Extreme Vinyl Café (23 page)

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT MY TABLE?” he barked.

A
fter dinner, Dave and Morley went on deck and watched the sun set and the sea turn dark and thick. There wasn’t another soul around. They leaned on the railing, listening to the distant thump of the engine.

“Pretty,” said Morley, pointing at the first stars.

“How about champagne?” said Dave.

He went inside to get them each a drink.

Derek was locking up the bar.

“Closes at eight, Morley,” said Derek.

“It’s Dave,” said Dave. “Morley was her mother’s maiden name.”

T
hey were back on deck the next morning. Morley settled in to a shady corner with a pile of magazines. There was still no one around.

It was a little spooky.

“Where is everyone?” she said.

Dave was standing in the sun, leaning against the ship’s railing, the warm wind in his hair, his arms stretched out in both directions. He squinted at his wife and shrugged. “Ship of the damned,” he said.

Then he said, “I’m going exploring.

He was gone for maybe an hour. When he came back, he had changed into a T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.

“There is a video on in the back lounge,” he said. “
Birds of the Caribbean
.”

Morley raised herself on her elbow and pointed at the flat blue ocean.

“They’re watching videos?” she said.

“Actually,” said Dave. “Most of them are asleep.”

D
ave went downstairs again at 11:30 to fetch sunscreen. There was a lineup at the dining-room door: men in shorts and sandals and knee-length black socks; women in oversized sunglasses carrying large purses.

“Lunch isn’t for half an hour,” said Dave as he handed Morley the sunscreen. “Do you think they know something we don’t?”

Their table companion from the night before, the man in the wheelchair, was polishing off his dessert when Dave and Morley arrived at 12:15.

“YOU’RE LATE,” he said.

“Dad,” said the woman sitting beside him, “don’t be rude.”

The woman looked up at them apprehensively. Then back at the man in the wheelchair. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind whom she should deal with. She solved the problem by laying her hand on the man’s arm and turning to Dave and Morley.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s grumpy because I didn’t let him have onions on his burger.”

“I’VE EATEN ONIONS ALL MY LIFE,” said the man in the wheelchair. He poked at the burger on his plate with his long finger. As if it might be alive. As if it might move.

“They’re hard on your stomach, Dad,” said the woman.

Then she said, “I’m so sorry. I’m Kathy. This is my father. You must be Morley.”

“Actually, I’m Dave,” said Dave.

The man in the wheelchair said, “SOMETIMES, IN THE WAR, ALL WE HAD WAS ONIONS.”

T
he sea started to roll that afternoon. Not too terribly much, not waves even, just a swell. But it was enough of a swell that you had to reach for the railing every now and then.

Morley was lying by the pool. Dave was wandering around, looking for peanuts or something to munch on, and to see, as he had said to Morley, if he could “spot anyone remotely our age.” He had been gone for over an hour, when he came up behind her quietly, reached out and dropped a chocolate bar on her tummy and himself onto the chaise longue beside her.

“It’s a lockdown,” he said.

Morley pushed herself up on an elbow, picked up the chocolate bar and wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?” she said.

She pitched the chocolate bar back to Dave. Dave caught it, smiled and began to unwrap it.

“I met a couple from Alaska. They were coming back from the fitness centre. Deirdre has everything under lock and key. The rock wall is roped off. The hot tub is lukewarm. The treadmills are pre-set on stroll.”

Morley said, “Who’s Deirdre?”

Dave said, “That nice man who took our photo.”

Morley said, “You mean Derek.”

Dave said, “Silly me. The poker chips have all been put away. It is twenty-four-hour euchre.”

T
he weather turned. They were in their cabin, lying on their bunks, out of the wind. It wasn’t exactly cold on deck—just grey and unpleasant.

Morley said, “Kathy gave her father the cruise for his birthday. She is so patient with him. It makes me feel guilty. Like I should have brought
my
mother.”

Dave said, “It’s time for supper. We should go.” Morley said, “I don’t really feel like eating.”

T
here was no question the sea had turned. The dining room was only half full, but Kathy and her father were both at the table.

“I’m not feeling so good,” said Morley. “I’m not doing so well either,” said Kathy. “THIS IS NOTHING,” said the old man, twisting around in his chair, beckoning to the waiter, pointing at his wineglass. Kathy shook her head when the waiter arrived with the wine. “Just one glass, Dad. It makes you confused.” “YOU’RE THE CONFUSED ONE. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT WE DRANK IN THE WAR.”

T
he weather took a turn for the worse. Neither Kathy nor Morley made it to lunch the next day. “NAME’S … BRUCE …” said the man in the wheelchair.

“BRUCE … TOWLER.” Between every second word, Bruce paused to catch his breath, looking down at his plate and pushing at his food. He had three glasses of wine. Dave wasn’t about to say no. He was a dentist. “USED … TO BE … ANYWAY.”

He dozed off between the main course and dessert, but he didn’t seem at all confused. He snapped awake when the waiter tried to take his dessert away.

“HEY!” he said.

When the meal was finished, a porter came to push Bruce back to his room.

Dave said, “Do you want to go on deck instead?”

Dave pushed Bruce Towler out to the forward deck and the two of them watched the rolling sea. There was no doubt it was getting rockier. Rockier and rockier.

Dave said, “I should check on my wife.”

“DOESN’T … BOTHER … ME … A … BIT,” yelled Bruce into the wind.

Dave wasn’t sure if he meant the weather or the fact Dave was leaving him.

M
orley wasn’t doing well.

“I threw up,” she said.

Dave sat beside her and stroked her hair. After about an hour, the boat changed course. And when it did, it began a whole new and nastier motion. Pretty soon the ship was being tossed around like a toy boat in a bathtub. Dave felt as if he were inside a giant washing machine.

Before long, the closet door in Dave and Morley’s tiny room was slapping open and shut. The drawers in their bureau were banging back and forth. When Morley got up to make a dash to the washroom, her mattress slid off the bunk. When she returned, she lay down on the floor groaning.

“I am not moving,” she said.

And that’s when Dave remembered Bruce Towler.

“Ohmigod,” he said.

I
t was so rocky Dave could barely walk down the corridor. At one point the ship lurched dramatically, and Dave was actually walking along the starboard wall. A moment later, it lurched to the other side, and he was walking along the port side.

When he got to the lounge, there were people stretched out on the couches. Others were sitting grimly, with their heads between their knees, clutching little white bags to their faces.

Dave peered out the far window at the deck where he had left his lunch partner. Nothing. Then the ship pitched to the port side and a wheelchair flew past the window. A moment later the chair flew by the other way. Bruce Towler was sitting in the wheelchair with his hands above his head, like a kid on a roller coaster. From port to starboard, from starboard to port. He was soaked when Dave fetched him, but he was beaming.

“HAVEN’T … HAD … THAT MUCH FUN … SINCE MY WIFE’S WAKE!”

T
hat was the night Dave met Doris Schick. They literally bumped into each other in the corridor outside the dining room. Dave was heading back to his cabin.

“I’m looking for a card game,” said Doris.

You either get seasick or you don’t. And Doris, apparently, was missing the seasick gene.

Dave looked in on Morley. She was still on the floor of their cabin. In the fetal position.

“Don’t talk to me,” she moaned.

And so Dave, who was feeling surprisingly well, and Doris, who had never felt better, retreated to the forward lounge.

Bruce Towler was sitting in the corner. As soon as they sat down, Doris pulled a pewter flask out of her purse.

“Macallan’s,” she said.

Bruce smiled and held out his hand.

Doris pulled out a deck of cards and began dealing. “Texas Hold’em?” she asked.

And so while dishes crashed around them and most everyone was huddled over motion sickness bags, Dave, Doris, Bruce and an eighty-six-year-old millwright from Seattle sipped fifteen-year-old whisky and played poker until midnight.

Doris, it turned out, used to live in a seniors’ residence in Fargo, North Dakota. When she turned eighty-three, she took a hard look at her finances and realized she couldn’t afford to stay there for as long as she planned to live. She had been cruising full-time ever since.

“It’s cheaper,” she said, fanning her hand on the table in front of her. “Food’s better.” She pointed out at the angry grey sea. “Weather too, mostly.”

At 12:30, Dave said, “My wife is below. I should check on her.”

“Ahh,” said Doris. “Young love. I lost my husband.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dave.

“It was a long time ago,” said Doris.

T
he skies cleared the next afternoon.

“TOO BAD,” said Bruce Towler, waving his hands over his head weakly, “that was fun.”

That was the afternoon Dave found a pile of brochures that had spilled out of a drawer in the bar during the worst of the storm: They were about bungee jumping, parasailing and scuba diving.

When Dave asked, Derek rolled his eyes. “We can’t run those activities with a crowd like this. Can you imagine?”

Some people say genius is the ability to concentrate with more intensity than the average person. Others say a genius is someone who has the ability to understand complex problems and to use his imagination to solve them. There are those, however, who believe geniuses are people who look at the world with a sense of wonder, and who possess the ability to see things in a fresh, childlike way.

“YOU’RE A BLOODY GENIUS,” said Bruce Towler to Dave two hours later.

“DORIS,” he shouted, “ARE YOU COMING? WE’RE GOING OVER THE WALL.”

Half an hour later Bruce was standing on the upper deck. Well, standing is an exaggeration. He was sort of standing. He was clutching his walker with one hand and the shoulder of a Filipino crew member with the other. A second crew member was strapping him into a nylon harness. Bruce Towler was beaming.

“MAKE SURE YOU GET A GOOD ONE,” he said, pointing at Doris Schick. Doris was standing in front of him with her Polaroid camera.

When you are eighty-seven years old, and you can’t stand
up anymore without someone standing beside you, when all the movement you can manage is unsteady, when your body has quit on you, but your spirit hasn’t, bungee jumping might just be the perfect sport.

The Filipino mate cinched the final strap on Bruce Towler’s harness.

“There is nothing to be afraid of, sir,” he said.

Bruce Towler squinted at him. “DAMN RIGHT,” said Bruce.

The mate was about to say something else. But he was too late. Bruce Towler was already gone. Bruce took a lurching step and flew out over the edge of the ship. Face down and fractious, Bruce Towler was hurtling toward the blue ocean. For the first time in years, he felt as light as air.

“WHOOPEE,” he bellowed as he felt the unfamiliar surge of adrenaline racing through him.

It was only when Bruce got to the end of the line and began his bouncing ascent that Dave noticed that Bruce, in his tweed suit and tie, was still clutching his walker. As he yo-yoed by the crowd on the deck, he was waving it over his head.

“WHOOPEE.”

Derek, the activities director, arrived at the lifeboats just as Bruce headed over the rails. As Bruce bounced up and down, Derek stood there, his one hand resting on a ring buoy. He was clutching his heart with the other. He looked apoplectic.

M
orley resurfaced the next morning. She set herself up again, with her magazines and bag of supplies, by the aft-deck pool.

Dave didn’t have time to read by the pool. Dave had cards with Doris at nine, coffee with Bruce at ten-thirty and a shuffleboard playdown at eleven.

“I’ll meet you at lunch,” Dave told Morley.

When Morley walked into the dining room, Dave was working on dessert.

“I waited,” he said. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

Morley glanced at her wrist. It was ten past twelve.

She stood by the table awkwardly. There were no empty places. Doris Schick was sitting in Morley’s seat. Doris smiled up at Morley. She reached out and rested her hand on Dave’s arm. “This dear man has been telling me the most wonderful stories.” Then she ran her hand through Dave’s hair and added, “I lost my husband.”

“That is so awful,” said Morley. “I am so sorry. When did he die?”

Doris rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say he died, dear.”

A
nd so the days rolled by.

The weather turned. For the rest of the trip, they were blessed with hot days and long warm nights. The cruise ship stopped at a different island each morning. The lineups to disembark began at least an hour before they arrived.

They all missed the turtles at Cummana. Much the same at Aqua de Perico, where there wasn’t time for a side trip to the Aztec ruins.

Many of them, however, did get to see the endangered Santa Madeira woodpecker. It cost five dollars American to enter the tent where it was kept, and an additional seventy-five cents for a cup of pellets if you wanted to feed it. Dave
didn’t go himself, but Bruce Towler told him the bird was either asleep or stuffed—in any case, not remotely interested in the pellets.

“THEY AREN’T BAD,” said Bruce, holding out a cupful and munching away.

B
y the end of it, Derek, who had been upstaged during the storm, mortified during the bungee jumping and humbled on the shuffleboard court, gave up the ghost. He had lost the crowd, and he knew it. He cancelled the last night’s bingo and more or less vanished, his activities schedule in tatters.