Up cruise and personal

A porthand dropped the moorings. Then the ferry pulled back. Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the people who had just climbed down from the same ferry crammed in a makeshift porthouse for shelter. It was only 8:00, yet the night was as black as a squid’s liquid. Street lamps stared through the dark, glaring like the eyes of a motionless cat. And the treetops danced about with the wind.

The ferry slithered through. Inside, people sank into their seats, which were cut to the form of an aeroplane seat. I settled in No. 13, Irene in No. 12. Later a man’s voice droned, interrupting a piped-in music with his ramblings of numbers: that the ferry, with a 333-passenger capacity, was cruising along at 30 knots; that we should get to Tinian, a 23-mile distance, in 53 minutes. A crew strode in the middle afterward. He swung his arms this way and that, gestures that cut a figure of a road-traffic policeman.

Soon the ferry rocked from side to side. Then it shook violently. Once, it scaled a horrifying height of angry water, plunging its prow on its steep descent. That I had taken a pill early on ought to make me feel invincible to motion sickness. Wrong. That feeling quickly melted as the ferry kept shimshamming on.

My mind drifted. This was to be a weekend retreat from the monotony of office gyrations. That Valentine’s Day fell on the morning after was only incidental. I was a bit unnerved. If the rough sailing was a foreboding, let it not be that it presaged a spoiled escapade foray.

My musing wandered back when the Commonwealth Ports Authority tried to persuade Tinian leaders to expand their airport. That marked a grand gesture to build on the casino industry there. The expansion was thought to funnel visitors into Tinian by making its airport suitable for landings of larger planes; then the inconvenience of tourists’ hopping on to Tinian by ferry after being herded on Saipan will have been removed. The plan was to have been backed by a portion of borrowings in the form of bonds worth $200 million. The crisis upset the plan.

Suddenly neon lights from the Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino flickered into view as the ferry approached its berth. The casino’s regal presence was unmistakable even from a distance: its facade bathed with rhythmic colors that seemed to mask the red ink on its books, water spouts shot up from a frontyard fountain in perpetual motion of a fired scud missile. At the lobby, a giant chandelier flowed from the domed ceiling, dripping with yellowish prisms. At the Jackpot Lounge, stately oils of saints embellished the walls.

It was 10:00, and the Broadway restaurant was getting ready to close. A staff arranged for us to be taken to Tinian Hotel on the edge of the casino complex. A red, ragged cab pulled over moments later; the driver signaled us to hop in. “Are you from Saipan?” he asked in brat-tat-tat speed. He didn’t care for a reply. “My name is Ray Sakisat. I’m the first to establish a taxi company on Tinian.” His words emitted self-satisfaction. His is a two-unit taxi business — the only one on Tinian so far. It began in January last year.

The Tinian Hotel, with 14 rooms and eight staff, subsists mainly on the casino’s spillover customers, mostly travelers who dismiss the food prices at the Dynasty’s well-scrubbed restaurants as beyond their budget range. It opened only in December. From there, Sakisat’s wife collected us with a van.

Day’s over.

On this day on Valentine’s Day, activity at the Dynasty picked up some pace. Customers poured in, drawn by a forty-dollar promo. “Forty is better than nothing,” said Gina, one in our group of four, while digging a lunch of siomai, siopao, chicken curry, rice.

For the Dynasty, for sure, business begins at forty. Once there, the lure of the sleek slot machines turns irresistible. Just ask Edwin. Okay, he lost a couple of hundreds on the roulette. Just the same, his loss translates to the casino’s gain. I engaged in slot-slamming myself; thanks to Irene’s tendency to run away with my little winnings, I finally managed to tame the urge to go on.

Sitting at the airport, I remembered Ray Sakisat. His proclamation of being the first taxi operator on Tinian packed a wallop on me. He is now a businessman. But rest assured that his budding entrepreneurial endeavor will be history if the casino collapsed.

The casino had been pushing for the widening of the airport. Tinian leaders had agreed, but that this now should wait until the casino could generate tax revenue enough to guarantee a government bond. However, with the casino saddled with debts, it is extremely unlikely that any tax income of meaningful size would be realized soon. Meanwhile, Ray Sakisat is in a constant bout with uncertainty. If anything, he gives human face to a tragedy that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

The Dynasty is a multimillion gamble. Time now for Tinian to cast a bet. Then Ray Sagisag will keep riding on.