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04/09/2025 Wednesday. Fridge on bed. Stateroom 30402. Breakaway. Livorno, Italy.
“The vertical leg holds all the load.” Truer words from a drape man have never been spoken. Scott’s words. He said them around 2a last night. Surely, we are in it now. I can tell because I have now locked my key card in my room twice. Twice I have had to go to guest services to get a new one. The first time was easy, the lights had a special slot that you put your card in so you could use them. I was also living up amongst the guests, roughly. The front desk didn’t even bother asking me what happened. Yesterday was different though. I have been moved down to the bottom of the boat. Where the stairs end. All the way in the hull. I can hear the waves hitting the side of the ship. My room is so small I can turn off the lights, wash my hands and flush the toilet all while lying on my bed. They didn’t give me a garbage can so I had to bring a small cardboard box I found backstage into my room. Oddly, the room is easier to use though. The electricity is in smart places and there is no pretense about the room being comfortable. The only issue is how to make a standing desk to tickle the ivories and like always, the solution is the refrigerator.
[insert fridge photo]
What happened yesterday was simple, I took a nap. When I woke up from my nap it was time to go to dinner. I got out of bed. Hopped into my boots. Put my jackets on. Made sure I had my coffee thermos so I could refill it. Grabbed my wallet and left the room, shutting the lights out as I went. When the door shut I immediately understood my mistake. I took my wallet out of my pocket and prayed I’d find the key card, but I knew it was a hopeless endeavor. I became immediately resigned and walked up four flights of stairs and down a long hallway that spit me out roughly where guest services was. I got in line and took the paper out of my pocket that the room attendants had left for me when it was time for me to move out of my last place. The paper explained what I needed to do to relocate. Where my room was. And when I should do it. I had folded the paper and put it in my wallet for reasons such as these.
Earlier Scott and I had been gluing speaker cones into the fake speakers we were going to install. I had drop some of the glue onto the front of my black shirt. It looked like toothpaste but I couldn’t scrape it off. I was also sleepy from my nap and my clothes were disheveled because I had just slept in them. My hair was mussed as well. I looked like a bum. Or, at least, I looked like a guest who’d been drinking all day. I had not been drinking at all. As far as I knew. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a drink. Maybe Monday? It doesn’t matter, but for the sake of my story it is important to know that the humiliation was sober humiliation.
I stood in line for a while before finally being beckoned over. I recognized the woman behind the counter because she is the one who originally on-boarded me all those days ago. She clearly did not remember me. When she asked me what number my room was I couldn’t remember so I pulled my transfer papers out and spent quite a while finding the number. It wasn’t clear where it was supposed to be and I was wearing my work glasses so I couldn’t see shit. I took them off but the tether snagged on my ears and I looked more roughed up by the second. Either roughed up or old. Or both. She was quite young. Eventually I found the number, read it, pointed to it, pushed the paper towards her with my index finger near the number. She heard me, but didn’t look at the paper. She said:
“Uh, thirty four o-two? You’re down in crew?”
“I’m a contractor.”
She took the paper now and went to talk to somebody. Apparently the man in charge. They both read my paper for a while and then she came back. Reluctantly she made me a new card. You see, the crew on these ships don’t have certain rights. And if they lose their key cards, I have heard, there is hell to pay. When I locked my first one in my room I asked for help and the crew member told me I was lucky that I didn’t have a crew card because there is hell to pay. That it takes a long time to get a new one. Like more than a day. So I was naturally nervous when I was getting the second new one. But it did work out fine and for some reason I made sure to make solid eye contact with the woman at the front desk, you know, to let her know that I knew that she knew that I knew that she knew. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked to the elevators. As I waited a family showed up and a couple of drunkards. We all got in the elevator and it was awkward and people made small talk, the drunkards thought it was all very funny and the family was headed out to dinner somewhere. I stayed in the back of the elevator until everyone got out. I rode the thing to the fifteenth floor. When I got out I saw myself in the mirror. My fly was down. My fly was down and I looked like I had toothpaste on the front of my black shirt, my hair was mussed and I looked very sleepy. I zipped my zipper and started walking towards the buffet wishing that I had anywhere else to go but there, but it was the only option for food and I had to be to work in an hour.
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We are in port at the moment. An overnighter. I am about to head into work. We have to move the light ladders for some reason. What can you do? Earlier I decided to take a walk outside the boat so I grabbed my passport, refilled my Chinese water bottles, made sure I had some coffee and my key card, put my hoodie on under my two grey chap jackets and made my way to the gangway. As I walked down there I asked crew members about stuff. “We are here over night, right? “Yes, sir.” “I just need my passport and key card, right?” “Yes, sir.” “This way, yeah?” “This way.” A while later I was in a building thinking I was just going to be able to walk away like normal. Instead I found myself asking more questions, “You need a ticket to get into town?” “Yes, sir” “How much?” “Nine euros” “It takes you to the town center?” “Yes, sir.” “How often does it come back?” “Every ten minutes until six, then its every fifteen minutes.” “And do I use this same ticket to get on the bus coming back or?” “Yes, sir.” It was a nice conversation. I felt like I understood everything quite well when it was over. The bus even waited for me while I asked the questions. Soon we were zigging and zagging through roundabout after roundabout. It was funny to see all the things up close that I had seen from the buffet. The dock. The port. The piles of dirt and other boats. The piles of rocks and the warehouse buildings. And because of the very circuitous route, I got to see it all. Eventually we reached the edge of town where there was an anti-imperialist statue of a very noble man looking off into the distance in glory with four slaves chained and leashed. The glorious White man holding them. It was kind of striking. The kind of thing that you wouldn’t see in America. Brutal commentary about the past. It was refreshing and I wished I would have taken a picture but I was too busy looking at the thing.
The bus pulled into its stop in the middle of a mini mall and I got out. Made note of where I was and started walking. The town was good looking. The people, Italians. There were lots of scooters clogging the way and I didn’t understand the crosswalk rules so I pretended to look at things like a tourist when cars were coming around at various places so they wouldn’t slow down or run me over. Then when the coast was clear I would make a run for it. I walked all the way to the train station and thought the town reminded me of Crown Heights in Brooklyn. I saw a man crash on his bike. I walked under some scaffold that I thought might collapse and kill me. I tried to use the bathroom at the train station but it was closed. And then I walked back. It wasn’t much, but it felt nice. By the time I was back at the bus stop it had started raining and I told myself to take pictures of the slave sculpture when we passed it again, but we never passed it again. The drive back the boat was quicker than driving out, probably because we were taking mostly right turns. Then I was back at the boat waiting in line to get inside while every single person who was standing next to me in line complained about how long it was taking because the rain was falling and the wind was blowing. They were all in shirt sleaves. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call them morons. It took two seconds to see the temperature outside. That it was about to start raining. That one should bring a jacket at least. I brought two and a hoodie. What the hell? But such is the mentality of cruisers, if somebody doesn’t do it for you, it aint getting done and its their fault anyway for not doing it. Seems a little apropos, like an allegory for the work we do or work in general with regard to the working class.
Speaking of the working class, save the date!
June 1st. PS/NY. Project launch.
More soon, but the date has been set. See you there!!!
“The people, Italian.” No notes.