2. As Pissed Off As A Stiffed Hooker

  

                                                AS PISSED OFF AS A STIFFED HOOKER

 

     They coiled around each other. The rest of the day and the night they slept, they woke, they consumed each other. They were obsessed. The next morning the ship was at sea. Dan looked out the windows at a sky on fire with the dawn. Lucia slept like a cat beside him. He stared at her and went short of breath. She stirred. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Is it morning, Daniel?” She reached up and brushed away a lock of hair from his forehead. The expression on her face was of wonder, of flooding affection. “Daniel, what have we done?”
     He blushed as he looked back into her eyes. He felt more than lust. He realized what he was feeling and that suddenly shook him. “Something we didn’t intend.”
     She reached up and put her fingers to his lips. “We are very much alike, you and I, two divas strutting around the stage.”
     “You know nothing about me.”
     She stroked his leg. “Your presence broadcasts itself to the world. You are too confident and the world sees that and wants to take you down.”
     “Words of wisdom from Marie Antoinette digging her own grave in her Petit Hameau. Do you really believe those things you said?”
     “Petit Hameau? Really? I was testing you, trying to see what kind of man was behind the bravado. I could feel your sympathy and your empathy but you are gorgeous down to your toes. I have a plan. I am going to transform you.”
     He stood up from the bed. “Transform me?”
     “Bring you to your senses.”
     “There is magic between us. We go wild with each other. Isn’t that enough?"
     She smiled through her teeth. “Never enough.”
     He suddenly had enough. “I feel like you’ve slapped me.”
     “There’s the door.” She tossed her chin. “Paddle yourself back to Patmos and check into the monastery, Saint Daniel.” She lay back on the bed on one elbow. Her red hair flowed over her shoulders and breasts. The sunrise lit up her eyes.
     Dan left her stateroom with her laughter echoing in his ears. He tried to collect himself in his cabin but the walls closed in around him. He spent the day walking the deck. He gazed at passing islands, shifting sky and swelling sea making every attempt to marvel at it all and failing miserably. He purposely stayed away from the booze. He listlessly pushed around the dolmas and spanakopita on his plate at lunch and let a bit of melancholy cross swords with the confusion that was threatening to overwhelm him. He had fallen for someone he knew nothing of. It wasn’t just lust. He was amazed at the way she carried herself. The nod of her head and her quick smile seemed almost angelic. But he had never so completely misjudged anyone. Arrogance and acrimony had poured out of her mouth. His naive affection vanished. The thrill of conquest replaced it and that lit them both on fire. He felt exhausted. He felt dirty. He wanted more. He stretched out on a lounge chair and let the afternoon sun bake away his bemusement.
     A steward woke him as the sun boiled the clouds drifting over the horizon. He was himself again. He dressed for dinner in the company of a double scotch on the rocks. He selected a shirt and tie with studied ritual. Lucia had a wonderfully warm smile. He slipped into his shoes and looped the tie around his neck. Even her God damned name was beautiful. He swirled each slug of scotch around his mouth and pumped it through his teeth. The fumes rolled up his nose and lapped at the back of his eyes. She had chased him away with a cynical laugh but only moments before she had gazed into his eyes and caressed him tenderly. He buttoned his shirt and turned to the mirror to knot his tie. Brace yourself, he thought.
     Dan stopped at the bar before dinner. The bartender had it to herself. Her scarlet nails and lipstick matched the setting sun that flooded the room with a golden light. He ordered a double scotch on the rocks and looked out the window.
    “You have woman problem.”, announced the bartender.
     His eyebrows arched in surprise. “Where are you from?”
     “I am from Bulgaria! Buy her ring!”
     “What’s your name?”, he parried.
     “I am Snezhana. Gold ring expensive in Greece. I buy gold ring in Dubai with diamond.” She jabbed a finger graced with a thin band of gold before his eyes. A tiny sparkle was attached to it. “Gold ring with diamond. Two hundred American dollars.”
     “But that’s just a chip.”, He said gently.
     “Yes! Very chip!”, said Snezhana proudly. “We go to Crete. Go to Gyorgios in
Heraklion. Chip place in Greece to buy ring.”
    “She is rich.”, He sighed.
     The bartender’s shoulders dropped. “You love woman?”
     “I do not.”
     “You do not know. Too much money poison same as too much drink. Poison woman poison love.”
    A heavyset man in his sixties lumbered into the bar and sat down next to Dan. The bartender gave him a welcome smile and dropped a couple of ice cubes into a glass. She opened an I. W. Harper bottle and let the whiskey course out in gurgling spurts. He took the glass in his hands and stared at it reverently.  His eyes smiled as he lifted it to his lips and drank deeply. He turned to Dan and grinned. “Ah, sweet, sweet whiskey. Dive in headfirst then wallow like a pig in shit the rest of the night. My name’s Buck. What’s yours?”
     “My name’s Dan. There’s another way of drinking, you know, kind of like sex. Start out slow, go slow and slowly build up.”
     “What about wild and crazy fuckin’?”, countered Buck. “Gruntin’ like animals fuckin’? Don’t tell me you never done that?”
     “I won’t.”, smiled Dan.
     Buck smiled back. “There’s all kinda fuckin’ just like there’s all kinda drinkin’ and eatin’ and dancin’ and singin’ and livin’.  Doin’ some of it together is a good idea. I like to mix and match. Music and fuckin’ is one of my favorites.”
     “Music and fucking?” 

      “Sure thing, amigo. There’s all kinda music for all kinda fuckin’.”
     “Like?”
     “Like the Goldberg Variations.”
     Dan's eyes widened. “Bach? Classical music?”
     “The Variations are real cerebral. You get lost in all them twisty notes. Try it sometime.”
     “It’s just that you don’t seem like the classical music type, no offense.”
     “None taken. Mozart’s operas can be woody material. Some of them babes squeal like they’re gettin’ it real good. Smoke a doobie and listen to Cosi Fan Tutti sometime.”
     “Maybe I should have a hit of that doobie now.”, Dan grinned.
     “OK.”, snorted Buck.  “How about Indian music, Kerala? Or Flamenco? Shit! Flamenco!”
     Suddenly it clicked. Dan understood completely. “Repetition, passion, intellect.”, he murmured as he looked into Buck’s dark eyes with astonishment. “You’ve turned sex into an intellectual exercise.”
     Buck rubbed his hands together. “Whenever I get a belly full of how superior we are to the rest of God’s creatures, I think of fuckin’, and whenever I get a belly full of how some of us are more superior than others, I think of music. From professors to priests to presidents, you ain’t so high and mighty when you’re bouncin’ around squealin’ your head off. And anyone can make music, Dan, whether you’re a prince or a pauper because music is divine. Fuckin’s a joke God played on his talkin’ monkeys, and music is their revenge.”
     Snezhana dropped a couple of ice cubes in each of their glasses and filled them up. Buck looked up at her and winked. She smiled shyly.

     “My God, you work fast. This is only the second night of the cruise.”, Dan marveled.
     “I ain’t the only one.” 

     “What do you mean?”
     “Ah, come on, Dan. Half the ship saw that sex pot drag you up the pier yesterday.”
     Dan sighed. “It was a mistake. She’s filthy rich and a right wing nut job.”
     “And dynamite in the sack.”, Buck grinned.
     “Better than dynamite.”
     “It might not be all that bad to have a filthy rich doll like that in your corner these days.”
     Dan stared into his glass. “What do you mean? I’m just trying to see if there’s any good in her and overlook the lunacy.”
     “Overlook the lunacy? Get used to it.”, grunted Buck. “The world’s on a short fuse, amigo. Sooner than later the shit’s gonna hit the fan. Did you notice how tense Athens was? As pissed off as a stiffed hooker. Greece herself is about to explode in our faces. Wall Street fucked Greece like a pimp fucks his crack whore, offered her millions in loans in exchange for her airport taxes and highway tolls for the next twenty years along with millions in fees. Then like any pimp worth his leather fedora and mink overcoat, Wall Street went down to the local bookie, bet Greece wouldn’t last the night and steps out with his wad. Then the mafia moves in for the serious business. The ECB and the IMF are workin’ over the poor workin’ girl like a seventy year old senator works over a seventeen year old intern. Fuck the small change like raisin’ the retirement age or guttin’ the civil service. These clowns are serious. Can’t make the loan payments, can’t make the interest? We’ll take everything that belongs to Greece: the railways, the airports, the water rights, the power grid, the post office, the national parks, and to twist the knife, the thing most dear to a people with thousands of years of the sea under their belts, the ports, from Piraeus to Thessaloniki.”
     Dan was taken aback. “I didn’t think the banks would treat Greece like a banana republic.”
     Buck offered a twisted smile. “The whole world’s a banana republic to them fuckers. The whores runnin’ Greece now are bendin’ over real good to privatize real quick. Sell the country right out from under the noses of its people but do it before they figure out they’re gettin’ gutted, skinned and butchered. It’s gonna be a hell of a cruise of the Greek islands.” He swirled the ice in his glass and looked out the window. “I thought maybe I could get away from all this horse shit but there really ain’t no place to get away.”
    Dan looked out the window. It was twilight. “That seems to be the case in general when we get older. There is no place to get away.  But then that’s not so bad. With time running out, you realize it’s better to change course than get away. What are you getting away from?”
     “You’re right, Dan." Buck said. Some of his confidence seemed to breathe away. “I guess I ain’t gettin’ away, I’m changin’ course. My wife’s gone. I got a boy. You say your red head’s a right-wing fanatic? Seems like almost every one’s a fanatic these days. My boy turned pinhead, turned right-wing, turned Zombie. What is it with this world these days? You used to be conservative and just go to church. Now you get a gun and go on a Crusade. Then to hammer the nail in the coffin, some nutcase Jesus weasels got a hold o’ my boy and his family and before ya know it, they’re all prayin’ for the end of days. There’s a hole in my gut and I gotta fill it before it kills me.”
     Dan could see the pain in his face. “I’m sorry.”
     “Yeah, me too. Thanks. Shit happens.”, Buck said under his breath. He took a swallow of bourbon.
    Dan took a swallow of scotch. “Shit happens. I feel sometimes like the world is lost.”
     “When the world starts fallin’ apart, Dan, the fanatics and lunatics come out of the woodwork. Hell, the reason the world’s fallin’ apart is ‘cause they been chewin’ on the woodwork all along. When up is down and down is up, you start listenin’ to anything just to try and make sense of the world. They come outa the woodwork ‘cause all of a sudden, they got an audience. That’s when the politicians and the preachers and the CEOs and the rest of the thieving, murderin’, rapin’ scum of the earth get their claws in you, and before you can say let’s have a snort of whiskey and talk things out, Armageddon’s breathin’ down your neck.”
     Dan finished the last of his scotch. “The world is upside down for me these days.”
     “You got a hole in your gut too, eh, Dan? How about fillin’ it up with a little more scotch?”
     Dan sighed and stood up. “The booze is beginning to get to me. Will you join me for dinner?”   
     “I ain’t hungry.”, muttered Buck.
     “Well, then, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you.” Dan shook his hand.
     “Same here.”, Buck grunted. He turned his back to Dan and stared out the window.
      Dan signed the check. “Thanks for the drink, Snezhana. Take good care of him.”
     “Snezhana not nursemaid!”, barked the bartender.
     He walked into the dining room feeling no pain but confused all over again. The dining room captain sat him with a middle-aged couple. They both smiled broadly as he took a seat. He saw nothing but warmth, openness and innocence. It was a refuge. He thought of Lucia. They had slept entwined in each other’s arms. Half awake, they pulled themselves closer. They coiled around each other.