The part about the brick to the face i couldn’t help but picture a tom and jerry type of scene.

for some reason, drinking in a bar in Havana made me think of Hemingway

You did a wonderful job combining those 3 words into a story, plus you used the word “exigency”, which makes this even more amazing. Bravo

Having known some bad sailors in my time, I like this quite a bit. This Brainstormer challenge has been a joy to read as we all pull disparate elements together into stories that were in us all without us knowing it. The second to last sentence has a wonderful (and lexical) poetry to it.

I enjoyed the fast-pace of this piece. You have a wonderful way with words..