Merely Players, pt. 1

Shakespeare is famous for saying “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” We have our stage, lets get us some players. Starting with Brian. I knew I wanted to talk to him because I could see the top of his bathing suit. In fact, not only did he lack jelly rolls, he actually had nice abs. Surely he’s a nice boy, right?

Brian was a 20 year old attending a small rural college in Alabama. His greatest aspiration on the trip was to smuggle empty shampoo bottles off the boat in Grand Cayman and come back with rotgut tequila. Make of this what you will. I for one didn’t care. He was in my age bracket, easy on the eyes, and didn’t drool when he spoke; that was more than I had hoped for up until this point. We only talked for a brief while before he had to leave, but I told him I’d run into him again. “It’s a small boat,” I said. I didn’t know yet how right I was.

As this was the first day, and the boat had yet to even leave the dock, the free drinks flowed plenty. I for one developed an impervious liver in Australia (only got drunk once on the trip, more on that later), but others were not so lucky. Or rather, are luckier than I. Anyway, point is they were giving out free samples of fancy liqueurs outside the onboard mini-mall, and people were lining up in a frenzy to try miniature shots of mixers you really shouldn’t be taking shots of. I of course joined the fray. Near me was a young man far too giddy for his own good. I struck up a conversation, which lead nowhere, as he was already drunk on cheap champagne and tiny shots of Baily’s. I learned his name was Nick, he was here with his extended family, and he was giddy because he was getting free drinks at 18. He told me all this with his eyes slightly glazed as he drifted aimlessly away. I told his back that I’d see him again. “It’s a small boat,” I said. Nearby, some lush sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. He is not part of this story.

I found my father, who was also where the free drinks were. He was talking to some older woman, of course a blonde, standing with her children. The girl was short, with shorter hair, and a bit nerdy. The boy seemed familiar; I recognized them from the terminal in JFK. I thought he’d seemed cute, from a distance. As I joined my father in the conversational equivalent of a double date, I learned two things about this boy. One, his ADD was way worse than mine, and two, he was still in high school. I shuddered slightly on the inside, and left to find someone calmer and more legal.

My father, on the other hand, seemed to like this woman. Her name was Lisa. Her name was not Shawn, my father’s girlfriend. Before we got on the cruise, I’d hinted to my father that I may have to kick him out of the room to have sex on his bed, just to tease him a bit. He told me that was fine, as he has a happy and stable relationship and doesn’t need sex. Now, as my father and I got dressed for dinner, he told me his strategy for seducing Lisa, and advised me to knock before I opened the door tonight. Monogamy: the eternal bond – warranty may not apply in international waters.

If he was so certain he was going to keep it in his pants, why did he pack condoms in his toiletries bag? And why does he even have a toiletries bag? That’s too gay, even for me.

If my father likes pussy, we sure got assigned the right table. Men were quite outnumbered. First you had the two women from some South American country, I forget. Besides occasionally speaking a line or two at the table, asking where my father was when encountered randomly on deck, dancing with me for a minute on New Years, and standing awkwardly surrounded by youths in the nightclub, they were pretty much a non-presence. They might’ve been coworkers or lesbians, I forget. My spider sense doesn’t work on dykes. Then there were the two fat sisters. Besides occasionally speaking a line or two at the table, asking where my father was when encountered randomly on deck, dancing with me for a minute on New Years, and flirting with younger black guys in the nightclub in a beautiful textbook example of why stereotypes are sometimes true, they were pretty much a non-presence. I’ll be surprised if I mention any of these four again.

Next to them were a mother-daughter pair. I tried to talk biology with the mother, seeing as she works in the biology department of Princeton, but it only went so far after I found out she was a glorified secretary. My father didn’t like her from the start. See, he didn’t want to go to formal dinner. He didn’t want to be forced to sit with strangers. He wanted to be quiet, grumpy, and antisocial. I forced him to go, forgetting that his way of coping with being grumpy and antisocial is to become a loud drunken court jester. I wanted to slap him upside the head, but she beat me to it, putting him verbally in his place in a bizarrely maternal way from one 50-something to another. He never liked her after that. Her daughter on the other hand was quite intriguing, to both him and I. Jen was kind of pretty, with a large Guns n’ Roses tattoo on her back. She was funny, smart, grounded, and had lots of stories from being in the Navy. I was quickly intimidated by her.

Oh, and there were two more people at this table. A young married couple, early 30’s, kid or two safely at home. Lets call them Chip and Dale. I wont even try to simplify them into a caricature, I’ll simply say this isn’t the last you’ll read of them.

After the party, I headed for the welcome show. There we got our first taste of Felipe, our bombastic attention whore of a cruise director, straight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Accompanying him was his squadron of cruise dancers. The men were objectively prettier, but it was hard to notice them when the women were wearing skintight lycra suits with holes cut out conveniently where their artificially enhanced cleavage was located. Oh, and there was a dancing smokestack mascot. I shit you not.

They were followed immediately by a guitar-wielding comedian, like Stephen Lynch but without talent. I quickly began looking for new people to meet. Mostly I saw old fat Southerners, but I locked eyes with one boy sitting on the stairs. The room was very dark, but my gaydar told me I’d found a hit. My gaydar almost never leads me astray, unless he’s European; for some reason, gays and Europeans are entirely indistinguishable to me. Other foreigners are sometimes hard to tell as well, but Europeans trick me every time. The only way I would know would be if I crossed the room to talk to him, in the middle of the show, which is of course exactly what I did. But something seemed amiss as I approached. As I sat down, he sheepishly said ‘Hi.’ in a distinctly American voice. Then he turned to me, and gave me a meaningful gay smile. The smile that means “I know what you are, and you know me too.” The light from the stage show reflected off his braces. Fuck! I cursed my bad luck and worse eyes. I was angry, and felt dirtied for misjudging age again. But, I endured a conversation with him, and endeavored to avoid him for the rest of the cruise, to more or less success. But enough of that.

I made my way to the back of the ship, hoping for better luck in the older areas. I found myself at karaoke. On stage was a short overtattooed drunk guy and his tall, fat, bald, drunk friend, singing a song I frankly couldn’t distinguish from a tortured rabbit. The place was mostly empty, as the rest of the ship seemed to be after the show. It was far too quiet for the first night. However, there were one or two friendly faces to be seen. “Scott, hey!”, someone called from a booth. I didn’t recognize at first, but it was Chip, with one of the fat chick twins. Being the polite gentleman I occasionally pretend I am, I decided to go over and make smalltalk before making a convenient and timely exit.

I learned, right then and there, that perhaps all my preconceived notions about being 30 may be wrong. She whispered in my ear “Do you have any pot?” I liked this one.