Excitedly I plunged below and kicked further from the surface. I passed over the cadaverous aircraft, hardly believing my eyes. The small, propeller-driven plane was fully intact, but for the tail being shorn off. All rested snugly in a bed of sea grass, open and inviting. The doors had been removed to the cockpit, which reminded me of an old Volkswagen Beetle. The engine cavity was also exposed and empty.
I dove and dove again, crawling around it and searching its secrets in the mottled greenish hues of the sea. The incrustation of the metal was fascinating, and I wondered how long it had been there. I imagined a sunken ship would feel somewhat like this, silent with secrets and perhaps a dramatic end. Here, at least, no one had lost their life, for this plane had belonged to a drug smuggler who missed a runway on a small, neighboring island and had to ditch it.
Though peaceful as a grave, there was life. Oh, was there life! Holding my breath longer and longer with the practice, I poked my nose ever deeper into the nooks and crannies and came face to face with fish of intense electric blues and fiery reds. Time passed as I explored the wreck, and the locals came to explore me.
All of a sudden I was immersed in a huge school of fish, each member six to eight inches long, fat and happy. Most were long and silver with bolts of vivid yellow shooting down their length that flared into sharply pronged tails. There were also some rounder silver fellows, whose back carried a mantle of brilliant yellow with vertical black stripes. I was barraged on all sides by fish mere inches from me, and they thumped me like tiny bumper cars. Every stroke of my hand and kick of my foot met a vibrant little body. I became mildly alarmed and felt smothered, but slowly began to realize that the situation wasn’t wrong, but oh so right.
They thought I was a fish!
I had seen videos of vast schools of tropical fish swarming and swirling in one solid, shimmering mass, but had never realized what it would look like being one of their number. They pressed within an inch or two of my face and under my chest and between my legs. The crowding silver and yellow blinded me and I squirmed to get away. As a group they went with me until I fumbled up to the surface. Panting, I looked about and saw that I was in the middle of a massive cloud of yellow. With a grin, I dove back in.
I became one of their school and, surprisingly, sometimes even the leader of it. We would lazily float with the waves for a bit, when I would suddenly turn ninety degrees and stroke in that direction. The whole group happily followed, their big eyes glancing me over, wondering what had prompted me but not particularly caring as long as it wasn’t a shark. Time passed and it felt as if I had fins in my face all morning. In reality it was closer to an hour. Eventually a romping, splashing kid approached and tried to hit the fish. Within seconds the school was gone, recognizing the negative presence instantly.
I drifted elsewhere. I wanted to get away from that intrusive brat and continue my harmony with nature. Perhaps my euphoria was just overcompensation for living in the artificial environment of the ship, with literally every breath air-conditioned and every drink chemically dense, if not alcoholic! I stroked to connect with nature even as it strove to avoid humanity. I had to go further and further out and the sea’s bottom dropped further and further away.
When the waters were perhaps twenty-five feet deep, I suddenly flowed through a huge mass of sea jellies. They were transparent, yet I could see shimmering red and yellow on the little folds of their bodies in the twinkling sunlight. As mesmerizingly bountiful and beautiful as they were, I was intimidated by possible stingers. Obviously these little five-inchers were not Portuguese man-of-war, but that didn’t mean they weren’t packing heat. Not that I could do anything about it, because I was already suspended in about 6,000 of them.
And then they were gone. I floated still further out, into water about thirty-five feet deep, and saw something that caught my breath. A sting ray! He was directly below me, casually sliding over the lumpy rocks of the bottom. For fun, I followed him about twelve feet away. We were going with the current, and were swept into deeper water. The temperature of the water chilled perceptively and the water changed to a darker, mesmerizing blue.
Then there were two more sting rays, both some four feet from wingtip to wingtip. They circled each other in a slow motion pirouette a mere twenty feet below me. Their sleek black bodies were clean and smooth and oh so gorgeous. Still, I had no desire to join their dance or enroll in their school!
After I had my fill of swimming with the fish, I wandered around the sun-drenched sands of the island. Signposts rising above sandy crossroads led me to a lunch buffet, where I snarfed down a couple cheeseburgers. With belly full, skin soaked in sun, and brain soaked in salt, I happily discovered a cluster of hammocks nestled among the palms. It was not long before I fell asleep.
Upon waking I found Charles and Tatli snuggled asleep in the neighboring hammock. Apparently they arrived and had not wanted to wake me. I returned the favor and quietly watched them sleep for a while. I was reminded of a hammock nap with Bianca in the Red Sea one year ago. An ache flashed through my gut.
Later I was given a special privilege by the jet ski tour operator, who arranged for me to be lead guest on the afternoon’s tour. I was no stranger to jet skis, but had always been confined by riverbanks and shores. Not so today, and being the leader in a wild streak across the sea was intoxicating. We tore across the open water at full throttle, gleefully leaving the island behind. Glasslike was the word, for the water was that smooth and that transparent.
The shallows stretched from horizon to horizon, the clean white sand a mere three feet below. Imagine being miles out at sea, yet standing only waist deep! The vast sandbar was freckled with thousands upon thousands of bright orange starfish. We finally stopped when Majesty of the Seas was just a white blip where the sea met the sky.
The tour operator suggested we hop off the jet skis for a swim. So I did, slithering off the back of the seat and splashing in the turquoise waters. She also commented that it was good luck to kiss a starfish, so I did that, too. Starfish had always fascinated me because they appeared as solid as bone, yet were able to move. I picked up the nearest guy, scarlet red and about a foot long. He was amazingly heavy and didn’t seem to mind my amorous advance.
Then, as if it were all a dream, I found myself back on the ship, sunburned and sad the day was through. But oh, what a time! A good way, indeed, to close the book on Majesty of the Seas.
5
Mere weeks ago, I was suffering slings and arrows of auctioneer training, but now I was assigned to one of the largest cruise ships on the planet. The timeline was staggering in analysis: in less than one month on the Widow Maker, I had changed auctioneers, changed art movers, and had a brutal art swap. Rather than being an unpaid trainee for a month, I was upgraded within days. After conducting my first full auction, I was upgraded again to a bigger ship with bigger money and bigger responsibilities. I did not feel ready at all, and was quite intimidated. I could already see that success at Sundance meant being set up to fail on a higher level. Look at poor Shawn!
But, again, this wasn’t really about me. This was about Charles. He was failing, and they would probably give him a lower-ranked auctioneer trainee straight from training. Widow Maker was again set to feed. My departure left Charles floating in the wind, but that was the business. My future lay elsewhere, and I certainly wouldn’t get to my Bianca on Majesty of the Seas.
I was going to miss Charles and Tatli. They were a lot of fun. More than that, though, it was the pressure-cooker environment of cruise ships. In a very short period of time they had become family. This was a world where you had to live for the moment, and tonight, my last night on Majesty, was the moment I had been working so hard for.
Yet we sat more or less in silence. Our table was brightened with silver moonlight, and the air was humid but fresh. The restless ocean surrounding us filled the night with a passive energy that was conducive to reflection. It was sinking in that I was to leave in the morning, and the reality that
we hardly knew each other muscled in. For the first time, we had nothing to say to each other. So absently we sipped heavy, heady-sweet liquor from glass tumblers. I bought a bottle of Anguilla Pyrat XO Reserve, and, garnished with those gargantuan local limes with paper-thin skin, we absorbed all things Caribbean.
“Think they have roaches on Conquest?” Charles asked eventually, eyeing the scurrying flurry on the teak around us.
“I doubt it has roaches,” I said honestly. “But I’ve worked there before and know the crew mess doesn’t smell like shit.”
He nodded and then returned to his drink.
“What time does your flight leave?” Tatli asked quietly.
“Very early. I was given early clearance and have to sign off at 5:15 in the morning. It’s a pain in the ass worthy of invoking the Chicken.”
“Is that voodoo or something?” Charles inquired in his deep baritone. “I presume this is not a reference to the proverbial choking of the chicken?”
“That’s it!” I exclaimed.
“Then perhaps you should keep that to yourself,” Charles deadpanned.
“No, no, that’s a whole other sport. I have been wracking my brain over this weird email I got from Bianca, and it just struck me. She asked ‘why you have chicks?’, and I was worried she thought I was cheating on her. Now I remember I said I won’t count my chicks before they hatch.”
Charles nodded again and returned to his drink, unimpressed. Time drifted away from us, tossed by the waves. I wondered if I would ever see them again. They had been seriously discussing leaving Sundance, even before meeting the Widow Maker.
“Oh,” Charles said finally. “Mary Elizabeth said something about Captain Kirk being the auctioneer on Conquest. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
I knew exactly what it meant. I had met the man to whom she referred. In fact, it could easily be argued that it was Bill Shatner's lust that had launched my entire auctioneer career!
Part 2: The Beginning of the End
Nobody ever went broke underestimating humanity.
—P.T. Barnum
Chapter 8. The Devil Takes a Wife
1
Art is as much a lustful, chemical reaction as romance. A painting can call you like a Siren, capturing your eye from across a crowded gallery and luring you closer, perhaps even against your will. You look her over from every side and fantasize about her at your place even before you have the courage to ask her name. Hopefully you get lucky, sometimes you do, but so often she’s way out of your league. But when a connection happens, oh, how your life brightens! And like a love affair, the best art grows more complex the longer you are with her, and more appreciated.
Or so I thought, before becoming an art dealer. Shows what I know.
2
Ship life is about far more than being on ships. First is the monumental task of being hired for the job. Gaining my first contract for the dining room meant flying to New Orleans for interviews with a very high level of Carnival Cruise Lines management. Though insanely overqualified for the simple job I wanted, I was nearly denied because the international cruise community had learned the hard way that Americans did not adapt well to ship life. Yes, the ‘sweatship’ conditions were brutal and impersonal and low paying and all that, but the hardest part was the transience.
Once hired, I had four weeks before my sign-on date, though it could just as easily have been six weeks, or ten. After each contract was an unpaid vacation anywhere from four to ten weeks. This type of unpredictability was tough on Americans entrenched in mortgage or rent, car payments, unsecured debt, or any other number of monthly expenses.
When I finally did get aboard, jealous ship management torpedoed my career. They did not want a precedent for other Americans to follow, as if that would ever happen. So how to return to sea, to my Bianca? Hope came from my discovery of Sundance.
But alas, the auctioneer hiring process made Carnival’s methods look all soft and squishy. To get into the seven-day auctioneer screening, I had to lie, cheat, and steal. Perhaps this was intentional. I was going to be an art dealer, after all.
Thus, even while slaving literally 100 hours a week on Carnival Legend, I hammered every level of Carnival and Sundance hierarchy. Once again, I was perfectly qualified for the job and even had a degree in art history, but only after a gift of a duty-free $100 bottle of cognac was my resumé passed up to the Sundance fleet manager. She reviewed it and grudgingly agreed to grant me five minutes with coffee on her next visit to Legend, which was weeks away. After schmoozing her successfully, which did not involve shagging her as I had been advised, she recommended me for a phone interview with her boss. This came just days before my signing off Legend.
In fact, Sundance’s big dog Gene and I had two separate phone interviews. After the second grilling he instructed me to videotape myself in action. Choose any two artists on the Sundance website, he ordered, and create a five minute history on both. Deliver the presentation, memorized, in a designer suit and have the tape in his hands in three days!
So that Sunday night I wrote and memorized all ten minutes of my presentation by practicing in front of a mirror. On Monday I scrounged friends and family for a video camera, even as my best suit was tailored. Tuesday I picked up the suit at noon and delivered my lines like a maniac in order to finish the tape before the 3 p.m. deadline to overnight by Wednesday. Then I had to follow up with two more calls, wherein the second he asked me for an additional video tape. When I refused to do any more without some sort of guarantee of entry, he let me in.
Yes, being at sea was much easier than getting to sea!
So back in April 2004, my auctioneering career began with a flight to Pittsburgh. While gathering my luggage at the baggage carousel, I was shocked to see a man with a sign reading ‘BRUNS’. I suffered a moment of pride, never having dreamed anyone would wait for me in such a manner, and certainly not a chauffeur in coattails! But such formality soon grew boring as I sat alone in the back of the stretched Lincoln Town Car, idly browsing the selection of reading material: New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, The Economist magazine. Sadly there were no Playboys, but at least Charles wasn’t sitting next to me nakedly playing with his little wet baggy.
I was dropped off at the Garden Plaza Marriott. The front desk manager instructed me to be in the cocktail lounge at 9 p.m. for a meeting.
“I assume I share a room…?” I pried.
“Yes, Mr. Bruns,” he answered smoothly. “A Mr. Stewart will be sharing your room. If that is not to your satisfaction, I could look into an upgrade. However, my records indicate you are not yet an auctioneer.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” I answered. After a year at sea, a strange roommate was not an issue. I was just relieved to know in advance about it. Almost exactly thirteen months prior I had been put up in a hotel by Carnival Cruise Lines. While I blithely shampooed my hair, a Croatian man was having wild sex with his girlfriend in what I had thought was my bed. Even more shocking, the Croat had halted his activity to challenge me on ‘my’ military actions abroad. In a towel, shocked and dripping, I had to explain that I was not personally responsible for America’s invasion of Iraq and the embarrassing ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign… all while trying not to stare at his naked female partner in front of me. This time, at least, I would be prepared with a quick quip or at least a dirty limerick.
“Any idea how I will know Gene? We’ve only spoken on the phone.”
The manager chuckled. “Oh, you’ll know Gene. He’s a patriot.”
At the appointed hour the lounge was filled with some thirty men and women, predominantly beautiful. Most could have been models, and I suddenly became self-conscious of my big chin. Also noteworthy was the tremendous youth around me: few, if any, were even 25 years old. Though I was merely 31, I felt closer to the handful of older folks due to my high mileage. All the pretty children drank like fish. Figuring my first meeting with the boss would go more smoothly sober, I decline
d booze. A rare and painful decision, to be sure.
Fashionably late, a man arrived wearing the most outrageous outfit I had ever seen worn in public. His windbreaker was one giant American flag. His jogging pants neatly continued the pattern where his jacket left off, and even his tennis shoes were splashed in red, white, and blue. Only coattails and a stovepipe hat could have made him more patriotic. Also like Uncle Sam, his face was lined with age to look both tough and wise. His curly brown hair had all but lost the fight with gray and the goatee desperately clinging to his chin was almost entirely white.
“Hello, everyone!” he boomed, eyes sparkling with delight. “Everyone here for the auctioneer’s training, gather round! Let’s get the chairs into a circle and get going.”
My neighbors were completely opposing types. To my left was a woman with dark skin, raspberry lips, and deep Brazilian eyes that sucked me in like a black hole. A tight orange dress accented her cocoa skin to perfection. On my right was a tired yet powerful middle-aged man best described as a strung-out William Shatner. Not the handsome, young Captain Kirk-type, but an older, thicker one with a ruddy complexion. Yet he seemed familiar to me.
“OK!” Uncle Sam continued. “I am Gene, and I’ll be in charge of your training this week. Wow, what a big class! We usually number only a dozen, but there are thirty of you this time. That’s exciting! Oh boy, is Sundance moving forward. I see a few auctioneers returning for advanced training, but most of you are soon-to-be auctioneers. Of course, not all of you will survive until the end. This will be a tough week, probably the toughest of your life for some, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing and living on ships.”
Ship for Brains (Cruise Confidential 2) Page 12
