Dark Waters (3 page)

‘You sure you don't want me to get you a wheelchair, ma'am? To just get up to the ship. It's a pretty steep rise,' the guard said.

‘No, Max, we're fine,' Jean said. She does that. She gets at least the first name of everybody anywhere. I know the first names of my dry cleaner, my barber, my banker, etc., mostly because I went to school with them or their mama or daddy, or sister or brother, or in some cases, arrested some relative, or in others, them. But Jean knew the names of the bellhops, maids, bartenders and waitresses at the hotel we stayed at in Las Vegas, knew the names of the toll takers on the toll road to Oklahoma City, knew the names of both our garbage men and their back-up guys, knew the names of – OK, I think you get the drift.

We started up the ramp to the ship. Our luggage, thankfully, had been taken by ship's personnel to our room – excuse me, cabin. So all we had to do was just get ourselves on the ship. That didn't work so well. Jean should have taken Max's advice. A quarter of the way up she almost fell, and I called down to Max for the wheelchair. He brought it up and between me and the boys we got Jean and the chair to the check-in level – against her continued protests. My wife never wants to appear needy, and she isn't. It's just that sometimes she could use a little help from her friends.

Finally we got on the ship, checked in with another phony naval officer, then went through a doorway to Vegas.

I swear to God it was everything I hated about Las Vegas. Lots and lots of noise, the sound of slot machine bells and whistles, people bustling about, thick phony-smelling, perfumy air – just very Vegas-like. And not one peek of the Gulf anywhere. A woman in a fake naval uniform holding a clipboard came up to us.

‘Name?' she said with a big smile.

Well, that was nice, I thought. ‘Kovak, Milton, party of four.'

She ran her finger down the clipboard. The smile brightened her face once again. ‘Here you are. We have you in a small suite, Mr Kovak. Is this Mrs Kovak?' she said, extending her hand to Jean.

Jean said, ‘Yes, I am. And you are?'

‘Oh! I'm so sorry! The first thing I'm supposed to do is introduce myself.' She leaned down closer to Jean in her wheelchair. ‘This is my first tour.' Straightening, she said, ‘I'm Louisa and I'll be your steward all day today.'

‘Nice to meet you, Louisa,' Jean said. ‘And these two young men are John Kovak, our son, and his friend, Early Rollins.'

Louisa shook hands with both boys and said, ‘I'm so glad you could join us. Seems like it's spring break in a lot of places right now! We've got a lot of children on-board. You two should have a great time.' Turning to Jean and myself, she said, ‘And we've a lot of supervised activities for the kids also, leaving the parents a little alone time,' she said, and actually winked at me.

Then she led us to an elevator, went down two floors, and we followed her down one hallway after another, me pushing Jean's wheelchair, her crutches lying across the armrests of the chair, until we got to a door that looked exactly like every other door we'd seen since leaving the main deck.

Louisa used a keycard to open the door, then handed that card to me and pulled out a second card from her pocket for Jean. ‘Here you go, folks! Let me show you around!' The smile she flashed us seemed to indicate we were going into the bowels of the Taj Mahal. That's not where we went. The room was about as big as our guest bathroom back home. Walking in, there was a bathroom to the left and a closet/drawer thingy to the right. The bathroom was the size of – hell, we didn't have anything in our house that was quite that small. Evinrude's litter box, maybe, but that was about it. I knew from looking at it that Jean was going to have a hell of a time. First off, there was a high step into it, then the toilet sorta sat under the sink, and the shower – well, I think I'd probably touch all sides of it. But OK, it was a ship. There wasn't a lot of room. Getting past the bathroom and closet thingy was the rest of the room: two twin beds with a night stand between and on the other side of the far bed a sliding glass door led onto a balcony with a view of – joy of joys, the Gulf! OK, I liked that. Across from the beds was an archway that opened into the suite part of our accommodations. Smaller than one of my jail cells back home, there were two bunk beds and a small table, and that was it. No extra bathroom or closet thingy. The alcove didn't have a balcony, but did have a window with a deep window sill that worked as a shelf the boys could use to store some of their junk. What with Louisa in the space and the four of us, plus Jean's crutches, we had some work cut out to get Louisa out of our ‘suite.' But finally she was gone and we all sat down for a minute on our beds.

‘Seven days in this?' Jean whispered to me, her face drawn.

‘We'll get used to it,' I said, trying to put on a brave face.

Turning her face away from the boys, she whispered, ‘There's no escape from them.'

‘You mean . . .' I started.

Jean interrupted, saying, ‘You're not getting any this trip, mister man.'

‘Remember what Louisa said,' I reminded her. ‘Supervised time for the kids.'

She grinned. ‘Halli-fucking-luia.' That was the first time in almost eleven years I'd ever heard her drop the F-bomb. I sat there with my mouth open. She stood up. ‘I'm going to attempt to go pee. If I must, I'll use the shower.'

‘Rinse,' I suggested as she struggled through the small space with her crutches and tried to get up the steep step to the bathroom. Some people might have tried to help her. Me? I didn't feel like getting a crutch in my gut.

L
uckily they didn't take the wheelchair away. It was parked outside the cabin when we decided to check out the ship. I talked Jean into using it ‘just this once.'

Using the map we'd been given, we headed upstairs to the promenade deck and found an opening to the outside that looked out to the dock. We stood with five hundred of our closest friends and waved goodbye to total strangers. More navy guys came up and offered us fancy cocktails for only $6.50 each. I bought two of those – two kinds of rum, pineapple juice, grenadine, and a shot of apricot bandy – and two Shirley Temples for the boys.

‘You realize that's a gateway drink, don't you?' my wife the shrink said.

‘Huh?' I said. I'm clever that way.

‘Shirley Temples. It's a mixed drink for children to get them ready for alcohol,' she said.

‘Huh?' I said again.

‘Are you paying attention to me?' she asked.

‘Hey, look down there! See that guy next to the woman in the red dress? He looks just like Al Pacino!' I said.

‘No,' she said, looking down. ‘He looks like Robert De Niro.'

‘Right. The other one. I always get them mixed up.'

‘You're such a bigot,' she said, but there was a smile in her voice.

‘What?' I said in all innocence. ‘I'm a middle-aged southern white guy. What do I know about east coast eye-talians?' I said, stressing the ‘eye' to make her laugh. I got the desired result.

The boys had put down their Shirley Temples and were using the extra-long straws as swords to assault each other. I put my arm around Jean and stared at Galveston. We wouldn't be seeing that bitch for seven whole days.

Let me just say this: I'm not a big gambler, I don't play golf (there was a putting green aboard ship), and I'm not much for Vegas-style shows. But give me a free meal in a semi-star restaurant and you've got me for life. The restaurant spread from one side of the ship to the other, with windows looking out to the ocean on both sides. The tables had tablecloths and fancy china and silverware and crystal glasses. I wanted to mention to the boys not to touch the crystal, then figured the ship's people had to allow for a little breakage or they wouldn't let kids aboard, right? Then we sat down to a menu of stuff I loved and stuff I'd always wanted to try. Like an appetizer of escargot in garlic lemon butter with toast points, a main course of Chateaubriand with truffles, roasted new potatoes and white asparagus, and for dessert a chocolate soufflé with raspberry sauce. I wanted to lick each plate but figured that might embarrass my wife. The boys weren't that crazy about the restaurant, wanting to know where on the menu were the chicken nuggets, so after a little fine dining we took them across the ship to the buffet line/food court-type place where they were able to find all sorts of kid-friendly foods: chicken nuggets, corn dogs, tacos, spaghetti and meatballs – you name it, it was there, along with some more adult treats like Chinese food, Mexican food, Greek food – and of course, hamburgers, hotdogs and fried chicken. There were vegetable dishes, too, and a salad bar with lots of fruit, but the only things the boys even looked at were the corn on the cobs. I figured no way was I going hungry on this trip, and say what you might about organized fun, as long as I wasn't hurting for food, I really didn't care.

That first night we took the kids to see a magic show, got them to bed around eight-thirty, all tucked in, gave Johnny Mac his mama's cell phone and told him to call me for anything, and then locked the door and left.

Jean kept saying, ‘This isn't a good idea.'

‘They'll be fine,' I kept saying back.

The only thing more adventurous, more spontaneous and more inquisitive than a ten-year-old boy is two ten-year-old boys. Where one boy alone might be a little reticent and a little nervous, add another and the word ‘dare' and you have a situation. So it was on the first night of the voyage of the Star Line, Gypsy Cruise's newest and proudest ship.

After the parents left the two boys, Johnny Mac in the top bunk, Early in the bottom one, talked about things. Like ninjas and zombies and who would win in a fight; about vampires and aliens and what it must be like to live on Jupiter. About inventions like a ray gun that could shoot candy into your mouth from a thousand miles away. After about thirty minutes Johnny Mac climbed down from the top bunk, got the flashlight off the night stand and, with Early behind him, crept into Johnny Mac's parents' room to check out their stuff. On the night stand between the two single beds, Early found a book. Since it was a hardcover and fairly big, Johnny Mac claimed it was his mother's. ‘Dad only reads paperbacks,' he told his friend. Early nodded his head. He totally understood that.

The volume of his mother's was entitled
Early Childhood Development
, and the boys eagerly took it into their part of the ‘suite' where they sat on the bottom bunk with the flashlight on and quickly turned pages looking for boobs. It was with great regret that they returned the book to his mother's side of the bedside table, pictures of the developing boobs never found.

It was then that they heard a sound. Knocking on doors – not theirs, but other doors on the corridor – first one, then another, coming closer. Then, their own door! The boys looked at each other then ran to it. The knocking had moved on so they opened the door and leaned out. Three kids – two girls and a boy – were running down the corridor, the boy on the left, the two girls sharing the right, knocking on doors and laughing.

‘Hey!' Johnny Mac called out. ‘What are y'all doing?'

All three turned around in shock. Seeing that it was just two other kids, the boy said, ‘We're knocking on doors randomly, dumbshit.'

‘Why?' Johnny Mac asked.

‘Why not?' the boy shot back.

‘You guys want to join us?' one of the girls asked.

Johnny Mac and Early looked at each other, then at their pajamas. ‘Let us get dressed.'

‘Meet you on C deck,' the boy said and they were off, knocking on doors again and laughing.

Dalton couldn't keep his eyes off Holly. He loved the way she dressed, all crazy-like. And her hair – he liked running his fingers through the funky colors when they kissed. Most of all, he loved kissing her. And that time when she stuck her tongue in his mouth, he loved the feel of that little ball in the center of her tongue where it was pierced. He never thought he'd like that kind of thing – he always thought he'd go more for the Trisha Nixon type. He'd had a mad crush on Trisha when he was a boy. He'd fallen for that type the weekend he'd met Holly, but it turned out this Trisha lookalike was a guy. Very disappointing.

But there was a problem. Holly wanted to meet his mother. His mama didn't know he was dating. Whenever he went out with Holly, he told his mama he had to work overtime, and he wasn't wearing his uniform because it was undercover work. The problem was, his mama wouldn't approve of Holly, not one little bit. She kept trying to fix him up with women from his church, and they were nothing like Holly. They dressed more like his mama, and they talked about recipes and quilting and other women. Fact is, most of them were pretty old. Older than him, anyway. Maybe in their late thirties, early forties.

Dalton was thirty-five, and he knew Holly was only twenty-seven, but she fit him in almost every other way. Like sitting on her couch in her living room, watching TV, he'd put his arm around her and she'd snuggle up and she fit just perfect. Or walking hand in hand; he was pretty tall, but so was she for a girl, so their hands fit. And in the important places, like in his heart, she fit just perfect. He'd seen a little house, near downtown, for sale the other day. And he thought that would be a perfect place for him and Holly, after they got married, to live and raise a family in. But he wasn't sure how to ask her. Surely, before they started having kids, she'd have to meet his mother.

We were headed down the promenade when my phone rang. I'd just got an iPhone and didn't know exactly how it worked, so Jean had to turn it on for me. My old phone had been just fine – a fliptop I'd had for about fifteen years – but peer pressure had forced me into it. I took the phone from Jean and said, ‘Hello?'