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I’m sitting
outside on high bar tables in front of Craig and Sally’s, waiting to start the
day serving up St. Thomas’s lawyers and doctors their chardonnays and
samboukas, when Dan the (Car Cleaning) Man makes his way over with his daily
cigarette and dollar-asking shuffle.
Nope. Quit as
of 2012, brotha.
But maybe I’m
interested in one of the many G-strings inside a yellow plastic Pueblo bag he’s
holding?
“I think
they’re new,” he says, pulling out one sparkly thong after another.
I feel myself
flush, thank him, and offer hope for another woman out there in search for such
belongings from such a man. God speed, Dano.
The island is
so small that encounters with local bums, bar patrons, or fellow freedom-chasers
are not an uncommon thing- it comes with the territory. Luckily, not all
encounters are as dreaded as some.
For instance,
every time I run into Stan, I consider it a blessed day. Patrick and I met Stan
while hitch-hiking to K-Mart for cleaning supplies one day. He picked us up in
his rundown Ford Explorer (typical island junker-style) and after only a few
minutes of chatting, we decided heading to the beach bar was a far better destination.
Toilet brushes can wait.
Stan is your
classic case of Island Man. He wears only vibrantly colored floral T-shirts or
too-tight tanks with incredibly short shorts and cranks Jimmy Buffet all day,
every day. Drinking rum at 6 a.m. and cursing up a storm, he is full-blooded
island.
The fear of
upper-man thigh that is usually strongly in my consciousness doesn’t so
thoroughly freak me out for some reason when he’s sporting his
well-above-the-knee bottoms.
Once, Andrew
and I believed him to have pooped his pants one day after too many rum and
gingers.
We told him he
smelled, to which he simply declared, through gritted teeth, “I’m OLD.” Because
apparently it’s almost expected for 50 year old men to crap themselves in
public.
Then Patrick
passed out face-down naked on the porch (dibbing him forever “Paradise Pat”)
and it was too much for Stan. (That, and he probably needed to go home and
change his underwear) and we haven’t seen a whole lot of him since. Bless you, Stan the Man. Whichever bar you’re
drinking rum in right now.
Another local
favorite is Frenchtown’s most infamous kook. The man, the myth, the Chicken.
Chicken walks around Frenchtown with his mullet, wearing a turquoise “KOOL-aid”
t-shirt and red basketball shorts, looking for cigarettes and dollars. When
night falls and he finds enough booze (or lord knows what else), he stacks his
boombox on his shoulder and gives Frenchtown some cheap entertainment.
Hollering at the moon and barking at cars, mostly. He’s told me he’s in love
with me on various occasions. If only he was about 5 inches taller.
In Chicken We
Trust.
On a less
homeless, pants crapping note, I’ve befriended my first multi-millionaire.
Frequenting C&S’s daily for shrimp-anything and scotch neats, conducting
his mega-million dollar telephone transactions, Dale is an interesting character. He seems constantly mesmerized yet confounded
by mine and Chris’s relationship. Funny how money-making can come so easy to
someone, yet the things I find come only naturally- i.e. loving, friendship,
emotions, feeling- he finds so completely perplexing. It’s been an interesting
relationship to say the least- but I think that both sides see value in one
another and respect one another which makes for a good new perspective. That,
and he invites us all over to drink Krug champagne at his baller loft and
dropped a couple offers for European vacationing.
It’s been 28 days since his last food item and
I give him nothing but props/ insanity reviews. I mean, coming from the girl my
kitchen staff calls “dumpster girl” or self-proclaimed Fat Kid (trapped inside
a lanky white girl’s body), 28 days of zero food, by choice, is an absolute
abomination. Blasphemy! I tried to do a 7 day cleanse when the first effects of
cheap rum and cigarettes were getting to me down here and I lasted all of 2.5
days. What did I finally succumb to after 50 hours of tummy rumbling and food
craving? Veggie pizza from the gas station I was stranded at. Welp, we all
can’t be Ghandi. Or even Dale for that matter.
Looking back
at good people I’ve met here, I reflect on my first real island friend, Steve.
I met him at a bar our first night on the Rock because he was trying to pick me
up and buy me a drink, but turned out to be a friend of Chris’s from the first
time he was down here in 2009.
The most
memorable beach Steve took us to was Little Megan’s. We went there with his
friend B.J (“short for Beetlejuice,” she told us, with her whimsical gypsy
smile). With a blond buzzed head and hairy armpits, that girl wasted no time in
stripping down and jumping in the water. In efforts to not be the Mid-West
prude on board, I took my top off and sauntered in wearily. We bonded right
away, and she told me she actually knew we were going to meet.
Apparently, her
new 50-something year old boyfriend who lives on the boat next to her told her
she was going to meet three people in her same age bracket from the mid-west; Wisconsin
specifically. Two of them were going to be in a relationship for under a year,
but have lived previous lifetimes together. This couple (aka Christopher and I)
is going to partake on his journey by boat to the earth’s vortexes in order to
release the trapped souls and thus help save the world.
My suitcase is
packed. Just waiting for the boat.
**Stan update:
He is spending most days drinking rum and gingers at Palm Passage and awaiting
his gold tooth engraved with a palm tree to replace the decaying tooth he lost
in a piece of pizza a couple weeks ago. He’s lookin good.
**Chicken
update: after multiple times soberly joking I was going to make-out with
Chicken, I spent the other night blackout moonlight dancing with him,
apparently ending the dance with a smooch on the mouth.
The bartender
at my restaurant insisted on telling our usual patrons and I almost wasn’t
allowed to handle food any longer.