Ferry to the Mainland
“…We would like to once again welcome you to DFDS Seaways; the casino and duty-free store are now open; DFDS Seaways is part of the DFDS Group of Companies…”
“Cheers, my friends,” Jim says with a raise of his Newcastlebeer, “to the land we come from, and to the land we go to!”
“And cheers to Katherine!” adds Lissa, to the counter-clerk who helped us buy our tickets, and we drink again.
“And cheers to DFDS!” L adds, hearing the loudspeaker repeat the name again and again, and they drink to the ferryboat taking them to the mainland. L will later regret making this praise.
“Okay,”L says, “we hit the duty-free for a flat of beer, and roam this ferry toward sin until the wee hours, then hit up a movie and a sauna.” He looks
around, walking backwards, and the other three nod attentively. “Anything else?”
“Quick,”Jim points at L, saying, “What’s life?”
L stumbles, turning around in a full circle before continuing. “Life is experiencing things until you die an’ go to Hell.”
“Ah-hah!”Jim exclaims, “but you don’t believe in Hell.”
They buy a flat of beer, warm, and look in vain for ice. Restless, they walk around, not really stopping as they pass the casinos that imitate Vegas with a lack of windows and lots of lights from the flashing slot machines. All throughout the walk L thinks of Gelka, the girl they’re going to see in her hometown of Bonn,
Germany. Gelka is the exchange student that L’s friend Boy dated last year, the only person anyone in the group knows living in Europe.
On the outer deck they watch the North Sea wage war with the wind, large waves lapping the horizon and along their ship. Lissa and L return inside, wary of the wind, and wander through the ship.
“Lissa, what is life?”
“Friendships,”she answers.
L stops and turns to a model of the ferryboat they’re on, large and ominous in its glass case,
etching the ship’s modelwork in his mind, then leads Lissa through the leviathan. Their first stop is the discothèque, but inside the dark cave are teenagers dancing to songs usually played at junior high winter dances. The purple-dressed girl, wearing two ponytails, draws the most attention, and she does a dance-walk with two spins and a sideways shimmy down the middle of the room with finger guns shooting high, allowing the others to part for her as she goes. She’s fifteen or thereabouts, taller than most the boys in the room. The lights flash like a poorly prepared rave, and the DJ decides to speed things up with the song, “Time Warp.”
L and Lissa’s next stop is just as twisted as the last. Near an overpriced bar is a mock lounge, with plush velvet and deep red tones offset by stage lights and bright costumes of a band playing “Sweet Home Alabama.” They don’t know the verses, and keep returning to the part that digs at Neil Young, and the song drags on. As they repeat the chorus for the sixth time Lissa and L leave.
They arrive at the only full-service restaurant just as a man is pulling out the floor-pole ‘closed’ sign. Lissa begs the man for a quick, take-away order of fries. He responds that they wouldn’t serve chipswithout fish, anyway, but no possibility on anything regardless, because it’s ten o’clock, they must realize, and ten is when restaurants close out here, even on ships such as these. The overnight ferry left in the late afternoon, and even though it set sail only four hours ago, everything is already closing down. The man says that, possibly, for the next hour, the deli on the bottom deck will have some food left. Lissa and L get there as two employees start closing the deli, but food is still on display, and Lissa takes one of the wrapped sandwiches. They only have tuna sandwiches left, so L doesn’t order anything.
“Do you consider Jim a companion?”
“Of course!” Lissa laughs. “He’s my husband!”
“Yeah, but…” he looks at Lissa’s sandwich wrapping twisted on the table. “Can you tell him everything, like everything…without reserve?”
“Well, L, honestly…no. I love Jamey with all my heart, with everything I am,” she looks down at the wrapper, and L looks at her, “and if anything were to happen to him I don’t know how badly I’d break…but there are some things that I just can’t tell him. Not because I think they’re bad, or because I want to hide anything from him, but it’s more like criticisms, you know? He is just so sensitive, and sometimes the smallest things can really make him upset, and I never like to see him upset – he takes it so badly.” L and Lissa laugh. “I dunno…I’m fine with it all, and I think he is too…why?”
“Well…I have all these good female friends in my life, you know…all these friends throughout the years, I’ve always been so close to girls…Emily, and Scarlet, oh, and my sister and my mom, and Kate Americanhorse, and…oh…I dunno, all these girls…Megan Bilbee back in high school…but I’ve never had a companion, you know? I’ve never been with a girl who I could share everything with…to be a partner with.” He looks up at Lissa, her face now taut and stern. “Is it
possible? Something like that?”
“Oh L,” she looks away, watching as the shutters slowly curl down the deli window,“I’m sure it is. Just because I can’t spill my mind out to Jamey at every moment of the day doesn’t mean anything, and you have all those close female friends of yours, I’m sure one of them would love to listen to your darkness, just as I listen to Jamey…maybe that Kate Americanhorse girl.” She stands up, snatching the twisted wrapper off the table and tossing it away, touching the metal shutters before turning back to L. “Let’s go find the boys.”
Lissa walks ahead, stopping short when she comes to another floor-pole sign. Do Not Enter, it reads in English between what looks like Dutch and French. Forbidden Zone. They’d just navigated this area to get to the downstairs deli, but the sign is so foreboding they decide to turn around and find a different way, becoming lost and running into two more ‘forbidden zone’ signs before returning back to the model ship where they’d left Jim and Marshall.
Almost like clockwork, Marshall and Jim enter from the blazing winds of the outer deck, looking at Lissa and L as if they were there all along, never missing a beat. Both their faces are smiling and bright pink.
“Oh God, Jamey, I wanna get off this stupid ship,” Lissa says, going to Jim. When she gets close to him she stops. “Have you been crying?”
“Yeah,”he laughs, “we both have.”
“We’ve been talking about everything back home,” chuckles Marshall.
“Fantastic,”Lissa says. “But I wanna go to the room now.”
On their way, Lissa explains the turn of events on the boat, and her point is emphasized with another ‘forbidden zone’ popping up seemingly without reason. Jim convinces the group to go to the sauna and relax before bed, but when they get there they meet a man on a stool. He’s half asleep, and stands up when the four get close.
“Zorry,”he says with a hand raised to Jim’s chest. “Zuana’z clozed.”
“But,”Jim rubs a hand over his face, “why? You don’t need anyone to be on duty for a sauna to run…and you’re here to guard it being closed? Why?!”
“Zorry,”the man puts down his hand and sits upon the stool. Sitting there, his tired eyes glaze down to the floor. The four look at him for a few seconds, then at one another.
“Well,”asks Jim, “now what?”
“I’m fucking going to bed,” responds Lissa, throwing her towel over her shoulder.
“Yeah, man,” Marshall looks at Jim and L, “let’s get some sleep for tomorrow.”
“But,”Jim stammers, “but I wanted to see the movie…Lissa, the movie…Marshall…L…the movie!”
The glass doors to the sauna, which is still on, are densely fogged. The guard sits on his stool, his eyes dart here and there, but he never looks up.
“Oh fine, Jamey, let’s stay up for the movie…when does it start?”
Jim startles L, dazed watching the guard, as he lifts L’s wrist to look at his watch.
“Three hours.”
“Forget it, dudes,” Marshalllooks at Lissa, “I’m goin’ ‘a sleep.”
“Fine Jamey, you win.” Lissa starts to walk away, then turns around. “Come on, boys, let’s go back to the room and let Marshall sleep while we wait for the movie.”
Marshall lies down while the other three stand in the cramped quarters to drink left-over coffee and swigs from L’s flask to stay awake. They leave him back in the dark room, arriving at the makeshift lobby thirty minutes before the one am starting time, long after everything else has shuttered and closed. The few people still walking around look scared, and all seem to avoid contact as Jim, Lissa, and L pass by. They wait in the lobby for forty minutes while hearing another movie play in another room, until Jim finds someone to ask about their movie. A man, in a red vest, doesn’t quite know what Jim talks about until he suddenly pops straight and uses both hands to grab his open vest.
“We was thinking to cancel that one, it is so late, you know.”
“Oh my God man,” Jim pleads. “Please let us watch this movie – we’ve stayed up much longer than we wanted just to see this movie, please for the love of God, let us watch this movie.”
The man moves away from Jim, then comes back and says yes, they will be showing the movie after all. They enter a small, unlit room and are the only
ones there, making themselves comfortable in the fold-up chairs. The movie starts with a couple of clicks, and the red vested employee yawns as he sits
behind the projector at the back of the room. The screen is roughly ten foot by ten, and the image slips on and off its edges as it waves to the ship’s
movement. The movie, “V for Vendetta,” is full of post-American anarchy, and with all the chaos and the violence and the waving screen they watch the flag of
happy destruction, of zealous vengeance, of beating against the system.
Well after three they finish the movie and make their way back to the dark, cramped room with Marshallsnoring. Lissa and L lie on their respective bunks, and Jim suits up with a coat and his music. He tells the other two quietly he’s going to fight the night for a while. Lissa kisses him goodbye, and he’s gone.
“Hey, Lissa?”
“Marshall’s asleep, L. What is it?”
“Nothing, really. ‘Night.”
L lies in the dark, hearing Marshall beneath him, staring at the darkness of the close quarters, hearing each beat, breath, each motion of the other two. The room gets brighter and brighter, and L sees everything in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, staring and trying to close his eyes without success.
“What is it?” L can hear voices asking, different pitches and inflections, over and over. “What is it? Fear, or laziness? What is it for you?”
“What is it?”
“They don’t like you…”
“What stops you?”
“They never like you…”
“…Fear of harm, laziness in comfort, fear of loss, laziness in stability…”
The room gets brighter, and L sees everything in the darkness. He sees a napkin on the shelf beside his bunk, the table below. He sees the light switch, sees the lamp by his bunk, and turns it on. He steps down with the napkin in hand, and on the table he scribbles some words:
I’ve haywired my brain to be out when I’m done
when the day is all over, no more to be won
I’ve poisoned myself as much as I care
so no thoughts will spill out, no more than I dare
I’ve programmed my life right down to the end
so I have control, this mind shall not bend
I’ve stapled my soul up on that dark wall
and shown it to none, and shown it to all
I’ve drank ‘til I’m drunk & drank until dawn
‘til nothing is left, until I am gone.
L dresses. He turns off the light, takes his key and several beers, and gently shuts the door. He walks through the ‘forbidden zones’ like a ghost in the night, roaming the empty hallways, sensing others asleep in their rooms, confined to their quarters, closed away from any paradise of this fifteen-hour cruise, broken from happiness like some cruel, twisted joke. He passes the inner walls like a gust of wind until there’s no place inside for Jim to hide, then L searches outside.
The strength of the nighttime North Sea is stronger than in daylight, and black and black are sometimes broken by the white waves crashing and the lights in the distance, other boats that float in the nothingness. It’s the outer darkness that L’s Mormon mother warned him of, constantly pulling and pushing victims out, never to return. On the starboard side the sea pulls L down, and the wind intensifies and rips him up even harder. He firmly holds onto a line with both hands, clinging to his bag of beer, and at one point his feet start to slip from the ground. The winds are so strong, L starts to fear for his life, realizing just now he’s no longer in his bunk. But after the strongest wind there’s a calm that sits as L stretches his way from the cable to the helm of the
deck.
Jim is at the front of the boat, with a rainproof hood over his head. L is very close before Jim notices, and as Jim looks up there’s a sight of terror without recognition in his face, but this quickly turns to a smile and L sits down. The two try to talk at first, but their words are swept out to sea quicker than can be heard, and they resolve to silent contemplation. Occasionally they point out a distant light, or raise their hands above their heads, but mainly they allow the bumpy night to carry off their quiet conversation. They stand at the same time and together make their way through the high winds. Through the entrance door’s window they see the back of a man somewhat lying down. He’s clothed, but his pants are shoved past his hairy butt, two female legs springing from each side of him, and before turning away they both see him do a pumping motion. Jim and L move back several feet, not looking at each other.
“I think that was,” Jim yells out, staring at the dark sea, “that was the worst sight I’ve ever seen.”
L doesn’t respond.
Minutes pass. They hold the rails and look out. Together they move back to the doorway, passing it without stopping, and look in to see the man and a girl sitting together, fully clothed. Jim and L step back and go inside.
It’s almost five in the morning when the last light is extinguished, and at seven a loud voice begins calling for people to gather their belongings and prepare to dock, as the ferryboat will be docking in the next two hours. This continues in four consecutive languages at fifteen-minute intervals for the full two hours, with a loud siren sounding thirty minutes before the ship docks. Nothing can be turned down, or silenced, and the cramped room smells of stale, sweaty socks, and Lissa begins to cry.
This is their welcome to the mainland of Europe.
“Cheers, my friends,” Jim says with a raise of his Newcastlebeer, “to the land we come from, and to the land we go to!”
“And cheers to Katherine!” adds Lissa, to the counter-clerk who helped us buy our tickets, and we drink again.
“And cheers to DFDS!” L adds, hearing the loudspeaker repeat the name again and again, and they drink to the ferryboat taking them to the mainland. L will later regret making this praise.
“Okay,”L says, “we hit the duty-free for a flat of beer, and roam this ferry toward sin until the wee hours, then hit up a movie and a sauna.” He looks
around, walking backwards, and the other three nod attentively. “Anything else?”
“Quick,”Jim points at L, saying, “What’s life?”
L stumbles, turning around in a full circle before continuing. “Life is experiencing things until you die an’ go to Hell.”
“Ah-hah!”Jim exclaims, “but you don’t believe in Hell.”
They buy a flat of beer, warm, and look in vain for ice. Restless, they walk around, not really stopping as they pass the casinos that imitate Vegas with a lack of windows and lots of lights from the flashing slot machines. All throughout the walk L thinks of Gelka, the girl they’re going to see in her hometown of Bonn,
Germany. Gelka is the exchange student that L’s friend Boy dated last year, the only person anyone in the group knows living in Europe.
On the outer deck they watch the North Sea wage war with the wind, large waves lapping the horizon and along their ship. Lissa and L return inside, wary of the wind, and wander through the ship.
“Lissa, what is life?”
“Friendships,”she answers.
L stops and turns to a model of the ferryboat they’re on, large and ominous in its glass case,
etching the ship’s modelwork in his mind, then leads Lissa through the leviathan. Their first stop is the discothèque, but inside the dark cave are teenagers dancing to songs usually played at junior high winter dances. The purple-dressed girl, wearing two ponytails, draws the most attention, and she does a dance-walk with two spins and a sideways shimmy down the middle of the room with finger guns shooting high, allowing the others to part for her as she goes. She’s fifteen or thereabouts, taller than most the boys in the room. The lights flash like a poorly prepared rave, and the DJ decides to speed things up with the song, “Time Warp.”
L and Lissa’s next stop is just as twisted as the last. Near an overpriced bar is a mock lounge, with plush velvet and deep red tones offset by stage lights and bright costumes of a band playing “Sweet Home Alabama.” They don’t know the verses, and keep returning to the part that digs at Neil Young, and the song drags on. As they repeat the chorus for the sixth time Lissa and L leave.
They arrive at the only full-service restaurant just as a man is pulling out the floor-pole ‘closed’ sign. Lissa begs the man for a quick, take-away order of fries. He responds that they wouldn’t serve chipswithout fish, anyway, but no possibility on anything regardless, because it’s ten o’clock, they must realize, and ten is when restaurants close out here, even on ships such as these. The overnight ferry left in the late afternoon, and even though it set sail only four hours ago, everything is already closing down. The man says that, possibly, for the next hour, the deli on the bottom deck will have some food left. Lissa and L get there as two employees start closing the deli, but food is still on display, and Lissa takes one of the wrapped sandwiches. They only have tuna sandwiches left, so L doesn’t order anything.
“Do you consider Jim a companion?”
“Of course!” Lissa laughs. “He’s my husband!”
“Yeah, but…” he looks at Lissa’s sandwich wrapping twisted on the table. “Can you tell him everything, like everything…without reserve?”
“Well, L, honestly…no. I love Jamey with all my heart, with everything I am,” she looks down at the wrapper, and L looks at her, “and if anything were to happen to him I don’t know how badly I’d break…but there are some things that I just can’t tell him. Not because I think they’re bad, or because I want to hide anything from him, but it’s more like criticisms, you know? He is just so sensitive, and sometimes the smallest things can really make him upset, and I never like to see him upset – he takes it so badly.” L and Lissa laugh. “I dunno…I’m fine with it all, and I think he is too…why?”
“Well…I have all these good female friends in my life, you know…all these friends throughout the years, I’ve always been so close to girls…Emily, and Scarlet, oh, and my sister and my mom, and Kate Americanhorse, and…oh…I dunno, all these girls…Megan Bilbee back in high school…but I’ve never had a companion, you know? I’ve never been with a girl who I could share everything with…to be a partner with.” He looks up at Lissa, her face now taut and stern. “Is it
possible? Something like that?”
“Oh L,” she looks away, watching as the shutters slowly curl down the deli window,“I’m sure it is. Just because I can’t spill my mind out to Jamey at every moment of the day doesn’t mean anything, and you have all those close female friends of yours, I’m sure one of them would love to listen to your darkness, just as I listen to Jamey…maybe that Kate Americanhorse girl.” She stands up, snatching the twisted wrapper off the table and tossing it away, touching the metal shutters before turning back to L. “Let’s go find the boys.”
Lissa walks ahead, stopping short when she comes to another floor-pole sign. Do Not Enter, it reads in English between what looks like Dutch and French. Forbidden Zone. They’d just navigated this area to get to the downstairs deli, but the sign is so foreboding they decide to turn around and find a different way, becoming lost and running into two more ‘forbidden zone’ signs before returning back to the model ship where they’d left Jim and Marshall.
Almost like clockwork, Marshall and Jim enter from the blazing winds of the outer deck, looking at Lissa and L as if they were there all along, never missing a beat. Both their faces are smiling and bright pink.
“Oh God, Jamey, I wanna get off this stupid ship,” Lissa says, going to Jim. When she gets close to him she stops. “Have you been crying?”
“Yeah,”he laughs, “we both have.”
“We’ve been talking about everything back home,” chuckles Marshall.
“Fantastic,”Lissa says. “But I wanna go to the room now.”
On their way, Lissa explains the turn of events on the boat, and her point is emphasized with another ‘forbidden zone’ popping up seemingly without reason. Jim convinces the group to go to the sauna and relax before bed, but when they get there they meet a man on a stool. He’s half asleep, and stands up when the four get close.
“Zorry,”he says with a hand raised to Jim’s chest. “Zuana’z clozed.”
“But,”Jim rubs a hand over his face, “why? You don’t need anyone to be on duty for a sauna to run…and you’re here to guard it being closed? Why?!”
“Zorry,”the man puts down his hand and sits upon the stool. Sitting there, his tired eyes glaze down to the floor. The four look at him for a few seconds, then at one another.
“Well,”asks Jim, “now what?”
“I’m fucking going to bed,” responds Lissa, throwing her towel over her shoulder.
“Yeah, man,” Marshall looks at Jim and L, “let’s get some sleep for tomorrow.”
“But,”Jim stammers, “but I wanted to see the movie…Lissa, the movie…Marshall…L…the movie!”
The glass doors to the sauna, which is still on, are densely fogged. The guard sits on his stool, his eyes dart here and there, but he never looks up.
“Oh fine, Jamey, let’s stay up for the movie…when does it start?”
Jim startles L, dazed watching the guard, as he lifts L’s wrist to look at his watch.
“Three hours.”
“Forget it, dudes,” Marshalllooks at Lissa, “I’m goin’ ‘a sleep.”
“Fine Jamey, you win.” Lissa starts to walk away, then turns around. “Come on, boys, let’s go back to the room and let Marshall sleep while we wait for the movie.”
Marshall lies down while the other three stand in the cramped quarters to drink left-over coffee and swigs from L’s flask to stay awake. They leave him back in the dark room, arriving at the makeshift lobby thirty minutes before the one am starting time, long after everything else has shuttered and closed. The few people still walking around look scared, and all seem to avoid contact as Jim, Lissa, and L pass by. They wait in the lobby for forty minutes while hearing another movie play in another room, until Jim finds someone to ask about their movie. A man, in a red vest, doesn’t quite know what Jim talks about until he suddenly pops straight and uses both hands to grab his open vest.
“We was thinking to cancel that one, it is so late, you know.”
“Oh my God man,” Jim pleads. “Please let us watch this movie – we’ve stayed up much longer than we wanted just to see this movie, please for the love of God, let us watch this movie.”
The man moves away from Jim, then comes back and says yes, they will be showing the movie after all. They enter a small, unlit room and are the only
ones there, making themselves comfortable in the fold-up chairs. The movie starts with a couple of clicks, and the red vested employee yawns as he sits
behind the projector at the back of the room. The screen is roughly ten foot by ten, and the image slips on and off its edges as it waves to the ship’s
movement. The movie, “V for Vendetta,” is full of post-American anarchy, and with all the chaos and the violence and the waving screen they watch the flag of
happy destruction, of zealous vengeance, of beating against the system.
Well after three they finish the movie and make their way back to the dark, cramped room with Marshallsnoring. Lissa and L lie on their respective bunks, and Jim suits up with a coat and his music. He tells the other two quietly he’s going to fight the night for a while. Lissa kisses him goodbye, and he’s gone.
“Hey, Lissa?”
“Marshall’s asleep, L. What is it?”
“Nothing, really. ‘Night.”
L lies in the dark, hearing Marshall beneath him, staring at the darkness of the close quarters, hearing each beat, breath, each motion of the other two. The room gets brighter and brighter, and L sees everything in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, staring and trying to close his eyes without success.
“What is it?” L can hear voices asking, different pitches and inflections, over and over. “What is it? Fear, or laziness? What is it for you?”
“What is it?”
“They don’t like you…”
“What stops you?”
“They never like you…”
“…Fear of harm, laziness in comfort, fear of loss, laziness in stability…”
The room gets brighter, and L sees everything in the darkness. He sees a napkin on the shelf beside his bunk, the table below. He sees the light switch, sees the lamp by his bunk, and turns it on. He steps down with the napkin in hand, and on the table he scribbles some words:
I’ve haywired my brain to be out when I’m done
when the day is all over, no more to be won
I’ve poisoned myself as much as I care
so no thoughts will spill out, no more than I dare
I’ve programmed my life right down to the end
so I have control, this mind shall not bend
I’ve stapled my soul up on that dark wall
and shown it to none, and shown it to all
I’ve drank ‘til I’m drunk & drank until dawn
‘til nothing is left, until I am gone.
L dresses. He turns off the light, takes his key and several beers, and gently shuts the door. He walks through the ‘forbidden zones’ like a ghost in the night, roaming the empty hallways, sensing others asleep in their rooms, confined to their quarters, closed away from any paradise of this fifteen-hour cruise, broken from happiness like some cruel, twisted joke. He passes the inner walls like a gust of wind until there’s no place inside for Jim to hide, then L searches outside.
The strength of the nighttime North Sea is stronger than in daylight, and black and black are sometimes broken by the white waves crashing and the lights in the distance, other boats that float in the nothingness. It’s the outer darkness that L’s Mormon mother warned him of, constantly pulling and pushing victims out, never to return. On the starboard side the sea pulls L down, and the wind intensifies and rips him up even harder. He firmly holds onto a line with both hands, clinging to his bag of beer, and at one point his feet start to slip from the ground. The winds are so strong, L starts to fear for his life, realizing just now he’s no longer in his bunk. But after the strongest wind there’s a calm that sits as L stretches his way from the cable to the helm of the
deck.
Jim is at the front of the boat, with a rainproof hood over his head. L is very close before Jim notices, and as Jim looks up there’s a sight of terror without recognition in his face, but this quickly turns to a smile and L sits down. The two try to talk at first, but their words are swept out to sea quicker than can be heard, and they resolve to silent contemplation. Occasionally they point out a distant light, or raise their hands above their heads, but mainly they allow the bumpy night to carry off their quiet conversation. They stand at the same time and together make their way through the high winds. Through the entrance door’s window they see the back of a man somewhat lying down. He’s clothed, but his pants are shoved past his hairy butt, two female legs springing from each side of him, and before turning away they both see him do a pumping motion. Jim and L move back several feet, not looking at each other.
“I think that was,” Jim yells out, staring at the dark sea, “that was the worst sight I’ve ever seen.”
L doesn’t respond.
Minutes pass. They hold the rails and look out. Together they move back to the doorway, passing it without stopping, and look in to see the man and a girl sitting together, fully clothed. Jim and L step back and go inside.
It’s almost five in the morning when the last light is extinguished, and at seven a loud voice begins calling for people to gather their belongings and prepare to dock, as the ferryboat will be docking in the next two hours. This continues in four consecutive languages at fifteen-minute intervals for the full two hours, with a loud siren sounding thirty minutes before the ship docks. Nothing can be turned down, or silenced, and the cramped room smells of stale, sweaty socks, and Lissa begins to cry.
This is their welcome to the mainland of Europe.