Ship for Brains (Cruise Confidential 2)

by Brian David Bruns

  4

  Our first auction clinched more in sales than an entire cruise on Majesty of the Seas, and the second auction jumped a good thirty percent higher than the first one! Despite my pestering all cruise, I was not allowed to input our sales into the ship’s accounting until the evening before our final auction. Bill dropped me off in the dismal accounting office with only rudimentary explanations of what I was to do. He was shocked that Majesty’s accountant entered the sales into the ship’s computer for us, yet still assumed I would know how to do it on Conquest. I was shocked that Carnival’s modern mega-ship required me to punch numbers into an old-fashioned DOS-like green screen terminal. The interface made Pac Man look like a Nintendo Wii.

  For hours I sat hunched over the tiny screen with an adding machine, swearing and scratching my head. The sole, bored Indonesian accountant on duty at this hour made it a point to ignore my repeated requests for assistance. The lighting was pale yellow and made the entire narrow chamber sickly and cramped. It was an awful experience. When I crunched the numbers and realized how much I was going to earn, however, I perked right up. This was huge money!

  My excitement melted the next afternoon, when I received Bill’s call while working in the art gallery.

  “Brian!” he furiously screamed into the phone. “I just got woken up by the goddamn purser!”

  “Awakened?” I asked. “It’s noon.”

  “You screwed up the numbers last night and he’s pissed as hell. So am I. Get down to the accountant’s office and fix it.”

  “OK,” I said. “Sorry, Bill. Now I’ll have all the accountants available to help me input the numbers right.”

  “Good luck with that. They’re all assholes, you know. Get it right, because tonight they’ll all be busy closing guest accounts for the debarkation tomorrow.”

  “You know, you could have taught me this stuff earlier in the cruise like I asked.”

  “Just shut up and fix it. Oh, and since you’re in the gallery,” Bill continued. “See a fat blue file on the desk? In there are all the fines I have to pay to Sundance every cruise. They expect us to do so without complaint because we make enough money to not whine. Fair enough, but make sure you do better than Doug. He was so busy playing Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin that he couldn’t get anything right. I was so pissed at him that I didn’t even speak to him the entire last cruise.”

  “You... you mean that literally, don’t you?”

  “You didn’t see us speaking when you arrived, did you? Once he found out that I requested a new associate, he stopped talking to me. It was the happiest day of my life. So do better with those fines. They are starting to chap my ass, and I think Doug was intentionally doing things wrong to screw me. Of course, it came out of his cut, too, but he was too stupid to notice that.”

  Bill hung up the phone, leaving me to handle the blue file. The number of fines that Sundance leveled at the auctioneers was staggering. I had about as much chance of defeating those numbers as a Confederate soldier charging a Union cannon.

  Some fines made sense, such as fees for incomplete shipping details, but were a surprising $25 a pop. Others were nuisance fees, such as another $25 for a husband signing for a wife’s purchase. Fines that defined asshole behavior were being charged $25 for each client who chose not to include an email address or, astoundingly, fining the auctioneer for any Sundance credit card opened without any sales put on it.

  The fines ascended the scale from asshole to insane, such as fines for not sending in paperwork within seven days... even if their ship was at sea the entire time! Further, Bill routinely paid $100 a month for use of gallery catalogues not even on board, and an additional $50 monthly for scanners nowhere to be found. Bill paid Sundance over $1000 a month for this minutia.

  Punching the sales into the ship’s computer the final night was the worst numbers nightmare ever. Each number entered on the green screen disappeared like going down the drain. Any typo ruined the entire sequence, but with no way to check entries, I had to slog to the end and hope all was correct. It never was. Worse, during the cruise changes were made to passengers’ accounts without my knowledge.

  After three consecutive failures, I finally called an accountant for help. I was denied. Using an adding machine in tandem with the green screen, Bill and I slaved for hours. I began at 7 p.m., right after the last, exhausting auction. By midnight the numbers still did not gel. The accountant kicked us out, so we lugged reams of receipts to our gallery. We did the numbers again and again, then redid them again and again. Our 3 a.m. deadline loomed, numbers blurred and bowels bulged. Bill denied me even a bathroom break.

  3 a.m. passed, and we had to explain ourselves to the chief accountant. Beneath the sickly yellow light, we feverishly slugged away at the numbers. The only thing worse than Bill’s belligerence was the Indian chief accountant pacing back and forth behind us like a prison guard, dragging his pen across the counter like a billy club on the bars. He denied us even a sip of water, which was OK because I had been denied a bathroom break for fifteen hours!

  Finally at 10 a.m. we had to give up and hand the whole mess over to the accountants to fix. The glare of the chief accountant will forever haunt me. And Bill? What was he thinking about his new associate now? Sure, he was happy that I had a penis, but now it appeared I did not have a brain. While that may describe most men, it certainly didn’t help my chances at becoming an auctioneer!

  Chapter 13. Disagreeable Salsa

  1

  I walked the overcast streets of New Orleans’s French Quarter and ruminated. I hopped over puddles in the uneven, aged brick walkways and watched the last of the rain drip off centuries-old masonry. These buildings had seen many epidemics of yellow fever and malaria, and many hurricanes and many battles, from piracy in the century before America’s Revolution, to slave revolts, to the War of 1812, and finally to the Civil War. And let us not forget the annual carnage of Mardi Gras! This was a place to put the puniness of my troubles in their proper place.

  I was struggling to keep up with the swirl of all things new in my life. This was the first time I ever really worried that I may have taken on too much too fast. After so many quick moves from ship to ship, and overwhelming paperwork dropped on my lap, and meeting more and more stranger and stranger auctioneers who held my fate in their fist, my nerves were becoming taught. I was deeply disturbed by my failure on my very first cruise on Conquest.

  Was I in danger of ruining my life’s plans? Sundance had a very low tolerance for failure, and one bad word from Bill and I would be gone. Now, more than ever in my past, life with Bianca was within my grasp... yet I felt like I just dropped it.

  Was I losing my long-term plans because the present was so challenging? But wasn’t I living my long-term plans? I just had to keep my head down and plow through the newness and the numbers and the numbness. If it was just stress, well, I could handle that. But also in the back of my mind was the uncomfortable knowledge that I was broke. Now I needed new suits, and good ones. Bill made it clear that if my tie was less than $100, he would boot my ass off the ship. I was starting to believe him. Since I only had ten bucks in my pocket, my last ten bucks, I decided to blow it on a locally rolled cigar at my favorite cigar shop in the Quarter, the Cigar Factory on Decatur Street. At least Bill would approve of that.

  Directly opposite the front door of the Cigar Factory was a small triangular park. This little spot of green was flanked on three sides by the streets Decatur, Conti, and North Peters. Each was hurried with cars and beyond them flowed the Mississippi. The little park was lined with shrubs that directed my gaze to a towering public statue. Resting upon tiers of marble were three bronze figures: the lowest a morose Native American, above a Bible-toting Capuchin monk, and boldly strutting above both was the founder of New Orleans, Jean-Baptiste Bienville. The sun peeked out from behind the heavy clouds, and suddenly everything glistened and steamed with renewed heat.

  This spot was a favorite of mine in New Orleans, o
ne that I would always remember. For here I would always kiss Bianca. Each and every time we passed here, we were compelled to stop and kiss. Every city we visited regularly had such a spot. I smiled as I recalled the best kissing spot of them all: in Sighişoara, Romania. A long brick road ascended up to the old citadel built in the 1200s. On our right was a huge stone wall that had literally held back the Huns, and on our left was a dense row of age-old trees. That first trip up the brick lane, walking hand in hand, I had pulled her to a stop in the speckled shade. In the middle of the road we kissed long and deep. I don’t know why. From that moment on, we had always stopped at that very spot and kissed; sunny, snowy, always.

  But Bianca was not in my arms today. Instead I had a Vieux Carre Lonsdale with a Cameroon wrapper. I wondered if my fixation with Bianca was because she was the only woman I ever met who didn’t give me a guilt trip over cigars. I lost myself in the ritual of properly lighting a good cigar: punching open the receiving end, burning the business end until it charred, then puffing at it for a nice flare. I blew smoke up into the moist air. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Bianca’s lips, but would have to do.

  I missed my Bianca something fierce, and watching Bill and Leo was a glaring reminder of just how different ship life would eventually make someone. Holy Cat, only one week with them and I had forgotten what real romance was! But it would all work out. I would not be fired for trashing the numbers on my first try, and I would not turn into a crew bar ghost. Right? If I lost Bianca because I couldn’t add, well, I would jump overboard.

  Then something happened that reminded me of the old days on the ships: I returned to my cabin to find an unknown, naked man.

  2

  I have a recurring problem with foreign, naked men in my room. When I first came to ships and was put up in the Miami Marriott by Carnival, I stumbled upon that foreign couple having sex in my bed. When I signed onto Fantasy, I opened the door of my cabin to find my Thai roommate sprawled spread-eagled across the cabin, naked. Even the Reborn-Christian roommate from India, Bogo, paraded around naked when we first met, without a care in the world... beyond the redemption of my atheistic soul, that is.

  So I should not have been surprised to see before my bed an anonymous man bereft of britches. He was a very tall Caucasian with some extra weight high on his belly hugging his ribs, as happens with middle-aged men. His wavy, dirty blonde hair was parted down the middle. Unlike any of the other naked strangers I had encountered, however, he seemed as surprised as me. Quickly wrapping a towel around his waist, he sheepishly approached and offered his hand.

  “Sorry!” he cried. “You surprised me!”

  “The feeling is quite mutual,” I assured him.

  “I’m Dusty, the new art auctioneer,” he quickly explained. “I’m taking over next cruise and came early for an easier handover.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “New auctioneer? I was not aware that Bill was leaving.”

  Dusty explained, “Bill’s a buddy of mine, and took over Conquest from me a while back. He inherited Doug from me, in fact. I retired from auctioneering, but Sundance asked me to come back. They said Bill requested a transfer and no one else was making goal here but me. So here I am.”

  “Naked,” I added, stalling to take it all in. As if things weren’t already spinning too fast for me, I was already getting a new auctioneer? Talk about the Sundance Shuffle!

  “So, uh, Dusty,” I stammered. “Why are you in my cabin?”

  “They couldn’t find a free cabin for me, and I’m not staying in some crew shit hole. Bill won’t take any cabin mate, of course.”

  While Dusty dressed, I sat on my bed to chat. “So you know both Doug and Bill, eh? So you maybe even know the elusive Frederick himself?”

  “Of course,” Dusty replied with a smug grin. “I know Frederick very well. And I know someone else, too. Mariana.”

  I searched my aching brain, but couldn’t think of who he meant. “Who is that?”

  “I believe you were the one who started her nickname ‘Hot Cocoa’. You gotta be Buzz Lightyear, right?”

  I laughed. “How do you know about all that?”

  “She lives in Vancouver by me,” Dusty explained. “I suggested she become an associate and work for me.”

  “But I thought she was Brazilian.”

  “She is, but lives in Vancouver. Your nickname from training stuck, so now everyone calls her Hot Cocoa. Gene thought it was so funny that he even got Frederick saying it. If you knew Frederick, you would be shocked.”

  Dusty glanced around the cabin briefly. Finally he said, “Man, do I wish she was the associate living here this week.”

  I chuckled. “There are indeed worse things than sharing a cabin with Hot Cocoa.”

  Dusty shook himself back to reality. “No, what I meant is that my timing is off by just one week.”

  I frowned, sensing a bomb was about to be dropped. I asked carefully, “What do you mean?”

  “This cabin will be hers next cruise,” he explained.

  Boom.

  3

  My history with Sundance swirled furiously in my head as I marched to Bill’s cabin. First I had to endure a week of training hell; subjected to crushing stress and the ridicule of Lucifer himself. He made half the trainees cry and the other half quit. I survived that only to be sent to the Widow Maker. Two weeks on that beast and my ulcerated, impotent, and alcoholic auctioneer gets screwed by Sundance and denied vacation. In order to squeeze more life out of the poor bastard, I get promoted by default and they bring in a new auctioneering couple, likable but again alcoholic and dysfunctional. Then I get promoted again, making me the first of us trainees to become associate and the first associate to be given a big ship. But then comes Bill, the strangest auctioneer yet, who gleefully adds perversion to his alcoholism. Just one week with him and I am demoted to another ship?

  So let’s see: that’s six weeks, three alcoholics, two sex addicts, one ulcer, and Tatli. No paycheck in there anywhere, and certainly no Bianca. What the hell was I doing this for, then?

  Bill was in the doorway of his cabin when I stormed up to him, but I paused because of the loud vacuum running inside. He stood with his arms crossed over his beefy chest, staring openly at the derrière of the Filipina room steward cleaning under his bed.

  “Bill!” I called, “We need to talk!”

  He nodded for me to enjoy the view as well, grinning just like a kid.

  “What’s this crap about Hot Cocoa coming here next week?”

  “Oh,” he said blandly. “You met Dusty, then.”

  “He’s only living in my goddamn cabin,” I retorted over the noise. I mustered all my anger consciously because, to be honest, Bill intimidated me. Of all the people I had ever met in my life, including the loathsome Lucifer, only Bill had ever done so.

  “Only for a week,” Bill said. The vacuum shut down and the room plunged into silence. The stewardess gave Bill a meek, pretty smile as she gathered up her equipment.

  “Bill?” I pressed, but he ignored me to smile back at the Filipina like the Big Bad Wolf eyeing Little Red Riding Hood.

  “Bill, where the hell am I going next week?”

  “You’re going to Ecstasy,” he answered easily. He stepped aside for his stewardess and said, dripping honey, “Thank you, sweetie. Good bye, now.”

  “You could have helped a hell of a lot more with the paperwork, you know,” I muttered accusingly.

  “I helped all goddamn night!” he roared back. My shoulders drooped in defeat, but Bill continued onward with an explanation. “Look, Buzz, lighten up, will you? I asked to be transferred off of Conquest months ago. They’re sending me to Ecstasy, and you’re going with me.”

  I paused. “You mean I’m not being demoted to a smaller ship because of the paperwork snafu?”

  “What, you think Sundance is that fast? No, we’re going to my hometown of L.A., my friend. We’re gonna make a killing.”

  “But it’s so much harder to sell on smaller s
hips,” I said.

  “Not for me,” Bill scoffed. “We’re gonna make out like bandits, amigo. Sundance asked if I wanted Antonio Banderas back, or if I wanted to keep you.”

  “So you wanted to keep me?”

  “We’ll overnight in Mexico twice a week,” Bill explained. “Antonio never helped me get laid, and the pansy even speaks Spanish! I need a wingman, don’t I?”

  4

  Was it really so unrealistic to just want to settle in and maybe have a laugh with some friends I was lucky enough to work with again? It seemed like a simple desire, something easier to achieve than, say, architecting a life with an eastern European woman. But what did I get? A week of mind-shattering newness, unbalanced numbers, and libertines, followed by another week of the same, followed by still another ship where I get to do the whole mess again. Things were moving faster and faster, with no end in sight. How could I ever be in control when everything was so drastically new and different all the time? Jeez, at this point all I wanted was the illusion of control!

  Yet the auctions went smoother the following week, especially with Dusty hanging around and helping through sheer boredom. Surprisingly, it was the ports that became annoying. Our first port of call was Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Leo and I planned to visit our old hang out at Sunset Beach Resort. There we had enjoyed many good memories, including a magical afternoon of snorkeling, water-gun fights, and partying during a tropical storm.

  At about 9 a.m. I got a call from Leo.

  “10:30’s too early,” he mumbled groggily into the phone.