Not for Catastrophe

There was a boat.

That’s all, just a boat.

-

A certain boat.

Just a boat. Named for the fathers of old gods, the people called her Titanic.

Accordingly, the boat was massive. An ocean Ritz. “The Floating Palace.” Never before had a nation wagered its resources and reputation on such an endeavor.

The finance magnates of the time required a new series of opulent passenger vessels and remain in competition with faster German lines and other British cruisers.

-

And while on tour, you may be sure that she will always float.

Designed by a stellar company, the White Star Line, Titanic was built not for speed but for luxury, comfort, and capacity.

They built her for the people.

And so, in addition to being the glory of investors and ocean line tycoons, she was the people’s ship.

-

And who did ride || White Star Line’s pride?

The people. Old and new. Rich and poor. English, Irish, Chinese, American. Some of the most powerful men in the world…and everyone else.

The people were excited.

Some called her “The Ship of Dreams.” Many called her “The Unsinkable.”

The end of the beginning of the new century. The catalyst of modernity.

With her size and her apparent strength, the people felt Titanic was the promise of a new era – all abundance and no scarcity.

A new brand of safety and security, with just enough suggestion of danger to be enticing.

And certainly, she was a ferry to the place where all peoples come together to create something new and spectacular: America.

The people were excited.

-

Just by their passage would outlast her if they all really died?

Of course not! This was The Unsinkable Ship. The people would go on to live lives of opportunity and prosperity. There would be no disaster to immortalize them!

Right?

No. The Ship of Dreams, The Unsinkable – they built her for luxury, comfort, and capacity…but not catastrophe.

They built her for the people.

But they were people, too, those who built her.

People. Old and new. Rich and poor. English, Irish, Chinese, American. Some of the most powerful men in the world…and everyone else.

Men who gave her their titles and their wealth. Men who gave her their lives – their bodies mangled in her guts before her maiden voyage, their souls trapped in the steam of her pipes. Hard white mist in metal veins.

Men who had a bottom line and a vision. That eternal duality of industry.

-

What is their name? It’s Charlie Kane…?

Yes. He was involved. Mr. Hearst. Yellow journalist. But that wasn’t until after: Hearst and Ismay…

Before that, we have Clinch Smith and Archibald Gracie. The former – a lawyer and sportsman, who had boarded the ship at Cherbourg. The latter – a writer and amateur historian, who would live almost long enough to publish his experience on the ship. Both – New Yorkers and descendants of famous men.

-

On the ship. A dazzling party four nights long. Clinch Smith is standing on the bow looking out into the sparkling black. A hand in one pocket, a drink in the other hand.

Archibald Gracie, standing quiet in a small circle of merry companions, watches his friend from across the deck. He wonders if Clinch Smith is still keeping his distance after the scandal at breakfast.

Clinch Smith is one for bone-dry humor, compulsively rattling offense from the ribcage of anyone who can be rattled.

-

At their table that morning, an oil man -- who was already drunk on whiskey concealed in orange juice…and a variety of narcotic tinctures – made some impolite declaration about being the first to escape, should the ship go down, not wanting to wait on the hysterical indecision of women and children.

This was a man who barreled into the oil business on a dwindling family inheritance made mostly from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Archibald Gracie was distracted by the savory promise of the yellow Irish butter he was spreading on his bread and did not hear the full comment.

A few scolds from the ladies at the table. Starts and retorts from the other gentlemen.

Smoking a cigarette, Clinch Smith watched the oil man intensely.

“Perhaps you should only take the men. Leave the byproducts in the drink. It’d be easier to turn a profit once onshore. You could revive the family business.”

Clinch Smith took another draw from his cigarette.

The women gasped and laid into him.

The oil man, not understanding Clinch Smith intended to insult him, threw his head back and laughed loud through the slime in his throat.

The table was in a full uproar.

One older woman shot up from her seat and fled the dining hall before the men at the table could stand for her departure.

In the tumult, the oil man finally deciphered that Clinch Smith had essentially called his family a pack of barbaric death merchants and lurched over the table, pointing, frothing, and demanding satisfaction.

A few men stood up to pull the oil man back and talk him into joining them for a steam.

Archibald Gracie made some notes in his journal while eating the remaining half of his bread, his watch sitting open next to his water glass.

-

Now, back on deck under the moonless night and happily inflamed from the acid of much hard lemonade, Archibald decides to approach his friend and see if he is ready to revel with the others.

Knowing Clinch Smith, the man has no bones about this morning’s events and is simply resting in his own quietude. But Archibald Gracie isn’t going to have any of that tonight. His friend needs to open up into the whole spectacular evening. Expand! he would tell him.

But as Archibald Gracie is about to step forward, a man from the inside the ship rushes out and grabs Clinch Smith’s arm. After a brief exchange, the two head back the way the other man had come from, out of sight.

Someone claps Archibald Gracie’s shoulder. He turns around to meet a buzzing, smiling face, and his glass is refilled with lemonade. The party winds up and swells. Clinch Smith’s conscious experience begins to rotate and fizz…

But then a powerful jolt!

A communal cheer rings out across the deck. Archibald Gracie comes to, still standing, not sure who he’d been talking to for (checks his watch) the past hour and a half.

“We’ve hit some kind of gleaming, jagged obstruction,” someone calls out from the crowd.

Archibald Gracie shakes himself alert and gazes up at a looming, white mound. Sharp and brilliant. He feels as though he can feel its icy breath caressing his ears, as do many others.

The people, who had been merely excited during the ship’s construction, are now ecstatic.

The party goes full tilt. Some reach out to break off pieces of the towering behemoth to add to their drinks. One man, impossibly drunk, gets up on the railing to leap upon the frigid mass.

Frigid. The mass isn’t moving.

Archibald Gracie turns away and looks down. That means the ship is not moving?

Glancing back up at the rest of the vessel, met by the thousand eyes of warmly lit windows, Archibald Gracie begins to feel ill. Fondling his watch, he looks around and begins to head inside, setting down his nearly empty glass on the way.

Entering the dark passage on the side of the ship that Clinch Smith had been rushed along, Archibald Gracie hears someone call his name.

When Archibald Gracie turns toward the voice, he sees his missing friend standing calmly just a little way away from the crowd. Clinch Smith.

The two men look into each other’s eyes. Clinch Smith approaches Archibald Gracie and places something in his hand.

It burns. A chunk of ice. Flat, like Archibald Gracie’s watch.

“A souvenir, for you to take home.”

The joke both chills and warms Archibald Gracie at once. He feels engulfed in a desire larger than his body to embrace his friend. The desperation repulses him, as, with horror, Archibald Gracie understands this will be the last time he stands next to his excellent friend.

-

Pandemonium would cover the ship soon after.

Soaked and freezing, with no souvenir but terminal exposure, Archibald Gracie would watch the disaster from a nearly destroyed life boat….

…would watch his friend, Clinch Smith, stoic as ever, helping piles of women and children to their safety, at the expense of his own life.

…would watch The Unsinkable, The Ship of Dreams, The Floating Palace rend in two and descend, slower than death, beneath the sparkling black.

Titanic. Pulled down into the prison-realm of her namesakes, sinking under the gaze of that gleaming white tower.

Built for the people; for luxury, comfort, and capacity. But not for speed or catastrophe.

There was a boat.