Jason Kordelos - Cruise to Nowhere

 

He told this with us at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Here's Jason, live from the Wheeler Opera House. 

 

In December of 2001, I went on my very first cruise. I had always dreamed of going one of those all-gay RSVP cruises, [audience laughter] you know the ones that you read about to sunny Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta or Puerto Rico, all that sun, all those banana coladas, and all those boys. This, however, was not that cruise. 

 

On September 11th, my best girlfriend, Marian, lost her firefighter husband, Dave Fontana, and she was left alone to raise their five-year-old son Aiden. The date also happens to be their wedding anniversary. So, I quit my job and I've been by her side pretty much ever since. Now, she says I don't have to do that, and I say, “Well, it's what anyone would do.” And she says, “Well, no it's not.” And I say, “Well, then it's what Susan Sarandon would do.” [audience laughter]

 

Prior to the 11th, I was really just the gay best friend, but since then I have been promoted. Marian has come to refer to me to all the people in her life, the firefighters and the widows and the neighbors and cousins. She refers to me as her new gay husband. I joke and I say like, “Liza and David Gest.” And Marian laughs. But most of the others ask me, “Liza who?” You see what I'm dealing with. [audience laughter] 

 

Then came this cruise. Now, Royal Caribbean had generously offered this cruise to all the 343 firefighter families who had lost. When Marian asked me if I was interested in going with her and Aiden, I envisioned this gay family vacation, sort of Will and Grace meets love boat meets six feet under. [audience laughter] And so, absolutely, I said I would even make all the arrangements. 

 

So, I call Royal Caribbean, and I speak to this Ms. Shapiro, a very surly woman. But I'm very excited about the tan that I know I'm going to have. I want to know where the ship is going to be going. “Where's the ship going?” I ask. She says, “Nowhere.” I say, “Well, what do you mean?” She says, “I mean nowhere.” I say, “Well, the ship has to have a destination. It must go to Puerto Rico or Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta.” She says, “No, it goes nowhere.” I say, “What, does the ship just stay in port?” She says, “No, it goes out to sea.” I say, “To where?” She says, “Nowhere.” This woman sounds as though she's reciting lines from an Ionesco play, poorly. 

 

I say, “I'm sorry, I'm not getting this. So, the ship has got to have a destination.” She says, “Well, yeah, it leaves New York harbor, it floats out to sea, then it floats back. We're calling this a cruise to nowhere.” [audience chuckles] I pause and I wait for Rod Serling to begin his voiceover. [audience laughter] And then, I continue and I say, “Let me get this right. You're sending a boat full of widows and their grief stricken, terrorized families onto something called a cruise to nowhere?” She says, “Yeah.” I say, “Okay.” 

 

And then, later in the conversation, when I inquire as to why we have to provide passport numbers if we're really not going to go anywhere, she says, “Well, you're going somewhere, but the somewhere is nowhere, and therefore everyone needs a valid US Passport number.” I should have known then that this cruise had the potential of sinking me. 

 

Comes cruise day, and we arrive at Pier 58. Me, the gay husband, Marian, little Aiden. We see the ship, which is-- It's got to be eight blocks long and 14 stories tall, and it boasts its very own ice-skating rink. In line, there are 5,000 people, because apparently the trip was offered to the entire fire department and they all seem to have accepted. So, I, the gay husband, wait in line three hours, low blood sugar, after which I am dragging all of our luggage up a very steep ramp, at which point the all-male Ice Capades dance team tramples me. 

 

I get my bearings and out of my pockets fall Aiden's Star Wars action figures out of my brand-new Dolce & Gabbana puffy white ski jacket. He runs up screaming at me and sprays me with his very berry juice box all over the brand-new Dolce & Gabbana puffy white ski jacket. So, I'm trying desperately just to keep it all together. My hair, my emotions, my outfit. He hits me, because Queen Amidala's got all messed up. I'm thinking, not the only queen. We get on board the ship. And the ship, glorious ship, the interior of this ship looks to me as if it is perhaps exploded out from the bowels of Siegfried & Roy. [audience laughter] 

 

There are American flags everywhere and metallic everything. And there are kids screaming and widows crying and firefighters guzzling free beer. My very tasteful gay male aesthetic begins to have a panic attack. Because like the Barney's warehouse sale on a Saturday, I can handle, but this husband vacation stuff, not so much. I just chant the mantra that I have since the beginning of all this, which is, “It's about Marian and not me. This is about Marian and not me.” I take a deep, calm breath, and then we set sail to nowhere. [audience chuckles] 

 

If you're wondering just how long it takes to get to nowhere, the answer is about 18 hours, which is a bit distressing, because it's taken me 34 years. [audience laughter] I rally for Marian as best as I can, and I'm introduced to the firefighters as her gay husband and I curtsy politely, but no one gets me. No one gets it. No one gets it. I have not been around another gay man for three months, because I'm cooking and cleaning for Marian. I'm putting Aiden to bed, and I'm giving her foot massages like her husband did, and providing her with sympathy and Valium. 

 

I look around, and I see that I'm the only gay husband on board, the only gay anything. I begin to see that for some reason, surprisingly, there isn't a high demand for the gay man in the world of a wife of a firefighter, which is surprising, because with all due respect to the wives of firefighters, they could really benefit from us, really. That first night, I gave my services to this woman. We were sitting and chatting, and I said to her, “You know, you're much too pretty to be wearing that much lip liner. Just soften it,” and she didn't like that. Back in Brooklyn, I made sense of Marian's life, but here, not so much. 

 

And so, the second night, we put Aiden with a babysitter, thank God. We go to dinner, and at the dinner, the orchestra plays Marian's wedding song. So, we leave, and we take a stroll on board. It's chilly, and it's moonlight. It's very romantic. We pause to gaze at the moon, and I can see that Marian's about to start crying. I been able to now gauge her emotional moods, like a seismologist reads a Richter scale. I want to say something funny, so I joke and I say, “It's like our gay honeymoon.” She laughs, and then it's quiet. And for the first time, I start to miss my own life. Clearly, we should be here and having this moment, but I think with different people. Her with her husband. And me with, I don't know, the Ice Capades dance team, maybe. 

 

I start to wonder and maybe it's wrong, but I was like, “God, is this really all that my life has become now. I'm just going to be a gay man married to this wonderful but high maintenance woman.” Is this what happened Tom Cruise? I don't know. [audience laughter] And then, like a gift from the gods, I swear to God, Marian hears this beat. She hears a disco beat, because above us there's a discotheque. It sounds so queer. Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer’s, Enough is Enough starts playing, and Marian is infected and she wants to dance, and I'm like, “Yeah.” She says, “Do it for me.” I say, “Fine,” because it's Donna Summer, so, we dance. 

 

We go up to the discotheque Jesters. Jesters has got dry ice and gargoyles and all this and that. She's dancing and I'm on the sideline pouting, because I'm supposed to be on a gay cruise, not a widow cruise, until I hear Patti LaBelle's Lady Marmalade. Because this is my song. This is the song I came out to 20 years ago to my best friend. So, I'm in this disco trans. All of a sudden, those widows from Staten Island look like drag queens to me. I take to the dance floor and I, like months of despair and sadness are just dripping off of me in the middle of this dance floor, in the middle of this cruise, in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

 

It doesn't matter where we are or what kind of cruise it is, because my friend Marian and I were dancing, we're having a good time and we're laughing and she's smiling and sweating, and we're mouthing those immortal lyrics, “Getcha, Getcha, Ya, Ya, Da Da.” And for just a moment, it feels like nothing's changed. Not that nothing has changed, but that at least, as Gloria Gaynor would say, “I will survive, or she will survive or whatever. You get the point. We'll survive.” And then, who should spill onto the dance floor? But thank you, the entire all male Ice Capades dance team. I am stunned, because I have not seen another homosexual up close for three months. 

 

I look at them, I'm so intrigued by their movement and their pageantry. I want to dance with the Ice Capades dancers, but I'm dancing with Marian. “Ice Capades, Marian.” She sees me looking longingly and she motions with her hands to me as if to say, “Go, Jason. Go, be with your people. [audience laughter] I will be all right.” And so, I do, and I talk to them and I introduce myself as gay husband. They laugh. One of them wearing a headdress says-- And we all laugh and I feel great. And then, I look over and Marian is alone at the bar and she's sipping a cocktail and she's crying. 

 

I go to walk over to her, but then this captain, this very handsome captain, approaches her with a cocktail, and she blushes. I think, of course, of course. I mean, eventually, I'm going to be replaced. It's natural, but it kind of-- Yeah. So, then, there's a little squeal over here, because a Cher song has come on and the Ice Capade's dancers want to dance. And the one with the headdress asks me if I want to dance. I look at him and I look at Marian, I look at him, I look at the headdress. He's wearing a headdress. I say, “Yeah, I want to dance.” And so, I do. That's it.