Asshole

This is another story that I wrote as a project for our creative writing group on the ship. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anything anywhere that is real is just a coincidence. OK?

Jerry was an asshole.  No two ways about it.  He and Florence, Flo to her friends, had been together for a couple of years, and she still didn’t know why.  Most of the folks back home who knew her as Flo were now out of her life, thanks to Jerry.  He had controlled who she could see and where she could go to the point where she had lost all confidence in herself.

Now he had taken it one step further. He had taken what money they had left between them and bought a cabin on a ship that was supposed to be their new home forever. He hadn’t even asked her if that was what she wanted to do. Not that she would have said no, but he didn’t even consider her opinion worth the time it took to say her name.

She hoped that things would change with a new start in the new community that the ship would offer. Unfortunately, the ship didn’t get off to the start that it was supposed to. They got to Belfast just in time for the launch, only to find that it was delayed. Jerry would make sure that Flo was stuck in the room while he went out drinking around town. He would hook up with a couple of guys who were doing the same, only to find that his personality and obnoxious behavior meant that each time he wanted to satisfy his thirst for beer and self-indulgence, he had to find someone else to go out with. It wouldn’t be Flo because she was just too stupid to take anywhere. She was just an embarrassment to him.

After a couple of months of delay following delay, he had alienated everyone from the ship and had turned to finding hookers to fill his time and empty his pockets as he waited to fulfill his destiny of being a famous world traveler.

If he hadn’t taken her passport and credit cards, Flo was sure that she would have gotten up the nerve to just get out of there.  But Jerry had made it clear that if she disrespected him or tried to make him look bad, that would be the end of her.  He had gone from being an asshole to being a very scary guy.

The day came when they were told to check out of their hotel for the last time and come to the ship. Jerry had his four cases of personal items taken to the taxi while Flo hugged the same dirty carry-on bag that held all her personal possessions since they left home.

When they arrived at the dock, people were surprised to see that he was not alone. They had never met Flo before. When they tried to introduce themselves to her, Jerry would step in and say something like, “Don’t mind her. She’s stupid,” or something equally offensive and demeaning. When she tried to speak up for herself, she would get that look, and her blood would run cold knowing that once they were alone together, things would not go well.

The next three days, Flo spent in the cabin while Jerry was avoided by not only the other passengers but the staff as well.  He had made even the helpful bartenders, waitstaff, and stewards despise him with his rude treatment of everyone he came in contact with.

Flo had the eternal optimism that maybe if she just treated him a little better, he could be a little better.  She decided to surprise him after their next port. While he went ashore to find whatever it was that a world traveler needs to find, she got off the ship for the first time.  A short walk from the ship was a duty-free shop.  There she found a bottle of nice champagne and bought it with a twenty-dollar bill that she had snuck out of his wallet the night before.

That evening, after they had dinner alone in a corner away from everyone else again, they sailed away into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean on their way to the Caribbean.  Flo went back to the cabin while Jerry went back to the bar where he was grudgingly served drink after drink.

When he got back to the cabin, Flo was waiting in the one dress that she had stuffed into her carry-on. She looked nice. He was drunk. When she asked to go and look at the moon off the back of the ship, it was with all of the best intentions on her part. He wasn’t quite to the point of passing out yet, and he just kind of went along with her as she really did look pretty good tonight.

She picked up the oversized purse with the cold bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses from the bar downstairs on her way out.  This would be so romantic.  How could he not warm up a bit? How could he still be an asshole when she was being so nice?

When they got to the back of the ship, it was late at night, or actually early in the morning. They had the whole deck, and felt like the whole ship, to themselves. Jerry was swaying more than the ship as he leaned against the stern railing and gazed down at the low cut of her dress. It seemed there was hope. He was smiling for the first time in a long time. Flo reached into her bag and pulled out two glasses in one hand and the champagne in the other. It wasn’t the reaction that she had been hoping for. Instead of turning all warm and fuzzy, she saw that look again.

“Where in the hell did you get that?” he asked. “I bought it for us,” Flo replied. When she admitted that she had taken money from his wallet, his face went red and his right hand came up.

That was the last conscious action of Jerry, the asshole. Flo swung that bottle of champagne across the side of his head with such force that it exploded in a spray of bubbles and glass, sending him over the rail and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Flo couldn’t help but see some irony in the launching of her new life at sea with a bottle of champagne cracked across Jerry’s rock-hard head.

In the days that followed, there were questions but no answers. Jerry had been not only insanely unpopular, but he had shown all the signs of a drunk with major depression. Flo had barely been seen outside the cabin in the days since launch and had not been seen on that moonlit night.

With the freedom to do as she pleased for as long as she pleased, Flo became the belle of the ball.  She became one of the most popular passengers onboard and didn’t waste another moment of her life even thinking about that asshole.