25
Weeks drifted by. Life on the point continued as it had before, but there were already some changes. Becca now worked for four hours every morning with Mrs. Phoebe. She would still bring home treats every day around lunch, but she was also being paid a bit more. Becca was slowly furnishing the house and drove a hard bargain with the merchants in Queens Bluff. We had a set of glass dishes now, a sofa in the living room, a record player with some old Motown albums, a big cooler with no handle, and some beach paintings on the wall.
We ended up trading one of the mattresses for some bikes. It made all the difference when going back and forth into town. Somehow I ended up with the sucky one, though. The chain fell off every five minutes. Forest would laugh and said it was karma for sinking his scooter. I decided to start saving for a better one. We were actually making some nice money on the side and we no longer ran out of essentials like toilet paper.
Forest found out tourists would pay good money for lobsters. He would check around the marina for customers and sometimes the market. The scuba divers weren’t usually that interested, I guess they caught their own, but the fishermen almost always were, and they paid cash. Sometimes I would go with him in the morning or with Becca and hang out at the bakery with her and Mrs. Phoebe. I wasn’t much help in the kitchen, but I was useful in taking the hot pans out. I could also whisk the dough for longer than they could. We had a competition.
It turned out Mrs. Phoebe was a retired school teacher. When we told her we all dropped out, she insisted on teaching us the remaining high school courses, even if it wasn’t official. It was only like an hour a day, and we just sat on her back porch. I didn’t mind it one bit. I couldn’t even begin to express the difference between her school and Havana. She also had a granddaughter that lived with her in the summer. She and Forest liked to hang out a lot.
Becca had started pulling up the weeds and vines around the old house. I didn’t know she loved flowers so much. She planted them all out front and was always on the lookout for native flowers she could uproot and move to our yard. It looked really good. There was color everywhere.
The police presence in Queens Bluff dwindled down to nothing in the days after Agwe’s arrest. No one asked us questions, but I could tell they all missed Agwe. We were getting to know his friends. We hung out with Mr. Joseph a few times a week. He had an old board game called Backgammon that was fun as hell. He smoked his pipe and liked to tell stories. Sometimes the same ones, but we always acted like it was the first time we had heard it. He was always asking us if we knew any new jokes. What we knew wasn’t even that funny, but he laughed so hard I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack one day while cracking up on his porch.
We thought about Agwe constantly. All we knew was that he was serving a life sentence at a prison in Nassau. Once we had the money, we planned to visit him often. For now, we were saving up for an old Polaroid camera one of the shops had in Queens Bluff. We thought we would use it to send him pictures of us and clouds and things. I wondered at first if that would make the time harder for Agwe. Becca was adamant that it would not and that Agwe would want to see how we are doing.
Becca still had her bad dreams at night. I remembered what Agwe said though, and hoped it was just a matter of time. I did find her a little fat puppy in Queens Bluff, and it seemed to help. We watched almost every sunset together from the point. According to Bohemian law, we couldn’t get married until we turned eighteen. That was only two years away for her and less for me. I knew I would propose the day she turned eighteen. I wasn’t sure how I would pay for a ring, but there were little shops that sold inexpensive jewelry in town and had some time to figure it out.
I took a deep breath. The point was beautiful on that Sunday afternoon. The sun would be setting soon, and we would get started on supper. It was quiet with little to no wind, and the water was like glass. I could hear footsteps approaching and caught sight of Becca.
“Hey, baby,” she said and sat down next to me.
“Hey, how was town?” I asked.
“Quiet. Not many customers. But I got the address.”
She held up a paper with an address jotted down,
Agwe Manitoba #389b
Nassau Prison - East Block
CB 3789321 Nassau, Bahamas
It didn’t seem real. I stared at the address. The words looked cold and lonely. I couldn’t imagine Agwe being there. He shouldn’t be there.
“I think about him all the time,” I said.
“We should,” she said.
“I feel so damn guilty. I don’t see how he can make it in a cell. It’s impossible,” I replied.
“What did his letter say?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I haven’t read it.”
“What!? Joey it’s been over a month.”
“I know. But it feels like if I don’t open it, then he hasn’t said goodbye yet.”
Becca slowly exhaled.
“It’s time,” she said. “Where is it? I’ll bring it to you.”
I hung my head and watched an ant slowly crawl by in the sand.
“It’s under my mattress.”
She got up to go get the letter. I thought about Agwe swimming over the reef, fishing on the boat he called Cousin, smiling at the sky, taking his naps in the hammock. The vision of him in a small concrete cell with no windows was haunting and made me sad as hell.
I heard Becca walk up. This time she didn’t sit by me. I looked up at her as she opened the envelope. She unfolded the single sheet of notebook paper and handed it to me. Then she walked away. I recognized the handwriting. It looked the same as when he wrote notes in the sand to tell us where he was. My mind flashed back to the message he left that morning, Agwe out fishing. I wiped a bead of sweat off of my forehead and began to read his letter.
My Dear Friend,
Thank you for choosing to leave the cave and come with me. For years I have prayed for the opportunity to truly help someone in my small corner of the world. You have given me that.
Right now you may be overwhelmed and tempted to run away - don’t. The property is legally yours. It belongs to the three of you now to do with what you want. Live your life and get to know the marvelous people around you. Remember that all of life is a miracle, Joey. That includes people. Look past their scars, and you will discover their beauty.
Remember to slow yourself down. Your life is an experience, not steps. One of the greatest mistakes you can make is to rush through it. Slow down, and you will find the hidden treasures that people walk by every day.
Please hold Forest close. He is hardened and reacts too quickly. Help him with this. Hold Becca closer. She is more valuable to you than diamonds. Treat her like the ocean. The ocean is a mysterious, wonderful thing. Treat her well, and she will treat you well for the rest of your life.
Lastly, please do not worry yourself about my time in prison. You know how I love the sky, the ocean, and all of the life found there. But know this. I have something that no man can take away from me. The One who created those things is far more beautiful, and He will be with me in my cell. I want to introduce you to my Source.
So I leave you with one request. Find my book, the thick one that sat on this letter. Inside it is separated by smaller books. Turn to the book of Isaiah. There you will see it is divided by chapters and the sentences are numbered. Turn to chapter 53 then to sentence number 5. This is Isaiah 53:5. Remember to read it slowly.
I love you all and will think of you endlessly.
Agwe
The Less Fortunates Page 25
