It’s not as if he’s on every one of my crossings, and he’s not on this one. Not many other people, either. It’s getting deeper into winter and the torrent of tourists has shrunk down to a dreggy dribble like I was told it would. I can’t help but wonder where he is. Did he step off the stern and go swim for the shores of his heaven? Did last night his sleep lead him to death? Did he throw himself off a proper ledge? Did I interfere with what he had planned, what he needed to do? Was he planning to blow up the ship? Is it about to blow five seconds from now???
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
What if it a bomb really did go off under my sad ass those seconds ago, now all of me incinerated and blown apart. Me. Gone. Gone?
Why the fucking fuck am I thinking about him so much? Seeing’s how I’ve never had what could be classified as a good relationship with any man ever in my life, maybe it’s that my mind has decided that an old man who can’t get it up won’t be able hurt me in the classical way at least.
Was I selfish? What does that message in his bottle have to say? The same things mine does?
I keep thinking what will I do if I see some mother with a baby in a sleeper with a patch on it? I’ll ask why and she’ll say it was the cheapest one on the rack, duh. Imagine buying your kid that and then seeing on a magazine cover the royal rug-rats decked out in bespoke designer clothes all neatly ironed and pressed. How fucking shit you’re going to feel. And how can you not feel like those kids are better than yours? Intrinsically? And know everyone knows it? We all have to face reality sooner or later. And yet you love your kid more than yourself, and you start noticing the way people look at your kid, with pity, or even disgust. How much is that likely to turn you into a mass murderer?
That, that right there, is the exact moment Paul’s built for!
My genes are shit. Princess Kate’s fucking kid deserves air more than mine does. If there was only enough air for my boy or hers, everyone in the world would sternly stare as my sweet perfect boy gasped for breath and writhed and turned blue and finally came to an agonized still. To the relief of everyone. While the little prince licks his specialty low-fat high-taste ice cream cone and wonders what comes next.
Stop! With that attitude maybe you’re right! But you’re not! You’re so wrong! Flip it! The royals are in-bred and everyone knows it! It’s about potential!
Yes, but look at them. Their first years are already so much better. They’re already so much more stimulated and well-fed. A bazillion dollars in the bank equals a lot of fucking potential duh!
No! They’re just other babies. They deserve no more!
Damn it, Paul, you’re wrong on this one! Clearly they’re better than my child! Superior! We’re not all the same!
Fine. But that’s why you need to keep at it. Keep studying your code. Make me better, capable, what you have planned. So you can be there for him as soon as you can. Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him.
Well that was sad-ass, wasn’t it? Some arguments are a lot harder to win than others.
Home now, time to get down to work! In researching Ptp, which I really don’t need to do that much of because once I sell it to Google or whatever they’ll be able to feed it all the wisdom wise-asses and their grandmothers have ever spouted, not to mention everything they know about you and I, which is said to be likely more than even you or I know about ourselves. But I need to look like I know at least some of it, so I thought a good short cut would be to start making a database of quotes from all the ages’ brainiacs of one bent or other, which I can maybe code to correlate to questions asked, so when you ask a question you get some applicable quotes to help you along. I’ve always loved Googling quotes, actually a bit of an addiction, because it always makes me think, and makes me feel better, understood, even. Understanding?
Imagine, an app that is all the most brilliant minds of all time made into one mind there for the sole purpose of giving you pep talks, saying things like Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to do, when all they need is one reason why they can. (That’s Martha Graham, some skinny chickie who supposedly revolutionized dance more so than any other single person. She also said The body says what words can’t, which makes me think of my old man James and what his body said to mine. But, I’m working on that, and when I’ve got the money, I’m going to really work on that). And then that could be followed up by a bunch of reasons to do what the person is thinking of doing, and there you go, happily and excitedly off to the races! Remember, with all the data Google and Facebook and the like has on you, they really do know the real, honest, consistent you better than even you do. And imagine how much they’ll know about all of us once we all start using this app! So you’re going to be powerless to disagree with Paul and his only job is to tell you what he knows you want to hear!
Speaking of what you want to hear, all of a sudden Jackie starts playing on my Spotify autoplay. Since I first heard it when I was thirteen, this old two-and-a-half-minute epic by Sinead O’Connor has been maybe my favourite song, and I’m instantly engulfed by the sad salty glorious defiant romance of it. The idea of a man that a woman as hard-edged and defiant and serious as Sinead O’Connor could fall so in love with. And I realise (this is me—idiot! Duh!) that what’s going on here is old man James is the closest I’ve come to the mythic gnarly old greying sailor that I’ve longed for all my life. Maybe I was a sailor’s wife lifetimes ago. Maybe I was a sailor myself. Hell, Noah for all I fucking knowah.
I’m not attracted to this guy, and yet, and yet… he’s the closest approximation yet to a real man? This air-quotes sailor? And the irony, that he wanted desperately to be a sailor but couldn’t be, and so here he is on my ferry demonstrating how hard-core of a sailor he actually is at his soul’s root. So I don’t get a real sailor, but I get a real sailor? And, don’t even go there because I know, duh, I see it—he’s also a father figure, which I’ve never fucking had, but please, save it, you don’t need to tell me about how your best friend’s doing her PhD in psychology and you told her about me and she told you that I’m obviously just going after this guy as a substitute for the father who did fuck all for me and might have fucked me up less if he’d actually fucked me.
Fucking hell, Paul!
You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust the sail.
Men, they’re all so ugly. Near every one. Ugly. Big burly hairy vain and violent animals stalking the plain in search of things to subjugate, to subject to their sex. All ego, and what’s egotism but the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. If only this stupid triply betraying body of mine, foolish foolish body, would let me be with women I’d never go near another one again. What can I hope for? In this world, where what’s held up as manliness is the opposite of what’s beautiful, what’s feminine, soft and gentle and loving.
A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea.
Muscles and beards and money, me me me, look at glorious me. They’re incapable of thinking of anyone but themselves and their own. Maybe they’re just not built that way, and society strengthens that. They don’t give birth, so they can’t truly feel for others. Look how many of them run off on their children! And what happens to women in war—men can relate to women exactly how they want to, hating them, unless they’re writhing impaled on the end of their ravenous blood-engorged swords. What do you call the fat around a vagina? A woman. He can fuck off. I can’t do this. I need to keep on keeping on the way I know I have to. It’s what I’ve learned. What I’ve been taught. Right?
A ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it’s built for.
Fuck, Paul! What are you even here for? On top of it all this guy’s, like, old. Not to mention impotent! I don’t even…
Maybe that’s why you like him. He’s safe. No blood engorged sword ruling him. The only man you’ve ever felt safe with, remember that one? was gentle, feminine, warm and giving. Gay. Isn’t that how he seems? And remember, trust anyone whose boat shoes are more worn than yours.
But, I can’t! I know what I need to do. I can’t be distracted by this shit. I have to have control. You just fucking said! I can’t control the wind, but I can adjust the sail!
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. And don’t forget, The Earth has music for those who listen.
You don’t get it! I’m not saying I’m in love with him! I’m saying…
You want to be in love with someone. Like the song Jackie, she died for him and he’s not on the other side even but still she waits. Fine, duh. It’s never going to be him, though. So you might as well have a friend.
Jesus H.