This Vessel

It is an unusual September morning, bright and clear and mild. I appreciate the air a bit more than usual as I emerge from the hostel into the street, mouth filled with the stale exuberances of last night's tobacco and vomit and beer. There are the makings of a long weekend afoot; three days yet and a pocketful of wages, with nothing particularly in mind for either though I feel certain they'll get spent in a bar or two downtown. Bit of a dismaying thought, and my stomach does a turn or two as I walk past the Imperial Bar on Klondike. But the air is refreshing and I seem compelled to saunter after its source toward the docks.

Touristy docks, to be sure. Monstrous cruise ships loom to the one side of the street like floating bergs of iron, strung up with lights and studded with identical balconies and gaudy pastel deck furniture. Opposite these are the unsettlingly garish string of jewelers, historical bars, and souvenir shops; like a flock of harlots, catcalling at the passengers with their painted fronts as they disembark. And like any sailor fresh on furlough the tourists come and ravage them enthusiastically, a tete a tete of mutual pillage. The dance seems to have taken a frantic pitch this morning especially, street-side banners and all manner of signs proclaiming it the Last Weekend of the Season.

The crowd's excitement is infectious, the swell irresistible. Without so choosing, I find myself swept in and up with the rest. The bedlam seems thickest at the end of the quay, where the biggest ship of them all is moored. The Spirit of Yorktown is done up in a bright red-white-blue kitsch across her sizable stern, with shooting stars exploding from the lettering. "Weekend Cruise, only $99.99!!!" a patriotic-looking banner exclaims over a makeshift ticket kiosk. Weekend cruise? How exciting! I think to myself. The ticket seller is an affable fellow in nautical-cut attire. I pay with five crisp twenties and meander past queued bodies to the gangplank. I take one last look at the downtown shops, less for nostalgia than to gauge how high I'm climbing. They'll still be here when I get back, loud and overpriced and as yet unvisited by me.

I hardly step aboard the lacquered planking of the promenade before a generous rum & coke is given me by a white-jacketed waiter. Having never been on anything this size and harried on by the sweetened jolt of my drink, a bit of exploring seems in order. The four decks have all the hustle-bustle of an African market, a panoply of people locked elbow-to-elbow, most with a drink of some sort in hand, laughing and shouting and talking and veering in and out of the myriad shops and restaurants and activity centers on board. And the Yorktown has a bit of everything: a dozen different restaurants and a few more of the same, coffee bars, sports bars, bar bars, a t.v. lounge with vibrating chairs, internet cafés and giftshops, an arcade, a waterpark, a rock wall and wellness center, dance spots and kiddie parks, even a mid-ship chapel and a dusty library. In all, a bit of something for everyone on board with rails aplenty to lean over and soak up the scenery. I'm halfway through my walk when the ship is up and off and away, churning its way up the sound.

Call me a closet romantic or maybe a claustrophobe, but I decide on the latter rails for a bit of perching. Enjoy the chilly air and the sights and mull over my second rum & coke a bit like. It's hard to describe, but the natural scenery matches the manmade splendor of Yorktown, with an uncanny bit of something for everybody. Godlike mountains hedge in the glorious ice-flecked waters at every side under a partly-cloudy canopy of crisp blue sky. The whales and fish and dolphins fluke and frolic alongside the bobbing masses of weed-entangled otters, puffins and inexplicable penguins. Languid, noxious sea lions pox up the rocky beaches as distant grizzly bears and moose make their fleeting appearances. And above them all, a dozen bald eagles circle around aimlessly with the occasional dive at something. It's a bit much to behold, really, locked at the elbows with a thousand other romantics and claustrophobes marveling and drinking and snapping pictures and worshipping the same scenery. More than mere scenery, it's the sort of iconic-overload that tends to exist only on money and postcards.

Felling a bit agoraphobic now, I snag another refill from a passing waitress and look for some dark little hole to seethe in, some dank little bar onboard, perhaps with wood paneling and a jukebox or pinball machine and a dense cloud of smoke and despair; more my natural element, if there ever was. I'm wandering about in a sea of people, every kind of people: my people, their people, those people, people much-mocked and reviled and people who can only poke fun at themselves, people nobody quite knows how to place and people everybody wants to be. A swarming, foaming sea of people floating atop the pacific sea.

I find a bar in the top-deck galleria, a little dive of a place I implausibly seem to remember. Nestled between a Banana Republic and a RadioShack, the wood-shingled facade and plate-glass windows of the Blue Rider Bar beckon me thither. Pulling open the heavy green metal door I am greeted by a noxious welcoming waft of carbon monoxide and stale nicotine, carried upon the doleful strains of Hank Williams Sr. and the smells of flattened beer. The bar is sullenly teeming with my people (and some of theirs), sipping at draught Pabst and Bud Light between shots of tequila and bad domestic whiskey. It feels like home, though upon closer inspection the fleck-chipped paint and peeling wallpaper are all staged, the eclectic mixture of art pieces on the walls all prints and forgeries. The place is a sham, with a well-crafted ersatz of character.

I shrug and order a beer, which comes quickly at a cheap four dollars. What can one do? It's near-about as genuine as one can get on a cruise ship, much less in any suburb, mall, or downtown street. I sip lightly and ponder that indefinite German word Heimat. Supposedly it's untranslatable, only meaning 'home-ness' to actual German folk, laden with wheat-chaff and hops and leather shorts like. We have a word like that, I suppose, if one were to say Levittown. Small town god-fearing Andy Griffiths, an aloof first-name-basis sense of camaraderie, full-service, paper hats, cheap gas, fast food and red-appled sunny days. The way America should be, never was, never will be; probably for the best. But everybody has their Levittown, and The Spirit of Yorktown has something for everybody, except a sense of place. If nothing else it makes me long for mine, though I'm not quite sure what that is or if it even exists.

I'm thinking these thoughts when the corner telly flips on to an on-ship broadcasting channel. The square-cut, perfectly groomed captain is speaking, the terse expression on his face belying his jaunty, calming tones. I sort of half-listen, focusing more on the bright red news ticker streaming along beneath him. SPIRIT OF YORKTOWN IN DANGER - it declares - ALL PASSENGERS ASSEMBLE AT THE PROMENADE DECK... THE WEATHER TODAY... Danger! God's balls! I think to myself as there's a general rush for the doorway. Absent-mindedly I bring my beer glass along with me, and again I find myself swept along by the crowd, its fear and its panic infectious. The human tide is a thousand mumbles, "terrorists I bet," "poisoned water," "bankruptcy," "atheists," "communists," and the like, but mostly "terrorists" was on everybody's lips. And oddly enough, it occurs to me that though we are on a ship I haven't once heard the word "iceberg."

Finally we reach the wide promenade, where the captain addresses the crowd from the upper deck once it more-or-less assembles. When he begins to speak the multitude quietens down to a dead hush, eerily silent for so many people. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Crew and all assembled, I'm afraid The Spirit of Yorktown is gradually sinking. Though our engineers are currently inspecting all aspects of the vessel, we are as yet unsure why the sinking is occurring. It may be a flaw in construction or it may be terrorism; it may be a lot of things. Regardless, we are sinking and as such all passengers will need to abandon ship. However, life boats are reserved for our Gold Member passengers. For all others life vests will be available at a relatively low cost of fifty dollars."

The uproar commences, coming from all corners. "Fifty dollars!? That's not FAIR!!" "What about the sick and the elderly?!" "Too much crap is weighing us down!" "No, too many stowaways!" "What of the wildlife!? What will happen to the fuel when it sinks?" "But what about the people who can't afford life vests?" "To hell with them!" "Would you put that cigarette out!?" "Subsidize them!" "Everybody with a ticket, show your tickets!!" "Our Father who art in Heaven..." "Free wireless!" "Ban smoking!" "We should have volunteers try to bail out the water!" "Hang the Gold Members and take their boats!!" And all the while above the crowd, the captain vainly shouts for order and calm. But the scene is getting ugly, and ever the more violent. It becomes a squalid angry mosh, and crewmen are coming out with the gas and cudgels.

Having never been very politically motivated I decide to duck out of the proceedings for a more civil surrounding. The glass in my hand again empty and it being an emergency and all, I decide the best course of action is to refill it. But not in the fake pub again; no, at times like these one must go to the VIP bar above the bridge. As I walk away from the tumultuous din behind me, the decks seem bigger and more lonesome. There is the odd passenger here and there: a couple making out on a bench, a man carrying two television sets out from the sports bar, the occasional lifeless trampled fellow strewn about the deck. The revelers and wasters and disconsolates one might expect to find in the wake of any apocalypse.

I find the place at the top of the stairwell, the VIP lounge called The Eagles' Nest. In keeping with the name, the view is magnificent as one can see ocean and sky and mountains, and the smoke rising from the promenade. The bar is empty, save an old man in the corner who doesn't look particularly like any of the staff. Certainly no threat to me, so I walk around the bar and fix myself a nice gin and tonic - top shelf and carefully constructed with a twist of lemon - all in a very tall glass. As I'm rounding the bar again I spy a box of cigars - Romeo's, but unfortunately Dominican - and pocket a few.

Instinctively I head to my own little nook overlooking the large floor-length windows, but something about the current set of circumstances compels me to be a bit more sociable. "Oi," I say to the old man. "Fancy a cigar, sir?" He looks over at me and - weighing it out with a bob of his head - gives me the nod. I come across and sit on the stool beside his. He's a grizzled little fellow, all tufty white hair and rumpled tweeds. He chomps off the end of one cigar and I chomp off mine, though now I've got the odd ends of shredded tobacco on my teeth and tongue. He's got a lighter, and once we're up and puffed he introduces himself as Ernie.

"Beautiful day for the ship to sink," I say conversationally. He just looks at me funny. "Didn't you hear? The ship is going down," I tell him, hoping I haven't ruined his day any.

Ernie laughs. And laughs and laughs, that sort of heavy wet old man chortle I hope to have someday. "Are they going through all of that again?" he asks me, wiping a tear from the crinkled corner of his eye. "God sakes, they do that all the time. Don't know why, particularly. Sell life preservers, maybe." He blows a poor, warbling smoke ring and shakes his head. "Nope, The Spirit of Yorktown is unsinkable," he tells me thoughtfully, and I have to admire him for his optimism. "I mean, the damned thing is always sinking. The fact that it's still afloat convinces me otherwise and to the contrary. Understand?"

"I do," I tell him, thinking that if nothing else, I can't feel enough to worry about it anyways. We go on drinking our drinks and smoking our cigars in the VIP lounge, watching an eagle float about lazily in distant, indifferent circles.