13. Dancing Around The Cooking Pot

  

                          
                                          DANCING AROUND THE COOKING POT

 

      John had never been sea sick before. He managed to make it to the sink in his cabin, then the toilet. He thought it would be over with when he had emptied his stomach but the ship dipped and swayed and danced and John retched and retched and retched. Oh my God, he thought. Is this going to go on and on? Is this payback for harassing that little closet case? Why do you have to be such a bitch sometimes? He threw himself on the bed and curled up into a fetal position holding his stomach and groaning. What the hell did I come on this cruise for in the first place? For Charlie? For Charlie? He felt a hand stroke the back of his neck. He heard Charlie’s sonorous voice. “What’s the matter, Johnny boy? It’s only a storm. It won’t last forever.” John’s eyes snapped open. He looked around the cabin in a panic. Christ, am I going crazy? Shit, Charlie, where the hell are you? Why did you have to leave me? God, I miss you so. If I could just hold you one more time. If I could just wake up one more time in your arms. The room stank of puke. John leaned over the bed and retched. I must get out, he thought. I’m going to fucking go nuts in here. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled out the door.

                                                                   *
     “So you ended up in Vietnam after all.”, said Dan as Snezhana set their drinks in front of them.  “Why did you tell me you got out?”
     “I don’t tell nobody about Nam.”, muttered Buck. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I like you. I wanted to keep things clean.”
     Dan swirled the ice in my drink. “You told Cesaria.”
     “She got to me.”, sighed Buck. “She was in pain and her pain got to my pain.”
     “Misery loves company.”, smiled Dan.
     “We’re all murderin’ animals, Dan.”, Buck said quietly. “And when that animal gets outta your skin, you can spend the rest of your life tryin’ to put it back in and you never will.”
     “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
     “Don’t be sorry, Dan.”
     "You tried to go to Gaza. What’s in Gaza for you?”
     Buck swallowed a mouth full of bourbon and looked out the window at the dancing waves. “Demons.”

     “Demons? You want to find demons?”
     “I already know a whole bunch of demons. Sometimes when I introduce some of ‘em to other demons, some of ‘em leave me alone.”
     “Sounds complicated."
     Buck turned and looked at Dan. “Things get complicated when you start killin’ people.”
                                                               *
     Courtney sat in the cabin staring at the cell phone in her hand. The storm had settled over the ship that rose and fell with an angry, unceasing, unmerciful rhythm. Courtney slowly, carefully placed the phone on the table. She looked out the porthole and watched the spray fly. She lowered her head into her hands and let out a sob. So this was it, she thought. Our childish fantasies have come to an end. No church to save us. No cousin to save us. No rich old ladies. What about you, Jesus? You still there? The thought of facing her parents waiting for them when they got off the airplane shot a searing pain in her stomach. The collection agency nightmares came back to her: the ringing, ringing, ringing day and night, the incessant threatening text messages, the stalking on Facebook, the threatening calls to her parents, the obscenities echoing in her ears. “We know your father has been molesting you. Why don’t you have him take his cock out of your pussy and stick it in your mouth? You know you like it. Why don’t you have your husband come over here and give us blow jobs? You’re a loser. Why don’t you jump in front of a train and kill yourself?”  How the hell did I get to such a place?, she asked herself. I’m only twenty-four. I can’t even hardly remember when the world wasn’t suffocating me. What did I do to lose everything? I didn’t commit any crime. I worked my butt off for years to try and make something of my life and yet here I am. The walls of the cabin began to close in on her. She couldn’t catch her breath. She jumped to her feet and rushed out.
                                                                      *
     Dan set his drink on the bar and looked at Buck. “But it’s war. You kill or be killed. It’s self-defense.”
     Buck’s eyes returned to the sea. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes it ain’t.”
     “I see.”, Dan caught Snezhana shaking her head. “Well for Christ’s sake, you were a kid. Young men and young women don’t know anything about the wars old men and women send them to.”
     “Forget tryin’ to make any sense out of it, Dan. Killin’s killin’. Gooks was nothin’ but animals to us grunts just like Palestinians ain’t nothin’ but animals to Isreali soldiers just like their grandparents was nothin’ but animals to Nazis. Your mind goes dead, shuts out the life of someone you gotta kill for whatever reason. It’s a job you got to do. The problem is, sometimes a job can be fun. Sometimes in order to do a really good job, you got to enjoy doin’ it.”
     “You didn’t enjoy it.”, Dan admonished. “It was survival.”
      Buck shook his head. “And then, after you’re done and you get a shiny new medal on your chest, your mind wakes up and you realize what you’ve done.”
      “But you had to do it!”                                      

      “What makes a man kill someone? What makes him rape ‘em or rob ‘em or torture ‘em or grind ‘em into the dust? The reason don’t matter, Dan. The reason don’t matter.”
                                                                *
     Nadine insisted Lucia come to their suite. When Gladys opened the door and ushered her in, she couldn’t help asking Lucia what she saw in some pinko, down and out bartender. Lucia burst into tears. Nadine put her arm around Lucia and wagged an angry finger at Gladys. Lucia’s tears turned to full blown sobs. “How could you say such an awful thing about Daniel?”, she moaned. “He’s a wonderful man! I’ve never met anyone like him! He’s so tender and thoughtful! We quote Shakespeare together spontaneously! We make wonderful love! We love Greek food! He told me he loves me! He cares about people! He cares about the world, and I don’t give a shit about anything but myself! I lied to him! I lied to him because I love him!” She suddenly looked up at Gladys and Nadine in astonishment. “You two are glad we had a fight! You two can’t stand him! I shouldn’t have left him at all! I should have stayed with him! I have to find him and talk to him! I must tell him I lied to him!”  Lucia looked at the door and went for it.
                                                                 *  
     Snezhana heard the tone Buck’s voice had taken. She saw the tension in his eyes. She
respectfully stepped to the other end of the bar out of earshot. Buck leaned close to Dan. His deep voice was barely audible. “I see the faces of the dead.”
    Dan looked into his eyes and saw fear. “We all have nightmares.”
    Buck’s voice fell an octave lower. “I ain’t talkin’ about nightmares.”
    Dan didn’t know what to think. “What dead faces do you see?”
    Buck’s fingers were massaging his forehead. “People I killed. People I love who are gone. People I ain’t never seen before.”
     “My God.”, Dan whispered. “Where do you see them?”
     “A Charlie’s snarlin’ face I see in a dark window at night.”, he sighed. “Gook villagers scared shitless stare at me out of the mirror.  I see people I ain’t never seen before that I know are dead standin’ right in front of me. I see kids. My wife’s been showin’ up a lot lately. She stares at me with love in her eyes. I miss my wife. I miss her so much, it’s killin’ me.”
                                                                 *
     Justin held on to the rail and emptied the last of the lamb’s testicles into the Aegean. The image of John’s smirking face danced in front of him. Justin shook himself. He felt Buck’s hand giving him an avuncular pat on the shoulder. What have I done? he thought. What the hell is going on with me? How could they possibly think I’m gay? I was just talking with the guys. That God damn asshole fag started all this and now Buck thinks I’m gay. Buck is a nice guy, a lot nicer than my dad sometimes. I was just getting to know him. I like another guy who’s a lot older than me and all of a sudden I’m gay? I can’t get a job. I can’t pay off my loans. I can’t support my wife. I can’t afford to ever have kids or own my own home and now I’m gay?  He threw his head over the rail and retched. “Lord Jesus.”, he whispered. “I am sick of body and sick at heart.”
                                                                *
     Buck finished his drink and pushed the empty glass away. Snezhana refilled it in an instant, topped Dan’s off and stepped away. The storm was full upon them. They had to balance on the bar stools and steady themselves with their feet. Snezhana had secured all the glassware and liquor, but she did not close the bar. Buck offered her a thankful smile. “Thanks, Doll. You’re a life saver.”
      Dan tried to say something comforting. “Have you suffered from PTSD all these years?”
     “I got it under control, for a while at least.”, said Buck. “But your mind wanders when things get short, when you get older, when you lose your moorin’s.”, He took a drink and looked Dan in the eyes. “Dan, I see the world losin’ it’s moorin’s and I think the only way I can get mine back is to help the world get its back. That’s why I wanted to go to Gaza. I wanted it to be in the papers and on the news that an old, fat vet thinks a big wrong should be righted. I wanted to look Apartheid in the face. I wanted to see the hunger in the eyes of them kids in Gaza. I wanted to see the Israeli checkpoints. I wanted to see the fear in them young soldier’s eyes, fear of the truth that's starvin' their souls, hunger for the truth they're starvin' for."
                                                                  *
     Cesaria was working her way along the deck. She lifted her cane in front of her with one hand and took a step. She leaned on her cane, slid her other hand forward down the rail and took another step. Her sari flapped and fluttered in the wind. Her mind reeled with the boiling cauldron of events and people that had filled the last two days. Gladys and Nadine tittered and squawked in her ears. They were running from their empty lives and they didn’t even know it. Their arrogance brought to mind the rapacious banks that had stolen Greece from the Greeks and her family reunion from her. For some reason she had not been surprised in the least when Sally blurted her financial predicament and almost cursed Courtney and Justin for having the temerity to be younger and more resilient than she. Sally was running from an ocean of debt yet fear had turned her against those two kids running from the same thing. Bob was running too. Running to build a feckless wall of self-denial. Dan was running from ruin and Lucia was running from herself. Poor John was running from a broken heart and Buck was running from his past. And I’m running too. A wave crested near the ship and threw spray in her face. It startled her. Look what has become of my country, she thought. We are all running form reality, dancing around in circles terrified of the wave that is about to engulf us all. The sky suddenly darkened. It began to rain.
                                                               *
     Dan reached over and touched his drink to Buck’s. “I think like you. I see my fellow citizens mewing like newborn kittens or yapping like spoiled lap dogs without a clue that there’s a boot hovering over them ready to crush them into a puddle of blood and guts.”
     Buck grinned. “That was some twisted story you told, amigo.’
     “The man smiles once more."
     “Them dogs and kittens don’t know nothin’ about that boot cause the news ain’t the news no more.”, said Buck. “In Nam you had reporters and cameramen on the battlefield. You saw the trenches filled with corpses in Mai Lai. You saw the body parts all over the streets after a bomb went off in a Saigon cafe. You saw grunts screamin’ in the dirt as their life bled outa them. You saw -”.  Buck’s voice caught in his throat.  He took a long belt of bourbon. “You saw that gook police chief blow the brains outa that Charlie durin’ the Tet Offensive. You saw that naked little girl covered in napalm runnin’ down the road screamin’ to the Lord.” Buck lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a quiet groan. “Now all you see is the video game the military puts out for you to see, Shock and Awe, Operation Iraqi Freedom. The news don’t put out the facts no more. They put out what they call ‘Both Sides o’ the Story’: the truth or whatever part of the truth they can drag their asses as close as they can drag ‘em  to, and the lies that they are glad to hand out with frostin’ and candles. Shit, you’re lucky if you even get ‘Both Sides o’ the Story’. Instead of hearin’ about how chemical companies are takin’ over the food supply, you hear about the poor little bear cub caught in the whirlpool. Instead of hearin’ about international trade agreements that agree there ain’t oughta be no nations no more, you hear about the poor little drugged out millionaire teenage actress that got a speedin’ ticket. Instead of hearin’ about Wall Street’s for-profit universities scammin’ innocent kids and lost vets outa all their money and into the belly of debt, you hear about the kitten that saved the puppy.”
     Dan chuckled. “Shit, it’s flat-out corporate propaganda as brazen as anything Goebbels spewed. What do you think is going to happen to this great country of ours?”
     Buck shook his head. “People are pissed. People are catchin’ on. I think this Occupy Wall Street is gonna be a Tahrir Square, at least for a while.”
     “Americans are going to start a revolution on Wall Street?”, Dan scoffed.
     “It’ll be the first step.”, said Buck. “It won’t last long. Wall Street will snap its fingers and the FBI and Homeland Security will squash ‘em.”
     "How do you know so much about this?"  
     “Hell, it’s on the internet, Dan. You got a laptop? You got a phone?”
     “I have a phone but I swore I’d shut everything out on this last trip of mine and think.”
     “And instead of thinkin’, all you’re doin’ is fuckin’”, laughed Buck. “What do you think is going to happen to this great country of ours?”
     Dan looked into his drink. “I see everyone sitting around their televisions or their computers shaking their heads in confusion or willful ignorance or fear watching the Security State rise out of its fascist grave. It can’t happen here, they’ll say, but people will come to their senses. We’re the birthplace of democracy, the land of the free, the shining city on a hill.”
     “There’s a time slot that’s still open, Dan, but it’s closin’. You heard what that punk senator now roastin’ in hell said. You heard him, Dan. ‘The big boys back home are settin’ things in motion. Everything’s in place. It’s just a matter of time.’ If by some chance we come to our senses in time, we may be able to stop it. There’s a lot of us and there ain’t too many o’ them.”
     “Percy Bysshe Shelley.”, smiled Dan.
     “Who?”, asked Buck as a bank of black rain raked the window.
      Dan swallowed a mouth full of scotch.  
     “Rise like Lions after slumber
     In unvanquishable number,
     Shake your chains to earth like dew
     Which in sleep had fallen on you -
     Ye are many - they are few.”
     “You know an awful lot of snooty shit for a bartender.”, said Buck. “Politics, Shakespeare, poetry. Maybe you ain’t who you say you are.” 
     Dan raised an eyebrow. “The Goldberg Variations, Cossi fon tutti, Tinariwen, apartheid? Maybe you aren’t who you say you are.”
     Buck was staring out the window running with rain. His eyes slid over to look at Dan. “Maybe I ain’t.”
                                                                    *
     Sally put her hands on the toilet seat, pulled her head away from the bowl and pushed herself to her feet. She shivered with humiliation. She had exposed herself. How could she have told those people about the mortgages? Her horrible secret was out. Now everyone knew Bob and she were - they were failures, flakes. Their sparkly, perfect, enviable life from Tiffany’s had been exposed for what it was, a Blue Light Special. She moaned and put her hand on her forehead. Nadine hadn’t said a word when Sally compared her string of plastic to Nadine’s pearls. Was she being polite or just farsighted? Bob had put on such a good show about his offshore money and the tax holiday that she couldn’t help but play along. What was she supposed to do, tell the ugly truth? Why hadn’t President Obama kept the banks off their back like he promised? She let out a bitter laugh. Mortgages? Plural? Sedona was gone. Tahoe was gone. Los Altos was next. My God, she thought. What will happen to us? Bob’s job hung in the balance. Their savings were almost gone. His 401K was worthless. She hadn’t worked since she was a young woman. What will we do?  Where will we live? She hadn’t even told the children. What would they say when they found out their parents were practically bankrupt yet had run away to Greece? She shuddered. Why hadn’t Bob even reacted to her shameful actions? Maybe he didn’t care. No one else had said anything. Maybe no one else cared. They were all so concerned about those two college kids. They were probably having a good laugh around the table on her behalf. Why hadn’t Bob followed her out? Was he still at the table? Was he still sitting next to that college girl? Why was she always next to her husband? What were those two doing on a cruise in the first place? What were they doing working their way into the company of people so much older than them? Why was she always smiling at Bob? Why had she worn such a low-cut dress to lunch? A sudden feeling of terror swept over Sally. She looked wild eyed around the suite. “I must find my husband!”, she shouted before bolting out the door.
                                                                  *
    “An international man of mystery.”, laughed Dan. The lunch was beginning to wear off and he was feeling the whiskey. He was getting a thrill out of the storm. The ship would take a deep dive and then lift up and up, hang in midair then crash back onto the sea. “Did you order this storm for its dramatic effect on our end of the world conversation, Buck?”
     Buck laughed and tossed a lurid look at Snejhana. “I ordered this storm in order to make sure all them squawkin’ bozos on this ship shut the fuck up.”
     Dan nodded. “We couldn’t have ordered a better crowd to offer up to God a better example of the citizens of the greatest country in the world and their God given right to lead the other nations of the world into the challenges we all face in the twenty first century.”
     Buck raised his glass to him “You oughta run for office, Dan.”
     “I’ve got to run for something. I’m broke, over fifty and unemployable.”
     “Hell.”, said Buck. “If worse comes to worse, you can always tend bar again.”
     Dan shook his head. “Did you make up that entire story about your pre induction physical?”
     Buck shrugged. “All true but like I told you, Dan. The weird shoes didn’t work and the guy that picked me up in the mustang gave me the drugs cause he felt sorry for me.”  
     “Well, we have a funny coincidence here.”, sighed Dan. “You see, I have bad feet too. They get worse the older I get. I can’t stand for more than a couple of hours anymore and I can’t tend bar sitting down. All that experience, all that knowledge and natural talent to do ten things at once, to cajole and reassure and flatter and tease, to stay one step ahead of everyone in the room, all useless now." Dan swirled the ice in his glass and took a swallow. “But I don’t think I could last long anyway. I’m sick of the business. It got worse and worse in the recession and trying to stay afloat and keep it open day after day, coming to work and seeing fewer and fewer customers, I started to hate it. I’m sick of it. I’m fucking sick of it. There are very few people who have the constitution to survive more than a few years in the business. Everyone else slowly kills themselves with booze and drugs or gets out of the business entirely. If you’re smart enough to get out of the business, you better be young. If you’re over fifty in America, shit, over forty, you’re unemployable.”
    Buck shook his head and looked into his drink. “Have you done what you wanted to do with your life, Dan? Do you look back and feel good about your life? If you do, then you're ahead of most poor fools. What if you had done the ‘sensible’ thing to do? What if you spent your entire life workin’ nine to five at some grunt job at some grunt company so you could retire and live out your ‘golden years’? What if your bosses got tired of payin’ you for a lifetime of commitment and you was forced to train your Chinese replacement before your job got shipped to China and you lost your retirement and your health insurance and your ass was out on the street?  At least you didn’t waste your life just to have some fellow American bend you over and fuck you. You had a life. You lived a life doin’ what you wanted to do. You was lucky. Most of the boobs in our country wasn’t. And those two kids ain’t, them an’ 99 percent of the rest of the people in the country. Maybe you oughta get off the grid, Dan. Maybe you oughta jump in and do somethin’ for your country before it’s too late.”
     “What,”, Dan asked. “march in the streets? Put up a tent in a square?”
     Buck tapped his glass on the bar. “The Mexicans fought back. Ever heard o’ the Zapatistas? They didn’t win but they fought back. In ‘93, the Zapatista National Liberation Army Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle said ‘We got nothin’ to lose, absolutely nothin’, no decent roof over our heads, no land, no work, poor health, no food, no education, no right to choose our leaders, no independence from greedy gringos and no justice for ourselves or our children. But we say enough is enough!’. There’s a lotta things you can do, Dan.”  Buck turned back to the window splattered with furious rain. “There’s a lotta things that are happenin’ that you don’t know about.”
     “Are you going to tell me you’re a member of Anonymous?”, laughed Dan. 
     “You believe in free speech like every other red-blooded American, don’t you Dan? And it don’t sit well with you when countries prosecute their reporters and censor the internet. Thank God that we don’t have to worry about that in the Land of the Free.”
     “I know. I know.”, Dan moaned. “The world’s gone to shit. It’s being sucked dry by zombies and vampires but what the hell am I going to do about it? I’m no hacker and if I were, I how could I live, by sleeping on some couch moving from safe house to safe house? Am I supposed to live in a tent in some square at my age? How are you going to do it, if that’s what you're intimating? What do you do? How do you live?”
                                                              *
     It took all of Cesaria’s concentration to keep her balance as the deck rose and fell. Her head was down as she watched one foot follow another. It was raining hard now. Her sari was drenched. Her hand slid forward on the rail and touched Justin’s. They both jumped.
     “Cesaria!”, shouted Justin. “What are you doing out here? It’s raining! It’s dangerous for you!”
     “Dangerous and thrilling, my boy!”, grinned Cesaria. “What are you doing out here?”
     “Puking my guts out.”, groaned Justin.
     “It’s a lot easier to do that in your cabin. Where’s Courtney?”
     Justin’s eyes flew open in alarm. “I don’t know! She left the table and I didn’t follow her.”
     “Don’t worry.”, said Cesaria reassuringly. “She’s probably in your cabin calling England.”
     “Everyone thinks I’m gay!”, blurted Justin.
     Cesaria let go of the rail and patted Justin’s arm. “Justin, dear. It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks.”
     “Do you think I’m gay?”, demanded Justin.
     A sudden wave hit the ship and almost tossed Cesaria off her feet. She fell into Justin’s arms. They danced around for a moment trying to keep from falling to the deck. “Thank you dear. And for heaven’s sake don’t worry about any of that. The only person who really knows whether you’re gay or not is you.”
     “I’m not gay!”, shouted Justin.
     “Oh for heaven’s sake, young man!”, frowned Cesaria as she blinked the rain out of her eyes. “You are young and healthy and you have your whole life ahead of you. Should you ever be so lucky to get to my age, you’ll look back and chide yourself for wasting precious time worrying about something as silly as whether you’re gay or not!”  
     Justin looked past Cesaria. There was terror in his eyes. “I have to find my wife!”
     Cesaria reached up and took hold of Justin’s collar. “Did you hear what I just said to you, dear? You have your whole life ahead of you. Somewhere, sometime in your confusion, in your struggle try to think of what’s ahead of you, what a gift you have in life, what you can do with your life, what you can experience, what you can live and what you can give back to the world. You are blessed with youth, my dear. You are blessed with youth.”
     Justin clenched his fists and shook his head. He pushed himself from the rail and staggered off.
                                                                        *
     Buck changed the subject. “Do you love that red head?”
     Dan shuddered. “Hell, I don’t know. I told her I did this morning.”
     “In the closet?”, asked Buck.
     “In the closet.".
     “Them closets can mix a guy up.”
     “So can a red head.”.
     “With the body of the gods.”, smiled Buck.
     Dan lifted his glass skywards. “And an ass that could make a man swoon.”
     Buck leered at Snezhana. “And really great tits.”
     Dan lowered his glass. “And she’s fucking crazy.”
     Buck smiled warmly. “Ya sou. Sas aresei vysia mou?”
     Dan dropped his head. “And she loves Shakespeare and Greek food and laughter and Kerala. Shit, I’m in love and I’m doomed.”
     “Bullshit.”, said Buck. “Over fifty and unemployable and you still got a rich bombshell after you. I’d say you’re doin’ pretty good.”
                                                               *
     Lucia bolted down the hallway. She careened from left to right as the ship swayed in the storm. She saw an outside door and opened it. Rain splashed on her face. A gust of wind almost knocked her off her feet. She stumbled to the rail and slammed into someone bent over and retching. “John! What are you doing? You should be in your cabin if you’re this sick! What’s the matter?”
     John looked up at her. Tears were streaming down his face. “This is my last dance, Lucia!”, he shouted over the wind and waves. “I miss Charlie! I miss him so much, it’s killing me!”
     For a moment the fog of conflicting emotions and self-pity swirling around Lucia dissipated.  She hooked her arm in John’s. “Oh, you poor man! Here I am feeling sorry for myself because I had a fight with Daniel and you’re all alone in the world!”
     John wiped the tears and rain off his face. It began to pour. He looked down at Lucia. “You two are in love. Do you know that?”
     Lucia started to cry. “I just figured that out. How in the hell did I fall for a liberal? These last few days I’ve heard things come out of my mouth that I thought I’d never say. My plan was to bring him to the light, to accept the way the world is going and enjoy each other while there’s time left. It was a fool’s errand and now I’m trapped.”  
     “Trapped? Trapped in love? For God’s sake, woman. The only thing worth living for is love. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Try being trapped in love with nothing left but memories. I remember when I first met Charlie. He stood at the end of the bar like a wooden owl on a building. Every,,,,one around him was smaller. They all ignored him. The DJ was playing The Tennessee Waltz. I pushed my way through the crowd. I asked him to dance. What is that conduit between two mutually attracted pairs of eyes? It’s tastes of spring water when you wake up parched in the middle of the night. He had a salt and pepper beard that rose to his cheeks and down his neck and suddenly I was dancing at the prom I never got to, held close. He said I smelled sweet. And then he was gone, and I had nothing but a phone number, his owl face a mirage and The Tennessee Waltz ringing in my ears. I was alone with a perfect memory, unspoiled by disappointment, faceted by unrequited potential, a drop of the joy of life to be put in a bottle and kept for emergencies and now that’s all I’ve got. You’ve got a man. Go to him.”
                                                                   *
     Dan let out a laugh and looked at Buck. “God damn, you’re right. What am I doing moping around when I’m here on a cruise of the Greek islands with a rich, beautiful woman. I ought to be ashamed of myself.”
     Buck gave Snezhana a once over. “We both oughta be enjoyin’ life more. We’re a couple of old farts with God knows what in front of us and too much behind us to give a shit. So what if the world’s goin’ down the toilet. We won’t be around much more to worry about it. It’s them kids, I think about.”
     “Courtney and Justin?”
     “Them and all the others, Dan. I remember when I was a kid and looked at people our age and thought they was from another world. Now I look at kids and think the same thing. That’s ‘cause we are from two different worlds. They look at the world and think there’s no tomorrow. We look at the world and know they might be right. They’re the future and the rest of us squabblin’ cannibals oughta forget about everything else for once and think about them.”
                                                                 *
     Nadine and Gladys were left alone in their suite with their hands hanging at their sides. Nadine stared angrily at Gladys. “See what you’ve done, you old fool! You’ve driven our Lucia back into the arms of that, that bartender!”
     “Don’t you dare talk to me like that!”, huffed Gladys. “Lucia’s lost her way and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it. That horrible man has poisoned her and she’s on her way to rack and ruin.”
     Nadine nervously ran her hands down her blouse. “You’re right, Gladys. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it because Lucia is in - ” Nadine gulped. A shocked look spread over her face. “Because Lucia is - ” Nadine smiled and put her hand over her breast. “Because Lucia is in love!”
     “Don’t be silly, you empty headed hussy!”, snapped Gladys. “She’s nothing of the sort! She’s merely -” Something suddenly entered the bitter old woman’s heart that hadn’t been there for a very long time. “My God, Nadine! You’re right! Our Lucia is in love and there’s nothing we can do about it!”
     Nadine clutched Gladys’ wrist. “Except make sure our dear Lucia is happy! Oh Gladys! Lucia is in love! Come! We must find her! We must make amends! She needs us!”
     The two of them hurriedly shuffled out the door into the corridor where they ran head long into to Courtney. “It’s you two!”, she gasped. “Oh my God! I’ve just called my church in Scotland and my cousin in London and there’s nothing for us! No job, no lodging! They’re all out of work themselves! They didn’t even want to see my husband and me! Please! It’s fate that I ran into you!  I’m desperate! You are our last hope!”
     “Oh Courtney!”, gasped Nadine. “We’re on a mission! Lucia is lost and in love and we have to find her!”
     “Lost and in love!”, shot Courtney. “Justin and I are desperate! You said you could help us!”
     “Help you?”, hissed Gladys as she marched forward and pushed Courtney out of the way. “You helped yourself to a fortune in free money and what do you do when you can’t pay it back? You dance around the Mediterranean on a cruise! You got your free education and found out that nothing in life is free! Grow up, you little parasite!”
                                                                       *
  
    Buck winked at Snezhana. “Fill ‘er up one more time, doll and then we’ll leave you alone.” Snezhana smiled and carefully poured another drink.
    Dan raised his glass. “Those poor kids have gone through hell and they haven’t even begun. They can’t go home. God knows if they will get jobs in England.”
    Buck lifted his glass. “They got sucked into that Baby Boomer shit. They got sucked into that Jesus crap. They got sucked into believing’ those old harpies could help ‘em but they keep goin‘. They keep goin’ cause they gotta. They’re the future. They’re our future. They’re worth fightin’ for.”
     Dan ran his fingers through his hair. “So what do we do? Drag out the barricades? Find another Gandhi? Another Martin Luther King? Some Molotov cocktails?”
     Buck shrugged his shoulders “How desperate are you, Dan? How far are you from the street? You’re at the end if you end up on the street alone. You’re smart, you’re informed, you’re pissed off. Wouldn’t you rather be on the street with a bunch of others just like you? So you run from some half way house to another. Ain’t you runnin’ now? Sure a Greek cruise is better than a couch but I’m guessin’ you don’t have another cruise lined up when this one runs out.”
     “What is this? Are you asking this old fart to join the revolution?”
     Buck’s bottomless brown eyes focused on Dan's. He was transfixed. “I like that poem of yours, Dan. It reminds me of somethin’. ‘We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.’ These goons are serious, Dan. We already got more people in jail than any other country, more than twice as much as fifteen years ago. There’s eighty thousand in solitary in the Land of the Free. Dubya claimed he could throw any of us in jail without trial for as long as the war on terror lasts which is forever, and I heard Obama's gonna codify it. We are bein’ conquered and enslaved just as flat out as if it was at the end of a gun and when we resist, it will be. It’s comin’, Dan, and you gotta be ready for it. When you’re standin’ in a crowd of ten thousand, fifty thousand and everyone shouts at the top of their lungs ‘RISE UP!’, you’re gonna feel a surge of power run through you like you never felt in your life. And you're gonna shout with ‘em Dan. You're gonna shout at the top of your lungs ‘RISE UP!’ It’s comin‘, Dan. There’s gonna be riots and burnin‘. There’s gonna be blood, Dan, a sea of blood. We’re gonna run like rats and roar like lions. The goons that run this world and the millions of morons clutchin’ their money are gonna come down on us like a hammer but we’re gonna drown ‘em. We’re gonna smother ‘em cause when a man gets to a certain point in a fight, he don’t care if he lives or dies. We’re gonna be in a place we never been before, Dan and we ain't gonna recognize any of it. The arc of history is gonna come crashin’ down on all the little monkeys that stand upright and change us forever, one way or the other, for better or worse. When the dust clears, if it's for the better, a couple of guillotines'll do. If it's for the worse, it's heil Hitler all over again. Just remember, Dan. Never weaken. Never become a victim. Keep fightin’. You gotta keep fightin’ ‘cause it’s the only way you’re gonna get through what’s comin’.”
                                                                     *
     Bob slowly made his way back to the suite. He shuddered at the drama he would be facing. Sally would whimper and whine. Then she would get angry and loud. The only thing that would calm her down was a good fuck and Bob wasn’t interested. Maybe he could suddenly get seasick and beg off. Maybe Sally was too sick to care. Bob sighed. He would not even have left the table if Courtney hadn’t shamed him into it. It was so wonderful sitting next to her. He couldn’t get the image of her red dress out of his mind. He could see her long fingers twisting around her wine glass. He could smell her just washed hair. Her beautiful brown eyes smiled at him and all the lies and fear and shame he had come on this cruise to get away from disappeared. The door to his suite was just down the hall. He lowered his head in resignation and opened it. The suite was empty. He suddenly heard the pattering of feet running down the hall. He looked outside to see Courtney running toward him. His heart was in his throat.
                                                                 *
     Dan heard the door to the bar swing open. His skin tingled and the hair on the back of his neck stood on edge. He turned to see Lucia standing in the doorway dripping with rain. She had a lost look on her face. Her eyes found his. “I lied to you, Daniel. I lied to myself. I was as deep into the business as my husband. I was making money hand over fist and I loved it. I didn’t care about slave labor. I worked with my husband to push for laws that would put someone away for years for a gram of cocaine or an ounce of marijuana. The only thing that put an end to my greed was my husband’s infidelity and the divorce. Even that was more a blow to my pride than anything else. I got my divorce. I got my money and I got a new life yet here I am lost in a storm in the middle of the Mediterranean in love with an out of work, liberal bartender.”  Confusion knitted her brow and creased her face. She buried her face in her hands. She groaned and threw her hands to her side. She looked out the window. “What the hell is wrong with me?”, she asked the storm battering the glass. She looked back at Dan. “What the hell am I going to do?”
    Dan got off his stool and stepped toward her. “We’ll figure this out, darling.”  
     A startled look shot across her face. Then she frowned. “No! No, we won’t figure this out! I will figure this out!” She turned on her heels and stormed out.
     For a moment Dan was paralyzed. “What the hell have I got myself into?”, he asked the room. The ship swayed and dipped, shuddered and jumped. “How the hell did I fall in love with that little Nazi bitch?” He turned around to see Buck and Snezhana staring at him helplessly. “What am I going to do?” He staggered out the door.
     The door to the bar slammed shut. Buck turned on his bar stool and shook his head. “That didn’t work out the way I thought.”
     Snezhana shrugged her shoulders. “Americans sad bunch of dummies.”
     Buck let out a laugh. “Ain’t we? The storm’s ragin’ on the sea and all the rats are dancin’ around in circles.” Buck sighed and looked into his bourbon. “The storm’s ragin’ in the world and all the rats are dancin’ around in circles.”
     Snezhana placed her hands on the bar and leaned close to Buck. “Poison woman, poison love.”
     “One thing’s for sure.”, said Buck. “If they get together tonight, they’re gonna have one hell of a fuck.”
     Snezhana snorted and shook her head. “That woman beautiful on outside but inside like old witch.”
     “I hope you’re wrong, darlin’. I really do.”, muttered Buck. He looked at Snezhana and smiled. “That reminds me. I been meanin’ to ask you. You said somethin’ to one of them old hags in Bulgarian in the bar the other night. Do you remember?”
     Snezhana smirked. “Mayka ti duha na mechki v gorata. Is old Bulgarian curse. Your mother suck bear in forest.”
     “That ain’t bad.”, laughed Buck. “I’ll put that in my file. I’m gonna need all the ammo I can get where I’m goin’.”
     “Where you go?”, asked Snezhana with feigned indifference.
     Buck finished the bourbon in his glass. “Up and down, in and out, here and there. I been on the road a long time, doll. Plenty of thugs want to see me off it. I done a lotta things I ain’t proud of to stay on my feet and I’ll probably do a lot more but nobody’s gonna knock me off my feet, not if I can help it.”
     Snezhana looked warmly at Buck and filled his glass. “Is other Bulgarian saying. When in much danger, is OK to walk with devil until you cross bridge.”
     Buck smiled nostalgically. “A great American once used that sayin’, doll when talkin’ about a devil named Stalin.”  He looked out the window at the boiling rain. “A great American that we ain’t never gonna see the likes of again.”
     Snezhana reached across the bar and placed a small hand on Buck’s. “Bar close now. Bartender seasick.”
     Buck smiled and traced a finger down her cheek. “I ain’t feelin’ so hot myself. Best we get to bed and sleep this weather off.”

                                                                  
                                                                         *

     Courtney was blind with tears and panic. The ship lurched and she almost bowled Bob over. “Courtney! What’s wrong? Where are you running to?”
     Courtney eyes ricocheted with fear. “I’m not running to anything. I’m - I’m running away!”
     “Calm down.”, said Bob breathlessly. “You’re all in a dither.”
     Courtney looked around the hall. “I’m trying to get outside and I can’t find a way out! What level am I on?”
     Bob smiled reassuringly. “Top level. Suite level. This is our suite. Why don’t you come in and relax?”
     Courtney looked at Bob for the first time. “This is your suite?” She took a deep breath. “Where is Sally?”
     Bob opened the door and motioned Courtney in. “She must have just stepped out. I’m sure she’ll be right back.”
     Courtney stuck her head in the door and looked around. She looked at Bob. “You two are so nice.” The ship rolled and she stumbled into the suite.  She offered a strained smile. “I hope you don’t take offense at this but you kind of remind me of my mom and dad and I can’t even look my mom and dad in the eyes. There are no jobs for Justin and me in England! No jobs!”
     Bob followed her in and closed the door. “I may remind you of your father but you and I have more in common than you think.”
     “We do?”, asked Courtney, her head swimming. “What do you mean?”
     Bob stepped toward Courtney. “Financially.”  
     A confused look crossed Courtney’s face. “Financially?”
     Bob stepped closer. “You heard my wife at the table. Don’t you remember? You two can run away. You can’t go bankrupt, but you can run away.”
     Courtney stepped back. “What do you mean?”
     Bob put his hand on Courtney arm. “I can run away too.”
     Courtney lifted Bob’s hand off her arm. “That is the second time you’ve done that today. That’s not appropriate, Bob.”
     Bob’s face suddenly flushed. “I can run away and I can go bankrupt.”
     The confusion on Courtney’s face turned to fear. “What in the world are you talking about?”

     “I’m just as much of a victim of the banks as you are!” blurted Bob in an urgent whisper. “My wife worships that fucking monkey, Obama but did he lift a finger to help us? While he spouted a lot of gas, the banks said they were going to renegotiate our mortgages! ‘Just keep making the payments and we’d be fine.’, they said, but they fucked me just like they fucked you! I know what you’ve been through because I’ve been through it too! We’re both victims but I can go bankrupt! You’ve run your cards out but I’ve got plenty of credit left on my cards! We could last for years in Europe! I could get rid of that fat mill stone around my neck and you could get rid of that fruit of a husband of yours!” He grabbed both of her arms and pulled her to him. “I can’t get you out of my mind! I look into your eyes and all this bullshit evaporates! You made me happy for the first time since I can remember! You make me happy and I can make you happy!”

     The ship dropped then bounced. Courtney lost her balance and sat down hard on the bed. She jumped to her feet and pushed free of his arms. "Oh my God!  What are you doing? What are you saying? You’re crazy!”

     Bob put his hands on her face and pulled her to him. “You’re damned right I am! Crazy for you, you steaming, sexy vixen!”

     Courtney pushed against him with all her strength. “Get out of my way or I’ll start screaming!”

     Bob grabbed Courtney’s breast and forced her hand on his crotch. He put his lips to her ear and growled. “Feel that, baby? Feel that? We’re gonna make each other scream!” He rammed his tongue in her mouth.

     “What the hell is going on here?!”

     Sally was standing behind them with a furious look on her face. Bob let go and spun around. “A wave hit the ship! She fell. I had to catch her!”

     Sally stormed past her husband and grabbed Courtney’s dress. “What in hell do you think you are doing?”

     Courtney was white. “What am I doing? My God! Can’t you see?”

     Sally shook Courtney’s arm. “I see a little slut who had no qualms about waltzing her way into a married man’s suite while his wife was away! That’s what I see!”

     “But he invited me in here!”, stammered Courtney. “I trusted him! You reminded me of my parents!”

     “She said she had only a cabin with a port hole!”, babbled Bob. “She said she wanted to see what a suite looked like.”

     “What kind of parents would raise a whore like you?”, hissed Sally as she shook Courtney’s arm harder and harder.

     “You’re both insane!”, screamed Courtney. “Let go of me! You’re hurting me!”

     “I’m hurting you?”, snarled Sally. “I ought to throw you overboard!”

     The ship wobbled then pitched. They both tripped against the wall. “Get your hands off me, you lunatic!”, screeched Courtney.

     Sally slapped Courtney across the face. “Shut your mouth, you little tramp!” She looked at Bob. “What the hell are we going to do with her?”

    Bob was staring past her with a stunned look on his face. Suddenly Sally felt herself being lifted off the floor. She let go of Courtney and spun around. Justin’s face was inches from hers. “Get your hands off my wife!”

    The rage in Sally’s eyes ignited. “How dare you touch me!”

    Courtney ran behind her husband. Bob was cowering against the wall. Steam was shooting out of Sally’s ears. She shook herself free of Justin’s grasp and slapped him. “Just look at you all macho and manly storming into someone else’s suite pretending to save his wife when she’s the one after another woman’s husband, and why shouldn’t she when she’s married to a faggot? Do you hear me, you little faggot? You stupid little pansy! You pathetic little queer! The whole ship is laughing behind your back watching you dance around throwing yourself at that fat anti semite!” 

    Both Courtney and Justin backed away. Courtney was clutching Justin’s arm. “How dare you talk to my husband like that! You’re berserk!”

    Sally looked as if she were about to burst into flames. She picked a glass up off a table and hurled it at them “Get out of my suite you perverts! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll have you thrown off the ship!”

     Justin and Courtney were at the door. Another glass sailed past their heads. They backed into the corridor. Sally came at them with her arms in the air. “Whore! Cocksucker!”

     A wave hit the ship hard. The fire in Sally’s eyes turned to cold terror. A piercing fart echoed in the suite behind her. She threw her hand over her mouth and vomited. The ship leered and the floor of the suite tipped up. She swayed and tripped backwards bouncing into Bob and knocking them both off their feet.

   The ship listed and threw Justin and Courtney into each other’s arms. The door slammed shut. Courtney burst into tears and buried her head in Justin’s chest.

    “Justin!”, she sobbed. “I can’t believe this is happening to us!”

     Justin stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. “It’s OK, babe. It’s over. You’re safe now. I’m here. We’re together. We have each other.”

    “It’s not over, Justin. It’s not near over.”

     “Babe, I love you. You’re everything to me.”

     “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

     “Cesaria told me I - we have our whole lives ahead of us. It’s awesome. It’s so awesome. We’ll get off this ship. We’ll get away from these poisonous people. We’ll make a whole new life.  We’ll get to London and find jobs.”

     “There are no jobs, my dear husband.”

      “Of course there are jobs! If not in London, then Scotland!”

     “There are no jobs.”

                                                                        *

     Dan saw a door to the deck and stepped out into the rain. He grabbed the rail to keep his balance and began to work his way to the bow. The wind beat the clothes around his body and his hair around his face. His feet slipped on the deck. When he reached the prow, the ship reared like an angry stallion then crashed back into the sea. He had tried to embrace Lucia but she had turned from him. He said they would figure things out. She said she would figure things out. He felt like a lap dog, a brainless little lap

dog begging to be stomped. He came to Greece to find himself and he found a fool dancing a jester’s dance. He clung to the rail as the ship sailed up into the sky and dove into the waves. A geyser of foam exploded over his head. His guts were twisting. He had been a performer his whole life thinking he had created his own wonderful world when he was only entertaining a parade of fools for shelter and sustenance. And now the fools had moved on. His performance was over. The curtain had fallen to listless applause and the back door to the back alley was open and waiting for him. He lowered his head in anger and shame. What the hell was he going to do? What if he couldn’t get another joint opened? What if he couldn’t even get a gig? How could this dinosaur with the beat-up feet even keep a gig if he got one? Was he going to end up on the street? How many sad souls laying on the sidewalk had he passed shaking his head and thinking there but for the grace of God go I? Jesus Christ, he thought. Was it even worth it anymore? Did he really want to spiral down that hellhole - limping back from a pitiful last hurrah to an eviction notice on his door, a decent into madness shivering under a filthy blanket on a

freezing cement sidewalk in an interminable black night? Maybe he should step off now. What could be a more dramatic goodbye, a more thrilling exit than just letting go and flying off into the Aegean? He shook himself. Hell, he had a beautiful woman rich as sin who said she loves him. She could back him in a new place. If it didn’t work out between them, he’d make the joint a go and buy her out. That was an option, wasn’t it?  My God, it was a gift. Wasn’t it? Or it was a pact with the devil, a red headed devil with green eyes who just might get him over the abyss that was opening under his feet or just might push him in. He gripped the rail in frustrated impotence, twisted his fists around the wet steel and squeezed with all the strength in his hands and his wrists and his arms and his shoulders and his chest. He let out a roar from the bottom of his soul. The prow flew up and up, hung for a moment in the air then dropped like a stone. It hit the sea so hard his legs flew out from under him. The only thing that kept him from sailing overboard was his furious, white knuckled grip. His nose caught the rail as he crashed back down on the deck. Blood ran down his face. He turned into the storm and the rain washed him clean. The prow soared into the air again. He threw his arms over the rail and pressed it into his armpits. He prayed to God to give him the strength to keep from being thrown into the sea. This time the ship sliced the waves like a knife. The wind had suddenly changed and the ship was riding with it. The jarring crash into the ocean turned into a mad roller coaster. Jesus Christ, he thought. I almost died. He gulped in the air and grinned wide eyed at the horizon. He found his breath. The rain pelted his face. He found his pride. The wind caressed him.  He found the rest of his life opening its arms to him. So he was fucked. What the hell was he going to do? You got to keep pushing. When a man gets to certain point in a fight, he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. He has to let go and face life with all he’s got. He lowered his head and swore to himself that no matter what happens, he will never leave by the back door. And then he prayed. He prayed to God almighty that he would never get so desperate as to kill himself. There was nothing worse than that, God. Nothing.