Naked white tourists have colonized the bays and coves.
They bask by turquoise waters
On shimmering beaches and hotel verandas
Swimming in Meyer’s Rum, Red Stripe beer,
and Blue Mountain coffee
Served by starched white tuxedos.

 

Stephen Chambers closed his notebook and shifted uncomfortably in the plastic lounge chair, squinting against the noonday sun. About fifty yards off the beach another of the boats was cruising by. In the last half-hour he’d identified three separate ones, though they all looked pretty much the same: long, narrow skiffs with small outboard motors, carrying only the drivers. For the most part they were ignored by the people onshore, but occasionally the dark figures in the boats, perceiving that they had caught the eye of a curious tourist, would wave and yell something that faded to meaningless gibberish before reaching the shoreline. A few on the beach responded with an embarrassed half-wave, but more often the object of the pilot’s interest would quickly avert her eyes in feigned ignorance of the greeting. Watching these shadows slip by through the water gave Stephen the curious sense of sitting in a leaky lifeboat as fins cut the surface around him. He peeled loose from the chair and reached for his sandals.

“I’m going to walk down the beach a bit. Do you need anything?”

His wife didn’t open her eyes or remove the thin headset of the iPod.

“Why can’t you just relax? Why are you always jumping up and running off somewhere?”

“You know I don’t like to just sit and bake in the sun. If I’m going to sweat I want to feel like I earned it.”

“They told me when we checked in yesterday that the east end of the hotel beach is for the topless sunbathers.”

He looked down at Elaine, but her expression hadn’t changed. From her tone he couldn’t tell if she was accusing or teasing him. He decided to let it pass.

“I’m just going to wander around a little. Do you want a drink or something?”

Elaine detected the note of irritation in his voice and opened her eyes. She smiled affably.

“Thanks, I’m fine.”

He walked across the hot sand to the thatched hut next to the pool, ordered a beer, and settled on a barstool. At the end of the dock two tourist women were talking to a man in one of the long boats. Another man in a suit, evidently one of the hotel managers, was hurrying down the pier, shouting something and waving his arms. The boatman untied and shoved off, drifting slowly away as the manager reached the end of the walkway and continued to animatedly harangue the figure that, in turn, mocked him with utter passivity. The women looked from him to the manager and back to the boat again.

“What’s the deal with those guys?” Stephen asked the bartender, nodding toward the scene.

“The hasslers? They bother the guests–offer to sell you junk, take you on tours. They’re illegal. No license or nothing. You don’t want to mess with them. They drive the hotel people crazy ’cause they pester the tourists so bad.”

“If they’re so unwelcome, why don’t they just go away?”

The bartender shrugged. “Everybody got to eat, you know.”

The manager was talking to the women now and gesturing toward the boat. The women gathered their beach bags and started down the dock toward the hotel, glancing over their shoulders every few steps. The man in the boat jerked his motor to life and headed toward the mouth of the cove, disappearing around a bend in the shoreline.

****

Stephen stood on the west end of the beach the next morning waiting for the dive boat. Around him in the sand lay his rented paraphernalia–tanks, buoyancy compensator, fins, and mask. It was eight o’clock, still early by vacation standards, and the white chairs that stood in precise rows near the water’s edge were deserted. A little farther down, where the beach faded into dense palms and underbrush, one of the long boats was pulled up on the sand, but there was no sign of the owner.

Stephen settled against one of the tanks and looked across the pale green shallows that blended into the blue near the cove opening. He had balked at first when Elaine suggested a trip to Jamaica for their eighteenth wedding anniversary. Most of their discretionary money for the last six months had gone into Jeremy’s mouth, and Stephen hated running up debt on the credit cards again after working so hard to pay them off. Still, he knew they needed the time away together and how much it meant to his wife, so he had reluctantly agreed. For now he was feeling pretty good about the decision. In four more weeks the first bell would ring and he’d be staring into sixty vacant adolescent eyes and wondering how he could possibly survive the next nine and a half months, just as he’d wondered the same thing for the last six or seven years. Somewhere around the middle of the first semester his sophomore English class would tackle The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and he would be that wretch, trapped in a drifting classroom with his ghastly pierced and pimpled crew, with no hope of deliverance until the Christmas holidays rolled around. Right now, though, he was a million miles from Cedar Creek High and orthodontists and Visa bills. Right now he was in paradise, and eighteen percent interest seemed like a reasonable price of admission.

“DIIIIIVING!”

Stephen jerked around at the sudden outburst. A tall, thin man had appeared only a few feet behind him and he stood looking down with a wide grin.

“I can take you there, mon, no problem. I know the reefs good here. Come with me, I take you where the locals go, not where they take the tourists, you know.”

Stephen glanced nervously toward the hotel. No one was out yet.

“Thanks, but I’ve already got something lined up. The boat should be here any minute now.”

“Irie. But I’m telling you, I know where to go. I got a better deal.”

He was a young man–though it was hard for Stephen to judge whether he was closer to twenty or thirty–with closely-cropped hair and a neat beard, and his dark black skin shone in the bright sunlight. He wore a baggy pair of Bermuda shorts with a marijuana leaf print; above was a thin white cotton shirt with the sleeves torn off, held together by the single remaining button just above the navel. His head bobbed on his long neck as though he were keeping time with a pulsing reggae beat.

“You American, eh?” He sat down on the sand next to Stephen.

“Yeah,” he replied, and the thought came to him that there might be more of them behind him, so he made a quick twisting scan of the perimeter but saw no one. Feeling that he had to explain this action, he added, “I don’t know what’s keeping the dive boat.”

“Who you going with?”

“The hotel dive guide.”

“Ron. Ron, he always late. My name’s Delroy. What you do for fun, Mr. American? You like to smoke? I got some good smoke.”

“No, thanks.”

Delroy sat quietly looking at him, evidently still expecting a response to his unanswered question. Stephen silently cursed Ron’s habitual tardiness as he struggled for something to say–something other than an admission that he wrote poetry for fun.

“I play golf,” he said finally, even though he hadn’t been on a course in ten years.

“Oh, yeah, golf. Of course.” Delroy nodded and smirked as though it was the only possible answer he could have expected. “Where’s your lady? She don’t dive?”

The question startled Stephen so much that he felt a quick shiver. Delroy must have noticed them on the beach together the day before; the fact that he had taken note of them and recognized Stephen this morning was particularly unsettling. He recovered himself and tried to sound disinterested when he answered.

“My wife isn’t feeling well this morning. Upset stomach.”

Delroy’s eyes widened. “I got just the thing.” He jumped up and ran to the boat pulled up on the beach and returned immediately. In his hand he had a coconut and a very large machete. Stephen’s back stiffened involuntarily.

“Water coconut,” said Delroy, setting to work with the tip of the machete. “Best thing for an upset stomach. My great grandfather, he was a doctor. He taught me everything about herbs and remedies. He was one hundred ten years old when he died.” He looked at Stephen. “You think I’m shittin’ you?” He grinned.

“There,” he said, presenting Stephen with the coconut. He had carved a neat triangular hole out of the top, then carefully replaced the plug to keep the liquid in. “Only $700 Jamaican. This will purify her system. Best thing for an upset stomach, guaranteed.”

While Delroy was working in his pharmacy a boat had appeared and headed toward their spot on the beach. Stephen rose with relief, dug in his pocket, and produced seven of the brightly colored bills. He knew he was being taken, but somehow hated to send the man away empty-handed after all the time he’d invested in his sales pitch. He accepted the smooth green object and busied himself with gathering his dive gear as the boat pulled onto the sand, the driver staring coldly at Delroy as he strolled away.

****

Stephen and Elaine followed the headwaiter toward the back of the hotel restaurant. “We’re a little crowded this evening,” the man explained. “I hope you won’t mind sharing a table.”

He seated them with a refined-looking couple in their mid-sixties. Introductions were made and after the second round of drinks they were all old friends. Robert was a banker in London and their annual business trips to attend to his offshore accounts in the Caymans always ended with a stay in Jamaica. They addressed the waiters by name and recommended menu items to their younger guests.

“This hotel is our favorite,” said Sheila. “It was owned until very recently, of course, by a British family. Last year they sold it–Indians, I think, Robert?–and we’re not sure what will happen. So far it seems fine, actually. They’ve retained the same management and they’re really quite good.” She leaned toward Elaine confidentially. “They’ve achieved that delicate balance, you see, of the staff being friendly without crossing the line into familiarity.”

“Still,” Robert said, “it’s hard to know what will happen to the island as a whole. Since we gave them their independence in ’62 and quit pouring money in, they’ve had a bit of a struggle. As of now, they have a huge foreign debt, high unemployment, double-digit inflation. Quite a mess, really. Good for us, though–keeps the prices low for the tourists.”

Elaine frowned. “I thought everything here was “No problem.”

Robert laughed. “Not for us, dear,” he said. “Not for us.” He signaled the waiter and ordered another round of drinks.

“But what about the people?” Elaine pressed. “Surely Jamaica doesn’t exist just to give foreign vacationers someplace to go. I mean, what do the people think? Of us, I mean?”

“Think? I would say they’re damned glad to have us–well, if not us, then at least our money. Tourism accounts for fifty percent of the country’s foreign revenue. The Jamaican people–” At this, Sheila touched his arm and he obligingly lowered his voice to a discrete whisper. “The Jamaicans have never been what you might call a terribly progressive bunch. They’re content, on the whole, to live their lives in a get-by fashion, you might say. And tourism is for them, well, found money!”

“Not that we’re condemning,” Sheila interjected. “Their attitude is part of their charm. It’s part of the reason we come here. The lazy lifestyle. Relaxed, you know. And, of course, it is so beautiful. Have you been up to Negril yet?”

With this question the food arrived and Stephen, who had kept a wary eye on Elaine during this exchange, was relieved to move on to new topics of conversation. His wife’s easygoing manner could disappear quickly if she saw a cause to champion, and her sympathies invariably lay with the underdog. Had she taken it upon herself to correct their dinner companions’ outmoded sociological views things could have become sticky. He was, in fact, a bit surprised that she’d let Robert and Sheila off the hook. There was a time he could have predicted almost word-for-word her rejoinder to their remarks, but now–now he wasn’t sure. He was never sure just what she was thinking.

****

Slow down. Time is a weak master here.
The island ambles, sways to the throb of a reggae bass
As the natives shuffle between Kingston and Montego Bay,
Breathing the apathy and ganja that permeate the air,
Numbing ambition.
No problem. No hurry. Nowhere to go.

 

“Hey, Mr. Rich American Golfer. How’s your lady?”

Stephen was walking on the east end of the beach, pausing occasionally to jot lines in his notebook and trying to look casual as he studied the glistening breasts of five sunbathing college girls out of the corner of his eye. Delroy had been standing with a group of men that had pulled their boats onto the sand a little farther up the beach, and he walked over before Stephen recognized him and could turn and escape. For a moment Stephen considered telling Delroy the truth, which was that the $8.00 coconut he’d sold him yesterday tasted so vile his wife almost puked when she took a sip of the clear liquid inside. “Tell your buddy on the beach I’d rather be sick than dead,” she had said.

“She’s feeling much better today,” Stephen said.

Delroy beamed. “I knew she would. That old man, he knew stuff.”

“What makes you think I’m rich?” asked Stephen.

Delroy laughed lightly. “Poor people don’t come to this island, mon. They just live here.”

Stephen walked down to the water and swished his feet to relieve the heat from the sand. “Well, maybe I would be rich, but I’ve been making payments on my dentist’s boat for the last few months. You got any kids, Delroy?”

“Five,” he answered with a hint of pride in his voice. “I got two in Kingston, one in Brown’s Town, and two in Ocho.”

“You’ve been married three times?”

“Married? Who told you that?” He winked. “Still, I got to provide. I used to work at the sugar mill before it shut down. My woman, she don’t understand, but there ain’t no work now but–” He paused. “My sister, she work for a tour company in Montego Bay. All day, she riding buses, smiling and listening to half idiot people complain ’bout everything. I say, ‘How can you do that?’ and she say, ‘You do what you got to do.’ But she say I can’t do what she does. She say I got a bad attitude.” He chuckled. “My woman, she just say I’m lazy.”

Stephen looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to the hotel room. We’re supposed to go to the Shaw Park gardens in a little while, then another tour. See some more of Jamaica.”

“Flowers and trees,” said Delroy. “Flowers and trees. We got a lot of flowers and trees.” He looked past the American down the shoreline at the greasy white flesh stretched on immaculately dressed sands, at the beautiful Victorian architecture of the hotel, at the huge marble fountain that dribbled into the pool. “You want to know what Jamaica’s really like, you go to Kingston. This,” he said with a backhanded wave, as though trying to sweep it away, “ain’t Jamaica.”

He stood silently for a moment, his face somber and thoughtful. Then, remembering himself, he slipped back into his salesman’s suit. “I tell you what. Right up there is the White River,” he said, pointing to the east. “I take you and your lady up the river, show you where they have the reggae festival every year. You want to see flowers and trees, I’ll take you where they grow natural, wild. None of this garden shit.” More to himself than to Stephen, he added wryly, “And if you want to see Jamaica, I take you to my house.”

Stephen hesitated, pretending to actually consider the suggestion. “Not today, but thanks for the offer. Look, Delroy, I’ve got to get back. My wife will be waiting.”

“Your wife, she good in bed, eh?”

The question was so impossible that Stephen wasn’t sure he’d understood him. He turned to look directly into the gap that punctuated the big white teeth.

“I beg your pardon? What did you say?”

“Your wife, she a real pretty lady. Nice, you know? But I just wanted to know if you maybe were looking for a little something special while you here, you know? ‘Cause I know this girl, she really likes to party.” He gave a low whistle. “Good stuff. I could set you up.”

At the suggestion Stephen felt a tingle in his scalp. He studied Delroy, who had turned his face back toward the water and resumed slowly swaying to the calypso band that played incessantly in his head. Stephen allowed himself a few seconds before completely dismissing the notion. He had never cheated on Elaine in the twenty years they’d been together, and he certainly wouldn’t risk it with one of Delroy’s whores; still, it made for a more exotic fantasy than he was accustomed to. There was something about this island and its people. Everything was so–sensual. The beat, the sweat, the overwhelming lushness of the place could make a man forget himself. And wasn’t that what he wanted to do, really? To escape the frightening images that dogged him, the insistent inner voices that reminded him of his inadequacies and that threatened to soon drown out every choked self-assurance he could summon?

And this man, Delroy, who offered to show him another country, another world, both held the ticket and barred the door to his freedom. He was so uninhibited, so self-assured, that he mocked Stephen’s fantasy of finding a new and better self in this Caribbean sanctuary. With his swaggering demeanor and casual, congenial scorn for the foreign invaders who had made themselves at home on Jamaica’s shores, the young man only intensified the American’s insecurities.

In an effort to regain a measure of his own sense of self Stephen offered a wink and the most patronizing tone he could muster. “I’ll bet you’d sell me your own mother for the right price.”

Delroy’s face grew serious.

“No, mon, I wouldn’t do that.” His face was a perfect deadpan, and for a moment Stephen’s secret spirit leapt at the thought that he had found a nerve. Then the young man continued: “You wouldn’t like her. She been dead too long.” He burst into loud, self-appreciative laughter, clapped Stephen on the shoulder, and sauntered off toward the group waiting near the boats.

Elaine was reading when Stephen returned to the room. He paused by the door to admire her slim figure stretched on the bed. Seeing her in a bikini always made him more aware of his own middle-aged spread.

“I saw Delroy on the beach,” he said.

“Who? Oh, your witch doctor friend. Did you get your money back?”

“He offered to set me up with a woman.”

“And did you accept?”

“I told him I’d only do it if he had a date for you, too.”

Elaine laughed. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

Stephen sat on the bed next to her. “Are you happy?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s beautiful and the service is excellent.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She searched his face for a moment, then picked up his hand and kissed it. “I’m glad we’re here together,” she said quietly.

She still had not answered his question–not directly, at least–but Stephen could not bring himself to press the point. If she was being purposely evasive, he decided that he would rather not know it. Not now, at least. Not here.

****

Tour buses whine up steep mountain roads
Through rank dripping green
Stopping for jerk chicken from roadside stands
And poses in waterfalls. Later, limbo dancing
Under the stars while the steel drums ring
And the red eye of the video camera winks at folly.

 

The floor show at the hotel was in full swing. Purple and yellow and green and white and red costumes swirled among the guests seated on the patio as the music reverberated in their bellies and a rising tide of rum punch lifted them into that tranquil oblivion that is tourist nirvana. A fire-breathing native belched forth magnificent flares that elicited awed gasps from the crowd; another performer juggling machetes kept the people squirming in their chairs. Then the drums started–three large congas played by stern men in dreadlocks. A muscular man appeared on stage dressed only in tight white shorts, and the girl who joined him wore a halter-top and a sheer skirt slit past her thigh. They began a writhing dance that transported the scene deep into the rainforest, to the licking flames of a massive long-ago campfire where forbidden chants rose with the cinders into the inky sky and ecstatic slaves abandoned themselves to music and passionate liberties. The crowd went along with them, many of them half-embarrassed by the blatantly erotic nature of the dance yet unable to turn away from the voyeuristic gratification it offered.

Stephen noticed a group sitting at a front row table only feet from the performers. The women were middle-aged black American tourists who were having the time of their lives. He imagined them as staunch pillars of their southern hometown Baptist church who were on sabbatical leave from their self-imposed moral standards and the prying eyes of the brethren. As the dance intensified the volume of the nervous laughter from the table increased. Stephen thought this was one story they wouldn’t be sharing on testimony night next Sunday back home.

After the floor show Stephen and Elaine strolled down the beach in the direction of their hotel room. They were both a little drunk and walked unsteadily on the soft sand, alternately hindering and supporting each other as they clung tightly to each other’s waists. The full moon had dusted the bay with a million twinkling stars and the cool sea breeze caused Stephen’s skin to prickle with anticipation. Elaine looked fantastic in her short white cotton sun dress that accentuated her freshly burnished tan and Stephen was in a hurry to get back to the room.

They didn’t notice the three men until they were almost upon them. Delroy and two others were sitting on a fallen palm tree. As the startled couple pulled up short, Elaine emitted a faint “Oh!” and instinctively tightened her grip on Stephen’s shirt. The three looked up at them and after a moment Delroy broke into his customary gap-toothed grin. He passed his cigarette to the person next to him and said, “Look, look, look, it’s my friend the golfer and his lady! You been down at the show. You like it? My cousin, he plays in the band.”

Stephen was in no mood for another conversation with this man. “Yeah, it was a good show,” he said, tugging at Elaine’s waist in an effort to get her moving again toward their room. But Elaine didn’t move.

“So you must be Delroy,” she said.

Delroy turned to his friends and said something in the Jamaican patois that Stephen could not understand. They laughed quietly as Delroy stood up.

“I understand that you were trying to fix up my husband with one of your girlfriends,” said Elaine. Her tone was teasing, not confrontational.

“Oh, no, no, I would never do that!” Delroy protested. “Why would he want that when he already have such a beautiful lady? Listen, your husband told you how I can take you up the river to see where they have the reggae festival? It’s a nice trip up the river–very romantic. I take you up there in my boat tomorrow morning, what do you say?”

“No, sorry, we’re leaving tomorrow morning,” said Stephen quickly. “Maybe we’ll take your trip next time.”

“Aw, that’s too bad, mon.” And then, confidentially to Elaine: “He bring you here and all you get to see is hotels and tour buses. You missing out. I tell him I show you the real Jamaica, huh?”

Stephen had had enough. He gripped Elaine’s hand tightly and tugged on her. “Well, we’ve got to be going. We’ll look you up next time we’re here, okay?” He pulled Elaine toward the sidewalk that ran to their room.

“Yeah, next time,” said Delroy. “Next time everything be great.”

As they walked away Stephen could hear the group of men laughing loudly.

Near the room Stephen recognized one of the hotel security men. He stopped him as he passed them.

“Excuse me. Do you know those guys over there? I think one of them is named Delroy.”

The man peered into the darkness in the direction Stephen was pointing. “I know Delroy,” he said.

“Are they supposed to be on hotel property?” Stephen asked. He ignored Elaine’s stare. “Delroy’s been following me around all week, bugging me to buy things off him. We came here to relax, you know? It’s kind of hard to relax when every time you turn around you’ve got somebody in your face. And just now he started coming on to my wife. I’m sure he’s been after the other guests, too, and I don’t trust him. I mean, what’s he doing over here, sitting there in the dark with those other guys, right outside our hotel rooms? I just thought you ought to know.”

The security man nodded and frowned as he listened. Then he said, a bit reluctantly, “It’s okay. No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

He walked toward the three men and began speaking to them in the native language that was nonsense to Stephen. They answered him, and soon the voices were raised in angry confrontation.

“Let’s go,” said Stephen, pulling on his wife’s arm.

Elaine said nothing until they were back in the hotel room. “Was that really necessary? He wasn’t hurting anybody. And he wasn’t ‘coming on’ to me. I don’t really appreciate your using me as an excuse for what you did.”

“They’re not supposed to be here. You know that.”

“Who?” replied Elaine. “Jamaicans?”

“Ah, come on. You know what I mean.”

“He seemed like a nice enough guy, Stephen. What harm was he doing?”

“He gives me the creeps. He’s always jumping out of the shadows at me. You haven’t had to put up with him all week.”

Elaine shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever.” It was her way of ending the conversation. She disappeared into the bathroom.

****

Foreigners flow from Negril to Ocho Rios,
Dropping bread crumbs along the way at shops and craft marts
In exchange for straw hats, seashell necklaces,
And Bob Marley tee shirts.
“Hey, mon, buy sometin’ for de lady, I make you a deal.”
City streets squeeze and threaten.
A nervous couple hurries back to the bus.
They dare not slow down and look too closely
At the smoky eyes of the dreadlocked Rastafarians
At the tar-paper shacks near the golf course
At the life beyond the hotel walls.

 

Stephen finished his last entry for the trip and carefully tucked his notebook away into his carry-on bag. He savored the rich taste of the Blue Mountain coffee as he studied the panorama from his small veranda, memorizing it as a location he could escape to in future daydreams when his classroom walls pressed in on him.

He had risen early after a fitful night. In a few minutes it would be time to wake Elaine and pack for the trip home. The atmosphere in their room had been cool when they went to bed, but eventually they had reached an uneasy, wordless truce and had sex. The subject of Delroy had not been broached again, although he was still very much in the room with them; Stephen could almost feel him leering at them during their lovemaking. He was ready to be home.

At the hotel pier in the distance a familiar boat puttered to a stop. Evidently, whatever words or threats had been exchanged last night had not discouraged Delroy from plying his trade. He was talking with three young women who had been taking an early-morning sunbath at the end of the pier.

Stephen stood and entered his room. On the dresser lay the contents of his pockets from the previous night and among the collection was a small wad of Jamaican currency. He flipped through it and did a quick calculation; it was about $50.00 in American money. He quickly pulled on some shorts and a tee shirt, pocketed the roll, and headed out of the room.

By the time Stephen reached the pier Delroy was alone again, sitting in his boat and apparently planning to move on to more fertile territory. Stephen hurried out to the end to catch him. When Delroy saw him, there was not the usual boisterous greeting. The young native simply sat looking at the tourist curiously.

“We’re leaving this morning,” said Stephen in an awkward attempt to explain his presence. The man in the boat nodded in understanding. Stephen reached into his pocket and withdrew the small roll of money and proffered it with an outstretched arm. “I wanted to give you this.”

Delroy made no move to rise and his bemused expression did not change. He gave the bills in Stephen’s hand only a cursory glance. “What’s that for?” he asked quietly.

The boat was beginning to drift away from the pier and the gap between Stephen’s offering and its intended recipient seemed impossibly large now. “I just thought you could use it, is all,” said Stephen. “Maybe for your kids?”

Delroy smiled, but this time his face was devoid of all humor; it was the weary face of a teacher who has given up all hope of communicating a concept to a dense pupil.

“I’m not a beggar. I’m a businessman. Walk good, Mr. American.” He snapped the starter rope of his little outboard and it sputtered to life. Stephen watched the boat recede into the distance until it finally rounded the outer shoreline of the cove and was lost to him.