Read Laughs, Corpses... and a Little Romance Page 26

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  Most of our passengers are very ordinary, but occasionally we get an oddball. I’ve always been interested in oddballs, the more oddball the better. One rainy morning for instance we had a sad little man with a droopy moustache and a bowler hat come aboard. He was wearing a black stripe suit and black and white shoes like you usually only see in old movies. I asked him what he did for a living. “I’m a comedian. I’m going to give a show at the bowling club.” “A comedian eh?” I said, “Tell us a joke then.” “Sure, this one will have you in stitches. What’s the difference between a dog and an elephant? Don’t know? If they both crap on your front lawn you can easy tell the difference.” His face lit up a bit and he chuckled. “I’ll tell you another one even better. What did the cockatoo say to the cow with only one back leg? Give up? He looked at the cow and said ‘Where’s your udder leg? Udder leg! Get it?” He started laughing out loud. I said to dad “That guy’s about as funny as a toothache. Does he really get paid for telling hopeless jokes like that?” Dad was in a grumpy mood. “Yes he does Jack, so maybe you’re in the wrong job.” Just then Annabelle ran into a patch of rough water, and she started to do a bit of rocking and rolling. Next thing I saw the comedian leaning over the rail, telling colorful jokes to the fishes. That sure wiped the smile off his face.

  We’re lucky our river is usually pretty calm, so we rarely have trouble with a passenger getting seasick, although we sometimes get school kids that have got hideously drunk and want to spew. From my years of observation I reckon there are two classes of seasick passengers, those that are genuinely seasick and those that imagine they are. Some dopey people feel seasick while they’re still on the wharf, just from looking at Annabelle. You can always tell when passengers are about to spew; they go white and start to yawn. At that point I steer them to the downwind rail so they can heave their guts into the river. It’s a technical point, but you never take them to the upwind rail, because, as the Chinese say, ‘He who vomits into the wind gets his own back’. We do have a small marine toilet down in the bows but I don’t advertise the fact. If guys knew it was there they’d use it just out of curiosity, and if Annabelle rolled they might miss. Tim has the job of cleaning out the toilet. He tried to say once that we should take it in turns, but I pointed out that I was first mate, and you couldn’t expect a first mate to do cleaning jobs like that, it was a job for the crew, namely him. Dopey Tim swallowed what I said; good job he didn’t check with dad. Anyway I’m buggered if I’m going to clean up peoples’ vomit and other nasties.

  We had a bit of fun on the very next trip. A passenger called Phil wanted us to take a pig out to the Island. Nothing unusual about that, we do occasionally carry small livestock. He had the pig in a carry cage like you use to carry a big dog. It was a smallish pink pig but it had ugly yellow tusks sticking up from its bottom jaw. “Isn’t he a handsome pig Jack?" asked Phil, “He’s got a long line of prize-winning ancestors you know.” “The only way I like to see pigs is on a tray of bacon at the butchers.” “You’ve got no appreciation of first class breeding.” All went well until half way across when a little kid started messing around with the pig and it got out and went racing round the afterdeck, with Phil and Tim and some of the passengers after it. I’ve never heard so much squealing. “Come on Jack, help us catch the little bugger” said Tim. I waited very calmly until exactly the right moment, then I fell on the animal, pinning it against the rail, with my arm round its neck in a headlock. It twisted and kicked and squealed and wriggled, but it couldn’t get away and it couldn’t bite me neither. Phil rushed to get the cage, and we pushed and shoved the pig in. “That was a pretty clever move Jack” he said. I smiled at him. “I learnt it watching World Wrestling on TV.”