Cece Chapman
Illustrations by Cece ChapmanThe Waitress (excerpts)
SLAMMED...Soul Storms
"Every big-wave surfer in the area is out there, surfers from down south and up the coast; I guess this will separate out the summer surfers." Howie's nose was pressed against the window. His bandaged arm propped by the Irish Coffee I was serving him. The table filled with binoculars, cell-phone, weather-radio and a laptop displaying a surf-forecast website, with its neon-colored map of the Pacific covered with cartoon storms circling each other like fighting dragons and tail-twitching tigers.
I was slammed. The other waitress, one of the bus boys and the hostess called in sick. So Pete, the owner of Pete's Seafood Dining, and I were working the floor, with every table filled and a packed reservation book, in the pre-holiday rush. Sea water drizzled from my nose every time I bent over a table as I'd come straight to work from surfing. The wind was screaming down the hills, a storm was piling gun-metal waves with fifteen foot mouths onto the beach in front of Pete's, and blizzards of sea-foam whipped through the front door when customers walked in. Next door, thirty surfer's vehicles were jammed in the beach parking lot, the edge littered with telephone poles, redwood logs and tangled knots of seaweed the size of bodies tossed like toys by the sea. Over it all gobs of ivory foam shivered and blew away. I stood by Howie's table for a few minutes, his weather-radio crackled and cell-phone bleeped together.
"Yeah, good call Jerry, get down here now, the swells's huge, big barrels, low tide rip is starting to carve bad shoulders man, insane rides. By sunset it'll be ripped out, body-boarders all over inside, steep, board-breakin' time! The A-team is out there, Rod just got a sick drop. Yeah, just my luck to get run over by some kook and my arm sliced by his fin, well, I got enough surf the past three weeks so I can just sit here and enjoy the show, I'm kinda surfed out. The peak's crowded man, but it's worth the trip, yeah, damn light's going fast, o.k. bye." He snapped his phone shut and wiped the window with his sleeve.
".....look at that guy out there," Howie said to me, " he's in trouble, why is he off his board? He doesn't have a clue. Looks like he's kicking his board, the current's got him," Howie chuckled at me, glanced through his binoculars, then sat up, "Hey, he's got a red board, that's the guy that ran me over! Hah, he's gonna get worked now."
I closed my eyes when the lethal middle peak slammed the surfer, when I opened them he bobbed up in the white water shooting for the rocks. He pushed off his board just before impact and tried to kick-swim it towards the lineup, getting caught in the current again, and whipped back out to the middle peak.
"They'd all be down the coast if the south wind wasn't blowin' it out, the waves are forty feet there now, and the swell is growing. Two more hours 'til sunset then the waves are gonna be really big. That guy out there that cut me off is gonna be the sacrificial victim for the day." We watched thirty surfers scramble up the roaring maw of rolling thunder, positioning themselves on the peak. We could barely see the lost surfer off in the current, trailed by five or six others actually making headway against the rip back to the lineup; he was about to get slammed and washed into the rocks again.
I ran to the kitchen and expedited a big table order with Pete, then presented and opened a bottle of wine for table 4 grabbing the dessert platter to show table 11 on the way to making two martinis and a cosmo. The bus boy was setting up tables so I stripped table 8 of every plate, cup and glass so they'd hurry up and leave. I took an order so modified it didn't even remotely resemble Pete's original recipe or presentation, so that he called me over to ask 'what the hell is that?'
I paused long enough by Howie's table to see a surfer on the sand roaring with laughter, arms and legs flailing like a turned-over beetle. He lay beside half his surfboard, shredded laminate flapping in the wind, surrounded by jagged cliffs defended by a line of 5 foot thick poured concrete columns, 25 feet tall, lining the end of the grey wet-wind blasted beach, tips on fire with the sudden-sunset of dead-winter. Enormous chunks of pavement, rock and pier had erupted from the surf-clawed shore with bowling ball size rocks swept back and forth by the waves. Blood-red rusty rebar chewed by winter storms stuck gnarled fingers high into the air curling in on itself, barely submerged. Long-shadowed hooded surfers waited for the sets to die down, for that last twilight slip through the channel out to waves big as ships. Way out there I could see the silhouette of the stranded surfer laying crossways on his board as he slid over the hump of waves as they formed.
"Whoa, that boy's got himself some trouble, going to be a $900 dollar ticket home. That's Coast Guard rescue charges. But Big Ed said he waved them on when he was trying to get that kook out of the rocks last week, he just swam around and out, hell if he was gonna get tabbed. But they kept yelling down at him, so he took off. Pretty soon that sorry surfer out there's gonna be in shipping lanes, out to sea, on his way to Fiji, shark-bait. Someone needs to do something about this."
I sprinted to the kitchen, delivered food to table 9, cleared table 7, taking an order on the way to seat table 2. I snatched a broom to sweep up cheerios the baby on table 3 threw at me, so I could push sea-foam water out the front door and watch the grainy-noir storm-stillness. The perfect calm before the storm, the vacuum between squalls. When the waves are crazy with danger and too fast to think about, like satin sheets, fast cars, bad choices.
I answered the phone and turned to look for extra crab forks, but the door flew open and a blast of sound so deafening tore through Pete's dining room that everyone winced. I ran to the door. In the amethyst twilight two Coast Guard choppers hovered over the beach, lights piercing the last white-assed northern surfers taking off their suits to go home. Then the choppers swirled and tore out to sea. We saw them swoop down, lay low, bob around and take off.
"Yeah, you missed it," Howie cackled in his phone when it chirped. "Big sets at sunset, dragging everyone to shore, thrashed, cleared out the lineup, everyone crawling to get over this monster wave and getting pitched. Tossed and mashed." He looked at me gleefully, adrenalin-throbbing veins in his forehead.
"Yeah but you woulda loved it, huh?" He stage-whispered at me, winking, covering the cell-phone mouth-piece.
"Look I gotta get home, give this busted wing a chance to heal, talk to you later." He folded all his communication devices into his big coat with one hand, deftly, as if lives depended on the neatness of his movements, and took off, leaving me a great tip.
Then it was starless black outside, darkness complete, making mirrors of the windows, droplets etching cracks in my reflection. I tried to calm down. Outside, furious storm waves smashed the sand in that a low-hollow, gut-chilling sound embedded in the most primitive corners of human brain. Even those who have never heard the ocean know the sound; it is the howl of wind at midnight on high mountains, tree-ripping flood waters tearing down canyons, tornadoes, hurricanes, births of stars, deaths of galaxies. The sound of concrete being mauled by water in the primordial birthplace, elemental haven of gods, lair of monsters.
I wanted to pitch my apron and job. I wanted to pit myself with the elements against crab forks, folded napkins, foie gras and corkscrews. The heart beats away each second of life, never to return to that point in time again, each second of existence in harmony with the waves of the sea, the stars, the rhythm of the cosmos. I wanted to feel the riptide move me into position for that slamming ride down a wicked winter wave, to be tossed by the lip and fly through the air, get mashed and come out laughing.
Pink Ladies...a Catered Affair
Carnation pink-tipped fingernails tapped the pile of bridal magazines as high as the champagne glasses I was filling for the wedding planner. The stack was fringed with hot-pink post--its ruffling in the orange blossom off-shores blowing through the Veranda Room as the planner waited for the bride-to-be to return to the table. She peeled apart her filofax with impatience, writing notes with a tiny gold pen. I knew the bride was snorting coke in the bathroom, while her mother was on the bar telephone with the groom's uncle, as my busboy, Dave, had one eye on her every move and the other on the surf below.
"Whoa" he said when she appeared an hour late for her appointment with the planner. From then on he never left her side. She was on the wedding war-path with vengeance, brilliantly beautiful with the promise of happiness to eternally come. He said, "Consider me your personal butler." When the bright-eyed daughter slithered back and the eager mother returned, they locked golden heads with the wedding planner to plan the greatest wedding event anyone had ever seen.
I eyed them, "Get another bottle of Cristal, Dave."
Dave told me he freaked out when his girlfriend started leaving bridal magazines on his bed; he broke up with her. We laughed at the main use of the Hotel Library to store hundreds of international wedding planning magazines, including dressing the bride and gorgeous albums of past Hotel weddings. We called it 'breeding material'. But clocklike, every six to eight months, the whole plan would come to frenzied fruition. Then the planner, mother and daughter would become an avenging trio of desperate creators, starving to death, each on a different diet. Stay out of their way, suggest nothing, and always say yes.
From the moment any wedding party entered the glamourous hotel to stay for 3-5 days we were all considered 'on-the-clock' until they left. Essentially we became part of the family, sharing in their joy and every problem, attending to their every need: special dietary concerns, arranging transportation, watching to see they didn't drink too much, fight or fall from the many secluded balconies, the sea-cliff or into the pool. The wedding planner appeared each day up to the last, culminating in the post-honeymoon, send-off dinner for both remaining family members of the wedding. I overheard the planner telling a friend she wanted to discontinue this event as by then the families were overwrought, drunk, belligerent and overcome by how much money they had spent.
But today was the first day of the bride-to-be and her fiancee's life together. The dizzying scent of Pink Ladies, native lilies that only bloom in baroque clusters, floated in to mingle with the perfume of dozens of white orchids shipped in from Latin countries. Silk gauze drifted from balconies, the wedding planner swathing it in swags, loops, sweeps of satin ribbons and tiny fern fronds. Between pushing tables around with Dave, she placed tiny candles around the room, conferred with the photographer, consulted with the stylist, attended to wedding feast details with the chefs and secretly met with the groom's uncle in his room after lunch. The outdoor platform for the twilight ceremony was set-up, arranged with potted, flowering trees, covered in silk rugs, and ambushed by dogs, birds and bugs.The wedding-planner ran out to check it every 20 minutes and when the reverend arrived made him change into custom robes she kept for taking photographs.
After the wedding Dave and I mixed cocktails, poured wine, served dinner and played arranged music while laying out bushels of gifts until 3 a.m. At 4 a.m., we poached eggs and salmon fillets in brass chaffing dishes at the table while the bride's mother flirted with the groom's uncle and the bride's father disappeared for an hour. We served guests coffee and port, we sliced cake, laying it in creme anglaise with strawberries. When we heard the bride scream we all tried to act embarrassed and laughed. When she threw the door open, crying hysterically, a bird flew into the room from the porch behind her. The low-flying wounded gull ripping a few feet of lace off her Italian silk negligee and thumping, flapping hit the wall. Everything stopped and everyone looked at her; I tried to catch Dave's eye to get-out-of-here-now-with-the-serving-cart, but he was staring at her.
"I can't do this, It just happened, I'm in love with someone else," she was drunk, coked up, pale, sweating and wild-eyed. The bird was forgotten, hiding its head in the corner, one wing tangled in lace. The families moved in close, her mother put her arm around her, and the father reappeared tying his tie and closed the door. The mother-in-law looked out towards the sea; the father-in-law took a few quick sips. The wedding planner raced into the suite as we pushed the cart out as though nothing had happened. In the porch hallway I looked at Dave.
"O.K.," he eyed the moonlit coast below, assessing the surf-sounds, "last night we met after the party, we went to the beach, we drove through town where she saw her fiancee with a local stripper, we did some lines, she cried on my shoulder, nothing happened."
The wedding planner carefully opened the French oak-paneled suite door. She composed herself, breathing deeply, giving us a steely, professional stare, arms around the distraught, ravishing, tear-streaked bride. She guided her into the bathroom at the end of the porch hall. I looked into the candlelit suite at the families standing around, looking calm, eating cake, pouring themselves drinks. The bride's mother waved at us frantically, so we pushed the cart back into the room. We made laced espressos, as in an hour we'd all stand on the balcony and wave down to the married couple in the cobble-stone driveway before they left on the first leg of their around-the-world-honeymoon.
Happy Hour...that Twilight Moment
"Call 911, babes!" Tony dragged the knocked-out Shannelle from the Ladies Room stall while the hostess restrained Officer O'Hara's wife from kicking her husband's girlfriend in the crotch. I never knew who Tony was talking to, but I dialed 911. Tony called everyone 'babes'. It made my skin crawl. What could I do? He was my boss, the owner of Tony's. He was tan, fit and snaky at 65. He displayed Cannes vacation photos of his wife's boob job bartop at Happy Hour, gambled too big, wore several styles of hairpieces, gold chains, lizard belts and drove a white Cadillac with "Tony's" in gold script on the driver's door. It was the kind of place where Frank Sinatra ate once and sang every evening on the jukebox at Happy Hour. That twilight moment, when drinks are cheap, bar appetizers are appetizing and the person sitting next to you is serendipitously meant for you.
So Tony called the medic 'babes', and he called the policewoman 'babes', who arrived with Officer O'Hara's best friend, Officer Ray, responding to the 911 call. Tony called the hostess 'babes', his wife 'babes', I didn't know her name for weeks. He called busboys 'babes'. I saw him call a woman 'babes' once who did not like it and corrected him. The entire night Tony looked right through her, even though she didn't move from her barstool for 4 hours, eating dinner at the bar, reading a newspaper and watching the war on t.v. while Tony fussed around the bartender, Ron. The only woman I never heard him call 'babes' was the mid-fiftyish German waitress, Eva, who had worked with Tony for years, and was outside smoking a cigarette during the first few minutes of Happy Hour.
Happy Hour brought misguided tourists from hotels by the airport and locals who liked to escape their house while their wives cooked dinner. Except for a few rooms Tony used as he liked, an airline leased the hotel upstairs. Airline attendants and pilots stayed there between flights, trooping down to drink and eat calamari, mussels in saffron broth with toasty french bread, tiny fried fishcakes, sausage and nuts. Local athletes came to meet girlfriends, flirt with airline hostesses and get asked for autographs. Conventions flooded us with businessmen, cowboys, computer engineers, corporations.They swarmed us for Happy Hour, lasting 3 hours, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the busiest time of day.
"What does he look like?" Angie, the hostess, yelled into the phone to someone looking for a friend, "What does he drink?" She passed the information to Ron who was ricocheting down the bar like a heat-seeking missile to tear into a drink-spilling engineer. "Support Our Troops" tags bloomed; Tony had a basket-full he had me hand out. This developed into fights in the parking lot, wild bets, noisy last calls, all six televisions on, but mute, throughout the dining rooms and bar. I could see Louie, the bookie, with his crooked little finger, crouched above the shoeshine boy on the floor whipping his loafers into a wicked gleam, talking to a cowboy from the Quarterhorse Show, both mesmerized by destruction and death on the evening news. I saw Tony's wife bump into the bar, trying to get another drink before Tony came out of his office. Her eyes swept the room, realizing no one saw her, everyone fascinated by the violence being unleashed on our enemies, in a Happy Hour trance. Angie headed her off. Frankie, the dishwasher, was drafted to take her home. "Haaaaaaappy Hour...." she called out as Frankie dragged her out the front door, a blur of peacock-blue-shadow-buffed eyes, heaving cleavage in unbuttoned uniform shirt and trailing apron . She was supposed to waitress the dinner shift but she never made it past Happy Hour. No one noticed her leave as they were all counting missile strikes. Angie split up a group of belligerent salesmen, waving me to set up three tables, seat them now and feed them. With an hour of Happy Hour left they didn't want to leave the bar with its cheap drinks and images of death dropping bombers, strafed villagers, burning towns. So we turned up the dining room t.v.'s and let the salesmen shout over the sounds of murder and eat their pasta carbonara to war.
Officer O'Hara's defiant, startlingly beautiful red-haired wife drank a martini alone by the door, eyes locked in a laser-razor stare with Officer Ray, at the opposite end of the bar, diamond-dotted gold dice glittering around his neck, drinking scotch neat. He was secretly meeting Officer O'Hara's wife, upstairs in one of Tony's rooms, at Happy Hour several times a week.
Eva was seating me her most hated customer, a lone woman diner with a book, in the back corner, "away from the boys, she'll take care of you, hon."
Frankie ran back in through the bar, frantic, looking for Tony's extra set of car keys, the wife had locked herself in the car and was drinking a bottle of scotch she had stashed in her bag. Angie was pulling Eva away from an irate local, when Frankie interrupted her.
"That fucking kraut can't tell me what to do," Eva slapped the man, knocking his glasses off. Frankie, startled, backed into a pilot who pushed him back at Eva. Angie grabbed Eva by the arm and pulled her into the kitchen, where Eva lit a cigarette butt on the stove, and as the local was leaving stubbed it in his face. When the police returned, the bar was packed, and they couldn't get inside. But Eva came out on the steps and cursed them so loud they just left. Tony's wife was fast asleep in the Cadillac, ten minutes left of Happy Hour to go.
Blue Menu...Desserts of Desire
The first splash woke me. Shaking her hair, tightening the threads on her thong-bikini, the second secretary flung herself off the diving board.
I was cat-napping between shifts, the tourist season over. The motel was empty except for a film crew making a documentary about migrant workers. Finished filming for the day, some were resting by the pool, talking among themselves; others were skate-boarding in the parking lot or passing around beers. The rest were lounging in front of their motel rooms with their feet up. Reading, smoking, talking. The three secretaries were prancing pool edge, beneath the tangled canopy of grapevines sheltering the deck and mineral-water swimming pool, in the Happy Haven Motel.
The motel was in a small town of hot springs, ranches, and grape vineyards. The main drag of tourist shops was backed by homes with junked cars, refrigerators and bicycles out front. Backyards stretched into deep vineyard valley, sun-tarnished hills rolled to the coast. Fog formed over the sea, slipping down daily into the valley. To erase everything, and then reveal it in another, new and different light.
I'd left an uneasy relationship, not for the first time. I missed him, but did not let anyone know where I was. I wasn't certain what I would do with my life next. So I gave myself over to early, warm fall nights, hot tubs full of stars at midnight, constant swimming in the pool, mornings when the thick fog let you imagine your life to be anything you wanted.
Hired to waitress lunch and dinner shifts in the busy motel cafe, I was paid in part with a small apartment. Next door to me lived the mud bath masseuse with occasional biker boyfriends; on the other side was the chef's apartment. The elderly Italian owners of the motel lived upstairs, with a hawk's view of the valley. Below, on an old stone terrace, was the cafe.Lunches were fast, with house-made bread sandwiches, dense soups, lemonade, sinful desserts eaten by local businessmen, tourists, ranchers, and growers. At dinner, the chef, a young boy from the culinary institute, came out and sat with the pink-faced, mud-bathing tourists. He bought them drinks, practicing his new-found sophistication, talking about restaurants, food, women and cars. I watched the tourists, not demanding customers, and neighboring vineyard owners and growers who came to be massaged, sit in mineral baths, eat big meals and drink regional wines.
Occasionally I talked to or waited on the film crew. They were very organized, leaving the motel before I was up, sometimes returning for lunch and then leaving quickly. They might borrow some markers, my scissors, some paper, or offer me a beer just before they turned up the music. A secretary might ask me if I had a safety pin, hair conditioner. Some liked to play with my dog, Lucky. The photographer took photos of Lucky, doing his only 'trick', which involved jumping on anything you pointed at with your finger. He had photographed him jumping on car hoods, into trees, off the diving board, into tourists laps, on top of horses, fences, cows, anything. I had found Lucky lost and malnourished, and like any creature deprived of love, he was shameless for attention. One of the film crew had a surf board he threw into the pool, between surf trips to the coast, and paddled around, my dog sitting on top. I watched the crew zip back and forth between their rooms like ants, passing papers, bottles, CD's, folders, food. The surfer attracted attention with his handsome body, his deep, hypnotic voice. And, I thought, only in L.A. would the secretaries be so attractive. The chef made jokes about them, though, which annoyed me, calling them Bambi, Bimbo, and Barbi. I told him to be respectful of his clientele.
Local ranchers were friendly, inviting me to their homes; one invited me to a cocktail party. I was intrigued to see his vineyards, as he was an art collector and curator. I was told he had placed works of art among his cows, pond, oak grove and grapevines; large sculptures studded his land, and the barn was a museum of contemporary art.
When I arrived at the art collector's ranch the film crew was wandering around in big rubber boots. The collector liked to give all his guests boots when he took them out on his muddy grounds. I put on a pair and walked down to the pond, Lucky trailing me, where a dozen people stood around a Cadillac half submerged in mud. Everyone was listening carefully to details on the art piece from the collector. When he saw me he stopped talking, shook my hand and surveyed us, the three secretaries, several of the film crew and a group of his friends. All around us was deep chocolate mud from the pond, from a recent downfall, runoff from the creek. Cattle, munching dinner nearby, were easy with chrome spaceships, enormous vinyl dogs, the crashed Cadillac, naked, concrete women crouching by their trough.
"I'll pay you each $300 to take off your boots and walk through the mud." The art collector pronounced, clapping his hands together and putting them under his chin, like a prayer. He pointed at Lucky and then at the mud. Lucky jumped in. The collector looked directly at me, to the secretaries. I didn't feel he was addressing any else. I laughed, making a joke of it, but stopped when one of the secretaries kicked her boots high in the air. She slid carefully into the mud with sucking sounds. The other two joined her, leaning towards each other, hugging, sliding deeper, the mud sliding up their short skirts, to the tops of their thighs. They caressed each other, writhing, intertwining, watching the collector. The collector was delirious with the performance; his girlfriend was laughing, hanging on the arm of the surfer, the photographer filming it all.
I walked out by myself in a circle around the land, muddy Lucky behind me. I passed by the vineyard dripping with fat, late-summer grapes like rubies. Underneath, gnarled vines tiny leaping emerald lizards scattered. Down to the pond, back to the barn, looking at artwork documented in magazines and art books. Returning to the house, I had a glass of wine. The mud-bathing video playing repeatedly on a screen; myself in the background, the collector laughing, his girlfriend running her hands over the arms of the surfer, his friends talking and staring at the girls, Lucky in the midst. I used the bathroom before leaving and found the secretaries showering. They were laughing, giggling, and wrapping themselves in towels while their clothes dried in the dryer. I talked with a few familiar faces from the cafe, watching the sun slowly drop into fog threatening the collector's playground of crashed toys.
By 7:30 p.m. I was back at the cafe, where I jumped into the Friday night dinner rush, letting Michelle go home to her family. After my shift I sat out under the fall moon in the hot tub. The photographer joined me; he looked younger than he acted, reserved, a person who thanked you very seriously for your service and left a generous tip. The rest of the film crew partied by the pool. We sat in silence.
"Where's Lucky?" he asked after a while.
"Under the tub, waiting for mice to run through that spot of light." I pointed by the open kitchen door revealing chairs on tables while the dishwasher mopped.
"He's such a great dog. That was some scene with the art collector, " he paused, "I thought you might jump in the mud too."
"I wanted to walk around and see things, I don't jump on command for money. I wanted to get back to work."
"It's just, I mean, I knew it wasn't for the money, I didn't mean that, oh, I don't know what I mean anymore. It's so beautiful here, I don't want to go home. You're a nice person." His voice was thick. I realized he was crying, suddenly sobbing.
"This isn't, I'm not what you think, this isn't a documentary crew like I told you before. I'm not a liar either, they just asked me to be discreet, I don't know, it's not something I really want to blab about anyway. We're making a porno film just out of town on a ranch. It's our last day, we're leaving tomorrow. It's my second film. They pay me good money, and they want me to make more with them. My wife just had a baby and I can't wait to go home. But the film is ruining my marriage, my life, I can't make love to my wife when I go home. I don't know what to do. What can I do? I'm afraid to go home."
I couldn't see his face. The night sat between us on bubbling water; fog licked the air, circling the motel. His hand clenched the hot tub edge, back-lit by the gold blinking motel sign. I didn't know what to say. I didn't say anything. They were gone the next day when I woke up.
COCONUT STEW...t'row de coco milk in an' stir de whole t'ing up
"Supper?" I asked, not having heard that word in a while.
"Yes, supper. Harvey wants us to prepare and serve one large afternoon or early evening meal, depending on surf conditions, for ten to twelve people for five days. He also wants breakfast available but not necessarily served. Can you imagine flying, and this is his count, a bottle of wine a day for each person? I'll probably end up taking 70 bottles of wine besides other beverages and the espresso machine. What I want from you is a list of equipment and supplies you need."
Max looked at me over the twelve glasses of wine pierced by low sunset light, spilling shots of ruby and purple to tawny-gold all over his kitchen. Eleven surfboards were rack-stacked to the ceiling, fighting for space with wine crates, a sommelier medal hung from the tip of a longboard. Max was small, neat and wiry. There was nothing accidental about Max or his movements. He was serious, almost humorless. He didn't strive to entertain his clients. He poured me another wine.
"Try this New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, perfect for the tropics, a noseful of apricot and pineapple. The island is ten miles of uninhabited bush, a hunk of coral flush with natural springs. Harvey hasn't been to the island since he bought it six years ago. That's when I saw it. The reef is soft, covered in sea-moss, which by the way, is now more expensive than gold per ounce. There's a run-down plantation house with a wild garden in back that then drops several hundred feet down to the sea. The house faces the bay, incredible view. The island was a pirate hide-out, then a slave trading block, later a whaling port. It's covered in coconut trees. There's fishing, crabbing and perfect surf just before rainy season. Harvey's planning daily helicopters drop-offs, for visitors and supplies. What do you think of that Cabernet from Chile? I like this light Australian blend. The tropics isn't the best place for drinking heavy wines. I actually prefer drinking rum or cachaca in the heat."
Max uncorked another bottle. "Harvey says he has four dietary concerns, that's four people, not one. It's his girlfriend's birthday, Annette, he just started dating her, she's a surf pro and she's vegetarian. He wants a flourless vegan cake for her party. I'll bring champagne. His daughter, Elsie, just graduated from college, and she's bringing her boyfriend, Tony. Elsie's macrobiotic. Tony eats anything. Karina, a Brazilian singer I never heard of only eats fish. A photographer will show up later in the week to take surf photos for two days, he's diabetic. At some point, Harvey's banker friend is arriving on his ship. He's on the Atkins diet and has his own chef onboard. But Harvey wants a supper party, so here's everyone's number, or their assistant. Get detailed diet specifications. Harvey's business partner Richard and his girlfriend Golden and Harvey's best friend Julian, with his wife Leilea, are arriving late afternoon of the first day. Richard is difficult, Harvey says, and Leilea is even worse; she's pregnant. Harvey's ex-wife just re-married so he's celebrating. But she's not coming. Any questions?"
"Are there other employees on this trip? Do we cook for them? Where do we sleep? In tents, in huts, what? It's almost the rainy season there for God's sake. All this for a surf trip?" I was disturbed. People don't realize the work involved to make camp in sites unseen.
"Harvey has six employees who will be nearby the whole time. They'll help us out, and they'll take care of their own meals. Harvey's had tents made for everyone, all different colors, specially designed for the tropics with mosquito netting, rain-flaps, water-proofed, yet cool. We'll be near Harvey's guests in case they want something. It's just a laid-back surf trip, don't worry, it's going to be easy and Harvey tips well. We won't have to work for months. Here's something just for us." Max sliced foil, plunged the corkscrew, and pulled the cork out before I even noticed the bottle in his hand.
We circled Harvey's island in the early morning light. The sea looked like a bucket of snakes as it was tossed by a fast-moving storm. I thought I saw a thin plume of smoke rising near the sheer cliff on the outside of the horseshoe-shaped island. Surf pounded the reef, sending spray high into the air. Monkeys and birds exploded out of trees. Land crabs scurried up the beach into wind-whipped coconut trees as we landed.
"Oh hell, Max, they left that tent gear mid-tide line. At full moon high tide in three days camp will be washed away."
"Yeah, some of Harvey's boys aren't too water-savvy."
Dragging tent bags into the trees we discovered why they dropped everything mid-beach.
"Sand flies," I yelled at Max the minute the rain and wind stopped.
We cleared and burned bush to smoke out flies while the crew finished setting up Harvey's brightly striped custom-made tents next to us. The crew's camouflage tents were around a bend down the beach.
We loped around the island near sunset. Detouring inland to the abandoned house, we found a wide entry road winding through overgrown grounds. It left us gaping at the collapsed plantation-style porched house. Everything was fallen over, the roof neatly covering it. But the large yard in the front of the house was immaculate. Behind the house I saw a coconut frond broom. Beside it, tiny fingers of turmeric and aloes grew beside wild yams, cassava, herbs, and hibiscus flowers. Soursop, banana, guava, mango and breadfruit trees had dropped very little ripe fruit on the ground. Not a tended food plot, used, picked-through, cleaned, not exactly cared-for, but thriving. I took as much as I could carry.
It nagged me that the house was at the highest point on the island.From the house front-yard I saw our camp with the helicopter preparing to leave for the night. Fishing boats scooted home beneath black clouds on the horizon. Birds screeched about dinner, and monkeys flung themselves through the trees hooting at us.
Back at camp we found bunches of coconuts stacked high by my tent. Who among Harvey's employees could commandeer coconuts and leave them so neatly tied together, with carefully twisted handles, in bunches for carrying? We didn't care, we drank so many of them we were sedated, almost drunk, stirring coconutstew by starlight.
When Elsie, Tony and Annette arrived in the early morning, the crew trotted to their camp and the helicopter left. We had come from surfing, refreshed and ready for them. We served banana bread, espresso, green cocos and mangoes the size of baby's heads. Annette flirted so outrageously with Tony, Elsie burst into tears and stayed in her tent until Harvey arrived later. Annette laughed it off. She was like an Amazon, big, healthy and difficult to refuse. She hit the surf the minute Harvey landed, followed by Tony, a surf instructor with salt-bleached hair and a crooked smile. Harvey looked momentarily stunned, but I could hear him talking to Elsie.
"Honey, you're just tired from traveling. You're all about the same age, sweetie. Tony and Annette have known each other for years, so try to get along. You just don't know Annette yet, but you'll eventually like her. I know there's a few flies out there, but let's go to the beach. I brought you a brand new board, look outside."
Harvey finally lured his daughter from her tent, and later, hunched over supper, they discussed her summer plans. She planned a European trip with Tony, eventually meeting up with friends. Annette and Tony drank three bottles of wine. After supper Harvey's friends arrived in the twilight ultramarine paradise.
"Sandflies," Golden chirped, running to her designated tent, throwing a shawl over her tiny dress and covering her amazing dancer's physique. Barrel-chested, short-legged Richard trotted behind her. Julian shook my hand.
"Chefs always get all my attention," he said by way of introduction. Julian was a successful sculptor largely due to Harvey's patronage, a rugged, lean and intriguing man. I'd seen articles on his work in art magazines, graffiti sprayed aluminum works as big as cars. Leilea fled to her tent, "I don't feel well," were her words of greeting. Julian ignored her. She was his high-school sweetheart and having their fourth child.
Finally Max and I were left cleaning up. Harvey and his friends were by the fire, pausing to listen to the surf's pounding grind as they drank and talked.
"I have this all drawn up," Harvey told Richard and Julian. "The house will be built just behind us. Over there I'm going to put in a huge deck and concrete chopper pad, further down there I'll put in a jetty. All the bush and those old coco trees will be cut back to get rid of the sandflies. Benny's doing the designs and he's going to cut down the bamboo and make a tree-house guest house attached to the back."
"Yeah, I figure if we give Lionel the software division and let him run with it, he'll be doing what he does best." Richard was slurring, sweating, his chest heaving. He was pouring a fabulous twenty year tawny port. "That'll take you off the field and you can take that R&R and we can call in the big boys to shape up the marketing troops. I mean, we shot 'em all down and we haven't even brought out the big guns yet. With just three more contracts a month we'll still be beating 'em all to a pulp. The battle isn't over until we lay down."
Harvey just kept on talking as if no one was there. "I bought an old Roman chapel last year in Italy and I'm shipping it here with the columns. We'll get married in it and christen our first baby in it. Then Annette and I are going to live here most of the year. I can't wait to show you the chapel, Julian, you're going to love those old pieces, they'll look wonderful here by the sea. And I want that one piece you just finished right by the chopper pad."
"That's great," Julian purred. "I'm working on some smaller pieces to scatter in the jungle. Like Mayan sculpture in the Yucatan, you just stumble on some wonderful tortoise or snake or jaguar stone carving on paths between temples. Once I was in the Mexico City museum and hundreds of huge, carved-stone, coiled rattlesnakes covered the floor, as if they had so many they didn't know what to do with them. It was the most amazing experience, as if the jungle had been stolen, each piece radiated a wild energy. It actually frightened me, really, I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could and yet I couldn't leave. Each snake was different, so intriguing, so incredible."
Harvey sighed and stood up, knocking over his camp-chair, stumbling to the edge of the jungle to take a piss.
I had two trays of food for Elsie and Golden, and herb tea for Leilea. I heard Annette and Tony laughing hysterically somewhere in the bush behind us. Elsie was still crying in her tent. Leilea was moaning with nausea. Golden was stretching in her tent. Harvey spent the rest of the night drinking and talking with Julian and Richard, their eyes locked on Golden doing yoga, every move silhouetted by the campfire.
At dawn the next day, another quick storm whipped past the island. It sent coco fronds crashing around the camp and nuts flying in every direction making it dangerous to move about. But we watched the clouds pass, and then the birds screamed so loudly in the trees they drove us all out.
So Max and I went to the closest spring we had passed the day before. Sweet water gurgled out of the coral. We left bottles to fill on our return. The peacefulness that pervaded the tiny spot washed us cleaner than the water as we bathed. The spring was so pure it filled a deep rock hole but seemed as though nothing was there. As I turned I saw a piece of mashed aloes, hibiscus and lime on a rock.
"You know there's people here on this island," I said.
"I was trying to ignore them and just leave in a week."
"First the cocos. The crew didn't bring them, they thought I was crazy. Then the garden and broom. Now this. Jah shampoo, dreadlock fortifier and pre-eminent mind sanctifier." I held the viscous crushed plants up to him in the tiny morter and pestle of beach rocks. "Aloes to clean and thicken, hibiscus leaves to redden and lime for bleaching gold. Rastas want a lion's mane, being Lions of Judah."
"Whoever it is, I don't think they want guests. I saw fresh boat marks in the sand where they tried to cover them."
"You sure it wasn't that wacky crew of Harvey's with the zodiac? Well, I feel the same way, live and let live."
We used the spring water for mixing drinks and making a coconut stew as flying fish thrashed the amethyst sunset at the end of the second day.
The next morning the monkeys tore up the camp while we were all out. Then they hung from the trees jeering at us, wearing scarlet thongs, jockey shorts, bikini bras and socks on their heads. Someone's diaphragm covered a little monkey's head. Then they threw our things back down at us. I got pelted by my own grater, thankfully, as the generator had given out and I couldn't grate coconut for the cake I was planning without the electric blender and grater.
Richard went surfing and stepped on a manta-ray tail-barb. He lay disabled in his tent. Tony was shocked by the centipede he had seen curled in his bed and checked everything repeatedly. Elsie never left her tent; I took her food. Harvey said to humor her; she was stressed from school. Later Harvey's banker friend arrived on his ship, anchoring outside the reef, flying in his helicopter from the deck. Max dug a pit for roasting breadfruit, fish and a pig watched by Golden, Tony and Annette while they drank. Leilea needed constant amounts of green cocos and herb teas to quell her nausea and stayed in her tent. Julian surfed all day, returning in the late afternoon with Harvey.
Karina had hitched a ride with the banker, sleeping all day in her cabin, and arriving at sunset as the full moon rose. She was barefoot, in white satin pants, her red hair a halo of flame. Her bodyguard had a jaguar tattooed on the side of his head, and his eyes never left her except to do a fast scan of camp every few minutes.
They ate the crispy pig and island-style banquet, drinking wine, growing louder and more raucous until the bushes were finally silent, as if every animal on the island were listening or watching and waiting. Karina sat on Julian's lap. Elsie finally came out of her tent for a few minutes and sat next to her groggy 'unkie Richard', who brushed her hair with his hand, sedated for pain by the banker's first-aid kit. Tony was passed out by the fire. Golden closed her eyes and danced sinuously, until Karina knocked her over jumping up to gyrate and then slither around the campfire suggestively in front of Julian. When Annette leapt up to dance she grabbed one of the crew and tossed her shirt in the bushes. The bodyguard sat to the side of the clearing, watching, but not moving except to eat. Leilea emerged from her tent and talked with the banker, complaining of pregnancy difficulties until he held her hand. Some of the ship's crew crouched back by the trees, smoking and watching. The end of day three was early, after Annette's cake, around ten, when everyone stumbled to their tents.
A few hours later I thought I heard a helicopter, but dozed off. Rain fell, and I knew the sand flies would be vicious. I tried to sleep, but after the rain I heard a brushing on my tent. A steady beat, a sort of gentle clawing on the fabric in a rhythm.
"Missus, missus, we be coming here to reach understandings wid you."
"Who's that, who's there?" I asked, wide-awake, opening the tent flap. Max suddenly appeared.
"Missus, Jah, Irie greetings, don be fearing, we be here in peaceful movements. We be bringing two kind news."
Three tall, dignified men stood before us. They looked so distraught I motioned them into the tent and they folded themselves onto my floor. Their skin glistened with coconut oil, perfume heavy in the tent, their eyes so white they glimmered. Great manes of hair, black roots to bronze-red to gold to silver tips, brushed the walls of my tent. Bodies like hammers, but their gentle spirit dispelled any fear I might have.
"Irie, jah, dreads. Missus we see you be da queen here. You be livin' in de colors of de Lion of Judah an' you be givin' food to all. We see you be delightin' in de garden, we be glad Jah righteousness feed you. But dis night be terrible t'ings happening. De water rise up big here on de beach in dis moon-time and de storm gonna eat youse house of colors. Best go up by de high house. De second t'ing is de thieves. Dey be taking you brother an' sister when they be up in the night fornicating in de garden. Dose two be bringing theyselves bad t'ings to dis island. De thieves be asking for de big boat on de reef and they let you family go. Soon as you move you bird from de boat, dey gonna bring de two family back. Dis not be de ways we be keepin here for jah, dis be spiritual ground here, we be trusted to keep dis land in Jah."
"You be bringing Babylon here." One of the men said pointing at me.
"Dese times be filled wid dese people an' dey bad t'inkings." The other said. A tiny, baby monkey climbed excitedly around his head, grabbing his locks like ropes, making it's way around as if it were in a tree. The man grabbed the little thing and soothed it with his fingers, whispering to it, and then placed it back on his head.
"Be quiet, Crow. Kwashi, be still. Missus, I be Sea-Cat an' dese be righteous brothers. We be dealin' wid de thieves for a long time, dey be taking de herb we be carryin' in de fishing boat. We don have friendly dealin's wid dese two. Dey be carryin' guns. We leave de herb in de yard an' never go near de two thieves or de bird when dey be comin'."
It took a few minutes for me to understand. My tent was gold, with burgundy and olive stripes. Rastafarian colors of the Lion of Judah. They were transporting marijuana, and their connection had kidnapped Tony and Annette. At that moment the loudest thunder I had ever experienced crashed in the night.
The men stood quickly, as if drawn up by their spines, and nodding, they left. The breakers on the beach roared behind us. Max and I ran through the tents, waking everyone. Elsie supported Richard, who could barely walk. Tony was so high I couldn't see his eyes in their sockets. The banker's crew carried Annette who was so drunk we couldn't wake her and Leilea who was crying and moaning. Harvey's crew had already arrived; their tents had been dragged out to sea. Julian and Karina clung to each other. Max and Karina's bodyguard carried lamps, machetes and guns provided by the banker. Everyone staggered to the house against the wind under an ominous full-moon ringed in red. We couldn't find Harvey and Golden.
At first dawn the air was so still and the flies were so thick I crushed them in my hand. We had shelter under an edge of the porch roof, watching a smudgy black line in the sky slowly approach for several hours. The wind increased in strength, becoming so strong at the top of the island we couldn't stand upright. Coco trees bent down flat, branches slammed against the house. Looking down on the bay I saw our tents were gone. The sea was chopping off hunks of beach each time they broke, leaving the coral reef exposed like bones. We had never found Golden and Harvey. Harvey's employees tried to call the other island, the mainland or Harvey, frantically, on phone and radio. The banker's ship crew was leaving the helicopter as we watched. Then we heard another helicopter roar up from the cliff behind us, just grazing the yard, dumping two bodies tied together onto the ground. Golden was hysterical, crying and shivering. Harvey was out cold. They were bound with boat ropes so tight they had blood bruises.
We watched the two helicopters trade places in the sky. The banker's helicopter and crew landed as the sky darkened. The dope-thieve's helicopter landed on the banker's ship just as water fell as if a hose were pointed at us. Visibility was zero while it rained for several hours. When it stopped the sea was red with mud, the waves were crazy from the wind, and high tide bucked up off the reef flinging tent and gear back onto the beach. The banker's ship had lost an anchor and was swinging wildly around when its line snapped. It was rolled by a set of dirty waves, keeled over, and was swept outside the bay. The thieve's helicopter sank onto the reef.
Harvey's crew finally contacted the mainland. Two helicopters were due in a few hours when the storm had passed completely as the banker's helicopter was too small and didn't have enough fuel. Harvey had regained consciousness and with it, immediately, his composure. He was furious, barking orders at everyone. I escaped to the garden behind the house, walking through storm-tossed fruit, broken plants, and shredded flowers. Bushes were flattened, revealing a rope dangling over the edge. Smoke rose up over the cliff and I leaned over the edge, peering down the coral wall several hundred feet to the raging surf below. About twenty feet below one of the rastas peered up at me. He beckoned me to come down. I must have looked terrified because he laughed, ducking back into his cliff-cave, then pulled himself up the rope like a spider. The wall was wet and slippery, but I could see there were several ledges. He jumped up beside me in seconds.
"Missus, you be done here, now you come down an' be de guest of us."
His strength reassured me, so I let myself be guided down the rope to the cave. Smoke billowed out through the opening, music wailed from deep inside the cave, I smelled food. When my eyes accustomed to the dark I saw they had made themselves very comfortable. Bamboo shelves were built into the wall holding beds. Mats and gourds covered the immaculate floor surrounding a high rock holding a fire pit with three, bubbling iron pots. Herbs, sea moss, and bananas dangled from the ceiling. Tied coconut bunches rested against the wall beside breadfruit, yams and baskets filled with runner peas, passion-fruit, mangoes and limes. Colorful fabric was draped everywhere as if I were in a kaleidoscope tent. It seemed the music was emanating from a styrofoam cooler, I guessed, because everything was covered in a thin layer of salt.
"Missus, sit, sip dis passionfruit juice." Crow offered me a gourd and I drank it in a gulp.
"Do you live here? Who are you?"
Sea-cat said, "My fathers before me always live here. Dey be brung in chains from Africa, but dey be strong an' escape de wicked mens who catch dem. Dese boys," Sea-Cat shook Kwashi's neck, "come from de other islands. An' dis be our mother," He slapped the coral rock, "she be taking care of us and we be serving her. We be done here when we die. Dis island know us. "
"That man the herb thieves took, you know he owns this island?"
"Owns? What be dis word to you? He own de sea dat take he color-houses? He own de storm and de moon?" They all laughed at that. "Missus, it be good t'ings for us de thieves dey be gone now. Maybe others come back, but dey don know how we are here, and de t'ings dey want we don give. Look out at de water dey lef' here." Sea-cat pointed out the cave to the sea, iridescent with oil and gasoline spilled from the banker's ship. Great stripes of mottled water roiled around the rocks below. It was a mess.
"Dis owner, he gonna clean dis up? He gonna heal de dead fishes, clean de birds and de sand? Dis be we here for, to take care of de land, we be de steward here, serving de spirit of de earth. Dis is de t'ings Jah he tell us we do."
"But don't you want families, or wives? Maybe children or homes? How do you get around if you want to leave?"
"Look dere, lady," Sea-cat pointed down the cliff to a small fishing boat propped up neatly between two big rocks, in a small hidden cove, away from the reaches of the sea. "An', Missus we be getting so many chillun, Crow got six boys, I gots eleven chillun now, Kwashi only got two, but he be always working on dis. Dey all be on all different islands and happy wid all dey mamas, we come an' go an' see dey all."
"The owner wants to return here and build a home and live here, what will you do then?"
"Lady, you be smart, you be de giving queen of all dose sad peoples. What for dey gonna come back for now? You think dis mother here," Sea-Cat caressed the wall of the coral cave, " wants dese wicked chillun anyways? Jah be righteous, Jah be smart, he changes everyt'ing wid de storm. Jah be giving dis land to peoples who be killin' animals and foolin' wid dey theyselves? We be watchin' from de bush when you be cookin' for dem, and dey be playin games wid dey selves. An', Missus, can you tell me why dey be puttin' animals in de ground to dig up an' eat? Dis be very sorry ways dey be movin' in. All de animals be scared wid dese wicked ways. I never eat one animal in my life, dese boys grow up eatin' murder but now dey pure. We blessed to be bathing four an' five times in de day in dese springs from de island, purifying we selves and delightin in de ways of Jah, drinking dis fine sweet water an' eatin' de garden fruits, we swim in de sea an' go see de chilluns we got. Maybe jah be givin' dis land to youse people, but dey don never see de righteous t'ings happenin' in dis land. Dat owner now he gonna be goin' off again. "
Crow was grating coconut, pouring the milk into one of the pots. I guessed he was making coconut oil. All the while he was cooking and moving about; an enormous banana-flower, petal-wrapped spliff smoked in his lips. A tiny grass tied in a delicate knot held it together. The other iron pot was covered. When he finally lifted the lid, the delicious aromas of fresh bay, ginger, garlic, thyme, turmeric and onion escaped, filling my head. The third pot held bread, roasted to a tawny brown.
"Finish dat stew," Sea-Cat told him, "t'row de coco milk in an' stir de whole t'ing up."
Kwashi was watching out the cave opening as the storm was lifting. Dark clouds passed; a few last scattered showers splattered onto the floor and pooled. He swept them out, his monkey sitting quietly on his head, tiny hands holding locks fatter than his legs. Sea-Cat threw several mats onto the floor where we all sat and ate coconut stew in silence until Kwashi pointed at the tiny dots on the horizon.
"Quick, lady, go up de ropes now an' be over de top before de birds come back up by here an' youse peoples be missin' you."
Fortified with the coconutstew I climbed up the rope. I found myself back in my world with a shock. I felt let down, betrayed. I looked around. Everyone was gathered behind the house, just yards from the rope, but no one saw me. Karina was sleeping under a makeshift lean-to of two shirts, one of them Julian's. He lay resting nearby. Golden was silently sobbing, her knees pulled up to her chest, her face hidden. Elsie clung to Richard, who was whispering things to Harvey, as Harvey yelled into a hand radio. I didn't see Tony, but Annette was stalking around the yard. Leilea was resting in the shade by the house, perspiring heavily, eyes closed, the banker beside her. Harvey's crew and the banker's crew rested apart from everyone, under banana bushes. I saw Max and the bodyguard in the tangled flower garden, as the bodyguard rested his hand on Max's shoulder. Max put his hand up to the bodyguard's cheek, where the jaguar clawed at his eye. Then two helicopters rose up over the cliff, and everyone looked up, away from the island, at the end of day four.
