Tuesday night on the boat

I bought a beer and approached their table.

“Still not many people here,” I said, referring to an earlier encounter with them.

“Nope,” the guy said.

He had long hair, dyed black, with about two inches of root growth showing. We were shouting over the music.

“I guess Tuesdays aren’t the most popular days to go on a cruise,” I said.

“Pull up a chair,” he said.

There were people at only two or three other tables. Two young girls in tight pants and light-colored tops were dancing together. They looked very small on the empty dance floor.

They, the two girls and the guy, were all dressed in black. I figured from previous encounters with “blackers” that they didn’t much appreciate the disco’s list chart dance music, and said something to that effect.

“Not much choice, is there? Well, as you get older, you lose the purist attitude,” the guy said.

He introduced himself as Sampo. His girlfriend’s name was Jaana, and the girl sitting next to me was Petra. Petra told me she was from Nummela, and that she went to trade school. I can’t remember the school’s name, though she repeated it several times. It was a long one, that much I remember.

“I’m studying to be a fabric artisan. What do you do?” Petra said.

“I go to university,” I said.

“Tell me you study art history. That’d be so cool.”

“Sorry, but no.”

I was about to get up to get another beer when she grabbed my empty glass and started filling it from a can of beer she pulled out of her purse.

“For me? Thanks,” I said.

She started running her fingers through my hair. Then she pulled my head towards her for a kiss. Okay, I thought.

We talked for a while about school grades and music. The conversation wasn’t much, but she had her leg over the arm of her chair and in my lap, so I wasn’t complaining. She was wearing black stockings and black leather boots that came all the way up to her knees. I squeezed her thigh and lit a cigarette. I offered her one.

“I don’t smoke,” she said, as she pulled a cigarette out of the pack I held out.

“You don’t have to start on my account.”

“Only sometimes when I drink.”

She started telling me about imaginary band she had started with Jaana. I noticed she was getting pretty drunk.

“I play the flute and Jaana plays the violin. Only we don’t really, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Sampo, he’s been in some bands, he’s gonna make us some songs.”

Busy with the cigarette in her left hand, she forgot about the beer glass in her right, and she tipped a good splash on herself and the table. I took the glass from her. She started wiping the beer off herself and the table with her hand.

“Wait!” I said, pulling out a folded paper napkin from my pocket. “Here.”

She looked down at the napkin.

“What do I do with that?”

“Uh, it’s for the spilled beer,” I said.

She looked up at me. Her expression was a little blurry, but I guessed it meant she was touched.

“Oooh...” she said, and reached up and ran her fingers through my head.

I folded up the napkin and put it back in my pocket. She didn’t need it any more.

Not much later, Petra passed out. I asked Sampo and Jaana what their cabin number was. I told them I’d walk her to down to their cabin and put her to bed.

“I think sleep’s all she’s up to tonight,” Jaana said.

“Not disagreeing with you there,” I said.

We finished our beers.

“I think we’ll be going to bed as well,” Sampo said, looking at Jaana, who’d started swaying from side to side.

We went down to deck two, me supporting a hardly conscious Petra, and Sampo trying to keep Jaana awake. I said good night to the three and walked back to the elevator. I got off on deck nine, walked into the disco, and ordered a beer.

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