Galley Belle

On the boat we stood six-hour watches. The forward watch was 6 o’clock to noon and six o’clock to midnight; the after watch was noon to six and midnight to six. If I was on the after watch, I’d wake my relief person at 5:30. He’d roust me out at 11:30. Working and sleeping was not all we did, but it often felt like it. We also had to find time to wash ourselves and wash our clothes—it’s amazing how fast clothes will dry when strung up over the engines, and how stiff-legged one’s jeans can get. We had to find time to read letters and look at (sometimes share) pictures from back home. Not that we were starved for entertainment, but eating was a (often the) highlight of everyday.

Breakfast, dinner, and supper (and raiding the fridge during the midnight watch change) we ate like wild dogs. We consumed food like Mardi Gras consumes inhibitions. The meals were excellent and Bunyanesque. (Still, I lost weight from burning up calories quicker than I could accumulate them.) A better-than-average cook was required and expected. And appreciated.

  Most of the cooks I knew, all but one, were women. The company tried to hire women who could A) Cook for a dozen hungry crew members, and B) hold their own with a pack of rough-hewn, hairy legged guys. I recall with a melancholy tear of one of those mother figures shooing the third engineer and me out of galley. She whacked the cutting board with a butcher knife that looked like it weighed 9 pounds and bellowed, “If ya’ll don’t git outta here, I’m gonna cut your dicks off!” Hallmark Cards lost a good one when she decided to become a towboat cook.

The Chief Engineer on the M/V Muskrat Sally was named Pickle. I have no idea what his real name was and I don’t know the story behind his sobriquet; I just knew him as Pickle. Pickle’s appearance was a happy blend of The Penguin on the old Batman TV show and Wimpy (“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”) from the Popeye cartoons. He talked like Buckwheat doing an impersonation of W.C. Fields with a southern accent.  Pickle was respected and well liked. He was also notorious for trying to romance the cooks.

For reasons known only to God, the company sent a new and timid cook to the Muskrat Sally. She had no idea how much food she needed to prepare. She was frightened by the loud and often colorful language. She was petrified by the uproar when there wasn’t enough to eat and we could not even accurately identify what it was she had thrown together. I did not complain because I am a gentleman, but I cannot share that compliment with my companions. I felt sorry for her, but I also felt sorry for us. That was tantamount to the company hiring a pilot with no depth perception. Might be a nice person, but it just won’t do.

I was present when she told Captain Charlie that she was ill and had to get off the boat (she left out the part, no doubt, that she also felt a pressing need to go back home and hang herself). It occurred to me while watching this performance that a person can be sick enough to leave without all the histrionics—weak voice and stooped posture. She’d love to stay, but that darn skeletal cancer, along with the congestive heart failure, on top of a chronic case of the vapors.... I didn’t know whether to send for a doctor or a drama critic.

She got off the boat late that night and there was no one to fix breakfast the next morning. Since I was standing the dog watch (midnight to 6), Captain Charlie told me to take over those duties. No problem.

I got a mixing bowl that would also serve as a small bathtub and filled it to the brim with single-serving boxes of cereal. Quite a nice variety, too, if I do say so. As part of this complete breakfast, I adorned the table with a 5-pound bag of sugar and two gallons of milk. It was well received. At least we could tell what it was.

The pilot told me, “You better be careful: If Pickle finds out you made breakfast he’ll be in here tryin to fuck ya.”

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