A Pirate's Booty

A clink of glasses and silverware hit him like a nine-iron to the head. The humid floral air was but a damp washcloth. Fresh white linen was laid out underneath full place settings. A young maid called out in a singsong patois. “Come on Mr. Jermon. No soon come. Breakfast is ready, Now!”

“It’s second pot of Blue Mountain. Da best coffee inna world. You pay terty dolla’s a pound in da states” But not here in Negril. Nothing was out of reach.

I grabbed at a piece of dense pineapple that tried to slither out of my fingers like a wriggling goldfish. There were papayas, mangos, and plantains: these crude looking green bananas tasted just like grilled cheese sandwiches when fried. My Fodor’s® travel guide said Jamaica has ninety species of plants that grow nowhere else on the planet. Could I sample them all?

A childhood friend, Shad, steps inside the villa, topped in fresh neon Quicksilver®. This second-generation appliance technician usually bore a dark uniform. But, he hadn’t exactly been the Maytag Repairman the night before. Vacation was not a service call. No $65 minimum trip charge.

‘Shiter’ knew how to have fun. He didn’t hang as loose as Steve, but then who did? This morning Shad’s voice was even and paced “This ah. . . Gal says. . . you owe her some money. . . from last night?”

I set out onto the covered veranda to see a beautiful young Jamaican woman. To me she looked like she had been cast by Bill Cosby himself. Fingerling curls and broad mocha features. My hand went to the crown of my head as I tried to mash my slumber-coiffed hair.

“Last Night, Winston get a real vexed, you owe me 60 Js (Jamaican dollars)”, she inserted. The events of the previous night began to seep in.

It started at Rick’s Café legendary for it’s sunset cocktail hour > Then winning the beer drinking contest against the Canadian team after dinner > The dance hall at “Da Buss” > More Red Stripes > And Tibeta, a thick Jamaican women with an exotic African moniker (her real name was Ima Pee.) > the coconut rum and peanut punch in the taxi ride back to Crystal Waters > The Travelers Checks.

His wife had left him St. Patrick’s Day and it was nearly The Fourth of July. His twenty-eight birthday had come and gone > He was due > The reggae beat dropped hard > Everywhere that night > The dark syrupy tones of Dragon Stout lingered in his throat > The Jerked Chicken clung to its greenwood smoking > Back to the dance hall where Shabba Ranks growled out ‘Mista Lova . . . Mista Lova Mon’> Pungent, spicy, spliffs as big as a Snickers® bar > warm water lapping at the pure white sand.

“But we didn’t do anything, I told you”. I reasoned

“I show you my crib.”

That plywood shack, 'ew' he thought.

Her dark eyes drifted to the four other single men sitting down to breakfast. “No. We were just having a smoke.” Enjoying the moon in that garden somewhere along that seven-mile beach.

In his memory, his eyes had finally adjusted to the dark yard, next to the dance hall. It was 1:30 in the morning when Ima Pee strolled through with her pregnant girlfriend. It was a moment when ebony could read coal.

So went most mornings. Someone to come greet me and ask for money. It wasn’t that Steve was irresponsible. As it may have appeared. It was just that  the higglers of Westmoreland Parish found out where the Love was.

It became a running joke. One day it was the mushroom tea guy we met in the Pizza parlor appearing with an old Nehi bottle of psychedelic brew.

Tibeta she moved her operation to the public beach just outside our private conclave of grass shacks. I made the mistake of giving her a T-shirt. Finally the ‘Booze Cruise’ operators, needed a credit card to go on a catamaran trip to Bloody Bay. At the island’s west end where pirates old and young still navigate.

“It’s all-you-can-drink, Porky.” Says best friend Marc, poking in his shiny bald head inside. Porky, my childhood nickname. It fit. Somewhere over those 28 years I had decided it was OK to do things for myself. To look out for ‘Me’. To be good to myself. I’ve been told I do it well. This trip would be the zenith of that expression.

No religion, cause, charity, routine, regimen, standard or socially accepted custom would stop me. No mother, father, sister, brother held any sway. How could a social climbing spouse? Or any single person? Good luck to any government or corporation.

He ate off the floor and peed wherever he wanted to. He scratched, sniffed, flogged and farted. His burping was a family legend. They compared him to John Belushi. He ate, drank, smoked and slept as he pleased. And pleased he was.

Nine years later an articulate be-speckled editor would ask him “Steven, you shoot from the hip don’t you”.

Fifteen year later he can admit. Yea I do. . . “But I rarely miss.”