in your past, but you’ve been good to me and I know you that way. It doesn’t have to be anything different.”
Again he took me by the shoulders, only this time he shook me, and I could see the anger in his face beginning to surface, the danger threatening to erupt. “You’re wrong, Addie! Damn it, you don’t get it! You wanna know what kind of guy I am? You wanna see what I can do to ya? I’ll show ya!”
He took me then by the wrist, forcefully—just enough to hurt me.
I hadn’t seen most of these hallways before, and fear flamed inside as we passed the crewmen. Some of them looked up at us, but the majority of them kept on working on their assigned tasks. Whatever Charlie had done had been effective, because I was still as invisible as ever; people moved out of the way but refused to look at me.
“I’ll show ya. I’ll show ya. I’ll show ya…” He muttered the mantra over and over to himself. But I was still sure it was only him he was trying to convince.
We passed by the Radio Room and another labeled Supplies, then one more that said Gym. I tried to memorize the different angles and sides of the halls that led to each place in case I didn’t have a guide to get back, but my legs were having a hard time keeping up with Charlie’s long strides down the hall. He seemed to be unaware I was struggling.
Finally we reached a huge set of metal doors Charlie said led to Hold 6. He was speaking so quickly I could barely understand what he was saying. He half-dragged me through the doors and I understood vaguely why he was so excited. I stood in awe of the web-like structure that framed the sides of the hold. In-between each segment of containers were hefty ladders only connecting more cargo containers—it was like they plowed straight to the gray of the sky.
The sight of the container crates themselves was overwhelming. They also stood towering, in the hold’s center, stacked one by one on top of each other, and covered in the graffiti of five or six languages, and some with a barrage of labels. They came in a variety of colors like orange and lime green, brown, and gray—though some of them were so rusted their original color was unidentifiable.
“Walk ’long the side here!” I watched him disappear onto a plank to the left, but I was hypnotized by the view of the containers and the long winding path they made.
“Wait for me!”
I had trouble keeping my feet steady on the metal bridge with only my sandals as leverage for my ankles, but I focused on distributing my weight evenly so I didn’t fall over—here in the hold it was much easier to feel the shifting of the ship and moving of the waves from outside. Finally, I saw Charlie jumping up and down on a platform on the other side of the bridge, waving his hands to get my attention. I was both amazed and annoyed that he had managed to reach the end of the plank so quickly—some of us were not equipped with such accurate gross motor skills.
I sighed and waved the loose strands of hair from my face. “What are you trying to prove, Charlie?”
I followed him to the end of the platform where a darkened booth sat in cobwebs and shadows. I felt myself grow cold when I realized what it was—Polo hadn’t been using a metaphor or exaggeration. The booth was literally an old-time confession booth with a dividing section and a door for each side. Charlie demonstrated to me how both doors were chained and had large padlocks as I hopped off the end of the final plank. When opened, the dividers and veiled window that should have separated a priest from the confessor had been knocked out to create a slightly bigger space. He laughed as he demonstrated it, and it was anything but his Charlie laugh.
“Charlie?” My voice was shaking and I had to start again. “Wh-what is th-this for?”
I touched the engraved wood of one of the entry doors. It felt like something earthy, aged by time and dragged down by the experience of many different kinds of sorrow.
“These were gonna be yer accommodations, darlin’!” He used his hands for emphasis, imitating the enthusiasm that could be compared to a car salesman. “It ain’t been used in a real