Luis, he babbled in Spanish for ten minutes trying to get me to teach him how to say ‘beautiful woman’ in English. He practiced it over and over and I corrected him each time. By the time he got it down, I was so annoyed I never wanted to speak to him again. After repeating ‘beautiful woman’ several times correctly to himself, Luis leaned over the table and said, “Wait until you see what I ask you next,” in perfect English. It turned out that Luis spoke four languages, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch.
We ordered a round of Polars, the Venezuelan Budwieser, and Luis explained to Chris how he met the girls they waited on. “So I am standing at the bar when I hear a girl tell someone to check out my ass. She said it in French, thinking that no one else would speak French, especially some local guy at the bar with a nice ass,” Luis indicated himself. “I hear her friend agree that I have a nice ass and they continue talking about me in French. So I decide to sit near them.
“I made eye contact and smiled at them, just being friendly not trying to let on that I understand what they said. They kept talking about me and looking over at my table. They said things like, ‘Try to talk to him. He’s cute. Pick him up.’ We made eye contact a few more times and I finally ask them if they spoke Spanish. One girl spoke Spanish and the other only spoke a little bit. So I joined them. We talked about them, where they are from, and what they have seen while in Venezuela. They are college students on vacation from France. I told them I ran a boat charter company and could take them to Isla de Margarita for free, but they didn’t believe me.” Luis took a drink of his beer.
“They kept talking to each other in French. The one who spoke Spanish acted like she was translating, but the whole time they are having a conversation about me. ‘Do you want him? Yes I do. Do you think he will sleep with me? I think so. I wonder if he is good in bed.’ Stuff like that, so I know that I have this girl. She was cute, too; short red hair, small body, you will meet her soon. I never let on that I speak French. I am very good at playing dumb you know.” Luis pointed at me and smiled. “After the bar closed, her friend leaves and I take the redhead girl back to my house and we make love all night. In the morning, I wake up and start speaking in French. I repeat everything her and her friend said about me. She was very embarrassed.”
“And these girls are meeting you again tonight?” I asked. It was a good story, although I wondered how much of it was true.
“Sure, why not? They thought I was funny. You know how tourists like to pick up locals to play with on their vacations.” Luis winked at me to insinuate Gaby.
“I’m not like that.” I said.
“Ah, but watch out,” he smiled. “Sometimes locals like to pick up tourists to play with, too.” Luis indicated himself.
I laughed it off and took a drink of my beer. Luis turned back to Chris. “I tell Pauline, she is mine, that I would bring a friend,” Luis motioned toward Chris, the last inch of beer sloshed around in the bottle, “for Stéphane, that’s her friend, the other girl.”
Luis finished off his beer and looked toward the veranda bar. “Más Polar, por favor.” Luis shouted, “Mi mono Coquito tiene sed.” The bartender nodded, waved, and then placed several bottles of Polar on the bar.
I recognized that Luis ordered more beer, but didn’t understand the last part. “What did he say?” I asked Chris.
Chris put down his empty and pointed at Coquito sitting on Luis’ shoulder, “He told the bartender we needed more beer because the monkey is thirsty.”
A waitress brought over six bottles of Polar and placed them on the table. “Y un más por Coquito.” Luis told the waitress as he stroked Coquito’s head. He looked back to me, “So you have a friend that is going to help you sail Captain Joe’s boat home?”
“Yeah,” I took a drink of my beer. “My friend Rich is coming down from Virginia to sail home with me.”
“Maybe,” Chris said.
“He is,” I said.
Chris looked at Luis. “He doesn’t know yet. He’s got to call him back.”
“I’m sure he’s coming,” I told Luis.
“But if not, he’s going to travel with me and see América Del Sur,” Chris said.
“I didn’t say that.”
Chris turned from my answer and took a drink of beer.
“Why don’t you stay here?” Luis said, stroking Coquito’s tail, “Work on one of my boats. I could use another English speaker. I will pay you well. You can stay at my house until you find a little apartment.”
“I’m not allowed to work in Venezuela.” I said.
“The government,” Luis laughed. “You pay them, you can do anything you want. I can have you a work visa tomorrow if you are worried about it.”
The waitress brought Luis another Polar, this one with a straw for Coquito. “Muy Bien. See you can have anything here.” Coquito jumped to the table and began drinking from the straw. “Even cerveza for your monkey.”
“I’ll think about it,” I told him, thinking that it might be kind of cool.
“Yeah man,” Chris watched the waitress walk to the bar. “Cerveza for your monkey.”
“Bonjour, Monsieur Luis,” said a duet of female voices.
Two young women stood by our table. They both wore sundresses and had small backpacks for purses. One had her red hair cut like a pixie and the other wore her brown hair braided into two ponytails.
Luis smiled wide. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Pauline,” Luis pulled the redhead into his lap to kiss her. Coquito jumped and looked to see who’d arrived. Stéphane stared at us and Coquito, smiling a little. “Mesdemoiselles, il y a mes amis Chris et Kendall.”
“Hola,” the women replied. Pauline asked, “¿Cómo estás amigos de Luis?” and turned right back to Luis. Stéphane continued smiling at us.
“Non, non. Ils ne parlent pas l’espatnol,” Luis laughed. “Ils habitent aux États-Unis. Ils parlent l’anglais.”
“Oh you speak English,” Stéphane perked up. “I Stéphane, and this, Pauline.” Pauline looked up hearing her name in English and waved to Chris and I.
“I am Chris,” he waved back and tipped his Polar at Pauline before taking a drink. “Hablo Español.”
“I am Kendall,” I stood up to go use the bathroom, hoping Gaby’d be there when I returned. “Here take my seat, I am going inside.”
“Thank you very much,” Stéphane took my seat, eyeing Chris.
“Let Gaby know I’m here,” I said to Chris.
Luis broke looked up from Pauline. “Oh, Kendall. I forgot to tell you, Gaby’s inside,” he said with a smile that made me not believe he forgot.
“Thanks,” I grabbed my second bottle of Polar and headed inside. “Ciao.”
The Rose Cafe was styled after the rock and roll bars in the United States and was ignored by most of the tourists. Posters of current stars and tapestries of dead legends covered the inside of the Rose. Three TVs played an eclectic mix of videos and concert footage that sometimes matched the music being played over the stereo system, but usually not. The Rose only played one type of music, whether on the stereo or live by a local band; they only played music sung in English. All the different styles of pop music I was familiar with, metal, rap, punk, hip-hop, gothic, new-wave, ska, and techno had been muddled into a simple mass of Musica de USA. The differences in genre were ignored and it all became good. After being stranded on a leaky, problem-prone sloop with a depressed, boat sick captain, I was damn happy to find The Rose Cafe that I didn’t care how muddled or inaccurate the atmosphere was.
Gaby sat in a corner booth beneath the tapestry of Jimi Hendrix. It was easy to find her; I just scanned the room for a shaved head. Most young Venezuelan women wore heavy eye shadow, dark eye-liner and bright lipstick. They wore tight jeans, short skirts and skimpy low cut tops to accentuate their curvy bodies and full breasts. But not Gaby. She was skeletally thin and tomboy straight. She wore T-shirts of English language bands and wore baggy jeans or overalls. She kept her hair under an inch to avoid having to style it
and wore no makeup. Yet, Gaby was still attractive; her skin was a light cocoa color — a shade darker than tan, her brows were thin wisps above sharp green eyes, her wide smile was lined by full lips that were pink and soft. She was exotic simply because she was in contrast to all the other Venezuelan women.
Gaby greeted me with a light kiss on each cheek, a custom in Venezuela I never quite got used to. “I didn’t think you were going to show up.”
“I was outside waiting for you. Luis didn’t tell me that you were already here.” I sat down across from her with my beer. Her drink was something yellow and icy; a banana daiquiri.
“That Luis, him and his monkey. He is, is, I forget the word. El es alcahuete babaza, yuck.” Gaby did that when she wanted to use a word she had forgotten. “Like an insect, creepy and dirty,” she tried to explain. Gaby had spent a year in Pennsylvania as an exchange student and still remembered most of the English she learned. I’m pretty sure that’s where she acquired her overalls too.
“But he’s funny,” I said and took a drink of my Polar. “He offered me a job at Holiday Charter running a tour boat. It’s the same thing I did in Miami.”
“He reminds me of my boyfriend in the States,” Gaby leaned across the table. “Very nice and friendly, but full of lies.” She leaned back and took a drink of her daiquiri.
Gaby’s suitcase and backpack sat next to her in the booth. “What’s all that?” I