The Boy, The Fish & The Bollox (chapter 1 + 2) ---- my life on board the SS OCEANIC

• 
  The boy,
  The fish,
  &
  the bollox
  BY
  JAMES R. SPENCER
  Copyright 2002 by Skinuporshutup Productions.
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without express permission from the author.
  
• 
  PROLOGUE
  JOURNEY’S END---LHR TO LBA
• 
  "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that due to the fact that Leeds and Bradford Airport is fog-bound, and an attempt at landing there would not comply with safety regulations, we will have to divert to our alternate airport, which is Teeside. Provision will be taken for your onward travel to Leeds and Bradford airport. We are sorry for this inconvenience", said a young, but mature female voice.
  There were several grumbles around me but they were quickly silenced when my tired mind made sense of the statement.
  "Aw, Fuckin’ ‘ell!" I blurted out, with the unceremonious frustration of someone who had hardly slept for the last four days. As the last syllable left my mouth, there was the rustle of half-read newspapers and an almost perfectly choreographed movement of a hundred or so collar and tie-adorned necks. Like a collection of automatic car aerials that had just had their orders to extend by the switching on of the radios that connected to them they rose up, and swivelled around in unison and stared directly at me. Attached to the necks were heads with blank faces seemingly devoid of any emotion. All I could focus on were the odd ‘Bobby
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  Charlton’ comb-over and one or two shiny, bald, domes reflecting their over-head reading lights, dispersed among the cheap, white-collar, side-parted haircuts.
  Einstein once said ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’. Their reaction was anything but equal.
  Feeling surrounded and unable to cope, I slid down in to my seat and out of sight of the blank, yet very powerful, cloned stare. The only place to look was down, and there I found a plastic tray with what appeared to be a wax bread roll, some reconstituted pigswill and a cup of warm urine. That was my breakfast.
  The British Midland shuttle service from London Heathrow to Leeds and Bradford Airport was scheduled to take around forty-five minutes. So after collecting my luggage and making my way outside to where my mum and stepfather would be waiting to drive my weary arse home, I reckoned I would be entering a very unconscious horizontal position within an hour and a half.
  After the stress and partying that had gone on in the last few days I could hear my bed crying my name out. I hadn’t slept in it for nearly five months and beds are just like us. They desire attention from time to time. Lonely beds are unhappy beds and nobody likes to feel unhappy, do they?
  Having only just disembarked a flight from Miami it was a rush to get from terminal 4 across to terminal 1 where I was hoping to get a domestic connection to Leeds. I had toyed with the idea of taking the Underground to Kings Cross Station and then the
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  Intercity 125 all the way home. This, I decided would take too long (at least three hours) and even though the plane was three times the cost I wasn’t in a mood to waste time on a mode of transport that was constantly late and unreliable. Also I would probably spend the time contemplating my life and dragging myself in to the depths of an irreconcilable depression. Flying was the only option!
  I made the flight to Leeds with about ten minutes to spare, which may not sound a lot, but, for me that is like an hour. Always take things easy and don’t rush. Rushing only gets you dead quicker, and I was, and indeed still am in no hurry to die.
  As I boarded the Boeing 737 and made my way to my seat, right at the back of the aircraft, I seemed to attract several quizzical stares from the suited businessmen who filled the seats in the rest of the fuselage. Peering above their Financial Times’, (starting at my Reebok sneakers, moving up my dark tanned legs to the multicoloured, three-quarter length Benetton Shorts and quickly carrying on to the partially ripped, pink Ocean-Pacific T-shirt and finally on to my dark but, bedraggled face), they all gave me the same inquisitive look. It was similar to the one that you get from the chimpanzees when visiting the zoo, but with less of an understanding and devoid of any humour. Their lives existed in two dimensions and two colours, those being black and white.
  In retrospect, I suppose their reaction was warranted. It was the 2nd of January and the temperature was two degrees above freezing. On the other hand, I would have got the same reaction in
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  the middle of summer. So having made the reference to chimps I feel I have unnecessarily offended our primate cousins and for that, I apologise. These guys were just wankers, and at the time (probably due to my lethargy), I dismissed them with the contempt that they deserved.
  After slumping down in my seat, I realised that being at the back on a full aircraft meant, that even though you got your food (I call it food with the utmost reserve) first, you couldn’t recline your seat. The outcome was me, having to sit in a position that only the Queen assumes when she has a dump. Inhaling as much air as would possibly fit in my lungs, I let out a long sigh of disdain.
  I’d got through the usual routine of reading the in-flight magazine, the emergency card, the sick-bag and playing with the light and cool air fan in about ten minutes. I still had thirty-five minutes to go and I was getting a little impatient as the voice of my bed was getting louder and louder.
  Then came the diversion announcement over the PA, and after my little outburst I actually felt a lot better. This was because every body else’s day had been badly fucked up. I could feel a large grin emerging on my face. So happy was I that all these tossers were obviously very disgruntled, I walked all the way down the aisle to the front of the plane to go to the toilet. On the way back I stared at as many of them as possible trying exceedingly hard not to hide my glee.
  We finally touched down an hour and ten minutes after we had
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  departed. Trying to look out of the tiny, condensation-covered window at my side I looked for signs of an airport. What I saw was a very large brick-built shed and a hut with a banana-split dish rotating on the top of it. I wasn’t sure if I had landed in Lilliput or Legoland, but everything did seem very small. As we taxied to a halt I realised that the buildings were actually the terminal and the control tower.
  The usual ‘don’t forget your personal items’ announcement came over the PA along with a message that a coach had been organised to transport all the people who needed it, to get to Leeds. Even though I had been unhappy at the diversion, I had consoled myself that it wouldn’t be too long (in the grand scheme of things) before I would be home. How wrong could I have been? Not much more.
  All around me people were readying themselves to leave the aircraft. Collecting their belongings and donning large, warm overcoats. I was very jealous. The only things I had to put on (extra to my beachwear) were a St. Louis Cardinals' baseball cap and a pair of Ray-Bans. Not exactly ‘winter-warmers’.
  A big clanking sound came from the front of the plane. They were opening the door. I could see it before I felt it. Cold air rushing up the cabin, bouncing off the Crombies, hats, seats and anything else that wouldn’t conduct it’s electrifying chill. It had seen it’s target and was taking the most direct route to it. I could see it’s face now, straight from the pages of a Stephen King thriller only he could describe. I know now how Captain Scott felt
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  when he went to have a piss. It wrapped its body around mine and contracted every piece if skin on my body. I let out a muted exclamation of shock. All I wanted was to get in to the terminal, back to some warmth and open my suitcase to put what warmish clothes I had with me.
  Wandering down the steps and across the tarmac the cold got more intense. I slipped my arms inside the sleeves of my ragged T-shirt and wrapped them tightly around my midriff, and tucking my chin in to the top of my chest I walked as fast as I could without running. The relief of reaching the terminal was short lived. Although the wind stopped as I crossed in to the covered shed, the temperature didn’t rise as I was expecting. I looked around and saw a sign, which indicated that: ‘THE MANAGEMENT WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGISE FOR THE HEATING BEING OUT OF ORDER’
  Frigging marvellous!
  After half an hour of waiting, walking around to try and keep warm, the luggage carousel came to life with a loud scream of oil-less cogs turning in excruciating pain, and the suitcases started to appear. My theory, when aircraft luggage was concerned was and is ‘last on-first off’. Not at Teeside Airport it wasn’t. There it was ‘if it’s on the plane, we will find it, can’t say when but…. we will’. My luggage, as fate probably predicted but forgot to tell me, came out last but none! The first thing I did was to open one of my bags and get a shirt, a pair of jeans and my leather jacket out and put them on over my existing apparel.
  Slowly, ever so slowly my body temperature began to rise as I made
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  my way to the information desk, only to be informed that the coach was expected within the hour. "Which hour?" I asked with a tinge of sarcasm to the disaffected, ginger-haired Middlesborough girl behind the counter. "Oh, I’m not too sure", she replied, "It doesn’t say on my screen". My mood was dropping, along with my body temperature, to an unacceptable level, but I was powerless to do anything. I slumped down next to her desk in a plastic chair that looked as though it had been pilfered from the nearest primary school and waited, and waited and waited.
  "Excuse me sir, Excuse me sir". A voice said. I opened my eyes and looked around. I could see things but nothing made any sense. Gradually the realisation of where I was and what I was doing there came back to me.
  I had fallen asleep in the chair. An hour and ten minutes after my visit to the information desk the ginger-haired girl was speaking to me to inform me that my transport had arrived. There was a coach waiting out side the arrivals' hall and I was the last person that had to board it. I gathered all my bags, dumped them on the first available trolley and rushed to the doors with the ‘arrivals’ sign above them. Having being asleep had a calming effect on me and the frustration of being diverted to Teeside had mostly dissipated with the knowledge that I was on my way home on a nice warm coach.
  The automatic doors opened an instantly the cold air outside penetrated me to the bone. Then I saw what I ‘knew’ was my transport but, instead of me feeling warmer at the thought of
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  getting on board, the cold air passed through my bones and started to chill my marrow! The coach I was to travel back to Leeds in was not what I had expected, even in the worst scenario. A throwback to the 1960’s, with its small dimensions, low roof, big rusted-chrome hubcaps and thick black exhaust fumes engulfing most of the space around it. Being as positive as I can, it was on the bad side of totally shagged! On the side, covered mostly in grease, dirt and other unworldly grime was written, ‘ALBERTS SCENIC COACH TOURS—NEWCASTLE’. I think if it had been cleaned, it would have fallen apart as the dirt was the only cohesive thing on the coach. I couldn’t even call it a ‘coach’ really. The doors half opened, and I could see a big, greasy, roll-up smoking, sweaty 300 pound Silverback with a big black ‘donkey-jacket’ draped over him, sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘So’, I thought, ‘ they’ve trained them to drive whilst I was away……….amazing!
  "Are yuz getting on the fuckin’ bus man or what? Am freezing mi nads off ‘ere!" The Silverback said in a grumpy, no, very aggressive tone. One thing David Attenborough always emphasised on his T.v. programs was, ‘don’t piss the animals off more than you have to.’ I asked him if I could put my bags in the luggage hold under the coach/bus/dumptruck but he said the locks were broken and I would have to bring it on board with me.
  Struggling up the steps through the half-knackered door I managed to get all my bags on board. There were only a few other people on the bus. These were very disgruntled looking businessmen who obviously couldn’t spare the cash for a taxi to Leeds. I
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  smiled. The smile didn’t last very long as I realised that it was no warmer on the coach than it was outside. All the windows had condensation running down them, which didn’t bode well from an internal heating point of view. I could sense the dirtiness of the cabin soaking in to my pores and the smell of stale cigarettes was overwhelming.
  My fears over the heating were confirmed as soon as I had taken my moth-eaten seat at the mid-section of the coach. There wasn’t any! For a moment I considered moving to the back seat, which is always the warmest part of a coach because the engine is situated there. But as the driver accelerated out of his parked position, this notion was soon discarded. The noise and vibrations from the decrepit engine that I could feel in my seat would have surely sent me insane had I been sat at the back. I decided to try the same technique that hamsters use, which is to curl up into a ball and rub themselves. To anybody watching with voyeuristic tendencies this would be thrilling but I didn’t give a shit, I just wanted to be warm.
  As we pulled away from the airport I wiped the condensation from the window at my side to look at the unfamiliar landscape. As the water dripped down the side of my seat I realised there was none. The windows were so dirty, nothing was remotely visible, and I had a feeling of being entombed. If I raised my head a little I could see over the seat in front of me and look out of the window at the front but, this would compromise my ‘hamster’ position so I opted for the tomb. I was very tired but could only manage to
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  sleep for a few minutes at a time due it been so cold on board and the driver seemingly aiming for every pothole and bump in the road. The old adage comes true, ‘ never get a gorilla to do a man’s work’.
  As we trundled along the country roads I began thinking about the past year and where my journey had really started to bring me to this point. Not until now, twelve years later have I really understood what I experienced in 1989 but now I am as sure as I ever will be.
  We all dream and strive for our own ‘Utopia’ and whether or not we experience it, we never know we have until we have lost it. For me, my trip to Utopia was in 1989 and I will never forget it.
• 
  DRY LAND TRAINING
• 
  Christmas was pretty shitty in 1988. This had been due to the
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  fact that I should have been working in Crans Montana,
  Switzerland. I was really looking forward to spending five months
  in a top Swiss hotel and most important of all, having the
  opportunity to go skiing, every day! Unfortunately, the work
  permits got screwed up and, two weeks before I was supposed to
  depart, the whole thing was cancelled. I gave up my job in Virgina
  Water and, with the proverbial ‘nob between the old legs’, I came
  home to Leeds to cry on mother's shoulder.
  Just before Christmas I'd applied to an advert for cruise
  line personnel in the main catering rag, the Caterer and
  Hotelkeeper and forgotten all about it. This was mainly
  due to the fact that the alcohol content in my blood was over
  the normal limit for consciousness. February came around and
  I was still plodding along like a donkey on Blackpool beach.
  That's just back and forth whilst trying to avoid the turds
  that had been washed up at high tide.
  February 6th 1989. A day that history was made! My first
  post from anybody in France, It was from the cruise line agency
  whom I had written to just THREE SODDING MONTHS before! Very
  efficient, I thought not. Lazy froggy bastards was closer to
  my line of thinking. Anyway as I'm a very forgiving sort of
  person and, I wanted a job so, I decided to give them a second
  chance.
  A one Bernard Jouen was the geezer I had to contact. As I
  can remember, 1989 was pre touch-tone telephones in our house,
  so it took me most of the morning to get through. Eventually
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  I was connected. The girl who answered at the other end just
  kept saying "allo, Monsieur Jouens office, can I 'elp you" for
  about ten minutes, before I could make her understand that's
  exactly what I wanted.
  After a while I got through to him. He was quite abrupt in
  the classic 'I'm French and totally devoid of emotion so get
  on with it you Roast Beef saxonite' style. I stated my case
  as in, "please give me a job Mr oh-so-nice Frenchman, grovel,
  grovel", and we got on fine from there. He told me to get my arse
  to Paris in eight days time, Tuesday the 14th. With me, I should
  have a grand in cash and then I could have a job. This sounded
  totally unreasonable so, I told him "no problem".
  Therefore, it was to be. Just a few little complications to
  iron out such as, no money, no passport and, no time! I can be
  quite resourceful if I need to be so, it was off to the bank with
  the best suit, the only tie and the best line in bullshit I
  could muster up when the manager asks, "how are you going to
  pay the loan back?" One down, just the passport to go, this
  was easy, It goes, "Dad any chance off a lift please?". Simple
  if you know how.
  Monday 13th February and, I was on my way to Paris. I got
  off the plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
  My instructions were to get to a hotel called 'The Scotland'
  which, was somewhere in the centre of Paris. I think the cab
  driver took the piss a bit 'cause he charged me about eighty
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  quid. I couldn't argue because, my French is crap and his English
  was twice as bad so I took it on the chin, paid the money and
  said " merci you robbing Gallic twat". He still got the dosh
  but, I felt a lot better, even though he didn't understand a
  word I had said except 'merci'.
  The hotel was situated in the back streets somewhere. Not
  that I was complaining as it was very cheap and, well that was
  it really. I met another geezer in the lobby who was also there
  at the request of Monsieur Jouen. So we had a chat and agreed
  to go for a wander around in search for some food as the hotel
  only served breakfast and, it was six o'clock in the evening.
  We found a small family run restaurant whose name translated
  (so my phrase book said) into 'The Pregnant Sweaty Duck'. Not
  very inviting I know, but we were starving. It was an inspired
  choice. The menu said 'Four Courses for 70Francs' (about a
  Tenner). This sounded like a 'bobby bargin' so we went for it.
  Down on the Champs Elysees, a tenner would buy you a piece of
  pigeon shit (and that wasn't a fresh one either) but here, we got
  enough food for a soccer team and a bottle of wine thrown in to
  boot! There was even a bonus because the owner's daughter served
  us. What a top dolly she was, about eighteen, short black skirt,
  tight white top, pouting red lips......then I realised it was a
  mirage caused by hunger. In reality, it was his wife, who was
  about twenty years past retirement age so I consoled myself by
  stuffing my face and getting pissed.
  The guy I had dinner with was an Italian from Milan called
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  Matteo Cittadini. He was tall and rake-like, very well dressed
  compared to me, not that that is terribly difficult to achieve.
  My idea of formal was shorts, polo shirt and trainers, and
  a tie for weddings of course! He was pretty friendly and the ten
  words we were able to communicate were all amicable. We wondered
  back to the hotel after eating stopping at ten or twelve bars on
  the way. Matteo crawled to his room whereas I had to be winched
  up by a tower crane, due to the fact that I was a fat bastard,
  and I had been drinking double Ricard chasers with each of the
  dozen beers that had entered my throat and, slid down with
  relative ease may I add.
  The following day was action day. We had to get our flight
  tickets, seaman's visas and out of Paris. M.Jouen turned up
  in a rather nice Bentley Turbo and asked us to give him about
  nine hundred quid. This was for the flight tickets. Quite a lot of
  lolly I thought but he explained that we had to purchase tickets
  that were 'open' for twelve months. So we gave him the money and
  in return, he gave us a letter for the American Embassy. Fair
  exchange I thought? We then tried to find the Embassy which
  was about a mile away. It took us about three hours because
  we couldn't find a street sign anywhere and we were too cocky
  to ask anyone. Not that they would have understood us anyway.
  I mean think about it, an Italian who couldn’t speak more than
  ten words an hour and a Broad-Yorkshire beer monster who, was
  hung-over and looked like Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'. We
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  finally asked an onion seller, showed him the address and he
  kept repeating "la bas, la bas". So it was out with the phrase
  book and we were there. We had passed this building several
  times and failed to notice the giant flag decorated with the
  'Stars and Stripes' sticking out of the wall. Not to worry we
  thought, just go in get a stamp in the passport and we would
  be on our way.
  Ah ha! so did every sodding foreign national in Paris. The
  queue was as long my Sunday morning 'paper-reading-on-the-toilet-
  session'. Everyone looked like a terrorist, which meant that
  instead of the few simple questions we got asked, they got a
  full CIA interrogation. Two hours later after waiting in the
  cold we got in to see a consulate officer. It took all of thirty
  seconds to get our visas, these were called a, 'C1-D'.
  Having had rather a lot of trouble finding our way to the
  Embassy we decided to take a cab back to the hotel, which took
  us about two minutes. Amazingly M.Jouen was waiting for us and
  to our surprise, he had our tickets. They were dated for the
  following day so it was all systems go! I had half-expected
  M.Jouen to fuck off with our money and go and put a deposit
  on another, Bentley Turbo but we had our tickets. they said
  ' Paris - London, London - Miami BA 292 '
  We were sorted. Time to celebrate, and we promptly did but,
  this time I ordered the tower crane before we went out. Nothing
  can compete with experience.
  The following morning we buggered off to the airport where
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  we met up with another couple of lads on the same flight. Four
  waiters, waiting to start to wait on! Try saying that with a
  gob full of croissant and coffee mixed in with a rank hangover.
  The other two guys were from Portugal. Again not a lot of English
  was said or understood but, we got by. One of the blokes was a
  piano player (excellent credentials to be a waiter) called Rogerio
  Timoteo and the other a builder's labourer called Miguel Sanchez.
  They were very quiet lads, and very good sleepers which was
  good news for myself because, I got all their food and booze
  rations on the plane. The flight was nine hours to Miami but,
  they are five hours behind in Florida, so we arrived at 3.00pm
  local-time.