Brian David Bruns - Unsinkable Mister Brown (Cruise Confidential 3)

BEING AN OPTIMIST SUCKS. Sometimes a wise man knows when to cut and run, but not me. Good, bad, or ugly, I simply must see a thing through. Lifes a journey and all that. Adhering to this philosophy has resulted in a few bizarre career moves. Good was being hired to explore content for a porn site, though perhaps I saw too much. Bad was creating software for a urology office, where I definitely saw too much. Ugly, of course, was working on cruise ships.

Yet my life was not truly rocked to its foundation until I applied this troublesome credo to that most complex thing called love. Like usual, it did not begin with love, but curiosity.

The engines woke from their trans-Atlantic drone with a backpedaling roar, signaling the jets descent into Romania. I stared out the rain-streaked window, eager for my first glimpse of this country so steeped in legend. The weather kindly fulfilled my Hollywood-induced expectations as we slammed headlong into clouds of angry purple and black, heavy with moisture and pulsing with electricity. Strong windsthe kind designed to heap dead leaves onto an ancient tombbattered the aircraft. Yes, this would do nicely!

The aircraft dominated the lonely airstrip in the middle of vast sodden fields. Sheets of rain raked triumphantly across surrounding rows of corn, but were shouldered aside by the imposing forest beyond. The plane came to a halt, and everyone began clapping.

Clapping? Was a safe landing here that rare? After a mind-numbing fifteen hours flying, this was the first hint that I was far from home.

But it didnt look any different. The mix of fields and forest was the same as where I grew up, if a bit more lush. How disappointing. Not that I expected the control tower to actually be Draculas castle or anything, but I had hoped for something a little less, well, Iowan. A closer look offered me more when I noticed a row of combat aircraft sinking in the wet grass. They looked as old and worn as the concrete bunkers slumped across the misty distance. Memories of the Iron Curtain were not what I wanted, so I stared at the dark forest and imagined fearsome werewolves growling within.

Voices in Romanian and English informed me that this was not our final destination, but an unscheduled stop outside a city called Timioara. We remained on the runway; a few people got off, a few got on.

A little old lady in tattered robes shuffled down the aisle and sat beside me. For lack of knowing a more appropriate label, I assumed she was a peasant. She wore patched and re-patched clothing more aged than me, and a shredded headscarf more hole than cloth. She wearily released a large bag that was a wonder to behold, an animal-looking thing surely made from some mammal slain decades ago and worked into a carry-on. I marveled that a woman so dressed had gotten her hands on a plane ticket.

Delays already. I had crossed North America, then the Atlantic, and finally Europe, to test my manliness against vampires and ghosts in Transylvania. Instead I got an old peasant woman. With the mild interest born of boredom, I regarded the fantastical lines of her face and the wisps of gray hair. Her thin bangs teased her eyes so that she squinted a lot.

My interest grew robustly when she opened her hirsute purse and pulled out a huge butcher knife.

I stared at her in open astonishment, but she was intent upon peeling an apple. It seemed ludicrous that her tiny, gnarled handsspotted, scarred, and nearly broken from untold decades of toilcould so effectively wield such a weapon. Lightning flashed, reflecting sharply along the keen, ten-inch blade. A gust of wind shook the plane, and her slow reflexes brought the knife perilously close to my thigh.

What was the name of that artery in your thigh, the one that if cut would kill you? I had great difficulty focusing upon anatomy lessons at the moment and, needless to say, my Romanian language tapes had overlooked Please, maam, put away your weapon.

Suddenly I understood why my Romanian host, Bianca, had been so insistent on the phone prior to my departure. Let me know exactly when you arrive, and Ill be there to rescue you, she had said. Romanian people are a little bit slippery until you know them better.

No kidding.

The plane surged once more into the storm-thrashed skies, and bucked like an angry bronco. With the very next pitch, the woman again uncontrollably thrust the knife at meright at my crotch. I avoided crying out, instead mewling a pathetic whine. I quickly emptied the pocket in the seat-back before me to place as many layers as possible in my lap: magazines, safety instructions, even the barf bag.

Outside, lightning flashed in an obsessive display of raw power, eliciting oohs and aahs throughout the cabin. The noisy kids in the seats before me, who had been kicking and crying all damned flight, now fought and clawed and scrambled over each other for a better view. The old woman was apparently less impressed by the storm than by her apple, which she continued to peel in an ungainly, painfully slow manner. I, too, ignored the storm, my eyes never leaving that knife for the entire thirty minutes to Bucharest.

No, Romania was not at all like home!

Ah, but optimists are not fazed by reckless endangerment, nor really anything else, except maybe pimples. My friends all thought I was mad, particularly the one from Romania.

Stupid, said Mihaelathough as a professional at Microsoft, she frequently called me such.

Crazy, said Davewho, as both a professional comedian and a member of Mensa, surely knew how to think outside the box.

Inspiring, said Kenwho, as a former Seventh Day Adventist now out of the closet, applauded following ones own path.

Reckless, said Biancathe very woman who invited me to Romania after only knowing me three days!

While it was true I knew Bianca hardly at all, she was Mihaelas childhood friend, so how bad could she be? If I got into any trouble, Mihaela had strict orders to save me. She introduced us, after all. Actually, the only reason Bianca thought the trip was reckless was because I was flying out of New York City on September 11th, 2002. That was the only reason I could afford the tickets!

Alas, there had not been a retaliatory terrorist attack, but I was at risk of an unlikely, painful bleeding death at the hands of an elderly peasant woman. Perhaps my preparations had not been as thorough as I thought. I reread Bram Stokers