Jamaican Wedding Part II

When the crew finally hauled Macho Man back on board the catamaran—covering his nudity with a life jacket—he was so angry they had to subdue him with rum and tie him to the deck railing. He tried to tell the deckhands about the spear gun and his missing shorts but he was so frothed up that they couldn’t make out what he was saying. This of course saved my ass. His woman knew what was going on though and she paced angrily back and forth in front of her tattooed lover shooting me looks that would have melted the ice build up off an artic oil tanker’s deck.

The Captain, not one to shy away from a dangerous situation, walked up to Macho Man and began poking him with a snorkel.

Macho Man howled. “You mother fucker. When we get back to the resort I’m going to kill you.”

His girlfriend took a swipe at the Captain but despite his considerable belly he artfully dodge it and poured a margarita on her head.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” DB said. “They’re going to have to release him at some point.”

The Captain produced a Red Stripe, seemingly from thin air and finished it off. “Sometimes you have to give the devil a titty twister and dare the fucker to come after you. Otherwise life can be pretty dull.”

Summer’s eyes narrowed with concern. She hadn’t really seen this side of the Captain. DB had always managed to shuffle him away just before the trigger slipped and the barrel –always aimed straight at chaos—hit its mark.

Summer took DB’s arm and pulled close to him. “You know we’re out here on a boat. If Macho Man gets out we’re trapped with him and all his rage.”

At rare times I can be nearly rational and at that very moment I decided to try to make amends with Macho Man. I would rescue his Euroshorts from the side of the boat where they were stuck with one of my spears…okay, maybe I just wanted my spear back and giving the shorts back was a secondary consideration.

I finished off my rum and Coke. “DB I’m going to need your assistance.”

“Sure, what do you need?” DB asked.

“I’m going to need you to dangle me over the edge of the catamaran by my ankles so I can pull my spear from the side.”

“Right…uhm, isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“Everything in life is dangerous. Hell, I could die from eating a contaminated bag of spinach. Going out by getting sucked under a catamaran seems like a much more manly option.”

DB set his rum and pineapple juice on the bar. “Good point. I’ll get Ernie and Claude to help. My dad can distract the deckhands.”

“How will he do that?”

“He’ll dance.”

“Dance?”

“Who do you think taught me the Mic Jagger chicken dance?”

“Right. I’ll see you at the bow. Oh and make sure the Captain doesn’t know what’s going on. He’ll screw everything up if he finds out.”

“He’s still poking Macho Man with a snorkel.”

We both looked over at the Captain who was now doing some sort of odd ritualistic like dance around Macho Man. I was sure that in his head what he was doing made perfect sense and really that’s all that mattered in the Captains world.

“Okay, lower me down,” I said. “In thirty seconds pull me up whether I have the spear and Euroshorts or not.”

“Got ya,” DB said.

DB found a rope and tied it to the railing and then to my ankles. “If I would happen to die I’d like you to tell my Mother I want her to take care of my Chihuahuas.”

DB pushed me overboard. DB, Claude and Ernie—another member of the wedding entourage—then pulled me up so my legs were out of the water. I adjusted my mask and as the salty spray hit my face. It occurred to me then that what I was doing was perhaps not the smartest thing I had ever done but before I could protest I spied my spear and the Euroshorts on the side of the catamaran. I tugged at the spear but being upside down I had trouble getting any real leverage.

I pulled my head out of the water. “I’ll need more slack.”

DB and the boys slowly lowered me deeper into the water. I was able to twist my body around so that my flippers were against the side of the catamaran and the spear was between my legs, my head out of the water. Just as I was about to pull I saw a deckhand approach my friends and suddenly they let go of the rope. I fell back and the spear came loose. Macho Man’s Euroshorts fell over my face like some sort of gaudy disco veil. I was swept back behind the boat and pulled along on my belly.

I tore at the Euroshorts and as I did so I felt something odd. Through the material of the shorts I could feel it was a disk. My first thought was that it was probably a Guns and Roses CD or perhaps some cheap Jamaican porno Macho Man had picked up somewhere in Montego Bay. I would have little time to ponder this discovery though for to my right I spied a boat coming towards the catamaran. I stuffed the Euroshorts into the back pocket of my own shorts (I know it’s gross but I had little time to think about what I was doing). The other boat pulled up along side the catamaran. Either they hadn’t seen me or figured I was part of some knew water sport craze that was sweeping the Caribbean for they didn’t pay any attention to me.

“Next we will be stopping at Margaritaville,” one of the deck hand said.

I looked out over the clear blue water towards the shoreline and saw a strange building that looked somewhat like the playhouse on the old Pee Wee Herman Show. This was singer Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, a chain of cheeseburger and Margarita joints that has sprung up in the Caribbean and other various locations so that Americans could feel at home getting drunk and fat in any country.

The first thing I noticed was a steep water slide on the face of Margaritaville which started four stories up and at the very end dropped eight feet into ocean. I knew the Captain should be kept as far away as possible from this contraption but of course he would head straight for it, the constructs of his being allowed for no other reasonable alternative. The Captain would not be denied any of the forbidden fruits that were off limits to less daring men with such petty considerations as morals and a sense of dignity limiting their actions.

The other boat docked next to our catamaran. With my diving knife in hand I dove below the surface and cut the rope from my legs. I then swam as long as I could under water and surfaced about fifty yards away in the roped off swimming area of Margaritaville.

In the swimming area were two floating trampolines and I swam over to one of them and climbed up on it. I watched as my friends got off the catamaran and the men from the other boat approach the captain (the actual captain of our vessel). They talked to him for a moment handed him an envelope and climbed aboard. Immediately they made for Macho Man who by this time had procured a towel to cover his nakedness. I could hear him all the way from where I was some 100 yards away.

“Someone shot my shorts off with a spear gun and got the CD, Mr. Timball.”

His girlfriend grabbed his arm and pulled herself close to him. “It’s true. I saw it.”

A very short man in a black linen shirt and dark wrap around sunglasses took a step towards Macho Man. The corners of his lips rose slightly and he laughed but he most definitely wasn’t happy. “I asked you to do only one thing and that was to hold onto that CD. That CD is worth more than your life. Do you understand that?”

Macho Man hung his head, water dripped from his Fu Manchu. “Yeah.”

“Well, then where are the shorts?”

“In the side of the boat right here.”

“Well, why are they still there?”

“I was naked.”

The Timball smacked Macho Man. “Well, then you’ll get them now.”

Macho Man’s girlfriend stood. “He’s not going in there for you.”

Timball snapped his fingers and two big goons in identical red Adidas sweat suits grabbed Macho Man’s girlfriend and set her down on the dock. “Go, and don’t look back,” one of the goons said. They then grabbed Macho Man by the ankles and lowered him over the side of the boat face first. They held him in the water for some time and then when I was sure he was drowned they yanked him up.

Macho Man came up gasping and spitting. His towel fell down and he quickly pulled it back up.

Timball tapped his foot impatiently on the deck. “Well?”

“It’s gone, Mr. Timball. It was there when I got on the boat.”

“For your sake they’d better not have been lost at sea.”

“They couldn’t have been. They really were stuck in there good.”

Timball raised the heel of his snakeskin boot and drove it into Macho Man’s foot. Macho Man fell to the ground grasping his injured foot. “Who shot the spear and where is he now?”

Macho man spun around on the deck of the boat like a bad break dancer, holding his broken foot. “I don’t know. He must be up in Margaritaville.”

“Well, I want the CD back and I want this guy dead no matter what.”

Mr. Timball and his goons turned and looked up at Margaritaville. They studied the giant water slide outside, the patrons enjoying drinks on the deck. I noticed the Captain was at the top of the water slide finishing off a 32 ounce margarita. He handed the empty cup the water slide attendant and then he spotted me. I tried to sink down into the trampoline.

“Hey, Professor, up here.”

All at once, Macho Man, Timball, and his goons turned and looked at me lying on the trampoline.

“There he is,” Macho Man cried.

The Captain dove into the water slide and I waited for him to come out at the bottom but he didn’t. Somehow he’d gotten stuck inside.

I dove into the water and swam straight for the bottom. Next to one of the anchor ropes that held the trampolines in place was a rock. I lifted it and put the gold Euroshorts and CD underneath it. If this Timball character was going to kill me then I figured the CD must have been very valuable and I would need that leverage to negotiate with if they caught me.

I broke the surface of the water and just as I did the Captains red, white and blue Speedos slid out the end of the water slide but still no Captain…

Jamaican Wedding Part I

Our plane touched down in Montego Bay Airport and I looked across the aisle at the Captain who was oblivious to the fact that aircraft was no longer in the air. He finished pouring a mini bottle of Jack Daniels into a plastic cup of Coke and then downed the concoction in one lighting fast shot. He smiled his crooked smile and drooled onto the collar of his linen shirt which was stained with bacon grease, cigarette ashes and something pink. He said something under his breath that to the casual observer probably sounded like, “There’s something in my ear” but in reality he had said, “I need to get a beer.” You see he was neck deep in a bender that had started at 7:30 AM at the airport in Philadelphia that morning and since then his only sustenance-- other than a plate full of dry bacon he’d inhaled at the airport bar--had been booze and nicotine.

I leaned across the aisle and whispered to him so he wouldn’t get jumpy and freak out like he’d done in Cancun several years earlier and landed us in jail for three days until I convinced officials he was a mental patient I’d been transporting for medical research. “Now, I want you to remain calm. What I’m going to tell you isn’t something that you don’t need to react to. The fact is that we’ve landed.”

The Captain looked out the window and tried to focus but it was obvious he couldn’t tell whether the cement outside his window was actually cloud cover or in fact part of the airport runway. He turned back to me, his eyes wild, his mouth agape, his bad eye drooping badly. I fished in my carry on for a few tranquilizers and handed them to him. He swallowed them and burped. The hair of the women in the seat in front of him blew to the side and a moment later she gagged. I thought she might puke but she did a nice job of collecting herself and all seemed to be well.

We’d come to Jamaica for the wedding of our good friend DB. There were two dozen others who had made the trip on United Airlines flight 720 to attend the joyous event, none of whom were aware of the depths to which the Captain and I could sink (other than DB) nor the exact constructs of our collective depravity. I knew no matter how hard we tried something would go awry. For starters the Captain was the best man in the wedding and his sole job was to keep track of the wedding rings. For safekeeping on the flight he had placed them in a plastic baggy with his stash of drugs and…well, you can figure out the rest.

* * *

The airport at Montego Bay was a shyster’s paradise, a third world carnival where all the games were rigged for those that stood behind the cut-out booths. In our first five minutes there I must have tipped twelve people for openning doors and directing us down stairs. The Captain and I found the place charming in a Las Vegas sort of way and downed several Red Stripe beers as we made our way to the Chance Travel counter.

We were met by a bald man in a ridiculously small white uniform that had been stained brown with sweat. He scooped my bag up and tossed it on his cart. “You go to Sunset Beach, mon?” he asked.

I nodded. “Uh, right, mon?”

I didn’t like other people handling my bags, hadn’t trusted them to the hands of another since all my luggage was stolen by a band of thieving thirteen year olds in the airport in Senegal, Africa. Try wearing one pair of underwear in 115 degree heat for two weeks. You seldom get invited back to someone’s hut for an after hours cup of palm wine. Of course the Captain only ever traveled with 2 pairs of underwear and this trip was no exception. He carried all his clothing in a carryon knapsack the size of circus midget’s change purse-- one pairs of clean underwear, a pair of khaki pants, a button down shirt, Speedos, toothbrush and tanning accelerator. Changing clothes wasn’t something he did often nor out of necessity, it was something he did when the layer he was wearing began to rot away from his flesh.

* * *

We arrived at the Sunset Beach Resort & Spa sometime around two o’clock and before I could even get out of my seat the Captain was up and off the bus and running towards the open air lobby. Of course I had to tip the driver the Captains share because he was already chasing after him when I stuffed a $10 into his hand and explained that the Captain was in no condition to tip.

“I see the Captain is scoping out the lobby bar,” DB said.

I turned and DB and his fiancée Summer were standing behind me waiting to get off the bus. “He has his priorities. None of which will make sense to the sane but just the same he knows what he wants and he knows where to find it.”

“Uh, right,” DB said.

In the lobby of the resort there were many chairs and tables and a bar that was filled with every liquor imaginable. The Captain surveyed the lobby of the resort, eyeing up the bar and the restrooms. He licked his finger and held it up in the air as if testing which way the wind was blowing.

“What the Hell are you doing?” I asked. “You need to check in.”

“Finding the optimal area to plant myself, it must be directly between the toilets and the bar so I don’t lose time when I go to do one or the other. He dropped his backpack and fell into a large flower print chair. “I’m home. I plan only to leave this chair for defecation, food and the wedding.”

“Where will you change?”

“I’ll put my Khakis on over this outfit.”

Claude, a large half German, half Irish and half English behemoth who was also in the wedding party laid a hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t he going to check in?”

“No, he’s going to drink and perhaps procure some smokeables…any time you need the Captain he’ll be sitting in that exact same spot. You can count on it.”

Someone turned on a sound system and out of the corner of my eye I could see DB doing the Mic Jagger chicken dance, a habit I’d tried to break him of many times. He was holding two bottles of Red Stripe and if I wasn’t mistaken there was a big fat joint resting between his lips.

“What a fucking idiot.”

I turned as did Claude and the Captain.

Sitting in a chair nearby was some laughable meat head in a tiny pair of glittering gold Euroshorts and a half net T-shirt. On the deltoid muscle of his right arm was a tattoo that said: Macho Man. He leaned forward, putting his hand on his chunky girlfriend’s thigh. “Look at that guy dance.”

Suddenly the Captain burst from the very chair he had vowed not to leave. “That idiot is my friend.”

Macho Man turned and looked at the Captain as if he were crazy because well, he was crazy. His plump girlfriend shifted her large rump on the couch and waves of cellulite jiggled in the tropical sunlight.

The Captain jumped on a coffee table and waved his beer bottle in the air like a saber. “That’s right…” His voice faded off and to all those present it appeared that the Captain had lost his train of thought or perhaps simply his mind but I knew better. I knew this was just the calm before the storm, that inside his head there was a terrible demon coming around the roller coaster bend, that without warning he might suddenly leap off the table like a rabid lemming and bite Mach Man’s calf muscle, leaving a nasty infection. It was time for me to intervene.

I picked the Captain up off the table and hustled him towards the elevator. He wouldn’t be happy about being moved out of his prime drinking seat but at least he wouldn’t be in a Jamaican jail in the morning.

“I’m going to kill you,” Macho Man yelled after us.

“Goddamn cocksucker,” I yelled back.

* * *

The next morning DB called to tell me that he had a wonderful view of the ocean from his room that was only marred by Macho Man on the beach doing pushups on his knuckles while his fat girlfriend sat on his back knitting what looked like another pair of tiny Euroshorts.

“The Europeans think knuckle pushups are some sort of anti-aging remedy. I think Winston Churhill used to do them while sipping gin from a Krazy Straw. You’d be best not to step in his path when he’s exerting himself in such a manner.”

“I consider myself warned,” DB said. “Are you guys ready to go on the booze cruise?”

“I can only speak for myself. The Captain hasn’t yet arisen and it might be some time before I can get him off the balcony. He insisted on sleeping out there in case there was a fire.”

“Just get him up and get him moving before he realizes what’s going on. He’ll be pissed if he becomes too conscious and finds we’ve moved him from his drinking chair in the lobby.”

“Right,” I said.

* * *

We took a bus to downtown Montego Bay for our catamaran excursion. The brochure promised us sailing, snorkeling, booze and a stop over at Margaritaville. I was new to snorkeling and having seen quite a few tabloid television shows in the last few years highlight shark attacks I thought it prudent that I pack a diving knife and spear gun. Of course these items in the hands of an untrained and drunken individual could be very dangerous and I was just such an individual.

As we boarded the catamaran I noticed a most disturbing site. Sitting on the bow of the boat like he owned it was none other than our new arch nemesis Macho Man. He was drinking from a giant 42 ounce energy drink and was still wearing the disturbing gold Euroshorts which prominently displayed his package. His girlfriend was sprawled out beneath him on the deck wearing a new neon thong. I quickly ducked down below to the lower deck where the bar was. The sight of them was killing my buzz.

The Captain and DB were already at the bar and so I walked over to join them.

“What do you mean I can’t have a drink until after we’re done snorkeling?” the Captain said.

The woman behind the bar smiled. “I’m sorry, mon, no drinking until you’re done snorkeling. Those are the rules.”

The Captain stalked off to the stern of the boat and threw himself down on a bench.

“Good start,” DB said.

“Right,” I said.

We cruised in the ocean for fifteen or twenty minutes until we came to a white buoy and then we came to a stop.

The director of the boat came to the bow and motioned Macho Man away. Macho Man grunted his disapproval and started towards the stern of the catamaran and then our eyes locked. There was instant hatred rose between us like a toxic fog. Yes, I feared for my life and whether this was merely paranoia brought on by the copious amounts of marijuana I’d smoked that morning or true animosity mattered little at that point for what really mattered was that I BELIEVED Macho Man was out to get me and I would do anything to protect myself.

The director of the boat took off his sunglasses and began to speak. “Each of you will take a pair of flippers, a mask and a snorkel. Please do not spit in the mask to defog it. We consider this disgusting. Ha ha. And do not venture far from the boat or we will leave you out here…just kidding. Have a good time and be careful.”

Macho Man and his woman were the first to scoop up flippers, snorkels and masks, knocking several children aside as they did so. I thought it a good idea that they get in the water first in case there were any hungry sharks lingering around the boat.

The Captain got his gear and as he was pitting on his second flipper he fell overboard. DB and I looked over the side of the boat and somehow the Captain came to the surface holding a bottle of Red Stripe.

“I don’t want to know where he was hiding that,” DB said.

When it came my turn to get into the water the attendant at the ladder looked curiously at the knapsack on my back.

“It will be hard to swim with that on your back, mon,” he said. “Leave it here. It will be safe on the boat.”

“Right, but it has to be done. This knapsack contains an external pace maker. It works through magnetic receptors planted in my chest. I can’t be more than ten feet away from this knapsack at any time or my heart will stop.”

I didn’t wait for a response but hopped into the water and began to swim out into the sea. The knapsack nearly pulled my down at first but once I was far enough away from the boat--where no one could see me--I took out my diving knife and strapped it to my ankle and hung the spear gun over my shoulder by its strap. No, shark was going to bite my leg off.

I have to say that at first I really enjoyed the snorkeling. The fish and other sea creatures were beautiful and in the tranquil water I found a calm that I hadn’t known in my life in the States unless I was drunk and high…well, yes I was drunk and high most of the time but you get my point. I thought if I could breathe under water that I might never go back again but this notion was short lived for moments later a hideous creature crossed my path. Yes, it was Macho Man and he was coming right at me in his horrifying gold Euroshorts.

I panicked and reach for my spear gun and when I did I accidentally pulled the trigger. It occurred to me at that moment that my life was now over that I had most likely just killed a man with a spear gun and would spend the rest of my days rotting in a Jamaican jail. I took the snorkel out of my mouth and began to sink. Suicide seemed like the only logic solution at this point. As I continued to sink I opened my eyes and as they focused I saw Macho Man above me. I looked for the spear in his stomach but it wasn’t there and for some strange reason he was completely naked except for his flippers.

I began to swim for the surface and as I did Macho Man began to swim after me. I swam as fast as I could towards the boat. I was sure he would catch me but as we neared the boat he stopped. Obviously he didn’t want to get up on the boat naked after swimming. His unit would have been shriveled up like the bacon the Captain at the previous morning in the airport in Philadelphia.

As I drew closer to the boat I discovered what had happened to Macho Man’s gold Euroshorts. They were pinned up against the side of the boat with the spear from my spear gun. Evidently the spear had ripped his shorts off.

As I began to climb the ladder I saw DB on deck drinking a Red Stripe and doing the Mic Jagger chicken dance to a Bob Marley song. We would have to come up with a plan to keep Macho Man from going to the authorities...

Dan and Luch - Montego Bay, Jamaica

I'm back...not that you care...I'm just saying...

I’m leaving for Jamaica Friday…uh mon…so, I won’t be around for a while. I’ll drink a Red Stripe for you or maybe two or three or four…

I turned around and saw Trevor holding a guy up in the air by the lapels of his coat. “Open the door,” he cried. I shoved the door open and Trevor tried to push the guy through the doors but he grabbed onto the door handle on his way out and clung to it for dear life. I got behind Trevor. “Why are you throwing me out?” the guy said. “There’s a cop behind you,” I said. “You’d better leave now.” The guy let go of the door and turned around to see no one. We closed the doors behind him. I later learned one of the bouncers asked him to leave for acting like an ass and he said, “You make me leave.” Uhm, okay? If people knew how dumb they looked when they drank they would be very embarrassed. Then again maybe they just don’t care…

Your eyes are golden like the name tag on the tabby cat I hit with my car this morning. I didn’t mean to hit it but I did and I want you to know that because well, I like you. It’s true I don’t like cats but that has nothing to do with me hitting the cat, I can assure you. What do you say you and I grab a bite to eat? Chinese? Sorry, bad joke.

It is 52 degrees in Harrisburg with a nice stiff breeze blowing. Why was the mailman wearing shorts? Some people just can’t let go of summer…