The Ordinary Seaman (26 page)

“I don’t understand why you don’t leave, patroncito. It’s a city full of opportunities. There must be thousands out there from countries like
ours, young like you but less prepared, maybe less lucky. I promise you, this ship is going nowhere.”

The viejo is going crazy, hyper and jittery. Why does he keep smelling his blanket? Suddenly obsessed with sniffing at his blanket. And always asking if I smell anything strange.

“Vos, qué te pasa? Why do you keep smelling your blanket?”

Bernardo looks at him like some sheepish little cipote, and then he asks, uncertainly, “Do you smell cat pee?”

“No.”

The viejo drops the blanket back down onto his lap. “Bueno,” he says. “Me neither.”

Crazy viejo!

“I brought back wood chips.”

“Wood chips?”

He explains. Tells him how he hid the sack behind the grain elevator and then climbed back up the mooring line.

“It will be good for lighting fires.” And he pulls the blanket over him and turns towards the bulkhead and instantly falls asleep.

The day is partly overcast, sun fighting through clouds; a sporadic, chilling, mid-October wind, bringing the first sharp nips of winter, tatters the air, flickering uncomfortably up pant legs, under sleeves, through rips in their clothes, leaving a faint burning sensation against skin. The wind hums around the masts and stays, through the derricks and rigging; slides water in smooth, metallic, gull-skimmed sheets across the cove. Sunlight catches a swooping gull’s chest, makes it arc radiantly-whitely through the air.

They haven’t been abandoned, not yet: Mark comes to the ship that day in the Honda, with Miracle and groceries. Neither of their officers has been out in three days, but Mark’s arrival—great relief that it is—is unceremoniously observed by both sides. He greets no one, and none of the crew allows himself much more than a glance at him.

El Primero stands on deck and says, in English, “Brought some
food and stuff,” gesturing down at the pier. He turns back to the gangway, and Roque Balboa and Cebo follow, to carry the groceries up from the car. Moments later they come back up, Roque carrying a bulky paper bag, Cebo a large sack of potatoes, into the mess. Mark and the dog go up to the bridge.

So capitán and primero haven’t given up on the
Urus.
And if their officers haven’t given up, that means there’s still something … to wait for. As soon as they heard the car arriving on the pier, all the ordinary seamen but Esteban—still sleeping in his cabin—immediately resumed working, prying open paint cans, priming brushes, there was always something to be done. El Primero’s arrival, rather than merely activating an innate obedience, has provided an excuse, and a context, to exchange a completely lethargic tedium for a somewhat more active one. Only the mechanics and electricians keep busy when neither capitán nor primero is there: they were already down in the two-level pit of the engine plant when Mark arrived, reengaged in the task of disassembling parts, cleaning, lubricating, tightening, reassembling, endlessly theorizing about how it all might work if only it all worked. The illusory satisfactions of studying and tinkering with dead engines, generators, and pumps, so complicated, mysterious, and inert, demands and compels an unreciprocated love. Last week el Capitán put some of the ordinary seamen to work welding fissures in the ballast tanks in the bottom deck under the hold—serious and dangerous work, without goggles, rags tied across their noses and mouths, the concentration it took burned up the day. But they haven’t been able to finish the job with no one coming out to turn the generator and compressor on. Nor does Mark turn them on today.

When an appropriate amount of time has passed, some put down their paintbrushes and tools and go into the mess to look at the groceries, which José Mateo and Bernardo have already unpacked. Potatoes, cooking oil, chicken livers, six cans of peas, a plastic bag full of waxy pink apples, soap, five tubes of toothpaste, toilet paper. But el Primero forgot to bring razors again.

The crates of rusted sardine cans, paper labels rotted away, they found left behind in a deep corner of the hold back in June have been a
salvation, but also a curse. There are still more than three hundred cans left—keys uselessly rusted to the sides, but José Mateo and Bernardo tear them open with can opener, hammered tools—so their officers know they can neglect to bring them groceries and at least they won’t starve. But the rice is running low, down to five sacks.

Later they see Mark out on the wing having a smoke, leaning on his arms, staring out over wasteland, port and harbor. Too bad he didn’t bring them cigarettes, not that they ever do. Wouldn’t it be great to have a cigarette? Soothing, hot smoke bathing and cleaning your lungs. El Primero stays out there a long time. As if he’s come just to show himself, as if to say, Don’t worry, Capitán Elias and I are still here, responsible for all of you, little lambs. He looks calm and dreamy up there, as if the ship is already far out to sea and he’s flicking cigarette butts in high arcs out into the middle of the ocean, into the wind. Doesn’t seem to have noticed that Esteban is shirking his work today. Or maybe doesn’t care. Wouldn’t be likely to say anything about it anyway, since what’s he ever say? Hi guys! Qué pasa! and today not even that. The viejo says Esteban isn’t feeling well, to just let the chavalo be. Panzón will mark him down for a full workday with overtime anyway.

After the relief of just seeing el Primero there, what riled emotions and moods! Anger, humiliation, frustration, self-pitying sulks. Like a callously disregarded and tormented lover whose lover finally calls. That their most basic sense of security actually depends on one or the other of these two huevones coming to the ship! Relief to feel secure again, then fury over this deception camouflaged as security: just because what they most fear hasn’t yet come to pass. El Barbie forgets what he’s doing and paces up and down, paintbrush in his hand, dripping paint all over, fuming: he more than anyone else trusted and even loved his capitán, has behaved deferentially even to this maricón primero out of respect for his capitán. He lets them call him El Barbie, but he hasn’t forgotten who Omar Usareli is, nor should they. It’s Omar Usareli who allowed himself to accept the honor of being promoted to contramaestre, to dignify that honor with his own dignity, because let me tell you, cabrón,
when you call on the dignity and honor of Omar Usareli, you’re asking him to put the very best of himself on the line for you, to return respect with respect, and it isn’t very often that Omar Usareli finds someone he respects enough to do that, but that’s what he tried to do, and, look, they made a fool out of him! Let’s get that pendejo primero, let’s strip him and paint him, hold him down while I paint his pija bright red, see if he wants to have another game of Break the Cookie then, maricón jodido!

What will happen if capitán and primero never come out to the ship again? If they give up, quit, won’t they at least come and tell them, ready them for whatever comes next? That’s the question that crashes into thoughts at night like a sudden mud slide. How many days will pass without their officers coming to the ship before they’ll have to accept that they’ve been abandoned once and for all? How will they know when they’ve been abandoned and what will they do then?

Abandoned ships and crews, José Mateo says it happens, pues. An abandoned crew can end up stuck on a ship forever while all the legal pendejadas get resolved, until they figure out who’s responsible, who owes what to whom, who finally gets paid what. Sometimes, he says, they end up auctioning the ship off for scrap to pay everybody off, melt a ship like this down to make razor blades, beer cans, refrigerators …

Bernardo pictures gringos shaving with his tears, pulling cold cans of his bile from gleaming white refrigerators made of his hatred. A perfect immortality.

Three hours after they arrived, without once coming down from wing and bridge, Mark and Miracle leave without even saying good-bye.

Esteban comes out on deck, promptly descends the ladder, and comes back up carrying a large plastic sack in his arms, which he sets down at his feet.

“What’s that?” Everyone is eating apples as they gather around Esteban and the mysterious sack. The cold crunch of teeth biting into apples. He tells them what it is and what he thinks it will be good for.

“Where’d you get it?”

“In a warehouse.” He lifts his arm. “Way over there. I stole it, pues.”

El Barbie’s lips and nose are curled with dumbstruck, willed disbelief and automatic envy; he’s speechless with confusion. The others look at Esteban with worried expressions, absorbing this surprising new development and its meaning.

“I’ve been going off the ship at night,” he says, unable to repress a slightly boasting and defiant tone. “This is the first useful thing I found.”

So, while they’ve all been sleeping or trying to sleep, the sulky thumb chewer, the old man’s nieto, the reticent soldier boy, has been leaving the ship, prowling the waterfront.

“Just this? Wood chips?” says El Barbie.

“Y vos qué?” says Esteban. “What
haveyou
brought back?” Someone has handed him an apple, and he takes a bite out of it—the fruit tastes grainy, almost dry, weak in flavor for an apple though sweet, delicious.

Nobody bathes on the pier that evening; despite the new soap, it’s too cold. They do enjoy the explosive sensation of toothpaste in their mouths. Night comes earlier now, swiftly erasing the peaceful pink and blue sky and its tamed, sinking sun, the yellowing tops of trees; the gulls go away to sleep somewhere, and the cats—Desastres’s family—raise their usual incestuous racket. After they’ve gathered wood, they pull up the ladder, three grunting crewmen hauling it up by pulleys and rope, jerk by jerk.

On deck, Esteban lays wood chips as tinder under the piled planks. The wood chips ignite into small, prismatic flames, bubbling chemical colors, quickly combust into ephemeral puffs like marshmallows, and burn down to pungent nothing, barely singeing the wood laid over them. Wood-and-chemical marshmallows. So then what’s this shit for? As tinder, it’s useless.

But not even El Barbie wants to mock Esteban over the failure of the wood chips. They haven’t dared to leave the ship and he has. Suddenly Esteban’s stature is even greater than that of Tomaso Tostado, who is merely smart, quick, and decisive.

“Ni modo.” Esteban shrugs. “I’ll find something else tonight.”

Pretty-boy Pinpoyo and El Tinieblas ask if they can come with him. He refuses. On his own, he’ll be able to sneak around and steal better, he says. El Tinieblas feels hurt, after all, stealing is what he used to do, though not very successfully. They offer to lower the ladder for him, stand watch for his return. He refuses. No need. Doesn’t know how long he’ll be.

Now he loads his pockets with wire cutter, knife, short marline-spike, pliers. Should he bring the watch, in case he decides not to come back? But what if he gets robbed? He doesn’t realize yet that when, in a few nights, he finds the more commercial-residential streets, even the few people out at those hours will eye him warily, or look right through him, or direct penetrating gazes of furious pity or disgust his way, but no one will think to rob him, filthy, dressed in rags.

HE HAS THESE REMOTER WATERFRONT STREETS ALMOST ENTIRELY TO
himself at night. Hardly ever sees anyone out walking, and, when he does, they pass like shadows. The waterfront runs for miles and miles on both sides of where the
Urus
is berthed, ruins and weedy barrens mixed in with areas still functioning, warehouse and industrial zones, block after block after block. Walking, ve? with purpose. In his shredded, paint-grease-rust-stained jeans, wearing three T-shirts for a little warmth, boots laced with orange-insulated electrical wire. Past walled-in warehouses and truck lots surrounded by fences topped with concertina wire; the occasional walled-in, still-working shipping terminal; paved drives blocked by lowered crossing bars or locked gates and security booths and the harbor glittering beyond. Now and then he glimpses a berthed ship, lights on in the superstructure, the humming vibration of its auxiliary engine, iron nests of life tucked into this vast, slowly decipherable waterfront maze. He hears far-off whooping sirens; he hears gunshots, a brief burst of rapid fire, hardly notices these sounds anymore. A ship’s horn bellowing far out in the harbor. He hears the muffled, irked shriek of a rooster, and this does surprise him; he’s not sure, but yes, he hears it again, coming from somewhere amidst these tunnels of brick and concrete. It must be about 3:00
A.M
. He spots a cat slinking through the dark at the base of a wall, and he hurries his steps to see if it’s Desastres; it isn’t. There’s little traffic. Mostly multiwheeled trucks drive past, engines growling like the serious business of war, like dangerous nighttime maneuvers too noisy to be kept secret.

And now he looks up and sees this one place still open, at the back of a corner lot, silvery cutouts of naked women like shimmering angel apparitions embedded in the pink stucco facade, music pounding like a terrified heart inside, shiny, money-macho vehicles parked outside: Jeeps, pickups, motorcycles. The red door slams open, and a giant of a
man wearing only a black leather vest over a short-sleeved T-shirt on top despite the cold is crossing the lot with a heavy-footed, steady gait. He’s even bigger and possibly even hairier than El Pelos, with a short, red beard and massive forearms furry as a bear’s. He’s smoking a cigarette. He walks to the door of the Jeep Cherokee parked in front of where Esteban is standing and pulls out his keys. Esteban impulsively makes up his mind to ask the man for a cigarette, por qué no?

“Hi!
eh …
Cigarro?
Please,
meester?”
Puta, hates the squealing sound of this stranger’s voice that has just come from him—

The bearded man, his unruly hair taking on a frilly glow from the pinkish glare of the lot’s sodium vapor lamps, scowls up at him; his drunken blue eyes have the cold sheen of jellyfish.

“Fuck you,” says the man, and his eyes widen as if he’s just startled himself.