The Angels Will Not Care

by John Straley

  3

  Making Way

  There was a large notice board on an easel under the archway from the salon deck to the fantail. There were notices for passengers and free copies of the shipboard newspaper, Over the Horizon. Big letters, printed right on the cork, promised, “TWO WEEKS ON THE SS WEST­WARD: THE BEST TWO WEEKS OF YOUR LIFE!” and in red letters: “DAY ONE: EMBARKATION, HAPPINESS ON THE HORI­ZON!”

  Jane Marie was talking with a young woman wearing a sailor’s cap as I pushed past a man in a short-sleeve sports shirt to make headway toward the Whipping Post Bar in the covered area of the fantail. My shipmate in the sports shirt dug a soft elbow into my ribs and said, in an irri­tated whisper, “Take it easy there, pal, we’ll all get there at the same time.” I looked over to him and saw that he had that crazed look of an overweight white man who had been pushed to his traveling limit and was in serious need of a drink. I let him lumber past. As I walked away I heard Jane Marie answering questions from the young woman in the sailor’s hat.

  “Yes, yes . . .” she was saying and then, “But you don’t bring out the board games until everyone gets to know each other . . .” in a rather stern voice, and then I was out the door.

  The band was packing up their instruments and mov­ing back under cover. The docks of Vancouver were grow­ing smaller. My friend with the fat elbows approached the bar and slapped his hand down against the polished ebony. “Well, by God, I hope to hell you have plenty of bourbon on this boat,” he said loudly to the man behind the bar. The barman was as black as onyx and had a disturbingly cold but broad smile. “Plenty bourbon,” he said, then lifted a glass of ice from under the bar and in one easy motion poured a double shot.

  “Well,” the big man lowered himself onto the stool, “that’s the first goddamn thing that has gone right on this trip,” and he made a vague gesture with his hand, circling it over the bar as if he were saying “Keep it coming” or “One for everyone.” Just to be convivial I said, “The same,” softly and, hopefully, unobtrusively.

  The big man turned to me. His face was red and sweat had matted down the thinning hair he had told his barber to leave on top. “Women love this shit, ya know, buster?”

  The drink came and I waited. The musicians were struggling to get the drum kit under cover before the rain squall hit. People were milling around on the deck looking at their passenger guides and trying to get their bearings. I could smell the big man’s aftershave. I could smell the ocean and a faint hint of steamed vegetables. But mostly I could smell the bourbon.

  The big man caught me staring at his drink and think­ing I might be deaf, he worked again on his opener. “I mean they just love this shit!” He drained his drink and the cubes sounded to me like wind chimes.

  “You mean they like drinking on deck?” I offered lamely.

  He laughed loudly and slapped me on the back, making the circling gesture with his hand. Two more drinks appeared as if he were working on his sleight of hand act. “Shit, no, man.” He held his drink to his lips and paused for effect. “I mean this cruising shit. They love it. Me? I’d rather just stay home, you know? I mean, give me my lawn chair, a game on the tube, and I’m happier than a pig in shit.”

  I held the cold glass and raised it solemnly: “To pigs in shit,” I said respectfully.

  I felt a strong hand on my elbow. “Hey there, Mr. Younger. It’s great to see you here.” I turned and saw the perky Sonny Walters smiling at me with his five-hundred-watt teeth. Behind him Todd was carefully reading his pas­senger information, but Jane Marie was staring directly at me. She was holding a diagram of a players tree for a gin tournament.

  “Wow,” I said to her. “It didn’t take you long to settle in.” I slowly put the drink down.

  Sonny’s hand pulled me easily from the bar and I waved gaily to the drink and its rightful owner, who had turned from me and was already showing the barman the pictures from his wallet.

  “Listen,” Sonny was whispering urgently in my ear, “we need to get a few things squared away before . . . be­fore you get going on your investigation. One of them being our agreement about your bar tab and how that will be handled.”

  “I don’t really care how you handle it, Sonny.” I pulled my elbow back and ducked through the sliding glass door that led us back inside to the main salon.

  Sonny stopped walking. “Whatever . . .” He was read­ing a clipboard. Several older white women asked him ques­tions and he answered them slowly and clearly and with his usual aplomb.

  “Look . . .” he said as he turned to me and I stepped back. “I’m the Cruise Director here, dammit! Lots of peo­ple depend on me and I’m not going to waste my time hold­ing your hand, okay? I was never in favor of bringing you on board. But . . . but . . . my authority was . . . overridden on this one and I suppose I’m just going to have to live with it. But right now I want you and your . . . family . . .” and he looked at Jane Marie, who was looking over the players tree, “to go down to your cabin. Unpack and wait there. Read the materials and familiarize yourself with the ship and the facil­ities onboard. You are eating at the second seating. I will talk to you before then. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” And Sonny walked away quickly, straight into the concerned expressions of two couples from Davenport, Iowa, as announced by their ball caps and shirts.

  Jane Marie pushed past me and mumbled, “Come on.” She said it coolly. “Let’s see if we can make it to our cabin without getting arrested.”

  “That Sonny Walters turns out to be a man of unex­pected depth,” I said, trying to preserve my dignity and hur­rying to keep up with her. “Where the hell are we going anyway?”

  Todd started to read aloud as we walked into a narrow passageway.

  “‘The Westward was commissioned in 1957, and is a steam-generated electric-powered vessel. She is six hundred and seventeen feet long, eighty-four feet at her widest point, and carries a tonnage of twenty-three thousand five hundred. She is registered in Monrovia and has a carrying capacity of seven hundred and thirty-nine passengers and two hundred and twenty crew members, including the bridge, the boat crew, the engineers, the hotel staff, the kitchen staff, the entertainment staff, the educational staff, and the shore excursion staff, all of whom are here to make sure that this is the best two weeks of your life.’” Todd stopped reading and looked up at me wide-eyed. “Do you suppose that will be true, Cecil? I mean, will this be the best two weeks of my entire life?”

  “Well, Todd,” I said as I noticed we were now shoulder-to-shoulder with a crowd of elderly white people jammed into a narrow carpeted hallway all reading the exact same lit­erature and looking around like baby chicks for the return of their mother, “this could well be the best two weeks of our lives . . . if we live through it.”

  Jane Marie pulled Todd by the elbow as the herd split up near the stairs. “I’m assuming we head down towards the steerage cabins,” she told us, as I eased in behind a woman smelling of lavender who was reading her materials and stumbling on every third step.

  Todd began to read aloud again as we walked as quickly as the press of passengers would allow. “‘The Westward is laid out in the style of the luxury liners of the grand era of sailing. Passengers should take a moment to familiarize them­selves with the structure and design of the ship. Remember, as you face the front, or bow, of the ship, your left is the port hand and right is starboard. An easy way to remember is to think of the fact that “Left” and “Port” have the same number of letters.’”

  “What deck are we on?” I called out over the head of the woman who was now grabbing onto the rail in the passageway.

  Jane Marie looked down at the papers in her hand. “Acapulco Deck,” she said.

  Todd continued, “‘The decks of the Westward are conven­iently laid out alphabetically, starting with the Acapulco Deck and moving upward torward the Horizon Deck. Also, if you notice the color scheme of the passageways, you wi
ll notice that each deck has its own color scheme, going from rich emerald green to a Mediter­ranean blue on the Dolphin Deck and capped off with glittering starlight silver on Horizon.’”

  I looked around the passageway. We were on Bermuda Deck. There were far fewer passengers. A couple with kids, who were skipping off down the strange pea-green carpet. The smell of perfume had given way to the much stronger smell of cleaning products, and then the faint hint of steamed vegetables. Cabbage, I thought.

  On Acapulco Deck we stopped because there was no­where else to go. The air seemed progressively warmer as we went down. There was more engine noise at this level but, truthfully, not near as much as I might have expected. The carpeting and the walls were a clammy gray-green with all the light coming from the buzzing fluorescent strips along the low ceiling. We turned left and walked some thirty yards toward the stern and Jane Marie found a door, on the inside of the ship, fitted a key, and stepped inside. Todd followed.

  I swung around the corner with a certain assurance, then banged right into Todd, who was inches away from Jane Marie. Our three duffel bags were stacked on the square of carpet between the bunk bed and the one berth along the inside wall, thus taking up all of the available space. I think kidnapped heiresses who have been buried in the ground had more room than this cabin.

  Jane Marie slipped along the wall toward the one dresser and lifted one bag onto the bunk, making some room to stand. Todd flopped on the lower bunk. I sat on my duffel in the middle of the stateroom. My elbow was on Jane Marie’s knees and my legs lay just underneath Todd’s resting body. The room was a strange sea-foam green that gave the close quarters the feel of a dimly remembered womb.

  “Well. Cozy!” I said, not wanting to lose our vacation momentum.

  Jane Marie was unpacking her books and placing them on the ledge above the top bunk. She had brought every pos­sible animal and plant identification book for these waters with her. She also had some of her source books on party games. She unfolded a black strapless evening gown and a book for identifying moss fell out and hit me in the head. She stepped over me and hung the black dress in the closet after she mistook the first door and thus found our toilet-shower cubicle.

  “Christ, Cecil,” she grumbled. “This is not exactly what I expected.”

  “I wonder if this vessel is completely unsinkable,” asked Todd as he took a picture of me reclining on our duffel bags.

  “Absolutely,” I replied in a chipper voice I was learn­ing from Sonny Walters. “Come on, you adventurers. We’re cruising now. None of the old rules of our shorebound lives apply.”

  “I wonder if they supply us with enough oxygen?” Jane Marie stood looking up at a small square vent that apparently pumped air from somewhere into our quarters.

  “Sure . . . Sure . . .” I reassured her. “First, we need to become oriented.” I slapped Todd on the leg. “Now which way is the bow?” Todd looked around our cell, then pointed vaguely to his left. “Good. Now, which bars are near the bow?”

  Todd squinted at the information sheets on his chest. “The Compass Room and Fiddler’s Green.”

  “Check. The stern?”

  Todd flipped a switch on the wall next to him and he nudged the information sheets into the narrow pool of dim light. “The Great Circle Lounge, the Terra Nova Room and the Whipping Post outside on the fantail.”

  “Okay. We’re on the bottom. Underwater, I’d say. Aca­pulco. What decks are the bars on?”

  “Enterprise, Flag, and Horizon. Horizon is the top pas­senger deck. And I believe you are right, Cecil. I suspect that we are indeed underwater here in Acapulco. Intriguing, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely, Todd,” I answered, as Jane Marie picked up her moss book from my chest without smiling or saying a word.

  “Where do I give my talks, Todd?” Jane Marie muttered.

  “That’s in the Great Circle Lounge on the Flag Deck. I think that is where we came from . . . where that interesting decorative ball was hung above the wood floor.”

  “Game room?” Jane Marie said absently as she scanned her own diagram of the ship.

  “Uh, I think that is on the Enterprise Deck just below Flag Deck.” Todd looked around our cramped space as if there was actually something with which to orient himself. “I believe we are almost directly amidships and in the vir­tual center of the ship here. The dining room is also on the Enterprise Deck, four floors above us.”

  “How about the medical facility?”

  “That’s on our level. I think it is on the starboard side near the stern. We, of course, are on the port. I think.”

  “Good then,” I said, pulling myself up. “I’m off to work. I’ll see you up on deck.”

  Jane Marie took one step and crossed the room. She had her face in mine. Her eyes were squinting tightly down on mine.

  “Mr. Walters told us to stay here,” she hissed.

  I looked around the space. “He was kidding,” I offered.

  “I don’t think so.” Her voice had a dangerous grav­ity to it.

  “I’m not waiting here, Janie.” And I turned my back on her.

  She spoke and her voice softened, yet it was still rich with irritation. “If you start drinking I’m going to throw your sorry ass overboard, Cecil.”

  I did not turn or look at her. “Duly noted,” I said, and walked from our quarters.

  Behind me, I heard Jane Marie’s voice. “You’re going walking around dressed like that?”

  I stopped short. I was wearing what I always wear, my canvas pants, a cotton work shirt and my new, used, sports jacket that, if it had actually fit, would have given me a kind of dapper English country gentleman sort of look.

  “It would appear so,” I said down to the leather boat slippers I was wearing.

  “You look like a flasher. We’re supposed to go to the captain’s cocktail party later,” she said before the door snipped off the last syllables of the sentence. I took a deep breath and set off down the pea-green carpet.

  Some elderly couples were sorting through their lug­gage in the hallway ahead of me; I pushed past them. A woman was chattering something about closet space and I could hear ice cubes tinkle into an empty glass. The next stretch, toward the stern, was clear. It felt like the inter­minable hallway that appears always ahead of me in a recurring dream about running, running, and never arriv­ing.

  I was losing myself slightly in the mood of this dream when my shoulder bumped into an open door. I peeked in. Against the far wall of a cabin remarkably like ours was a blonde girl in a white shift. She was lying on the bed. What caught my attention was the paleness of her skin and the thinness of her arms. I watched her in spite of myself, just to see if she was breathing. She was. Her head was facing the direction of the stern; her right arm seemed as thin and pale as a maple branch just stripped of its bark. This arm was splayed out and curved backward over the edge of the bed so I could see the IV needle taped into a vein at her elbow.

  I must have involuntarily sucked in my breath for I made some noise that drew her attention. She bent at the waist and raised herself up on her bunk as if she could float into the air. Pulling her hair away from her sunken blue eyes, she turned toward me.

  “Excuse me,” I said and I made some kind of awkward gesture with my hands to indicate that I was actually con­fused and not really a voyeur. “I was just looking for the ship’s clinic,” I added, hoping that would help.

  This insubstantial girl smiled sleepily and pointed her wraithlike arm over her shoulder. From somewhere deep within a cloudy but pleasant dream, she smiled.

  “Do you want some medication?” she asked in a reedy voice. “I’ve got lots . . .” Her smile was broad and full of white teeth but was somehow distant and almost un­fathomably sad. “Are you seasick?” She curled both of her arms like ropes around her shoulders and lay back down. “Mal de mer,” she added in a lo
ng breath.

  “No. I’m just not quite feeling up to snuff,” I said. It appeared that the shipboard atmosphere was causing me to talk like Bertie Wooster.

  The girl’s eyes were closed. Her tiny frame moved gen­tly with what I detected now was the gentle motion of the ship. She licked her lips as if her mouth was dry but she appeared to be asleep.

  “I’ll just pop off then,” I said idiotically and waved at the sleeping girl. As I walked on down the hall I was grateful that I hadn’t said “Cheerio!”

  The passageway gently curved toward the center of the ship and there, near the end of the long hall, was a large dou­ble door. A poster board next to it said: “Welcome aboard. Our shipboard clinic hours are listed every day in the ship’s paper and are also posted here, above the door. In case of emergency please dial 911 (that’s right, just like home) from any of the ship’s telephones and our well-trained medical staff will assist you at any time of day or night. Tablets for motion sickness are available in a dispenser by the front door. Please wait to see the doctor if you are taking any other medication before you take any medication for motion sickness.”

  Written in a dark ink in block handwriting was:

  “There will be a get-together for the travel club, ‘L’Inconnue de la Seine,’ in the Compass Room, on Horizon Deck, this evening at 9:00 after second seating. We’ll meet with the medical staff and get acquainted. See you there!!”

  A white man who appeared to be extremely fit and per­haps in his early sixties strode up to the sign and stood close to me and read the board.

  “Huh,” he grunted. “Not until nine o’clock.” Then he stuck a fabulously long black cigar in his mouth. He jutted the cigar out at the sign and waited. It became clear he was waiting for me to say something.

  “I say, that’s really quite some cigar,” I offered, then I bit down on my tongue for fear that I was shifting down into some kind of Winston Churchill impression.