Rejection in Antwerp

August 15, 2012 – Rejection in Antwerp

It seems only fitting since I’m in Belgium that I go get a Belgium ale. If not for my own liquor needs than certainly in honor of my dad who is a connoisseur of good brews. I’d asked the Flemish pilot for some suggestions and he’d given me two; Jupiler and De Koninck—I’d had him write them down for me so I’d be sure to get one or the other of them right.

With the names in my bag and a mission I’ve chosen to accept, I go in search of a place with Wi-Fi and ale. I’ve been offline for ten days. This wouldn’t be such a big deal except that I’ve been waiting to hear from an agent who asked for the full manuscript of my book. She’d responded to my query in May with a request for the first 100 pages and then after a six week wait on my part, she’d asked for the full. As my first non-rejection, I’d vacillated between a defensive “don’t get your hopes up” attitude and a hopeful “this is it!”

Her request had felt like my validation as a writer. For three months I’d been able to say, “No, I’m not published yet, but I have an agent who’s reading my manuscript.” It sounded so real. I’d avoided the artistic doubts that come from time to time to tell me everything I do is crap. For the duration of this wait, I hadn’t been visited by those niggling insecurities that mock me and tell me I’m an embarrassment to myself and the writerly world. I’d even received several rejections from other agents that hadn’t phased me. It had been a glorious and anticipative three months.

I’m strolling down the streets of Antwerp looking for a WI-FI window sign with these thoughts going through my head. I’ve been up off and on since 3:00 (to see the lights of Dover) and I’m feeling the weight of sleepiness and long hours of excitement pressing my steps heavy on the stone walkways. You don’t have time to be tired, I tell myself. There’s just too much you have to do and see.

I know, I reply, and suppress a yawn.

Then, there it is. That quested for sign. WI-FI. It’s in the window of The Irish Times Pub. Heck, that’s good enough for me. I’m Scot-Irish from somewhere in my ancestry and if I can’t Belgium it, I can always go the way of Guinness. I can drink that in honor of my dad too, no problem.
It’s a glorious day and I’d like to sit outside on the patio, but I know I’ll probably need to be near an outlet; I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. So I go inside and look for a suitable table. I find a good place that’s out of the way and has a modicum of privacy to it.

With the scrap of paper with the ale names written on it, I go up to the bar and ask the bartender which of the two is better. He taps out the De Koninck for me and gives me the internet code. “Most people call it ballicker,” he tells me with a genuine Irish accent.

Ball licker? I think, okay. What the heck am I about to drink? “Thanks!” I say, and go sit.

I’ve got a slew of emails. Most of them are impersonal; updates from Goodreads, B&N’s Nook book suggestions, or Facebook frantically reminding me that I have notifications pending. “Yeah, yeah,” I say, and sort and delete.

Then. There it is. The answer from the agent.

I hover the arrow over the email and take a breath. “Please say yes,” I say in a whisper. Bravely, I open it up.

Dear Amanda, it starts.

I’ve reviewed Bull Ring and I regret that after careful consideration I don’t feel it is a match for me. I hesitated in this decision because the novel has a lot going for it – pace and plot are good, your writing is solid and characterization is nuanced. However, there were often times when dialogue and language felt forced or contrived. It’s nearly there and another agent may respond differently. Thank you for your patience and I do wish you success in your search for representation.

Kind regards, she says, and signs off with her name and agency.

That’s it then.

I don’t see much after “I regret.” But “forced” and “contrived” stand out like bolded and red flashing, disapproving warning lights.

That hope I had feared to nurture shrivels up and dies inside me. I’ll have to pluck it and throw it out when I feel a bit stronger. For now it sits like a rock next to the weed of artistic doubt that grows half an inch taller and sneers at me with a mean, “I told you so.”

That’s it then. I’ll have to start over. Find another long list of agents to query. Probably rewrite the entire book. But I can’t think of that now. It’s too much. So I answer some emails, catch up on posts and my friends’ lives, and tuck the pain of rejection away into a closet of my mind. I don’t close the door tightly enough though. I see a skeletal hand, a skull, a bony knee.

The De Koninck isn’t the salve I want so I call my mom via Skype.

Just as the call connects some music starts up loud. It’s now the more regular bar hour and to prove it, a group of guys come in to celebrate a last hoorah before one of them gets married. They’re wearing shirts that say “Tim’s Bachelor Party” and I have the feeling this isn’t their first stop. “Sorry!” I shout into the computer’s mic at my mom. It’s no good. “I’m at an Irish Pub and some music just came on really loud, I think it’s live, and Tim’s bachelor party is going on. I’ll try and call you again soon when I find another place with WI-FI.” I can’t hear her response, but I wait a second anyway before I hang up.

I’d just needed to tell her about the fun I’ve been having and the disappointment I’m feeling. I’d needed to hear a friendly voice; my mother’s voice. Without that option I just want to go back home to my ship and go to sleep.

I buy a train ticket from Germany to Sweden instead.
It’s getting dark. Inside and outside. I’m squinting into my computer screen and thinking of just shutting down, hoping I converted the cost of the ticket correctly to US funds (it seemed cheaper than I’d anticipated), trusting that the ship will sail on schedule and that we’ll get to Hamburg before the 30th and hoping I can manage the train transfers when one of the bartender squeezes past my table and puts a bulb into the socket. It’s suddenly much brighter. He turns to me. Smiles. “Just like God,” he says.

I laugh.

I drain the last of my drink and am about to pack up when another bartender walks by. “You want another one?” he asks me.

“Sure,” I say. Why not? Besides, how much is too much honor for one’s father?

After the second ballicker, I ask the Irish accented bartender if he’ll call the cab company for me. He’s good enough to do so, and I go wait outside on the patio for the driver to arrive. The air is cool. There’s a multitude of people to observe. There’s me, sitting on an outside patio in Europe. It’s fantastically unreal. I can’t believe it. I’m a melting pot of emotion. Exhaustion from my strenuous “don’t want to miss anything” watch schedule, joy of being where I am, sadness at the death of one dream, amazement at my life, disappointment in my life, and a sudden missing of my crew friends.

A car pulls up and the window goes down. “To Rickmers DALIAN?” he asks. I nod and get in. This driver drives just as fast as the one who’d taken Josh and me to immigration, but he’s got less road rage. We talk about things to see in Antwerp and then before we run out of conversation topics he maneuvers up to the gangway. I pay him and thank him. I get out and look up at the ship.

I’m home.

There’s a comfort in that. The guy who’d told me “I like you very much” at the party and whose name I never learn is on duty at the gangway. I pat him companionably on the arm. “How’s it going?” I ask.

“Good,” he says. “You were outside?”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” I tell him.

We stand together in silence for a half second. “Okay, goodnight,” I say. “See you later.”

The hall is quiet. The stairwell is quiet. The captain’s door is shut. Josko’s door is shut. My door is shut and locked. That’s how it is in port. Everything locked up tight. I use my key and let myself in.
I sit on my bed and mourn. My dad had once told me it was okay to be sad. To acknowledge the pain and sort it out. I do my best.

Words are my outlet so I write:

Disappointment swells my ankles
It’s a long time to hope
only to realize
your disclaimers, your second guessing
was actually
what’d you’d lean on.
Now you have no ace in the hole.
Nothing to say
to fend off the pain
of being unpublished.
Times like this you think
that perhaps
everything
doesn’t go your way
after all.


Don’t be a silly goose, I chide myself. Self-pity has a short half-life in my world.  Just go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.

After all, I’m in Belgium. There’s chocolates to try. Ales to drink. Streets to wander. Cathedrals and museums to visit. People to watch. Languages to listen to. Diamonds to seek out. And lace, I’ve heard about the Belgium lace. What I’d do with it, I have no idea, but hell, when there’s nothing else, there’s always lace.

Land Ahoy!

August 13, 2012 – Land Ahoy!


We’re in the English Channel. Our ETA to Antwerp is 7:49 in the morning on July 21st. We’ve been out of American waters for a while, but the sea feels the same, without borders, without flags, so it doesn’t seem like I’m really in Europe just from watching the waves. We could be anywhere. Anywhere in the oceanic world that is. Josh and I think we see France off on the horizon while we sit together up on the pilot deck, reading and watching the increasing amount of sea traffic. But we can’t tell for certain. Not even through our binoculars.

He’s ready for land. Only a few days into the trip we were talking about ecology, worms, and trees and he said, “I always miss them when they’re not around” about the trees. Trees are friends, of course, and there’s a reassurance for me that they’re out there somewhere, but I don’t mind the never ending, always changing blue. With land in sight, I’m already missing the boundless freedom of the sea even with it rolling underneath me. I already miss the ship my home.

So I go find the chief engineer and ask him to take me to the engine room again so I can get some pictures. He’s agreeable to the plan and we go down. In the middle of the photo shoot we stop in the control room and “take” coffee.

“You get the official Rickmers cup,” Josko says.

We talk until our coffee is drunk and a little bit longer after. When I’ve gotten all the pictures I want we go back to the outer door and part ways.   
The rest of the day goes by and I try to get to sleep early. We’ll sail past Dover around 3:00 A.M. and I want to be up to see the lights.

I sleep light and at three I stumble out of my bed, pull back the shades, and catch the lights of Dover. All I can think is the line from My Fair Lady when Eliza says, “Come on, Dover! Come on, Dover, move your bloomin’ ass!” So I write it in my notebook and go back to bed until just before six when the pilot is supposed to come on board to guide us down the sea to the river. We’ll get a river pilot when we get closer to Belgium.

I don’t want to miss anything. Wide-eyed and bushy tailed I head up to the bridge. “Good morning,” I say quietly to the chief officer, to Ian who is manning the wheel, to the captain and to the pilot. I go stand some place out of the way and watch the sun rise.

“Come here,” the captain tells me. I obey. He takes me and shows me the map where we are on the map. How we’ll be within view of the Netherlands and then into Belgium.

I drink some vile coffee and watch and watch and watch.

We exchange pilots somewhere around breakfast time. I rush down for some breakfast and then come back up to keep my continuing watch. The captain has left to rest for a while and get his breakfast, Charlton has replaced Ian at the steering wheel, and the third officer has replaced the chief officer.

The river pilot is Flemish and he laughs at everything. He asks the third officer if he works out. The third seems tired (his hair isn’t gelled this morning) and he isn’t in a joking mood, hardly seems like he wants to talk. “No,” he says.

“You have a lot of muscles is why I asked,” the pilot keeps on.

The third still isn’t getting into the conversation and I start to wonder where his muscles came from myself. Something gets said that I miss. The pilot laughs and Dan bristles.

“Just a joke,” the pilot says. Still laughing. “Just a joke.”

Whatever tension the third is under eases as the morning goes. The pilot asks me, as most of the pilots have (we had pilots to get us out of Houston, and in and out of North Carolina and Philadelphia) what my function is on the ship. He’s interested when I say I’m a passenger. “It’s a good way to travel,” he laughs.

He learns that this is my first time to Europe so he points out Holland when we pass it by.

We pass a windmill. The kind I’ve seen in pictures, in paintings. The ones that draw out a pictogram of the Netherlands. And I think, holy shit, I’m actually in Europe.

The pilot tells me about the French Belgiums and the Flemish Belgiums. He talks about the energy powering Belgium; the nuclear plant and the windmills that are going up all over. He tries to think up the places I should see in Antwerp. “When we get a little closer,” he says, “you can use my internet to look some things up. If you have time you should go to Brussels. There’s much more to see there.”

He gets so involved in helping me find out what time the MAS (Museum Aan De Stroom) opens and how much it costs that he almost forgets to call out the coordinates to Ian who has replaced Charlton at the wheel.

“Port five,” he says.

“Port five,” Ian repeats, and then when the ship is at port five, “Rudder Port five, sir.”

I find a top ten things to see in Antwerp site and copy the places down on a piece of paper. Dan comes over to look at the screen with me. He’s planning to go outside too. I make him a copy of my list. The pilot takes me under wing and looks up costs for bus fares and routes. He tells me how much to expect to pay for cabs.

“If the company allowed it,” he says, “I’d let you come in the car they send for me.”

But I know I have to do something with immigration. I’m not in the proverbial (or literal, thank god) Kansas anymore.

The pilot gets us into the lock and we get tugged safely to dock. When the pilot collects his things and gets his gift of cigarettes from the captain he says, “If she doesn’t have to go through immigration she can come with me. I have a car waiting.” I guess he got permission from his company and I’m touched by the gesture.

“No,” the captain says, “she does have to go through immigration.”

“Thanks anyways,” I say. “Safe travels home.”

“Have a good time in Europe,” he tells me. “Best of luck.”

There’s some waiting time and I go get lunch. When the agent comes, I head down to the ship’s office and find out that a car will come get both Josh and me to take us to immigration. “Be sure and tell them exactly what your intentions are,” the captain says, “that you are not signing off here, but continuing to Hamburg. The passenger Josh will need to tell them if he’s staying or not.”

Josh is signing off here and he’s packed and ready to go.

I’ve got my computer in my bag. We’re staying longer in Antwerp than had been originally planned, five days instead of one or two, and I have to get things set up for my travels from Hamburg to Sweden. My goal is to be with my friend Pontus in Sweden on August 1st in time for the start of the Raw Food Festival he’s cohosting. It’ll be a close cut on time, but I think I’ll manage. I think. I wonder if I should sign off here in Antwerp. I could, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to the DALIAN. I want to ride all the way to Germany, be with these guys just a little bit longer.

“Two strange Americans”, as Josko had said of me and Josh, take the path to the gangway. There’s a flurry of Filipinos at the sign-in podium.

“You’re not signing off?” one of them asks.

“No,” I say. “You guys aren’t rid of me yet.” They seem relieved.

Josh and I walk the concrete to where our car is idling. Our driver seems in a bad mood. I’m not sure how long he’s waited. We get in and he revs the engine and takes off. “To immigration?” he asks.

“Yes,” we say.

“Where are your visas?” he asks. “Let me see your passports.”

Josh hands his passport up and the driver flips through it. There is no visa.

“You don’t have a visa,” the driver says.

“It’s my understanding,” Josh says, “that we don’t need a visa.”

That’s my understanding too. I hope we’re both right because I don’t have a visa either. I envision us both ending up in a Belgium jail. I have no idea how that’d be and I don’t want to find out. I don’t like to be locked up.

The driver makes a call. It’s in Flemish, but I can catch the gist of what he’s saying with regards to visas and passports and Americans. Eventually, he hangs up. “You were right,” he admits. “You don’t need a visa.” He adds, “I just had to check,” almost as an apology. He drives fast and has an inclination to road rage. Josh and I hang on tight and exchange an occasional worried look.

“So,” the driver asks. “Will you pay for this now or later?”

Josh and I exchange another look. We weren’t warned about a fee.

“How much is it?” one of us asks.

“Seventy-five euros,” he answers.

Josh and I both nearly have heart attacks. That’s about eighty-some-odd dollars and neither one of us have euros yet.

“I don’t have any euros,” Josh tells him.

“First stop immigration,” the driver says, “then an ATM. Then I’ll take you into town wherever you want to go.”

We get our passports stamped. I’m sure to tell them I’m staying on until Hamburg and ask if I’ll have to come back to immigration to get stamped out of the country. I hope they say no since I don’t want to pay another seventy-five euros on my own. The officer tells me that I will have to and I sigh.

It’s only money. I’m here in Europe. I can hardly believe it.

We get back in the car.

“Sorry you have to work on a holiday,” I tell the driver trying to see if I can break his mood; he’s still grumpy. It’s Saturday, and Belgium’s birthday. Since the actual date falls on a weekend the country will celebrate the national holiday on Monday. This is part of the reason we’re staying so long here, because of the work scheduling over the holiday.

I know how I feel about working holidays. I know
how I feel about working in general and I can say the words with true sincerity. 

My tactic works and the driver melts some, though his driving doesn’t slow and his habit of cutting others off doesn’t end. “I work all the time,” he says without rancor.

We stop at an ATM. While Josh is inside getting his money the driver gives me a company card so I can call for a ride back to the dock later that night when I’m ready to return.

“I don’t have a phone. Are there pay phones I can use?” I ask.

“The best thing to do is to go to a bar and ask them to call us for you,” he says. “Then they can give their location and that’ll be the easiest thing.”

“Will they all hate me because I speak English?” I ask.

He laughs at me. “No, don’t worry. Everyone here speaks English.”

I go get my money. Then he drives us into the center of town. Josh plans to stay at a hostel nearby and I’m wanting to look around some and then find an internet café so I can check emails and buy a train ticket from Germany to Sweden. The driver gives us directions to an information center. I hope Josh is paying attention because I forget to. We split the fare, thank the driver, and get out together.


We wander down the street. I look up at the buildings. I stare at the people. I crane my neck to see the cathedral’s spire. Josh and I get free maps at the information center. He looks for the hostels he’s researched and I ask about free wifi places. Back outside in the open air, we decide to first get a beer and then part company. We walk around so long trying to choose a place I start to think we’ll roam forever. But finally in the end, we find a little pizzeria and take an outside seat. We order cherry beer (which I think tastes like cough syrup and is nasty) and get pizzas.

Lunch, as most times with Josh, is not punctuated with much talking. We reiterate our travel plans and give some well wishes to each other. When we’re done and paid up, we stand, hover in the middle of the road, and say goodbye. No hugs, no handshakes, just a fare-thee-well and chau.

I adjust my bag and walk away. There’s a fizzing relief in being alone again. A solid contentment in my own company, in the ease of my thoughts, in the conversations in my head, in the release to do whatever I need or want to do.

I stop at the corner of the street and look around. I’m really here. I’m in Belgium. Me.

I’m captivated by the atmosphere. It feels old and warm. It feels just like meeting someone for the first time and realizing that we’ve known each other all along. 

The Forbidden Crane

August 13, 2012 – The Forbidden Crane


Charlton, Josh, and I move stealthily across the deck. It’s after nine o’clock, but it’s still light. Daylight’s been stretching longer and longer the farther east, farther north we go. Charlton lights up a cigarette and leads us toward Crane 3. I glance back over my shoulder and wonder if the third officer is watching us from the bridge.

We’re disobeying not a direct order but a strong suggestion. Guilt taps me on the arm and reminds me of the deep seeded need I had, especially as a child, to please authority. To be the best one. A goody two shoes. It’s a need that I’ve chipped layers off of as I’ve learned more of who I am and what I want. It’s a need I’ve taught myself to question.

Go away guilt, I think, you’re not allowed up in the cranes.

Charlton opens up the door and we go into the crane’s shaft. Cream colored walls and green painted ladders greet me. It’s a long way up and I’m ready for it. I’ve got to give it to Josh, even though he’s afraid of heights he’s game enough to climb.

“When you climb up,” Charlton instructs us, “the weight is in the hands. Pull yourself up, okay?”

He sends Josh first. “Wait for me at the platform. Don’t go up without me.”

We take the ladders platform by platform. Near the top, Charlton opens up a side door that looks out to the bow of the ship. I move up close, lean out to see. “You want to see?” Charlton asks Josh.

“I’m good,” Josh says from his spot on the other side of the platform. He all but holds on to the wall.

“We won’t go into this crane,” Charlton says. “Because it faces the bridge. But we’ll go into another one.” We’re still being sneaky.

There are giant oily coils of wire, heating and cooling systems, and ladders, always the ladders. I don’t know how many rungs there are, how many steps—if I had to give a number, I’d say “a lot”. On each level there’s something different. Charlton explains things to us and I get lost in the details.

“When you go down the weight is on your feet,” Charlton says.

I take up the rear.

It’s darker when we come back out into the open air. I don’t use the flash on my camera so as not to give away our position.


We clamber over some equipment, cross around a boundary rope and come to Crane 1.
Charlton turns the door’s wheel and we’re inside.

By now Josh and I both know the routine. Up we go.

In the crane’s control center, Charlton shows us which lever moves the crane forward, down, and side to side. He lets us sit in the chair. “Sometimes I come sit up here,” Charlton says, “when I want to be alone.” I can see the appeal. It’s dark. Silent. High up.

Three’s a crowd in this space so we don’t stay long. Down again and then Charlton takes us even more forward to the bow. To the spot he likes to come sometimes--when he’s not stowing himself away in the crane--to get away from everything, to think, to sit, to listen, to be alone. Josh and I stand up at the very front and the wind presses cold hands against our faces, pushes my hair back into the darkness behind me.

Above us a few brave stars peak through the thinning clouds.
We step back out of the main brunt of the wind and sit down on a wooden container behind a viewing barrier. We squeeze in close to each other. The feel of Charlton’s shoulder touching mine is a brotherly comfort.

He tells us of his fourteen year old daughter that he hasn’t seen in years—maybe’s never seen but in pictures--of how he’d like to go to L.A. to try and see her. But he’s worried she won’t like him, that her mother won’t let him see her, that the years he’s been away at sea saving money for her to have later won’t be enough to patch the distance, the time.

“If you want to see her you should at least try,” I say. Josh agrees. “You won’t know what will happen unless you do.”

Maybe the dream of that meeting is better, more secure, more reassuring than what would actually happen. Maybe that dream of his daughter is what keeps Charlton sane as he travels the world in what he calls “a floating prison.”

“Do you even think about doing something else?” I ask or maybe Josh does.

“What would I do?” Charlton says.

“Whatever you want,” I say.

But time, money, training, ability, fear of the unknown, security of the known are valid and usual excuses.

“You could operate a crane on a dock,” Josh suggests.

But I’m thinking of much bigger changes; farmer, comedian, base jumper, astronaut. So I get up and go stand under the now clear sky and stare up at the constellations. I find the North Star, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Cassiopeia and think that I’ve seen the Southern Hemisphere’s sky, loved the Southern Cross and left it behind me in order to keep my memories moving from horizon to horizon.

I go back out of the cold and we sit for a while longer. I don’t know how much time has passed, but the earth spins around and the stars move and keep moving.

With an unspoken common consensus we get up and start back to the living area of the ship. Our tour isn’t quite over though, Charlton takes us down into the hold and shows us everything. The paint storage area, the giant ropes, the straps, the rings and the collection of bikes that Josh gets fascinated by.

We walk down the port side, up the stairs and into the hallway at the poop deck level where we started from. Just as we come in the stairway door opens and out comes Jake.

“The second is worried about you,” he says.

Uh Oh, I think. Now we’re in for it.

“The guys were cleaning the floors and saw your door was open. So the second sent me to look for you.”

Oops. I’d not anticipated that. The guys wax the floors after bedtime hours to keep foot traffic to a minimum. I hadn’t thought anyone would be down that way to see I wasn’t in my room. I hadn’t thought they’d relate that information upward. But that’s how words travel on this boat. Faster than lightning.  

“We’re okay,” I say. “We were up at the bow of the ship.”

Jake wants to take me up to the bridge as proof to Second that I’m safe. He wants me to come up and hang out with them since he’s on duty with Domin. I let myself get directed upstairs. “Thanks,” I say back to Charlton. He and Josh go their ways and I go to report to the officer on duty.

Better to ask for forgiveness? I wonder to myself.

I breeze up onto the bridge looking as innocent as possible. Domin doesn’t ask me straight out if I’ve been up in a crane, so I don’t lie and I don’t offer the information either.

“Sorry you were worried,” I say. “We were looking at stars up at the bow.”

And it seems I’ve gotten away with it. Until Jake takes my camera and starts flipping through the pictures.

“You went in the crane?” he asks. Too loud. Out loud.

Sshhhh. I want to hiss at him. But it’s too late. The second officer is right there.

“We were really careful,” I say quietly.

Domin gives me a piercing, almost disapproving glance and that’s that. It seems all is forgiven and perhaps forgotten. I breathe a little easier. I brush the remaining grains of guilt off my shoulder and think maybe I’ll be a better person tomorrow. Maybe.

I stay up on the bridge almost for the entire watch. It’s a different experience being awake when the rest of the ship is asleep. Steering in the dark by radar and nothing else. When I can’t keep my eyes open any more I bid Domin goodnight and tell him thanks for the conversation and the company.

Jake escorts me to my room with the excuse of making sure I get there safely. He wants to linger, but I shoo him on his way after only some minor chitchat.

Now that I’m done sneaky about, I fall wearily into bed thinking that it’s hard work being a passenger on a freighter. There are just too many watches to be a part of, too many seamen to hear stories from, too many waves to watch crest and fall, too many drinks to share and too many cranes to climb.

Ghost Hunt

August 10, 2012 – Ghost Hunt

“Has anyone told you about the ghosts?” the captain asks me at lunch. He, the third officer, and I are the only ones in the mess room.

“Actually, yes,” I say. “The Filipinos told me yesterday.” But that doesn’t matter. He tells me the stories again of how they died. Those two poor chief officers. Death is the suddenest ending. At least in these guys’ cases it was. “What kind of ghosts are they?” I ask. I want to know if they’re friendly, sad, angry, or reluctant to leave the sea. Are they poltergeists? Are they seeking to cross over? “Have you seen them?”

“Yes,” he says matter of factly.

I can feel Dan, the third, listening in from behind me.

“And what did they do? Did they talk?”

“I’ve never heard of them talking or anyone talking to them,” the captain says.
They just appear and that’s all I can find out about these two ghosts. I don’t even know if they appear together or separately.

After lunch I go up to the bridge to talk with the second officer.

“Have you seen the ghosts?” I ask him.

Domin hasn’t seen these particular ones, but he tells me stories of a mysterious woman dressed in white with long hair and a pale face that his brother had seen more than once on a road in the Philippines. He tells me of practical jokes various crews have pulled on to scare each other using masks. He tells me of a giant bird he conjured up to try and scare his crewmates with. He’d said he’d seen it. That it was bigger than a man and could pluck him right off the deck if it wanted. Some of the crew wouldn’t go outside alone after dark after hearing that story. He tells me of vampires.

He says that many of the Filipinos think the chief officer ghosts are here for the ship’s protection.

“There’s no place for them in the life boat,” I say, pointing to the life boat seating chart posted on the wall. “We should have the third write them in. Ghost one and Ghost two,” I say, and motion at two empty seats on the chart. It wouldn’t be wise to leave them behind, would it? No one said anything about ghosts having to go down with a ship.

Just at that moment the third comes up to the bridge.

“I was just saying that we should write in seat assignments for the two ghosts,” I tell him.

“How a grown person can believe such things?!” he says with emotion; disbelief, a hint of incredulity, indignation. His opinion of the captain seems somewhat altered since the ghostly lunch talk.

“So you haven’t seen them?” I ask. I let the jest blend my words.

He shakes his head nearly imperceptibly. “They told me to go to the forward at night, close to midnight. I went and I saw nothing,” Dan says.

“Maybe you didn’t stay long enough,” Domin says.

“No,” Dan says. “I stayed there for a very big period of time.”

“Maybe because you don’t believe,” the second says.

“Maybe,” Dan replies.

“Maybe the ghost has to see if you believe first,” Domin says.

We talk ghosts a moment more then Dan leaves. He’s had enough of the supernatural.

Domin’s and my conversation moves from ghosts and vampires to accidents at sea. “Death that other sleep”, as one of my friends wrote in a poem, is just another way of life for these guys. It’s a dangerous life that they laugh off and live with. Then Domin tells me of some of the biggest storms he’s heard about or been in. “If you have a flash drive I can give you the pictures.”

“Okay,” I say. “That’d be great.” I excuse myself and go back away to do something “useful” in my room before dinner. “Thanks for the conversation,” I tell him. “I’ll see you later.”

Josko’s door is open and I stick my head in. “I’m doing an investigation for the F.B.I.,” I tell him. I’d told him that the bosun had said his men had thought I was a spy and it’s become a standing joke between Josko, Marius the electrician, and me. “Have you seen the ghosts?”

Josko hasn’t seen them, but he doesn’t disbelieve. And he tells me stories of more men that have died on ships. I’m beginning to wonder if I should just jump overboard now and save myself the trouble of dying some other way.

The next day I pass Domin in the stairway. We decide that I’ll come by his cabin and get the files after dinner before he takes rest at 8:00 in preparation for his midnight to four watch.

I go down late to dinner and I’m the only one in the room. Joe serves me my food and I’m almost finished when someone comes in from the kitchen. I turn around and look.

“Good evening,” I say.

It’s Charlton, one of the Filipino crew. He’d promised to take me and Josh up into one of the cranes on Sunday morning the day after the party, but he’d been too hung over and hadn’t come to get us. He’d seen me in the stairway afterwards and apologized profusely.

“Don’t worry about it,” I’d told him.

“I’ll take you,” he promised. “I promise I will. I didn’t want to come outside Sunday to the pool party when you were there because I was drunk and I was sad that I didn’t take you up like I said I would.”

“It’s okay,” I tell him. But I do want to go up into the cranes. Ever since Dan had told me how he hates going up every month to check the fire extinguishers I’ve wanted to go up there myself and see what they’re like.

“It’s okay?” Charlton asks, meaning do I mind his presence in the mess room. “You alone? I don’t disturb you?”

“Of course not,” I say. I motion the cadet’s seat and he takes it.


“I’ve wanted to talk to you,” he tells me. “But I didn’t have a chance before.” It’s a line I’m starting to hear a lot. These guys just want someone new to tell their stories to, someone new to show the pictures of their lives to. “When I first heard you were coming on ship I thought you’d be old. Third told me you were thirty-five or thirty-six and single. I couldn’t understand why you’d come on this kind of ship. I said, ‘Third, why would a girl of thirty-five or thirty-six, single, come on this type of ship?’ ‘Maybe she’s frustrated?’ Third said. ‘No, Third,’ I told him, ‘Maybe it’s a broken heart.’”

You guys talk more than girls, I want to say. I’m not sure exactly how I phrase it when I say it aloud, but Charlton replies, “Filipinos are the best for gossip and entertaining.” The same holds true for the officers too, at least the gossip part.

“Can I say something?” Charlton asks.

“Of course,” I say.

“It’s very nice to have you here.”

I smile. “Thank you.”

“To be honest,” he puts his hand out, touches me briefly on the shoulder, “I don’t want to say it wrong, but you give us something nice to look at.”

I begin to see myself through their eyes, in relation to the long time at sea they have with only themselves to keep each other company, with the hard work and the danger always at hand. No longer as a prize to be won or a female chased after, but as a friend, a diversion.
The stairway door opens and shuts and the officer mess room door opens. Josko comes in. “Good appetite,” he says.

“Good appetite,” I say.

Charlton starts, jumps off the chair and rushes off like a cockroach at the flick of a light switch, like a startled bird. “Sorry, Chief,” he says through the opening from the kitchen, “hello, Chief, I was just talking to Miss Amanda.”

“What is this to me?” Josko asks him, reaching into the bread box for some bread. “She’s over twenty-one.”

Thanks, I think, just throw me to the wolves. Thanks, I think, for letting me handle myself.

Josko takes his sandwich, gives me a grin and leaves. I’m done with my dinner and despite Joe’s dislike of me doing it, I take my plate into the kitchen area to the sink. It makes me feel more a part of the place rather than some elevated passenger guest. I like feeling at home. I feel at home.

Charlton wants to talk some more and he invites me into the crew’s mess room and we sit and drink water. He tells me more of his and the Third’s conversation about me. About their thoughts of what I would be like. Of how much it means to them, all of them, that I’m here.
I glance up at the clock. Although I haven’t yet had a chance to ask Charlton about ghosts and I’m comfortable here, I say, “I can’t stay long. I’m supposed to go up to the Second’s cabin to get some pictures from him to put on my flash drive before eight o’clock.”

“I’ll call him,” Charlton says, “We’ll go up together.” He calls Domin and it’s arranged. We head up a couple decks to the second’s cabin.

“Maybe we should call the other passenger Josh,” Charlton says. So he does. Hunts him down and invites him over. Domin pulls out a box of red wine from his fridge, rummages up some glasses, puts a can of nuts out on the table, makes an impromptu party. Charlton calls the bosun and invites him too.

It’s a real gathering.

They’re talking, trying to keep my attention, trying to make me laugh, trying to impress me with stories. We get on to ghosts and vampires without my initiation; a continuation of mine and Domin’s conversation of the day before.

“If vampire were as beautiful as Miss Amanda,” the bosun says, “I’d let it bite me.” He turns his
head, stretches his neck to bare the skin, as if to let a vampire bite him right then and there.

“You’d be vampire,” Domin laughs, “you’d let her bite you and then you’d be a vampire. Make your whole family vampire.”

The bosun smiles. It’s a smile like a flash of delight; brief, boyish, quickly gone. “I’d let her bite me,” he says again. Traces the space of his neck.

I shake my head. Beauty is in the beholder. To them I’m beautiful. They’d let me do nearly anything.
The second’s phone rings. “It’s for you,” he tells Charlton. That’s how quickly news travels. Everyone knows where everyone is. “It’s Third.”

Charlton jumps up and takes the phone. “You miss me?” he asks. “I miss you too.” When he’s done arranging his duty watch times for our entry into port he signs off saying, “I love you.” He’s joking. He’s serious. This is life on a ship. This is the seaman’s life.

Charlton promises again to take Josh and me up into the crane. Bosun and Second, the rest of us, talk about keeping promises. Charlton wants to take us up right then. I’m for it. Someone is worried about the darkness. About the wine.

“I’m not drunk,” I say.

“Maybe better some other time,” Domin says.

“Maybe,” I concede. But I want to go now. I want to chance a meeting out in the dark with the ghosts. I want to venture up into the towers of the cranes. There’s no time like the present.

“We’ll go,” Charlton promises.

It’s past 8:00. It’s close to 9:00 and I’m worried that we’re eating up all of Domin’s rest time. The bosun finishes his glass of wine and excuses himself. Domin pours out the last of the box of wine equally between all of us and then Charlton winks at us and he, Josh and I go out together.

Domin repeats that some other safer time would be better.

“We won’t go now,” I say. “We’ll be safe.” I’m not sure which is a lie.

He watches us step over the threshold and into the stairway. The door closes behind us.

“We go now?” Charlton asks.

“Okay. Sure.” I have a twinge of conscience for my insincere promise to the second. “I need to grab my sweater and my camera,” I say.

“We meet you at the ship office in five minutes,” he says, and he and Josh disappear.

I collect my things. I leave my door open and walk down to the lowest deck and wait for the boys by the office door. I don’t really believe in the ghosts. But if they’re around I want to see them. I want to ask them if there is a sea in heaven.



[We assume our deaths will come at night,
Spreading down over the hills,
Slipping from under the trees.
Death that other sleep,
The long soft dreaming.
Ah, no --
Children know,
Death is more of loss than gain:
They cry before they sleep

– (c) Stephane Clark 2002]

Ghost Ship

August 9, 2012 – Ghost Ship

Sunday
It’s like being on a ghost ship
silent
creaking
still
as if I’m the only one alive
and even my respiration, my vibrancy
is questionable

I venture out of my room, creep into the hallway, and tread lightly to the lounge to make some tea. The omnipresent sound of chipping is gone. No one is washing the decks or painting or running a crane or sweeping the floors. Not a soul is working. They’ve got the day off and are probably, most of them, sleeping off hangovers from last night’s party. Even Josko’s door and the captain’s doors are closed. I’m not even certain at this point that there’s anyone up on the bridge steering the ship.

What would it be like to wake up and discover I were the only one onboard? Strange and disconcerting are the adjectives that come first to mind. In this hushed and empty space, it feels like I am. I briefly wonder if something like the Christians’ Rapture has occurred for everyone but me. Or if it’s some alien invasion where all the seamen (and cadet) have been beamed up someplace far far away and I, for some anomalous reason of time and space, got left behind.

Odd thoughts in mind and tea in hand, I decide to go back to my room and
finish Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. I’ve got about fifty pages out of four hundred something left to go. When I set up this trip I’d thought I’d have long days stretched thin with reading and writing. In my reality, at the end of each day I fall into bed wondering what has happened to the hours. I’ve hardly read anything at all and I’ve only written the first line to the story I want to work on. There just aren’t enough minutes in my days.

“Are you bored?” the chief officer asks me in passing one afternoon.

“Bored?!” I exclaim. “I don’t have time to be bored.” There’s way too much to see. There’s way too much going on. There’s hardly time to ask the questions from the officers on the bridge, or chat with the crew, or jaw jack with the chief engineer, or sit in the sun, or talk to the pilots, or stare at the ever-changing blue of the sky and sea, or look for marine life, or just sit and breathe.

I settle on my couch and read. The air conditioning blows frigid and I wind a wrap around myself to stave off the cold and think about going down to the engine room where I know it’s warm. I leave my room door open to listen for sounds of life. I’ve got thirty pages to go and I’m thinking that in about half an hour I’ll have to decide if I want to start a new book, do some work or wander around in search of some diversion when I hear the sound of steps coming my way down the hall.

I lift my chin and wait.

I see a hand first as it taps my door and then a face. It’s the bosun. His name is Alan. He’s in charge of the crew and makes sure that the tasks the chief officer assigns get delegated to the proper crewmen. Up to this point I’d only really interacted with him at yesterday’s drill and that was just observation. He had kind of intimidated me with his questions to the officers. He’d seemed like the sharp edge between crew and command. I hadn’t been sure what to make of him.

Now I smile at him.

“I came to invite you down to the pool for a party,” he says.

“Right now?” I ask.

He nods.

I put my shoes on. I don’t even think to grab my camera or my jacket. I just up and go. Alan escorts me down the stairs and outside to the pool. The third officer and the cadet are there together. Josh leans against the railing with a beer already in hand. There’s a handful of the crew including a new older Ukrainian seaman who signed on in Philadelphia.

“You like beer? You like whisky?” the bosun asks me.

“Whisky is fine,” I say. I know I can sip it slow and make it last while they beer away.

I go stand next to Josh and get his five words from him. I wonder what to do now that we’ve both exhausted our chitchat bank. Drink in hand, I put my back to the railing and grin at the boys.

Ian, last night’s cameraman, is tipsy. He’s full of willingness to make Josh’s and my traveling experience the best possible. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with you,” he says, “to ask you questions. And I wanted to. But if you have any questions or want to anything. Just shoot. Just ask. Just shoot.” He looks at us waiting for our questions. I’ve been asking questions and listening and watching ever since I walked up the gangway, and I’m at a loss of what to ask. Josh asks something and I’m happy. “I just want you to have the best time on the ship that you can,” Ian continues. “If you need anything. If you have any questions. Shoot. Just shoot.” He makes a gun finger motion and laughs.

It’s chilly outside, even more than it had been in my room. A cold wind sweeps across the water gathering an icy touch and raises goose bumps on my arms. The sun is coated with clouds which look heavy laden with snow. It’s July, but it no longer feels like summer.

The Ukrainian jumps into the pool and I shiver. I may never be warm again. The third officer and the cadet leave. Filipinos come and go. They sit together on the deck chairs, stand next to each other, drape arms around shoulders, legs over legs. The need for human touch isn’t stifled like I’ve seen in the States, these guys are all they have and they’re playful with each other. Like children at times.  



“Amanda,” the Ukrainian seaman says. He’s out of the pool, changed out of his swimsuit, and sitting in the chair to the left of me. All these guys know my name and I’m still far behind in learning theirs.

“Why did you decide to take this kind of ship instead of a passenger ship?”

I tell him. After, I ask him about the types of ships he’s worked on. He talks for a while about the past. Then he tells me about the Initiation Rites of Neptune that seamen perform when a new seaman crosses the equator for the first time.

“I have video,” he says. “You come to my cabin and see?”

I follow him to his cabin. It’s sparser than mine. Smaller. It seems unfair. But he makes it inviting and hospitable as he pulls out the chair for me and finds the video in his computer’s files. We watch it and then he shows me pictures of his daughter and more pictures of other ships and crew.

We go back out together. It’s still cold. I take a seat on a small bench in between one of the reclining chairs and the bosun’s chair. I cross my arms over my body.

“My guys were afraid of you,” the bosun says. “They thought you were FBI.”

“What?” I say. “Why?”

“They saw your computer in your room with a gun on the screen and they thought you were FBI.”
I’m laughing. It can be good to have a certain kind of reputation. “Gun? What gun?”
I never find out, they get on a roll with jokes. Teasing one of the guys about working at a call center, one of the guys about being born in Alaska, one of the guys about being the wife of the other since they share a room.

“It’s cold?” the bosun asks me.

I’m not sure if my lips are blue, but my teeth are almost to the chattering point. “Yes, it’s cold,” I agree. I can see my breath. I puff out some air to show him.

“Oh,” he says. He gets up and goes. A few moments later he returns with a winter coat. He helps me into it. He all but zips it up. “Is that better?” he asks.

“Yes. Thank you!” It is. I fold myself into the depths and for the first time today I’m warm. I’m no longer dreaming of sitting in the engine room or in the drying closet in the laundry room. No longer dreaming of a summer that doesn’t seem to exist.

“My guys are good guys,” the bosun says. “It they are indecent, if they say bad words to you, you come tell me and I’ll give them the screw. I’ll fuck them. That’s why I came to get you, to protect you. You can feel at home on the ship.”

I thank him. These sentiments I don’t take lightly. Even though I prefer to take care of things on my own, there’s a touching sweetness of security in his words. “The guys have been very nice,” I tell him. And I mean it. Even Jake with his desire for clandestine encounters has been nice.

These guys act out for me. They tell jokes at each other’s expense. They all vie for my attention with a constant chorus of “Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.” I can hardly keep up. It’s exhausting to be a girl at times. Having to equalize my attention to all the voices clamoring in. Not just being able to sit in silent observance. I do my best to keep up.

“There are ghosts on the ship,” one of them says.

“Really?” Ghosts make good stories.

“Two chief officers,” they say. One chief officer had died in an accident when water had leaked into one of the holds where some water-reactive chemical had been stored. Then the chief officer who came onboard to replace him died, presumable, of a heart attack in his cabin. I wonder if this is the crew’s way of getting back at the officers, creating ghosts of chiefs since the chief is the one who creates their work lists. I’m watching these guys for signs of a punch line. They’ve joked around so much by now I’m not sure what stories are supposed to be real and which ones are created to get a reaction from me.

Apparently this one is supposed to be real. But they move on to other subjects before I get a chance to find out more. Several hours have gone by and my smile has worn out and my laughter is starting to sound brittle. When there’s a lull, I rise and excuse myself.

“When we have party you’re invited,” the bosun says. “For the guys’ birthdays. When we’re at the pool.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Just come get me when you have one and I’ll join you.” I hand off the coat and make my way back upstairs. I have enough time to finish my book before I head down for dinner. Josko’s door is open and the captain is standing in the doorway talking to him.

They stop talking when I pass by and say hi.

“You’re going for your supper?” the captain asks.

I nod.

“I was just about to open something special,” he says. “But we’ll wait for you.”

I make short work of my dinner and stop for a moment in my room before I go poke my head into Josko’s room. “Can I join?” I ask.

“We were waiting for you,” the captain says.

I leave my shoes at the door and take my normal chair, pull my legs up and get comfortable. Josko had invited me in for a beer several nights before and I feel at home there. “You take beer?” he’d asked. “Sure,” I’d said. We’d talked of ancient civilizations (I’d shown him pictures of the Nazca Lines and of Machu Picchu), of dangerous Chinese beer he’d gotten really sick from drinking once (we drank Pale Pilsen), and of how Genghis Khan would have taken over Japan but for the typhoon that came through just in the nick of time (I have a rueful inward moment of shame realizing that most of what I remember about Genghis Khan comes from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure).

I have a petty reflection of joy that it’s me in this cabin having drinks with the captain and the chief engineer and not Josh. Then my kinder nature wonders if I should invite him over as well. The captain uncorks the bottle of white sparkling wine and pours for three. Sorry Josh, I think.
The captain tells stories. Josko gets a few in here and there. I sit and listen for the most part. The captain refills his glass and turns to me.

“What you are doing?” he asks with an indignant tone. My glass is still full.

“Sipping,” I say.

He gives me a reproving glance and tops off Josko’s glass.
Somewhere in the middle of the bottle a phone rings. It keeps on ringing. Insistently.

“Is that your phone?” the chief engineer asks the captain.

“Excuse me,” the captain says, getting up. “It might be important.” A moment later, he returns. “It wasn’t my phone. It was from the other side.”

“It was probably my phone,” I say. Jake has been in the habit of calling me just after dinner to try and talk me into meeting him up at the Blue Bar. “I don’t think it was important.”

The glasses get filled again and the stories keep on rolling. Ten minutes pass, maybe fifteen and the stairway door opens and closes. We all turn to see who’s on our floor. It’s the bosun. He passes the chief engineer’s open door, sees us all together. I wave. Smile. He sees me and turns to go back down. The captain gets up to see what he needed.

But I know. He’d come to get me again. It’s a smart strategy because how could I refuse an invitation from the bosun? It’d be like turning the captain’s invitation to share a bottle of sparkling white wine down. But the captain trumps the bosun. The captain comes back into the room and takes his seat again.

“I think you just break some hearts,” he says. “Broke a heart,” he amends.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” I say, but he’s no longer listening to me. I’m not important to the story he’s now telling and this makes me happy. It’s a blessed contrast to the attention I’d had to provide at the pool party.  “I’ll probably break a lot of hearts on this trip,” I say aloud to no one but myself.

And we finish the bottle of wine.

Party!

July 25, 2012 – PARTY!

I’m hanging out on the bridge during the third mate’s watch and we’re talking about the upcoming weekend’s party. “It’s the captain’s birthday too,” I say, even though I know it is, “right?”


“Yes,” Dan says. He leans against the chair in front of the consul. “I don’t even know how old he is.”

“I think he told me he was born in ‘52,” I say. “But I might have misunderstood him.” The captain had been telling me about a ship made in 1952 whose steel was in better condition than the steel of the newer ships.

“They don’t make things like they used to,” I’d said, and then I’d wondered if that held true for both people and ships.

“Ah.” Dan turns. “I have everything I need right here.” He pulls out the captain’s passport from the boxes all our passports are kept in and flips through it. “’52,” he says.

“He’s turning 60,” I say. I say this without calculating the years--it’s easy since that’s the year my dad was born. I wonder if the captain knows that this is the year of the water dragon and should be lucky for him. I wonder how he feels turning this age without having his family to celebrate with him. Maybe the same way I’d felt when I couldn’t be there in person to celebrate with my dad. We’d been in the same time zone but different hemispheres. I’d felt distant and connected at the same time. Sometimes that’s how it is.

Saturday morning I get up early enough to make a birthday card for the captain. I draw a picture of an old sailing ship on a folded 3x5 card and write a short birthday wish inside. It’s the best I can do.
On my way to lunch we meet up on the stairs, just outside the mess room door.

“Here,” I say, feeling a little shy as I hand him the card, “Happy birthday!”

He looks it over, reads the inside. I suddenly wish I’d written more than what I had. But he seems touched. There’s a watery depth to his eyes and he gives a sincere, “Thank you,” as he holds the door open for me and I step inside the mess room.

We sit at our spots. Joe pours us wine. It’s the captain’s birthday; everyone gets to celebrate.

As the other officers arrive they say, “Good appetite. Happy birthday!” They bring their glasses over to tap the captain’s and to wish him health. They exchange handshakes and hugs.

“All the best!” the captain says in toast.

“All the best,” we chime.

We’ve already gotten our plates when Josh comes in. He looks like he just woke up. He probably did. He takes his seat to the right of the captain and looks with raised eyebrows at the wine glasses.

“It’s the captain’s birthday,” I tell him.

“How old are you turning?” Josh asks.

Josko chokes back a laugh and the captain laughs. I smile.

“Sixty,” the captain says.

“That’s a good age,” Josh says. That’s more or less the end of that conversation. Our bites are
interrupted by well wishes from other crew members and then it’s over.

After lunch I read some. Then there are the drills. Then I’m on my own until dinner time comes. I’m not sure if the party rules out regular dinner or not. I’m a little hungry so I go down to check.

Joe looks surprised when he sees me. “Oh! You no hear about party?”

“What time does it start?” I ask.

“Maybe seven.”

The cook comes around the corner and sees me. He stops, wipes his hands on his apron, and comes closer. “What’s your name?” he asks.

I tell him. He repeats it.

Joe teases him. “I told you her name,” he says. “And you don’t remember.” They’d gossiped about me. Nothing stays secret on this ship. News travels faster than flying fish.

“Filipinos are the best at gossip and entertainment,” Charlton, one of the Filipino crew tells me a few nights later.

“What’s your name?” I ask the cook.

“Jay,” he says. I’m starting to think that all the Filipinos names start with J. Joe, Jake, Jay.

“How long have you been vegetarian?” Jay asks.

“Four years now,” I say.

“You don’t even eat fish or chicken?”

“No,” I say. I shake my head as if I’m ashamed. I don’t know why I always feel I have to justify my dietary choice. “I became vegetarian for health reasons.”

He nods as if this explains everything and segues right into, “Are you married?”

“No,” I say. Still honest.

“Why not?” he asks, surprised. For him, for the other Filipinos, for the Latin American men I have talked with, it’s a strange thing for someone to be alone. Even odder for a person (especially a girl) to want to be alone or, god forbid, to like it. It’s not normal.

Joe’s worried I’ll starve so he pours me some of the leftover wine from lunch. Jay brings me two big pieces of sticky looking cake. “Cheesecake,” he says. It looks like hardened flan. I perch on the arm of a chair and chat with them while they work getting meat lined up for BBQing at the party and throw together some side dishes. I eat the cake, sip the wine.

Jake comes in and sees me. “You drunk?” he asks, looking at my face and pointing at the glass.

“No,” I say. I touch my cheek. It’s warm. I haven’t checked a mirror and I guess I must be red. “I’m sunburned.”

He starts to pick up my glass then makes a gesture to get permission from me. I shrug. He takes a drink. Guys come and go, taking things upstairs to the Blue Bar, getting snacks, stopping to say hi to me, and then leaving again. Jake leaves to take up some plates. I finish my cake, swallow the last of the wine.

“Salemat,” I tell Jay and Joe, “thank you” in Tagalog the Filipino common language.

I go to my room and mill about until it’s just a little after seven when I head upstairs to the party.

The chief engineer, the second engineer, the second officer, the electrician and many of the crew are already there. The electrician opens a beer for me with the tail end of a fork. The Filipinos already have the BBQ going. Josh arrives. The third officer and Nadezdha, the cadet, show up together. The chief officer comes alone. There’s merriment in the air.


“Your friend is very strange,” Josko says, motioning subtly at Josh.

“Why’s he my friend?” I ask.

Josko shrugs his smile. “You’re American, he’s American.”

I shake my head. Josh is a nerd, what do you expect? I want to reply, but these are words I don’t know how to convey correctly. Josh’s nerdism is something precious and understandable to me. I’m on the inside with the crew and officers, on the outside with Josh, all around. I feel a part of everything.

A few minutes later, Valerii, the 2nd Engineer comes up close to me, beer in hand. “Amanda,” he says. My face reflects from the lenses of his sunglasses. “I know why you are here. So you can concentrate. For your writing. But why is your friend travelling this way?”

As if I’m the expert on the new passenger. Because I’m also a passenger. Because I’m American. But I know the answer. “He doesn’t like to fly,” I say, “and he has the time.”

The captain arrives and the merriment escalates.

“Happy birthday,” I say.

“All the best to you,” he replies. “Whatever you want; editors, publishers--” then he leans in, “I don’t know whatever it is you want.” He whispers the next words for my ears only. “Maybe it is a husband.”

I give a noncommittal shrug and say something. Maybe “Thank you.” Maybe “Well.” Maybe nothing at all. Maybe I only grin like a goon. These men think I lack something, that I’m incomplete. Maybe I am and I just don’t know it. It’s no kind of night for this conversation.

It’s a party and there’s lots of food, lots of drinks, and then comes the karaoke.

“These Filipinos love karaoke,” the third officer had told me.

And they do.

Joe especially sings his heart out, if not with perfect pitch, at least with joy and enthusiasm. As the night goes on I think that no matter how much one has had to drink Filipino karaoke is always bad. But it’s fun. They sing happy birthday to the captain. We all join in.

One of the able bodied seamen, Ian, takes charge of Josko’s camera and acts as the party photographer. I get my picture taken with almost all the crew individually. They love having their picture taken. They love having their picture taken with me. I begin to feel like a celebrity. “I like you very much,” one of the guys tells me as we smile for the camera, his hand possessively around my waist. What can I say to that? I don’t even know his name.


I don’t let any of them stay too long, get too too close. I cling to Josko’s side like a barnacle, he’s my protection. I also enjoy his company. He’s brought his computer up to fix something with the sound system and when the problem is fixed he shows me pictures of his hometown Rijecka and places he’s visited all around the world.

Later, after the sun has set, Ian breezes back over. “You two should come outside and I’ll take your picture,” he says. “The moonlight is nice.”

“You want me dead?” Josko asks. “We can’t take moonlight pictures together.” He has a wife. I get the impression she’s a spitfire.

I throw back my head and laugh.

I leave the party when the chief engineer leaves. We part ways at his door and I go to my room. It’s late and I’m sleepy. I tumble into bed and sink into the motion of the ship, it rocks me, a lullaby of movement.

As I drift off into dreams I think, I survived a party at sea.