Somewhere south of Porto, north of Lisbon, and emotionally closer to despair than either. That’s where we were. The GPS said we were making decent time. The mirror, if you could call the cracked thing in the head a mirror, said otherwise.
I looked like I’d been raised by seagulls. Liam had this pirate-adjacent beard that was starting to evolve into something fungal. Every time he scratched it, I swear I could hear whispers.
“You need a haircut,” he said, not looking up from his book.
“So do you,” I said, pointing at his forehead, which had disappeared weeks ago beneath hair and regret.
“Let’s do each other,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“Haircuts. We cut each other’s hair. You do me, I do you.”
“Do I look like I have a cosmetology certificate, Liam?”
“No. You look like a castaway who tried to eat his own shoelaces.”
So, we did it.
Tools:
- Rusty kitchen scissors (don’t ask why we have those and not proper clippers)
- A barely-charged beard trimmer that sounded like a dying mosquito
- A bowl, which we thought would help but actually just made it worse
I went first. I don’t know what I was aiming for — maybe “nautical chic”? But what came out was more “escaped psychiatric patient with wind damage.” I gave him a lopsided fade that faded into nothing and then reappeared in the wrong place. He looked like a regional pop star from a country that doesn’t exist.
Then it was my turn.
He started strong. Confident. Like he knew what he was doing. Which was a red flag. Within three minutes, the scissors were stuck in my hair and he was panicking, mumbling something about “textural density” like he was on Project Runway.
“Just shave it,” I said.
“I can’t. The trimmer’s dead.”
“Then yank it out. Use pliers.”
In the end, I had a mullet. Not a good one. A mullet that had been through war. A mullet that needed therapy. We agreed not to take photos. We lied.
Hygiene, Part II: Showers (or, The Absence of Them)
We hadn’t showered in three days. Maybe four. Salt had crusted behind my knees in a way that made it feel like my legs were laminated. Liam smelled like socks that had been microwaved. I found a barnacle in his towel. Not even kidding.
We had this system — rinse with sea water, lather with eco-soap, rinse again with the dregs of the freshwater tank, cry softly. But the wind had been wild and the swell made it risky to even sit on the bow, let alone try a wash.
We were too gross to sleep. The smell was doing something to our dreams. I dreamt that Liam was a giant loofah trying to exfoliate me against my will.
Then, a miracle. A brief calm.
“I’m going in,” I said, standing up, shirtless and unhinged.
“The water’s cold.”
“I don’t care. I’m losing layers. Mentally and physically.”
I tied myself to the boat and jumped. It was the kind of cold that makes you forget your PIN number. I came up gasping, flailing, possibly reborn.
Liam followed.
We screamed. We laughed. We both might have peed.
It was awful and amazing.
Back on deck, drying in the sun like feral lizards, we made a pact: we would find a marina with proper showers soon. Hot water. Soap that didn’t smell like seaweed. Maybe even conditioner.
“Lisbon?” I asked.
“Lisbon,” he nodded, solemnly. “But first… we find deodorant.”
We never did find the deodorant. It rolled overboard during a tack and is probably halfway to Morocco by now.
If anyone finds it: it’s sandalwood. Please return it. We need it more than we’re willing to admit.
