The Screaming Boat
by Alexandra Dos Santos

Screams went by like a smear in the night. They coasted the East River, that green mirror reflecting skyscrapers that looked like hanged corpses in the water. Scruff sat on the Astoria Park rocks alone, as she always was, watching the machines churn up waves. She’d sit and watch water taxis shuttle quiet shadows after dark, and booze cruise flash LED lights to a steady dance bass. But Scruff never heard a boat scream before, especially from a boat this far away. It drew closer and louder.  It wasn’t the roar of a rowdy party; their voices twisted backwards and sideways, locking together into a writhing behemoth. Scruff could almost see it before her eyes—that sound made manifest. But then it went away, and she just saw the boat. In front of her, finally clear, she recognized it. 

It was The Gayflower: that two story party boat she’d been on a few times this summer. Scruff hated herself a little more each time she paid the $60 cover—all so she could get herded on with the other gays to get seasick and listen to songs she otherwise would’ve heard at Henrietta’s or Cubbyhole. But the a boat was perfect for cruising (in both senses of the word), because of the limited options it offered. There was no bar-hopping on a river, unless they fell overboard. It was good for someone like Scruff, whose crippling fear of rejection made the business of approaching girls an all night hype-herself-up-before-the-hotgirl-gets-into-the-Uber affair. 

There were usually only a few non-men on the Gayflower. Its population was mostly twinks, the actual partiers. A lot of them looked at Scruff sideways when she dressed full dirtbag: the kind of boyish that didn’t care about scrapes, dirt, or sweat. Nowadays there were pristine dykes, who syphoned away some of the attention from the lipsticks and femmes. Clean-girl dewy skin, slicked back hair, crisp shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and collar popped. So many rings, obscure punk t-shirts that were clearly bought at a show for $50 and smelled like laundry detergent. These dykes were non-threatening. They didn’t bring the ugly that Scruff did. Her presence alone threw off the sexual energy for everyone else. 

Last cruise she went on, Scruff wore a dress and makeup just to see what would happen. She didn’t even do a great job of it, but the effort alone got her compliments: entry points to joining conversations. It was so easy to hack the system. And sad. To be liked for her femininity and nothing more. Even if she could pass as a boy, which she couldn’t, she doubted any of the girls would want to hook up with her then. Scruff lived on the boarder of who she thought she was and who she thought she should be. Worse, she didn’t even know who the who was: the one choosing. Thoughts like this made her question whether she was a girl at all. When she dressed how she wanted in her lonely room where no one could see, it was a relief—like the slanted Dutch angles of her life finally straightened, steadied, and let her walk without feeling dizzy. It didn’t matter if she was a girl or boy or non-binary person. Scruff was just Scruff. But under the scrutiny of everyone else, she’d take kindness where she could get it and wear her fucking hair down.

***

Back on the rocks, Scruff stood up, careful not to squish one of the resident rats to death. The boat stopped moving, its engine cut. Then, she watched as The Gayflower’s lights shuttered off, leaving the boat a vague hump on the water. Phone flashlights turned on like ghost orbs, all of them bouncing in the hands of their owners. It looked like they were running away from something, their screams and lights gathering at one side of the boat. 

Scruff looked around her on the land, finding no one. Did anyone else see this? Did anyone care? She reached into her pocket to call 911, but her phone wasn’t there. Not in the rock crevices either. Just bottles and rats and—a bubble? A cluster of bubbles. The tide must’ve been was coming in. Green water rose impossibly fast. It enveloped Scruff’s feet, soon legs. Despite all the confusion, she paused when she caught her reflection. A clown face, blurry and pained. She was wearing the same makeup from her last Gayflower voyage. Same dress, too. In fact, she couldn’t even remember how that night ended…if that night ended. 

Scruff opened her eyes that she hadn’t realized were closed. The fuzzy scene came into focus, and she remembered she was lying face up on the deck of The Gayflower. Her limbs buzzed with pain, remnants of when was trampled by the crowd, caught in a tangle of legs. Nearly squished to death. 

“It’s coming up the stairs!” a gay shouted in the dark. 

Splashes came from people jumping overboard. The whole group of gays—who just moments ago had been doing poppers and singing “Padam Padam” at the top of their lungs—dangled off the boat’s railing and dropped into the water. Scruff struggled to her feet and watched the shadows swim toward Astoria to safety. No one would carry her all that way: the dirtbag in disguise who still didn’t know how to swim. She stood alone in the farthermost region of the boat, with no where to hide.

She would see it as it crept up the stairs. And it would see her. In its eyes Scruff wasn’t a boy or girl. She wasn’t a solo queer whose loneliness repelled more than it attracted. Whose screams for love went unanswered. The thing saw the solid fact if her: flesh and meat. Blood and bone. For that, Scruff was thankful. 

Alexandra Dos Santos is an educator and horror writer. She received her MFA at The Writer’s Foundry, and her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Lithub, The Latino Book Review, and Maudlin House. In her free time she performs horror inspired dance routines in clubs around New York City under the stage name Ginger Stabs. She is seeking an agent for her two novels.

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