The Topsail Accord

by J T Kalnay

  “Just like I wrote in my letters. Working, writing, visiting with my sister, visiting with my family. You?”

  “Just like I wrote,” he answers. “Working, thinking about you, planning this trip, thinking about you, helping out with the Foundation.”

  “I don’t know if I ever told you how much I respect the work you are doing for the Foundation,” I say.

  “Thank you,” Joe answers.

  “And thank you for what you are doing for my sister’s research.”

  “We should all be thanking her. She’d make ten times what she makes if she was in industry. But she stays in her lab and works and works so the kids might have a chance someday.”

  “Yes she is dedicated,” I say.

  “And I know for every dollar the Foundation gives to her lab you give a hundred,” Joe says.

  “I have been very lucky with the gas and oil,” I say.

  “We’re both very lucky people,” Joe says. “But with the gas and oil you made your own luck. You found it, no-one believed you, you invested in the mineral rights, and then helped develop the technique for extraction. So yes you’re lucky, but you did make your own luck...”

  I think about what he just said. What man would describe himself as being ‘lucky’ after having his only child die from childhood leukemia and after having his wife commit suicide? What man would describe himself as lucky when he only gets to see his lover for a few weeks a year? No man who had been through that would call himself lucky. But Joe had just called himself lucky. Perhaps time does heal all.

  We sit quietly and before I know it the two flights, the drive, the dinner, the warm humid air and the rain forest all combine to make it nearly impossible for me to leave the chair.

  “Maybe you should sleep here tonight?” Joe says.

  “Maybe I should sleep in this chair?” I answer.

  “I think you should go inside, and close the screen. I can walk down to your bungalow if you give me the key,” Joe says.

  “Thank you,” I answer.

  Gently he lifts me from the chair, places me on his turned down bed, turns off the lights and closes the screen behind me. I hear his footsteps as he picks his way down the crushed stone path. Somewhere in the rain forest a bird calls once, then calls again. Perhaps he calls a third time, but I am asleep.

  I dream. A vivid erotic dream that starts with Joe then blends in the driver and the divorced man from dinner. Although asleep my subconscious is aware that I have never had this type of dream. But that same subconscious reminds me that it is just a dream and that I am in Costa Rica and everything is all right.

  Playa Jaco

  It is six a.m. and the surfers are all in the van ready to go to Playa Jaco. Salvaro has loaded the truck with surfboards that he has selected for the campers. The truck is also loaded with helpers who will man the truck, man the whitewater, and generally help out with the group of five. The truck has been loaded with gallon after gallon of rinse water and with a cooler that is filled to overflowing with fresh watermelon and mangoes that have been plucked from the grounds. No trip is needed to any market for fresh tropical fruits, the market is all around on the grounds.

  Salvaro drives the lead van towards Playa Jaco and the helpers pile into the truck and follow behind. They drive the dirt road towards Jaco where all the open air everythings are closed, only the early morning low tide surfers are about. The rest of Jaco sleeps. The experienced surfers will surf Hermosa on the afternoon low tide. The beginners come out early, when hopefully the swells will be smaller, more learnable, and less crowded.

  They leave the road from the rain forest and enter town. Concertina wire, window bars, and roll down metal store fronts create a stark contrast to the welcome open air town of last night, and an even bigger contrast to the rain forest from which they have emerged. They pass KFC, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Subway, all clustered where the coastal road enters the town. After the generic gringo fast food, which no Costa Rican from Jaco has yet to visit, they pass by the bars that are advertising live NBA basketball games, live NHL hockey games, and live English Premiere League games. They are in the part of Jaco where only tourists, their Costa Rican minders, and the locals who work ever visit. But there is only this one road to the beach, and so they will pass these landmarks every day.

  Then they are at the beach. Those who have never seen Playa Jaco before instantly notice that the sand is black. Salvaro explains that the ocean here is always warm, and that there are only waves when the tide is changing, the rest of the time it is calm, or just gently swelling. Joe and Shannon instantly notice that the waves are spaced much farther apart than at Topsail. That the waves are more regular, and that they break from right to left for thirty or forty seconds. They instantly recognize why people travel from around the world to surf here. And Playa Jaco is where the small surf is located. Just two miles south as the crow flies, twelve miles by the coast road, around a five hundred foot cliff and headland, is Hermosa, home of the big waves, where the expert surfers will go in the afternoon. Where Salvaro and his son Tino will practice in the afternoons. Where the campers will go with cameras and return filled with awe.

  Large odd shaped driftwood litters the beach, as do mangos, palm fronds, and two leftover drunks or druggies. The scent of rotting fruit and rotten drunks battles with the fresh ocean breeze.

  “The dog catchers will be here soon to collect them,” Salvaro says. He is referring to the local police who will not tolerate drunks or druggies sleeping on the beach during daylight and who collect them in an old F150 pickup truck that has a cage bolted into the bed, a cage that would be suitable for a tiger, or for a passel of drunks. Because of the truck the locals refer to the morning roundup police as the ‘dog catchers’. The beach is part of the essence of Playa Jaco, and an essential part of its tourism based economy. The drunks and druggies are not welcome where and when the tourista may see them.

  Salvaro parks at the edge of the dark sand but does not exit the van. He is watching the break all along the beach, reading and feeling the ocean, deciding where he will lead the campers now that it is 6:30 and the sun has popped up. The campers wait expectantly. Those who have been with Salvaro before know that he may stay here, or that he may drive to another spot on the miles long beach where he feels that the sandbars and swells have combined to make the best wave.

  “What are you looking at?” a camper asks.

  “The ocean,” Salvaro answers.

  The camper feels rebuked, feels like Salvaro has disrespected his question. Is ready to smart off, but then hears Salvaro preparing to finish his answer.

  “I am looking for the shape of the wave. Whether it is curling over or just rising up and mushing over. I am looking for where there is a rip current that might help us paddle out. I am looking for what the blender looks like between the waves. And I am looking for where the break is best to catch the wave. Do you see?” Salvaro asks. He has pointed to several places on the ocean while he speaks. The camper no longer feels rebuked. Makes a mental note to wait longer for answers, to accept the pace of these Costa Ricans, and of the surfers.

  The Costa Ricans seem aloof, yet polite and approachable. Salvaro may be more of both, perhaps because he has been a celebrity for so long and now works with different groups of strangers every day.

  Salvaro picks his spot and the helpers pile out of the truck. They lift the surfboards from the truck, place them in the sand, and perfect the wax. Salvaro draws an outline of a surfboard in the sand. He makes each of us rehearse how we will pop up, how we will stay low, how we will look for the shore, not down at the board. He has taught this lesson a thousand times to a thousand nameless faceless gringos who have come to his realm to try to glimpse what he has mastered. His patience seems nearly infinite, maybe shaped by all his hours and decades on the Pacific.

  The campers start to paddle out. The stronger swimmers and stronger paddlers make it out through the small surf. The weakest paddler is pushed through the breake
rs by two young men who push his board. One helper goes outside the break with Salvaro, one stays in the blender, positioned to help any surfer that the ocean may decide to hold down. But the surf is small and regular this morning, the blender is at its lowest setting. There should be no danger today. All the surfers are on the outside, none have chosen to stay in the whitewater. Some campers will decide later in the week to stay in the whitewater when the surf is higher and the blender is on a higher setting.

  Salvaro and the young men move so nimbly, so effortlessly, over, under, and through the waves, as though it is all second nature and walking or running is the alien thing, not being on a small board in the warm waters of the Pacific. The campers move less nimbly, burdened by long boards, and even one stand up paddle board that has been pressed into service for a particularly burly gringo grande.

  Salvaro takes turns selecting waves and accelerating the surf boards for each of the surfers. Joe and Shannon each catch waves and work hard to remember their lesson from the Atlantic. It is much different here in the Pacific. The waves are individual things that steady the surfboards and provide long rides on exquisite geometric shapes. The two hours pass quickly and before they know it the campers are on shore getting rinsed by the helpers who pour gallons of fresh water over their heads and shoulders. Another helper slices the watermelon and mango and hands them to the campers along with glasses of fresh water. For those who are on their first day it is a morning and a feeling that they may never forget, and that they will certainly recall at some later time when they see a slice of watermelon or a chunk of mango. After two hours in the antiseptic salt water, the flavors of the watermelon and mango are intensified. Rivers of watermelon juice run down the smiling faces of the tired surfers and then are rinsed away.

  They slip into dry clothes and are shepherded back to the camp where they gather around the large table in the main house. The driver switches jobs and becomes a breakfast waiter, taking orders and delivering fresh juice and more water. Coffee for those who want it.

  The louder campers regale the group, but mostly themselves, with stories of the big waves they caught, of their wipeouts, of trying to turn, and of hoping for bigger waves and smaller more manageable boards. The quieter campers share looks that only those fresh from the experience of surfing Playa Jaco in the early morning sun before the rainy season can share.

  Breakfast is ordered and eaten, and the campers drift off to their bungalows to shower, to dress in tropical summer clothes, to rest and to wait for dinner. Perhaps they will read, or go into town for a drink, or just lie in a hammock, suddenly realizing the tiredness of the work of having been in the ocean for two hours. Some may lay by the fresh water pool whose water is constantly being refreshed from the natural spring on the grounds. The pool bottom is deep blue tiles surrounded by lighter blue tiles whose shades change as they approach the edge. Mango trees shade the pool deck and the three or four tables there are further shaded by Cinzano umbrellas. Chairs and chaises are scattered in an ever changing random pattern on the deck.

  An open air yoga studio is perched twenty stairs above the pool, with two of its sides open to the ocean, and two of its sides literally in the rain forest. There are no chairs up in the studio. Yoga mats are hung over a clothesline and swing in the early morning breeze.

  Joe and Shannon finish their breakfast, look into each other’s eyes, excuse themselves and begin the long slow walk up the hill to Joe’s bungalow, the angle of the ascent raising Joe’s pulse only a fraction over the rate at which it is already racing with anticipation.

  Shannon

  We are walking up the hill to his bungalow. I have surfed and eaten and seen Playa Jaco and now I am going to make love to Joe. Perhaps until it is time for dinner, or perhaps until we are both sated and asleep in each other’s arms.

  The waves were sublime. They were orderly, regular, well behaved, with none of the dis-organization I see at Topsail. They were designed just for me. This morning, this place, this day were all designed just for me. The man with whom I will spend the day making love was designed just for me. Had I known it would be like this I would never have hesitated about coming here. Even if no other day here is ever like this, today was like this and will forever be a part of me.

  We reach his bungalow and he slides open the door. We shower separately, me first in the small shower with the lukewarm but fresh water. I let it rinse and rinse and rinse the salt from my hair and from my eyes. I let it wash away the sand that has worked its way between every toe and under every fingernail. I think no shower has ever been like this. I luxuriate in the lukewarm water in the tropical morning that is becoming tropically hot while my lover waits his turn, while my lover waits for me.

  “Your turn,” I say to him as I leave the shower room. I am naked but for a towel that I am using to pat at the wettest parts of my hair. There is no point in even trying to dry off in this equatorial humidity. I lie down in his bed, feeling how I am soaking the sheets, not caring, and wait for my lover.

  He does not luxuriate as long as I did in the water. He is anticipating another luxury for his senses. He comes to me and makes love to me in his way, starting slow and patient but ultimately surrendering to the waves of passion and feeling and intensity that always grip him. I too surrender to his body, to the sensations that he brings to me again and again. I come and then come again and then he comes inside me in a sudden, involuntary contraction that leaves him in breathless convulsions on the bed beside me. But for the soaked sheets I would soon be asleep, but no sleep is possible in this sodden bed.

  I pull on one of his moisture wicking t-shirts and nothing else and give in to the magnetic draw of the hammock. The soaked sheets and the drenched air explain the abundance of hammocks and suspended rope chairs. The porch shades the hammock and as I rock slowly in the ever warmer breeze I hear Joe begin to snore in his post-coital way. Then more and more sounds come from the rain forest. Birds and monkeys and things I can neither name nor imagine. I close my eyes and drift away in this paradise.

  Joe

  I wake in my bed, covered in sweat, feeling the dampness in the sheets and the mattress below. It is light out, and hot. I look around the small, airy, light-filled room and do not see her. My eyes travel out the front screen to the porch and see that she is asleep in the hammock. She is wearing one of my t-shirts and it barely reaches her thighs. It has slipped off one of her shoulders and she is as near to peace as I have ever seen her. I study her. Her shoulder, her calf, her thigh, her hair, her face. I am in love.

  I thank God for sending her to me on that beach in Topsail, and then I thank Him again for sending her to me here in Costa Rica. She has come to surf and to see me. She has taken me into this bed and made love to me and now is sleeping in my hammock. I have no agenda for today, no plans, and think how lovely it might be to just stay here, mostly naked, making love time after time and drifting in and out of that languorous equatorial slumber that we gringos quickly discover in the heat and humidity that are spiced with the smells and sounds and birds from the rain forest. Cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, and coffee all grow wildly just yards from my bungalow. Their barely domesticated cousins are cultivated in the garden below and scent the air with each languid puff of air that blows up the midday hillside.

  I take a bottle of water from the fridge and drink it in one pull. A half a liter of fairly cold water and I am still parched. I twist open another bottle and drink it more slowly.

  “Do you have one for me?” she calls from the patio.

  I take two more bottles from the fridge, and a couple of single serving cans of nuts. I pull over the chair that she sat in last night and hand her the water and the nuts.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “You are welcome,” I answer. I have nothing else to say. And she needs nothing more. She drinks, nibbles the nuts, and stays reclined in the hammock.

  Later, after maybe half an hour on the porch, she swings down first one leg, and then another.

&nb
sp; “I can still feel the ocean,” she says.

  “I can still feel me inside you,” I answer.

  She pulls the t-shirt over her head, sits in my lap and starts to kiss me. She kisses me until I am as hard and aching for a woman as I have ever been. Sensing that I may come in my pants she stands, takes my hand, and brings me into the bedroom. She finds a dry towel and picks the driest space on the bed and lays down.

  “I want you inside me,” she says. I oblige. We sleep, and are awakened only when Howler monkeys shriek through the jungle behind the bungalow.

  “It must be nearly six,” she says.

  “Yes. Nearly time for dinner,” I answer.

  “I will meet you down there. I’m going to go back and change.”

  I feel the overwhelming urge to take her again, and then an even more overwhelming urge to say ‘I love you’ a hundred times. But both feelings move too slowly in the heat and humidity and she is gone down the hill before I connect the feelings in my heart to the part of my brain that makes my mouth speak.

  “I love you,” I whisper into the last light of the day that trails her down the hill.

  Did her head tilt just the tiniest fraction when I whispered those words? Or was she simply looking down and shifting her gaze to keep her footing on the track from the top of the hill to the bottom? It doesn’t matter. She is gone and I have not told her I love her.

  But there can be no doubt in her mind that I do. Not after July, and January, and today. Today. This glorious day of splendor and beauty and intimacy in the cinnamon scented air after the low tide waves on the warm and endless Pacific.

  Shannon

  I am completely alive, insanely hungry, and desperately tired. I have packed a lot of living into this one day in Costa Rica. I have spent the day with my lover, a day of abandon, a new day in a new place. My ex would have liked it here. Rick would have been interested in the ocean and the rain forest and in the differences between Costa Rica and the states. He would have been frisky here, he was always frisky when we were ‘away’. I might have been a little frisky too, in the beginning, but not near the end. Was it me that had changed or him? Did I push him away? Did I cut him out?