The Voyage of the Rose City

by John Moynihan

  The crew broke out into cheers. It was just what the doctor ordered—rest, relaxation, and any number of wild nights ashore. My prospects for Japan were somewhat less colorful than the others’. I’d been there twice before, and had been a student of Japanese culture for a number of years. To me this trip afforded an invaluable opportunity to visit the cities of Nara and Kyoto, to see firsthand and on my own time the peculiarities of this strange island.

  To the crew the trip offered an opportunity to get insanely intoxicated, to experience the peculiarities of the inscrutable geisha girls. The Bosun’s running joke was that “The Japanese pussy runs east-west,” said as he carved a horizontal line in the air before him. The old-timers had been to Japan any number of times before, some of them right after the war, when snipers would take shots at Americans from the hills. They had seen it when a dollar satisfied the whores and rickshaws were the only way to travel.

  Now they bitched at how expensive it was, and how the Japanese no longer had any respect for Americans and their dollar bills. Even so, it was good to be in the Far East. These were seamen who preferred Asia to Europe. There was more action, more fun, and more for your money. When we were passing the Philippines, the Bosun pointed in the direction of Manila and with a pained, longing look in his eyes said it was “the best liberty port in the whole fucking world.”

  In the passageway between the mess and the lounge Jake and some of the others had posted a couple of arrival pools. For ten bucks a shot you could pick the part of the hour when the ship would drop anchor. The minutes were actually hidden, so your choice was completely random. This gave rise to great speculation. Tony and I went in together on three or four numbers, with the agreement that we’d split the winnings. Miguel was by far the most eager bettor, spending almost as much as was in the pot. He didn’t care; he lived for cheap thrills.

  Peanuts was a veteran of the arrival-pool circuit. When he used to work on passenger ships he’d rake in buckets of cash from unwitting passengers. Drawing up a secret-ballot sign-up sheet, he’d carefully note where the quarter-hour lots had “randomly” been placed and give those to his buddies. Then he’d pass the sheet around to the guests. The reason for this was quite simple: On passenger ships they logged the official time of arrival to the nearest quarter of an hour. Thus Peanuts, taking his percentage, won every time.

  The day inched forward. On watch, the Chief was very subdued. He shuffled about the bridge in a sulky silence. He had definitely lost the battle with the crew and lost face with everyone on the ship. It was most satisfying.

  When watch was finally over it was time to let loose. I’d carefully saved three beers for Jake, Billy, and me for this last night and now broke them out. Jake took his almost for granted, walking off with Joe and drinking it immediately. Billy was actually touched. He was also already drunk; earlier in the day Tony had relented and sold him and Ned a case of Blue Ribbon. (There was nothing to lose; he could stock up again in Japan.) The two of them immediately set about drinking it, and were smashed by eight p.m. I had the last wheel watch, so I didn’t make it down to give Billy his beer until then. When I saw that I was a bit late, I was slightly disappointed, but I gave it to him anyway. Reeling through the halls, he showed everybody what his watch partner had done.

  Other crew members were also drunk on Tony’s booze. Peanuts, Tony’s watch partner, gulped down a bottle of vodka. It made him crazy—he had that manic look in his eye street tramps get when they get the “horribles.” He weaved back and forth, staring in icy silence into your subconscious through his bloody pupils, and then shouted some insult or hellish oath against you.

  I sat for the most part in the darkened lounge watching a bizarre Japanese soap opera about World War II and drinking my last beer. Then Tony came in with a three-foot bottle of Italian chianti he’d been saving and poured me a huge glass. Delicious. I took to calling him a great man, and, after a few more drinks, a genius.

  When the time came to hit the sack I made my way upstairs via the outside route. On gaining the stack, I came across Billy, Ned, Charlie, and the boys, all smashed and lying on lounge chairs they’d brought out to the deck. Ned called me over. They were all in a great mood and slapped me on the back. Hell, it was over; it was all downhill from here.

  Then Ned got all bug-eyed. “Did you have a number?”

  I’d forgotten all about the pot. After my exchange with Spider, I’d mentioned it to no one on the ship. Then Billy and Charlie had started talking about the Angolan reefer one morning and I freaked. As it turned out, Billy was the one who had sold Spider the pot in the first place. That was a load off my mind—at least we now had some common ground.

  That was a few weeks after we’d left Angola, and in the following weeks Pete, the cadet, and Charlie would bum a joint or two off me now and then; it was a good ice-breaker. But this was the first time Ned, my confirmed adversary, had ever mentioned it to me. In fact, this was about the first conversation we’d ever had that wasn’t tinged with suspicion and hate. Unfortunately I’d stashed the weed in the forepeak for the customs inspection, and there was no way to go out there now without the mates on the bridge getting suspicious. Nonetheless, it had somehow brought me into the realm of being one of the boys. Things were lightening up and cooling.

  Part II

  SEA STORIES

  CHAPTER 10

  AUGUST 1, 1980. Osaka Harbor. We pulled into Kii-suido Bay in the silver twilight before the dawn. I walked out to the foredeck with the Bosun and helped him drop anchor. There was so much traffic in and out of Osaka Harbor (which also serviced Sakai and Kove) that there was a waiting list for pilots. We waited in the cool air, surrounded by the velvet islands that defined the bay. Overhead an origami flock of snow geese flew by.

  Miguel had won the pool and cleaned up a cool two hundred. He immediately began planning how he was going to spend it. Jumping up and down, he made specific gestures and references to various aspects of the female anatomy.

  Dead tired from the previous night’s celebration, I went back to bed as soon as possible. When I woke and stumbled out onto deck we were moving again, through green, rocky islands. It was bright and sunny.

  I met up with Billy in front of the house. He was in a quiet, comfortable mood. We leaned over the rail and enjoyed the cooling breeze and the warming sun. He told me that customs had already cleared the ship and that mail was waiting for us at the other end. Every now and then you could see a hidden temple nestled into the face of one of the passing islands.

  Osaka Harbor was a great parking lot. There were an estimated thirty ships at anchor, all waiting to dock. Producing only one percent of the oil they consumed, the Japanese were hoarding. Our three-week wait was the result of overbooking—they had nowhere to put our load. The shoreline was the basic refuse of the industrial society: refineries, factories, toxic-waste dumps, warehouses. Off on the eastern shore, looking down on the smog-covered chrome complexes, a long pagoda stood out in a small patch of green.

  There was one drawback to our victory over the Chief: Since we were still working the daily sea watches, there wasn’t time to go ashore. The cards were now in the officers’ hands. After a series of negotiations it was decided we could share watches on a rotating basis. That would give us every other day ashore. In addition, there was a proviso in our contract that we got one day off for every sixty days of work. You take what you can get.

  Only Joe and the chief engineer were able to get ashore the first night. The chief engineer was a good man; he’d started as an ordinary and worked his way through the ranks. Hanging out with him was not like being with an officer.

  The rest of us sat up and watched the shore. In the distance was a tremendous display of fireworks, as if they knew we’d arrived. It was frustrating being stuck out in the bay, but not nearly as bad as being out at sea. The television kept our attention, and the sparkle of the city lights kept our imagination. The old-timers were somewhat indifferent. They still talked about going ashore and
finding the nearest whorehouse, but we knew they wouldn’t. They were too old and tired for that. Most of them would find a friendly bar and stay there until they had drunk themselves silly. The Bosun would go have a good meal, after having called home first; his condition forbade drinking. What we’d heard about in their sea stories were the antics of the boys now. Billy, Ned, Charlie, Bud, Jimmy, and me. That was something they really wanted to see—me going out on the town. I think they thought I was still a virgin.

  The night passed and morning came. Gangway watch had gone into effect, so only one of us had to go on top of it at a time. Being on top of it meant sitting out by the gangway in case a boat came up alongside. Joe and the engineer had returned the same night in a foul mood. We were officially registered in Sakai, a small town outside of Osaka. This entailed a forty-minute launch ride from the ship to the docks. To make matters worse, when the two of them finally got into the town, it was after hours.

  “Can you believe that? The no-good motherfuckin’ Nips didn’t want anything to do with us. Wouldn’t take our fuckin’ money. I tell you, this is a shit port! A shit port!” Joe was enraged, especially about the money. I pointed out to him that if a Jap walked into a bar in South Philly and handed the waiter a yen note he’d be thrown out, to which he replied, “Yeah, but this is different.”

  On the next afternoon watch it was my turn to sit by the gangway first. Tony joined me, as he was getting ready to go ashore on the next launch. We’d been going over the things we wanted to do in Japan and had agreed that the single outstanding attraction was the shopping centers. Huge complexes of futuristic buildings spread out for miles in the heart of every self-respecting Japanese metropolis. They were electronic playgrounds where you could lose yourself for hours.

  Waiting there also gave us a chance to go over the first half of the voyage. We had made it without radar; navigated safely through the Straits on the three nights of the rainy season when it didn’t rain; burned forward when the tanks were light; and chipped and scraped in the presence of highly volatile fumes. Thinking on all this took our breath away—it was the first time we’d realized what a maniac the Old Man was. Pete, whose duty it was to clean the officers’ bathrooms and make up their bunks, said the Captain slept with all his clothes on, on top of the blankets. Once Ned was ordered to wake the Old Man and found him sitting in his room with the curtains and shades drawn tight, his sunglasses on, smoking his cigar.

  The cigar reminded Tony of one of his new pastimes. The Old Man had run out of the brand of cigars he liked to smoke and was reduced to buying the heinous stogies in the ship’s store. They smelled horrible, and not a one was properly rolled. Tony, on the other hand, had a generous stock of fine tobacco products. In addition to his custom-blended pipe tobacco, he enjoyed a variety of Cuban and other quality cigars. On learning that the Old Man had run out, Tony took to taking a cigar with him to the bridge and slowly lighting it up, savoring every puff. One day, not being able to control himself any longer, the Old Man remarked on what a fine aroma Tony’s cigar exuded. Tony turned to the Old Man and said, yes, in fact it was an excellent cigar, and with his disarming smile returned to his duties, never once offering the Captain one.

  There were other signs of the new tension between the officers and the crew. “Why they’re breaking out with this shit now, after a good voyage, is a mystery,” Tony said to me. It was true that the trip, an excessively long one, had no fights or outstanding arguments among the crew—something of a record. But now the officers had taken to busting our asses, letting on that they thought we were incompetent knaves. The stoppage of work when coming into the bay was the final straw, so far as they were concerned. What was once a bunch of badly paid idiots was now a threat to the officers’ absolute authority.

  Tony, Ned, and some of the others went ashore that night. God only knew when I’d get a chance. Then Billy spoke up to the Bosun, complaining that the 4–8 watch was getting the shaft and wanted to split tomorrow. It was done, and Billy and I agreed to leave together on the first launch after the morning watch and meet up with Ned on the docks. Our time had finally come.

  The shuttle ride took forever. It was a small launch that went around to the various tankers and relayed the crews from ship to shore. Billy and I were antsy as hell.

  Joe and Jake pointed out the various ships in the harbor. In drydock were Indian frigates, coal ships, and great huge cranes and construction harnesses used to overhaul their rusting hulls. In a shower of sparks the white-suited technicians ran around, inspecting the work. On the quay below, ragged fishermen sat patiently waiting for a bite from whatever fish might still be living in these incredibly polluted waters.

  We finally reached the shore. On the dock the steward and Ned awaited the launch. I rushed up the boardwalk and kissed the ground. The steward laughed at me and got on the launch to return to the ship. We helped Ned put his stores on the launch (his stores consisting of two gallons of vodka, two gallons of gin, a fifth of rum, and a case of beer) and, along with Sparks, who was not required to do anything while we were in port, we grabbed a taxi and took off for Osaka.

  The first woman I had seen was fishing by the pier, but I hardly noticed her. Now, caught in the traffic jams of the city, I saw a menagerie of gorgeous, cosmopolitan ladies. We were freaking out. One woman, in the car next to us, waved and smiled to us. It was almost too much.

  Osaka seemed unreal: Vast avenues lined with neon-covered skyscrapers. Sidewalks packed with bustling Japanese. Stores. Bars. Restaurants. Automobiles.

  We got out at Osaka Station, roughly the center of town, and set about the first order of business: getting a drink. Ned had been stationed in Yokohama and had a working vocabulary of Japanese. He could swear (always the first priority), bargain, and ask where the nearest gin mill was. Alas, luck was not with us that day, and we wandered through the backstreets for half an hour before we found a place where they served liquor. But it was worth it.

  It was our first drink ashore after fifty-three days. Billy held the glass up to the light and contemplated it with a connoisseur’s expertise. The managers were very friendly and watched us with curiosity. Our waiter was dressed in a special maître d’s jacket and had obviously been sent over due to his understanding of English. Our moans of delight were, however, untranslatable. From the kitchen door a fat woman giggled at us.

  Having satiated our initial desire, we struck out again. It was curious—the only parts of town that seemed remotely Asian were the back alleys. The main streets were all modern, the people all dressed like Madison Avenue executives or Greenwich Village hipsters. I saw two women in kimonos and they looked uncomfortably out of place. As if in empathy, a strange old man, squatting in a dirty backstreet shack, laughed at me knowingly.

  Wandering around in amazement, we stumbled onto the amusement district, a network of covered alleys that stretched endlessly in every direction. Hawkers in front of every store clapped their hands and shouted at every passerby to come in. Electronic games, the likes of which are only now invading this country, rang out deafeningly. Groovy young couples bopped their way through the crowds, wearing what we later came to know as Sony Walkmans, but none of us had ever seen them before. Gaudy nightclubs played loud music and promised wild times. That rang a bell in Billy’s and Ned’s ears, but none would be open until later that night.

  Whores. Lots of them, and right now! That’s all the two of them could think about. Sparks and I tried to hide our mutual nervousness—he because he was a middle-aged square, and I because I’d never been to a cathouse. We found one club that looked promising, The Pink Lady. An awkward rendering of a naked lady surrounded by flashing lights bespoke geisha girls and hot sake. The four of us climbed down the stairs into an empty bar and dead silence. The proprietor came out and asked us what we would like. Then in the back room someone turned on the strobe lights and disco music. We took a look around and decided to get the hell out of there.

  Ned then wanted to find a bar. But we found n
o satisfaction—only restaurants that served beer. Begrudgingly he accepted the inevitable, and we entered the next one we came across. It was clearly a higher-class joint than we’d anticipated. The décor was traditional Japanese elegant, and the customers were well dressed. No matter; they had drink, and we had money. Lots of it.

  After three or four rounds of pint-sized bottles of Asahi beer the atmosphere was relaxed. With every gulp there was a toast, and with every toast we got louder. Billy raised his glass and slapped me on the knee.

  “Can you believe this goofy motherfucker is a senator’s son?”

  Things were all right, and the dog days were over.

  Soon we were back on the street, reeling and swaying through crowds of shoppers. I had stopped to pick up a poster for a professional wrestling match as a souvenir for a friend of mine when I noticed that a thin, distinguished gentleman in a gray flannel suit was tailing us. The reason I knew this was that I had seen him in three different places around the bazaar. I passed the word on to my comrades, and we proceeded to try to ditch him. No dice—he was a cop, and he had us pegged. Then again, we weren’t hard to find. I alone was a foot taller than anyone for miles, and we weren’t the quietest bunch, either.

  A regular policeman with a walkie-talkie stopped us and waited for the plainclothesman to show up, which he promptly did. What were we up to, and where were we from? It didn’t seem exactly fair; we hadn’t broken anything or been outrageous in our conduct.

  Looking back on it, I think it was the pursuit of the whores that brought us to his attention. Billy and Ned had been stopping people and asking about ladies, using sign language to illustrate their desires. That was taboo; the Japanese tend to clothe their emotions in blankets of serenity and discuss them only behind closed … screens?