Muddied Waters - Coda

Chapter 10 - Hold Fast

All throughout Jonathan's life he'd felt like a fish out of water. Born into a family of fishermen from Dublin, he was a diminutive child with no real interest in the difficult family business and seemed a natural only at undermining the masculinity of the Kendall name. Often times, his brothers would rescue him from bullies only to show them how it was really done. His mother seemed to be the only person in the world that offered Jonathan the kindness and understanding he craved. If he'd stayed young forever it would have been enough, but adolescence brought with it an urgency to achieve self-determination and so Jonathan had set out to find the type of gratification only he could fancy. He'd expected a tearful goodbye from his mother – what surprised him, though, was how tearful his father and brothers had been as well. He remembered distinctly how in that moment he'd thought of bagging his odyssey altogether because, for the first time, the people he strived to impress let their own walls crumble and had finally showed him that he was indeed a member of their brotherhood. He stuck to his plan though, believing that him leaving was the reason for that affirmation.

Jonathan's mother had known how to play the fiddle and had taught him until his skills surpassed her own. He then learned to play various wind and string instruments, all by sheer practice and with absolutely no literacy, musical or otherwise. He would frequent taverns and parties in various locales and listen to the musicians play ballads passed down by older generations. He'd remember their chords and verses and be able to instantly mimic music written by the more educated. Though he had little expectations of how he would fare, Jonathan was surprised at how poverty-riddled his profession actually was. All of the times he had watched and studied minstrels plying their trade, he'd never considered where they went once they were no longer the focal point of the room. It seemed like a cosmic bait-and-switch that Jonathan could enrapture entire groups of people for as long as he wielded his instruments, feeling as if he were the most important person in the world, only for that sense of near-omnipotent power to disappear as soon as was finished. The poor pay and lack of tips certainly didn't help either. Travelling to Liverpool and then later to London, he worked- at least to his assertion- incredibly hard just to get by. His attempt to slip into high society where entertainers were known to make more coin ended in failure. As a last resort, he boarded a ship to the New World, hoping to make something of himself where there would be less of a social hierarchy standing in the way of his dreams. The thought of returning to Dublin never once cross his mind.

Ironically, the type of people that would prey on Jonathan seemed to be the ones that appreciated his music the most. Bullies often turned into admirers once Jonathan had their ears – the amount of times Jonathan had endured painful, albeit genial slaps on the back from otherwise gruff sailors, soldiers, plantation workers and prostitutes, one might think he had flipped the losing hand life had dealt him into a winner. He certainly had thought so when he'd first met Chelsea.

Meeting countless people from all walks of life, Jonathan had also developed an out-going personality that, coupled with his ability, endeared him to acquaintances. He gravitated to those seeking escape through brief and cathartic moments of pleasure and so had found work at Tortuga's Honey Pot as soon as he had landed on the island. It was in that rough-and-tumble establishment frequented almost exclusively by lumber and dock workers that he witnessed a certain firebrand of a woman putting a handsy patron in his place. Partly intimidated but mostly in awe, he barely had time to consider the ramifications of approaching Chelsea in such a worked-up state before he'd found himself in front of her, asking for the owner of the brothel. He'd felt a kinship immediately and saw that even though she hid her emotions well, Jonathan had sparked her interest, too. After a few conversations and a successful performance, the two became inseparable. Jonathan had enjoyed the company of enough women by that point to know when something was real, and though the pay for his work had managed to be as meagre as ever, life had become much more enjoyable.