West of the Quator

by Cheryl Bartlam DuBois

  Oh what a sad turn of events in Paradise. Poor Rob had been reduced from driving a German BMW to a Brazilian tin can in just a matter of weeks. Suddenly, Rob was beginning to realize how the other half lived.

  “In a matter of just two months I’ve taken the back seat to a goat,” thought Rob, “Gone from waking up to the sound of talk radio to waking up to chickens, digressed from living in a penthouse to living in a hen-house, and started taking showers out of an oversized douche-bag instead of the men’s locker room at my two thousand dollar a year health club. Boy have I taken things for granted,” Rob suddenly realized. “I grew up believing that if I worked hard, life would always be what I wanted it to be. Maybe you just have to earn good fortune and a life in Paradise by doing more than simply working hard,” thought Rob worriedly. “Maybe there are more dues to pay and lessons to learn before the Universe allows me to be happy.”

  What Rob did not yet realize was that there were indeed pipers to pay and the bill collector it seemed was already knocking at his door, even if he didn’t own one at the moment.

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Grandpa to Rob one day as he stared out to sea with a rum and Coke in his hand. Things got to be looking up for you sometime soon. You’ve just got to stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood,” sympathized Grandpa. “Luck be one of those things that come with change, overnight. Everything in life be just a roll of the dice and there be no denying that you’ve been on one mighty unlucky streak. You just got to start seeing yourself winning before you roll the dice.”

  On this count Grandpa was both right and wrong – his luck was about to change overnight, however, it was definitely not for the better, if that was possible. Unfortunately, Rob had not yet gotten the hang of visualizing himself the winner before he rolled his dice and he was unfortunately still letting life roll his dice for him

  1*TAMARIND – A tree which bears an unattractive brown fruit of the same name – used to make tasty juice, candy and preserves– but is quite nasty and sour if eaten raw.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dirty Laundry

  “It doesn’t always come out in the wash.”

  Grandma

  Since Rob had deemed himself the official Captain of the ‘Yellow Submarine,’ one of Rob’s newly assigned duties was to drop the ship’s dirty laundry off at the only cleaners on the island. Of course, laundry hadn’t been a conscious effort or even a consideration to Rob since his first year of college, before he had learned the ropes and figured out how to make his frat mates do his clothes for him. Prior to his years of academia, his mother had seen to it that if Rob threw something on the floor at night, it was clean and hanging back in his closet by the next morning. Rob’s mother had spoiled him, not to mention the fact that Rob was somewhat lazy when it came to such domestic menial things. The minute he was out of college Rob had been certain to hire a maid to come in three days a week, leaving nothing that resembled a household chore on his daily agenda.

  So, when Alex had first suggested that he take on the duties of weekly laundry, Rob looked at her as if she’d eaten one too many green coconuts. However, once she further explained that the cleaner’s widow had an affinity for young American men and always gave a fifty percent discount to any who entered her establishment, Rob agreed that it was indeed a wise move on his part to handle this simple chore himself. In light of his current financial situation, any means of saving money was a must for Rob.

  As he entered the ‘The Queen of Laundry’s’ establish-ment that first morning to drop off his dirty linens and underwear, Rob was greeted by Lucenda, a full figured, attractive native woman who could have given Jane Russell and her ‘Cross Your Heart Bra,’ a run for their money. Lucenda was dressed in a see-through lace tunic and tights, revealing enough fat to make even Rich Simmons wince, leaving little to Rob’s imagination. The only accessories she wore was a rather oversized bow in her hair and an enormous smile when Rob walked through her door.

  “Well, well, well… what do we have here. A new American maun cum to visit our beautiful islan’,” replied Lucenda with her thick Popeamento1* accent as she studied Rob from head to toe. “You know we have a special today on han’ wash.”

  “I… I was just coming to drop off my laundry,” stuttered Rob, quite aware that it was he and not his laundry that Lucenda was actually hoping to wash by hand.

  Taking the duffel from Rob, Lucenda gave him a wink and her usual line –in her sexiest voice, “So, when you like to cum for dese? I mean, I wouldn’t want ta miss you so I caun be sure ta geve you a discount on my services.”

  Rob, who was looking around for the closest exit to bolt from, just smiled and answered politely, “Wednesday, Wednesday would be just fine.”

  “Wednesday?” questioned Lucenda puzzled, “But it be only Tursdi, I wouldn’t want you ta weit tat lon’ for your clothes. I could tek care of dem mysef an halve dem for you later tonigh’ if you like.”

  But Rob, who at this point was quickly backing towards the door, blurted out before making a dash for his car, “No, no that’s all right. I wouldn’t want you to rush or anything. Wednesday’s fine, just fine.”

  “But don’ you even want you tecket,” cried a disappointed Lucenda as she followed him to the door with his claim check in hand, tip-toeing in her two sizes too small mules. But by the time she reached the doorway, Rob’s VW was already tearing out of the driveway leaving poor Lucenda standing in a cloud of dust.

  Rob had quickly decided that a discount on laundry was not going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, so he opted to defer his new chore to Raymond who surely would be able to charm Lucenda as well as he. After all Raymond was an American male, which seemed to be the only qualification necessary for ‘The Queen of Laundry’s’ discount.

  Rob was aghast to find that when Raymond returned with their clean, folded laundry on Wednesday afternoon, all of his Calvins were MIA. Was it worth a visit back into the ‘Queen’s’ lair for his briefs, or was he better off simply replacing several hundred dollars worth of underwear with what the island had to offer. His present quandary was aside from the fact that, as Alex was quick to point out, Ludenda’s was the only laundry on the island. So, unless Rob planned to do the Island Fever’s wash by hand he had better sort the situation out. Of course, Alex and Grandpa couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of Ludcenda chasing Rob around the Laundromat while he begged for his skivvies back. Missing briefs was not exactly Grandpa’s expertise, so when Rob approached him for advise it was the first time that Grandpa seemed a little lost for words. However, he did point out that if Rob was unable to deal with a small matter of missing britches, he was likely in denial of the other more important issues in his life.

  And indeed there was a bigger life lesson that Rob was about to learn here – that you may be able to pass along those undesired chores to some sucker who is willing and able to do them for you, but inevitably at some point in life, one must tend to their own dirty laundry themselves – at least in the ‘Karmic’ scheme of things.

  Of course, not everyone believes in Karma – all of those debts that have been rung up in this life or a previous one, not to mention all the interest that has also been accrued. It is in fact that cosmic list of transgressions which all of us must at some point clean up by paying off the accumulated debt. And unfortunately, cash is not the accepted currency – not even MasterCard will do. This is also one accounting system that one cannot simply file bankruptcy for, since this type of creditor actually follows you from lifetime to lifetime finding every opportunity they can to collect.

  Most souls participating in this human experience called life, decided before they came into this world the course of events most likely to enable them to pay off their debts quickly and cleanly so that they could move on to bigger and better things. However, as I mentioned before, you do still have the final say in life to make your own decisions, and there are many people who insist on living their life strictly by
the ‘freedom of choice plan.’ There is truly no right or wrong way, only the short way or the long way. But choosing the later school of thought can indeed delay one’s forward momentum substantially and keep one in cosmic hock for an eternity. This is the type of person who keeps on trying to work off of one of those deferred payment plans, somewhat like the one your local furniture store offers on the Forth of July – charge now, pay later. And unfortunately, this was the plan that Rob had subscribed to this time around. But, with the recent turn of events in his life, he was slowly beginning to realize that maybe there was some validity to this Karmic theory since it seemed that those cosmic bill collectors were hot on his trail and indeed starting to catch up with him.

  As far as this life went, Rob had been a pretty decent guy. A little shallow at times maybe, but certainly never one to intentionally hurt anyone. But God only knew what indiscretions had gone before. A gypsy palm reader once told him that he was the reincarnation2* of Casanova himself. If this were the case then his present luck with women could definitely be attributed to his past life’s indiscretions, and chances were – Lucenda had been one of his prior conquests who was seeking her vindication this time around.

  “What could this woman possibly be doing with my underwear,” wondered Rob. “No, that’s not a picture I really want to conjure up. I’m sure it was just an accident that only my Calvin Klein briefs were selectively excluded from the rest of our laundry. I mean all of Raymond’s boxer shorts were there,” reasoned Rob. “Maybe she just has a boyfriend that she decided should start wearing designer labels.”

  Rob was smart enough to realize that this was all hopeful speculation on his part which made the task of retrieving his briefs no more easy. However, Rob knew that reclaiming his property from the Queen of Laundry would afford him the opportunity to stand his ground and clean up any future or past misunderstandings that he may have had with this woman. Besides, Rob had never been afraid of a woman, at least not since Sister Agnus from first grade – his parents first and only attempt at a conventional education for Rob.

  Upon Lilly’s urging, Rob’s mother had enrolled Rob in Catholic school his first year – against Thomas’ wishes of course. In fact, Lilly had provided her meager savings to pay his tuition she felt so strongly about the continuance of her family tradition, since she had not had the money to send Helen when she was a child. Of course, the nearest Catholic school in the city was some thirty miles away from where they lived outside of Iowa City, in Cedar Rapids, and it was up to Helen to drive poor Rob there in the morning and then return to pick him up in the afternoons. Thanks to Sister Agnus, who frightened the wits out of Rob with her stern righteous countenance and her steel yardstick, Rob had decided if this was school, then he’d just as soon forego an education all together. She had ruthlessly wielded that yardstick on those poor innocent six year olds hoping to scare the be-Jesus and the fear of God into them – both literally and figuratively, After the third week of Rob locking himself in the closet every morning before school, his parents had finally given in and transferred him to the neighborhood public school.

  Dreading the task ahead of him Rob climbed in the Yellow Submarine and headed off to the Laundromat. Somehow, Lucenda’s sixth sense had told her that he was coming and she was waiting in ambush for him when he walked through the front door.

  “There you are you sweet young thing,” cried Lucenda as she grabbed him round the neck the moment he stepped into her establishment, laying a big juicy one on him before he could get a word out.

  Feeling as if he’d just lip-locked with a Hoover, Rob tried as hard as he could to pry himself away from those lips that were as overly endowed as the rest of Lucenda’s ample body. Finally, with an effort of super-human strength Rob managed to pry himself off her, sending himself reeling backwards knocking himself out cold on the Laundromat floor. Seizing her opportunity, sweet Lucenda, ‘Queen of Laundry,’ sprung from her station behind the door onto a helpless Rob who never knew what hit him. Rob awoke an hour later to find himself nearly naked in Lucenda’s den of red and purple draped walls and an alter holding numerous lit red and black candles, strange dried animal parts, and Rob’s Calvins. Lucenda, by this point was dressed in some sort of a see-through ceremonial robe, revealing the last of what little had been left previously to his imagination. It seemed that once again Rob was marked as the evenings sacrificial lamb and this time he was definitely going to put up a fight. What was worse – the smile on the ‘Queen’s’ face said more to Rob than he needed to know in order for him to start looking for the quickest way out of there.

  “This has to be a bad dream,” thought Rob. “All I have to do is pinch myself and I’ll wake up, this isn’t really happening. ‘OOUUUCH!’” screamed Rob out loud as he pinched his left cheek hard enough to leave a bruise. “Oh yes it is, this is real. This is real… real fucking scary! I’ve got to get out of here! And I was worried about Sydney putting some sort of curse on me.”

  Frantically, Rob scanned the room to find that there was no apparent exit, via a door at least. Spying an open window, Rob didn’t bother to take the time to see what floor he was on and made a running leap out of the second story window above Lucenda’s prized cactus garden.

  Rob wasn’t sure what hurt worse – his shoulder from the fall itself or his behind from the prickly pear3* that broke his fall. Needless to say, Rob had forgone the recovery of his briefs, even though it meant that she still had his personal belongings upon which to perform her voodoo. As far as his pressing need for underwear went, it was going to be a while before he’d be able to wear them anyway, due to the hundreds of cactus needles he now had to extract from his left buttocks.

  Luckily, Alex was off island for the day taking care of personal business in St. Kitts, since Grandma spent the rest of the afternoon and the better part of the evening plucking prickly pear from Rob’s posterior. Rob made her swear that she would never utter a word about Rob’s recent liaison with the ‘Queen of Laundry’ and the true reason he would be unable to sit normally for the next several weeks. It took some doing to hide the fact that it was impossible for him to actually sit down, especially when he needed to drive into town, but Grandma had made up a story about him being stung while swimming by a Portuguese Man-O-War, which Alex pretended to buy even though she knew that it was definitely not jellyfish season.

  1*POPEAMENTO – A language created by the native inhabitants of the Dutch Antilles. As with their general diplomatic policy regarding legislature, holidays, and customs, they have adopted a slang mixture of just about every other tongue that has ever graced their soil.

  2*REINCARNATION — The cycle of rebirth on the earth plane where you continue to be born again and again until you get it right. The heavenly edict for right and wrong, however, seems to always be in revision.

  3*PRICKLY PEAR – A very spiny cactus with paddle shaped pads and a prickly edible purple fruit.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Wisdom

  “A river begins as a brook but grows ever larger until

  it flows into the great ocean… as is with enlightenment.”

  Sidhartha Buddha

  Rob had no way of knowing that first day that the Island Fever landed on Grandma and Grandpa’s beach, how much importance they would play in the rest of his life. Looking at this kind, friendly, but uneducated couple, he never could have imagined, how much wisdom was waiting to be bestowed upon some confused but deserving, pilgrim that might stumble across their beach in search of Paradise.

  Grandma, a loving, wonderful soul who had given birth to a ‘baker’s dozen’ and raised her surviving twelve on little more than love, sunshine, and a prayer, was in fact, a rather profound poet; and Grandpa who had spent most of his life drinking, dancing, and carousing – in the name of work, was somewhat of a prophet in his own right, as Rob was soon to discover. Living alone on that beach, their blue-eyed, brown-skinned children all grown and gone to seek their fortunes, Grandma and Grandpa could possibly have been
described as two of the most content sojourners of Paradise imaginable. By this point in their eighty-some odd years, they had indeed discovered its true locale and the bearings by which to reach it. The wisdom that Rob was to gain during the time he was shipwrecked on that tiny little beach, would prove to serve him well in the years to come. Both Rob and I had asked the Universe to send him a teacher, and it had complied – with not one, but with two wise souls.

  Grandpa’s brother had also been a sailor, Grandpa pointed out to Rob late one afternoon over a game of dominos and a rum & Coke. In fact he had spent his life traveling the world by sea and died doing what he loved most, when his island trader, “Dark-Eyed Woman,” was blown on a reef one night in a tropical storm after he’d lost his engine. He had gone down with her trying to save her, his surviving crew had reported. She had been the love of his life – named after a woman he’d met and fallen hopelessly in love with earlier that year in a port stateside. In fact, it had been because of her that he was returning to the States during hurricane season and was caught in the storm. Grandpa had always known that one day he would get word that his big brother had gone to that big ocean in the sky, and he was not surprised when a telegram came reporting the sinking of his brother’s ship. A part of Grandpa had died that day, but he held comfort in the knowledge that his brother had truly lived his life to the fullest. He had always reveled in his journeys, and Grandpa knew that for his brother, the destination had never been the reason for the trip, except maybe his last.