We’re Goin’ Sailin’!
We’re leaving Newfoundland now on a boat that takes six hours on its best days. It’s the shakiest, quakiest, rollingest boat I’ve ever been on. I’m sitting in what is called the theatre, an open space with seats and two regular-sized big-screen TV’s. There’s an arcade just north of me, which is about the saddest thing on the boat. There aren’t any children, any teenagers, on it. So the arcade is empty. It has a one player Buck Hunter and a two player Buck Hunter. It has a machine that shoots your coin to win prizes. It doesn’t have any games for children or teenagers if there even were any. But it makes a sound. Most sounds that are out of the ordinary irritate me. The rubbing of pant legs together. The sound of food being chewed. The clicking open and closed of a pen. The subtle rise and fall of a sleeping person’s breath. The catching of epiglottal skin on an aggressive inhale. Sighs. But these are human sounds. The sound from the arcade soothes. It is from one of the games. It sounds like an electronic trickle. It moves from high to low in 12 descending tones. I wait for it to come and I welcome its emergence, likely from the game to shoot coins for prizes.
The tour is nearly done. We’ve only got two days of shows left in Saint John, New Brunswick. Do not mistake Saint John, New Brunswick for St. John’s, Newfoundland. New Brunswick’s town, by grammatical necessity, owns Newfoundlands.
The cafeteria on the boat is open erratically. Our sailing was delayed by almost two hours, no sweat when your entire day is devoted to getting from the island to the mainland. The cafeteria acts like so many other things in life: it was open when we weren’t hungry and it closed when we wanted to eat. I’m glad that it’s just opened again now. I could smell spaghetti sauce around an hour ago as they prepared. I can smell roasted chicken now as the passengers bring the food to their little spaces that have become comfortable territory. We’ve still got more time left on this boat than I’d ever spent on a boat in my life before this trip. It’s not so bad. You can get up. You can walk around. You can feel the ocean lift and ease the ship, breathing along with the sleepers and the sighers. I’ll go eat soon. I’ll wait to hear the electronic trickling one more time, a cue that indicates an ending or a beginning, of some electrical loop installed by human hands that are no where near here anymore.
