I put it back and we watched The Postman for a while. It put Leonard to sleep. I got up and took off his shoes and covered him, turned off that Flying Dutchman of a movie, undressed, and went to bed.
I lay there for a while and looked at the ceiling and thought about Brett. I thought about other women in my past, two of them dead. I certainly had the touch.
About midnight the ship began to pitch and I realized why the TV had been placed on the floor.
9
Leonard and I were up at the same time. I flicked on the light.
Leonard said, “Oh God,” and dashed for the toilet. I heard him in there upchucking, which prompted me to do the same. I let fly into a trash can all my bad lobster, wine, and culinary accoutrements. It wasn’t all that good going in, but it certainly had smelled better than it did now, and it had looked better too.
The ship leaned way port and I felt as if it would never right itself. I let out with an involuntary cry. I heard Leonard yell in the bathroom, then I heard him upchucking again.
The ship came up high and went starboard and it was all I could do to hold the trash can so the contents didn’t slop out.
A little later the commode flushed and Leonard came out and lay on his bed and moaned.
He said, “Oh, God, kill me. Kill me now.”
“Fuck the seasickness,” I said. “I’m scared to death.”
I managed to set the TV on the floor, and by bouncing off the wall, I made it to the bathroom where I poured the glorious contents of the trash can into the commode and flushed it. I sat the trash can in the little shower stall, but it rolled out and I hit the wall and banged the back of my knee against the commode.
I lodged the trash can between the wall and the commode and tried to make it back to my bed. I understood what was meant by sea legs now. I didn’t have some. In fact, I’d have given anything for us to have run up on a spit of land, a reef, any damn thing solid.
I just knew we were going to flop so far to one side we’d never right ourselves. I kept thinking about that movie The Poseidon Adventure, where the ship turned over and trapped people underwater.
I swear, at times it felt as if that damn ship were actually lying completely on its side, then it would fling itself upright and go the other way. You could hear the ocean banging on the sides of the ship. It made you realize how fragile, what a paper cup the thing was, and it made you realize even more how fragile you were as a collection of blood and bone. All I could think about, after that realization, was just how dark and deep the goddamn ocean was.
I managed to wobble, fall, and crawl over to the closet, reach in a side pocket of my suitcase, and pull out Dramamine tablets. I punched a couple out of the aluminum side and gave Leonard one. I took the other. No less than two minutes later Leonard said, “Hell, give me another one of them sonsabitches.”
I did. I took another. It wasn’t easy swallowing them dry, but now that I had found my bed again, and was clinging to it like a raft, I couldn’t bring myself to let go and make for the bathroom.
Frank truth of it was, I was scared blind, shitless, and paralyzed. No argument. When it comes to the baddest sonofabitch on the block, nature wins hands down every time. Well, nature and that eighteen-year-old guy I had fought.
It wasn’t until early morning that the ship ceased to pitch. I had felt horrible all night, slept fitfully, even whimpered a bit. Leonard had whimpered too, so I felt better about it. My manhood was still intact, because he wouldn’t tell if I didn’t.
Leonard slept while I washed up, brushed my teeth, and started for the deck. On the way up, I discovered a middle-aged woman and two children sleeping on the landing near the hatch door that led outside. The woman sat up from the pallet she had made and looked at me as I reached the door.
“We nearly sank last night,” she said. “I thought it would be better if we were close to the lifeboats.”
“It was scary,” I said, “but not that bad.” I was braver, now that it was all over.
“Oh, yes it was,” she said.
One of the children, a little girl, lifted up on an elbow. A teddy bear tumbled out of her covers. She looked about nine. She said, “Mama said fuck.”
“Dear,” the woman said. “Ssshhhhh.”
“I said it several times last night myself,” I said. “Some other things too.”
The woman gave me a nervous grin. The little girl smiled. The other kid, girl or boy, I couldn’t tell way the kid was wrapped up in the covers, didn’t wake up. I went out on deck.
It was clear now. The water was bright blue and so was the sky and the sun was a great fat wafer of burning gold. The shadow of the ship lay on the clear water like an organized coat of oil. It fled with us as we pushed onward, probably running about twenty-two knots.
There were others on the deck, leaning against the rail like me, and there were some in lawn chairs against the wall of the deck, and there was a young couple with chairs close together, kissing, looking as if at any moment they might strip and go for broke. No one looked as if anything had been out of the ordinary last night. And truthfully, it probably had not. For a landlubber like me, a big wave seen at a distance is frightening enough, let alone knocking and swinging about a ship I’m in. For all I knew, the crew might well have found it relaxing, like a rocking chair.
While I was standing there, looking out at the water, Big Bill came up and lit a cigar. “That was some night,” he said.
I turned and smiled at him. He was dressed in blue jeans, a cowboy shirt with the sleeves rolled, and house shoes. His gray hair coiled and rumpled in the wind like some invisible hand wadding up stringy cotton.
“I’ll say it was some night. I lost my lobster.”
“Not much of a loss. Sort of ruined the honeymoon atmosphere in our cabin, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. We were just down to business when all that started. Pretty soon were just two naked bodies rolling around on the floor clutching at each other saying shit.”
“Worse ways to go,” I said.
“I suppose that’s true. I got upset, got dressed, came out for a look, like it would do me good to know. Waves were washing all along the deck here. Scary. I went back in and up front and outside. Waves were jumping over the deck, way up there. It was one spooky experience, I guarantee. Cigar?”
“No thanks.”
Leonard came on deck then. He greeted Bill, who offered him a cigar.
“Is it Cuban?” Leonard asked.
“Nope. Not this one.”
Leonard took it and lit it. He said, “You know there’s a woman behind the door there, on the stair landing with two kids?”
“Saw her when I came out,” I said.
“Me too,” said Bill. “She was there last night when I came out for a look. I was surprised they hadn’t locked the doors. Safety seems a little scant to me.”
“Her little girl informed me Mama had said fuck,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said, “she told me the same thing.”
“Me too,” Big Bill said. “You know, this cruise stuff sucks. I’m excited for when we get to Mexico and dock. I want to get some land under my feet and an enchilada in my mouth, wash it down with some tequila. Me and Mama might like to dance too. You know, I was out here early to smoke, and they were pushing a covered body along the deck in a wheelchair, took it through that door over there.”
“No shit?” Leonard asked.
“No shit. I asked one of the crew what happened. He said an old guy died last night. Apparently the old fella had taken this cruise several times, thought he’d like to do it one last time, and last time it was.”
“I can’t believe anybody does this on purpose twice,” Leonard said.
“He croaked in all that high seas business,” Bill said. “My guess is it scared him to death. They got him in a meat locker or something down below.”