“Oh, I like it just fine,” I say. “It’s very interesting,” and Larry looks relieved, but frankly I am amazed that Bruce Ware would want to come to a place like this, much less bring a lady such as myself along.
“Put it right here, honey,” Bruce says to a native girl who brings a whole bottle of Mount Gay rum to our table and sets it down in front of him, along with several bottles of bitter lemon and ice and drinking glasses which I inspect carefully to choose the cleanest one. None of them look very clean, of course they can’t possibly have a dishwasher back in that kitchen which we can see into, actually, every time the girls walk back and forth through the bead curtain. Two big fat women are back there cooking and laughing and talking a mile a minute in that language which Bruce Ware swears is English though you can’t believe it.
“It’s the rhythm and the accent that make it sound so different,” Bruce claims. “Listen for a minute.” Two native men are having a loud backslapping kind of conversation at the bar right behind us. I can’t understand a word of it. As soon as they walk away, laughing, Bruce says, “Well? Did you get any of that?”
Larry and I shake our heads no, but Mack is not even paying attention to this, he’s drinking rum at a terrifying rate and staring at one of the waitresses.
Bruce smiles at us like he’s some guy on the Discovery Channel. “For example,” he lectures, “one of those men just said, ‘Me go she by,’ which is really a much more efficient way of saying, ‘I’m going by to see her.’ This is how they talk among themselves. But they are perfectly capable of using the King’s English when they talk to us.”
I make a note of this phrase, “the King’s English.” I am always trying to improve my vocabulary. “Then that gives them some privacy from the tourists, doesn’t it?” I remark. “From people like us.”
“Exactly, Chanel.” Bruce looks very pleased and I realize how much I could learn from a man like him.
“Well, this is all just so interesting, and thanks for pointing it out to us,” I say, meaning every word and kicking Larry under the table. He mumbles something. Larry seems determined to match Mack drink for drink, which is not a good idea. Larry is not a good drunk.
But unfortunately I have to go to the bathroom (I can’t imagine what this experience will be like!), so I excuse myself and make my way through the other tables, which are filling up fast. I can feel all those dark native eyes burning into my skin. When I ask for the ladies’ room, the bartender simply points out into the jungle. I ask again and he points again. I am too desperate to argue. I stumble out there and am actually thankful to find a portable toilet such as you would see at a construction site. Luckily I have some Kleenex in my purse.
It is all a fairly horrifying experience made even worse by a man who’s squatting on his haunches right outside the door when I exit. “Oh!” I scream, and leap back, and he says something. Naturally I can’t understand a word of it. But for some reason I am rooted to the spot. He stands up slow and limber as a leopard and then we are face to face and he’s looking at me like he knows me. He is much lighter-skinned and more refined-looking than the rest of them. “Pretty missy,” he says. He touches my hair.
I’m proud to say I do not make an international incident out of this, I maintain my dignity while getting out of there as fast as possible, and don’t even mention it to the men when I get back, as they are finally talking business, but of course I will tell Larry later.
So I just pour myself a big drink to calm down, and Larry reaches over to squeeze my hand, and there we all sit while the sun sets in the most spectacular fiery sunset I have ever seen in real life and the breeze comes up and the chickens run all over the place, which I have ceased to mind, oddly enough, maybe the rum is getting to me, it must be some really high proof. So I switch to beer, though the only kind they’ve got is something called Hairoun which does not even taste like beer in my opinion. The men are deep in conversation, though Mack gets up occasionally and tries to sweet-talk the pretty waitress, who laughs and brushes him off like he is a big fat fly. I admire her technique as well as her skin which is beautiful, rich milk chocolate. I laugh to think what Mack’s little bowhead wife back in Atlanta would think if she could see him now! The strings of Christmas lights swing in the breeze and lights glow on all the boats in the harbor. Larry scoots closer and nuzzles my ear and puts his arm around me and squeezes me right under the bust, which is something I wish he would not do in public. “Having fun?” he whispers in my ear, and I say, “Yes,” which is true.
I am expanding my horizons as they say.
This restaurant does not even have a menu. The women just serve us whatever they choose, rice and beans and seafood mostly, it’s hard to say. I actually prefer to eat my food separately rather than all mixed up on a plate which I’m sure is not clean anyway. The men discuss getting an eighty-five-percent loan at nine percent and padding the specs, while I drink another Hairoun.
The man who touched my hair starts playing guitar, some kind of island stuff, he’s really good. Also he keeps looking at me and I find myself glancing over at him from time to time to see if he is still looking, this is just like seventh grade. Still it gives me something to do since the men are basically ignoring me, which begins to piss me off after a while since Mack is not ignoring the pretty waitress. The Negro with the guitar catches me looking at him, and grins. I am completely horrified to see that his two front teeth are gold. People start dancing. “I don’t know,” Larry keeps saying to Bruce Ware. “I just don’t know.”
I have to go to the bathroom again and when I come back there’s a big argument going on involving Mack, who has apparently been slapped by the pretty waitress. Now she’s crying and her mother is yelling at Mack, who is pretty damn mad, and who can blame him? Of course he didn’t mean anything by whatever he did, he certainly wasn’t going to sleep with that girl and get some disease. “Goddamn bitch,” he says, and Bruce tells Larry and me to get him out of there, which we do, while Bruce gets into some kind of fight himself over the bill. These Negroes have overcharged us. Bruce’s behavior at this point is interesting to me. He has gone from his nice Marlin Perkins voice to a real J. R. Ewing obey-me voice. Thank God there is somebody here to take charge, I’m thinking as I stand at the edge of the jungle with a drunk on each arm and watch the whole thing happening inside the house like it’s on television. The ocean breeze lifts my hair off my shoulders and blows it around and I don’t even care that it’s getting messed up. I am so mad at Larry for getting drunk.
“You okay, honey?” Bruce Ware says to me when he gets everything taken care of to his satisfaction, and I say, “Yes.” Then Bruce takes Mack by the arm and I take Larry and we walk back down to the beach two by two, which seems to take forever in the loud rustling dark. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a gorilla jumped out and grabbed me, after everything that’s happened so far! Bruce goes first, with the flashlight.
I love a capable man.
When we finally make it down to the beach, I am so glad to see our Negroes waiting, but even with their help it’s kind of a problem getting Mack into the dinghy, in fact it’s like a slapstick comedy, and I finally start laughing. At this point Mack turns on me. “What are you laughing at, bitch?” he says, and I say, “Larry?” but all Larry says is, “Sshhh.”
“Never mind, Chanel,” Bruce tells me. “Mack’s just drunk, he won’t even remember this tomorrow. Look at the stars.”
By now the Negroes are rowing us out across the water.
“What?” I ask him.
“Look at the stars,” Bruce says. “You see a lot of constellations down here that you never get to see at home, for instance that’s the Southern Cross over there to your left.”
“Oh yes,” I say, though actually I have never seen any constellations in my life, or if I did I didn’t know it, and certainly did not know the names of them.
“There’s Orion right overhead,” Bruce says. “See those three bright stars in a row? That’s his belt.”
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Of course I am acting as interested as possible, but by then we’ve reached the yacht and a Negro is helping us all up (he has quite a job with Mack and Larry), and then two of them put Mack to bed. “’Scuse me,” Larry mutters, and goes to the back of the boat to hang his head over and vomit. Some fiancé! I stand in the bow with Bruce Ware, observing the southern sky, while the Negroes say good night and go off with a guy who has come by for them in an outboard. Its motor gets louder and louder the farther they get from us, and I am privately sure that they are going around to the other side of the island to raise hell until dawn.
Bruce steps up close behind me. “Listen here, whatever your real name is,” he says, “Larry’s not going to marry you, you know that, don’t you?”
Of course this is none of Bruce Ware’s business, so it makes me furious. “He most certainly is!” I say. “Just as soon as…”
“He’ll never leave Jean,” Bruce says into my ear. “Never.”
Then he sticks his tongue in my ear, which sends world-class shivers down my whole body.
“Baby—” It’s Larry, stumbling up beside us.
“Larry, I’m just, we’re just—” Now I’m trying to get away from Bruce Ware but he doesn’t give an inch, pinning me against the rail. He’s breathing all over my neck. “Larry,” I start again.
“Hey, baby, it’s okay. Go for it. I know you like to have a good time.” Larry is actually saying this, and there was a time when I would have actually had that good time, but all of a sudden I just can’t do it.
Before either my ex-fiancé or his associate can stop me, I make a break for it and jump right down into the dinghy and pull the rope up over the thing and push off and grab the oars and row like mad toward the shore. I use the rowing machine all the time at the health club, but this is the first time I have had a chance at the real thing. It’s easy.
“Come back here,” yells Bruce Ware. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Native,” I call back to them across the widening water. “I’m going native.”
“Shit,” one of them says, but by now I can barely hear them. What I hear is the slapping sound of my oars and the occasional bit of music or conversation from the other boats, and once somebody says, “Hey, honey,” but I keep going straight for the beach, which lies like a silver ribbon around the bay. I look back long enough to make sure that nobody’s coming after me. At least those natives can speak the King’s English when they want to, and I can certainly help out in the kitchen if need be. I grew up cooking beans and rice. Anyway, I’m sure I can pay one of them to take me back to Barbados in the morning. Won’t that surprise my companions? Since I am never without some “mad money” and Larry’s gold card, this is possible, although I did leave some brand-new perfectly gorgeous shoes and several of my favorite outfits on the yacht.
A part of me can’t believe I’m acting this crazy, while another part of me is saying, “Go, girl.” A little breeze comes up and ruffles my hair. I practice deep breathing from aerobics, and look all around. The water is smooth as glass. The whole damn sky is full of stars. It is just beautiful. All the stars are reflected in the water. Right overhead I see Orion and then I see his belt, as clear as can be. I’m headed for the island, sliding through the stars.
The
HAPPY MEMORIES
CLUB
I may be old, but I’m not dead.
Perhaps you are surprised to hear this. You may be surprised to learn that people such as myself are still capable of original ideas, intelligent insights, and intense feelings. Passionate love affairs, for example, are not uncommon here. Pacemakers cannot regulate the strange unbridled yearnings of the heart. You do not wish to know this, I imagine. This knowledge is probably upsetting to you, as it is upsetting to my sons, who do not want to hear, for instance, about my relationship with Dr. Solomon Marx, the historian. “Please, Mom,” my son Alex said, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Mama,” my son Will said. “Can’t you maintain a little dignity here?” Dignity, said Will, who runs a chain of miniature golf courses! “I have had enough dignity to last me for the rest of my life, thank you,” I told Will.
I’ve always done exactly what I was supposed to do—now I intend to do what I want.
“Besides, Dr. Solomon Marx is the joy of my life,” I told them all. This remained true even when my second surgery was less than successful, obliging me to take to this chair. It remained true until Solomon’s most recent stroke five weeks ago, which has paralyzed him below the waist and caused his thoughts to become disordered, so that he cannot always remember things, and he cannot always remember the words for things. A survivor himself, Solomon is an expert on the Holocaust. He has numbers tattooed on his arm. He used to travel the world, speaking about the Holocaust. Now he can’t remember the name of it.
“Well, I think it’s a blessing,” said one of the nurses—that young Miss Rogers. “The Holocaust was just awful.”
“It is not a blessing, you ignorant bitch,” I told her. “It is the end. Our memories are all we’ve got.” I put myself in reverse and sped off before she could reply. I could feel her staring at me as I motored down the hall. I am sure she wrote something in her ever-present notebook. “Inappropriate” and “unmanageable” are some of the words they use, unpleasant and inaccurate adjectives all.
The words that Solomon can’t recall are always nouns.
“My dear,” he said to me one day recently, when they had wheeled him out into the Residence Center lobby, “what did you say your name was?” He knew it, of course, in his heart’s deep core, as well as he knew his own.
“Alice Scully,” I said.
“Ah. Alice Scully,” he said. “And what is it that we used to do together, Alice Scully, which brought me such intense—oh, so big—” His eyes were like bright little beads in his pinched face. “It was of the greatest, ah—”
“Sex,” I told him. “You loved it.”
He grinned at me. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Sex. It was sex, indeed.”
“Mrs. Scully!” his nurse snapped.
Now I have devised a game to help Solomon remember nouns. It works like this. Whenever they bring him out, I go over to him and clasp my hands together, as if I were hiding something in them. “If you can guess what I’ve got here,” I say, “I’ll give you a kiss.”
He squints in concentration, fishing for nouns. If he gets one, I give him a kiss.
Some days are better than others.
This is true for us all, of course. We can’t be expected to remember everything we know.
IN MY LIFE I WAS A TEACHER, AND A GOOD ONE. I taught English in the days when it was English, not “language arts.” I taught for thirty years at the Sandy Point School in Sandy Point, Virginia, where I lived with my husband, Harold Scully, and brought up four sons, three of them Harold’s. Harold owned and ran the Trent Riverside Pharmacy until the day he dropped dead in his drugstore counting out antibiotic capsules for a high school girl. His mouth and his eyes were wide open, as if whatever he found on the other side surprised him mightily. I was sorry to see this, as Harold was not a man who liked surprises.
I must say I gave him none. I was a good wife to Harold, although I was initially dismayed to learn that this role entailed taking care of his parents from the day of our marriage until their deaths. They both lived long lives, and his mother went blind at the end. But we lived in their house, the largest house in Sandy Point, right on the old tidal river, and their wealth enabled us to send our own sons off to the finest schools, and even, in Robert’s case, to medical school.
Harold’s parents never got over his failure to get into medical school himself. In fact, he barely made it through pharmacy school. As far as I know, however, he was a good pharmacist, never poisoning anybody or mixing up prescriptions. He loved to look at the orderly rows of bottles on his shelves. He loved labeling. Often he dispensed medical advice to his customers: which cough medicine worked best, what to put on a boil. People truste
d him. Harold got a great deal of pleasure from his job and from his standing in the community.
I taught school at first, because I was trained to do it and because I wanted to. It was the only way in those days that a woman could get out of the house without being considered odd. I was never one to plan a menu or clip a recipe out of a magazine. I left all that to Harold’s mother and to the family housekeeper, Lucille.
I loved teaching. I loved to diagram sentences on the blackboard, precisely separating the subject from the predicate with a vertical line, the linking verb from the predicate adjective with a slanted line, and so forth. The children used to try to stump me by making up long sentences they thought I couldn’t diagram, sentences so complex that my final diagram on the board looked like a blueprint for a cathedral, with flying buttresses everywhere, all the lines connecting.
I loved geography, as well—tracing roads, tracing rivers. I loved to trace the route of the Pony Express, of the Underground Railroad, of de Soto’s search for gold. I told them the story of that bumbling fool Zebulon Pike who set out in 1805 to find the source of the Mississippi River and ended up instead at the glorious peak they named for him, Pikes Peak, which my sister Rose and I visited in 1926 on our cross-country odyssey with our brother William and his wife. In the photograph taken at Pikes Peak, I am seated astride a donkey, wearing a polka-dot dress and a floppy hat, while the western sky goes on and on endlessly behind me.
I taught my students these things: the first sustained flight in a power-driven airplane was made by Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903; Wisconsin is the “Badger State”; the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for twenty-four dollars in 1626; you can’t sink in the Great Salt Lake. Now these facts ricochet in my head like pinballs, and I do not intend, thank you very much, to enter the Health Center for “better care.”