Morocco: Cargo Operations

Morocco. 1998.

It's 3am. I've been up for over 48 hours. I enter the galley of the ship and pour myself a large cup of coffee, no sugar, no milk, a couple of ice cubes and down the hatch in two swallows. I'm starting to hallucinate, I've been up so long.

I go out on the spar deck, it's supposed to be clear of cargo by now but nobody seems to be working. In between two containers I spot the problem. Three locals sitting and shooting the shit, hashish juice dribbling off their chins.

"Hello my friend," one says when they see me, "you are from America yes?"

"Yeah," I say, "you guys taking a break?"

"Where in America you from my friend," one of them asks, ignoring the fact that they aren't working.

"New York City," I say, knowing that this is the only acceptable answer. They would no more know Miami, Florida than I would know Jorf Lasfar, Morocco. The fact that I am from NYC excites them very much. They offer snipits of things they know about NYC. Times Square, Empire State Building, Twin Towers, Mickey Mouse.

"You want some hashish my friend?" one asks me. Always with the fucking hashish.

"No, thank you," I say, in my mind images from the movie Midnight Express flash by.

Riddle: How does a 19 year old cadet get three stoned Moroccans to get back to work at 3am?

I pull out a pack of Marlboro Reds. They cost a dollar a pack on board the ship but to these men I might as well be holding gold. I give them the pack and light their cigarettes.

"How about we finish off this deck, huh?" I ask.

"No problem my friend, no problem, thank you, thank you," they say.
I hear a crash down below, sounds like a forklift hit the hull.

"Fuck," I think to myself, "this is college."

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MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY:

"Well, you call those useless, yerk-toting, frisbee-chucking cheeba-monkeys and you tell them you're gonna be an hour late." -P.C.U.