The Voyage of the Rose City

by John Moynihan

  As the day wore on it became clear we weren’t going to get ashore. My one attempt at getting through to the fellow who spoke at least some English failed utterly. He somehow thought that the boat and liquor I was describing were for his mates and himself so they could come aboard that night and have a party at our expense. Although Miguel later came forward to act as our interpreter, there was no chance of gaining passage ashore. The Cubans had seen to that.

  One fellow did manage to go into town. A QMED, he had intended to stay on, or so he said, for a year in order to make big bucks. But midway through the second week on board he found he had developed a hernia and had to see a doctor.

  He was a particularly odd bird, this one. Standing about six-four in height, he had shaved his head but not his beard, in order to be more comfortable while working in the searing heat of the engine room. This lent him an appearance like that of Charles Manson, which he cultivated by loping grimly around the lounge with a twisted look in his eye, calmly cooing, “Charlie’s waiting for you.”

  The rest of the crew silently watched him, having no doubts that he was an oddball, one to be generally ignored.

  On the few occasions I had a chance to talk with him he turned out to be very cool. Like Charlie, he was a patchwork of multicolored tattoos, but he also sported a gold earring in his left lobe. Clearly a former hippie, he talked about smuggling pounds of pot into the States by means he did not care to divulge. He did speak on one occasion of a time when he’d dropped several pounds of hashish over the side prior to a customs inspection. He obviously enjoyed the risk; he had a singular smile on his face as he told the story, the smile worn by mercenaries, revolutionaries, and negotiators who thrive on screwing the other guy.

  As he was waiting to go ashore there arose another general discussion on the prospect of leaving the ship. Billy wanted booze, Charlie wanted chicks, and everyone else wanted off to have a wild time. When it was generally agreed there was no hope of shore leave, Billy turned to me in his spiteful, mocking way and told me I should “get [my] daddy to phone someone and get us ashore.”

  I looked at him and frowned. Almost whiningly I retorted that he couldn’t do a damn thing, and who’d he think my father was, anyway? God Almighty?

  Actually, I didn’t say it in so many words at all. Even so, I was very tired of having him bait me in front of the rest of the crew, then sit back smiling while I squirmed helplessly. Just then the QMED spoke up and told the gathered crew to “leave the kid alone. He’s gotta make his bread, too.” The mocking stopped, and I suddenly had an ally.

  Naturally this new balance couldn’t last for long, and when the QMED was taken ashore in the launch, life returned to normal. Billy strutted into the lounge and informed us that there was a whole new angle to our nixed visit to Cabinda: me. Apparently the Old Man was scared like hell that as a senator’s son I was a potential political target. My strong desire to go ashore—something he couldn’t stop if we found a boat that would take us—might result in the Cubans discovering my identity and kidnapping me.

  At this I groaned. Billy told me it was no joke. And to myself I cursed, and wished like hell they would all go and fuck themselves.

  Being able to take no more, I left the lounge and went off to bed. As I went through the door that closed off the stairwell from B deck, Spider, the small Indonesian pumpman, called me into his room. I had made his acquaintance by giving him a Djarum, he having been born in Sumatra and raised on clove cigarettes. Now it seemed he was returning the favor.

  Out of his desk drawer he pulled a familiar-looking wad of newspaper. When he opened it, the room was instantly filled with the pungent aroma of fresh marijuana. I was delighted; now at least I wasn’t the only one with dope on the ship. Shoving a towel against the crack at the bottom of the door, Spider proceeded to roll and light a joint. I felt as if I were back in high school, sneaking a high and hoping I wouldn’t get caught.

  CHAPTER 8

  AS USUAL, the 12–4 watch woke me up at 3:20, always an hour short of a good night’s sleep. Coming into the lounge for the prerequisite cup of coffee, I heard one of the workers excitedly trying to explain that his partner had smashed open his head. I made my way down to the main deck and into the infirmary room, where the Second was leaning over a sullen-looking African and cutting away at his hair with a pair of scissors. Several other workers, on duty overseeing the pumping by the manifold, stood about, inspecting the progress of the operation. The blood that streamed down from the man’s skull and over the side of his face apparently came from a wound received when the oil fumes got the better of him and he passed out and cracked his head on the hard metal deck. When we all heard the story, Africans and seamen alike looked at the poor injured fellow with disbelief. We had all been out there and none of us had experienced symptoms of this nature, let alone even begun to find the fumes oppressive; yet there he was, with his head split open, in the quiet African night, getting a haircut from an obese American officer who had rudimentary training in first aid.

  Following this odd interlude, I went out to the manifold to stand port watch. Unlike sea watch, only one man at a time was required to be on duty when the ship was at anchor, a token gesture of vigilance.

  The sun seemed somehow larger along the equator. Red and swollen, it rose languidly over the African continent as the watch slowly passed. Gradually I was able to strike up a conversation with the worker from whom I’d bought the pot the day before. Although he nodded and gestured like any number of foreigners when approached by confused American tourists who think that if they talk slowly and loudly enough they will be understood, he relaxed and carried his part of the conversation.

  He was from the Ivory Coast. He was fortunate to have such a well-paying job, but he still lived in the shadow of the Portuguese oil execs, who treated him like a servant or even a slave. It was a situation much like what I’d seen in India in the early ’70s: a labor-intensive economy where ninety percent of the population lived on the brink of complete desperation. Those who had jobs were in no position to question the motivations or actions of their employers. I glanced up at the bridge for a moment before returning to our conversation.

  When the topic of the conquering Cuban army arose, his voice gained a new urgency. He may not have been a native Angolan, but the threat of a new wave of colonialism colored his words. Less than thirty miles from where we were anchored, there was intense fighting going on between the Cuban forces and the Angolan guerillas. Resistance was nominal in that there was a massive famine throughout the countryside decimating the population, the result of the Cubans’ culinary taste. “Tongue of cow” is a great delicacy in Cuba, and upon arrival the Cuban soldiers promptly set about shooting all the native cattle and cutting out the tongues for an evening’s repast. Not only were the Angolans not allowed to eat the carcasses, but the extinction of their most vital food and energy source had initiated the famine that now swept the country.

  Meanwhile, on the shore the rigid figures of the liberators continued to march back and forth along the docks.

  The QMED returned from his foray to the mainland with the news that he had a hernia and was unqualified to work and was eligible to be flown home by the company. Although he would lose lots of overtime, he would be paid his flat rate for as long as the Rose City was at sea on this particular voyage. The hernia was supposedly acquired while performing his duty for the company, so he was within his rights to claim his full health benefits as guaranteed by the union contract. He had it made in the shade.

  This turn of events cast a number of things in a new light. First, we were now going to be able to give him letters to mail for us upon his return to the United States. I hadn’t been able to write or cable my parents since the ship’s orders had been changed, and I felt it was probably a good idea to keep my mother from having a stroke when I failed to return home on time. Second, it meant that the engine crew was now reduced to three men, and Spider, the pumpman, would be forced to do double duty, taking
up the vacated watch. It also meant I’d lost my only ally.

  Before he left I took him aside and up to my room. In a secretive manner I unscrewed the overhead vent and pulled out my pot. He watched the procedure sardonically, explaining that the vent was the first place the customs people would look in my room. The idea is to stash any contraband you might have (which often includes pornography, especially in Arab countries known for their outrageous fines) in a neutral spot like the engine room or the forepeak. If they found something there they could only fine the ship itself, and not bust any individual. It was good advice from someone who knew the ropes, and I took it to heart. I doled out several joints’ worth and, wrapping it up in an envelope, handed it to him. He was most appreciative and promised to mail my letters promptly, which, as it turns out, he did.

  It was too bad that he had to go. Miguel prepared some sandwiches to hold him over during his wait in Cabinda before his flight out. As his launch sped toward the mainland it looked like he was off to a long, lonely exile in some godforsaken jungle dictatorship.

  Speculation on his character arose immediately upon his departure. No one, it was realized, had ever seen him in the union hall. Pete pointed out that he hadn’t been able to carry his own bags up the gangway when we boarded at Eagle Point, which was odd for a fellow that big. Then it dawned on us that he had developed the hernia before he’d even boarded the ship and had played his cards perfectly. Not mentioning his condition to anyone, he’d signed up for the longest job he could find, making like he was ready to stay on for a year (right down to the shaving of his head). In the second week of hard work he “was injured” and got off at the first port and was flown home at the company’s expense. While we slaved away at sailing around the world, he’d be sitting at home collecting a parallel pay. I didn’t begrudge the guy, but the rest of the crew thought he was a louse.

  The last we ever heard of him was sometime later. The Angolan authorities, so Sparks informed us, had delayed his flight for upward of a week and held him in some unknown border station. On hearing this, the Bosun was outraged and raised a general outcry among crew members against the negligence of the company. I mentioned this to the Chief while on watch one morning. He snickered. The Chief, too, knew that the QMED had conned the company into a free ride, and didn’t care if he rotted in Africa for a month. Officers were, as Jake explained, “company men.”

  In all we were in Cabinda for less than twenty-eight hours. By four p.m. on the second day we were letting go for the next leg of the journey: down under Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian Ocean, and up to Japan by way of the Straits of Malacca. As part of their “energy saving” policy, the company ordered us to reduce speed to 13 knots. This was the worst news the crew had heard so far, and by far the most dispiriting. Traveling at 13 knots meant that we wouldn’t reach Japan until August, thirty-three days hence. The claustrophobia sank in even deeper, and the Rose City became a very quiet ship indeed.

  The boys were still hungover from a beer party they’d had the night before and were shuffling around the house in an angry or depressed state. Having had no part of it, I simply went about my duties and remained as much in the background as possible. Then Joe entered the picture.

  Crusty like the other old-timers, his job as the 12–4 ordinary called upon him to sugie (swab) B deck and the stairwell in the afternoons. I was leaving for p.m. overtime when he told me to leave my door unlocked so he could give my room the once-over with the mop. He was quite forceful in his tone of voice, and I was intimidated into relenting. I went to work with an uneasy feeling in my gut; I’d left the pot in my desk drawer.

  Sure enough, at dinner the Bos made reference to Joe’s snooping activities. That was almost my breaking point. My cabin was the one place on the ship where I could hold on to my identity and escape the continual razzing and the backbreaking pressure of the job. Now in a flash all that was gone, and they had one more thing on me. Thus, evening watch over with, I closed myself up in my room and drank the better part of my week’s ration of beer. Dark and silent, the room at least continued to provide temporary shelter.

  There were more than thirty days to go. No two ways about it, no bailing out of the job because the work was unpleasant, no dropping the class because the teacher didn’t like me.

  I had been lost in the turmoil of settling in to the drama. Now everything was set. The players knew their parts, and there wasn’t going to be a scene change for a long time to come.

  I turned to my journal.

  I’ve thought up a war scenario, but I can’t write it just now, for I’ve realized that Joe has probably pored over the contents of my room. Today the Bos at dinner welcomed Joe saying, “Ah, here’s Joe, the house detective,” and earlier, while on sanitary duty, Joe had told me, “Leave your door open, I’ll clean your room.”

  I’m in something deeper than I thought … The crew’s levels of intermixture … I’m in such an open position that I have to watch my fucking step.

  The Eight of Wands INVERTED! Ah, yes, the dream.

  It was there!

  The dream

  The room search

  The sea

  The void: The void is lost in the paranoia suddenly, crashing in on and convulsing my situation out here alone on a ship of tough salts and so seemingly vulnerable. Nothing is an issue Anymore.

  —6/22/80

  The void is the center of the Taoist religion. It is the primal serenity whence we spring, and into which meditators return. Through my wanderings in the East and my embracing of the counterculture, I attempted to adopt this perspective as my own. This cryptic entry in my journal refers to my agitated emotional state as I lost touch with this Eastern calmness. The entry was made (and amply annotated with frantic drawings) on the evening of our first full day at sea since letting go in Cabinda.

  The next few days were relatively uneventful. On overtime I got to know Tony better and established the makings of a good rapport. He was smart, had a macabre sense of humor, and was prone to crazed acts of buffoonery.

  The Atlantic was uncharacteristically calm, the weather cool and sunny. It was a strange new sensation to go out on deck for overtime. The ship was now fully laden, and the main deck rested only eight feet above the waterline. Cutting smoothly through these peaceful waters was one thing, but every now and then a large swell would wash up over the railing and swamp the deck. And choppy waters were bound to hit when we rounded the Cape.

  It was also clear that we were headed south. After gutting out yet another horrendous New England winter, I was more than ready for the hot summer months. It was a cruel act of poetic justice that put me on a ship that was destined for the lower hemisphere. Lookouts were getting colder by the day, and before long we were in the midst of yet another freezing winter season.

  In the house, the crew was in a state of emotional hibernation. Each morning at 3:20 when the watch woke us and Billy, Jake, and I would sleepily struggle down to the lounge, Billy would pace into the lounge and, shifting his tired bones into one of the chairs, with a saturnine grin pronounce the number of days left to go. But that was it. To think about the weeks ahead was to go insane. We’d watch movies, read books, or talk about the day’s work and weather, but not about the trip. There was talk about the union hall, and characters from Philly, but not about the wives and girlfriends. Not yet, anyway; that was too far away, and far too painful.

  And so the time passed. Resigned to the fact that even the kindly Bosun might turn on me for having pot, and suppressing my fear of being thrown overboard or getting punched out, I went about living day by day. Off in the great expanse of the ocean I watched for omens. One day whales, the next day an albatross, and so on. In the evening I’d take in the sunset, letting the dark forms of the playing porpoises lull me into a quiet trance.

  July 4 was in many ways a turning point. As it came on a Friday, we were now privileged to one of those happy coincidences that gladdens even the saltiest of hearts: premium we
ekend. Because it was a federal holiday we were working overtime and could collect top wages. In my case that was $7.67 an hour. Dollar signs rang up in everybody’s eyes.

  The day began with Jimmy waking me up for watch. I’d rapped with him a few times in the lounge, and his soft-spoken Philly twang had none of the antagonism of the others’. After he’d given me the watch report, he got almost excited (torpidity was a natural way with him). The ship was rounding the Cape, and off the port beam the lights of Cape Town were filling the night sky.

  I was too tired to jump right out of bed, despite my better judgment. The point of this trip was, after all, to take in as many different phenomena as possible. But like the others, I was becoming nonchalant in my attitude. This was not to last long. Stepping out on the port wing to relieve Bud, I saw what Jimmy was talking about: The great dormant mass of the African continent was suddenly alive with the great spectacle of Cape Town. We were so close to the coast I could practically make out the broad avenues that ran through the town. It was a brilliant light show.