West of the Quator

by Cheryl Bartlam DuBois

  Rob stepped up to the little cinder block building and lined up in the que that filed out the door and halfway around the building. It was one o’clock in the afternoon – lunch time for islanders which ran from twelve to three. Unfortunately, Rob had chosen to place his call at the hottest and the busiest time of the day, and had of course, come away from the boat without a hat or sunscreen. Up until the day he bought the boat Rob had been slathered constantly with suntan lotion by one of Joey’s many female deck hands, thus Rob’s lilly white skin was yet to suffer a great deal of direct sun. But alas, with Joey went his female retinue.

  It seemed that since it was lunch time there was only one operator working at the phone company which was known by the officious name of Telit. It was looking as if it would be a rather long wait to complete this simple task that Rob had never really thought twice about. It was two-thirty by the time Rob got to the bullet proof windows inside the building, where the operator took cover from irate tourists who often tried to grab the phone company’s clerks by the throat after waiting to place a call for four hours and having the phones go down at that exact moment their call was put through. By then, Rob was certain that he had sustained sunstroke not to mention the fact that his face was so hot from the sunburn, that he surely could have fried and egg on his forehead. At least that was the thought in his mind at that moment as he rehearsed what he was going to say to Sydney. Surely, he would feel as if he indeed had egg on his face, but at least he reasoned, it would be a cooked one. Normally, Rob would have opted to wait outside the filthy waiting room strewn with candy wrappers, empty drink bottles, and island trash, but shelter from the heat, although un-air-conditioned, made it an easy choice for Rob to remain inside the standing room-only lobby.

  On average, it took one to two hours to put a call through to the states from one of the eight phone booths in the adjoining room. Rob’s other concern was that he would wait the two hours and his name would be called and he’d be unable to understand it due to the bad PA system and the thick West Indian accent of the operator. That day the phone company seemed especially busy for some unexplained reason and it appeared that everyone had brought at least two children with them or a child and a dog since the little room was so overwhelmed with screaming, crying, and barking it made it even harder to hear anything over the din. Finally, at about ten after four, a voice called over the public address system – “Rib, geta boot numba eit.”

  Was that his name or was that the operator’s take out order for dinner, Rob wondered as he fought his way to the window to confirm the call. It seemed that the operator had indeed announced Rob’s phone call which was awaiting him in booth number eight. So, he quickly made his way back through the crowd to the specified phone booth, stepping over crying children – just avoiding a nip from a rather irritated island dog which some child had been tormenting. Finally, he reached the booth and stepped in, but as he attempted to pull the door shut, it came right off its hinges nearly falling on top of him. Struggling to get rid of the heavy door, he drug it out of the booth and propped it against the wall as he heard once again, “Rib ta boot numba eit.” Just as Rob turned to step back into the booth a rather large woman, obviously some relation to Althea, was attempting to squeeze between him and the phone booth in the narrow aisle between booth numbers one through four and five through eight. Somehow, she managed to wedge herself between Rob and the phone booth, and a man who was just stepping out of booth number four.

  For an uncomfortable moment, Rob was trapped between this woman’s overly robust posterior and the man who was carrying a large sack of tanya root1* and christophine.2**

  Willing himself thinner, Rob twisted and struggled his way out of the bottle neck and snatched up the receiver on the phone just in time to hear the operator tell Sydney, “He musta leff misus, he no pik up de fone.”

  “WAIT,” cried Rob, “I’M HERE!,” he shouted desperately trying to catch Sydney before she hung up, but instead of Sydney’s voice, the only answer he heard was a loud click. Frustrated beyond sanity, Rob pushed his way through the crowd once again cutting ahead of a long line of Antiguans to speak to the operator. “You hung up my call before I could get to it,” said Rob with a rather sharp edge of irritation having pretty much lost his patience by this point – another foolish mistake to make in the islands, especially since Antiguans take Americans’ impatience as an open opportunity to torment the poor bastards that much more.

  “Wha be you cal suh?” asked the new woman behind the glass cage as if she didn’t have a clue.

  “Rib, boot numba eit,” answered Rob, “I mean, Rob, booth number eight,” repeated Rob on the brink of insanity.

  “I call you nam suh, bu’ you naw tear,” answered the clerk as if she could have cared as much about Rob getting his call through as she did about who had won the Superbowl that year.

  “I was there, but I wasn’t tear,” said Rob getting more and more frustrated by the second.

  “You have ta wet you tun suh, we be callin’ you bek suh.”

  “What do you mean wait my turn! I’ve waited nearly four hours and –” –before Rob could finish his sentence the woman had shut the window in his face and gone to the next man in line at the next window over, totally ignoring Rob, who was getting pretty hot an bothered by this point – as much now from his blistering face as he was from his rising blood pressure. It was impossible to see the redness from the anger rise in his face since it was already a deep shade of crimson from the sunburn. Rob was quickly beginning to look like an over-ripened mango about to burst as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. On top of it all he suddenly realized that he desperately had to relieve himself, but alas there was no restroom in the Telit building. As desperate as he was to go, he didn’t dare leave the building to walk next door to find a public toilet should they call his name the minute he’d stepped out the door. Another forty minutes passed as Rob crossed his legs dancing back and forth impatiently while the waiting islanders looked on as if he were some alien from another planet. To them he was – just another yachty who was likely wealthy enough to buy the phone company and whom would dare to complain about such minor inconveniences as waiting a few hours to place a phone call. But, they knew that none of that truly mattered since he was one of those spoiled Americans that would at some point simply give up and go home.

  So much time had passed since he had started out to make that dreaded call to Sydney, that Rob had nearly forgotten what he had so carefully rehearsed to say to her. Boy had Rob underestimated Sydney’s wrath when he finally got her on the phone. At that point Rob was feeling pretty grateful that there was a thousand miles of ocean between him and his loving, understanding ‘wife to be,’ or ‘not to be,’ as it seemed this was now the issue in question.

  “YOU BOUGHT WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!,” screeched Sydney through the receiver loud enough for callers in booths one through seven to hear. And Rob had been worried that he wouldn’t be able to hear her over all the noise, especially since booth eight was now sans a door.

  “But Sydney, I was thinking of us,” lied Rob in a feeble attempt to defuse the tongue lashing he was about to receive.

  “How could you do this to us?! All that money for our house… our future! You spent on some dumb boat!”

  “But Sydney, you’ve always talked about having a second home once we were settled, so think of it as a mobile second home. So, I bought the second before the first, what difference does it make,” said Rob attempting to sound rational about the most irrational thing he’d ever done in his life.

  This of course, went over about as well as ‘mozeltof’ at a Roman Catholic wedding. “Just what I’ve always wanted… a mobile home!” sneered Sydney.

  But the phone company somehow managed to come to the rescue as Rob heard, “You deposit be finish,” followed by a loud click and a dial tone.

  Rob was quite thankful that Sydney had a good hour to cool down while the operator, who was now appearing quite reasonable compared to what aw
aited him on the other end of the line, attempted to place the call one more time. By the time he finally got Sydney back on the phone Rob managed to convince her that everything would be just fine if she would simply sell his car for him as quickly as possible in order that he might still be able to get to work before tourist season was completely over – along with any chance he had of making back any of his investment. He hung up satisfied that his future in the islands looked a little brighter, however Rob still felt terribly depressed. Oh, how he was going to miss her. Not Sydney – Marlena, his car, which he had pampered and babied since the day he bought it – too late for regrets Rob. Paradise was waiting.

  Alex was shocked when Rob returned to the boat that evening and she saw his now badly blistered and swollen face. Although resistant to her concern, Alex insisted that he lay down in the deck-house while she ministered to his second and third degree sunburn. She feared that Rob might actually go into shock from dehydration, since she’d seen many a badly burned greenie succumb due to over-exposure to the sun without knowledgeable medical attention. She handed Rob a large glass of water and made him swallow an antihistamine and some aspirin to reduce the chance of further swelling, and then fresh garlic to counteract the potential of infection. Rob was a little nervous about Alex’s layman medical practices, however by that point he was on fire and feeling quite light headed – certain in fact that he would faint if he took another step.

  Alex ran to the far side of the dockyard to cut fresh aloe leaves from a plant she had used many times before, and she carefully scooped out the clear jelly inside the long pulpy green leaf and gently smeared it on his sunburnt and rapidly blossoming face. Once she felt assured that she had applied sufficient aloe, she covered his face with cheese cloth compresses soaked in ice water in an attempt to cool the burn and provide relief from his immediate pain. Once Rob had given up control to Alex he had begun to grow slightly delirious – before the drugs kicked in and the cooling bath relieved some of the intense heat that swelled waves of nausea over him like heat-waves rolling in off the Sahara.

  Laying there helpless in the deck house, as Alex nursed his wounds, Rob was surprised at how feminine she suddenly seemed hovering over him as his mother had done when he had been a small boy – an only child that always received too much fussing over. Laying there with his eyes closed, Rob drifted back to that place where he had felt taken care of – safe in his mother’s hands. Was that what was missing from his relationship with Sydney – the nurturing? She didn’t have any of his mother’s tenderness, but strangely, like Julie Anne, Alex – a woman who appeared totally un-feminine to him by day, had suddenly become more feminine than even femme fatale Sydney. Alex had stepped out of the role of Captain and donned the cloak of Florence Nightingale.

  I watched as Rob soaked in the touch of her arms on his chest as they brushed over him to apply more cold water to his compresses. He breathed in the smell of her skin – the smell of sun warmed flesh mixed with the sweet scent of coconut oil from the suntan lotion she had applied earlier in the day – that smell he’d remembered on Julie Anne’s skin the day after graduation when they lay on the beach at the lake wrapped in each other’s arms. The day of his loss of virginity. It was a smell that triggered a warm sensual surge throughout his body. But now Alex possessed it, exuded it – he drank it in. I knew that Rob had opened himself up to new possibilities. If this woman with whom he didn’t even get along could trigger this kind of sensual sensation in him, maybe there was still hope for him to find some sort of feeling again.

  Finally, Alex felt Rob relax under her care as she smoothed the wet compresses over his burning face. Oddly, Alex felt a tingling sensation in her forearm as she brushed her arm over Rob’s chest – the hairs rising on her arm as if there were some sort of static electricity between them that had been charged the moment they had come into close enough proximity with one another. Strange, this was a sensation she had never felt before. Till that moment Alex had yet to feel physically charged around any man. And now, with Rob of all men, her sexual arousal had been peaked. It scared her. Titillated her. But she fought it – found herself stuffing her feelings back behind that big steel door that kept her safe. She tried to ignore it rising up from her root chakra – the sensual rush of passion. She quelled it – denied it and commanded it to return to its hiding place deep in her soul. Her discipline took over. She was a slave to it. She had lived in denial all her life of her desire. She felt it selfish and weak. Once again she had managed to take control – she had doused the flame of pleasure in lieu of being professional; and now her job was to don the disguise of nurse and also douse the fire that burned on Rob’s face.

  She sensed his breathing as it shifted from tense and pained, to relaxed, shallow breaths – like the breath of relief and trust which a scarred puppy or kitten might settle into once they felt they could trust the hand that cared for them. Alex had saved many a baby kitten and puppy from the West Indian versions of birth control – a burlap sack and a cinder block dropped into the harbor. She had a soft heart where small living things were concerned even though she’d never been around children, since, like Rob she never had any brothers or sisters, or children of her own. She had never even been afforded the opportunity to play nurse-maid to a man before, except her Dad when he was sick, since Michael had been the type to push her away when he wasn’t feeling well. And likewise, had left her to fend for herself whenever she had been under the weather. She liked the feel of it she decided – nursing Rob. Maybe he wasn’t so tough after all. Maybe she just needed to give him a chance to get his sea legs.

  Alex sat by his side for hours drizzling cool water over the cloth until the heat in his skin had finally subsided. As much as Rob hated to admit it, he felt immensely better thanks to Alex’s ministrations, leaving him impressed by her knowledge. However, he was shocked by how gruesome he looked when he finally took a peek in the mirror. It would be weeks before his face was normal again, but he figured he wasn’t out to win any beauty contests. And thank goodness, Sydney would be no where near until he had resumed his normal boyish good looks.

  Once Rob had recovered, daily island life in Paradise commenced for him. He had blown off his night of sensual awakening to Alex’s more feminine qualities and ignored it as simply a delirious episode due to his second and third degree burns. Alex however, had very clear memories of that evening due to the fact that she had more than possessed all of her faculties, contrary to Rob. But, thanks to her big steel door, all that remained was a pleasant memory. She went about her duties readying the boat for the inspector and buying gear on Joey’s account at the local marine store, which the boat would require for charter. And, since Rob was busy with the legal aspects of his new venture he managed to stay out of Alex’s way, somewhat to her dismay, at least for the first few weeks.

  Finally, the inspector arrived on the boat early one morning unannounced, with his checklist and magnifying glass, and proceeded to religiously inspect every square inch of the boat, not missing a single hairline fracture in the rigging (invisible to the naked eye), or a missing fluorescent tape from a life preserver. The outcome –he was terribly sorry but the Island Fever had failed miserably to meet his undisputed safety requirements. However, he would be happy to send his cousin, Ethan, over right away from the marine supply store to make a list of the things that Rob would need to buy in order to pass his safety inspection, in order that he could buy his charter insurance, in order that he could receive his charter license, in order that he could obtain a charter agent, and so on, until Rob could take out his first tourist on his million dollar ‘inspected’ raft. When he was finished, Mr. Brown handed Rob his bill for five hundred U.S. dollars with an outstretched hand and waited while Rob dug out the cash.

  Weeks passed and repairs were made, to Mr. Brown’s strict specifications of course, and Rob and Alex grew more distant than if they were residing on different shores of the Caribbean. Rob’s car was sold and his insurance premium was paid, Althe
a promised to process Rob’s charter license, and Fritz, the agent, promised Rob that if he would just do him a favor and handle a week’s worth of ‘day charters,’ he would be eternally grateful and was certain to have a real charter for him within the week. In other words, the agent wanted Rob to run the Island Fever as a picnic ferry for a week or so, or a ‘cattlemaran’ as it’s known in the islands. Fair enough thought Rob, a charter’s a charter as far as he knew. But Alex knew better. She knew that day charters meant trying to cram forty sunburnt, seasick tourists who were determined to drink their passage fee worth of Heineken, onto a vessel that should legally be allowed to carry only twenty at best. It also meant preparing a lunch for forty which was scoffed down by the first twenty before the second twenty returned from their snorkeling outing, which Alex would of course have to escort them on. But, Rob was new at this and he was desperate – the two extra weeks spent in port awaiting the inspection had cost him, and the bills were pouring in faster than the tide. To Alex’s dismay he accepted Fritz’s offer. So, she resigned herself to the fact that if a ‘head charter’ (as in head-count or ferry run), meant she would be able to immediately commence her position as captain of the Island Fever, she was certainly willing to grin and bear it. Even if she knew that Joey would have heart failure when he found out that forty tourists were being crammed onto his boat everyday.

  “What can I say?” thought Alex in resignation. “It is half his boat and if he wants to beat it to death as a ferry boat, that’s his prerogative. I guess I can’t complain too much… the Captain’s the Captain no matter what type of charter I’m taking out, so, I should just be happy with the fact that I’m the Captain.”

  But Alex was not all too happy with the state of affairs aboard the Island Fever since Rob was yet to be useful as a ‘first mate,’ which left only poor Raymond to look after all those green sailors while she sailed the boat.