Ship for Brains (Cruise Confidential 2)

by Brian David Bruns

  Petra nodded slightly in satisfaction. “There is karaoke tonight. Hundreds go to that.”

  “That’s right,” I said, perking up. “I can do a promotion there. You know, give away a prize for the best and the worst performance. That sort of thing. Good idea.”

  “I meant that you should sing really badly,” Petra replied. “Then the whole ship will know who you are.”

  I sat down and loosed another sigh. Petra took advantage of the empty café and lightly rubbed my shoulders.

  “I just have a lot of bad habits to unlearn, you know? When Bill was here, we hardly worked at all and rolled in the money. We got drunk every day and every night, in port or in the crew bar, everywhere! But that was because he knows how to talk to his people. I’m not from L.A. and I just don’t get them.”

  “But this is a repositioning cruise,” Petra offered, squeezing my neck.

  “Yeah, but we left from Long Beach. A repositioning cruise is a mixed blessing. I have lots more time to reach goal, but G2 is accordingly much, much higher. The ports are all new and exciting and I want so badly to go out and play. I’ve never been to Acapulco, or through the Panama Canal. That’s exciting stuff, but I need to focus on the job.”

  “Your habits weren’t as bad as you thought,” Petra commented, fingers teasing the nape of my neck. “Or as bad as some of us hoped. Tina and Carrie come to mind. Or Vladka, or...”

  “Oh, you damned women!” I cried, throwing up my hands. “I need to just keep my head down and focus on my Bianca.”

  Petra released my shoulders and stalked off, leaving me to bury my head in my hands. A moment later I heard her footsteps returning and her slap something on the table before me.

  “I just remembered this,” she said crisply. “You wanted to see proof I was a model.”

  I lifted my head to see two magazines, including an issue of Cosmopolitan presumably written in Czech. Petra had folded it open to an ad focusing squarely upon the trim waist of a woman in panties.

  “What’s this?”

  “This ad is for Veet hair removal creme,” she answered. “I have no say where my pictures go.”

  I frowned and studied the nearly pornographic photo closely. It was easy to do.

  “And you’re trying to convince me that this is you?”

  Petra’s thin lips quivered into a smile. “Look at the other one.”

  I paged through the second magazine, apparently in German, and stopped when I encountered the same photograph. Yet this ad was not zoomed in on her crotch, more’s the pity, but revealed her entire figure and the lower half of her face. Though her eyes were absent, there was no mistaking the curvature of her thin lips and trim, muscular figure.

  “Well I’ll be damned!” I exclaimed.

  “See?” she said. “I knew I could take your mind off this Lucifer fellow. Some of us ‘damned women’ have ways of relieving your stress, not just adding to it. Perhaps you should try one sometime.”

  3

  My phone rang at a quarter past midnight, waking me. I had gone to bed early because of the importance of my morning auction. I really hoped this wasn’t another booty-call drama from Tina, or perhaps Petra offering to ‘relieve my stress’. Strange how I labeled those things ‘bad.’ Mom would be proud. Stranger still, though, was my actual relief that my late-night caller was the very gay assistant cruise director, Timothy.

  “Brian!” Timothy screamed hysterically, “Where are you?”

  “In my cabin, obviously,” I grunted, barely stifling a yawn.

  “You are supposed to be hosting bingo. What are you doing in your cabin?” My yawn finally overcame me, and the phone squawked with indignation. “You’re not sleeping are you? What the hell, man?”

  “Why on Earth would I host bingo?” I asked. “That would not exactly be an art auctioneer’s job.”

  “Not for the guests, dumb ass. The crew bingo.”

  “You woke me for the crew bingo?” I snorted. “Screw ‘em. I’m going back to bed.”

  “You never do anything for the crew,” Timothy protested with painfully non-masculine sentimentality. “As a department head, you are required to do things like this. But you never ever do.”

  “I’ve only been a department head for two days, Tim.”

  “Well, you put up the posters last week for Bill. Don’t you remember?”

  My fatigued brain recalled vaguely that Petra and I had, indeed, posted some flyers on the I-95 some time ago.

  Sensing an opening, Timothy rallied. “If you don’t do this, I’ll tell the cruise director. That’s right! And he’ll stop promoting your auctions.”

  Just what I need on this, of all cruises! I grunted an answer into the phone, “All right, all right. When and where?”

  “Ten minutes ago in the crew bar.”

  “You realize, of course, that I have absolutely no idea how to host bingo.”

  “I already sold all the bingo cards and took in the money. I’m giving it to your assistant because I have to get out of here.”

  “What, do you have a hot date or something? Why don’t you do it and I’ll make it up to you. You’re already there and half-way done.”

  “Just host the thing, please,” he begged. “Everyone’s getting very angry, so hurry!”

  Swearing liberally, I threw on some wrinkled clothing and trudged to the crew bar. Crew activities usually began at midnight because everyone labored every other hour of the day. When you rely on a mere handful of hours of sleep every night for months on end, losing an extra hour or two ironically becomes less traumatic. I, on the other hand, had the most important auction of my life in the morning. This sucked beyond belief.

  Outside the entrance to the crew bar, I was nearly bowled over by Timothy in his haste to escape the noise and commotion inside. Relief flooded over his features as soon as he saw me, and he spritely flung himself down the metal steps to the I-95.

  “What’s the rush?” I called after him irritably. “It’s not like you have a Steiner waiting!”

  Already a level down, he shouted back, “Oh yes I do! Have you seen the new spa manager? He’s gorgeous!”

  The crew bar was surprisingly fully lit. The air was hot and moist, and the unruly mob that filled it was entirely of brown and black skin covered in tropical T-shirts. Upon becoming one with the crowd and smoke, I was lashed by boos and curses. I suffered a flashback of being kicked into the lifeboat by Roosevelt Reddick. Certainly this group was as irate at my entrance as that other had been.

  Petra obviously had not forgotten tonight’s duty, because she came dressed to kill. She wore a mini skirt and an emerald spandex top that hugged her body lovingly. Her perky nipples pushed through spandex like exclamation points. Before I said a word, she grabbed my arm and led me through the hisses to the ping pong table. Upon it rested the bingo cage and a microphone.

  “Timothy already did all the prep work,” Petra explained. “The prize money is in this envelope. There is $600US. Oh, and he gave me this. He said it may help you win over the crowd.”

  She handed me a thick, dog-eared book called The Almighty Book of Bingo.

  “I am Maximus,” I said. “I will win the crowd.”

  I took up the microphone and motioned for the jeering to stop.

  “OK, OK,” I called out, voice cutting through the haze of smoke. “Quiet down, I’m here now. Sorry to keep everyone waiting, and—hey! You spit on me again and I’m leaving with the money right now, you bastard!”

  A muffled apology rose, and the angry shouts simmered down to a tense buzzing.

  “So, before I start... do you know how much the prize is?”

  The room finally fell into complete obedience. Sensing I now had control, I decided to show them who was boss.

  “The prize is a lot of money,” I teased. “Way more than I ever thought it would be. But before I tell you, shall we read from the good book?”

  Confusion rippled through the mob, until I held up The Almighty Book of Bingo.


  “First, a joke!”

  Shouts and curses and groans rose into the air to swirl with the cigarette smoke. Some were good natured. Most were not.

  I flipped through the book until I found a random joke.

  “A man walked into a bingo hall and chooses his bingo cards,” I boomed to the horde of drunk internationals. I paused, and the rabble actually became civilized. I continued onward with smug satisfaction. “Seeing a fly land on a particular number on one bingo card, and thinking this was a lucky sign, he bought that card. Later on that night, he lost.”

  My narration slowed to a halt as I sensed the punchline should be next, but simply couldn’t find it.

  “And so he said, ‘It must have been a house fly.’”

  That was it. Some joke. Silence descended upon the sea. This was, perhaps, the first time a crew bar had ever been silent at midnight in the entire history of Carnival Cruise Lines. I swear I heard a cricket chirping somewhere. Bedlam ensued.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Shut up and start!”

  “Screw your jokes, turkey lips!”

  Blinking beneath the hailstorm of epithets and hatred, I still managed to lean into Petra and ask with surprise, “Did someone just call me turkey lips? I didn’t know they had lips. I know they have that dangle-thing, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have lips.”

  Petra’s own thin lips wriggled in amusement. “And you think you’re so smart.”

  “OK, OK!” I called out again for calm. “The prize money totals $600US!”

  Instantly the thunderstorm of discontent eased into a gentle rain of disdain. While they were compliant, Petra and I quickly began the bingo. She spun the little metal sphere to mix up the balls, and pulled them out in suitably game show-assistant fashion. Time progressed and things seemed to be going well.

  That is, until Ecstasy was hammered by a rogue wave.

  The entire bow of Ecstasy shuddered, and the crew bar’s location front and center amplified the jolt. A roar of surprise rose from the crowd, quickly followed by the shattering of dozens of bottles and glasses as they slid off tables. The very floor itself pitched to the side, dumping everyone into a raucous pile with mixed furniture and shattered glass.

  Powerful as it was, the blow to Ecstasy was more surprising than damaging, and crew members were used to such things. Within a moment everything was as it had ever been: crowded, hot, smoky, and impatient. Half the players’ bingo cards had been tossed to the ground, but our master list was amazingly intact. Unfortunately, the bingo cage was a casualty, and had spilled its insides all over the pitching deck. Petra scrambled after the wildly scattering balls, assisted by crew members who jumped and sidestepped to avoid crushing them.

  Sensing some commanding action was required, I did the only thing I could think of: I sought the solace of The Almighty Book of Bingo.

  “Another bingo joke!” I called into the microphone, even as people jostled to fix bingo cards and scuffled after loose bingo balls.

  “Knock knock,” I said authoritatively.

  “Who the hell is there?” someone screamed back.

  “Bee eye.”

  “Bee eye who?”

  “B-I-N-G-O!” I shouted enthusiastically, then much more lamely followed up with, “And Bingo is my name... oh?”

  “Put that book away before I shove it up your ass!”

  Just as I lost control of the crowd completely, I observed a slovenly figure working his way towards the exit. It was Lucifer, shaking his head in disgust.

  4

  The next morning saw plenty of people enjoying free mimosas during the auction preview in the Stripes Lounge. Though I had not delivered an auction in many months, I was not nervous about how I would perform in front of the guests, plural, so much as in front of the guest, singular and odious. As it turned out, I needn’t have been worried about Lucifer watching the auction at all.

  He screwed me before I even got that far.

  The preview was going splendidly, with all my employees making me proud. Amazingly, Petra and Tina worked surprisingly well together on a delightfully long check-in line, and my art movers swept through the lounge to snatch up tagged artwork with great efficiency. I dripped over the microphone tasty bits about the artists I was to feature shortly, and answered questions about how things work. Foolishly I began to anticipate an unmitigated success.

  Then came Lucifer’s ruckus. I heard his voice calling loudly and provocatively from the center of a large cluster of guests.

  “I say,” he exclaimed. “I saw this very same artwork on my last cruise. I bought it for way more than it was worth!”

  Lucifer pretended to speak directly to a tall man with a halo of pale blonde hair around his balding head, but he didn’t fool me. His volume was designed to attract a crowd, and several guests paused to oblige him.

  “The same work, you say?” Mr. Halo asked. “How is that possible?”

  “How indeed?” Lucifer goaded the crowd. “When they said it was a painting! How can I see the very same painting two cruises in a row, I ask you?”

  My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. The son of a bitch was sabotaging my auction!

  Rarely have I hated another man more than right then. Lucifer and I locked eyes for one long, awful moment, and his flesh-rending mouth twisted into that obnoxious, snaggletoothed grin. Somehow I resisted the urge to march right up to him and punch him in the throat.

  “To what work are you referring, sir?” I asked as calmly as possible. “Surely you don’t mean this lithograph here from Marcel Mouly?”

  “Yes,” he answered for all. “I bought that painting last cruise for $1500. I found out later that I could have bought it for only $1200! And even at that lower price it would have been bullshit, too, because here it is again! What, you got a bunch of Chinese sweatshop workers cranking them out, or what?”

  “This work exactly, you say?” I repeated for clarity.

  “Yes,” he snapped. “Are you guys deaf as well as crooks?”

  “But this is not a painting at all,” I replied. “See the numbers there in the corner? This is a limited edition. Of course you will see another like it from Sundance. We are among the largest and most successful international fine art purveyors in the world, after all, and Marcel Mouly is a renowned French artist.”

  “I don’t know nothing about all that,” Lucifer scoffed. “Looks like a painting to me.”

  “He’s right about that,” Mr. Halo said, agreeing with me. “Those numbers make it a lithograph or something.”

  “Marcel Mouly is a master lithographer,” I touted. “He’s received the Premier Prix de Lithographie, the highest award from France, not to mention that he’s a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. I assure you, an original, unique painting from Marcel Mouly of this size is worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “Yeah, well I still paid hundreds more than it was worth!” Lucifer repeated. “I saw that online.”

  Mr. Halo did not seem inclined to side with me on this one, nor any of the others crowding around to overhear. I sensed a riot brewing.

  “Online from whom, may I ask?”

  “All sorts of sites,” Lucifer obfuscated. “One guy sold a similar painting on eBay for just $600, in fact!”

  “Anyone can sell anything on eBay,” I scoffed. “On eBay I found my auctioneer’s gavel by a retired woodcutter in northern Minnesota. It looks exactly like the ones used by Christie’s in London, but are they the same? I think not. On eBay there is no way of ever knowing if two works are truly comparable. Not all Picasso paintings are worth one hundred million dollars, after all. But none of that is really the point that matters.”

  “And what is that?” Lucifer asked.

  “You didn’t buy the Mouly at the opening bid, did you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lucifer replied, frowning in recollection.

  “May I kindly remind you that the entire point of an auction is that bids go... up?”

  Luc
ifer’s frown deepened, and Mr. Halo actually chuckled to himself. The crowd dispersed and resumed their viewing. My answer apparently pleased the majority, for most remained for the auction. As the first work was brought onto the auction block, I was surprised to see Lucifer actually leaving. As much as I wanted him gone, his not even observing my auction left me perplexed. Was it good or bad?

  Good, it would seem, because by the end of the auction G1 already hovered nearby. Not bad for only the second day out of fourteen! Even better, I had some rather hefty prospects on the horizon, including a family who purchased two paint-overs by Peter Max and were considering another. I was in, baby, and couldn’t wait to meet up with Lucifer to gloat about my results. Right after I beat him senseless for his performance during the preview, of course.

  Yet Lucifer was nowhere to be found. The remainder of the day passed tensely, as I waited for him to arrange a meeting. None came. I did not see him until the next afternoon at my ‘Art Through the Ages’ lecture.

  Lectures are entirely my cup of tea. Because I knew Lucifer hated them, I took extra pains to properly balance sales strategy with impartial history. I respected history too much to spin it into a sales pitch, as he would have preferred, but did fill Stripes with artwork from masters we had for sale to illustrate my points, rather than show slides of famous paintings. My lecture began in 17th century Holland with the portrait and etching genius of Rembrandt, then moved to 19th century France for the color colossus of Matisse and the iconic marketing of Toulouse-Lautrec. Next came early 20th century Spain, with the globe-altering images of Picasso and cultural collision of Dalí. I finished with the present era comparing the radically different but undeniable economic powerhouse artists, Peter Max and Thomas Kinkade.

  It was an hour of all things art, both philosophically and economically. While not about closing sales, it was nonetheless about placing our best artwork in front of a roomful of art enthusiasts. I was very proud of it. The audience enjoyed it. And then there was Lucifer.