October 22,
2013 – Waiting for My Ship to Come In
While in
Oregon, figuratively waiting for my ship to come in, I get an email from my chief
engineer friend Josko of the Rickmers Dalian freighter saying that they are scheduled
to come to port in Houston at the end of September. “I really hope you can find
some nice horse in Dallas and come to visit old friend,” he says.
Although September
is months away that does not stop me from hatching a plan. From the start, I
had intended to abandon my hospitable friend and the Cat and leave Oregon at
the onset of the rainy season, but hadn’t settled on a date. In fact, I hadn't
even been exactly sure where I would go. Now my future, which has been hanging
on possibilities, on probabilities, on tremulous potential, is taking a
nebulous shape.
And that
shape is a familiar one. It’s the shape of home.
The time
passes quickly and before I know it I'm back in Texas (by way of Eugene by way
of Portland by way of Nashville). With no horse to hand, my mom generously
volunteers me the use of her car and then I rope my sister Michaela into taking
the road trip with me to Houston.
“Your old
cabin is ready,” Josko writes me. “You and your sister can sleep on Dalian. I
will send you an email after we pass Panama canal.”
Michaela and
I spend the night at my second cousin’s house just outside of Houston as we
wait for the ship to literally come in.
“How do you
think you'll feel being on the ship again?” my grandmother asks me when I tell
her where I'm headed. I don't remember how I respond. Excited, content, wishful
that I were going to sea again, all of the above?
It's been
over a year since I signed off as a passenger, shook the captain's hand
goodbye, waved farewell to the Filipino crew, and glanced one last time over my
shoulder from the backseat of a German taxicab to watch the Dalian get smaller
and disappear from my sight. I know that Josko and the captain are on board,
but I doubt that any of the crew are the same from my time there since they
cycle nine months on ship and then one month home--switching from ship to ship
as contracts are filled and vacated. And I’ve just missed the third officer by
a month. I had wanted to congratulate him on his and the Russian cadet’s
engagement. Rumors travel even off ship to me and I feel like family because of
it. Rumors about me still haunt the
ship like the ghosts the second officer Dom once told me about. Josko keeps me
informed. “3rd officer ask me about you, did you write something new, I told
him if he will be good, maybe you can include him in your next bestseller.”
I smile
because I still think of the Dalian as my ship, the crew as my crew, the
officers as my officers, the whole place as mine.
I see the
cranes first. “There she is,” I tell Michaela, pointing, as we’re escorted by
special permit taxi into the Houston port and down to Dock 26 where the vessel
is berthed. It's like seeing a familiar face from across the room, and she's as
beautiful as ever.
“Where is
your cabin?” Michaela asks.
“There,” I
point, “the fourth window up in the corner.”
The ship's
only just come alongside. The gangway only just been put down. The taxi driver
makes us wait inside the van while he checks with the crewmember standing
guard. I don't mind waiting; that's what seamen do. Besides, I feel like a VIP,
after all, the captain knows I'm coming and the chief engineer is my best ship
friend.
A few
moments later there he is, dressed in his usual black, grinning down at us as
we come on board.
“I'm going to
give him a hard time,” I whisper to Michaela. “Watch this.” As I approach
Josko I say, “What's the deal with the black smoke?” and wave a hand back in
the direction of the gently smoking smokestacks.
“Don't even
joke like that,” he says, turning pale for a half second, and as a good chief
engineer he can't help but glance at the smoke to make sure I really am joking.
Then we follow him past the cargo and into the habitable part of the ship. It
smells like oil, greasy and comforting, and I don't want to ever leave.
“Have you
eaten lunch?” Josko asks.
“No,” I
reply. We’d had snacks just in case, but Josko had emailed that he would tell
the cook to make us something. We’ve arrived at twelve o’clock on the nose.
Lunch time. We go up one level to the officers’ mess room. Out of habit I go
for my old place setting and then I stop, “Where do we sit?”
He motions me down. It's okay. I haven't been replaced, at least not today. I'm in my usual spot to Josko’s right. Michaela gets the place to his left. After lunch we head up three flights of stairs to the D Deck. My cabin door is unlocked, the key to lock it back up while in port is on the table, there's a new vase of fake flowers up above the couch, but other than that it looks the same. Michaela and I put our bags down and Josko leaves us to see if the new chief engineer has arrived yet, and to supervise the inspections down in the engine room.
“I could
live here,” Michaela says, looking in the closet, checking out the bathroom,
testing the comfort of the bed.
“It's
perfect,” I reply. “There's even a little fridge. Everything you could need right
here.”
Time on the
ship for me stands still, broken up only by mealtimes. What I mean is that time
on ship doesn't matter. Everything is the same, everything changes from watch to
watch, port life is locked down, hours are marked by the activity through the
window of heavy material being loaded and unloaded, time at sea passes with the
undulation of the endless, horizon stretched water.
I try to warn
Michaela. We might or might not go out to dinner in Houston with the captain
and chief engineer. We might or might not leave the ship again until tomorrow
morning when Josko signs off to fly back home to Croatia. We might or might not
be left to ourselves until that point in time. Fortunately, Michaela is not
averse to this unknowing.
“You want me
to show you around?” I ask her. We get up to go, lock the door behind us, and
pass by Josko’s open door. He's there with the new chief engineer who I recognize
from having replaced Josko when we signed off at the same time over a year ago
in Hamburg. “It's okay if I show her around?” I ask, interrupting them apologetically.
“Of course,”
Josko says.
I take her
to all the places I can get into without having a key, the pilot’s deck, the
Blue Bar, the mustering point outside the emergency vessel, the library and lounge.
We spend uncountable minutes on the pilot deck with the wind blowing our hair
into our faces.
“I would
spend my time out here,” Michaela says. She shows me where she would hang a
hammock from one beam to another. It would be a good spot, sometimes in the
sun, sometimes in the shade.
“I spent a
lot of time out here,” I say. I lean out over the rail wishing it were sea instead
of dock beneath us, trying to remember what it was like to be so far away from
land. Trying to remember the cadence of the Atlantic.
She and I
fall silent, both dreaming of a kind of freedom, our own kinds.
Eventually
we head back to the cabin. Moments later (hours later?), Josko’s tall form
shadows the open door. He takes us on the privileged tour up to the bridge
where he tells Michaela the details about the ship, the engine, the
navigational system, the new expensive computer, the cranes, the maps, the
ghosts. And then down to the engine room--hot and noisy and ripe with grease--where
he explains the water and fuel and sewage systems. When our tour is complete we
climb the stairs back up to the D Deck and he invites us in for a beer. Here
again, I take my usual seat in the chair, Josko takes his place on the long end
of the couch, Michaela sits on the short end across from me.
Their beers
leave circles of condensation on the wood table and mine on the arm of my
chair. We talk until a few minutes before six. “Chop chop?” Josko says,
glancing at the clock as if surprised to find the time changed. If we don't
hurry we’ll miss dinner.
As the cook
brings our plates to the table the door opens and the captain comes in. “Good
appetite,” he begins, and then he sees me. I stand up and grin.
Hugs,
introductions, catching up on the time, dinner, stories from the captain--it's
as if I never left.
After dinner
Michaela and I go back to the cabin. We take out our books and read while
keeping our ears tuned for anything that might be going on outside this
comfortable space.
And then
that something happens, later, after the port duties have been taken care of, when
I hear familiar voices from down the hall. “Do you want to come with me to see
what's going on?” I ask Michaela.
“I'll stay
here and read for a while longer,” she says, snuggled up under the covers of
the bed.
“Whenever
you want to join, just come around.”
And then I'm
back at Josko’s door. The captain sees me first. “Come in,” he orders. He and
Josko finish their discussion and then, “What do you have?” Josko asks the
captain. He’d emailed me a month ago to say, “I must warn you, captain already
prepare some wine for you and your sister.” But the wine got used up somewhere
in between the email and now. “You know,” Josko says, “this Amanda drinks
anything.”
“I have gin,”
the captain says, “but I don’t know if I have any soda water.”
He
disappears and a moment later he comes back with a bottle of gin and three cans
of soda water. Then
Josko has to go on a quest for some glasses.
“I take beer,”
the captain says as Josko begins to pour drinks, waving off the gin and tonic, “I
don’t have much time.” Then he turns to me, “Where are you hiding your
beautiful sister?”
It's like
this on the ship, flurries of activity amid the standstill. The captain leaves.
The chief officer, another Romanian who asks me when I'm coming back on ship to
stay, arrives and allows Josko to talk him into staying for drinks. Michaela
comes in. The captain comes back. Josko goes away to handle an inspection. Josko
returns. Stories fill the room, liquid levels diminish and are refilled, more
stories are told. The captain leaves. The chief officer leaves. Michaela and I
leave. Because it's time for bed. The sun is long gone, the night well advance,
tomorrow not so terribly far away.
I fall
asleep content, tipsy, and happy to share this place with my sister. I’m home,
for the moment, before the wind carries me off to the next place.
“In my language,”
Josko had emailed me, “they would call you vagabundo.
I will explain it to you when
I see you.”
I see you.”
But it needs
no explaining. I am vagabond. Wanderer, nomad, roamer. The one waiting for my
ship to come in—waiting for the moment when I can come on board for a longer
stay.
