Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We flip through Witold's obviously pirated bootleg DVDs, looking for something that might entertain us
as we wait for the fog to lift. Many of the movies are dubbed into Polish, which makes them of less use to
us. Witold's written the names of the actors who star in each film in black marker on the DVDs, and as we
sift through the collection two clear patterns emerge. First, the female stars are all extremely chesty. Not a
surprise. And second, Witold appears to have difficulty distinguishing between different African American
male actors. Specifically: Whenever a movie features a black actor in the lead role, Witold's marker scrawl
will read “Denzel Washington.” Even when the actor is not Denzel Washington. A movie starring Jam-
ie Foxx? Witold writes, “Denzel Washington.” Will Smith? “Denzel Washington.” Wesley Snipes? Nope.
“Denzel Washington.”
WE borrow a couple of Witold's discs and watch them that evening on the TV in the ship's lounge. This
offers a few hours of distraction. But when we wake the next morning—for the third day in a row—to a
thick blanket of swirling fog, our ennui returns in force. It feels like we're not moving at all.
An exacerbating factor is the disappearance of our pet swallow. Rebecca had been keeping tabs on him
ever since Philadelphia, when she noticed him flying in and out of a crevice in the side of the superstruc-
ture. The little bird must have mistaken the ship for an apartment tower when we were docked in port.
When we set sail, he came along for the ride.
Sadly, the poor guy just wasn't cut out for a life at sea. We sometimes see powerful, broad-winged
seabirds swooping past the ship—skimming the swells and diving for fish. But when our tiny swallow
makes his sorties out over the ocean, he quickly gets tired and flaps back to his nest. We began to grow
concerned, as he couldn't be finding many bugs to eat out here. Now we haven't seen him at all for the last
few days, and we fret for his well-being.
But mostly, it's the fog that's driving us nuts. It's so impassive, so oppressive, so monolithically dense
and muffling. There's nothing we can do to shoo it away.
By evening three of fogfest, we're at our wits' end. There is but one surefire solution: copious amounts
of alcohol. We purchase a bottle of whiskey from the freighter's slop chest—a little storeroom from which
the crew can buy liquor and cigarettes—and polish off most of it in the course of an hour. Rebecca soon
nods off. I, perhaps unwisely, stumble out into the foggy night with one last tumbler of good cheer.
I've brought the shortwave with me in hopes I might find a radio show to keep me company. But all I
can manage to tune in on the world band are evangelical sermons. I pull out the earbuds and sit in silence,
feeling the wet fog on my face and listening to the ocean slap against the hull.
As I continue to sip at the chest-warming liquor, entering ever-deeper states of inebriation, a maudlin
thought begins to take shape in my whiskey-addled skull. My notion is this: We are each of us our own con-
tainer ship, transporting our various cargoes through the ocean of life. At ports along the way, we may stop
and pick up a new lover, a spouse, a child. At other ports we unload precious items—friends move away,
relationships end, parents die. Even when we're lost in the deepest fog, we must try to keep our watch, not
be the cause of any tragic collisions, and do what we can to keep our cargo safe.
In the end, of course, your ship rusts out and is no longer seaworthy. So I suppose, in this analogy, the
afterlife equates to being bought by a Greek shipping line.
WE wake up hung over, yet ecstatic: Outside our cabin windows is a bright blue sky. It's our next-to-last
day at sea, the fog has lifted, and the sun on our faces is a warm bath of wonderful.
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