High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  In a night club just opening up for business, a large area was cleared for the event. The spectators sat cross-legged behind a large ring formed by a dozen male musicians. Though varying from young to old, all wore a look of intense concentration, or perhaps self-importance. All wore a black vest over a black shirt over black pants. All were unshaven. Two had guitars.

  The lights shifted, dropping the hushed audience into darkness. A spotlight struck the center of the circle, intensified white-hot. The black silhouettes of the musicians, combined with the blazing light from above, emphasized the emptiness of the circle, the loneliness, the expectation. The guitars began strumming together, tickling the air, teasing. It was a coy sound, yet stirring. We fidgeted in the dark, feeling summoned by the light.

  Into the circle strut two figures, a man and a woman. Both were in their late fifties and fairly heavyset—the woman particularly so. But these two were not merely Mom and Dad. He moved with a smooth grace, a simple confidence, but wore simple black signifying he was meant to be overlooked. She was a flower vibrating in the wind before a storm, her voluminous skirts nothing short of a blossoming rose garden. Gold hoops flashed before the tightly controlled waves of her black tresses. Separately, they were nothing. But together....

  To the strumming beat they circled each other, wary at first, but inching closer. Courage grew with arousal. Their eyes shared volumes of expectation and they read voraciously of each other.

  The strumming guitars strengthened and a drum began in earnest. The air thumped with the increasing heartbeat, and suddenly exploded with hand clapping. The two dancers smashed together, greedy, lustful, then spun away. Their singular focus on passion overwhelmed them, overwhelmed us. The drums pounded harder and the syncopated hand clapping became astonishingly complex. As the musicians danced their own part, spectators strained to see past their black silhouettes, over the empty space, to the two lovers in the white-hot spotlight snapping and smoldering like a bonfire.

  Then Mom spun away, skirts flaring in an arc of fire, to begin moving her massive hips in ways to make a grown man cry. The man watched, as we all did, and was overcome. He rushed back in, swept her off her feet, and carried her out of the circle—presumably to ravish her.

  Together they shared a stunning display of raw passion in dance, and I was thoroughly caught up in it. I had never before been moved by dance, but this was all that and more. Next to their grace, their passion and beauty, I felt like a potato. Susie, too, felt out-classed. Perhaps not surprisingly, she chose to take it out on Eddie.

  "Why don't you look at me like that?" she challenged. She was not wistful, but sour.

  "Like what?"

  "Like them!" she snapped. "Can't you see how they look at each other? They're in love!"

  Before Eddie could answer, she continued wistfully, "They're still in love, like it's their first dance. They've never tired of each other, but grow more impassioned with each year."

  Eddie said nothing.

  Into the circle stepped a barrel-chested man with sparse, wispy hair slicked back over his tanned scalp. Unlike his predecessors, he hardly moved at all—he was pure attitude. He strut like a peacock around the edges of the empty circle, eyes scanning the dark crowd.

  "I hope he doesn't pick me," Susie whined under her breath. "God, please don't pick me."

  "Maybe a macho man is what you need," Eddie muttered. "Or a big linebacker."

  Eddie was a brave man.

  Suddenly the man snapped an arm out, pointing to a trio of American girls. They were extremely attractive and extremely young—probably sixteen.

  "Of course he chose them," Susie complained. "Creep."

  The dancer pulled them up one at a time, each time taking the dance one step further. In the end he always grabbed the girl, flung her over his shoulders, and spun her around his head a few spins. They shrieked in terror, but once set down could not hide their smiles.

  The funniest thing happened next. The performers began pairing with members of the audience. In perhaps the most disparate match in the history of dance, the Spanish mom selected Yoyo. I will never forget the look of abject terror in his eyes. Taking his hand, she led him into the circle. The spotlight glowed on his tiny body twitching in fear. He looked like a mouse preparing to dance with a cat.

  The music began, and she began gyrating her thick hips in his direction. He had absolutely no idea what to do. Then, no doubt recalling how the manly man had danced with the trio of teens, Yoyo felt emboldened. His chest puffed up and he flung himself into her. He could barely reach around Flamenco Mom's thick middle, but he tried nonetheless. With a great surge of effort, Yoyo hefted her up to swirl her around his head—or tried to. He only got her about a foot off the ground. With agonizing slowness, they leaned back further and further, then completely collapsed. Down they plummeted, crashing to the floor with an explosion of ruffled skirts and flailing limbs. For one horrible moment they looked like Picasso's Guernica.

  Good-natured laughter filled the chamber, and the two would-be dancers awkwardly rose and untangled themselves. She kissed Yoyo on the forehead and pushed him back towards his seat with a pat on his rump.

  3

  Halloween on Wind Surf was a momentous night. It was one of the better parties I'd enjoyed working on a cruise ship. There was less of the usual suspects than on, say, Carnival Cruise Lines—no public sex, no alcohol poisoning—but there was enough flirtation with both to make the night just right. The beauty of a small ship was that it wasn't a mass gathering of strung-out strangers. We were family. Well, that would make us incestuous, so we'll just say everyone was intimate. Yes, Halloween was momentous.

  It didn't start that way, though. It started very chill. After sunset, but before festivities, I met Rick on the top deck for a cigar. I snuggled in a sweatshirt, shivering slightly from the night breeze. He wore nothing but a T-shirt. This was less from acclimation to the cold and more from being too drunk to feel it. He had been sitting up there alone for hours. We lay back on the chaise-lounges, staring up at the tall, empty masts. Beyond twinkled the cosmos. Unlike big cruise ships, Wind Surf did not emit much light pollution, so we could see the Milky Way.

  "What are you dressing up as?" I asked, blowing smoke up to the stars.

  "Not, mate," Rick answered. "I don't do parties."

  I made noises pretending great offense and said, "Not even for Halloween?"

  Rick said nothing. We sat in silence, pondering. The stars did the same. A gentle swell rocked the ship. It would have been imperceptible had we not been staring directly at the stars past two hundred feet of ramrod-straight mast. The stars spun lazily. I thought about how differently the Surf ran the waves compared to the big ships. She danced on the top, just like Ardin had said. Rick had a completely different reaction to the swell. He freaked out.

  "Look at that!" he exclaimed, pointing up. "I bloody knew it!"

  "Look at what?" I asked, scanning the dark skies.

  "Right in front of your face, mate!" he pressed. "A bloody UFO!"

  I snorted in amusement, but realized quickly that he was in earnest.

  "That's a star, dumb ass," I scoffed.

  "Spinning in place?" Rick protested, rising from his lounge to pace excitedly. "Look how it's moving! That's no bloody shooting star."

  "Are you serious?" I asked, exasperated. "We're the ones moving."

  "I don't feel the ship moving."

  "That's because you live on it. You're used to it. Come on, man, you're killing me. That's obviously a star."

  Just then a figure of white emerged from the darkness. In our escalating exasperation we hadn't heard him approach. To my surprise, it was Chief Officer Emmet. He seemed preoccupied with something to port. He squinted, paced, squinted again, and scanned the black waves with binoculars.

  "Hello, Emmet," I said. "Everything all right?"

  "Hmm? Oh, yes," he said, lowering his binoculars. "I'm just... well, just be extra careful."

  "Of?"

&nb
sp; "Bloody UFO's, that's what!" Rick exclaimed.

  Emmet's handsome face smiled, and he asked, "UFO's?"

  "Will you please tell this idiot that's a star up there," I said, pointing to the spinning point of light.

  "It's not a star," Emmet said.

  Even in the dark he could see my surprise at this statement. He explained, "All officers are trained in celestial navigation, and I can assure you that is not a star."

  "See?" Rick exploded in satisfaction.

  "It's Venus."

  Now it was Rick's turn to scoff. He marched back to his chaise lounge and plunked back down heavily. He grabbed a half-empty six-pack from the deck and ripped off another can.

  "We thought we saw a distress signal in the dark," Emmet continued. "I'm pretty sure we didn't, but I thought I'd come up for a higher vantage to see if there was a repeat. We're just outside Spanish waters and there's a lot of Algerians trying to get into the country. They are frequently preyed upon and left to drown."

  "Whoa," I said. "That sounds serious."

  "Probably nothing," Emmet reassured me. Returning to his duty, he wandered off, bidding us a pleasant night.

  "You gonna get on Cosi tonight?" Rick asked suddenly.

  I snorted in derision, saying, "Wasn't planning on it. Why, should I? Anything you wanna tell me?"

  Now it was Rick's turn to snort.

  "She tried to entrap me for a life in Australia. Tried to get on me and I told her I didn't like her butt. You see that pineapple ass? She can keep her bloody socks."

  "Socks?" I asked. "You're the third person to mention socks. What's that all about?"

  "Be glad you don't know," he said with a dismissive wave. "Forget it. But I'm not here for a woman. Certainly not a bloody wife."

  At least that explained why Cosmina was so mad at him back in Sete. I could just imagine her reaction to being called 'pineapple ass'. But he opened up another curiosity. As innocently as possible, I asked, "Why are you here, then?"

  Rick glugged down more beer in noisy, necking gulps. He didn't answer for a good long while, but finally just said, "Let's not talk about that, mate."

  I did not press it. The hour had come to ready my costume, yet I was hesitant to leave him alone up there. There was something unsettling about his behavior. Not just his silly UFO tirade but... something. "You sure you don't want to come to the party?"

  "Naw, you go on," Rick said, desultorily. "I'm gonna stay here awhile."

  Turmoil emanated from him in waves. I felt tempted to stay, but I didn't know Rick that well. I didn't want to be intrusive. I walked away, leaving him alone with the night.

  Assembling a Halloween costume while in the Mediterranean was not particularly easy. We were in a different city every day of the week, or a different nation—none of which celebrated the holiday. There were no seasonal costume shops in a strip mall, no aisle end-caps featuring discounted holiday fare. Before I knew it, the holiday was upon me and I didn't have a costume. Blasphemy! I was so desperate I seriously considered wearing the previous auctioneer's pig hat and nothing else—it was a cruise ship party, after all.

  Luckily for everyone, at the last moment I got what I needed in Toulon, France. I'd been wandering the farmer's market with the feisty blackjack dealer, Aurelia, when we found a wig shop. Because it was a real wig shop designed for folks with real needs, there was little enough inspiration. No comical green tresses were to be found. But it did sell dirty blonde. An idea was born.

  Later, on the Surf, I accosted Natalie.

  "I gotta get in your dress, baby."

  "Every man says that," she responded playfully. "Not gonna happen! But do try. I need a good laugh."

  "No," I said, "I mean I literally need to get in your dress. Who else has a dress that'll fit a man almost six foot two?"

  "Only if I get to do your makeup," she countered.

  And so it was that before the Halloween party, I found myself in Natalie and Ingrid's cabin. It was an intriguing peek into how women work, and it was utterly unlike the way men cohabitate. They pranced around in mixed states of half-dress and half-nude. There was much touching. There was sharing of clothing, accessories, makeup. Things were tried, judged, discarded, reapplied. It was all staggeringly complicated, and made worse by not having a plan at all. No, men weren't like that at all. Men tolerated each other's presence during toiletries, whereas women embraced it. But for one glorious night, I was one of the girls.

  Natalie offered up several items for me to wear. We pondered whether or not to stuff a bra, but eventually settled on a black dress that made it unnecessary. It had a plunging neckline, which revealed my startlingly hairy chest. To shave, or not to shave? That applied to my goatee, as well. After careful consideration, we decided the effect would be more pronounced if I remained shaggy. A beast, I said. A monkey, they corrected. The amount of laughter over our antics was almost debilitating.

  It was then time for makeup. I got it all: foundation, blush, eyeliner, mascara, and whatever other eldritch secrets women use to make themselves beautiful. The process was both long and involved, every second made tense by Natalie's sharp claws in my face. I thought for sure she was going to skewer one of my eyeballs. Capping it all off was a trashy red on my fingernails and toenails.

  A hirsute hussy was born.

  Natalie and Ingrid both wore togas to the party, proving that only I had difficulty coming up with a costume. Indeed, everybody else had no troubles at all. The nurse and her husband were the Incredibles, Eddie was a gondolier, Susie was Raggedy Ann. Dr. Faye dressed as a surprisingly sexy pirate. Even more suggestive was Cosmina, who wore a greasy boiler suit and played a 'dirty mechanic'. The keyboard player, Nigel, looked positively dapper in a three-piece suit and long-nosed Venetian mask.

  Because I was in a dress, everybody assumed I was gay. No less than three crew members commented upon it. I was a little annoyed they didn't seem in on the joke, but even more so at the two officers who noted 'they knew it all along.'

  As mentioned, the party was a momentous one. Alcohol and laughter flowed freely, but not obnoxiously. One who was perhaps on the borderline of public decency was Fabrice. He was one of the few attendees to abstain from a costume. That did not mean he wasn't festive, however. Bottle of champagne in one hand and glass in the other, he rushed over to hug me. After sloshing a good dose of bubbly down my back, he motioned me over to a corner conspiratorially.

  "As far as ze othairs know, I brought two bottles of champagne," he screamed over the music, belying his covert mannerisms. He revealed a third bottle and said, "But I saved zees for us, knowing yoo would appreciate eet!" I loved how people saw me work in a suit and assumed I was classy and stuff.

  We drank champagne and watched the crew dance, cavort, and be merry. After awhile, Barney pushed his way through the revelers to join us. He was wearing a giant bear suit. Where that came from was truly a mystery. He gratefully accepted a glass of 'champagne for the masses.' Fabrice winked at me so copiously I feared a grand mal seizure.

  "To Romanian women!" Barney offered, holding up his glass.

  I stared at him, uncomprehending, and maybe a little scared.

  "I finally got what I wanted," Barney explained. "I've been wanting to ask Cosi out for a long time. Honestly, I'd been too shy. And you two were together, of course."

  I opened my mouth to deny it, but he waved any protestations away. "I know you two had your fling and all—that's fine. But I finally mustered the courage to ask her out. She's a handful, as you know."

  "Temperamental is a kind word for it," I noted.

  Barney laughed. "I think it's exciting. You never know what you're going to get with Cosi. But after seeing her and Rick together, well, I wanted something more for her than that. I wanted her to keep her socks on forever, you know?"

  "What the hell is going on with Cosmina's socks?" I cried, exasperated.

  "You mean you don't know?" he said, shocked. "I just assumed...."

  Embarrassed, he made a
hasty excuse and disappeared into the party.

  Suddenly a commotion pulled all eyes to the dance floor. A very drunk Yoyo—wearing only body paint, for the most part—screamed and crashed the dance. He began spinning around a support pole in a most suggestive manner. Fabrice topped off my glass with a wavering hand, and continued with the conspiratorial tone.

  "'E ees now undair Francois' protection," he said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "Yoo didn't 'ear? 'E upset one of ze offisairs."

  "What did he do?"

  "I don't know," Fabrice admitted, accent thicker than ever. "I only know Francois saved 'is job. 'E likes Yoyo. Look!"

  We both glanced over to where the hotel director—conspicuously the only man in full dress uniform—was watching Yoyo dance. His eyes flashed with desire. Francois set his drink down, marched into the crowd, pointed a finger at Yoyo, and then towards the door. As directed, Yoyo hopped and skipped that way. Francois followed. Nope, there was no mistaking what that was all about!

  But who had been intent on getting Yoyo fired? He was such an awful employee, there could have been a million reasons to sack him. But which officer wanted to? Was it Barney? If he'd hooked up with Cosmina, that may explain how she knew Yoyo was going to be fired. Surely it had been Yoyo she was referring to in the Alhambra. But it was hard to imagine Barney trying to get people fired, people like Janie and now Yoyo. He was so nice! But then again, that's what they say about most serial killers.

  The party drew to a reluctant close. Fortunately for many, Francois and Yoyo were not the only ones to hook up. Cosmina and Barney left early, she all but hanging off his bearish body. Eddie and Susie, too, seemed to be feeling the love. Or, perhaps in Eddie's case, feeling the alcohol. She was full of giggles herself. Maybe there was hope for them yet! After nearly an hour of dirty dancing, Ingrid hooked up with the singer of the band, Neil.

  The big surprise of the night was when Natalie departed with an Asian sailor none of us recognized. No, that's not true. The biggest surprise was when the decidedly unattractive and middle-aged pianist Nigel started making out hot and heavy with the decidedly sexy and young Nina. No, that's not true, either. The biggest surprise of all was that I left with someone.