted.
“No, no me digas adios estrellita del sur,” Birdnard sang.
“You’re singing no, no in English and Sur is Arabic.”
“On the Peruvian guano islands that’s the way we sing a waltz. In Spanish”
Balz surveyed the pink rocky coast half a mile away, hoping to see Bedouins with rifles.
Birdnard landed on the boat. “I was having a great social with the Shakwes.”
“And who are they?”
“Seagulls. They were telling me all about Sur.”
“Learn something useful, you bird brain?”
“In Sur, you can get coffee and see flamingoes. Shade is cheaper, too. You can feed me kebabs while you watch your dhow being built.”
“What do I want a dhow for?”
“It’s a bigger toilet for me. You need a dhow to become a Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea pirate and drive the British nuts. Sur is one of the greatest dhow building centers.” Birdnard spread his huge wings. “But the Arabs call a ship a markab or a safiinah. Daw comes from the Swahili.”
“And I’ll buy a nice pirate suit to go with my terror of the seas status.” Balz thought one had to be a fashionable pirate in order to be properly admired. “How far is Sur from here?”
“!70 miles to Ras Al Hadd, then turn left—“
“We sailors turn to port.”
“Bwa ha ha,” Birdnard laughed. Turn to port and not into whisky?”
‘Tonight, for dinner I will have albatross in port sauce.”
“No, no, no. no”
Balz shook his head and grimaced in disgust. “Please say your nos in one language. Mixing Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and English nos in one sentence gets confusing."
Birdnard flapped his weings and flew to the top of the mast. “Cooking an albatross will bring you bad, very bad, super, bad, bad, terribly bad, incredibly bad, bad, bad luck,”
“In Sur when I meet Baba Jimbuna,” Balz waved his fist, “I’ll trade you in for a magic carpet.”