On a Booze Cruise with the Barbie in the Gold Bikini

The darker part of me wanted to use cattle prods on the boarding security. “A few sparks should do the trick,” I mutter under my breath, as a member of the security shouts, “Próximo.”

The queue steps toward the metal detector like a millipede. A “beep” cuts conversations short and attracts sweat-inducing glares. An elderly man has forgotten to remove his watch and is now being searched. I hear the snap of white gloves through the wall, flashing back two years ago in Miami.

“Próximo.”

I’m one place away from the metal detector and experience the unnatural urge to shout bomb.

“Próximo.”

I’m up. I feel the eyes of the woman behind me burning through my cranium and into my thoughts as I fumble around in my fan pack for my passport.

“Pasaporte, por favor?”

I whip out my passport like a flick knife. The sniffer dog, a 100-pound, virile Alsatian – still with its testes – locks eyes with me. The security guard looks at my passport photo and then to me. He frowns and wonders where it all went wrong. I notice that my feet have begun to sweat.

“Pass through the scanner, sir.”

The Room

My flip flops clap with the soles of my feet until I reach my room, which is still being prepared by the Maitre d’. I stroll in, noticing my luggage has already arrived: one suitcase, a duffle bag, and a rolled up rug I bought at the La Boqueria Market a few days prior.

“A double bed – what a luxury,” I whisper.

I dive, starfishing onto the bed. I hear the Maitre d’ say, “All done now, sir. Can I get you anything before I’m off?” But as soon as I go to reply, he sneezes into the air of my clean room. Disgusting.

“Bless you, my son,” I say, as though I don’t care that his nose juice is now all over my floor.

“Thank you.” He places the hands he didn’t use to catch whatever deadly disease he’s got into prayer. “Will you be visiting the Vatican after we make port in Civitavecchia?”

“No. I’m afraid I might burn.”

He puts on the “customer’s always right” smile and leaves.

Arising fully from my bedspread, I notice the now squashed towel origami swan and the two partially melted, small foil wrapped pieces of chocolate. “Shit.” I check myself for brown patches – mainly around the ass area. And after acting like a dog chasing its own tail, I feel parched.

“Now, where’s the bar?”

The Bar

The Spanish sun cooks my unlotioned skin as I stand downwind of the smell of death, breathing in time to the sound of The Champs’ “Tequila,” playing from the pair of JBL speakers above the bar.

“Que empiece la fiesta,” I think I hear the zimmer frame giggle to her friend, or lover, as she passes me with a margarita in each hand.

The smell dissipates.

“What will it be, sir?”  

My attention is peeled away from the amount of free deck chairs by the pool. “Me?” I point to myself. The bartender nods. I step forward, noticing that I’m now at the front of the queue. “Hum.” I squint at the chalkboard behind the barman, then at the rainbow of liquor bottles around him. “One mojito.“

The bartender begins.

“Don’t be scared about being heavy handed,” I say.

He splashes an extra shot into the mix. Did he just wink at me?

I sip. It’s still not strong enough. “Could you bring me another when I’m finished with this one? I’ll be by the pool.”

I warn him not to get the white rum mixed up with water next time. Rupert Holmes’ “Escape” begins to play from the JBL speakers.

The Pool

I place my Ray-Bans on so that the barbie in the gold bikini doesn’t catch me drooling over her. She splashes around in the pool putting on a show. If I had a score card I’d give her a 7.

My burning skin turns cold, easing the pain. I look up at the waiter who is blocking out the sun.

“Your drink, sir,” he says.

“You’re back already?”

“You’ve drunk your last drink, already.” His cheesy smile makes me uncomfortable. “Would that be it after this one?“

I shrug, look at my watch: 12:23 p.m. “The day is yet young.”

I expect him to leave, but he waits. He didn’t last time. He must be waiting for my old glasses that he didn’t take with him last time. I hand him the glasses of water and mint leaves that I had been keeping under my deck chair. He accepts them, but looks confused, and continues to block out the sun. He wants a tip. How long can I get him to stand there?

After a solid minute of ignoring him, I put a Euro in his waistcoat pocket for bringing me drinks for the past two hours. He doesn’t appreciate it.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” I say.

Without expression, he points to my mouth and says, “You’ve got a little something there.” He offers me a tissue from his pocket.

I accept his tissue, not knowing where it’s been, and say, “Thank you” after I wipe the drool from the left side of my mouth. He leaves.

I go back to tacitly observing the gold bikini, but as I browse the watering hole, I notice there are others just like me, all staring straight ahead, all in sunglasses – all dogs.

The Casino

A haze sits like the clouds of Beijing above the gamblers. Was it the flirting lights that attracted them? The rush of winning big? The experience of acting as though they knew what they were doing as they shouted, “I call,” while the pro opposite them tried not to react? Cheap, or very expensive thrills, causing addiction, poverty, the loss of dignity and/or sensibilities.

“All on black,” I scream, feeling more alive than ever. The roulette wheel spins. The rattle of the ball sends me reeling through a wide range of emotions.

“I can’t take it,” I say, as sweat drips from my brow and onto the felt of the roulette table. “Make it stop, please?” The ball rushes, rattles, slows, plays with my blood pressure, bounces, slows some more – I begin rippling with anxiety.

“Black, twenty-six,” the dealer howls like a charity auctioneer without a gavel. A rush of pleasure surges from my heart as I realize I’ve just won four hundred dollars. “Thank you,” I whisper to God.

“Oh, you got lucky,” the fat bitch opposite me remarks. Only jealous people believe in luck. I cash out, stuffing the wad of cash into the waistband of my linen trousers.

The Second Bar

Somewhere on Deck 7, an instrumental jazz piece plays from speakers I can’t identify. Warm lights scale the walls, caramelising the eggshell paint, while a few old grumbling men start to get political in their leather smoking chairs. I, swilling what is left of the icecube from my Old Fashioned, pick out the orange peel and take in its pores. A part of me wants to chew it. I look around to see if anyone is watching me.

“Another, sir?” the bartender asks, while taking a break from polishing that glass that’s never quite clean enough.

As I answer him, “Why not,” she walks in. Liz Wright’s “Stars Fell on Alabama” fills the room, and I take in the woman that’s wrapped from chest to thigh in a slim-fitting, azure blue dress. It’s the woman from the pool – the barbie in the gold bikini.

She catches me looking at her. Where are my sunglasses? I overdramatically whip my head back around to lock eyes with the barman.

“Your drink, sir.”

Inhale. I quickly glance back at the women in azure blue again. Exhale.

“Is that all?”

I lean across the bar and whisper, “I want to pay for whatever she’s having.” I slyly point to the woman, who has now taken a seat.

The barman frowns. “You know that all the booze on this cruise is free, right?”

The Balcony

I take a hit from the Mediterranean sea salts while the breeze creates a ghostly figure out of the sheer curtains in my room. The smell tickles the back of my throat enough to make me gag. I’m now retching over the railing of my balcony, watching, with watery eyes, the last of the BBQ chicken dinner I ate at the buffet paint the side of the ship and balconies below mine.

“What the actual fuck was that?” I hear a man bark from the balcony below me.

I recoil into the safety of my balcony, where for a second, I unwantedly picture the confusion of that man’s face. Sniggering like a menace to society, I hold down what is undoubtedly the roast potatoes and/or carrots. Gulp. After dabbing my brow, feeling the storm calming in my stomach in between the side of my open shirt, the clouds part, my expression pops – eyes bulging like that of an inbred dog – as the light of the full moon pushes through the grey clouds. I can see the water dancing, its shallow swells like miniature snow capped mountains – beautiful.