112.

   Conrad leaned across the table with a smile on his face. “I done ya wrong today.”
   “Story of my life.”, I muttered.
   “Things haven’t been so bad, kid.”, he shot back, looking away. 
   “Things haven’t been so bad.”, I smiled, looking away. 

   "I suppose I should be ashamed of myself.", he said to his glass.

   "Don't let it worry you.", I said to mine.
   “I could make it up to you.”, he said arching an eyebrow and lifting his ears. 
   “Blah, blah, blah.”, I answered with a searing sidelong glance.
   He grabbed my hand. “Blah, blah, blah?”
   I took an ear in each hand. “Blah, blah, blah.”
   Some time that night I awoke in our cabin. I got dressed and went out on deck to get some air. The El Telo was steaming past a jagged island. As I stared up at it, I heard lugubrious voices calling to me. “Oliver...Oliver.”, they incanted. “Come swim with us.” Leviathans circling in the night surged toward the ship as one. “We are your guardians.”, they moaned. “We are here to look out for you."
   “I already have a guardian.”, I answered noticing the glint of teeth in the murky water.
   “Do you really think you are going to get away with demeaning our great country by repeating all the lies you have been told?” They rolled up against the ship and opened their jaws. “You are on a fool’s errand, boy. Even if you survive this world, you will not long survive your own.”
   “But I will die a proud man.”, I said.
   The behemoths answered me with gurgled laughs and disappeared beneath the waves.