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If They Could See Me Now
By Jim Hanas
APRIL 20, 1998:
All right people, lets listen up. This is serious.
Ive been on board for less than an hour and already Ive found
somebody I dont like. Nobody likes him. I asked. Its the lifeboat
drill, and all passengers are out on the astro-turfed deck in
orange life jackets receiving orders and anecdotal worst-case
scenarios from some pretty boy with a hammer jaw and wrap-around
Ray-Bans. For whatever reason, I named him Dean. He just looks
like a Dean.
Now if you have to jump into the water from this deck, you must
pull your life jacket down with both hands, he barks, seeming
a little testy about having to put up with all us land-lubbers.
Because from this height, it will rise up when you hit the water
and damage your spine.
The next time I saw Dean, he was wearing a garish, poofy-sleeved
outfit and grinding his way through a way-the-hell-off-Broadway
tribute to the Miami Sound Machine. Cruises, I would find out,
are strange like that.
When my editor told me wed been offered a berth on the Rock 103
Wake Up Crews 10th Anniversary Caribbean Cruise and asked if
I wanted to go, it wasnt a tough call. I never listen to the
Wake Up Crew, but, then again, I never go on cruises either. Little
did I know what Id gotten myself into.
Commodore Cruise Lines S.S. Enchanted Isle was launched in 1958,
which I understand is getting up there for a cruise ship. Lets
just say that the furniture in my cabin would have gone well with
one of Rob and Laura Petries famous misunderstandings. The ships
on the small side, too, as everyone remarked from the time we
left port in New Orleans alongside a behemoth from some other
line. Commodore seems a little self-conscious about it, to tell
the truth, and even the crew seems to suffer from an inferiority
complex. During an ice-sculpture demonstration, someone from the
cruise directors staff rattled off numbers about how much food
was consumed aboard the Enchanted Isle each week. Because of the
odd math, I only remember the number of eggs: 2,400 dozen. Passengers
looked at each other proudly before being told that for a Carnival
cruise ship, of course, that number would have to be multiplied
by three. The disappointment was understandable.
Eating is a big part of any cruise, and there are many activities
like the ice-sculpture demo centered around gorging yourself
or just thinking about gorging yourself. As everyone I talked
to agreed, the food aboard the Enchanted Isle is pretty iffy,
except for the hamburgers grilled poolside each afternoon, which
are pretty darn good. Shoneyfied cuisine notwithstanding, the
dinner hour is an elaborate play, decked out in the well-known
trappings of culinary luxury: flames and pepper-grinders. There
actually arent as many flames as you might expect. Theyre confined
to two nights when all the waiters and busboys dance around the
dining room to blaring music with flaming cakes balanced on their
heads.
The pepper-grinders, on the other hand, are a constant presence.
They will grind pepper on chocolate cheesecake if you let them,
and after getting tired of saying no you probably will. How
ground pepper took on the power to make ordinary food super-fancy
is a mystery, although it seems to work like a charm, since a
man at a nearby table took the time to photograph his wifes pepper-buried
surf-and-turf for posterity. For all I know, of course, he was
collecting evidence.
Every cruise is a little dif-ferent, depending on who is on board.
On this particular run, there seemed to be three sorts of people,
although Im sure there were newlyweds and couples on their anniversary
in the mix who kept to their romantic selves and didnt make themselves
conspicuous. Fans and associates of the Wake Up Crew made up almost
a quarter of the passengers. Some were advertisers and others
had paid to come along to celebrate the Crews anniversary, with
a portion of their fares going to the morning shows ongoing fund-raising
efforts for the Ronald McDonald House.
Another small, although highly visible, group consisted of a barely
chaperoned expedition from a high school somewhere in Alabama.
They were the ones who would stand up periodically on karaoke
nights, pump their fists in the air, and scream, You Go, Alabama!
Then there were the old-timers, the cruise pros who knew all the
ins and outs. They were the ones who would stand up periodically
during performances by the Ray Kennedy Entertainers (Deans troupe),
pump their fists in the air, and scream, Down in front! Maybe
they know who Ray Kennedy is, but I never found out.
I saw the most of the Wake Up cruisers, particularly early in
the morning when they were broadcasting live from the ship (with
tinny results, I found out when I got back). The Crews supporters
were all very nice people, some of whom might read this paper,
and many of whom I saw blow skeet after skeet clean out of the
air with shotgun fire, even after many cocktails. I love those
guys. Really. I was on the show a few times and asked what my
angle was. As should be plain by now, I wasnt lying when I
said I didnt have one.
Nevertheless, because of my tenuous association with Rock 103
or, more likely, by mistake I was invited to the captains
table for dinner one night. If my calculations are correct and
there arent any occasions for tabling with the captain I have
overlooked this is an honor reserved for between 84 and 112
passengers out of 850. Of course, many of the cruisers had been
on the ship before. There was one elderly gentleman who had been
on the ship for three weeks, just going around and around. He
had probably eaten at the captains table before, as had many
of the return voyagers. So, maybe it wasnt so much of an honor.
Captain Thorn or Jens, as I like to call him is from northern
Germany and he looks it. Hes in his mid-fifties, at a guess,
and has what can only be described as baked-in good looks. He
has a drape of yellowish, wicker-dry hair on his head and his
face is rough and tanned like a saddle. When he smiles, his thin
lips part to reveal two rows of exactly white teeth. And his smile
is always the same.
I know this because there are photographers on the ship rogue
English photographers whose job it is to take your picture at
crucial commemorative points during the course of your wonderful
cruise vacation. Like a wedding album, a week-long cruise includes
certain standard shots: getting on the boat, getting off the boat,
getting dressy, getting close to an Elvis impersonator. Anyway,
they have to shoot the book, before youre allowed to go home,
and that includes the big photo-op with the captain. In the trade
of cruise photography, the shot must be one of the easiest even
easier than the straight dressy shot of which it is a variation,
since the latter involves a couple who, given the circumstances,
may not be getting along too well.
The hardest shot, by the way, has to be the much-loved pirate
shot taken while disembarking in the Caymans. Its tough, but
its easier if youve got a solid contributor at the pirate position.
The pirates job is difficult because the suddenly freed passengers
are eager to get to the beaches and duty-free liquors and European
perfumes, and are in no mood for standing still. So the guy whos
pirating has to dash around in the crowd and sneak up behind unsuspecting
tourists, slip an arm over their shoulder, brandish his red-stained
aluminum sabre menacingly, and muster a sneery scowl onto his
charcoal-smeared face. All of this while the photogs spend rolls
like theyre covering a prison riot. I was privileged to see what
seemed to be a particularly expert display of pirating. He darted
through the crowd, weaving and lurking, getting into position,
and moving onto the next victim almost faster than the shutter.
Back and forth he sliced through confused and docile cruisers,
blade gleaming, a terrible Aaargh poised on his lips. Few were
spared. By comparison, the captains shot is a still-life.
And it looks like a still-life too, which is how I know the captains
smile is always the same. Each evening, the photographers take
all the pictures theyve taken of you and line a hallway with
them for all to see. Youre supposed to pick out the ones of you
and have them happily charged to your on-board account. The day
the captains photos are displayed, however, is vaguely creepy
almost as creepy as the occasional shots of Commodore Cudley,
a giant-bear mascot in a navy outfit who tucks children in at
night, or more likely, frightens them into a sleeplike stupor.
In all of the captain photos, Jens face hardly changes at all.
Hes shaking hands in some, extending an arm in others, but his
face is exactly the same: lips slightly parted, head slightly
tilted, thoroughly naval.
I have a picture of myself sitting at the captains table, and
he doesnt look quite the same, somehow, probably because it turned
out he didnt know who the hell I was or what the hell I was doing
at his table.
Zo you are wit ze casino company? he asked as I took my seat.
The woman who accompanies him to keep guests from mauling him
tried to cover, saying she had written it down wrong and introducing
me as someone who was somehow associated with a radio station
in Memphis. That held his interest for about a second before he
spent the rest of the meal talking to his general contractor
sitting to my left about building an addition onto his ranch
in central Florida.
Fortunately, food is only part of the cruise experience, and when
you get snubbed by the captain you can at least have a drink.
Aside from the dining room, there is only one common room on the
ship that doesnt have a bar. Thats the library, and I never
saw anyone go in there. The piano bar, the pool bar, the bistro
bar, the casino bar, the disco bar. You never have to be far from
a bar, especially since each sends out swarms of waiters and waitresses
to drum up business. Whether its a crowd-control technique or
a way of keeping motion sickness to a minimum, you must always
have a drink in your hand. They even make up drinks risky mish-mashes
of rum, fruit juice, triple-sec, and whatever else to serve
up in neon plastic souvenir cups, and keep you coming back for
more. And then there are the traditional activities associated
with drinking: the drinking contest, the karaoke nights, and,
as Ive mentioned, daily skeet shooting.
But these along with the ventriloquist (sporting the black shirt,
white pants, and pink tie counter-fashion of the trade) and the
comedian who looked like Emmitt Smith who dragged me on stage
to make sport of my no-ass extra white-bread dancing style are
merely diversions of shipboard living. You have to go ashore from
time to time lest the shutter-bugs run out of opportunities.
Out of New Orleans, the Enchanted Isle stops in Cozumel, Grand
Cayman, and Jamaica. Cozumel, off the Mexican coast, is sort of
a tropical tourist strip-mall, a one-stop for all manner of trinkets,
knick-knacks, throws, wraps, and duty-free tequila. Its most popular
attraction seems to be Carlos n Charlies, a college bar gone
mad where the main draw is a device powered by obscure physical
laws that allows your waiter to blow liquor right down your
throat. This urgent form of bartending must be somehow illegal
in the U.S., because the place was packed, even in the middle
of the afternoon, with folks keen not to miss their big chance
to be nursed into an alcoholic coma. Needless to say, many of
the high-schoolers from the Heart of Dixie needed a little help
to their cabins after Cozumel. You Go, Alabama!
Ive heard that the money-laundering is good in the Caymans, but
I didnt get a chance to try it out. I didnt get to go to Stingray
City either, which everyone says is the dont-you-dare-miss-it
attraction of the Caribbean circuit. Its a snorkeling trip to
an area where the stingrays have become so accustomed to tourists
that you can feed them by hand or, if you prefer, haggle with
them over their large, and quite convincing, selection of imitation
Louis Vuitton handbags. Unfortunately, that excursion was all
booked up.
Seven Mile Beach, however, is the nicest stretch of beach Ive
ever seen. The water is clearer than most swimming pools and the
sky is just as blue. Lying in the sun there after wading into
the surf is about as balanced as your bodys competing temperatures
will ever be, and the closest grown-up humans can hope to come
to returning to the womb.
Jamaica, on the other hand, is the most fast-paced of the ports,
despite its ya-mon hemp-cured reputation, perhaps because a lot
of people actually live there, or maybe just because the line
drops you at a waterside bar called Margaritaville. It has a deejay
and a water-slide and lots of drunken, sexually suggestive competitions
involving bananas and drinking straws. Sadly, they dont appear
to have the proper equipment for blowing liquor into you, but
thats more than made up for by a huddle of cabbies waiting by
the door to drive you around so you can haggle over a hunk of
hashish the size of a Rubiks Cube. You dont have to buy it.
Its just a service they provide.
After Jamaica, its two days back to port, and it can be challenging,
although on-board events kick into overdrive to distract you from
the fact that youd just like to go home now, thank you.
The highlight of those last two days at sea is none other than
that fabled staple of the cruise industry, The Midnight Buffet.
Thats where it all pays off and where it all comes into focus.
Eating at midnight is bad, we know, because it gives you terrible
dreams. So, what better time to let the gluttony fly and confirm
for yourself and everyone that this cruise thing truly is the
life. A lot of cruise lines lay out lavish spreads nightly, complete
with swans hacked out of ice and roses chipped out of radishes.
On the Enchanted Isle, they only pull out the stops on Thursday
nights. The impending Buffet was the topic of excited conversation
most of the day, and there was a period before midnight set aside
for passengers to take keepsake snapshots of the blessings they
were about to receive.
Foolishly, I underestimated the significance of the event and
didnt arrive until 10 minutes before it was to begin. The lobby
outside the dining room was packed, although I was able to squeeze
my way through the crowd to get a pre-gorge peek. What I saw disturbed
me.
And not just because the room was packed and flash-bulbs were
popping like firecrackers as a long line of people snaked among
the tables, documenting every last single dish. There was that.
But for me, what did it was the little man made of zucchini and
carrots riding the roast pig with his twin, harpoon in hand, slumped
over a cold fish nearby; and the replicas of the Statue of Liberty
and the Venus de Milo fashioned out of good old bad-for-you butter;
and the sinister game hen propped up, like the ventriloquists
dummy, on a pineapple with a lemon for a prosthetic head. My nightmares
have been filled with these things ever since, and I dont think
eating at midnight has much to do with it.
Its pretty tempting to view these semi-luxurious swerves around
the Caribbean as the ugliest of ugly Americanisms, as pale imitations
of a luxury that once stood for something, if only for elitism
and gross economic inequality. Many times after meeting Capt.
Jens and scrutinizing his photographs, I imagined him storming
around the bridge, bellowing at the hotel staff: Ze Americans
are stupid. Treet zem zat vay.
But on the last night of the cruise, the night after The Buffet,
I found out who the ugly American really was. The last night is
tip night, or better, envelope night. Gratuities dont really
live up to their name on a cruise, since their circulation is
strictly regimented. The night before, a set of envelopes appears
in your cabin. A title is rubber-stamped haphazardly on each.
Theres one for the cabin-steward, the waiter, the busboy, and
the headwaiter in this case, a tall Jamaican man whom I met
some time during the salad on the first night and didnt see again
until he came to pick up his envelope.
And it is just an envelope. Except for the guide on top of the
television spelling out how much you should put in each envelope
per day and per passenger placed there, one guesses, to keep
both bumpkins and junketeers like myself from stiffing the help
there is no mention of money. A 15 percent gratuity is added
to each drink you order, but after your fourth vodka and tonic
that whole thing becomes known as the price. Talk of actual
money is so rare that our cabin-steward, JoJo from Manila, thanked
us, in all seriousness, for the envelope.
Given that the whole exchange has become so shrouded, mechanical,
and neatly disembodied, you would think there would just be a
big box, maybe near the casino, where you could dump all your
good tidings for later, hidden distribution. But each envelope
must be delivered by hand. Well, not JoJos. His can be left in
the cabin, even under a pile of wet bathing suits, and he will
find it. But the rest have to be taken to the final nights dinner
and cordially presented to the deserving parties. Should be a
piece of cake. All day, envelopes were flying around the deck
from puffy, sun-burned passengers to the bar-maids who had taken
really good care of them.
But I was worried and even a little resentful, particularly toward
the Jamaican headwaiter, whom I suspected should have according
to policy come around at least one more time during the week.
But more than that, I felt resentful at having to express gratitude
as though I meant it, even for a second. Thats when I realized
what sweet revenge envelope night is, what a cunning snare for
hypocrisy. Here, these people had followed me around for seven
days straight with fruity drinks, ashtrays, and an almost oppressive
pleasantness, but I couldnt bring myself to do the same even
for the length of a handshake. Now theres some ugliness for you,
and the way you really pay for these cruises in more ways than
one.
When our waiter came over at the end of the meal, I knew it was
time. He made small talk about what a great week it had been and
about how we sure would miss that fresh-ground pepper when we
got back home. As he was talking, I had done my best to slide
his envelope to the edge of the table in front of him, so close
that his apron almost brushed it when he got to the part about
the pepper.
Finally, I gave up. I shook his hand, seized the envelope, and
with the biggest smile I could muster, I thrust it toward him.
Thank you, sir, he said as he slid the envelope into his inside
coat pocket and walked away with a cordial grin that seems to
me now all but superhuman.
Its from that moment, it seems to me, that the restorative value
of a cruise flows. Thats the thing that sends you back to regular
life with renewed vision and resolve.
On the back of the final edition of Whats Up, the little newsletter
that tells you what activities are planned each day, there is
a fond farewell from Capt. Jens. All gud sings eventually draw
to a cloz and ze best friends do part, I can hear him saying
through his eternal smile. Below that, Goodbye is written in
more than half a dozen languages. Au Revoir, So Long, Shalom
And below that are a series of crude clip-art scenes depicting
the drudgery that is your everyday life. Theres a man reading
a bill that goes clear to the floor, a woman standing on a scale,
and an office worker sweating, or maybe crying, in the shadow
of a tower of paperwork.
Well be thinking of you at home
reads the caption, pausing
so you can scan through the scenes and pick the one that best
goes with the particular anguish of your own day-to-day life.
so hurry back soon!
But as our waiter walked away, grinning, with a stack of envelopes
in his breast pocket, the towering paperwork and the endless bill
started looking pretty good. After all, your life may be miserable,
but it beats hell out of having to wait on your miserable ass.
Life is sweet.
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