Part One- Jackie O' and the Bahamian Bordello, Florida

Question on US immigration form:  “Are you intending to try to overthrow the government of the United States?” 

Gilbert Harding: “Sole purpose of visit.”

They don’t just let anyone into the United States of America you know. There are requirements, specifically a return ticket back to where you came from, at least $3000 dollars in a bank account, and the understanding that you won’t look for work while in the States.  I’m distinctly aware of my failure on all three counts, and as I am driven towards Montreal airport I become increasingly nervous about getting through US immigration.  My nerves aren't much helped by a carload of people from the hostel I’d been living in tutoring me on how to escape detection if I am pulled aside for questioning. 

“Don’t look left, it is a sure sign you’re lying.”

"Don’t fidget, or cross and uncross your legs."

“Don't look nervous.”

It seems that they not only have some experience in these matters, but that they are enjoying themselves a little more than I think necessary.   My hangover grows exponentially as office buildings flicker past the window and the airport draws into sight.   I want the drive to last forever, and remaining in Canada seems like an increasingly attractive option. 

30 minutes later, my worst fears are realised as I find myself ushered into an interview room, where American immigration officers look suspiciously at my fictitious typed itinerary and listen with blank expressions as I try to explain why I am not carrying proof of my finances or a return ticket to Australia.  I suspect that 'I have no money and don't want to go back to Australia yet' is not the answer the gatekeepers of Fortress America are looking for, so I keep it to myself. While I answer their questions I busy myself looking left, fidget like a junkie, and shift nervously in my seat as if being attacked by fire ants.   I am sweating last night's booze by this point, which I’m fairly sure isn’t helping my credibility. I stare at the clock in the long intervals I am left alone, aware of both my imminent flight departure and the surveillance camera trained on me as I compulsively cross and uncross my legs. 

As I wait I ponder (as much as a wine-soaked brain can ponder) the irony of being denied entry to a country I have no overwhelming desire to visit, let alone live in.  I would really, really like to point that out, but think it might be counterproductive.  Finally, as the hour passes and I reconcile myself to missing my flight and having my entry rejected, they send in a very large lady with a very large gun. She lowers herself bulkily into her swivel chair, which sinks towards the floor with a mechanical sigh. 

She shuffles and breathes heavily through her mouth as she looks through the papers on her desk.
 “Where is your return ticket?  Where is your proof of finances?  What are your plans in the United States?”  And then we go through it all again.  I’m not a very proficient liar, and I feel dizzy and very much like throwing up.  Finally, when I am entirely sure she will refuse my visa, she stands behind me, leans over my shoulder and says, “You are going to Fort Lauderdale to look for work, aren’t you?  Boat work," she adds. This is not really a question, more of a statement. 

“No,” I say, absolutely not. Just a holiday."

She stares at me for what seems like an eternity, flicks through my passport one more time, and stamps it.   “You’d better not be," she warns, handing me my passport, “go catch your plane." And I run for the plane bound for Florida, a place I don't want to go, and for a job I don't want. 

I am hoping to find a boat that is heading to the Caribbean for the winter season.  This job search in itself is illegal, as looking for any work in America on a tourist visa is illegal.  However, thousands of foreign yacht crew do this every year, and apply for their US visas once they find a job on a foreign-flagged vessel. At which point you are no longer working in America, but on a floating bit of some tax-free haven, most often the Cayman Islands.  And, therefore, no longer doing anything illegal.  I don’t think.  It’s complicated.  But I am on my way there, nonetheless, and as I am welcomed into America by a customs official who hands me a handful of chocolate-covered cranberries and cheerily tells me to  'Have a great time in the USA, the best country on earth,' I think that this could be a most excellent adventure.  

 I walk out of the big glass airport doors into a wall of rain and tropical heat, and take a taxi to a cheap motel. I feel as if I have squeezed inside my TV set, as we zip past strip malls (which to my surprise, don’t have strip clubs in them!) and the endless chain stores and restaurants on route 95.  Pick-up trucks are everywhere,‘gas’ is cheap, there are no footpaths, and the people I can see are all either blonde and perfect or overweight and wearing a tracksuit. It is exactly how I’d imagined Florida to be, and I am pretty damn thrilled.

I check in at my motel, a white two-storey place with a communal balcony built over the car park, just like in the movies.  This pleases me some more.  The room has that smell of cheap motels everywhere, a mix of astringent cleaning products and stuffy air-conditioning, and I am delighted to see that the toilet has been ‘sealed for my protection’ with a paper strip.  I wonder what exactly it is I am being protected from.   What is in there?  I grin to myself as I snap the paper with a flourish and imagine a clown bursting out, or the singing dancing creature in a hat and cane that emerges from the man's stomach at the end of Spaceballs.  I look around at my room, wondering which of the giant beds I will sleep in.  I decide to spend some time in both.  I lie down and watch telly for a while, flicking channels, skipping past evangelical preachers and countless infomercials, finally settling on one of the myriad versions of CSI, where I watch a lady in high heels and waist-length blonde hair conduct an experiment and think for the hundredth time, her hair must surely get in the evidence.  Hungry, I decide to go for a walk to find a restaurant.

“Oh, you can’t walk!" The motel receptionist laughs at me when I tell her my plans are for the evening. “Why are the Australians always trying to walk everywhere?” she yells to her husband in the back room, and he laughs back.

“Just throw another shrimp on the barbie," he yells back, and we all laugh some more, while I think, It’s not a shrimp, we don’t call it a shrimp, we call it a prawn you idiots.  I cut them off before they start talking about the Crocodile Hunter, who I’ve quickly realised Americans just love, and apparently I ‘sound just like’.  Good lord, I do not.  They explain that there’s no footpath to walk on, and it’s dangerous with all that traffic.  Of course, I think, no footpaths.  They kindly offer to drop me off at a Tex-Mex restaurant nearby.  And so I eat nachos in a restaurant festooned with fake cacti and number plates from all fifty States. I wonder how long it has taken them to collect them.  I ask the middle-aged bartender, he smiles at my naiveté.

 “Oh, we order them from the factory, everybody does.   American memorabilia is quite the industry.” 

The next day I wake up and check out, throw in a couple of ‘crikey's on my way out of reception for good measure, and catch a taxi to Floyd’s Crew House, where I’ve heard captains come to when they are looking for crew. I tell the guy at the desk that I’m looking for stew jobs, and go to my dorm; the room smells, as they always do.  It is empty, a few people are gathered on the communal tables under the trees outside, but I don’t feel like joining them.  I sit on my bunk and look at my backpack, wondering which interview clothes I will wear to go and see the crew agents, and mull over the fact that I do not have any suitable shoes.  This is not unusual.  I hate shoes. Having failed to come to a satisfactory footwear conclusion, I don’t really know what to do next, and lie down on my squeaky metal bunk. All of a sudden a corpulent, white-haired man sweeps in wearing a white polo shirt with a yacht on it.  I sit up.  His face is very red and he looks exceedingly stressed.  This is quite clearly a captain!

"I hear you’re looking for stew work," he says, voice gruff and very Texan.

"Yes."

"Worked on yachts before?” he asks? I see he's holding my resume in his hand.

“For a few seasons. 50 metre mostly. Motor. It's all there in my resume." He glances down at it, but doesn't seem that interested.   I neglect to mention that I lasted 3 weeks on the first, 3 months on the second before getting fired for sleeping with a crew member, and six months on the third, only lasting so long because they took my passport away and wouldn’t give it back unless I paid them thousands of dollars.  Unnecessary detail, I thought, and he looks like a man with little time.  He is looking at his watch.

“Good.  You look alright.  Come on.”

"I’m sorry?”

“You’ve got a job. Now, wasn’t that easy- you haven’t even unpacked yet."

I look at my backpack on the floor and back at him.  This is unconventional, as he still hasn't read my resume, let alone checked references. I make a decision. Why not?  I can always say no once I get to the boat if it doesn’t suit, after a few days' work. Beggars, choosers and all that.   And it saves me having to buy shoes. 

So I climb into a big black air-conditioned pick-up truck with dark tinted windows, trying not to focus on the fact that I am getting into a complete stranger’s car and no one in the whole world knows where I am.  It occurs to me that my family don’t even know that I’ve moved to America. His name is Greg, but asks that I call him ‘Captain’.  I think this is idiotic, but promise myself that I’ll try.  I ask some general questions about the boat.

“How big is it, sail or motor, charter or private?”

 He tells me that it is a 40 metre motoryacht, private and charter, but there he stops. He seems a little cagey about the details, and prefers to talk about how lucky I am to get a job so quickly, and how much Americans like Australia.  (Without ever going there, the flight’s too long, but still. Practically the same country, really.)  He talks for a while about the general unfairness of the world’s disdain for America, and how Bush is ‘setting that right, showing them who is boss.’

"He's a great man, Bush.  I got tackled by secret service for trying to give him a hug once.  On a golf course. Great man.  The world owes him a lot.  And America." I feel we are heading inexorably towards a ‘Y’all’d be speaking  German or Japanese if it weren’t for us’ moment, and steer the conversation back to the job I’ve just been offered.

“Is there a boss-trip coming up?"

“Yes, next Friday, we’ve got sea trials next week. We've done a lot of work on her."

“Been in the shipyard then?”

"Yeah, we bought the boat and raised it."

"Raised it?” I ask curiously. This doesn’t sound good.  

“Yeah, it caught fire in the canal here in Fort Lauderdale when it was moored behind someone’s house, and it sunk.  Shallow water though, so me and the owner bought it and raised it. I own 10%.” 

Oh no, I think, alarm bells screaming. This is weird. I have never heard of a captain having shares in a yacht before, normally the owners are richer than God and have no need for shared ownership. 

“The owner’s a friend of mine," he says, seeing my uncertain look.   “Sure, it’s a bit unusual, but it’s going to be great, lots of tips for you, we’re all going to make a fortune."

Daywork for a week and get out of here, I tell myself. 

"But Dana will answer all your questions, about how it’s going to work".

“Dana?” I ask.

"Yes, the chef, she's great.  We're going to meet her now, she’s at the deli picking up lunch- they’ve got the most amazing sandwiches- you should try their pastrami."

We pull up at the deli and my eyes are magnetically drawn to the counter, where the epitome of a Floridian stripper is ordering lunch. She is a stunningly beautiful blonde in her 30's, and shares a good relationship with a plastic surgeon.  She is perfect for my Florida-girl stereotype.  Enormous boobs jut out at right angles in a super-fitting white top, bleached blonde hair falls down to her waist.  Sculptured nose, rigid eyelids and collagen lips turn towards us as she yells,

“Greg! And oh my god, you’ve found someone- she’s perfect!” This, to my rapidly accumulating dismay, is directed at me. Everyone in the shop turns and looks as kilos of silicone envelop me in a hug.  I half-expect her to smell of Tupperware, but she smells of Chanel and strong shampoo.

"This is the chef, this is Dana, isn’t she wonderful?” the captain says, giving her shoulders a proprietary squeeze.  She simpers at him, looking up from under long eyelashes.  The men in the shop, everyone in the shop, just keep looking at her.  I can’t take my eyes off her either. This girl has serious star-power, somehow elevated rather than diminished by the fact that she looks like a caricature of herself.  She pulls me over to the cabinet, where the middle-aged lady behind the till looks at Dana with affection; obviously everyone knows her here, and no-one seems to mind at all that she is holding up the queue with her amateur dramatics.  I order a salad, and we go outside to the carpark, where Dana climbs into an open-top white convertible.
"See you back at the boat!" she shouts out, and speeds away. 

The captain’s cell phone rings while we’re driving to the shipyard.  He answers it, waits a millisecond, and starts shouting. He waves his other arm around as he rants about deadlines, and I notice his face is getting a tinge of purple within the red.  He looks on the verge of a heart attack. I look uncomfortably down at the salad container in my lap, noticing the funny artificial colour of American cheese.  I am relieved when we pull into the shipyard in front of a 40-metre motoryacht, for while it has only 2 decks it looks ‘official’ enough, and close enough to what I’ve worked on before to feel a little more on familiar ground.  Or teak, as it were. We walk onto the aft deck, there are tools lying about everywhere and everything is an incredible mess.   I wonder how this boat can possibly be made ready for the owner’s trip in nine days time.  Entering the main salon, my eyes are drawn to the ‘Miami Vice’ style carpet, with giant green, purple and black diamonds stretching across cream pile. It is vile, and my distaste must have registered on my face.

"OK, we’ll change it, you have lots of experience, on bigger boats, you can decide the new carpet!”  He goes back to yelling on the phone, and goes back outside, pacing on the aft deck.   I jump to see a man in blue overalls is lying quietly on the carpet near me, attaching a speaker to a stereo. I introduce myself, he looks at me, seemingly not knowing what to say.

“Putting a new speaker in," he finally says quietly, although that bit I had already figured out.   "The captain slashed the last one with his Leatherman.  His knife," he adds, misinterpreting my look of incomprehension.

Why”? I venture, unsure if I want to know the answer.

"He hates the radio station the old first mate listened to, so he slashed the speaker and fired him.  The mate knew, he’d been warned before, he was just doing it to rile the captain up."

“He fired him? For listening to a radio station”?  I look out to where the captain is still yelling into his mobile on the aft deck, his voice audible through the thick glass sliding door, and decide that this is believable.   And then, as I watch, as if on marvellous cue, the captain takes off his sunglasses, throws them on the deck, and jumps on them, his face a picture of purple, apoplectic rage.  “He’s jumping on his sunglasses!" I say, aghast.

"Oh, he does that all the time, he get a new pair of Maui Jims every month." The engineer seems strangely unperturbed. He smiles, seeing my face, and introduces himself as Simon. “You’ll get used to him.  Don’t worry.”  He stands up, shakes my hand awkwardly, and walks out.  

 “Good engineer, given his background," says a voice behind me.  I turn around to see another man in overalls behind me, he introduces himself as Graham.  He is here to help with the shipyard work. 

Oh”, I ask curiously.  “What’s his background?” 

“Amish”, comes the reply.  I look at him, amazed.  An Amish engineer?  “Well he ran away from the Amish family, got sick of the horse and carriage life and came to work with engines instead. Not that great with people though, especially women.  He’s pretty quiet.”  I am thrilled with this bit of information, the wonderful American wackiness of it.

Dana arrives back at the boat, and after a quick lunch she shows me the cabin we'll be sharing. “You’ll only have to share it with me when we’re away on trips though, I have an apartment here in Lauderdale.” This is excellent news, having a single-share cabin is like a stewardess’ Holy Grail.  I look in the bathroom, it is very bright. I see there is a ladder fixed to the wall behind the toilet, leading up to the deck via a hard plastic hatch that lets the daylight flood in.  I like it; I’ve never had an escape hatch in my bathroom before.  I turn back to say something to Dana, only to realise she has curled up on the bottom bunk and fallen asleep, looking strangely child-like.  I say, hesitantly, then more loudly,

“Dana, what am I meant to be doing? Where shall I start? Greg said you’d know where everything was up to.”

She groans. "You can do the washing, I haven’t done any for days", waving her arm languidly at an enormous pile of laundry on the cabin floor.  “Oh, and be careful with my hand washing.I have lots of expensive stuff. "  Hmmmmm, I think, but try and quash the bubbles of doubt that are rising in my chest.  I put some washing on, and take a wander around the boat.

I quickly see that this boat is far, far cheaper than anything I’ve worked on before.  The bathrooms have imitation silver and gold-plate fixtures and marble showers and counter-tops have been replaced by plastic and cheap laminate.  It is very dirty; a thick layer of dust lies on everything, and I am itching to get a bucket of soap and wash everything in sight.  I find the linen cupboard and rifle through it, the napkins are cheap and mismatched, I start writing a list of everything I will need to buy.   New tableware, uniforms, cleaning products, toiletries- and everything for the boss’ trip- alcohol, snacks, water. As I write my list, I realise that somewhere over the past three years, (and despite my best intentions) I have become a stewardess.  And this bit- the top-to-bottom cleaning and organising before a trip, shopping with a millionaire’s credit card for beautiful things- this bit I absolutely love about yachting.  

That night Dana and I go to the Quarterdeck, a yachtie bar in Fort Lauderdale.  I walk in the door with Dana, and there is a repeat of what happened in the deli.  Everyone in the room stops, and stares.  She is obviously known here, and men practically run over for the chance to buy her a drink. She performs her part well-incredibly well- flirting and laughing and touching the men on the shoulder, on the arm.  I am entirely invisible next to her, and she has to prompt the men to go back to the bar and bring me a drink too.  And they do!  Every inch the femme fatale, this is a most extraordinary performance. She is clearly using them for drinks and attention- she knows it, they know it, yet neither party seems to care.  It is like something out of a movie, and we are not left alone for a second all night as a steady stream of drinks arrives with each batch of admirers.  She feeds on the adoration, delighted and confident, although by the number of trips she takes to the bathroom, I am guessing the confidence is at least in part chemically-aided.  I ask how she ended up being the chef on board, and how long she’d been cooking.

“Oh, this is my first chef job, "she says brightly, looking at a guy across the room and waving.  "I met Greg a few months ago, at a BBQ, and he offered me the job.  I didn’t even have to show him my resume."

“Wow. How did he know you could cook?” 

"Oh, I was cooking the barbeque.” 

“Must have been a good barbeque, you must have made quite an impression."

“Oh, I did," she says, giggling like a little girl. “I was only wearing my g-string. Oh, I got paid for the work," she assures me, misconstruing my startled look. “And I used to be a stripper, so it didn’t bother me a bit.”   

At this last bit, I snort my drink out through my nose, my inner conservative spluttering. I fashion a big smile, pretending I’m not bothered by that at all.  What a strange crew this is, I think for about the four hundred and eighteenth time that day.  And, looking around at the ogling men, I realise this girl is famous in Fort Lauderdale for a reason. 

Over the next week, as I shop frantically and clean furiously and write ever more lists as we rush toward the deadline, I struggle with Dana’s quite extraordinary approach to work.  Disinclined to cook, we eat takeaway every day, and she seems to spend most days lying in her bunk sleeping, punctuated by spurts of manic activity and planning for the boss’s trip. I am still entirely unconvinced she knows anything about food. Our cabin is messy and piled with clothes; when I return her clean, ironed laundry, she just puts it on her bunk, then pushes it back onto the floor during her next nap, and then asks me to wash it again.  This is wearing thin, and her mood swings are catastrophic.  After a few days I realise she has a quite serious cocaine habit, as she wavers between insanely charismatic, pathologically needy and downright petulant.  Sharing male attention is not her speciality.  On Tuesday evening, we are gathered in the galley having an afternoon drink, discussing the seemingly endless list of things to still be done before the owner joins us on Friday.  Dana is bored and fidgeting.  She tries to interrupt, but I ignore her and keep talking.

“I’m worried my boobs aren’t as good as they were," she says loudly.  “I have to have sex.  I have to have it all the time.  What if guys don’t like me anymore?”  I stop and turn to look at her incredulously.  She pushes her chest out and turns from side to side, looking at herself in the window’s reflection.  I turn back to the guys, only to see they’ve gone a bit glassy-eyed and are staring at her like transfixed muppets. 

“You’re beautiful," the deckhand says, “You are never going to have to worry”. The older men look at her with a strange combination of pity, bemusement and attraction.  I look at them with irritation, for they know what she’s doing.  I, on the other hand, know when I am beaten.   I give up and go outside to sit on the dock, smoking and fuming. 

Our sea trials go surprisingly well in that at no point does the boat sink, catch fire, or crash into anything in the busy canal system.  I am reassured to see that the captain knows how to drive a boat with confidence, and that our Amish engineer seems to have a way with engines despite having spent the first 20 years of his life tinkering with horse-drawn buggies and communing with God through his cult-leader.  As for Dana and the growing mystery of whether she could actually cook, well, I’m still unsure, although the menus she has written for the upcoming trip sound good.  The interior of the yacht is ready too, or at least as ready as I think it can be without pulling it apart or spending a vast amount of money.  My budget has been heavily restricted, but I’ve managed to find nice-enough toiletries and linens, towels and bathrobes.  I look around, still feeling dissatisfied with the relatively cheap look of the cabins. After a moment’s hesitation, I fold the origami fan into the toilet paper.  I am vaguely disgusted with myself for the capitulation, but still feel oddly gratified when the captain comes down to check and says, with no hint of humour,

 “Oh, I like what you’ve done with the toilet paper- the things you learn on the big yachts, hey?” 
 The flowers arrive that evening, and we are ready.  I have decided to stay on for the trip, simply because it would be poor form to leave them without a stew at such short notice, and I had put in such effort and wanted to see how it turned out.