PLAY DOUGH

The Tropicale is a boat scheduled for decommission, or retirement, or whatever it is they call it when they euthanize cruise ships that are way past their prime.

Dad drops this little nugget of fact on us in a matter-of-fact way and then hands my sister and me our boarding passes. I stuff my Gameboy in my backpack and wonder what’s so wrong with this boat that it has to be destroyed. I look at the picture on my ticket. The ship glides along the surface of a crystal white sea, an impossibly cloudless sky above it, boldly charging towards the next vacation destination like it doesn’t even give a damn. It looks like a perfectly good boat to me. So why is it being demolished?

Has the structural integrity of the hull been compromised?

I imagine all the scenarios as we round up our luggage. A crucial piece of the engine is unhinged, causing the ship to stall in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, leaving us prone to roving gangs of pirates and sharks. And to make matters worse, the communications tower is suffering serious electrical problems, which means we have no of contacting the outside world after a terrible blizzard flips the boat over like in The Poseidon Adventure and we catch fire.

Captain, the distress call isn’t going through! No one knows where we are!

There’s only one way to survive, Ladies and Gentlemen. We’ll have to feed on the flesh of our families! I know, it sounds horrible, but at least one of us has to live to turn our terrible tale into a bestselling novel.
Servings will be at 5 and 8. Dress formal.

Of course, I don’t let Dad in on any of my concerns. I keep these theories to myself. We’re already walking on eggshells. Nothing about this trip has gone according to plan.

Dad looks gloomily out one of the giant windows that make up the seaward side of the boarding area and takes a deep breath. Sunlight reflects off the water, dances on the ship’s white belly, baby faeries flickering on my father’s tanned, unshaven cheeks. He snaps out of it when our group number is called over the loudspeaker.

I have no idea what’s wrong with it, he says. Maybe nothing’s wrong with it. Maybe it’s just old.

We pass a series of promotional posters for other, more exciting, cruises. These people are having tons of fun. They’re sharing bottomless margaritas, clapping merrily as friends perform cheap poolside limbo tricks. They’re wearing big sunglasses and dancing the Macarena. I wonder if there’s going to be any of that stuff on this ship. Probably not. The closest I’ll get is the Learn How to Fold Napkins seminar on the Lido deck.

Oh well. So what if this ride is going to be decidedly more cruise than carnival? I’m only ten, so my disappointment in a lack of rambunctiousness is easily abated. I don’t feel the itch to stay up all night partying just yet. Besides, my sister and I have had enough excitement for the year, so I’m looking forward to doing a little relaxing, a little sightseeing, and possibly having a romance with a sixteen year old Inuit girl who’ll get me high on tribal roots and teach me the ways of the universe and then break my heart in two while we’re sitting on the Captain’s Deck together, staring out over the twinkling lights of Anchorage.

(A bittersweet fantasy, isn’t it? Oh!, I’ll tearfully moan, I’m not sure I ever want to see another Eskimo again! She laughs in that rich earthy tone – the laugh of her people – and rubs my shoulders, the way she knows I like it. Being much wiser than myself and having the spirits of her ancestors to consult, she makes sure that we exchange addresses for some stilted pen-palling, knowing that we’ll possibly meet up a few years down the road to have sex and hunt bears or something.)

My sister and I follow Dad up the boarding ramp. A crew member stops us and asks if we could stand behind a life preserver for a picture. We do, barely smiling. I don’t know about them, but all I can think about is the woman who will not be pictured:

Mom.

Dad tips the photographer and we walk up another ramp. We wait in another short line to be welcomed onto the boat by some cheery concierges, tour pamphlets at the ready. I peer over the railing. The boat is old, but I don’t see anything too alarming. No cracks, no holes. Only rust and barnacles. A calypso beat over a loudspeaker.

I pound my fist on the iron a couple times as I enter, like a weepy old sea captain kissing his ship hello. She may be an old lady, but she’ll hold it together for one final voyage.

Toot toot!

And suddenly we’re Alaska bound! Alaska! Can you believe it? Seven days of a slow creep up the long leg of Seward’s Folly. We’ve bought the guides, poured over the ship’s specs, watched a documentary or two. Every night for the past year we’ve taught ourselves something new to prepare ourselves for what promises to be the adventure to end all adventures.

Look, kids! Eagles and waterfalls and totem poles! Salmon jumping upstream, just like in a beer commercial! Holy shit! Is this place for real?

The fateful “Where Shall Our Next Vacation Be?” vote was held over dinner at our favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant. It’s this or the Panama Canal, kids. Choose wisely. Spend some time with Fodor’s, but go with what your heart tells you. More chips and salsa please. Sure, sure, Panama looks pretty scenic. (Who doesn’t want to learn the many miracles of drydocking?) But for a family living in the Arizona desert, a trip to Alaska might as well have been a trip to the moon. I mean, just look at all those trees! Hey! Where’s the bean dip?

And now here we are, on the ship. Nothing the way we planned it. This busted old boat is two weeks from being taken out back and shot like a lame horse; we’re one man down but somehow still holding it all together. We’ve got our poker faces.

My sister glances at a brochure for helicopter tours. Dad waits in line, toying with his cell phone. I swing around a brass pole and watch the old people amble on board.

Have you ever seen so many walkers and so much silvery hair? Looks like the final voyage of the Tropicale is going to be the final voyage for a lot of people. The boat is obviously popular with the over-sixty crowd. I understand the reasoning. You’re old. You sense your time coming. What’s the craziest place you can possibly go before you die?

Alaska! The Undiscovered Land! The Real Wild West! A place so topsy-turvy that even the sun can’t get its shit together. Where the night sky is filled with so much beautiful magic you have to call it science. The closest thing to Heaven you’re gonna get on the big rock, folks. Hope you don’t mind the rain.

Dad is next in line at the check-in counter. A soft-eyed Latino man with a sly mustache asks if my sister and I would like cruise ship credit cards. My father looks at me, deferring the question. Parenting at its best.

Do I want a credit card? Of course I want a credit card!

Do I want crack cocaine? Of course I want crack cocaine!

He turns back to the man and nods. He has to learn sometime, he says. The man looks pleased. He turns his head to swipe the cards through a scanner and there is a loud beep that might as well have said Turn Tape Over because the next chapter of my life was about to be written.

The man hands my sister a card too. We scrawl our signatures on the back. This is the first time I’ve ever had to sign my signature. So many stylistic choices. Do I go by Christopher or Chris? Cursive or Block letters? No one option seems better than the others. For a second I consider just scrawling some rudimentary hieroglyphics. Like Dad does: “DIL”.

In the end, I write my full name, Christopher Thomas Littler, as plain as can be. It takes a good minute and looks like the work of a kid half my age with wooden hands, but I’m too ashamed to ask for another card so I slip the sucker in my pocket.

I will be a fucking pro at this by the end of this trip.

A quick walk around the boat, still docked in the harbor, sets the mood for the week. Dad was right — there’s nothing outwardly wrong with this ship. It’s just outdated. An old toy doomed for the dump, unable to compete with the newer, more glamorous line of ships on the water. Besides, the whole idea of a week-long party cruise off the coast of Alaska seems a little flawed to begin with.

Holland America does Alaska with class. X does Alaska with style. Carnival gets you so drunk that you miss your Historic Sitka walk.

Who wants to party in Alaska?

The beat-up behemoth is towed out of Vancouver harbor. The engines roar to life and we chug chug chug out towards the open sea and just like that the swan song of the Tropicale has begun.

And so we’re all on this dying boat together: the recent divorcee and his kids, his son ten and his daughter thirteen. We sit in folding chairs and watch Vancouver sink into the horizon with glum faces. Dad orders a drink and I sit next to him, turning the credit card over in my hand, wishing I’d practiced my signature more before I committed it to plastic. God, this is embarrassing.

We sit there for a while. I ask for a Coke or something. Dad tells me I can get it myself. Ah, yes. He’s right! I can get it myself! All I have to do is show the magical card. It’s easy as pie. And maybe I’ll get a slice of pie too!

And you can’t eat pie without ice cream!

I ask my sister if she wants anything. She doesn’t. I ask her if she wants to come with. She says okay, and together we set off for the drink bar.

Dad remains seated, the wind batting at his hair. He watches us walk into the ship’s cafeteria, the automatic door sliding shut behind us. It takes a moment for the reality to settle in. Who knows when we’ll be back? We’ve been set loose in a gigantic playground. Is this how the whole week is going to be? Him, alone, drinking his cares away in the Great White North? It’s overwhelming, this feeling he has. This unexpected loneliness. Who could have seen this coming? Not him, that’s for sure. The divorce came out of nowhere, the trip became an inevitable chore. But we did it because we wanted to do it. We wanted to get out of that miserable state. That funk. But weren’t we supposed to get out together? He calls over the waitress. This is a man who needed a vacation from himself, not by himself. So it is. We were children. How could we have known?

He can’t be the only one who feels it. These are long, lonely days in Alaska. Since the sun never sets, the days on the ship have this scenic, dream-like quality to them; people pass in and out of your day again and again and you can’t remember if you saw them earlier today or yesterday. You have nothing but the endless ocean to orient yourself. Your life is sweeps, suddenly, and every person is a guest star.

Time bends in peculiar ways on this ship. The hours seem to stand in place. If you’re lonely, you’ve been lonely forever. All you can do is distract yourself.

And so we do.

I spend most of my days inside a dimly lit storage closet dressed up as an arcade on the Promenade Deck. Since I’m one of maybe a dozen kids in my age bracket, I’m usually the only one there. Every day I play Rampage for an hour or two, then walk down to the piano bar to order a virgin strawberry daiquiri and listen to the piano man, Tim, play eighties hits. Never once do I bump into the Inuit girl of my dreams, but I do make small talk with a pair of lonely masseuses who like to drink in the mornings by the non-functioning waterslide.

Who knows what my sister does? Was there a wealth of entertainment on board for the chubby, irritable thirteen-year-old girl? She wasn’t hitting the Exta-Z dance club or the Paradise Club Casino, this I know. (In fact, no one was. You should have seen the desperate looks on the bartenders faces on those empty, lonely late nights. The lights were twinkling, the dance floor pure Billy Jean, but not a soul in sight. This wasn’t Vegas. This was the city that sleeps at 8.) I imagine that her days and nights at sea were a lot like mine, except that she retreated into a book, curling up and reading a whole bags worth of them in a week by the light of the sea.

And Dad? Your guess is as good as mine. We always knew where he was, but no one activity sticks out in my mind. I can tell you two things: that over the week he made friends with a few people his age and that he spent a few knights drinking with them, and that an overwhelming amount of panoramic vistas were committed to tape on this vacation. I know because we just transferred them to DVD and watched them. At least an hour of this stuff. He was like Terrence Malick there for a while, if Terrence Malick said “Wow” and “Isn’t that beautiful?” every couple seconds while he panned the camera.

And, sure, we go on land excursions. We see the quaint Alaskan towns. Meet quaint Alaskan people. Visit quaint Alaskan lodges. Take pictures in front of quaint Alaskan totem poles. We read plaques about famous prostitutes and pistol fights. We see big Alaskan dogs and pan for flakes of Alaskan gold. We hear poems by Frost and examine old cannons. We shop and eat fried fish. We see big bugs and burly men.

But the boat is infinitely more fun. Why did I ever resign myself to a quiet week of navel-gazing? On the boat I have my credit card! I can go wherever I want and buy whatever I want, whenever I want it! Who needs limbo sticks and the Macarena? Who cares if the pool is a frozen block of ice? This is my coming of age story, god damn it, from the teet to the signed receipt, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.

After my family has gone to sleep, I head out to the midnight buffets. Today’s leftovers? Tonight’s feast! Giant butter swans, cruise ships carved out of blocks of ice, a fountain that spews hot chocolate. You feel like a criminal if you don’t overload your plate with meat and sweets. Like you’re slapping a thousand starving kids in China across their shriveled little faces with every stale croissant you pass up.

I find a seat near the ice cream machine and start gorging myself. The place is more popular than I thought. Apparently there are hundreds forty-somethings on this ship, they were just waking up at two in the afternoon and spending their days boning in their cabins. And as the place fills up, the adults sit with me. I eat my buffet in silence. We’re only strangers for a little while. Apparently the sight of a ten year old boy scarfing down an entire table of food at one in the morning is too much for some people. They laugh with me, call me the stowaway. They can’t believe I’m out right now. Why am I not in bed? Where are my parents?

Who needs parents when I can pay for your drinks?

And why not? I’m so uncomfortable that I buy a round for the whole table. No skin off my back. This is play dough, don’t you see? And it doesn’t even make my hands stink. This is what children do. Someone sits down next you and your lego set, you give them a few legos, don’t you?

I can’t tell you how much this card is magic! Finally! A cheat code to making friends. All social interaction solved with a signature. Does this start an unsettling precedent? Yes. It does. But right now I can’t even imagine that things could ever go wrong.

Does anyone want another drink? I know the cutest little piano bar on one of the upper decks. Who wants to catch the ventriloquist act tomorrow night at the Tropicalia Lounge? I hear he’s bound to be the next Pee Wee Herman. Does anyone have any blow? I don’t want this night to ever end!

Ah, he has to learn sometime, Dad says to the sly mustached man at the check-in counter, and I do. I learn that people like you when you buy them things.

I’m a maniac! The response is Pavlovian. The more dumb shit I buy with the card the more the card redeems me. The bartenders all know my name. The maitre’d tells me dirty jokes. I’m introduced to so many daughters that I can’t keep their names straight. Look at this kid; he’s gone positively Gatsby on us!

If I had my own room we’d be having virgin strawberry daiquiri parties all night!

My family has no idea the ritzy life I’m living after they go to bed each night. I look tired, worn out – but we all do. We’re all doing what we have to do to get through this. We’ve all gone a little crazy on this broken boat.

By the tail end of the trip, the three of us are spending a criminal amount of time at the piano bar, Chopstix. You can guess what this place looks like. Neon piano keys, black and white Formica tables with plush red C-shaped couches. In the center of the room is the baby grand surrounded by bar stools, so that we can sip our drinks and watch our man Tim tinkle the keys.

My sister wants to hear Jack and Diane again. It’s the anthem of the week. So American. A tale of two kids doing the best that they can. Maybe it’s about our parents.

She and I are getting along well. She’s game for most anything out here, which is happening less and less back home. Now she’s starting her “teenage experience.”

A few weeks before we were set to fly to Seattle I walked in on her and Mom sitting on the couch in the study, both in full-on crisis mode. She was bawling, saying that she wasn’t going to go on a stupid cruise to Alaska, that she wasn’t going to abandon our mother in her time of great need. Mom stroking her hair and saying, you have to go. I’ll be fine. Your father already paid for your ticket, honey. You’ll have a great time.

And of course, she goes. She has no choice. Dad says he’s more than willing to go with only me, but he tells her this in a heartbroken way that implies the opposite. You do what you think is right for you, he says. And she does.

And Dad seems to be doing just fine, considering.

He saved us the displeasure of actually watching him move into his dingy new apartment a few miles down the road from our house. It’s across the street from a golf-course, so all sorts of bugs find their way in at night. Dead cockroaches in the shower basin, spiders dangling from the ceiling fan.

He takes us to dinner at the restaurant across the street. Big windows overlooking the golf course and the massive fountain on the hill. My sister asks him a seemingly innocuous question and he starts to cry. A brief bawl, if you can imagine that. We’ve never seen it before so it blows our minds. He’s moved out, Mom has a new boyfriend, but, damn, that’s the moment when know that the times they are a changing.

But there’s none of that in Alaska.

The three of us sing Piano Man one last time with Tim, the piano man. We request the same songs we’ve requested every night and he plays them as if every suggestion is novel. At the end of the night Dad drops a fat fifty in the guy’s tip jar. He’s humbled, gracious, misty around the eyes. We all are.

When the ship docks in Anchorage I’m forced to give up my credit card. I watch from across the room – I’m usually tasked with guarding the luggage – with a strange mix of fear and excitement. I have no idea how many charges I’ve racked up over the past seven days. Dad gives me a disappointed look when the woman shows him the bill. He shakes his head and laughs a little. Looks like my Gatsby days are over.

For now.

I lie in my hotel bed that night facing the blackout curtains. Anchorage is just outside. The sun cuts a sliver through the room. Here we are. In Alaska. The heart of adventure. Somehow we’ve managed to slip into a brand new family dynamic without even knowing it. Could it have been done at home? Probably not. It took a trip to the new world to make us come to terms with the passing of the old one.

There’s still so much I don’t know about what’s coming. My life is about to be sliced in two. Taken apart. Reorganized. Salvaged. I think about the Tropicale, which right now sails towards oblivion. Decommissioned. Doomed. Retired.

The structural integrity of the hull been compromised.

God this is scary. But aren’t all adventures?