High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  "This ends right now!" Natalie declared fiercely, light flashing from the diamond set into her tooth. "This is bullshit. No fines!"

  The man forced himself to gulp, nodded, then stammered, "D-do you have a-a pen?"

  "Who has a pen?" Natalie snapped. Rick—also suddenly meek—handed the conductor his pen. The Italian scribbled his initials on each ticket with a wavering hand, then returned each ticket to its owner. Without a further word, he retreated in search of easier prey.

  We finished the ride to Pompeii with better spirits. Natalie was happier, anyway, because she'd had some action. But the setting was not one for gaiety. The sky drizzled a sad drizzle, the ruins wept. Uncounted thousands had died here most horrifically. The fear was tangible once beyond the gates. The crowds murmured anonymously to drone a low, morose hum. Hugging each other as couples beneath cheap umbrellas, we wandered through the untrammeled streets of a doomed city. The disparity was fascinating.

  "So tell me about Pompeii," Natalie said from beneath the umbrella she shared with Rick. "But don't give me an answer that's boring."

  After a glance at the map, I decided on a proper course of study. We entered a large, grassy yard ringed by neatly preserved columns. Most were a full twelve feet in height, though the east wall had a row of incomplete and thusly shorter columns. Behind those east columns were uneven brick walls forming a series of small rooms, now roofless and lumpy. The other three sides surrounding the yard had walls mostly intact, indicating the yard was once ringed on all four sides by covered porticoes. One roof still remained, slanting tiles shrugging off the rain. We moved under its protection.

  "See these columns lining the yard?" I began.

  "They special?" Natalie asked eagerly.

  "Oh, yes. You can tell a lot about the purpose of this place by the columns. There are three main types of Roman capitals, you see. See how the caps are all simply just a flat rock?"

  "You mean their hats?"

  "Yes, their hats," I replied. Stifling a smile, I continued with an intentionally droning quality, "To understand Roman architecture, it's important to understand the differences between Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns. The first were Doric, which evolved from a simple post and lintel system used by man for millennia—think of Stonehenge, which is merely a large-scale post and lintel system. Posts and lintels of stone have a terrible tensile strength and it took centuries of innovation to come up with brick archways—used on Roman aqueducts still in use to this day—and, eventually, arched vaults reinforced with concrete—the Romans invented concrete, of course—and—"

  "Oh my God," Natalie interrupted with a groan. "Shoot me now."

  "I'm just messing with you," I laughed. "This was the gladiator's training yard."

  "How do they know that?" Natalie asked, peering around.

  "Lots of reasons. One is because behind us are barracks that don't have any of the usual trademarks of being military. Another reason is this yard and its columns. Since Pompeii was during an evolved era of the Roman empire, the use of Doric capitals—a simple, early style—means they were made on the cheap. Gladiators were slaves, remember. These columns weren't meant to look pretty, but simply served to keep the roof up."

  "Jesus, Brian," Rick groused. "We could be talking about gladiators fighting each other with fireballs falling from the sky and you're talking about bloody boring columns."

  At least Janie came to my defense. To the tune of the ubiquitous high school cheer about bananas, Janie jumped, waved, and sang:

  "Go, Vesuvius, go go Vesuvius.

  "Steam to the left and steam to the right,

  "Feel that rumble and BOOM!- Take flight!"

  "This is going to be a long day," Rick grumbled. I was starting to agree.

  "I'm serious," Natalie pressed. "How do they know any of this crap? Everybody died."

  "Not everybody," I replied. "Pliny saw the whole thing and wrote about it. Pliny the Younger, I think. Yeah, because it was Pliny the Elder who was killed by Vesuvius. You'd like him. Do you have freckles on your butt or anything?"

  Natalie stared at me as if I'd gone completely mental. This was not by any means an unwarranted thought. She stammered, "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "In Pliny the Elder's book Natural History, he wrote that ghosts were scared of freckled people. Thought they were impure. You don't have freckles, but maybe if you've got a bunch hidden somewhere the ghost of Wind Surf won't show up in your massage room. Anything you'd care to show us?"

  Natalie just stared at me, open mouthed.

  "I'm great at parties," I defended sweetly.

  The sun eventually burned through the clouds, making the dead city a hot one. Humidity rolled off rock, sweat rolled off skin. We wandered the silent stone streets and compared them to other streets of other eras. Like today, via concrete, or the Old West, via boardwalks, we walked on raised sidewalks. But everything in Pompeii was solid stone. Many side streets were narrow and deep—sidewalks raised a full two feet!—making the street more a wide gutter than anything else. It was just wide enough for a single cart to be hauled through behind a donkey. This kept the prosperous Pompeiians from getting dirty, but still allowed the lesser folks to go about their business throughout the entire city. If a citizen wished to cross the street, bridges were provided as stone steps, neatly spaced to allow wagon wheels through. Pompeii was a showcase for the best of Roman engineering: simple, efficient, strong.

  It was the little things of Pompeii that made an impact, such as a public fountain placed at a crossroads. Via ancient hydraulics, water had poured into a wide basin for people to wash their hands in. The edges of the large bowl were fairly crisp, but for one spot. There people had placed their hands to lean in and drink the flowing water. Thousands of hands after hundreds of years had worn that spot smooth; a reminder of how incorrectly humans comprehend time. We think that because Pompeii was preserved so perfectly, so long ago, it must have been young when buried. Not so. Pompeii was quadruple the age of the United States—nearly 900 years old—when Vesuvius slaughtered its citizenry so long ago.

  Then things turned ghastly. Seeing the preserved buildings and streets was one thing. Seeing the birds and flowers painted on intimate bedroom walls was even more enchanting. Seeing the preserved owners was devastating.

  The pyroclastic blast of angry Vesuvius did not kill the men, women, and children of Pompeii; they did not mercifully liquify in a split second of scalding heat. Oh, no. Hot ash fell and fell, turning day into night, and kept on falling. Screaming in the darkness, lost, bewildered, the people struggled to survive an event utterly beyond their comprehension. Hordes of victims mobbed the docks, intent on escaping what had once been their home. Dozens died in a writhing mass waiting for boats that would never come. There was no escape for so very, very many. Some dropped alone in the street, others cowered in basements before supporting roofs—unable to bear tons of ash—collapsed upon them. Still others clung to each other as they succumbed to suffocation, hugging each other with their last, dying breaths.

  Yet still fell the terror, burying the bodies in powder-fine ash. The ash enveloped every nook and cranny of their bodies, rippling within folds of cloth, filling gaping mouths. When the corpses finally succumbed to time and disintegrated, the ash that housed them had long since solidified. What remained were cavities of exquisite detail. Archeologists discovered countless such hollowed out moments and decided to fill them with plaster. The result was a shocking, city-wide panorama depicting the terrifying moment of death.

  I had been excited to see the infamous plaster casts since discovering their existence in a contraband National Geographic magazine. The photos were far too graphic for a child of my tender years. Maybe that's what set me off into the realm of horror fiction and film. But vampire and zombie fandom is merely imagination at play. These were people. Worse, they were people in pain. I was not prepared to feel their pain. But how could I not? The details were staggering: visible were belt buckles, purses, boot
s. You could see expressions still on their faces. One screaming, plaster mouth lay open to reveal very real teeth, preserved after all this time.

  More powerful than expressions were positions. Many hugged each other. One man gently cradled the head of a woman as they together waited for the end. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching was the lone man huddled on the street, knees to his chin, sobbing into his hands. His form conveyed all the animus of Rodin's Thinker.

  Astonishingly, Janie was not at all effected by so many human remains preserved in eternal agony. She bounced from displayed body to displayed body. She wasn't just fascinated, she was downright enthusiastic. She even repeated her previous 'Go bananas' chant:

  "Go, Vesuvius, go go Vesuvius.

  "Steam to the left and steam to the right,

  "Feel that rumble and BOOM!- Take flight!"

  Caught up in her own moment—for none of us shared it—she added with a jump:

  "Ashes to ashes!

  "Dust to dust—

  "Feel that steam—

  "Escape is a must!"

  Rick looked like Janie was singing about him rather than Vesuvius. His face swelled a blotchy red and looked about to blow. He snapped at Janie with sharp bitterness. "Will you shut up? Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

  Janie's arms dropped to her sides, chastened, stunned.

  Rick stormed off. We watched him go, shocked at his sudden, violent outburst. From afar we could see him pacing, extremely upset, muttering with vehemence about 'steam pits'. His thick shoulders bulged with anger and he looked utterly unconsolable. None of us dared try. Needless to say, the tour was over. We slowly made our way towards the exit, taking our time. Eventually Rick caught up to us. Though once again composed, he offered no explanation. We did not pry. I was just glad Cosmina wasn't there to blame me for killing all these guys, too.

  It was time to return to our home, our Wind Surf. I bought a book about Pompeii—in English, of course—and we made our way to the gates. A register beckoned, and Janie skipped over to sign it.

  "The pen's dry," she said. With a hint of hesitation, she asked, "Rick, can I borrow your pen, please?"

  Recognizing an opportunity for an olive branch, Rick nodded and reached for his pocket. He suddenly paused, then began wildly patting his person. "Son of a bitch!" he swore, face darkening anew. "My Mont Blanc cost me fifty bloody pounds sterling—and that bloody wanker conductor stole it!"

  2

  You have to learn how to be rich, they say. While I certainly wasn't rich, I did understand the axiom. Being an art auctioneer necessitated rubbing shoulders with the rich, in order to convince them you were one of them and thusly could be trusted with monetary decisions. That sort of thing. Learning how to be rich also meant accepting certain privileges you felt warranted. I still couldn't bear to have a valet handle my luggage, but I sure did know how to dine with the best of 'em.

  Dining on Wind Surf, like all cruise ships, was segregated by rank. Officers dined in the Veranda—one of two guest dining rooms—because there was not room below decks for both a crew mess and an officer's mess. During breakfast and lunch the privileged few were allowed to dine with the guests, which was an enjoyable prospect on such a small, familiar ship. At dinner time passengers congregated to the larger, Main Deck Restaurant for their repast, leaving the Veranda for the officers and certain staff.

  Only a few dozen were allowed to dine in the sun. The rest of the crew shared a tiny room on a lower deck. Numbering well over a hundred, they were almost criminally crammed into a box around eighteen feet squared. The food offered in the little hot bar was not particularly bad, but it was not particularly good, either. Nobody in his right mind would choose that over the Veranda Restaurant. Yet Yoyo did. Then again, Yoyo was hardly of right mind. His predecessor, Ardin, had dined in the Veranda. He had learned how to be rich, as it were. Most likely Yoyo just felt more comfortable dining with fellow Asians, of which he was alone among officers and privileged staff. Unfortunately, Cosmina was also one of the worthy few allowed to dine in the Veranda—more's the pity.

  "I just want to get drunk," she groused into her plate opposite me.

  With only a handful of people present, the restaurant felt very empty. It always did, for an interior that sat eighty for lunch served only a few dozen for dinner. What occupied most of the space was sunlight, slanting in through the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the Veranda. It was unbearably hot, but the view of the cliffs of Sorrento rising just off the starboard bow more than made up for it. So, too, did the roast pork loin. Food in the Veranda was actually pretty good. Like the U-shaped room lined with glass, the gleaming metal counters were also mostly empty, but for a few buffet decorations. Hot wells gently steamed two meat entrees and three side dishes, all of which rotated nightly. The salad bar, of moderate quality, did not.

  "Dead drunk. Muerta. Kaput."

  "I heard you," I offered hesitantly. On a good day I didn't really want to engage Cosmina in conversation. But when she opened a dialogue with 'I just want to get drunk'? Hell no. Thus it was wonderful when the chief officer, Emmet, sat down beside me with a plate full of peas and carrots. This was not a particularly unusual step, this joining of senior officer and mere mortal. Emmet was an exceptionally down-to-Earth kind of guy; always cheerful, he enjoyed being around others of the same mien. Needless to say, it was not to Cosmina that he first spoke.

  "Oh, my," he said, looking down at my plate. He shook his head ruefully at my rather large helping of pork, pork, and pork. "Where are your vegetables?"

  "Coming," I answered. "I tend to eat in phases, for some reason. After the meat I'll get a plate full of veggies. I promise."

  "You're doing it completely wrong," Emmet said. Gamely smoothing his white uniform in a professorial manner, he explained, "Always eat your vegetables first. That way you don't forget to eat them. I can't imagine you'll still be hungry after all that meat."

  "Don't bet on it," I said with a smile. "I'm from the pork capital of the U.S. In fact, my grandfather was a hog buyer. How you can make a living buying and selling pigs is beyond me, but I hear he was quite good at it. I have pork in my blood."

  "Gross," Cosmina chided, idly pushing peas around her plate.

  Emmet chuckled. Pulling from his pocket two plastic wrapped cigars, he handed them to me.

  "Here," he said. "I thought you'd like these. The port authority gave them to me and wouldn't take no for an answer. He seems to think the trading of tobacco is some sort of sacred bond or something. You're the only cigar smoker I know on board, so I thought you'd enjoy them."

  "Thank you, Emmet. Why don't we smoke them together after dinner?" I gave a slight nod to our sullen companion and added, "I sense our usual table in the Compass Rose will be occupied before too long. Some pleasant conversation would be most welcome."

  "Yeah," Cosmina murmured. "We can all plan Yoyo's murder."

  Emmet's lips compressed into a wry smile and he said, "Ah, no thank you. I see Eddie has just entered, and we need to schedule a dive."

  Emmet rose, gathered his plate, and gave me a wink. "Eat your vegetables."

  And so I was alone with Cosmina. Joy. She was arrogant and manipulative and fiercely opinionated about things that were, quite simply, ignorant stereotypes. She was also one of the few people aboard with a schedule matching my own. We were thrust upon each other at every turn, even when we weren't helping each other out. On the big ships I was used to non-ideal companions—namely the dancers—but of those Surf had none. No, I was stuck with Cosmina or Yoyo or the TV. I was seriously considering the latter. But booze held a very powerful draw to me, and the Compass Rose was the preferred place to get it. And really, Cosmina could bitch all she wanted if I could sit on the open deck and watch night descend over the Bay of Naples.

  After dinner we moved to our usual table—under the port steps leading up to the Star Deck—and proceeded to drink and smoke. Rather, Cosmina did the former while I did the latter. She wasted no time downing record q
uantities of gin and tonic. She said nothing.

  So she was angry. Or sad, hiding it behind anger. You can tell a woman is angry when she's silent. You can also tell a woman is angry when she's yelling. There's also the heavy clue that they're angry when they act different. Then again, a sure sign of anger is when they don't act differently. Interpreting women's emotional cues was hard enough when sharing their culture, but guessing a Romanian woman's game was like fencing blindfolded. Strange it was, indeed, that I was a shoulder to cry on for this woman I didn't even like. Bianca surely had just as many troubles, but had been far too stubborn to let me help. Even after years together, I had to pry out what ailed her, her hopes, her fears. And what did I get for it all? A greater ability to be 'in tune' with another selfish Romanian.

  Cosmina downed another drink—hard and fast—started to sniffle, then immediately hid it behind a snap at the waitress to bring her another.

  "So you're mad at Yoyo," I finally said after several minutes of utterly failing to figure out what the hell was going on. "Just get it out. What'd he do?"

  "You mean other than losing eight passengers in the ruins of Pompeii?"

  "Are... are you serious?" I asked, flabbergasted. Her glare was answer enough.

  "He wasn't supposed to be responsible for any passengers at all," she spat. "Thank God Fabrice was in charge of the bus or I'd have lost everyone! The idiot was only supposed to take photos. Oh, and you know what he did? He took a photo of each person as they entered the main gate. Not inside by the ruins and pillars and whatever. He took photos of them outside the stupid gate by a bunch of cars of the Carabinieri! What an idiot. The local guides split up the passengers into two groups. The buildings they go into are small, so they don't want more than a dozen at a time. Fabrice took a dozen and the idiot was responsible for the rest."