Ferry boats are great vehicles for readers.
Especially at night. Especially during winter. Especially when you are used to riding ferries and some of the thrill of the big boatride is gone, or if you have a long wait before boarding.
The other night, for example. I had a long trek across four counties, all via public transportation, and spread out over almost eight hours.
You really have to love walking, and waiting, and the things you can enjoy to level-up your waiting games — reading and writing, for example — to opt for these modes of transportation (or endure them with grace and power through them with stamina, if riding buses is not done by choice). Particularly when it is raining and/or snowing and/or windy and/or icy and the buses and/or ferries can’t actually go all the places and do all of the things reliably on schedule, if at all: you can wind up stuck. Waiting. A book can make that more bearable.
Not too many people were on this ferry Saturday night. Many who were, were traveling for work or in actual work vehicles. One of these vehicles caught my eye: a pickup truck with an extended cab and bed full of lumber, a ladder, rugged plastic totes, a hand truck and other construction stuff.
Inside, on the passenger seat, I could see a stuffed canvas tote with one of those plastic clipboards that functions as a little desk with a “drawer”/open-up compartment. And leaning against the canvas tote: at least five books.
Four or more solid hardcover fat red volumes, and a navy blue floppy-covered manual of some sort: the kind that’s built like a phone book, but in blue and white rather than black and yellow, and probably with more substantial paper.
The fat red books probably weren’t for recreational reading. Not entertainment to pass the time. But they had a destination. They came from somewhere, and are destined for somewhere else. To be consulted. Referred to. Maybe to formalize one of those on-site portable offices.
I fantasized the red volumes are actually something more romantic … something completely unrelated to the construction supplies. That The Project the blue truck’s driver is working on is something more arcane than the basic appearance and contents of the blue truck suggest. Maybe it has to do with the same magic that makes the blue truck’s driver unconcerned about the possibility of his exposed pickup bed’s contents getting wet in this weather. Some complicated trick to creating an invisible barrier or protective force that keeps everything surrounded by it warm and dry and stable, even on a cold and wet mid-February night on the most treacherous ferry crossing on the Salish Sea.
Towards the end of our sailing, while the disembarkation announcement aired and most of us on the passenger deck and mezzanine heading down the stairs to the car deck, I passed a man still seated at a table alone: reading his book. Making absolutely no move to pack up and get moving. Like he rides this boat all the time and knows exactly how long he still has to comfortably consume stories.
He wore a headlamp, brightly beaming his focused light onto the pages of Moth Smoke. Which I checked out immediately upon my return home, and am happy to be reading now.
The ferry (and its terminals and holding areas and nearby watering holes) is a great destination just for spotting new books to read or reminding you of books you already have on your TBR or curious-about lists and making you want to read them even MORE. Like when you see somebody ignoring everybody hustling around him so he can gobble up a few more lines.
The ferry (and its terminals and holding areas and nearby watering holes) are also great destinations for making book friends and having conversations about books in passing when you see someone carrying a book worth talking about. I checked my enthusiasm at the sight of the Moth Smoke man, though, and let him keep reading in relative peace for however many little moments he had left rather than intruding for attempted bookworm bonding.
His bright powered-up headlamp seemed kind of extra, but I can now see it serving as a deterrent to annoying people doing just what I could barely stop myself from doing: interrupting to ask WHATCHA READING?!? WHAT’S THAT ABOUT?!? IS IT ANY GOOD?!? The glare of the spotlight turning onto your excited face reminding you he already has a task at hand, and it is NOT talking to you.