3
It was a shame to have such a falling out with the chief officer. I really liked the guy. I resolved to work on our relationship when I returned from vacation. I didn't realize just how badly our relationship had torn, and that the loose threads were already unraveling. In fact, within just one day, everything would fall apart.
That afternoon I received a frantic message from my Sundance fleet manager. A surprise art swap was planned for Wind Surf's arrival in Barbados—tomorrow. That was the day I was signing off! Art swaps were major events that took a week of preparation. First and foremost, it required receiving a shipment of oversized boxes in advance. Safely boxing several thousand works of art for multinational shipping takes a long, long time. I hadn't received any such boxes.
Astoundingly, Sundance expected me to unload the boxes of fresh art and reload them with old art simultaneously. The logistics of that operation were staggering. It was clearly impossible to do safely without a large staff and amount of space. I had neither. But in true Sundance fashion, it was do it or be fired. Why they waited so late to inform me was a mystery. In order for thirty pallets of art to be waiting for me in Barbados, they would have to have been shipped out of Miami days ago.
In all my four years at sea—through all the trials and tribulations, all the slave labor and demeaning work, the crushing stress, the lies, the jealousies, the cheating—the next thirty-six hours were the worst. Just when I thought things were going so well!
Only one crane existed to load the pallets of fresh art onto Wind Surf. It did not drop loads into a hold, but instead onto a narrow, exposed strip of deck just behind the bridge. There was no staging area. I would have to work fifty feet away in a wide stairwell—a blatant violation of fire code, of course. I discussed the situation with Francois, who noted we'd need permission from the chief officer for any such action. After hearing of Emmet's and my blowout, Francois mercifully promised to run interference.
I began immediately. It was about six o'clock in the evening.
Because we were at sea, everybody I knew was working. No bodies were available to assist me except, perhaps, Yoyo. After careful consideration I decided he would just slow me down. So I transported my thousands of works of art up the two flights of stairs myself, one cart load at a time, load after load, hour after hour, all night long. The pile on the landing quickly grew too large and artwork had to be stacked outside on the deck. Of course there was no one to guard the artwork during any of this operation. I just had to hope nobody walking by stole anything.
Night fell. Darkness became a crippling issue. Because this was the bridge deck, no exterior lights were permitted. I began stacking more and more artwork outside—I had no choice—in the dark. The wind grew stronger and the night grew colder, but I'd long since been sweating from the labor.
Just after midnight I thought I'd catch a break. Wind Surf docked in Barbados. No longer did officers need to worry about a collision with anything in the dark. Emmet, however, refused to allow even a single damn lightbulb to be lit for me. Not one. Onward into the black night I labored.
The good news was that since we docked, the casino closed. Aurelia, now free, volunteered to help. Of course, I barely had enough muscle to haul a fully laden art cart, so what could little one hundred pound Aurelia do? Even so, her offer of help gave me hope. By 2 a.m., it looked like we were about halfway through.
Then came the squall.
Yes, as if I didn't have enough of a nightmare, a freakin' tropical storm blew in. Barbados was the easternmost island of the Caribbean, after all—outermost of the Windward Isles—and subject to the caprice of thousands of miles of open ocean.
The storm winds whipped artwork out of my hands, sent it skittering down the deck and nearly blew it overboard. As sheets of rain walloped the open deck, Aurelia frantically ran after fleeing, flying art again and again. There was no way to secure any of the hundreds of loose works of framed art stowed outside, no way to stop the wind from lashing, the rain from soaking. Even artwork inside the stairwell was wrecked, tumbling down the stairs with each swell, each list. Untold thousands of dollars in damage—much of it irreparable—was done. But then, Sundance was sloppy like that and used to paying such.
The storm was powerful but short. At about three o'clock it stopped. Having been hard at work since six, I needed to take a short break. Both Aurelia and I were soaked to the skin and shivering. A hot shower helped revive me. During that time Aurelia picked up the proverbial pieces of my livelihood. I thanked her and ordered her to bed. Onward I slogged, load after load, hour after hour. Only once did I stop, at 4:30 a.m., for a cup of coffee. The hard physical labor of transporting the old art to the crane took a whopping fifteen hours. It was finally completed at 9:30 a.m.—just in time for the hard part to begin.
Of course, I was supposed to sign off on vacation any minute. According to international law I was not allowed on the ship after 11 a.m. The new guy would have to finish. But he didn't show up.
Figures.
An hour of frantic paperwork shuffling was required to keep me legally aboard. Certainly it would take nothing short of being arrested to get me off the ship with the art in that condition. There was several million dollars worth of art spread out in the open all over the bridge deck, and I was liable for every penny!
Francois signed off on my immigration paperwork without issue, but Emmet was another matter. He refused to sign. He wanted me gone. He didn't think I was part of the family. Only after he personally verified with Francois that the new auctioneer would not arrive until tomorrow—apparently I was now a liar, as well—only then did he reluctantly sign the papers.
Quickly I had to cancel my taxi, cancel my flights from Barbados to Miami and Miami to Chicago and Chicago to Cedar Rapids. Then I had to rearrange a flight from St. Lucia all the way through to C.R. After that joyous hour of 'rest', it was time to start haulin' ass on the art swap.
Each crane load brought up one giant box of new art. I had to unload it, set the contents aside on the exposed deck in inclement weather, and reload the same box with old—now old and wet—art. Then I'd have it craned back down and repeat the whole procedure.
Loading huge, heavily framed art in those boxes meant bending entirely over and supporting all the weight with your lower back. There was no other way. It would have been brutal work even had I been fresh. But I was not fresh. I was already sixteen hours in. By six o'clock that evening—a full twenty-four hours of solid labor since I began, the second part of the job was complete.
Last came removing the new art from the raining, open deck and overloaded stairwell down to my art locker. That alone promised to take another fifteen hours. But I also had to remove the protective cardboard corners from each and every work of art. Otherwise they wouldn't fit in my locker!
Aurelia, despite my orders, stayed at my side the whole time. She wasn't a trooper; she was freakin' special forces. That second all-nighter was where she really saved me. She ripped off those corners hour after hour after hour, deep into the night. Her fingertips were a bloody wreck from ripping out all those staples. After 10 p.m. Daniel, the fitness trainer, helped out, and after 1 a.m. Nigel and Neil did, too. With their help, by sunrise everything was stowed away.
The art swap had taken a nonstop thirty-six hours. All that was left to do was clean up the eight or so thousand cardboard corners and the tens of thousands of staples littering the stairwell.
"We did it," I said to Aurelia, giving her a heartfelt hug. My back was so sore I literally couldn't feel her slender arms around me. All I felt was one intense, throbbing ache. "It could have been a disaster. Instead it just sucked beyond belief. There's some killer art to sell when I return, though. That's good news."
"No, it was a disaster," Aurelia said firmly.
"What?"
"You didn't see the deck?"
"What?" I repeated, growing concerned.
She led me outside to the open deck. As the sun rose orange, warm rays highl
ighted dozens upon dozens of scratches in the teak deck. Many had been scraped and re-scraped so many times that they compounded into deep gouges. The entire area around the crane was absolutely trashed. Because I'd been working in the dark, in the storm, I hadn't known we were causing damage. I hadn't known to alter our procedure. I hadn't seen a thing.
You could bet your sweet ass Emmet would.
4
The handover to the new guy, Hugh, went smoothly. Because of the art swap there was no time-taxing inventory. Because the Surf was so small there was no tour. There was no staff. Obviously Sundance had sent a newbie to the smallest ship in all the combined fleets. He was only a placeholder, after all, and we both understood this. Even so, the kid stared around with his mouth open, thinking the ship was a lot to handle. Poor kid had no clue.
No flights out of St. Lucia had been available on such short notice. I had been forced to book a room at a resort. Trying, I know. Aurelia joined me for the afternoon and evening, not having to return until 10 p.m. The vibe was sad, but not really. After all, I was already scheduled for a return in six weeks. Still, there were a lot of hugs and a few tears. And frogs.
After a lazy afternoon napping in each others' arms in a hammock, rocked gently by the warm, damp Caribbean wind, we took a walk. The grounds were lush with all manner of green things. As the sun set behind a screen of palms and a strip of beach, we found ourselves upon a wide, sloping lawn at the edge of a rainforest. We sat in the grass and were accosted by frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. Hordes of frogs. Big frogs, little frogs, pushy frogs. They were very demanding of our attention, like a house pet nudging your hand for a pat on the head. In this case, they jumped onto our bodies and wouldn't jump off. I had no idea frogs could be so tenacious. No wonder Kermit stuck with the exasperating Ms. Piggy all those years.
Darkness settled in. It was a wonderful, lingering moment in a place of charm, a place for a connection of hearts. The beautiful night and surroundings were a group hug. I didn't want to leave any of it. It was the first time I'd been anxious to return to a ship and pick back up right where I left off.
Chapter 21. Epilogue
1
From the very first days of vacationing with my parents I received frantic emails from Hugh. He had no idea how to sell anything and was in a near panic. I offered him bits and pieces of advice, but mostly told him to just calm down. Nobody would judge him based on his performance on Wind Surf. Yet the emails got longer and longer, from days two through six. I heard nothing from Hugh on day seven. Then I get a call from Aurelia that changed my life.
"I heard Hugh talking to Francois," she said. "They were in the art locker by the casino. You know what he said? He said the guy walked up to him and asked, 'Are you the art seller?' He said 'yes,' and the guy said, 'I'll take that Picasso.' He didn't ask how much, just handed him an American Express card!"
My heart sank. In the new art load—sent at my request for me to sell, I might add—there had been three Picassos. Each was over $100,000. With the unique commission system in place on Wind Surf, that kid just got over $30,000.
He also got my job. Gene, the big dog from Sundance, called to personally inform me.
"You won't be returning to Wind Surf after all," his voice said over the phone. "The new guy is outperforming you."
"I heard all about his one sale," I told Gene with particular emphasis. "Do you even know the story of how it happened? One lucky sale and you are throwing out an entire contract of surpassing goals every cruise for almost a year?"
"Actually, it's not just that," Gene admitted. "Wind Surf has denied your return."
"But they all already signed off on me!"
"They had," Gene agreed, "but one officer changed his mind. I just got off the phone with the chief officer, who has initiated paperwork suing us for some damages. He claims your misconduct destroyed one hundred square feet of teak decking. He claims it will cost over twenty thousand dollars to fix. You better hope not, because we're not paying it. That will fall on you."
I was incensed. Further, I was sick of being bullied by ships and all their ilk.
"No way," I snapped into the receiver. "You pass that on to me and I'll go public. I'll lie through my teeth about Sundance selling fakes."
Gene was silent for a long, long while. Finally he said he'd get back to me.
A week later all was settled. Sundance at Sea failed in its effort to make money on the cruise ship gift shops and was cutting losses. They sold everything at a loss across multiple fleets. They settled the lawsuit with Wind Surf by handing the gift shop back to them, inventory and all, including $10,000 in improvements they made. So that was all settled. What wasn't settled was my future with Sundance. But that, too, was settled, as far as I was concerned.
I told them to go to hell.
So what now? Aurelia was expecting me back on Wind Surf. While we had made no commitment to each other, we found great joy in each others' company. We made a good couple. She was a curious blend of feisty and shy, stubborn and aloof. She spoke four languages. I was... tall, I guess. I wasn't sure I was happy with letting our time together end so abruptly, so improperly. But my days at sea were over. Hers were only just beginning. Then again, her career wasn't about ships, but casinos. She'd worked a casino in Morocco three years before switching to ship casinos. If her goal was finding bigger and better casinos, I had much to offer. I lived in Las Vegas, baby!
2
"He who hath known the bitterness of the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth."
I dwelt upon each of those words, turning them over and over in my mind, thinking them particularly apt. They were written by Joseph Conrad, who well knew of such things. His time at sea had been filled with wonder—and misfortune. I could relate. His further words, written after leaving the sea forever, felt similarly relevant: "But one or two of us, pampered by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was impossible to swallow any of that stuff."
So the sea left me with a bitter taste but, like Conrad, I did not regret taking a bite. The sea did, indeed, provide sustenance for adventure. If one could stand the pervading, heavy dose of salt, the sea provided a bountiful harvest for the soul.
I thought I went to sea chasing love, but in fact was chasing life. There was nothing inevitable about it. I couldn't sustain my life in a cubicle any more than a fish in a cardboard box. It wasn't that I needed the sea, as the fish does. I hadn't known what I needed. I just knew something vital was missing. I had hunger, so I hunted. A glimmer of hope came in the form of Bianca, who led the way through the dark like a will o' the wisp: beautiful, entrancing, dangerous.
All the currents of the seven seas revolved around Bianca. Alas, she believed life was a destination. She worked her fingers to the bone to pay for future paradise. I lived it every day. I had desperately wanted to share it with her, but for various reasons she did not accept. When pressed to commit, she said the words, but did not feel them. Eventually, regretfully, I realized she never would. Regardless of what set me down the path, I enjoyed the stroll.
I'd learned much in my four years at sea. I learned how to make time for important things when none seemed to exist. I learned to recognize a precious moment before it was gone forever. I learned my emotional limits. I pushed the boundaries of my physical limits and learned the durability of the body was greater than that of fear. I also learned the importance of self definition. Too often we think of ourselves in terms of our partners. I was no longer the guy who chased Bianca. I was not Mr. Bianca any more than she was Mrs. Brian.
Ultimately I learned that, despite our best intentions and most fervent hopes, happiness cannot be given, though it must be accepted. One would think accepting joy would come naturally, but it doesn't. Before you can accept happiness you have to feel worthy of it. I knew I was worthy not just because I'd been bloodied in the battle of life, but because I'd kept moving forward after every hit. Everybody who worked the sea was running, either from something or, sometimes, towar
ds something. Perhaps the life aquatic wasn't so different from the life terrestrial, after all.
Appendices
He who hath known the bitterness of the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth.
—Joseph Conrad
Appendix A: Ode to Bianca
But I never wanted or tried to be anything else but a woman, and I assure you, no man coming to me is ever allowed to forget it, even if he can find my brain answering his.
All the time I keep well awake in his mind that he is having the pleasure of talking with a woman, that dreamed-of companion of every man's soul.
— Queen Marie of Romania
Appendix B: Rogue’s Gallery
Bianca (waitress) — still working at sea in the restaurants for Carnival Cruise Lines, providing her parents Piti and Lucky a comfortable and well-deserved retirement.
Leo (asst. Maitre d') — married to an American lass and living in Kentucky; a Hyundai salesman and proud father to a host of pit bulls.
Calypso (waitress) — returned to her South Africa and a competition pole dancer. Yes, really! For fun, not vocation.
Rasa (waitress) — after happily reuniting with her daughter in Lithuania, now lives with a dalmatian the size of a pony.
Bill (auctioneer) — lost to the modern world after disappearing in Thailand in pursuit of cheap, prolific prostitutes.
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