Dinner with Donald

My little secret: I’m a bit of an introvert. I push myself to be more “out there,” but, in general, I’m more of an observer and a reflector than a doer and a talker. As a result, even on a cruise ship with open seating, I tend to request a table for two, where Clyde and I can enjoy dinner together and chat about the day.

But last night, inspired by the social energies of friends J&J back home, I elected to let the dining room manager seat us at an enormous table for eight. After a pleasant day of touring, we had stories to share. Who knew what new friends we might meet, or what travel tips we might pick up from our randomly-selected dinner companions?

Minutes after we were seated, a nervous-looking crew member brought us Donald.

Donald was a hulking sort of fellow, probably six-three or six-four, probably seventy year old or older. He had great, bushy, untrimmed eyebrows, tiny rodent’s eyes hidden behind thick glasses, and a wide slash of a mouth dotted with brown stumps of teeth. His pale, doughy skin was mottled and hairy, and the only color about him was the ruby shade of his lips. His disheveled hair had been patted down a bit before dinner, but, otherwise, Donald looked as though he’d just crawled out of bed, and was still wearing the thin, tight, white promotional knit shirt and baggy slacks he’d worn the day before.

Instead of seating himself, he sort of straddled his chair, his legs out behind him, his enormous belly resting on the forward edge of his seat. He settled in, gave a great sigh, and stared at us.

“I’m Mark,” I said. “And this is Clyde.”

Donald said nothing.

We studied our menus. Time passed.

A crew member brought us two more more friends: two sixty-something guys with matching shirts and sweaters — the first and only other gay couple we’d seen since boarding the boat. My heart soared. “Hi, guys,” I said. “I’m Mark, and this is Clyde.”

“We’re Ben and–“

“Donald!” blurted Donald. The next words were indistinct, as Donald seemed to gargle and speak at the same time. Understanding him was further complicated by his wet, spitty British accent. At any rate, whatever he was saying ended with, “seated-tuh me with a table full of blokes.”

“Okay,” Ben said. He pointed to his partner. “And Wayne. From Canada.”

I brightened. Conversation! With! Another! Couple! “Where in Canada?”

Donald harrumphed. “You pudding wharf bin American Air Force?”

I frowned. “Excuse me?”

“From Brighton to Whipperspool,” Donald said. “And what not.”

I shook my head, more out of total confusion than to indicate that, no, I wasn’t in the Air Force.

Ben had just drawn breath when the dining staff brought us two more fellow diners: Barbara and her husband, Keith. “From Atlanta,” she said, beaming.

“We’re from Atlanta!” I said. “I”m Mark, and this is Clyde.”

Barbara frowned. “You don’t sound like you’re from Atlanta,” she said.

“We live in Midtown,” I said. “We’re right at the corner of –“

“Donald,” Donald burbled. “Slack and popper. With salt.”

Barbara frowned and made no effort to hide her confusion. “What? What did you say?”

Donald smacked his thick, wet lips. He blinked. He said nothing.

Barbara looked at Donald as though he were some hideous species of spider. “Is he with you two?”

Ben and I both said, “No!” at the same time, with the exact same inflection.

Conversation proceeded, but was awkward. Barbara was one of those people who fails to realize others may not be interested in every detail of her two-year house-hunt in Waycross or the precious antics of all seventeen of her grandchildren, or that we might not appreciate the challenge of being asked to recall and repeat all of their names.

Desperate, I commandeered the conversation and tried to steer it back to travel. “Ben, of the places you’ve traveled, what’s your favorite?”

Ben looked at me with relief. “Without a doubt, Egypt,” Ben said. “We went to –“

“I hate Egypt,” Donald said, managing his most clearly enunciated and emphatic sentence of the evening.

“We had a good time,” Ben said. “We went to the Valley of the Kings–“

“Bloody Egypt,” Donald said. “Nuttin rug merchants what flood pyramids and pudding.”

Barbara leaned over her fried trout and shook her head. “What? What did he say?”

We tried talking about other cruises. “We took a Norwegian cruise around the Hawaiian islands once,” I said.

Barbara’s husband, Keith, shook his head. “No, you didn’t. Norwegian doesn’t cruise the Hawaiian islands.”

“I think it was Norwegian,” I said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Would have to have an American registration,” Keith said. “Didn’t happen.”

“Met me a bobbin on a six weeker outta Sydney,” Donald said. “Might tea seeker dat wench comma spoo.” He cackled, showing us his teeth.

And so it went. By the end of the evening, most of us had retreated into our shells, conversing only with our own mates. Donald, though, had taken a shine to Wayne and Ben, and was regaling them with some incomprehensible tale about cabbages and “what what.” When Barbara and Keith took their leave, we abandoned ship as well, leaving Ben and Wayne to Donald’s tender mercies.

As we scrambled away, I glanced back at them. Their eyes were large and soulful. Beside them, Donald brayed laughter, grazing his tight watermelon of a belly with long, white fingernails.