The Conference on Beautiful Moments

CRUISE

C r u i s e “I’ll go first then, Captain, that’s what you want, isn’t it?” Rider said yes, though he’d never said he’d wanted him to go first, hadn’t even been asked the question, and here was Anderson already seizing it from him. Wasn’t that the way things always were, someone seizing something then pretending they weren’t interested in what they’d just taken.All the more reason not to get too attached to things. That was why the second he saw the ad for the cruise in the newspaper he knew he’d take it, improbable though it was for him, of all people, to go. He simply saw an image of himself leaving everything behind him forever and fell in love with the image and its impeccable irony. Anderson was barely audible above the competing sounds of the ship and sea, and Rider asked him to speak louder. His story still seemed to be in the preamble stage as far as Rider could tell. It was odd how Anderson did things, even odder that they were apparently going to go through with “the game,” as Anderson called it, although they’d only known each other a few days. They’d met because they were seated next to each other in the ship’s dining room.There was no grand stroke of fate in that,Rider didn’t think, especially since, as they each admitted later, there was no one else at the table even remotely interesting. Anderson struck him as a man who had suffered but still had a sense of humor and was still somewhat charming, which Rider found strangely touching.Later they met again at the shuffleboard tournament and quietly mocked it together. That night after din109 110 t h e c o n f e r e n c e o n b e a u t i f u l m o m e n t s ner they drank in the bar,making fun of the whole cruise,which of course was steeped in absurdity, and then ridiculed themselves for taking it. It was in that spirit of self-mockery and margaritas that Anderson proposed the game. Already they’d fallen into the habit of talking quite openly with one another—or at least Anderson had. “You can tell me anything and I wouldn’t bat an eye,” Anderson said, on their second night of drinking, and Rider said the same thing. Good, Anderson had said, because he had a bad conscience over something he really wanted to tell him about. Feel free to, Rider had said, assuring him he was a good listener. That’s essentially what the game was, talking and listening, its object simply being to tell each other the worst thing they’d ever done—a clean confessional at sea. They’d decided to play it on the lower deck at midnight. Not bad as a final gesture, Rider thought to himself , with a grim smile. Anderson said it would be cleansing for both of them and fun, too, if they kept their humor. Anderson didn’t even seem like a man who had done a worst thing. He was overweight and laughed a lot, with a beard that, despite being mostly black (and despite his dark intensely focused eyes, which almost matched Rider’s own), still made him look more like Santa Claus than the devil. Rider pictured evil men as generally being thin and sensitive, tortured men as also being on the thin side, as he was. Certainly evil men didn’t laugh a lot, as Anderson was doing now: “You sure you’re up for this, Captain?” “Totally up,totally ready,”Rider said,forcing a laugh himself,and forcing himself to pay attention, though he was not at all confident that he could actually listen to Anderson’s story. How could he be, with what he was considering? “Do you mind stories about women?” “What else is there to talk about?” Rider said, and they both laughed. “I just lost my last lover so I’m sure I’ll understand,” Rider added, swallowing some of his drink. Anderson was clearly ahead of him drinkwise, but in spite of everything, he was afraid to catch up. “It’s strange about women, how once they’re past forty-five they become more like us, while we get more like them. Or haven’t you noticed...