Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Fine Folks of Frenchtown

Note to reader: I just dug this journal entry up from probably early 2012. If I were to guess I'd say January. It reminded me of this special time trapped inside the vortex known as St Thomas and I thought I'd share it with you good people.
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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.