Im on a boat yo!

It's one of those shoots that always sticks in the back of your head. You see it, and then months go by, but you are always wondering about it.

 

 In this case , in Beijing, it was the boat, or more accurately, the vessel named... Showboat..

I first saw it when Kat and I were looking down back alleys for an obscure Lebanese restaurant near the river. We found the food, but across the street, moored and listing ever so slightly was an entertainment boat that had obviously seen its heyday during the  2008 Olympics.

Rusted and derelict now, five years past, I sat and wondered why it hadn't been towed out for scrap... Why it had been moored, and left to die here. It seemed like she was seaworthy, why the hell couldn't she be recycled? I wanted to know more about her.. I needed to get a handle on what this girl was.

Asking for permission to jump the two foot gap between the dock and the showboat was pointless. Neither my family or friends here in China likes my penchant for jumping over walls, taking corrugated metal apart or jumping gaps to get into places that the authorities don't wish you to see.. ("Do you WANT to get arrested by Chinese police?" )

However Showboat remained in my mind thorough the months., and one winter sunny day, as I was coming back from getting my teeth drilled, a thought occurred. I'm pretty anesthetized, I have my camera and more importantly I was alone without the obligatory " yanno stech, this a stupid idea" rant.

It was a cold and windy, clear autumn day in Beijing, the type of day that makes you think of  Vermont in the fall. I approached cautiously, wondering what security cameras or unmarked police personnel may be watching. in Beijing, this is always an issue.

I really didn't know what the hell i was getting into. But I had four Tsingtao cans in my vest, and a full pack of Dunhill reds to barter with  just in case trouble happened.

I knew that people occupied it.. its derelict, it had been sitting there for years,  its a fucking boat, and its moored..Hell, having slept in cars, I would too.. its a peach of a squat. If this were America, it would be a no brainier, but given the fact I speak no real Chinese apart from perfunctory statements and hand gestures, any communication with people not pleased by my presence would have to be done in the basest, international level of communication... Humor, booze and cigarettes.

Entering through the gangway, the odor of human urine and feces hit like a brick, which I was expecting. I knew before I even jumped that the place was trashed, and had been for a while. Given enough time, in any place in the world, an abandoned structure will bring the homeless and the wretched alcoholic as and junkies, looking for a quick fix, a place to party, and a place to crash. And given enough time, you will need to relieve yourself, and the old adage " don't shit where you eat " doesn't apply in these places.

In Her heyday, The Showboat was a graceful presence on the river in Beijing. A Noble Dame, whose sole purpose was to bring party-folk together on a floating den of iniquity, Chinese style, and watch American subtitled movies with hideous translation. 

She has lace curtain frills and real white leather wraparound booths on two levels, with a dance floor, complete with disco balls, on the first level and a drop down movie screen. Think of a floating studio 54, with lots of chrome and lit floor tiles.

As I walked three steps in, I heard a rustling in one of the end booths on the second floor. "Nehow", I said, slowly drawing a beer out of the vest. "Nehow" came the reply, a female voice, along with two sentences I couldn't understand. She stepped out, and we locked eyes. At first she was shocked to see some white guy with two cameras smoking a cigarette and brandishing a beer. Then she smiled widely, motioning me to the booth, past the aging burgundy separating frills you used to get at those head shops..

The booth was surprisingly clean.. It was obvious that this was her chosen booth to live in, and while the table was dirty with old cigarettes, take out food bags and bottles of overturned booze, the white leather had been meticulously cleaned and fashioned into a bed, albeit with large blankets that needed to be washed.

I will call her Mary, given the fact that I can't ask and wouldn't understand what her real name was if you put a gun to my head. Which at this point, was hoping would not happen.

As I sat down, Mary took the beer from my hand without me offering it, and cranked it right off, lighting a cigarette she had in her mouth. I didn't object, as that was what the beers were for in The first place.

I wish I could say that there was some meaningful conversation between us that gave me the history of  the boat, and herself, and how she came to be on the boat, but that would be all bullshit. It was mostly me gesturing, around, showing her the camera, and handing her another beer to show me around. It was mostly silence from then on, her, following me around while I took shots.

The devastation that the squatters had done was impressive. The once grand bar and dance floor had been trashed more completely than juggaloes, European rugby players, or New York junkies combined. It was a total gut. Whomever ran this party, ripped through every possible cabin ate, crawls pace and light fixture looking for something to drink, sell pr burn.

Whatever Chinese junkies who red hit this place did it with the force of an f5 tornado. If it wasn't broken, it was gone, and the amount of dried blood, vomit and human excrement rivals anything any cleanup crew at a phish festival could see. Hardcore sewer workers would flinch at this. 

As I left the first floor, Mary in tow, I saw the difference between the floors. And it finally came to me. The bar level was for the revelry... The ugly homeless masses, coming to get fucked up and fight. the upstairs, looking over the carnage, was for the upper crust of the street. and each of the stalls were, while not as clean as Mary's quarters, relatively clean as compared to the spectacle beneath. 

This was where you went to oversee the carnage, not to participate, and I got the feeling that not just anyone could come upstairs to watch. This was the Colosseum, where , if invited, you could watch the heathen hoards get fucked up on the cheapest booze and the baddest drugs available.. And if you were very cool, you could watch the lower level drunkards beat the piss out of each other from the luxury boxes on the upper deck. Mary had a sky box. And I had been invited to give her a beer. 

And felt honored.