V
The eggs were spiced, scrambled and runny, while the toast
was dry from sitting. Yeah, welcome to a merchant ship where it
seems the cook is just learning to cook or, if hes not, he didnt have
much to work with. Eggs? How can you mess up eggs?
Chue was his name. He was a towering Caribbean-looking fellow
with a big smile and dirty white apron. They remembered him from
the night before when he was wearing an officers uniform and he
was checking luggage. It was a ship where many duties were served.
“Hello, did you enjoy?” he asked. His Creole accent was thick. Even
the simple sentence required effort to decipher.
“Enjoy?” said Bill. “That doesnt even begin to say it. It was the
best breakfast ever.” Bill smiled at Chue. Eke laughed to himself. Bill always cracked him up and now was
no different. Playing to the cook.
And then Jose walked in. He was the waifish young man carrying
a clipboard. Jose was the one who checked them on board last night
and seemed to run things on the ship. “Hello. Bill and Eek, right?”
“Its pronounced E.K., like my initials,” said Eke.
“Okay, Eek,” said Jose, his accent was also thick but not as bad
as Chue. And his was a completely different accent, South American
perhaps.
Eke smiled. Bill laughed.
“Yeah, thats us,” said Bill. “Im Bill.”
“Okay, Bill, Eek, when you are done eating just come on down
and Ill show you around and set you up.”
When Jose walked out of the room, Bill smiled and asked, “You done
eating, Eek?”
“Shut up, rabbit,” Eke growled while continuing to eat.
“Shut, shutting up,” Bill answered. “Eek, I think I like sound of
that,” he pressed.
Eke, starting to become annoyed, just looked down and
munched his last bite of dry toast. They sat this way for a few moments, silently ignoring each other. With a dry sense of humor of
their own, eek really is how his parents intended to pronounce his
name- with his last name being King, it was better than their second
choice of Joe.
Both were now finished eating. They just sat there, waiting for
the other to move. Bill, meanwhile, was wondering about what kind of
work he would have to do aboard this ship. “Hey Eke,” Bill said his
friends name correctly. “Why did we have to take this ship anyway?”
“Because we had to take the truck. You know that.”
Bill knew. They both knew, they both carried a gun and it would
have been difficult to get aboard a plane.
Also, Eke thought, it was to keep busy and occupy his time and
mind because Eke knew the old saying that an idle mind is the devils
workshop. This trip would help keep Eke from drinking. And that, he
told himself, was part of the plan.
Bill, though, didnt quit drinking, didnt want to quit drinking, and
didnt, in fact, think he had a drinking problem. Eke had the problem.
Eke said, “Come on, admit it, you like traveling first class like
this.” “Yeah, right. First class. Thats funny,” Bill scoffed. “Its too early. I
should be sleeping.”
There were a couple dozen men of various nationalities working
and traveling on the ship. Some would get off in Honduras like Eke
and Bill. Others would stay on for the next leg, to South America. All
worked menial jobs to keep the ship moving.
It was 6 a.m. “Some of those guys have been working since 4,”
said Eke. “Comparatively, Bill, we got a lot of sleep.”
“Yeah, and now weve got to work.”
They both stood and headed out when immediately they saw
Jose. It was like he had sixth sense and just showed up. “Done with
breakfast?” he asked. He smiled. “Follow me, Ill bring you
downstairs.”
Jose led them through the containers towards the bow.
Containers were five feet high and they were stacked 10 of them so
that they rose 50 feet in the air to create aisles. The ship held 12 rows
of boxes in its width, and 12 in the length. There were more than 700
of them. They looked like tin coffins. As they walked, Jose asked
them about their trip and when they informed him that they were
actually moving to Honduras, he smiled. “You know about the troubles there, right?”
“Troubles?” asked Bill.
“Well, Nicaragua is next door,” said Jose.
“Oh that,” said Eke. “Yeah, yeah, thats all over the news. But
Honduras is stable. Right?”
Jose smiled and kept walking.
In fact, Jose knew what the Americans had read– that Honduras
was a staging ground for the Contras to enter Nicaragua in their
running war with the communist Sandinistas. There were, in fact,
death squads running around the country in the cause of the pro
American government. It was all very nebulous and the difference
between right and wrong was considerably murky.
It wasnt exactly 1983 in the civil and organized United States of
America. They were still figuring things out in Central America in
some very violent ways.
“Honduras has a pro-American government,” said Jose. He
stopped at a railed ladder. “But be careful. Two Americans are liable
to attract some attention.” “Thats cool,” said Bill. “A little adventure is exactly what we are
looking for. Thats why we rode this ship,” he said. He smiled at Eke
when he said it.
“Sometimes, you should be careful what you wish for,” said Jose.
He stared out, like he saw something, some vision in the air. Like he
was looking at a memory. And then he turned.
They watched Jose descend the steps. They waited a bit, neither
wanting to stick their ass in his face. After all, some things are
probably notright for people of any culture. “After you,” said Bill.
“No, after you,” said Eke.
“I insist,” said Bill.
Another stupid power struggle and this one really was silly, so
Eke just gave in. “Fine,” he said. Down he went. And then he realized
the humor of Bill following him.
“What the?” said Bill as he descended after his friend.
“Sorry man,” said Eke. “Damn eggs!”
“Oh man, thats bad.”
“Thank you, thank you very much,” said Eke, mimicking a bad
Elvis. The everlasting “Frat game” thought Eke. There you go– were
grownups. And yet here they were, doing this big grownup thing on
this ship bound for Honduras.
The hull was a mixture of storage rooms and machinery and
when Jose got to the biggest machine of all, he stopped and hollered
over the loud noise, “This is the engine.” The engine rose two stories
with grated steel platforms wrapped around the second floor to make
working on it easier. Right now, the first mate was on the second
story grate tinkering the engines noise. It roared like a dull thunder
and it was magnified by reverberations off the metal hull.
They continued towards the rear. Back there was a room running
in the center for the last 30 feet of the ship. Jose led them to a door
on the left wall and opened it. In there was a 12-inch thick drive shaft
spinning wildly in control.
“A whole room for that?” asked Eke. But as soon as he asked he
realized the need for instant access to it as well as the need to stay
away from it for safetys sake.
Jose just smiled and said, “Yes, a whole room for that.” He stood
a moment saying nothing and then finally he said, “Well, thats the
tour. Its time to start your job.” “And what would that be?” asked Bill.
Jose pointed at the walls. “We have temporary workers scrub
these walls down here. As you can see they get dirty fast.” He smiled.
“I cleaned them myself a month ago.”
“What do you use?” asked Eke.
“Mops. Bleach. Jose pointed to a closet. “Everything you need is
in there.” He paused. “If you need anything else, just look for me. Ill
be around.” And then Jose walked away.
Eke looked at the walls. Everything had an engraved plate
labeling it. Odd. (An international regulation, but if you dont know,
odd indeed.) Eke wondered if the urinals were labeled. He didnt
notice last time he used them. But he will, hell be looking for labels
everywhere now.
He looked at the walls again. They really were gross – in need of
cleaning for sure. If he were to use a color to describe it, he would
call it grimy– somewhere between black, gray, purple and orange.
Grimy. He looked at the length. It was at least a hundred meters; a
football field in length. It was, to say the least, daunting.
And so he began. Slopping his mop in the bucket of bleach and
detergent and slapping it on the walls. Slop and slap. Rub, rub, rub. At one point he got frustrated and tried to imitate some movie, or
maybe it was a cartoon. He picked up the bucket and threw all the
water at the wall, somehow expecting a cleaning miracle.
“Good one,” said Bill.
“Jackass,” he said aloud to Bill. Then under his breath, “it never
works like you picture it.”
Shit. They both scrubbed and scrubbed and seemed to be getting
nowhere but after a couple of hours they actually had almost 50
meters cleaned. Just then, Jose showed up. “Looks good, looks
good,” he said. “And in a week it will be dirty again.”
Eke smiled. “Then we really are contributing, eh?” As Jose turned
to walk away, Eke asked, “Hey, when is coffee break? Im hungry
again.”
Jose laughed. “Whenever you want. We take our time here. Go
on up and help yourself.”
Eke smiled. “Whenever I want?” He put down the mop. “Now is
good.”
Bill smiled too. “Yeah, me too.”
“Good job so far,” said Jose again.
“Thanks,” they both said. Upstairs, Chue was still in the kitchen. They sat down and Eke
pulled out a couple cans of Chef-Boy-r-Dee. They opened them and
ate them cold, with plastic spoons. Both were thinking similar
versions of the same rap on luxury. It seemed so quiet up here
compared to down below. Still, they could feel the boat rumbling,
moving through the water. Moving through time. Moving through life
for once. And it felt damn good– mopping or no mopping.
Eke finished his can first. “Hey, Bill.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see Joses face when he told us to be careful because
two Americans could attract some attention.”
Bill smiled. “Yeah, I did.”
“Do you think thats good?”
“Did we come here for adventure? Or not?”
Eke took a big breath and felt all of it hit him at once. “Yes,” he
said. “Yes we did.”
“Its going to be cool,” said Bill. “I bet there will be a bit of old west
to it.”
“This boat has a Mayflower feel to it,” said Eke. “Going to a new world.” “Yeah, something like that,” Bill agreed while drifting away.
