21
On a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, about an hour after lunch, Forest was dozing off in an old balsa wood chair we found. He sat next to the firepit, with a straw hat covering his face. Becca and I sat next to each other with our backs against a large piece of driftwood and our shoulders touching. We didn’t speak, but occasionally our fingers would play together in the sand, and that felt better than talking. The sound of strong thunder rumbled in the distance, and we could hear footsteps approaching, quickly.
Agwe ran through the camp and startled us.
“Look!” he shouted.
Forest leapt to his feet and pulled out his knife. Becca and I quickly stood up. My heart was pounding. I knew this could be it.
“What?” I asked, and looked toward the grass where he was pointing.
“Higher,” said Agwe.
Forest let out a deep breath. “Damn it. C’mon Agwe, are you talking about a cloud again? This is getting old.”
“Come with me now! To cousin!” shouted Agwe. He seemed much more serious than I had ever known him to be before.
He took off down the trail that led to the beach and the rowboat he affectionately called cousin. We rushed behind him, and Becca almost tripped on some sliding rocks.
Agwe stepped out onto the beach and pointed at the sky. “There!”
Forest threw his hands up in the air. “You are talkin’ about a cloud again, man.”
“What do you see?” he asked.
“A big storm,” I replied.
“Right! Grab the masks.”
“Why?” I asked.
“We are going to the reef. All of us,” said Agwe with wide eyes.
“Fishing rods?” asked Forest.
“No.”
“Spear?” he asked again.
“No. Not this time. Just the diving masks.”
Forest shook his head and tried not to look too annoyed. I grabbed the only two masks we had and put them in the rowboat.
“Let’s go,” said Agwe. We pushed the boat off the beach, and Agwe took the oars.
The thunder roared so wildly that it cracked. A breeze ten degrees cooler blew in from the east. Lightning was touching the ocean, and we began to feel sprinkles from the approaching storm.
“I’m not afraid or anything,” said Forest. “But I think we should be inside right now.”
“What a waste that would be,” said Agwe.
The sprinkles quickly turned into a downpour. The storm was almost overhead and the wind picked up amazingly fast. The waves quickly tripled in size as we reached the large reef that rested in four to six feet of water.
Agwe tapped me on the shoulder, “Forest and I will go first. Try to keep the boat on top of the reef.” Becca had a hand over her brow. I squinted from the rain splashing into my eyes.
“Alright,”” I said.
The storm grew in intensity, and the little boat rocked violently over the white capped waves. Agwe put on the diving mask, as did Forest. They both jumped over the side and stood facing each other in water that reached to their chests.
“Are you ready?” asked Agwe.
“I still don’t know what we’re doing here. What the hell are we trying to catch?” asked Forest.
“First, you can't think about anything else,” said Agwe. “Nothing. Nothing other than that you are here, in this place, right now. Stop thinking about what’s for lunch, what about this problem, that problem. How much time do I have for this, for that. What’s next? Stop. Be here, right now. That’s it. A human being experiencing the earth he has inherited. Can you?”
“Okay,” said Forest trying to make sure the boat didn’t hit him in the head when it came down from a wave.
“You are here because I want you to see something you have never seen. I want you to see a reef underwater, in the middle of a thunderstorm. Look at the chaos around you now.”
Forest took a quick look around. Visibility was little more than twenty feet at that point. It was noisy as hell. Jungle like rain, the sky lighting up, and the kind of thunder that sounded more like an explosion.
“Now to the calm underwater. Hold yourself to the reef and be still. Watch the display the rain makes on the surface and how the color changes when waves go over. The glow from the lightning if you are lucky. You will remember what you see forever, I promise.”
Knowing Forest, he was probably pissed at that point, but he really liked Agwe. Enough to go along with crazy shit like this. He just said, “Okay,” and they both went under.
I manned the oars, and Becca sat in front of me. She laughed, “He’s a little crazy.”
“In a good way at least,” I replied. I didn’t take for granted being able to look at her. It took some discipline not to overdo it though. Her hair was soaking wet, she wore a tan t-shirt and blue jean shorts, and she rocked that tan t-shirt and those blue jean shorts. I lost a little ground and pulled hard twice on the oars to get us back in the area where Agwe and Forest were.
Becca wore tennis shoes, never socks. This somehow mysteriously added to the attraction of her ankles and legs. To be truthful, right then and there I wanted to grab one of her feet and start kissing her ankles. I felt like a freak. Of course I wasn’t that stupid, and I knew I would get kicked in the face if I tried to be that presumptuous.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“Sorry, your ankles.”
“Why?” she asked laughing.
“They’re beautiful. Don’t you think so?”
Becca looked at her feet. “They look like ankles.”
“I was wondering if I could…”
“What?” asked Becca.
“Rub your feet?”
“Psh. No way!”
Why did I just say that? I swear I say some of the of the dumbest shit sometimes. I looked away embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m an idiot.”
I rowed several times to keep us on the reef. Suddenly Becca’s left foot was on my knee, followed by her right.
“You may proceed,” she said.
She had small feet, and I was really excited to touch them. I did my best to do a good job, but I had never rubbed someone's feet before, and I was nervous.
“I really need a pedicure,” said Becca.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A place you go to paint your nails.”
“They look great to me like this.”
“Thanks, Joey.”
We returned to silence, and I thought about what Agwe said. The reef sounded intriguing but surely not as much as this. Rubbing Becca’s feet in an old wooden rowboat that creaked in the waves, amidst pouring rain and exploding thunder. I felt so damn alive. I could never go back. It would be better to die out here than go back.
Agwe’s hands grasped onto the side of the old boat, and he pulled himself on board followed by Forest.
“How was it, Forest?” asked Becca.
He took his mask off and his eyes were red. It almost looked like he had been crying, but if he was he hid it well.
Forest nodded, “It was somethin’.”
Agwe smiled brightly at me. “Very special indeed. You two go now. Remember, empty your thoughts. Even the ones you have for each other.”
We both went overboard and under the surface. The storm was immediately silenced, which brought a welcomed rush of tranquility. I positioned myself between a large piece of brain coral and two large bright orange pieces of feather coral, as Agwe called them. Above me was an intoxicating scene of rolling water, casting shadows of blue, gray, and white. Instantly I realized this was the first time in my life that I wasn’t worried or thinking about something. Even though it was for only seconds, I understood and it made me want to find that place again.
The days on the island were awesome, but nights were tough. I always had an issue with waking up in the middle of the night, thinking up bizarre shit, worrying, and taking an hour or two to get back to sleep. I had a foster mother that called it the witching hour. It was exacerbated by Becca’s issues and t
he thought of the police ramming through the front door. I just wasn’t getting much sleep at all, two to three hours at a time, tops.
Agwe came in one night from his hammock and noticed me in Becca’s bed. The shit was innocent. Believe me, I didn’t want it to be innocent. But some nights she would wake up screaming and ask me to lie down next to her until she went back to sleep. In those moments it took every ounce of my willpower not to reach out my hand, touch her, kiss her. It felt like my body was going to explode some nights.
“Joey,” whispered Agwe. “Go back to your bed. There will be plenty of time for that when you two are older.”
It looked like Becca was back to sleep. I slowly crept out of her bed. Agwe was in the doorway.
“We aren’t doing anything, Agwe. She has nightmares from when she was a kid. I stay there until she goes back to sleep.”
Agwe looked to the ground saddened. “I see. Sorry.” He reached out and patted me on the shoulder.
“What about you?” he asked.
“What?”
“Do you sleep well?”
“No, I never have.”
“You have a strong imagination,” he said phrasing it as more of a question.
“I can think up some crazy shit.”
“Good,” he whispered. “So redirect it. Imagine something like this. There is a strong pole that is miles high, so high that it reaches above the clouds. On the top of the pole is a tiny cabin. Inside is a comfortable bed, a window, and a fireplace. Nothing more. It is warm in the cabin. Climb inside the bed and stay there. As soon as you try to think of other things, quickly stop your mind and put yourself back inside that cabin. You will go to sleep.”
“Alright.”
“Good. See you in the morning, Joey.” Agwe walked back outside.
I tried what he said, and that shit totally worked. I kept bringing my mind to that little bed in the cabin. My brain wanted to think things up like packs of wolves trying to get to me. But they just scraped at the bottom of the pole. Bullets couldn’t even reach me. Wherever I put that cabin in my mind, as long as I stayed there in that little bed I would be asleep in minutes.
Becca was happy during the day and would regularly go into town. She had become a proficient baker and spy. Mrs. Phoebe had a small shop in Queens Bluff, and she always needed Becca’s help on the weekends. Becca said the town was really small with the type of vendors you’d see at a flea market, but with better stuff. Tourists staying in a hotel down the road would drop in on occasion. It was always scuba divers or fisherman. I wanted to go to town and hang out with her, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea.
The police were dropping in and out of Queens Bluff. Someone had started a rumor that the killers lived on the north side of the island. That drew most of them out of our area. We did find out that one of the guys we killed was the nephew of a politician in Nassau. It gave us the feeling that this would go on for a while, but Agwe’s house was an easy place to wait. Time stood still out there, and we just got to live our lives. Life in a beautiful place without all the bullshit imposed by other people. That was it. But it did take some toughness. We ran out of things like toilet paper all the time. Agwe swore by pine needles, and Forest came to agree. There must have been a technique or something.
One evening we managed to pull in a big grouper on the edge of the reef. It was almost as long as Becca, and we ate like kings for a couple of days. When Becca told us it was Phoebe’s favorite fish to eat, I took a few pounds of filets and hiked out to her house. I walked around back and once again she was in that same old rocking chair.
“What you have for me today?” she asked.
“Grouper.”
“Oooooh. Nice! What you want?”
“Nothing. We had extra. Becca said you like grouper.”
“No, young man I love grouper. Mmmm. Over pineapples, always over pineapples. How is Becca? Will she be here tomorrow afternoon?”
“I think so. Everything she comes home with is awesome. Those rum cakes, though, are something else.”
“I will remember that,” she laughed.
I nodded and turned to go back to Agwe’s.
“So Joey,” she said. I stopped and looked back.
“Yes.”
“I have something serious to ask you.”
Damn. I looked toward the road for any signs of the police. Nothing.
“Sure, what?”
“What’s so good about you?”
“Ma’am?”
“My shop there in Queens Bluff. Cute boys come by there all the time on vacation with their families. They all seem interested in her. Looking at her this way and that. She doesn’t give them the time of day. So, what’s so good about you, then?”
I watched one of her roosters chasing two chickens in a pen built from pallet boards.
“I don’t know. I think it’s just one of those things that doesn’t make any sense.”
She briefly smiled and continued rocking.
Mrs. Phoebe took a sip from her tea. “No. There’s a reason,” she said.
I didn’t like the conversation and didn’t see the point in talking about it, but I did anyway.
“Maybe I know how special she is and they don’t,” I replied looking back at the road.
Mrs. Phoebe rocked and nodded, “Yes, now I understand. Thank you for the fish, Joey. I will make sure to send Becca home with some of those fresh rum cakes you like.”
Mrs. Phoebe was cool, and I could understand how she would appeal to Becca. She had a calmness about her. The walk from her house to Agwe’s took about twenty minutes. It felt long though. It was quiet, and the scene never changed. Pine trees, thick brush, gravel, it went on for a little over a mile. I was always wondering what that freak sound was in the woods or if the police were driving up behind me. It was too much time to be left alone to my thoughts.
When I made it back to Agwe’s, Becca was asleep in the hammock. Forest was down by the rocks diving for lobster. That was his thing. If others were napping, he was diving for something. I thought to go join him, but Agwe came out of the house with a handful of old hooks he had just sharpened.
“Was Phoebe there?” he asked.
“Yeah, I gave her the fish.”
“Good. We can cook, but not like her. She will have a feast,” said Agwe.
“Think I’ll go join Forest,” I replied.
“I could use an extra hand on Cousin. I have a feeling there are big snapper at the edge of the reef today.”
“Alright. I’ll come with you then.”
The Less Fortunates Page 21
