On the boat lots of people are well drunk. They steal photographs with fancy cell phones and tip inconsistently, but always I’m thanked for windblown portraits below the GG, the woman with her husband’s fist in her hair. I keep these people, holding one another if only as some brief island, asking after Sausalito, prices in Marin, and is it always so cold in California? Also I keep the occasional older Japanese man, rounding his mouth and pointing, his friends tittering a little, he feigning no embarrassment when asking to be photographed with, not by, me. This is because I pass him at the bow, muttering now and then, sumimasen, or thank him awkwardly in formal Japanese when he hands me twenty bucks. But I am not much more novel to him, or men like him, than I am often to boys in coffee shops who fill to-go cups entirely with foam. Life being performative and whorish, but never entirely untrue, how hands don’t think before attending, briefly, to the obstruction of some stranger’s elbow, please and thank you, the plea somehow arising quite honestly as everyone leaves: Do have a good night! Enjoy the rest of your evening. We hope you enjoyed this cruise. And then, how really gratifying it is to be tired at the end of the night. 

Notes

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