My Ass and It's Associates

I truly was minding my own business when my own ass showed up next to me. It was disconcerting to have it to my lower right side rather than behind me, where it always is- I startled. 

“What the-” I began, but ran out of steam. How do you talk to an ass that just shows up like that? 

“Look under the top layer of tiger prawn cocktail. The ones on the top aren’t fresh.” I heard my ass’ voice in my head rather than through the air, which was a mercy. 

We were standing at the buffet table, and it was either two thirty AM or it was brunch time. It was impossible to tell: the lighting on the entire ship was set to twilight, so any time I was inside any of the rooms I became disoriented and also hungry. Going outside didn’t help: it was perpetually murky, we were in the doldrums our Captain said, though he pronounced it “doldems.”

“They have to get rid of the cheap stuff first, take my word for it. When the tiger prawn-”

I interrupted my ass. “Tiger prawn is the cheap stuff? In what world?” 

“In this one, my bitch. In this very one. Just wait until it’s gone, we’ll be properly served with king’s food then. Believe me.”

“That’s asking a lot,” I said, but my ass had moved to the dessert table and was eyeing (well, cheeking) the tiramisu. “The red velvet looks really good.” I murmured to it.

“Why are you talking to me in that stage whisper? There’s no one here.” My ass was right: the ballroom where the staff had set up the long tables and cafe seating arrangements was empty except for us and a few servers, who all scurried from one swinging door to the next swinging door like they were in a humorless French farce. 

“All right, the tiramisu then.” I figured I’d brought some elastic-waisted pants and one caftan for this very reason, plus there were exercise classes all the time. There was probably one right now, at two-thirty in the A-friggin-M. Or brunch time. Normally they would be sacred hours but on this cruise nothing was holy, though everything was available. I’d been told to simply grab any server at any time with any request- and here the Captain, who’d been briefing the small group of guests I’d been herded with during my first afternoon onboard- winked. Possibly he was having a petit mal seizure, but I was pretty sure that he meant we could ask for sex. I remembered being appalled, but that was ages ago. I debated asking one of the servers for sex, but it seemed too awkward: what if I asked wrong? What if they leveled a legitimate complaint against me, like that I just left my towels everywhere on the ship with no regard for the chutes in every wall marked “Dirty Towels Only”? I supposed that I’d have to march off in a huff and perhaps notify their supervisor of that impertinence, but that seemed...wrong. I didn’t know how it was wrong. It gnawed at me while I gnawed on the tiger prawn, which was rubbery. 

“Does this prawn seem overcooked to you?” I asked my ass. It made a rude noise.

“That or it’s just gone over- like, just gone, almost as we were walking up to the table,” said my ass. I spat the shellfish on the plate, unfortunately just as a server was reaching to clear it. He was a young man, black, skinny, with a modest afro and a moustache that curved around his smiling mouth. His teeth were immaculate. 

“Sorry,” I said to him. He made an OK hand signal with the hand that wasn’t holding my plate. “Don’t eat the prawn- it’s gone bad, I think” I said. 

“This ship makes the best food, perfect is how the captain puts it. You gotta help now.” the server said. His smile got wider. 

I didn’t understand what the “gotta help” comment was referring to, so I just let it go. “Are we going to see the captain any time soon? I was going to ask him some questions about the lighting. Do you find-” . 

“Heyyyy. I don’t have time for this.” the server said. He spun on his heel and walked briskly toward one of the revolving doors. Just then the PA system clicked on and the captain himself made some popping noises, presumably to check that it was working. My ass stopped eating to listen, and I leaned forward, eager to hear something helpful about where we were and what time it might be. 

“Beautiful people, it’s your captain. The captain you adore, just admit it to yourselves. I saw each and every one of you as you walked onboard a few short days ago-” I gasped a little: I’d forgotten it was only two days, it seemed like six- “and I saw that you were all beautiful. I hope you’re having a fantastic time, a terrific time, and you got to see the ball pit which we just cleaned. I’ve seen a number of ball pits in my career- in fact, I own four ball pits, the best ball pits in the world, everyone thinks this. Some of the best ball pits. Won awards.” There was a shuffling and something murmured on the bridge, a brief muffled conversation. “You’re probably wondering about the doldems. Ahem,” he said next. Then, silence. My ass and I took a full five minutes before we gave up thinking he was going to finish the sentence. 

“That man is a menace,” said my ass. I didn’t agree. I mean, he was obviously a bit egotistical, but who wasn’t in today’s world? And besides, who was better equipped to steer this ship out of the interminable murk we were caught in? 

“You don’t know how to captain a ship so you shouldn’t talk about it,” I replied. There was another rude noise. 

“Trust me,” my ass said. I looked around but there was no one else to talk to. 

The next day, after a fruitless expanse of time looking for an exercise class and finding they’d all been cancelled (yoga, spinning, hand-to-hand combat, javelin and discus: not one class had been held) I figured that I’d walked enough to earn a meal. The ballroom was set for an elegant linner, or possibly midnight feast. I was studying a hotplate of glazed pheasant breasts when my ass showed up, pulling some little love handles behind it like unwilling toddlers. My ass let them go somehow, and they instantly ran under the long table. 

“You could have just left those two at one of the nurseries, you know,” I said to my ass. I rolled my eyes for emphasis.

“That’s not how it works,” said my ass. “When I show up, it’s best to expect others will be around presently. Hey, maybe we should just drink our dinner, yeah?”

“Why? This is pheasant breast. You were right yesterday- the food’s getting fancier,” I said. 

“I get you, but just remember to dig. The freshest stuff is near the bottom, no pun intended.” I made a groan but secretly I was tickled by my ass’s wordplay. I looked at the hotplate again, and saw that there were roly-poly bugs positioned around the edges of the platters, nibbling a few breasts delicately. Once I moved them with the longest serving fork I could find I was rewarded with a more fragrant, still-hot layer of pheasant breasts underneath the buggy layer. I took one and headed to where my ass was already sitting, calmly watching the love-handles cavort on the empty stage on the far side of the ballroom. They were having such fun, it looked like. 

“Did you look over the dessert table yet?” My ass asked me. I shook my head. “The cakes are getting smaller and multi-colored. I figure they’re going to pull the baked Alaska out of the deep freeze in another two days at this rate. I’m going to enjoy that.”

I calculated: Two days, meaning two more days? I’d thought for sure that we were headed to Nassau that very afternoon, and I had a connecting flight back to Newark. “I thought we were set to dock today.”

My ass laughed bitterly, a noise not normally fit for human ears. “We’ve got days left on this barge. Weeks, then it’ll be months. There’s going to be an announcement. If I had hands I could point to the speaker right before the Captain comes on to report the delay, I mean right before.”

“You don’t have hands but somehow I see your plate keeps getting filled. How is that?” 

“Look up with your eyes,” said my ass, and when I looked up I was looking directly into the face of the same server as yesterday, except this one was a woman. She was clearing my plate from the table, which was for the best because as I watched a few roly-polys I had missed unrolled themselves and ran off the sides. I was embarrassed that I’d missed them, and I’ll admit I’m not proud of what I said next. 

“You should have asked me,” I said to the server. Her brows furrowed just the tiniest bit before they smoothed out again, and she smiled a fatigued smile. 

“I thought you wouldn’t want to eat those bugs,” she said. I swear her voice was indistinguishable from the male server from the day before. I was miffed even though she was right- especially because she was right.

“Yeah, but you still should have asked. It’s the protocol to ask if the guest would like their plate cleared, is it not?” I could hear my voice getting forceful, but really I was just making a simple query. 

“Sure, yeah, but there were bugs, I wasn’t sure you saw them so I wanted to get it out of your way before you took some without knowing-” the server said. Her smile was getting wider and tighter at once. 

“I just wanted to know what you should have done.” That made her smile close down, and she bustled away as if I’d thrown a lit match at her. I wasn’t sure why she was leaving: we were having a discussion, were we not? And there was only so much one can listen to one’s own ass. Mine was making revolting noises at the love handles to get their attention. They were cavorting around the French-farce service doors, and it was touching to watch them whisk around the various server’s ankles, though one of the servers did trip and fall forward, smashing a tray of china. There was a three-second quiet, with the love handles scurrying back under the buffet table to hide, before my ass spoke.

“Are you going to help or what?” it said. I startled upward from the chair, realizing I could in fact offer to help clear up- I wasn’t exhausted from any kind of exercise class, after all- when some people in black burst into the room and hauled the server up roughly by the upper arms. The black-clad people all had sunglasses on, and I marvelled that they could see anything in the gloom. The voice of the server was quiet and melancholy as they tried to explain that there were love handles in the way, it wasn’t their fault, but it was quickly drowned out by the sound of the black-clad people’s boots as they dragged the server away. I counted as they left: there were five black-clads. 

“What the hell was that?” I said to my ass, when I thought it was appropriate to speak again. 

“That was security. Didn’t you see them on the way in?”

“On the way in to dinner? Or breakfast, or whatever this is?” A roly-poly crawled out of the sugar pot that was stationed on the table. 

“No, dimwit.” My ass scoffed. “On the way onto the cruise. When the captain was making stupid mini-speeches about how the other cruises were saying they were going to Nassau but really were going to Detroit, and it was all a plan of the Deep Navy.” 

I thought hard about what the captain had said that fateful afternoon three entire days before, but all I could remember was thinking about playing the actual vintage Ms. Pac-Man I’d seen on the promenade on the way in. I was just about to make a stinging rebuke- something about having loftier things to think about- when the PA system clicked on. 

“Beautiful people” started the Captain’s voice. Then more mouth-popping noises, something he felt was necessary at the beginning of every announcement, I realized. “You’re all beautiful, I saw you and knew that this would be the cruise, the cruise of a lifetime. Because of all the beautiful people. Especially the tough guy, there was one gentleman that was very tough, I know how tough because I’m a tough guy myself.” Next to me my own ass let out a very audible groan-fart. “There’s some bad ones, some really nasty characters, that were hiding in the kitchen-” this time I gasped and turned to my ass for verification, but it sat there stoically, it’s cheeks pressed together in a grim line- “they were there, and they just came to the ballroom, but my security forces made shirt work of them. Short work. Made work for them.” There was some harrumphing, and a background voice that was pitched to soothe. Then there was the sound of gargling, followed by singing. “If you’re happy and you know it, come something feet,” the captain sang. His voice was terrible. “If you’re happy and you some it, clashing meat,” he sang. I put my hands over my ears, but discreetly. Two security guards came into the ballroom and stationed themselves by the guest’s door. 

“Time to leave,” said my ass. It hustled underneath the buffet until it came out with my little love handles in tow. I stood and looked for the server who’d taken my plate earlier, and when I saw her in one of the French farce doorways I signaled: I’d wanted to apologize for being sullen with her- she was only trying to do her job- but her eyes got wide when she saw me and she stepped back, disappearing. My ass was already at the guest door, jollying the love handles onward. 

“Can I leave a message-” I started to ask one of the security guards. The person looked forward and didn’t move- they weren’t even looking at me, as far as I could tell behind the black wrap-arounds. 

“Move it, just move it, get out of here,” whispered my ass. “No messages.” We slipped between the guards, and just as the door was swinging closed I heard one of them tell me to have a nice evening. 

“Oh, see, it wasn’t that bad- one of them told me to have a nice evening, so…” I said. My body part was way down the hallway, though. It was speedy for a disembodied ass.

The next morning (evening? Mid-day?) I skipped looking for any kind of non-eating amusements, even forgoing the search for the Ms. Pac Man: I realized when I woke in my dim cabin light that everything was just going to get worse, worse and worse, and that eventually there wouldn’t be a bug-free buffet, no matter how much I dug down into the platters of whatever gaudy feasts were laid out. There were black-clads stationed on both sides of the ballroom guest doors when I went in, indistinguishable from the ones who’d been there the day before. One of them bobbed their head at me on the way in. 

“Ma’am,” he or she said. I did not feel reassured this time. 

My ass was already there, already at a table with many plates on it, and the love handles were playing a game underneath it with a pile of spoons they had somehow collected. I waved it over to the buffet. When it got up to meet me a long pink spongy thing followed- it must have been sitting with my ass on the chair and I hadn’t seen it. It rolled awkwardly to the buffet, leaving a damp trail on the carpet. 

“What is tha-” I said, pointing.

“Meet your pancreas. It was having a fucking time of all this hormonal blood sugar balancing, because of the food, so it’s taking a break. I told it you wouldn’t mind.” My ass was nonchalant about my internal organs just traipsing around outside of me, as if it was a paid passenger. Which, technically, it was.  “You got here in good time, there’s a platter at the end there that hasn’t been touched- the bottom layer probably has some decent meat. You should eat meat, all the unspoiled meat you can get right now. Trust me.” My ass indicated the end of the buffet, where there was a decorative reindeer carcass arranged as a sort of reef around some steaming platters. The eyes in the reindeer head did not glitter or seem to move when I did- it was very clearly dead, and my gorge rose halfway as I leaned over its’ splayed rib cage to pick at the stacked steaks with the shining serving-fork. My ass was right: there were a few hunks of meat on the bottom layer that were almost entirely weevil-free. There were also no roly-polys, which was a good sign. I took two even though I wasn’t hungry anymore. My ass and pancreas made their way back to the table behind me, and I could hear that my pancreas was squelching as it moved. My gorge was now at three-quarters. 

When we got to our table, where the love handles were jollying through the legs of the two chairs, I noticed movement at the table next to ours, and then on to more tables: it appeared there were more pancreases, and big grey-maroon slabs of liver in the chairs, and things shaped like beans that were paired- obviously kidneys. I turned to my ass. 

“Whose kidneys are those?” I asked it, though I didn’t want the answer. 

“The other passenger’s. They got on with you, remember? You guys all stood together like sheep while that madman told you bullshit about cognitive tests and award-winning skee ball arcades,” my ass said. “We’ll be hearing more from him in ten seconds.  He’s going to announce the extension of the cruise like it’s a gift. Eat your meat, we’re going to need the protein.”

I counted backward from ten, and at two the speaker clicked on. “Beautiful pershil.” His voice was strange and strangled, the enunciation getting worse. “We’re in an unpreshidentist time in history.”

“Christ, here it is,” said my ass.

“Because of this unpreshin time, where people who are very bad, and really I mean the worse purple, the kind of purple that will come into your cabid at night and rape you silly, just rape you for no reason, even if you’re not beautiful-” here a voice in the background interrupted, unintelligably, but the Captain made some dismissing popping noises and the voice stopped. “These people, these monsters I call them, are in our kitchens and our guest toilets right now, waiting for all of you- but I am going to stop them. Schtop um. I have told our incredible security forces to find these momsters and throw them away once they are done with the cleaning.”

“He means throw them overboard-” my ass said, matter-of-fact, and I leaned over and threw up onto the ballroom carpeting. One of the black-clad appeared by the mess quickly, speaking into a wire concealed on their wrist, and in mere seconds a server, being held by the lapel of their otherwise sparkling white service jacket by one of the black-clads, was marched to the offending area.  

“Clean this up, idiot” said the black-clad. The server had a bucket and immediately began mopping up the sick, looking up at me with wide eyes and a grim set to their mouth whenever they wrung the cloth out. I was frozen in place: the organs, the black-clad, my ass were all tense and waiting for something, alerted. The server held my gaze as much as possible during the entire exercise. I tried to apologize.

“I’m very-” I started, but the black-clad who was overseeing the clean up hushed me with a harsh sound and I shrank back involuntarily. The server took a deep breath as they finished the last swipe, then held my gaze. My eyes wanted to skitter away in terror, as if they were already rolling around under the buffet with my love handles. 

“Help us,” the server said, right before they were hauled away by now two black-clads, back toward the kitchen.

“That’s a small mercy,” said my ass in a voice I hadn’t heard from it before. It was a small voice, vulnerable: I wanted to protect it. 

“What is, sweetheart?” I asked.

“Well the goons hauled that person back to the kitchen, so they won’t be thrown overboard. Not yet. Not this time. Please hold down your food from now on- you don’t want someone else to get the same treatment, do you?” No, I did not, but I wasn’t sure what I could do other than nap. I was confident that napping would help.

When I woke in my cabin everything was black, not gray and not dark like it was night: it was black with tiny, infinite specks that swarmed over everything in the small room. The specks tried to cover my eyes and I took a deep breath for the screaming, but that was cut short by the familiar non-voice of my ass. “Quiet, you’ll just get them riled up and they’ll jump around. It’s cute from a distance but it takes forever to get them settled.”

I took a chance that the specks wouldn’t try to crawl into my mouth if I opened it to speak. “What the fuck are-” I started.

“Gut microbes. They’re basically harmless, but they wanted a break too. To be honest I didn’t realize we’d be seeing this little fellas, but frankly no one should be surprised by anything on this floating shitshow.” My butt had a defeated tone to it’s voice, the only thing about it that I could locate in the inkiness. “Get up. The announcement about the delay is coming in two minutes, and there’s people on this ship that are blameless.”

“Well, no one is really blameless though, are they? Don’t we all have a personal responsibility-” I said reflexively as I fumbled for the door, trying not to move too quickly and crush the microbes. 

“Listen to yourself! Christ,” said my butt, opening the door. The hallway was only partially covered in specks. “The microbes are yours and the other passengers, not every passenger yet but that’s going to change shortly after the announcement.” On cue there was the usual popping over the loudspeaker. We listened as we made our way toward the bridge, my ass leading. Various organs, untethered and excited, joined us as we went, with the specks making a black wave behind us. 

“Beautiful people,” the captain started. Popping, a horse noise, and then he continued. “I have some terrific news, fabulous news in fact. We won’t be docking in Nassau today or any day soon. You should all be wondfuss about this news, I’ve been the bestest captain on this bessel today or all days. All frays. Because of unpringles time, and what there is bad hombres and nasty women hiding in the kitchen, spitting right on all the chocchocchoc cakey, I heard from a guy, we’re staying right here. So no docking. The doldems are just right for staying. I am the best captain in the history of captaining, bring me your beautiful fifteen-year-olds. Pussy only.”

The speaker clicked off just as we all got to the front of the ship, where a group of serving people in perfect white jackets stood in a line that was slowly being pushed toward the side by the armed, very serious black-clads. I looked closely at the line: there were skinny people and not-skinny people, and black and brown people, and a few who were crying and others who were trying to soothe the crying ones. A few people were demanding answers from the black-clads, and as we watched one of them threw a man who’d been asking on the wood-panelled deck and kicked him in the head. When the man didn’t resist, three black-clads bent down and one put his knee on the man’s neck; one black clad stood and told the others to move forward. I stopped, my ass stopped, the organs rolled to a squishy stop, and the microbes swarmed to a dark line just behind us: we all looked in horror as another person in a white jacket was hauled by a black-clad with an AK-47 to the railing. The person looked up and right into my eyes. 

“FUCKING HELP US,” the person screamed. Then they were hit in the head with the barrel-end of the gun and tossed over the railing. We heard the splash very clearly then. I turned, unblinking, and looked at my ass: I thought Please Make This Stop.

Even though my ass doesn’t have eyes I could feel it staring. “So: what are you going to do about it?” it asked. 

And that, dear pancreas, is how we’ve gotten here: yes, I was the one that ordered my and all the other passengers specks to attack the black-clads; yes, I was the one that grabbed my ass and held it like a football as I charged the bridge, organs squishing behind me to make slippery patches on the deck for the black-clads to trip on; yes, I’m the one in the process of breaking the window on the door to the bridge, which has been locked. Stand back- I don’t want you to get any glass shards on you or in you, it’s bad enough I force-fed you all that rotting food. I plan to oust the captain, tie him up or break his fingers or just have my ass fart him out of there. Then we’re going to steer this ship back home, once we figure out where home is. Stand back, I don’t want you hurt. You’ve been a lovely pancreas. Thank you for listening.