57. The Travails of Travel

         

Ahead of me, a haggard frump bounced up and down in her seat laughing uproariously and waggling her plump hands in the air. Her friend, or sister, or old school chum or whatever that sat across the aisle from me on the plane chortled and giggled and jiggled back. They both were apparently completely unaware that they were in a confined metal tube full of angry strangers. The ladies laughed and talked and slapped hands and-I kid you not here-even had a tickle fight at 32,000 feet, likes they were gunning for the Senior Citizens discount into the lesbionic Mile High Club.  

Crammed into my tiny horrid airplane seat, unnerved by the altitude and the whole craptastic experience that was modern flying, I cursed the 9/11 terrorists for making previously uncomfortable air travel so much more blatantly unbearable. The harridan ahead laughed loudly and reached back to slap her friend of the leg; her friend responded with a hoot. I hated them both; hated them with a burning passion akin only to what the public currently felt for that Floridian baby-killing woman who OJ-ed it and got away scot free.  

Looking around the plane, I realized that I was not in the worst possible seating configuration, but it was bad. At least I wasn’t directly between them, which would have been worst besides being sat anywhere near a baby or a precocious child, or even worse a bored, talkative businessman.  And, yes, I could have switched seats with one of the woman so that they could be next to each other to talk and whisper and tickle, but I chose not to, as the present scenario gave me something to do on the 4 ½ flight from Dallas to San Juan: hate them incessantly instead of worrying about the plane bursting into flame and breaking apart midair and me falling, falling, falling to my doom-while on fire-trapped, as I am unable to get my seatbelt unfastened.

 Ah, travel.

I had left home this afternoon after a weird crying jag to Thad. It wasn’t that I was that afraid to go on the trip, I mean, Puerto Rico was in the United States-how scary could it really be? I was just sad to leave him. I had asked him to go, and he had refused. His fear of travel was something I had decided we would work on now that we had hopefully chucked the problems with the bottle and were entering our 4^th year of near-matrimony. But I had no idea if I could ever pry him out of Norman.

Actually in all of our 20+ years of dating, we had never even left the state together; the farthest he had ever let me take him was Tulsa, with the Gaga debacle being one of those trips. And maybe I didn’t ask him pleadingly enough to go with me to this conference, as spouses were invited. But maybe that was because he was such a pain nationally, I had no idea what havoc he could wreck on me internationally, and this was a business trip anyway.  

Whatever the case, this morning I was the one to lose it. I had grown very comfortable lately, settled into our conflictless life of the last year or so quite happily, aside from his moving in with Bettina and the possible threat of Spandex Hair Mane, that is. This was the first time that I would be leaving him while being actually happy. Previously I had always traveled to get away from my life, to run, to try and find myself; but now, for the first time, I knew who I was, and that was next to Thad. So I had blubbered some version of this to him this morning and he had just looked at me like I had sprouted a fern from my head and said, “You’ll be fine. We’ll talk every day. Bye.” But I could tell he was moved; he just hid his emotions.   

Driving myself to the airport, I had cried until I was about halfway there. I had forced myself to calm and readopt my 42 year old university faculty mean that was necessary for civilized travel: I was an adult, I could do this.

Having already changed flights in Dallas, I was now on a direct flight to San Juan. Besides the talkative bouncing matrons to my front and left, the girls sitting next to me were more like slight muses. They were about fifteen or sixteen, just coming into their womanhood with make-up and daring lace tops and ipods. They were clearly Puerto Rican nationals, as they rattled back and forth to eat other in machine-gun Spanish, but then would address me in broken English such as, “Yes, hell-O. Do you have the time?” They were charming and pretty and non-bouncy which made them nice seat mates. But they sang.

At first I thought it was music being pumped into the cabin, as it was soft, lilting, and melodic. But then in my periphery I noticed the lips of the girl closest to me were moving. It was not an unpleasant sound being barely pianissimo, or whatever that is in Spanish. But as the voyage drew on, and I continued to entertain myself frowning up a storm at the bouncing aged women, the girl’s voice grew slightly louder, now not loud, but louder. And it still was not unpleasant, more like church music, or the song from an adjoining garden, or the theme of a sad movie you liked. And as we neared their home island, the other girl joined her in all I can assume was some sort of Puerto Rican song of assumption, and their soft fragile voices guided our plane in to a safe and sound landing.

As the tires bounced once, twice, and then a third time, to then stay down, everyone on the plane burst into applause, and I felt like I was the surprise winner of a 1950’s game show.

Once into the San Juan terminal, I grabbed my luggage and taxied in to my hotel, finding it adequate. It was a redone 1960’s Best Westerny styled place, my room up on the 5^th floor with an ocean view, which was always startling for someone from a landlocked state. The room had a mini-fridge and WIFI, my only two real requirements in a modern hotel room. The bedspread had a mysterious Rorschach stain that I chose to ignore, yet I kept staring at it as it seemed to move.

I called Thad immediately, who was staying at the house while I was gone. He answered upbeat, but I could tell taken aback by my disappearance.

“I miss you!’ he said. “I really do.”

“I miss you too, honey.”

  Since we had gotten back together, the only other time we had been separated for more than a day was when I went to this same conference in Milan two years ago, and he had not handled that well at all. Suffice to say, the bottle had been his comfort during my absence. During that trip I had to fend off a number of drunken, “I miss you…I can’t believe you left me, you bastard!” phone calls. Yeah, charming. I just hoped this went better. It really was his Sword of Damocles moment; if he could stay sober through this-40 and all-I think he could make it through most anything.

“I’ll call you tomorrow…” I said, just wanting to settle in and go to bed.

“Oh, just one more thing…” and then he told me a silly story about Charlotte Bronte and her adventures with a toy mouse she had found in my Study. It was nice just to hear his voice, to hear him laugh.  

“Okay then…” I said, not wanting to cut him off, but really weary from the stupid flight.  

“Bye!” he said abruptly and the conversation was over.

He sounded okay, I think. I hope. Was he drunk? Did he sound drunk? I don’t think so. Maybe. Probably not.

I don’t handle situations well where I have no control –situations such as this. And in those situations Paranoia very quickly becomes my friend. And then Mania comes and sits down beside me, with Panic on the other side holding my hand. I looked over and was sure the Rorschach stain moved again.

I’m almost sure he was sober.

Almost.

    

58. A Tour of the Historic Bathrooms of Old San Juan

                      

               The next morning as I sat on my hotels’ rooftop terrace and ate breakfast, I realized my sadness at leaving Thad was passing. Looking out at the blue-white-blue curling ocean, I realized the amazing recuperative powers of waffles and sausage amid an open air tropical terrace view, while being waited on by handsome mocha skinned fellows who all kinda looked like Prince, cat-eyes and all.    

              After another wistful glance out to sea, but not down, as my vertigo kept me far away from the terrace’s edge, I reviewed my itinerary: touring today, then six days of conference, interspersed with more touring and conference events, then one more day of touring and then back home. It was a simple 10 day/9 night trip, that’s it. It would be easy…but I was nervous, as it was just the beginning of my adventures.  I knew all I had to do was suck it up and head out this morning to get the feel of the neighborhood and that would start to calm me, but I had to fight the fear that just wanted me to go back and hide in my safe hotel room.

But, alas, I could not allow the fear to win. In preparation for this trip, and accompanying paranoia,  I had devised a number of mental rules: (1) use a little Spanish before demanding they speak English to you; (2) Try not to be too grotesquely American; (3) Try not to piss off the natives; (4) Don’t get robbed; (5) Don’t get in the wrong cab and get kidnapped; (6) Don’t get your kidneys stolen, as you need them, or at least one, I think; (7) Be wary of parrots-they may look friendly but they carry disease (Mother said); (8), Don’t eat the local food as it might poison your sensitive stomach (also from Mother); and (9)Don’t drink the water (again from Mother, except I questioned this one, as it was America, so maybe the water was okay), and (10) Beware of hurricanes, as it was hurricane season and the weather was predicted to be stormy over the next few days.
Oh, and (11) Be cautious of Tsunamis. Thad had first warned me of this one: “If a Tsunami is coming run - one killed Oprah’s gay Nate’s boyfriend, and he was so sad, but then got a TV show out of it, but make sure to run first.”  Sage advice as always there from my Dear Thaddeus.

Yet as I went through this list, staying in hiding in my hotel room sounded better and better.   

              By 9 AM I had forced myself out to go wonder around Condado, the neighborhood where my hotel and the Conference Center were located. As I passed decorative stores and high-rise hotels, I realized the neighborhood wasn’t scary at all; there were no machete wielding banditos or parrots slavering at the mouth. In fact I was in a totally fabulous touurista part of town. And as I passed Gucci and Cartier, my undies unbunched and I began to saunter.

The weather was warm, as expected since it was summer on the equator and all, but not unbearable. Actually Oklahoma was hotter and had no pleasant ocean breeze or the cool recourse that came with rain. The foliage was weird, like a movie set of a tropical island-tall palms and small spiny palms, and huge trees covered in vines with lizards zipping up and down the stalks. The whole affair was very Gilligan’s Island. 

I wondered a few blocks over, mentally mapping my escape route back to the hotel in case there was a riot or cannibals with clubs, and came across even fancier hotels and restaurants and casinos and gift shops and then the ocean!  It was just right there, all big and flat and frothy as it is. So apparently my hotel was only 3 blocks from the ocean, with a Walgreen’s dropped right in the middle it: now that’s America! I could have a dip in the ocean and pick up a 12-pack of pampers all in one trip! And looking around and seeing a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Wendy’s, and a cab stand, I realized I really would be fine.  

              After lunch from a charming local establishment called Subway Sandwiches, I cabbed to Old San Juan, to start my day of real touring. This area of town was where all of the cool historic stuff was, so I had my camera (to preserve), a bottle of water (to preserve me, as the growing humidity was beginning to make me feel like I was wrapped in a fat man’s wet blanket), a snack (in case I got lost), tons of cash (to pay off the kidnappers), an umbrella (as it had already rained once this morning), a brief language book (to be able to speak to the kidnappers), and stomach pills (as I was sure to become violently ill at any second, even from looking too closely at the local, ethnic, cuisine). So like Christopher Columbus before me, I screwed down my courage and set off on a life-changing adventure.

              An hour later, as I sat in a Ben and Jerry’s and tried to cool off from an imminent heat stroke; I realized maybe I wasn’t a true adventurer after all, as all I had really sought among the interesting and beautiful ethnic sights was a clean bathroom. My journey had taken me to a cool 1500’s fort, through two crazy old churches, a scenic square or two, and many curiosity shops, but all I could really focus on the whole time was trying to find a clean, private bathroom.

See, to be a bit scatological: public bathrooms terrified me. I mean, horrified me in a crippling kind of way. I would say they scared the pee out of me, but actually the experience was exactly the opposite. And there’s no reason to go into the psychology behind it, yes, whatever you are thinking Dr. Freud is fine, but I hated public bathrooms. Enough said.

At home this wasn’t a problem, as I was comfortable with my local loos, but out and about, with new and adventurous toilets to experience, all I could do was shutter and run the other direction. I mean can you imagine a church from 1530 really having a good restroom? Well they don’t, and that is just a travesty for all Christians.  

              And having gotten older and my prostate apparently older and weaker along with it, I had to pee all the damn time now. But the OCD was at odds with my urinary track, as my body wanted to just pee, pee, pee, all over, all over everything now, but my mind would only allow it under very special circumstances. And being in a four-hundred year old fort with 9 other men at a trough urinal really just doesn’t cut it. So I ran. I just ran. I mean, what else could a civilized person do?              

              And this bathroom search pretty much colored most of the trip. I know. And I knew it was a product of my OCD more than anything, some sort of reaction to being out of pocket and scared of parrots and nervous about being kidnapped and not knowing the words for “Please, don’t cut off my finger and mail it to my Mother!”-but what was I do to? Crazy is as crazy does. At least I could travel, and wasn’t stuck at home next to Thad, curled into a ball rocking back and forth obsessively fighting over who got to pet Charlotte Bronte next.

So I just ran from one historical site’s incredibly terrifying bathroom to the next historical site’s even more terrifying bathroom.  We almost had a winner in the second oldest Church in the Western Hemisphere, but lost when there were no doors on the stalls, which faced out. So no dice. I mean, Jesus, people, get with the program. And so I left, my bladder beating against me, my heart racing from the fear, and the heat just about to kill me dead.

Trekking up an angry hill, wondering what on earth I was going to do, I saw my beacon, the star that led my way: a glowing sign for a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Parlor. And I ran, ran to it, arms out, to find salvation in its cool air conditioning and a gloriously private, citron smelling bathroom with real paper towels and a lock on the door. And all is cost me was a $3 can of coke. And they called Ponce de Leon an adventurer!

         

After that, my OCD calmed and I was able to somewhat enjoy myself.

Old San Juan is cool, like New Orleans’ French Quarter, or old Boston, or anywhere in Europe: old buildings with fabulous iron work and interesting doors, tiny streets, and crumbling cobblestones. But the buildings here were painted bright Caribbean colors, and the foliage grew like the beanstalks from fairytales. So I wondered hither and yon, through interesting shops, charming parks, and stellar sights, all with a magnificent view of the blue rolling ocean off in the distance.  

Oh, and tidal waves. I needed to remember to be worried about tidal waves too.  (12) Tidal waves.     

  

              Much later that evening as I walked down the dank dark hall of my hotel toward my room, I felt good. I had spent the afternoon touring and conquering little fear after little fear. I was proud of myself for not crying and staying in my room all day. It might seem simple to some, but it was enough to make me feel proud.

As I neared my door I saw something I did not understand. Standing at the door past my room, backlit by a big window was a figure, hunched over, trying to get its door open. But the oddness was the way that the figure was hunched that confused me: I could not tell if it was man or woman, and its one outstretched arm appeared huge, almost malformed.

              I neared, warily, pulling out my own key card quietly. And as I came closer I realized it was an armless Middle Eastern man using his foot to manipulate the keycard into the door slot apparatus. He was hunched over to get his leg high enough and arched enough to lower the keycard down, held firmly in place by his toes. And I stopped and then immediately looked away, not wanting to get caught staring, and embarrass him.

              Fumbling with my own keycard, I hustled into my room, eyes down. Door open, me in, door shut.

For the remainder of the night I thought about how brave the armless man must be to travel, and how I just wished I had half of his courage.     

  

59. The Polite Canadian

“And that is why,” the Eastern Indian keynote speaker said adjusting her brilliant pink and turquoise sari, “a new reading of Troilus and Cressida is needed in the light of the recent gender and queer studies movements in Britain, as well as the United States.”

She cleared her throat and tapped her laptop, trying to get the PowerPoint presentation to move forward. Someone in the back sneezed. It sounded German. And someone else laughed, probably a Swede, as they were rather giggly.   

 Sitting in the big hall of the Conference Center, I busied myself doodling a picture of Charlotte Bronte dancing a jig. Troilus and Cressida was one of my least favorites, and this woman’s monosyllabic drone was not helping me stay awake. It was early and I had slept poorly and now was all dressed up, with it hot-hot-hot outside already.

“Just one second please,” the speaker said, whispering something to her technical assistant, as now both fussed with her laptop.

Shakespearians and computers were incongruent, if that was not obvious.  

I yawned and looked around the room. The International Shakespeare Conferences were a hoot. This was my sixth to attend in the last decade. It was nice that this was close to home, as most of the time I had to hoof it to Europe, or worse. I usually skipped the ones in the Far East, as Europe really was my preference, as was Will’s.

There were about a thousand people present, from all over the world. There were serious looking men in suits, hippy Berkeley ladies in flowery dresses, Brit in corduroy and vests, Scots in tartan, African men in colorful pajama-looking clothes, African ladies in dashikis, Muslim ladies in head scarves, and even two Buddhist monks in orange robes. It was all very dramatic and a neat homage for one lone writer who died 400 years ago, and we weren’t even sure he was the one wrote the stuff (I personally think it was Christopher Marlowe). But more than anything, it was impressive.     

I smiled at the two young guys sitting in the row down from me, both apparently in that awkward beginning stage of growing a scholarly beard. You could tell they were European by their shoes. The Europeans had the weirdest shoes. I would guess they were German by their pointed features and apparent drollness. I bent in to listen.

          “Sono affamato. Che cosa circa voi?”

Italians! I was wrong!

One of the guys noticed me looking and waved and said, “El-o.”

I smiled and pretended to busy myself with my notes. A second later I snuck another glance at their shoes again: I should have guessed they were Italians as not only were the shoes weird, but also very expensive looking.

“Okay, I think we got it.” The Indian woman said from the stage. “Here we go…” and she launched into her paper, beginning to read it word for word.

I yawned cartoonishly and wondered how I was going to manage this for six more days.   

               That night at a dinner reception as I spoke to group of Japanese about my book, I really wished I still drank as they all held festive cocktails and I just had 7-Up and lime.

              “Oh, yes. Shakespeare’s use of, if I may say, whores, as we say…”

              They all laughed, the men loudly, but the women quietly, looking down shyly.  

              “…was quite prevalent through many of the plays and especially the sonnets, as I’m sure you’re quite aware……” and I continued the lecture, promoting my book.

One of the men spoke to me at length, his English not great, but better than my Japanese. As I listened and tried to decipher his points, I kept thinking of the joke that I had been told over and over at these international conferences: “A person who speaks three languages is trilingual, a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person who speaks one language is…American!” This was inevitably followed by much twittering on the part of the foreigner, as I always just smiled and thought, ‘Yes, but Shakespeare wrote in English, so suck on that.’    

              I answered the man’s questions as best as I could and he bowed and walked off. As they were leaving, one of the women told me she had read my book, “It very good. Funny, but good.”

              “Great! Thank you!” I smiled.

               Left alone, I beamed over the compliment, bestriding the reception like a mighty academician.

Striding back to the bar to get more 7-Up, I looked around the room. I needed to find some publishers and see if anyone would be interested in Whores in Musicals. It would be a stretch here, but they had to realize man could not live on Shakespeare alone, not even here.      

             

              That evening on a shuttle bus back to my hotel, I sat next to a talkative Canadian man with a cane.  He was rotund and elderly with a moon face and twinkling eyes, like a Disney uncle. I sat next to the window, he on the aisle. I was doing a slight sitting pee dance, as the bathrooms at the reception hall scared me.     

              “Have you been to the Caribbean before?” the Canadian asked.

              “Just once with my parents, to the Bahamas in the early 1990’s. It was okay. It just seemed like south Texas. But this really seems like a topical island.”

“Well, that’s because it is a tropical island, son,” the man chuckled.

“I guess you’re right,” I smiled. The Caribbean family vacation had been a God-awful  disaster of a trip: Smith had made Becky and I both cry before we were even out of Oklahoma, and that was just day one of a sixteen day trip.    

“This conference seldom comes to the tropics,” the old man continued. “It’s nice to get out into the sun. So many scholars just stay so cooped-up in the dark. And thank goodness we’re not stuck in some dank hole in Norway or Switzerland, where they take research so, so deadly seriously. I could do without the rain here, though.”

“It does rain about everyday doesn’t it?”

“Like clockwork.” He smiled, checking his watch. “That dinner was nice, but I had no idea what the Frenchman speaker was talking about: Hamlet as metaphor for war? Phah!”

At this point the bus took a sudden left turn and the kindly old Canadian gentleman slid out of his seat and into the floor of the bus. It all happened in a split second, and I tried to grab him but was also concerned with holding myself in.   

As soon as the bus righted its path, I rose to help the old man up, trying not to think about the status of my full bladder, “Here, let me…”

“No, no, I am fine,” the old man said, rolling about the floor of the bus trying to right himself. “It’s just something that happens.”

“But, I can…” I said, trying to decide if I should pull him up or just let him flounder there like a really smart turtle. Two other men behind me had also stood and also had similar disturbed expressions on their faces.      

“No, no, I am fine. Don’t trouble yourself…” the man said, flailing about.

So I sat back down, feeling terrible, as the man got his cane out from underneath him and eventually after a time or two finally pushed himself up. I looked out the window and wondered how the Canadians managed to be such a polite people.

The old man heaved himself back up and plopped down next to me to take a deep breath, wipe the grime off his hands and say, “As I was saying, I don’t think that Frenchman had the right take on Hamlet at all…”

And I looked back over at him and said, “Uh huh…” like nothing had happened at all, but, boy, I had to pee. 

In my room later that night, I talked to Thad. He was out in the yard watering, telling me some story about being at Homeland today.

“Yeah, so I was like, ‘Heydew knowf, you know’” he said, “and then she was, like, “No, I don’t thark po’ …so there, that’s it. Don’t you thank?” 

“Really?” I said, not understanding half of what he said, but holding my tongue as I was sure he was drunk. Drunk! Now due to the fact that he normally  slurred his words like a Slavic sorority girl with a mouthful of marbles, let alone huffing and puffing as he was out in the yard working-totally out of shape, or as he called it ‘loved’- I swear he sounded drunk.

“Well, don’t ya think?” Thad repeated.  

“Are you drinking?” I snapped, the crazy taking over.

“What?” he said, suddenly very clear. “No.”

“Well, I can’t understand a thing you are saying.” Mania was snuggling into me.  

“CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?” he said in perfectly loud English.

“Yes,” I said, scared.

“OKAY, THEN GOODBYE.”

“No, wait,” I said, the panic OCD alarms going off in my head. “Don’t hang up.” I had told him not to pitch a petite prince fit while I was gone, and had even bought him a carton of cigarettes to get a promise of good behavior out of him-like we were doing prison bartering or something. The last thing I wanted was to get in some transatlantic fight with him, where I had no power and then he refused to answer my calls for a few days: I could handle Princess stateside, but not while I was out of my comfort zone, not like this.      

“I should go,” he said, not sounding drunk at all, now just pissed.

“Look,” I snapped, suddenly livid, “We talked about this. I bought you all those cigarettes, and you said you wouldn’t throw a fit.  You said you wouldn’t.” As I said it, I realize that this was a bad tact to take with him, as purchased guilt never worked on Thad or any of the wealthy.    

“I should go,” he said sternly.

We were both silent for a second, even though I was raging, dangling from his every slurry whim, which I hate-hate-hated!

“Okay.” I said sweetly. “I love you and miss you.”

“Uh huh. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye,” he snapped and hung up the phone.  

“Bye…”

After I hung up I realized he wasn’t drunk; I was just paranoid.

I slept fitfully that night, but did decide not to talk to him anymore near bedtime just in case he was drinking, rat bastard.  

  

60. A Tale of a Fateful Trip

              After a long day of translated Shakespearian pontifications blared through headphones, I was on a bus full of giddy foreigner experiencing a true conference perk: the organized outing. When registering you could pick any number of touristy side trips, and I always did as they featured sight-seeing to local historical areas or some such entertaining fare. The outing I was currently being driven to was a 2-hour sunset cruise to take in the ocean at its finest. I had been looking forward to this all conference.

              As noted in the brochure, we were to meet at the conference center in the late afternoon, take an hour and a half bus ride through the countryside and end-up at some bay famous for snorkeling and scuba diving and other activities that get you eaten by sharks. From there we were to be whisked away for an evening of drinks and hors d’oeuvres on a cruise ship, in all I could imagine would be big red velvet cushioned couches snuggled deep inside the ship, where handsome waiters would pass me shrimp cocktails as large as basketballs, as the ocean glided gracefully by outside. I was prepared for luxury that even Robin Leech would choke on.   

              Once the bus pulled into the marina, we poured out to see no cruise ship at all, just small boats. As a group, the sixty or so of us craned our heads and looked around until the bus driver pointed to a diminutive sail boat directly ahead of us.    

“Over there!” he hollered from the bus, “That one. The catamaran.”

And with that I almost just darted right back on the bus. 

Now a catamaran, for those of you without your sea legs, is a not-very-large-at-all pontoon styled sail boat, open to the water –and not a cruise ship at all-rather one of those sailboats with names like ‘Vitalus’ or ‘Erectus,’ you see Ted Turner or other rich old men racing around the world, as they drank brown drink from a cut crystal glass with a bikinied blond woman hung to them. I could not see that name of the boat but assumed it was ‘Final Mistake,’ or ‘Watery Grave.’ 

But surely this wasn’t our boat? We were going on a cruise-which implied ‘cruise ship.’  I looked around to make sure we weren’t being punked. No, as there were no cameras.  And then it hit me: How were 60 of us even going to fit onto a boat that appeared to have been built to hold about 20?

And a hush fell over the previously excited crowd, as I assumed the other academics had also just come to this same conclusion: there were too many of us for the one tiny boat.  

Shakespearians as a rule of thumb are not risk takers: one: because most of them are old, and two: they seldom left their house except to go to the office or to teach, or go hide in the library stacks.

There is no extreme sporting among the literary.    

              And let me tell you did I contemplate just hustling back to hide on that bus, and from the rumblings of the crowd I could tell others were thinking the same thing.  

              But as if on cue, a pretty blonde girl in tiny shorts emerged from the catamaran and screamed, “Okay, everybody, hey! Welcome aboard! Just come on up, but stay on the plank so you don’t fall in the water…”

              Small brown crewmen scurried out from behind her and lowered a plank from the boat to the dock. We, the crowd, eyed her suspiciously, silent and unmoving. You could have heard a copy of The Tempest drop.

              I looked back to the bus frantically, as did a few others. But I didn’t even know if the boat was coming back here; it might be dropping us off somewhere else at the end of the cruise, which means this bus might not even be going back to town.  And looking around the marina, there were no cabs or even stores where I might wait to call a cab-and how much would a cab be for an hour and a half back to my hotel? My lovely safe hotel.    

I             “Come on, ya’ll! Get on!” The pretty girl in the tiny shorts sang. “Let’s get this party started. Woo!”

              The tiny catamaran bobbed up in down in the water in a viscerally angry way, like a pig trying to loosen wild burrs.

              “I thought it would be a bigger boat,” a rotund British man said.

              “Yes. A big boat,” an Afrikaner added in his Dutch accident.  

              The crowd murmured in agreement.

              “Woo! Come on!” The girl said, dancing around in her long-legged beauty. “It’ll be fun!”

              And then one by one people started to queue up as the crowd mentality kicked in and people started walking up the plank, heads down, clearly afraid.

              I looked back to see the bus driving off. So that was that: No exit. And even though suddenly I wanted to, did I dare throw a screaming crying fit in front of my respected peers? And that option was even ending quickly as people continued to plod onto the boat one by one.  

              So I did what everyone else did, and just queued-up and boarded. The whole thing felt like the beginning of Amistad, and I worried if the African contingency would begin having flashbacks.

                        Oh, and it was so much worse than anticipated. The only real structure on the boat was a big plastic bar in the middle of the deck. The only seating was a plastic bench all around half of the interior, which afforded seating for about 30. I used my massive American height and weight to push through the discombobulated masses to get a seat. Sorry to the women and the elderly, but I was not going to be standing up on this open air monstrosity when it took to sea.

I ended-up next to some shy Japanese women, two despondent Danish men and a mouthy Frenchman who kept saying, “But this is not a cruise ship! We were told in the brochure it would be a cruise ship!” The pretty blonde girl responded to each of his calls with, “Woo! This’ll be great! Woo!”

 The Dane closest to me leaned in to say, “This wasn’t what I was thinking. I hate the sea. I thought it would be a bigger boat...” And I agreed, alas poor Yorick. But looking around, I was glad at least I got a seat, as everyone else just had to stand kinda free-floating in the middle of the deck, like they were waiting for an elevator. And the boat was going up and down, and up and down and up and down, and we were still at the dock. 

                        An old alcoholic pirate of a man in a tennis shirt and dirty white shorts emerged from the hold to cough, “Aye-I’m your Captain.” He barked commands and said, “Snacks are up here-and it’s all the rum ye can drink! But if you see me grab a bottle and a life-jacket, you might want to be following!” And no one really laughed,  realizing at that moment we might be about to die on the open sea, while this AA-reject worried about saving the booze first. And seeing our fear and academic consternation, the Captain just laughed contemptuously like a particularly effective Scooby Doo villain.  

                        So I tuned him out and focused on not crying in public, and how important it was for my career not to cry in front of all of my international peers, as no one wants to buy a book written by a crybaby, not even one who died nobly at sea. I thought about Thad and how he would tell me ‘It’ll be okay,” and how that would calm me. But he wasn’t there to carry me to safety like he was at Gaga.

                        My ears perked up as I hear the Captain say, “And if you haveta go to the bathroom…” which of course I did, to make this the perfect storm of Titanic terror: trapped on an overcrowded slave ship, desperately having to pee.

                        The Captain continued, “The bathroom is down below, and you got to go down that ladder over there-backwards-and the bathrooms, they’re at the bottom.”

                        I literally snorted out loud. What? Were we on a reality show? Was this how they had decided to wean the world of famous Shakespearians? Whoever could go to the bathroom on an overcrowded boat wouldn’t be kicked off the island? Jesus Jumping Christ!

                        But amid my snark and pop, the boat lurched backwards, then forwards and the sail spun around as little brown men with cat eyes in little shorts ran around pulling ropes, and the sail unfurled and shot up and spun back around to catch the wind and we were moving before we knew it. The boat began going up and down and up and down and up and down, and within minutes we left the marina and were out at sea and it was just the most horrifyingly terrible experience I could ever imagine.

                        The sea was angry that day, like a fat lady in too tight of panties. See, there was a hurricane coming, and I had heard on the news that the water was choppier than normal, and, boy howdy, could you tell out on it. I had first noticed how aggressive the tide was when I had been down at the beach last night, as it seeming like it was trying to drag me in, like it was mad we ever left it in the first place. So the up and down and up and down we had experienced in the marina was nothing to the UP AND DOWN AND UP AND DOWN of the wide open devouring, hurricane enraged sea.

Rule 10. Be afraid of Hurricanes.        

                        I shook uncontrollably as water splashed us as wave after wave crashed into the ship. Everyone around me just held on for their dear lives, except the Frenchman who tried to get up to get food. He just fell back down with a “Woosh!” and another cry of, “This is not a cruise ship!” The blond girl just waved from behind the big bar, “Woo!” The timid Danes picked at their clothing, apparently so freaked out that not either of them could even look up.

And then I really looked up for the first time, as I had forgotten to do that as I had been so focused on not dying. I looked up and out at the majestic ocean, but it was just too much and too up and down and I just had to look back away. Stupid ocean.

And time went so slow, measured by wave after wave smacking into the boat, each one signifying the father and father we were from the shore.

As we sailed, everyone around continued to cling to anything that would hold them stable except for the Chinese, who were grouped together in the middle of the deck, unfettered. And I don’t know if was their low centers of gravity or what, but as we really got out into the choppy water, they all began to fall: one over another, in a splay of sadness and terror. And they tried to help each other up, but then another would fall, and I should have rose-these were tiny round old men and women falling-but I could not, as I was not going to give up my seat, as it was the only thing keeping me from screaming and frothing at the mouth, running and shaking people uncontrollably and screaming, “Turn this God-Damn thing around and take me home you bastards!”   

                        And then the Danes began to vomit.

I guess one went, then the other.  

                        I was not sure, but whatever the case, it was copious, like they had just had a free Shoney’s smorgasbord buffet.

              And then the Japanese women on the other side of them began to cry. Cry real Japanese lady tears. One of them became so completely unfettered that her friend had to lay her down, but in order to do that people had to rise to make space for her, so then there were even less seats and even more people standing trying not to fall like the unfortunate Chinese or vomit like the Danes. And I was resolute not to give up my seat, as it was literally the only thing holding me down. So I just held my ground and tried not to vomit and just looked at the floor where paper plates and plastic cups from the bar rolled back and forth with the rocking and dipping and diving of the ship, and the up and down and the back and forth and the up and down of the rocking of the ship.      

              And all this time, as I could think besides “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” was, “I have to pee! I have to pee!”

              This went on for about 45 tense awful minutes before Captain Drunkie apparently correctly assessed the situation through his boozy-filled glasses announced, “Okie Dokey, it looks like ye had enough. We’ll go ahead and take her back in.” And he turned the boat around and headed us back to the marina.

              For the first time since we got on that dreaded Raft of the Medusa, my stomach unclenched. Everyone suddenly started smiling, even the Danes covered in their own vomit, as we knew we would soon be safe.

              And feeling better, I looked back out at the sea and it was lovely, all oceany and all, with a beautiful orange and purple sunset behind us. But really, a postcard would have been fine. I did not have to experience this first hand. I mean it felt kinda like a house fire, it’s best not to view it from the inside.        

              In this gap of fear I finally realized how hungry I was and how desperate I really did need to pee. So biting the anchor, I decided to take both out at once: I would go to the bar for food and then down the ladder to the bathrooms. If I lost my seat now it would be fine as we were heading home; land was quickly approaching over the waves.   

Forcing myself up, legs all a’wobble, I made it three steps before the ship pitched the opposite direction and I was thrown against the bar, but at least it was something stable to hang onto. Pushing people politely out of the way, I pulled my way around it to finally see our gloriously buffet. There were nacho chips, a tub of salsa, grapes, and miniature cheese blocks. And that’s it. For $125 I paid! So much for elegant shrimp cocktails from handsome waiters as I lay on red velvet cushions!  

But starving, having not had dinner in preparation for this grand feast, I grabbed a handful of the little cheese blocks and popped them in my mouth. And as I rebalanced myself against the bar and chewed, I tasted sweaty sea cheese; sweaty sea cheese that felt like it had been in someone else’s mouth for about ten minutes previous. But, really, should I have expected anything other?   

Carefully moving myself between handgrips on the bar, I finally made it to the bathroom ladder on the far opposite wall. Looking down the hold, there was a small hall with a door to the men’s on one side and to the woman’s on the other. There was no one in line, so it was perfect, I just had to remember how the Captain had said to go down the ladder. It was only 4 rungs, but was it front ways or back ways? Why was it so god-damn hard to get to the bathroom? Really? Was this a 15^th century church  bathroom?

I started down front ways, as the ship pitched back and forth and then up and down, and then my bag got caught, and…and…I just gave up. I just didn’t care anymore, it was all just too challenging, and I didn’t care with the vomiting and crying and the up and the down, so I just let go and did a trust fall into the floor of the tiny hold, landing in a crumpled mess at the bottom. WHAP!  I didn’t care how I looked; I just didn’t care, I just wanted to go home and be with Thad and fuss and argue with him, as that was so much easier than trying to survive out on the open sea. And I just laid there, and that was the most comfortable I had been so far on that awful ship yet.

But pulling myself up, I got in the men’s bathroom and then couldn’t go as each time the boat would go up and down my head would smack into the wall-as apparently boat bathrooms are made for wee folk- and I couldn’t focus and it was just all so horrible with the taste of the sweaty sea cheese and then my head whacking into the wall again and then I would right myself and then WHACK! –WHACK!- that I just decided to risk a ruptured bladder and gave up and climbed back up the ladder and went and stood in the corner of the boat as, yes, of course I had lost my seat-until the God-damn boat pulled back into the God-damn marina and we all streamed off of there like good little soldiers, some still covered in their own tears and vomit.

Ah, the joys of the sea.

                        After this, nothing about the conference was upsetting. I had looked evil in the face and it was the angry sea. I went to meetings and met more contacts and did some more touring, and talked to Thad about seventeen times a day, and he seemed sober most of the time. I even found a publisher interested in Whores in Musicals. And when I flew home it was even without any bouncing or singing aisle-mates. But through all of it whenever I would close my eyes, I could still feel that rocking and dipping and diving, and the up and down and the back and forth and the up and down of the rocking of the awful, awful sea.