Well, I went to sea to escape, maybe because I had little else to do some hot Kansas summers but sit under an elm tree, wait for the popsicle boy to pedal around, and overhear a radio while I consulted an atlas.
"You! Finding life rather dull? Dreaming again of exotic places? Wishing you were somewhere else? WE offer you ESCAPE! (Music) Escape with us now to a small freighter in the China Sea and a sinister traveler who brings destruction to crew and ship alike, as Ella Saint Joseph tells it in his most unusual play, A Passenger to Bali. (music) The papers in my pocket
said, Steamship Roundabout, 9000 tons, British registry, Master and owner Captain English. Stamped across the face was the clearance of the port authorities. (dock sounds) Ah, I’d be glad to see the last of Shanghai, its smell and its waterfront filth. Cargoes had been scarce. Now, with our holds filled for the first time in months, I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to get underway before morning. Mr Slaughter! Aye Cap’n. You step up here to the bridge, mister. Aye sir. (clump clump clump) Are we ready to sail, mister? All secure sir. All hands on board? Aye sir. Good, let’s clear port, Mr. Slaughter. Yes sir. (clump clump clump ship’s horns.
Mr. Engle, stand by to cast off! Stand boy! (other voices, stand boy, stand boy.) Let go the stern spring line! You there on the dock, hike that line for’ard!
(old radio program)
ps another episode with an Akebono trawler, 83. Gigantic storm that we ran before, absolutely mountainous, but long waves that we slid down unharmed. (By this time I knew that the captain was a superb ship handler.) Unable to sleep, hearing a continous loud banging forward and below, a sound like metal buckling back and forth, I rouse myself, go down to the galley, find no one there, no one in the wheelhouse for about five seconds, when someone came rushing up the stairs, no one in the rooms where the crew hotbunked where I could see through curtains, no one at all in the passageway, just welding smoke coming from forward until the whole passage was filled with the smoke and odor of welding or cutting. Then the captain came through a door forward and proceeded to the wheelhouse stairs. I asked what the noise had been. He gave me a wierd smile and said doors, doors, and made slamming motions with his hands. At breakfast, where he always arrived last and stepped over me in stocking feet, he just looked at me and said again, doors, doors. Then he turned on the tv on the bulkhead and pushed in the out of sync porno movie we watched at every meal. Doors, doors he said again and brushed the subject away forever.