Benny almost asked him how he viewed his work, but the mention of the sea made him smile just a little. "Oh yes, I think if I weren't so skinny when I joined the ship, I'd have lost twenty pounds that first year from how sick it made me. But I got good, strong sea legs eventually. And I was grateful for the hard work."

He tilted his head and eyed the man. "Oh? What work is the worst you've had?" He started to drink the new beer, now clearly in better spirits.

He was pretty sure he'd lost more than twenty on that ship, but smiled politely nonetheless.

Pat took his glasses off and polished them on his sleeve, looking distant.

"Got scammed a couple times. Lived, learned, made the best of it."

Let's be real: it was shit.

Benny grinned and patted his shoulder. "Well, feel good that you still learned from the experience so the job wasn't completely useless, eh? Could have had a bigger and better job and fallen from the same scam without knowing better. Life is full of lessons. Perhaps being left behind is mine. " He drank some of the beer and slammed it down. "You have better taste in drink than I do."

There was not for a moment a good, sound reason for the fate that had struck him and many others. There were reasons - greed, hatred, malice, neglect ... the usual culprits he supposed - but it was never enough. It would never be enough, any more than a scar could be washed enough to disappear.

But before him was a young man in crisis, and if nothing else - time had tempered his need to be right with a desire to do right.

"Life is full of moments, certainly," he decided. "May we make the best of them."

He wrinkled his nose at the sailor's assumption, but allowed a smile. Then he savored his cheap, watered down swill.

Benny snapped his fingers at the man beside him. "Exactly!" He rest his chin on the palm of his hand and sighed closing his eyes. "I just need to figure out what to do from here. How did you decide what to do with your life?"

Ropati smiled and hoped it was the kind of smile that did not reveal 'dying inside'.

"Sometimes life chooses for you, friend," he answered, and washed that one down with more foam cleverly disguised as beer.

Benny was oblivious to the other man's feelings as he was to so many things in life and merely nodded at his words. He sighed and closed his eyes. "I guess you are right. I can not have an expectation of what will come, I must make myself available to whatever falls before me. Alright, thank you. You're a wise man."

"Any time, young man," Ropati said with a smile, hoping he would be long gone before he could be taken up on that. "Any time."