Next: I Was How High?

While sitting well within the confines of my resort’s designated patrons-only area (six feet behind the sign which served as the barrier beyond which non-resort customers were not allowed to pass, and a good thirty feet behind the first of three thick, long rows of lounge chairs that the spring break crowd had set up) I was probably in the 98th percentile when it came to “most recessed position from the ocean, and therefore from normal beach traffic”. Therefore, it was a little surprising to me when the Jamaican man chose, before all others, to address me. He had just been walking along, and I had been lying in the shade in my beach chair, safari hat low over my eyes, sunglasses on, head over my notepad, in which I was writing, with a book in my lap. I guessed him to be in his early sixties, though he could have been a hard-living forty-five. Actually, however many years this guy had, I’m pretty sure they were all hard-lived. However, that didn’t mean that I had any idea what he was talking about when, point blank, he asked me if I was freaking out in my notes.

I looked at him, paused a second to make sure he wouldn’t just wonder off, and then replied, “What?”

“Are you freakin’ out in your notes?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you freakin’ out in your book. You’re reading a book, right?”

Finally, a phrase I understood. “Yeah,” I replied.

“And you have a notepad there. You’re freakin’ out with it.”

“OK, yeah,” I was forced to admit. “I’m freakin’ out with it.”

“Yeah, man. So, do you have it for me?”

Oh gosh. Another question that makes no sense to me, I thought, although I was kind of amused. “Have what?” I asked.

“Have what you promised me last night,” he told me. Of course, I was one hundred percent sure I had never seen this man before in my life, much less fewer than twenty-four hours ago.

“I promised you something last night?” I asked, in a tone I thought might be polite but which was probably also heading toward condescension.

“Yeah. Five bucks, man. You said you didn’t have it, but you’d get it and give it to me next time you saw me.”

“I promised you five bucks last night?” I asked, showing him I comprehended his statement, but yet had no idea what he was talking about.

“Yeah, man. Five bucks.”

“I don’t remember that. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see you last night.”

“Yeah, man. You were so high. You were so high you probably don’t remember.”

I took a little offense to this, basically because this crazy-eyed gray-dreadlocked dude who used “freakin’ out in” as a verb phrase in first-impression-forming conversations with strangers was implying that, at our last meeting, he had it more together than I did.

“Really? I don’t think I was high last night.”

“Yeah, man. You were so high.”

“Really? It was me? What was I wearing?”

“Man, you were so high. You told me you’d get me five dollars today.”

“And what was I wearing?”

“Man, it’s OK, just get me three dollars, OK? You told me you would, man.”

“I really don’t remember that,” I say, realizing by this point I’m beginning to tire of this guy and wish I could just go back to reading my book, but have the feeling that this isn’t going to end pleasantly or quickly.

“Then just get me a drink from the bar, man,” he entreats as he fingers a fork that was left on the wooden sign. “Just get me a Coke from the bar.”

That’s when I began to admire the homework this guy’s done, as well as resent him more. Y’see, the bar serves its patrons free drinks – it comes included in the “all-inclusive” deal purchased by guests at this resort. Therefore, the only argument against getting him a drink seemed to by this lazy tourist’s unwillingness to walk fifty feet to get a thirsty man a drink. Although really, it was more than that.

“I can’t get drinks for everyone who walks by here,” I told him.

Of course, he replied with, “Not everyone, man. Just one drink for me.” While I saw how much easier that would be than getting drinks for everyone, I still didn’t like the precedent I would be setting, plus, it’s not as if he hadn’t approached me under false pretenses. And at this point, after the Yellow-Eye incident, I was careful not to agree to things that I would later not be too willing to do.

“I don’t know...” I paused, weighing the fact that this guy wouldn’t be begging if he weren’t hard up to some degree versus the fact that I didn’t necessarily owe deceitful beggars anything, and that I really didn’t want to get a reputation as the “Bum Waiter”.

“Just go up there and get a Coke, man.”

“I...I’m not going to do that. Sorry.”

“What?” This is when I first sensed his supplicatory tone take a turn and begin heading toward one more accurately described as angry and outraged.

“I...I’m not going to get you anything. I’m sorry I can’t help you out. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not?” he hisses at me in what is a rage I’m surprised could be arrived at after only the denial of a small plastic cup of Coke.

“I’m sorry.”

“You see this?” he asks me, holding up the fork.

At this point, I think that, if he throws it at me, I’ll cover my face with my arms and turn my bent right leg to the left to try to protect my groin and torso, and then I’m pretty sure I can catch this guy and tackle him, since he’s probably giving up at least 25 years and forty pounds to me.

I also ask myself what kind of stupid spring breaking frat boy leaves his stupid fork on a sign on the beach, anyway.

“Yeah, I see it,” I answer.

“Do you want it?” he asks.

“Do I want it?” Man, this guy rarely only happens up intelligible phrases by rare accident.

“Yeah, do you want it?”

“No, thanks,” I say in an attempt at polite declination.

“Well, you’re gonna get it,” he says, pointing it at me.

“I am?”

“Yeah,” he says, as he draws it across and a few inches in front of his throat, like some salty pirate of centuries past. I believe, though I’m not sure, that he made a guttural throat-slitting sound. That could, however, be my imagination.

“OK, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve treated you with anything but respect.”

“You’re gonna get it,” he says again, as he makes the same throat-slitting-by-fork gesture and starts heading southerly down the beach.

“OK, man, but I don’t know why you’re acting like that. I was totally respectful to you.”

Little did I realize this statement was the nominal fee for a diatribe involving some off-the-cuff spewing of venomous racist vitriol.

“You white people think we like you here? You think we like you coming down here? We don’t like you coming here and messing everything up! Messing the beach all up? You white people think we Jamaicans like you, but we don’t!” As he finished, he was now walking up the beach to the north.

A thought of the local economy without the influx of tourist dollars crossed my mind, but I didn’t figure this was the right time to get into an honest discussion of the local economic situation. So I just said what I had learned was used as the last ditch effort of the locals to get what they want.
“Respect,” I said, as I held out my fist toward him. He, however, continued walking down the beach with his fork held menacingly. Guess the “respect” thing doesn’t work for everyone.