I stood in front of the mirror and gazed at the dressed-up version of my surfer disguise. I had on a pair of jeans, a white Hawaiian shirt with little blue surfboards printed down the sleeves, and my “go to town” flip-flops. I had received a message from Ix-Nay via Sandra that he and Consuela had gone bird-watching on nearby Jumbo Cay and that he would be back in the morning. I had no idea if he had read my mind from a distance, but I had the bungalow to myself for the night. I turned out the light and headed for the bar.
The music was blaring, and the place was packed. I carved a path through the drunken college kids to the bar. They were all lined up, waiting for the doors to Renaldo’s big party to open. The thing that struck me about the crowd was how young it was—teenagers blowing off a little steam by getting drunk and sometimes laid. I always had the feeling there was more “drunk” than “laid” in this kind of crowd.
I finally got the bartender’s attention amid the whirring of blenders. He seemed relieved to simply pour me a shot of tequila and gave me directions to the restaurant. “You been to the Belly before?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s a pretty wild place.”
“How’s the food?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he answered and went back to running the blender, which was fueling the extracurricular activities of the future leaders of our nation.
Over by the pool, a young coed was lying horizontal on the diving board while her sorority sisters were covering her with whipped cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce. At the other end of the pool, a quartet of jocks was swinging another coed by her limbs toward the pool. When she reached the top of the arc, the dental-floss-thin string that held her bikini top on parted, and the crowd let out a roar as the girl sailed through the air with her nipples aimed at the first evening star above.
29
Take Me to Your Blender
Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” reverberated off the walls of the buildings that lined the streets of San Pedro, and I followed the music.
The entrance to the Belly of the Beast was not hard to spot. It was illuminated with a pulsating strobe light, and a twelve-foot head and teeth of a growling jaguar extended out over the street. The eyes were piercing red lights the size of channel markers, and occasionally hissing steam streamed out of the mouth. Enshrouded in a cloud of smoke, I allowed myself to be swallowed up by the beast. When the smoke cleared, I was in front of a lovely young girl dressed in a silk kimono. She held a handful of menus. She smiled and greeted me warmly. It was when she asked for the name of the party I was meeting that I realized I didn’t know Dawn’s or Noel-Christmas’s last name. “They’re from Texas, and they’re gorgeous” is all I could come up with.
“Are you Tully?” she asked.
“That’s me.”
“They are at the bar with Renaldo,” she said.
I made my way through the obstacle course of small, overcrowded tables. The place was as dark as one of Ix-Nay’s cenotes, and black-light images of Mayan masks, snakes, crocodiles, and lots of jaguars covered the walls and ceilings. The bar was housed in a giant animal cage made of thick bamboo. Occasionally, several leggy girls in showgirl outfits swung by overhead on ropes disguised as vines that hung from the ceiling.
The bar was packed with every representative of island culture, from beach bums to debutantes. A dozen waitresses dressed in skimpy leopard-skin outfits buzzed around the crowd with trays of drinks and food. I was a long way from Lost Boys.
I was kind of swirling through the crowd, trying to spot my dates, and I got into the frenzied flow, smiling and saying hello to at least a dozen people I had never seen before in my life. Someone handed me a drink I didn’t order, and I was suddenly part of someone’s birthday celebration, singing and dancing, when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see Dawn.
She looked amazing. She wore a beige, ruffled miniskirt and a thick fringe belt, topped off by a see-through wrap shirt that was loosely tied with one string between her cleavage and her exposed belly button. She smelled like coconut oil, and her deeply tanned body was covered with specks of gold glitter.
“You sure do clean up good,” she said.
All I could respond with was “One thousand one . . . one thousand two.”
“Later, handsome—maybe,” she replied, and she led me away from the birthday to the end of the bar where Noel-Christmas was entertaining two overly dressed men. She wore a black bikini top and a pair of the lowest-cut jeans I had ever seen in my life. She pulled me toward her. “Tully, this is Edward and Rentzel. They’re from New York.”
Edward wore a pair of jeans similar to Noel-Christmas’s and a long-sleeved shirt tied calypso style. Rentzel was in a dark black suit with no shirt.
“So this is your nature boy,” Rentzel said. “What brings you to San Pedro?”
Fortunately I didn’t have to answer the question, for at that moment, the volume of the sound system seemed to double in intensity, and the voice of Donna Summer filled the room. Everyone screamed and headed for the already overcrowded dance floor. Noel-Christmas squealed, grabbed Edward and Rentzel, and pulled them over to the human pile.
“Eat first, dance later,” Dawn said to me as she took my hand and led me through the crowd.
We were intercepted outside the cage by the hostess, who led us past the booths and tables on the floor to a cavelike room, where she seated us on soft pillows and closed the beaded curtains behind her as she left.
“What is this?” I asked.
“An apology with all the trimmings—provided, that is, you didn’t come packing heat.”
“I don’t go looking for trouble,” I said. “Let’s just say that in my travels, I have been to some places where that pistol came in handy.”
“I’ll bet you have.” On the knee-high table were several small candles and a large bowl of gardenias. A champagne bucket held two bottles, snugly resting together and covered with a white towel. “How’s your foot?” Dawn asked, as she slid her bare foot under the table and over the toes of my right foot.
“Getting better by the minute.”
“Champagne?” she asked.
“Of course.”
I reached for one of the bottles, but Dawn pushed my hand away. “My treat,” she said. As she reached over to lift a bottle out of the bucket, her half-buttoned blouse opened even further, exposing her breasts. I had stopped counting altogether.
She poured two glasses of champagne. “You make the toast,” she said.
I picked up my glass. “To jungle encounters,” I said, raising the glass to my lips. The menu back at the Fat Iguana was void of any champagne, and the ice-cold bubbles seemed to be in the right drink at the right time.
“Cristal eighty-eight. In St. Barts they call it Caribbean Kool-Aid.”
“Well, I don’t know where St. Barts is, but this sure as hell doesn’t taste like any Kool-Aid I can remember.”
Somewhere near the middle of the second bottle of Cristal, a waiter announced himself, slid back the curtain, and presented us with menus. Food was the farthest thing from my mind.
“You order for me,” I told Dawn, and we went back to the champagne.
A plate of conch fritters arrived. I picked at them like an anorexic teenager. They were followed by what Dawn called tapas—little servings of grilled squid, roasted quail, and shrimp. Dawn ate with her fingers and occasionally offered me a tidbit, which I would nibble out of her hand.
A constant flow of guests came and went from the little cave. Noel-Christmas, Edward, and Rentzel brought along Renaldo, the owner of the hotel, and introduced him to me. He was very pumped up and could talk only of his party; it was less than an hour away, and it would be the best spring break ever.
We went back and forth to the dance floor several times, and it was packed with gyrating, sweat-soaked, hormone-hyped bodies.
Somewhere around midnight, a waitress in leopard skin danced from tabletop to tabletop, licking fire from her fingers as she delivered flaming b
ananas to anybody still interested in dessert.
The champagne was doing its thing, and I was high and happy. “Now that is an interesting way to deliver bananas,” I said to Dawn.
“I have something more interesting for dessert if you are interested.” We made our way back to the cave from the dance floor. Sitting on the table was a small bowl with one tiny scoop of ice cream and two spoons.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Dawn closed the curtains behind me and then sat down at the table. She picked up a spoon, carved a small portion of the ice cream, and I watched it disappear between her lips. “Want some?” she asked.
“I’m not a big vanilla fan,” I said.
“They say that presentation is ninety percent of the dining experience. Take this little scoop of vanilla ice cream. Not much to look at or taste, right?”
“Exactly.”
“But if you give it an interesting name and a unique presentation, it’s not just ice cream anymore.”
I was having a hard time thinking about that peewee scoop of ice cream. I was more interested in the woman with the spoon. “I suppose,” I mumbled.
“Well, let’s see if we can make this dessert a little more interesting.” With that, Dawn placed our champagne glasses side by side and filled them. Then she slowly untied the string on her blouse, leaned over, and dipped her breasts into the champagne glasses. Then she covered her nipples with a spoon of ice cream.
I was waiting, speechless, staring. I figured that any minute I would be turned into a pillar of salt. Then Dawn leaned over and licked her left breast clean, looked at me, and said, “It’s called a mother’s milk, and the other one is for you.”
My first instinct was to look around at the beaded curtains. It would be my luck to be in the act of licking champagne from the breast of an irresistibly sexy woman as the busboy arrived with coffee.
“I’ll keep a lookout,” Dawn said, and down I went.
Dawn kissed the back of my head as I twirled my tongue around and around her perfectly formed pink nipple until she pushed my head up, looked me in the eye, and said, “Now, Tully, see what you can do with a little imagination?”
I wanted to order a gallon of vanilla and more champagne, cover her in it, seal the curtain to the cave, and lick forever, but at that moment the curtains were flung open.
“There you two are,” Noel-Christmas said without even acknowledging the compromising position she’d found us in.
I straightened up like a fence post, reached for a napkin, and started to wipe the milky liquid from my face. I adjusted my pants and made an abortive attempt at getting up while Noel-Christmas took her seat.
“It’s nice to see good manners,” Dawn said as she casually retied her blouse.
“Well, it’s nearly time,” Noel-Christmas announced.
“Time for what?” I asked.
“My party!” Renaldo exclaimed, poking his head in through the curtains and grabbing Noel-Christmas around her waist.
“Renaldo, tell me what the big surprise is,” she begged.
“What’s it worth?” Renaldo said in a lecherous voice.
“Me,” Noel-Christmas answered as she licked the side of his face.
“It’s a giant foam party,” Renaldo blurted out.
“How totally awesome,” Noel-Christmas squealed.
“What’s a foam party?” I asked.
Noel-Christmas looked at me as if I had asked her for the formula for nuclear fission. “Tully,” she said, “like, have you been living on another planet or something? Foam parties are it. Like, imagine a waterfall, okay?” She paused and looked at me.
“Got it,” I said.
“Now imagine light, airy, luscious, slippery piña colada–scented foam flowing over your entire body while other bodies collide with yours.”
“Kind of like being an ice cube in a blender.”
“Tully, you’re too much,” Dawn said.
“Well, ladies,” I replied, “take me to your blender.”
30
A Cowboy Float
We all piled into Renaldo’s red ’58 Cadillac. Dawn had produced yet another spliff, this one the size of a tampon, and we smoked it down to a roach—to the delight of Renaldo’s driver. He promptly shoved a Bob Marley tape into the cassette deck, and we sang along to “One Love” at the top of our very bad voices and laughed hysterically. I felt as if I were in a movie—because it was only in the movies that a guy like me could ever wind up with girls like Dawn and Noel-Christmas.
Renaldo was recognized immediately as he exited the Cadillac and was hoisted on the shoulders of a throng that carried him to the party like a welcoming liberator. The girls announced that they were going to their rooms to change for the party.
“You look great. Why would you change?”
“Because that’s what girls do,” Dawn said.
Edward and Rentzel took off to the beach. I politely declined their invitation to tag along and headed toward the party with a champagne and ganja buzz unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. As I walked down the path, I saw a hand-painted sign that had recently been nailed to a coconut tree. It read: PEOPLE WITH EXTREMELY SENSITIVE SKIN OR SKIN DISORDERS SHOULD CONSULT A PHYSICIAN BEFORE PARTICIPATING IN A FOAM PARTY.
I had trouble locating Archie’s bungalow. My sense of navigation had been seriously altered by pot and champagne, but I managed to get my bearings amid a sea of gyrating humanity. My neighborhood had changed dramatically since I had left for dinner. The bouncy castle that I had seen the day before looked to be ground zero for the evening. It was now flanked on both sides by two giant plastic pools, each with a twenty-foot penis sticking up out of the middle. The pools were packed with people drinking, dancing, and singing to the deafening music coming from the building-size speakers that framed the bouncy castle.
“Shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake. Shake your booty,” I sang along with KC.
Suddenly the girls were back. Noel-Christmas was wearing a camouflage bikini bottom not much larger than a giant Band-Aid and another cutoff top with the word BITCH written in rhinestone studs across her chest. When she pivoted, the word GODDESS was written across her back.
“This shirt totally encompasses my split personality—you know, like when I’m having my period at a party.”
“Like tonight?” I asked.
Noel-Christmas blurted out a laugh and sprayed me with a mouthful of champagne, which she was guzzling from an open bottle. “No, silly, tonight I’m just ovulating.”
“It’s a chick thing,” Dawn added.
“You look like Barbarella,” I said, staring at Dawn’s evening attire.
“Who’s she?” Dawn asked.
“Never mind. I am dating myself. Let’s just say that coming from a man my age, it is a supreme compliment.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Does that mean we have bridged our generation gap?” I asked.
Squinting at her through the lizard slits that had replaced my eyes, I focused on the skintight pink bikini Dawn wore under a sheer piece of fabric draped across her shoulder. “That bathing suit looks like it was painted on,” I said jokingly.
“It was,” she replied as she rested her arm on my shoulder and leaned her hips against mine. Then she took my hand and slid it across what appeared to be the bikini top, but I was touching her skin.
“It is amazing what they can do with acrylics these days,” I said.
There was a sudden acceleration in the energy level of the crowd as Renaldo, now dressed in Jams and a tuxedo jacket with a giant fin attached to the back, climbed up on the stage.
“Come on, kahuna,” Dawn said, grabbing my hand.
“Do you girls do this every night?” I finally asked.
“No, just every weekend in Austin,” Noel-Christmas said as she grabbed my other hand and led the way through the crowd.
I targeted the compass-rose tattoo that graced the small of her back just above her bikini bottom as my beacon th
rough the madness.
“Have you ever heard of the patron saint of lightning?” I asked.
“No, but how did you know I was Catholic?”
“I guess it just shows.”
We entered the bouncy castle and somehow managed to force our way forward to the stage where Renaldo stood next to the DJ booth. He started counting backward from ten, which the crowd immediately took up.
“Are you ready?” Dawn screamed into my ear.
“For what?” I asked.
“Three, two, one!” the crowd roared.
The unmistakable pounding intro of one of my favorite songs catapulted me into the moment. It was Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” Needless to say, it set the mood, and the entire population of the bouncy castle all began to dance and sing at the same time.
Well, I went home with a waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians too
At first I thought by the noise and the shrieking sound around me that someone had actually fired a gun into the crowd, until I saw the starburst pattern above the trees and realized it was fireworks. I stared at the shell bursts and moved with the crowd and sang the anthem that had taken the night to another dimension.
Now I’m hiding in Honduras
I’m a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan
For a moment I reflected on those lyrics that had summed up my life on the run for some time, but the bouncy castle was not very conducive to thinking about my reckless behavior. I might be hiding, but the shit had not hit the fan.
At that point I rejoined the fantasy world as four men dressed like FBI agents appeared at each corner of the scaffolding that surrounded the castle. They each held a giant hose that they pointed at the crowd. “This is a long way from baby pools and Jell-O!” I screamed above the music.
“You’re dating yourself again, Tully.”