The Pirate Joke

I was hanging out with the Queen of England the other day.

“Hey, Ellie!” I call her that because we’re best friends. Because we have a connection.

She sighs. Rolls her eyes. “Jack, please—”

“You ever heard the pirate joke?”

She groans. “Not this again.”

She’s joking. She loves my jokes. She just doesn’t know how to show it.

So I continue.

The captain’s in a deep slumber when the first mate bursts in, screaming. The captain wakes up, groggy. “What’s the emergency?”

Ellie groans again. Fake protest. She’s playing along.

“Please, Jack,” she says, voice laced with mock desperation. “Please stop.”

I grin. “So the first mate tells him—Captain, there’s a ship on the horizon. Ready to engage.”

Ellie laughs. A weird kind of laugh. A forced kind of laugh. A laugh where the sound is wrong but the eyes tell the truth.

The captain sprints up. “Get me my red shirt.”

Ellie stands, races to the door. But it’s locked. “What the hell?” She looks at me, pale now. The realization crawling over her skin.

“I locked it when I got here,” I tell her. “I knew you’d want it locked.”

The anticipation shatters her. She sits back down. She needs the punchline. She needs it.

They win the battle. Sink the enemy ship.

Later, the first mate asks the captain—why the red shirt?

Ellie screams. Help, help! She loves making her own jokes inside my jokes.

I give her a look. A look that says Shh. Silly. I’m still talking.

I swat a fly. She flinches.

The captain explains—if he got wounded, the crew wouldn’t see the blood. They’d keep fighting.

Ellie pleads now. “Please, Jack. Please.”

She’s so dramatic.

I hug her. Tight. “After I finish, it’s your turn.”

She goes silent.

The next day comes.

First mate busts in. Another emergency.

“Spit it out.”

“Twenty ships. On the horizon. Ready to engage.”

The captain sprints up.

“Get the men to their battle stations.”

“And bring me my brown pants.”

Ellie screams. Collapses. Thrashing. Crying.

Her eye hits the floor hard. Bruised. Black and blue.

She sits still after that. Listens.

I howl. “BROWN PANTS, ELLIE! DID YOU HEAR THAT?”

I’m gasping. I can’t breathe. It’s too much. Too funny.

Ellie wipes tears from her face.

Her eye isn’t that bad. I tell her to cover it with makeup. No one will know.

She nods. “I did that yesterday.”

Oh, yeah.

Yesterday. The other eye.

Tripped while I was telling her a joke I made up.

I help her cover the bruise. Promise it’s our secret.

Unlock the door. Go about my day.

She’s gonna love the joke I have for her today.