Ferry Tale
The day shot off with a bang when I traded a used Italian version of Dante’s Inferno, purchased for a euro on the street, for two deep rich down to earth novels. The kind that make you feel insignificant and hadn’t accomplished anything in your life. But then there was that feeling, again. A deep, woozy and uncomfortable felling. Like a foreign insect, trapped withing the bowls of my stomach, and laying devilish eggs that turn into swarms of ravage flys. I killed those bastards with a swig of leftover jagermister.
But, in a night of the living dead sort of way, the flys returned as I boarded the farie to Greece. It took the remaining bottle to fully drown them all… but it also killed my inhibitions.
After storing a backpack, I then wondered the ship like an overachieving eager child solving a labyrinth. Upon reaching a corridor with rows of hotel style bedroom doors, I remembered a story a buddy had once told…
“He was aboard a cruise ship. Bound for some distant exotic place, when he locked eyes with a gorgeous Spanish girl. She didn’t speak a word of English, but it didn’t matter, because she spoke the universal language of love. One thing led to another and he had a place to sleep for the night.”
With this tempting thought in my head, I searched the rows in a fanatic mechanical way, almost maddeningly but…. There she was, a suitable candidate. She was tender, soft, and sweet and smelt of lavender. I could tell she dyed her hair and her makeup was semi-messy, but messy in a cute precious kind of way. Her mannerisms made me fell young again like I was magically transformed into a giddy child. Yes my friends, I found my match. A 75 year old woman, fumbling with her key card.
“Can I help you with that?” I said, in the most tender voice I could muster.
“I just loathe these things,” she sighed in her strong English accent.
“Good,” I thought, “She speaks English. Now I don’t have to try seducing her.”
Thinking that made me laugh out loud, semi-startling her, but I wiped it from my memory and smoothed on the charm.
“Les see what we can do,” I said, “These things are always a pain.”
We tried putting that flimsy card in every direction; bent it in certain spots; even preformed a trick my mother used a the supermarket to get warn credit cards to work, by putting it in a plastic bag. Nothing would get that door open.
“Let’s go to reception so they can figure it out,” I then smiled and poked out my escort elbow and she took it and grabbed her bag with the other. “Here, let me take that from you.” and she reluctantly handed it over.
Turns out the card we were swiping was her meal voucher and her matching door card was safely in her purse, I looked at the card again for any indication of a meal ticket and saw none. Except for a few lines of text they were exactly the same.
“Are you thirsty?” she said, “I want you to meet my husband.”
Knowing perfectly well there was only two twin beds in her room, like a packet of sugar, I dissolved my hope into a glass of jack and coke she purchased for me. We took a seat with three elderly people, her husband and another couple. I smouzed for a little while with these English folks. Then, as they say, excused myself for the Lou.
“Yes!”I exclaimed as I saw the shower in the bathroom and took one immediately. The water was freezing and I felt stumbly when I exited, most likely my overuse of bug killer, but at least I was clean.
I found the younger crowd up on the top deck bar. I bought a German beer and joined a rowdy mixed group of Australians and Americans. They were studying at some university in Italy and heading to Greece during there off week. After nervously introducing myself, I replied with a reverse form of a joke from the movie, Dumb & Dumber.
I exclaimed, “Austria, huh? Gudintah… ince, thrice… hassieustervald!” (the only semi-German sounding words I could come up with at the time)
The joke received mixed reviews… mostly pity laughter.
I answered the usual crap travel questions, “where you from, how long you been traveling, blah blah, etc.” Then, I reconfigured a story told to me by an actual Aussie I met in Florence, but changed key words, like his name and made them my own.
“I was in Melbourne a a pretty fancy dinner party. My buddies where there, this wild guy from the bush that would always speak his mind, some others I didn’t know, and these three beautiful foxy ladies that nobody seamed to know. The guys were a bit apprehensive and kinda wanting to impress these hot women. So, taking the lead, my buddy spoke up and told a story of a crazy woman he met at a party. She wouldn’t leave him alone and was trying to pick up on him all night. He added of course – ‘its wasn’t that she was bad looking, or anything. I simply didn’t have a thing for her personality. So I gently had to let her down and tell her I didn’t like her, she went off crying… ‘ He then made a point of saying how bad he felt about the situation. Then looked to us for some support. We looked at these beautiful girls and shook our heads in reassurance… This wild guy chimed in just then… “AWW! F#@k ‘dat, mate! I wou’da smoked ‘eh. Done ‘eh rotten!”
The beautiful girls looked grossly appalled and we tried best as possible to keep in our laughter, but he most likely just blown his chances and ruined our chances as well.
I finally had the laughter I was looking for at the beginning and I settled down. After about 30 minutes of chit chat I felt comfortable, as if I was amongst an old group of friends. I began telling another tale about how I almost was killed in Chico by a drunk maniac. (I love telling this one because it makes me feel animated and it’s a true story.) During the middle of the story the boat started rocking just a bit too much… and I said abruptly, “Excuse me for a moment.”
The flies weren’t dead and they wanted out. I rushed for the side of the ship and let them fly. I just hung over the sea with a green face for what seemed like a hour. “So much for a bed,” I thought as I swung my head over the rails for the last time and slept on the cold hard deck.
May 29th, 2008
