Jack is the owner-operator of Poco Cabesa's only air-sea charter service, "Following the Equator Air & Sea Charter and Freight."

Unfortunately, the Sea part sank a while back and the Air part consists of a weathered PBY Catalina Flying Boat dubbed "Sylvester" that's always in need of a major overhaul.

The only child of an often absent Navy "swab" and a Tuscaloosa bowling alley cocktail waitress, Jack grew up beside the waters of Perdido Bay, running wild like a latter day Huck Finn.

Life was great until seventeen-year-old Jack was found atop a shell mound in a horizontal position with the elderly mayor's Cajun child-bride. Jack's irate father gave him a choice: the Navy or a heavy equipment job with his uncle.

Then he went to work for a cargo line operating out of Dubai that was secretly owned by people in Uncle Saddam's Iraqi inner circle. When the CIA and then the Israelis and George Bush the First joined the party, Jack decided it was time to leave and slipped onto a Cuban fishing boat in Havana harbor and washed ashore on Joetown.

When he saw the lovely beach spread that Her Majesty Gert had bestowed on her once-rollicking husband, Jack's idea-percolator went into overdrive.

The idea that eventually bubbled up was, Jack would start an air charter service and he and Cap'n Roy would build a resort on that lovely stretch of beach.

But dreams and reality usually committed murder-suicide in the world of Riley & Waller. The former's clogged arteries, the latter's talent for procrastination, and two hurricanes destroyed whatever hope they had for success. So Cap'n Roy leaned back and enjoyed the view for his remaining days.

Jack half-heartedly attempted, and attempts still, to make the air charter idea work. He occasionally over-indulges (but never when flying is to be done) and favors steel-drum bands and dark rum. When circumstances require while far from home, Jack's even been known to pull out his six-string and play for fuel money.

He's an able mechanic but a better supervisor, a decent aviator, and a crusty, politically incorrect cuss who's unwilling to suffer fools silently.

His motto is, "If the dough don't show, the show don't go."

That means if a client or cargo can pass customs at the country of departure and it's a cash deal, that's good enough for Mad Jack.

And if FTEA&S pays its bills on time, it's a miracle.