There was a place on the coast where I used to go quite often. I won't say the name of the place – or the people - because all of this is true. I’d sit and soak up the sunsets and the rum, trying to remember a day when I enjoyed being alive. Some memories fade faster than others.
At first, I went to drown my sorrows but sorrows are better swimmers than I had imagined. I’d sit under the faded brown fronds of the old tiki hut and watch the bartenders pour and the liquid swirl from the colored bottles.
“Lift the glass,” I said to myself. “Your mouth will burn. You’ll burn.”
But an interesting thing happened before I could attend my own funeral pyre. Strange faces became familiar. People who had once looked past me as though trying to see around me began nodding and even smiling when I arrived to sit on my usual stool. I was a regular, accepted among the other regulars. And we were quite a crew.
The bartenders I knew best were Will and Hannah.
Hannah was an Army brat. She had moved around a lot and learned to be comfortable with almost anyone. You could tell she had older brothers. She could handle herself even with the roughest of regulars. She was talkative and loud, but not blustery. There were times you could see she was observing and processing.
One night, she said to me, “Everything you wear is black and blue.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Occasionally I throw in some purple. They're my favorites. The colors of a bruise.”
She chuckled a bit but held my eye for a second and gave a little nod as she went by, knowing that I had shared with her a little secret.
Will was a cracker through and through. He liked his Friday nights off so he could go gigging gators or catching fish out in the boonies. He was all airboats and four-wheelers, shotguns and catfish rods.
He had no trouble keeping up with the Saturday crowds – tourists and outliers mixed with the locals. “Slanging dranks” as he called it. He would pour heavy for the regulars. And we appreciated it.
On Sundays, he had the opening shift. He always looked like hell as did any of the regulars who made their way back in the morning, but he was fully functional. He carried boxes of bottles from the main restaurant to the tiki bar to restock the wells.
“Damn,” he would say almost every Sunday. “You know we had a good night last night when there's no rum left in the building.”
He would look at me with a mocking accusatory eye, knowing I had had my share.
Among the regulars, there was Adams. I couldn’t tell if it was his first name or his last. He claimed he had worked for the government in the Caribbean, eventually settling in a hillside house in St. Thomas with a pool and a view. One night he described to me how Hurricane Hugo had changed his life trajectory. He sat on his bathroom floor, leaning over the toilet, hugging the bowl with his legs wrapped around the bottom, while his house blew away around him.
It was never clear to me what happened in the intervening years, but somehow, he had ended up as a regular at this place and had become the main source of weed for all the other regulars. Once he got to know me, he would try to drag me out to the parking lot to sit in his car.
“You gotta try this shit. It’s great shit,” he’d say.
I’d laugh and shake my head.
“I’m sure it is, but I don’t smoke. I just veg out. It turns me into a moron. Well, more of a moron.”
“Oh man, I’ll get you next time. I’m getting some really good shit.”
He was always good for a story or a chat. And he always seemed coherent even when his eyes looked like red stained glass.
There was Len. He’s dead now. He was there every day. Every day. He would stroll down from the marina where he kept his sailboat and sit in the same place each time, facing away from the sun splashing on the sparkling bay. He was not there to have his day brightened. The booze wasn't to warm him but to numb him. Though I suppose we were all guilty of that.
I had assumed he was a respected elder, but I found out few people liked him. He wore the same thing every day, a light blue button-down oxford, tan shorts and leather deck shoes. As time went by, it accumulated stains and smells. He never washed or changed.
I'd been impressed that he lived on a sailboat but discovered it had long ago been pulled from the water and propped on keel stands in the marina. He couldn't afford the rent for the slip or the cost of keeping the boat in sailing shape.
He wasn’t an idiot, but the flame of his intellect had gone out due to lack of kindling. One day he told me he had children. I can’t remember if it was three or five, but he described them to me, collectively, as “assholes.” It was hard to imagine any decent person saying that about his children, certainly not all of them. I mostly avoided him thereafter.
There was the Kite Girls – Mary and Molly. I called them that because they flew expensive kites whenever they went to the nearby seashore. These weren’t just any kites. They had steering handles and a harness that fastened around their torsos. Molly's kite costs $600.00. I'm not sure about Mary's.
They were very cool. I liked them. Adams liked them too. They were always good for a trip to the parking lot.
There were other regulars, of course. But these are the ones I remember most.
It was a while before I become friends with Forrest. I assume he’d had hippie parents. You don't meet many people named Forrest. He was a cab driver. But he was a people watcher and a laugher. And a chain smoker. Which meant every bout of laughter produced a subsequent fit of coughing.
One night two older ladies who had motored in from a sailboat anchored in the bay had overstayed. It was a hoot to watch as they struggled down the wooden stairway to the dock where their dinghy was tied. They stumbled and giggled.
The real problem arose when they reached the end of the dock and couldn't figure out how to get into their boat without falling into the water. They tested the left foot first. Then the right. Each time the little rubber beast rocked and they nearly fell. And they laughed hysterically.
Finally, one of them pulled the boat close, laid down flat, and rolled off the dock into it. It worked! The other lady did the same thing. They started the motor and scooted off and left us all howling.
One night I was sitting with Forrest and an older couple stood at the bar next to me, wondering what to order. The guy eyed my delicious-looking drink.
“What’s that?” he says.
Me: “A rum runner.”
Him: “What’s in it?”
Me: (trying to remember) “Lots of rum… and… some other shit.”
Him: (laughing) “OK, that’s what I want.”
Hannah made him a good one. He took a sip, raised his glass to me, and wandered off with the woman I assumed was his wife.
I cringed and shivered. Forrest asked what was wrong. I told him I had just pictured a troublesome image of them having squishy old people sex.
Forrest laughed. And coughed. And lit another cigarette.
“You ain’t right,” he would say, not knowing how right he was.
He had been dating this woman named Anna on and off. You could tell they cared for each other but it just wasn't working. They called it quits officially, but it was tough. It didn't help that she was also a regular at this place.
One night a strange thing happened. He started talking to me. About her. About him. You know… feelings. It was not a conversation I normally had with… anyone. That happened a few more times, sincere discussions about how we felt and what was going on in our lives.
And it made me wonder how many things I had left unsaid, how many times I tried be warm but ended up being numb.
A few months later I watched the weather forecast and feared the worst. It was a few days before I could make it back to my place, my little subtropical paradise. The hurricane had taken it.
Things changed. I changed. I moved. I never saw any of those people again.
One day I went back to sit by the splintered timbers of the dock and the jumbled concrete. I don't often write or think in verse. But that day I did.
Remember me
I whispered to you once
I meant it then. I mean it now.
The memories of us
Forgive me
For the memories of us
I smiled then. I cry now.
There’s nothing but dust.
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