West of the Quator

by Cheryl Bartlam DuBois

  Grandpa was quick to point out, that his brother, the oldest of five (only one year older than Grandpa), known as Itchy by his friends and family, had taken on the job of raising Grandpa – then known as Stanley. Their mother had been a beautiful, exotic, wide-eyed West Indian girl who’d fallen in love with a rogue sailor named Xavier whom she had met while selling fruit on the dock in St. George’s Harbor, Grenada,1* her home town.

  Xavier, like his son, had been a seaman most of his life in the French West Indies – hailing originally from Mauritius, he had lived the better part of his life on a French Navy vessel in the Caribbean sailing from port to port. He had married Stanley and Itchy’s mother, a fervently religious woman, on a long furlough, only three days after meeting her. For five years after their union, Xavier had sailed into port for one weekend every two months which allowed Rose a precious two days with her husband – her whole reason for living. For five years, Rose sold produce on the docks and gave birth every eleven months to another strong son sown from Xavier’s seed. Back then the Coconut Telegraph traveled a bit slower than it does today and Rose had fortunately, or unfortunately, been spared the details of Xavier’s reputation. Throughout the navy and many harbor taverns, Xavier was known respectively as ‘Eleven Quarters.’ Since you see, drunken sailors who were often bored while in port, competed to see who’s manhood measured up. Their measure of choice being one always at hand – the American quarter – just shy of an inch, it managed to give the less endowed some measure of comfort. Xavier or “Eleven Quarters,” by which he was renowned, had believed it his God given gift and his born duty to spread his seed as often and as far as opportunity offered.

  When he died in a knife fight in a bar room brawl in San Juan, and the Navy discovered addresses for seven wives scattered throughout the islands in his sea-bag, not to mention seven different wedding rings, they were understandably bewildered as to how to deal with such a circumstance. In the end, they decided it best to simply divvy up the remains and send a small part of him to each wife.

  Rose had received the smallest but most endowed appendage from the undertaker and a note from the Navy providing her with names of the six other women, each bearing the name of “Mrs.” Xavier Bellier – residing on different islands throughout the West Indies. They had even managed to forward the wrong wedding ring. Rose’s fantasy of a loving husband was shattered to say the least, along with her will to go on. She sent ‘Eleven Quarters’ to the local taxidermist, who was in the business of mounting trophies of quite a different kind. Nonetheless, had presented it to her in a mahogany box, which was buried with her two years later when she inevitably died of a broken heart. She had however died content, knowing that if she couldn’t have all of him, she at least had possession the most important one seventh he had to offer. Alas, Rose had been buried a poor woman with only ‘Eleven Quarters’ to her name – just twenty-five cents short of three bucks. And her five dear sons, including Stanley and Itchy, had been left in the care of an aging grandmother, who had pretty much left them to fend for themselves the rest of their childhood.

  “So what is it you running from Rob?” asked Grandpa as he set up a new game of Dominos and refilled their a rum & Cokes.

  “Running?” said Rob looking at Grandpa truly puzzled.

  “I’m not running from anything,” Rob answered almost defensively.

  “Then you must be searching.”

  Rob hesitated a moment thinking long and hard about what Grandpa had just said.

  “I guess I am down here looking for something,” thought Rob.

  “Maybe Paradise?” queried Grandpa in his infinite wisdom.

  Rob just stared at Grandpa for a moment surprised that this simple island man had so astutely summed up his quest and his life in a coconut shell. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Like I sai, most sailors that land on this beach either be running or searching. And if it be searching, it’s usually not for lost treasure, at least not the kind you can be spendin’ anyway,” said Grandpa.

  “I’m still not certain what I’m looking for actually exists,” confessed Rob.

  “Some, can’t believe in a thing they can’t see with their eyes or feel with their hands,” Grandpa responded sympathetically. “But a few still have the faith they can find it, even if few ever do.”

  Rob looked at Grandpa hoping that he would give him a clue on how to find this missing treasure in his life. “Well… how did you find it?”

  Grandpa sat looking at Rob, remembering Itchy and laughed his happy laugh. Itchy, Grandpa’s brother had gotten his name one night when he’d passed out on the beach under the palm trees after a rum drinking competition, and had awoken the next morning at dawn with nine/tenths of his body covered in mosquito and sand flea bites. It had taken weeks for the bites and the itching to disappear and in the meantime, the name had stuck, since he had nearly gone mad scratching himself.

  When they were boys, Itchy had imagined he and his younger sibling sailing together to foreign ports-of-call and eventually buying a small island trader of their own. That was until he realized that Stanley was not cut out to be a sailor. To Itchy’s disappointment, Stanley had not taken to the sea. In fact, he had taken to water like a cat, and had chosen at last to cross the ocean of life in a cottage rather than in a boat. He had found his happiness in his own way, which Itchy never understood.

  Stanley remained Itchy’s closest friend and family, taking him whenever possible on trips to the Americas and the larger ports-of-call – at least before Stanley had found himself with so many mouths to feed. If anyone understood Itchy, Grandpa did. He knew that men who wandered their whole life like Itchy were usually running from something – if not life itself, then usually a wife, the tax man, or the law. But in Itchy’s case, Grandpa knew that he had truly found himself on the water, and had died a happy man. The sea had been his path, and in the end his ship his bride, since he stayed with her until death they did part. This was not to say that he hadn’t romanced a girl or two in the many ports that he had frequented. But unlike his father, he had never made commitments he couldn’t keep – at least not until death had kept him from his pregnant wife to be who anxiously awaited his return.

  Grandpa smiled reminiscently and tapped his finger to the side of his head, “Well first of all, you have to look here for Paradise. You got to look inside and listen. I suspect you be the type of man who listens when it comes to business but when it comes to life you just don’t hear the answers.”

  “How could this man knows so much about me,” thought Rob. “He’s right, I’ve always paid close attention to that voice on the floor. It’s never been wrong about buying or a selling, but I guess I never thought of using it for anything else.”

  Having taken an instant liking to Rob, as if he were one of his own son’s, Grandpa was determined to set Rob on the right course. But he realized at the same time that it was necessary to discover the true coordinates to the illusive whereabouts of Paradise for oneself and that it was not something to be simply given or acquired over night. But then Grandpa figured he had plenty of time to infuse Rob with his wisdom since the Island Fever was going no where fast. After all, nothing happened quickly or easily in the Caribbean, especially when one expected it to, like most American’s. Grandpa decided at that moment that the first thing he would teach Rob was to enjoy life in Paradise, since Grandpa knew that the only thing that separated a wise man from a fool was the wise man’s ability to enjoy life, and this was one area of life in which Grandpa was very wise. “You know Rob,” said Grandpa looking him square in the eye, “Real wisdom lies in knowing what to be concernin’ yourself with and what not to. That be the first step to findin’ Paradise.”

  Rob listened to every word that Grandpa had to say and listened well, even though he was a slow learner. However, when he did finally get the ‘big picture,’ he got it. And that was the way his discovery of Paradise was to unfold, slowly at first, as Grandpa tried to paint a pretty picture for him. Ev
entually, Rob would get with the program, when the Universe resorted to erecting a billboard for him.

  “You be happy Rob?” Grandpa asked in his casual West Indian dialect, as he studied his next move on the domino board.

  “Right now I’d be happy to find a way to beat you at dominos?” responded Rob.

  Grandpa chuckled, “Hopefully, what you be looking for is not as hopeless as that,” he said laughing triumphantly as he laid his last piece on the board and proceeded to set it up for another game. Grandpa grew silent for a bit as he always did when he was pondering life. “You see,” he said finally, “Like life my boy, you got the hand you were dealt, and you got your startin’ point,” referring to the double ace he had just placed on the board as the center tile. “The secret is in learnin’ to play the game with what you got, and realizin’ you just never know for sure where it’s going to lead. You also got to remember that everyone is dealt a different hand and they all be playing a different strategy. It’s not so much what you don’t have, but what you do with what you be holdin’.”

  Rob stared silently at the hand he’d just pulled, thinking about his life and how he had neglected to use it to its full potential while Grandpa poured him another drink and waited, giving him time to reflect on what he’d said.

  “Sometimes all you got to do is just slow your headway a little. Give yourself time to chart the direction you be heading. Only a reckless sailor sets sail without at least plotting a ‘dead reckoning’2* course, even if he not be havin’ all the coordinates.”

  “Doesn’t that require knowing where you are first… before you can figure out where you’re going?” joked Rob, even though he was in fact perfectly serious.

  As they sat pondering the wisdom of the Universe and more importantly dominos, Alex walked over and sat at the table with Grandpa and Rob. She carried her own glass with her – offering it to Grandpa. “I think I need a drink,” said Alex quite seriously as Grandpa proceeded to pour the Mount Gay over a single cube of ice. Of course, it was quite rare for Alex to join them for rum & Cokes so Grandpa and Rob suspected that something out of the ordinary had graced them with her company.

  “Would you like the bad news now or after you’ve had several more drinks?” asked Alex.

  “That depends,” answered Rob. “If it’s going to cost me money, can I opt for not hearing it at all?”

  Alex just smiled sarcastically and proceeded to inform him that she had just discovered that the plywood in the underside of the Island Fever’s bridgedeck was defective and had de-laminated – like layers of tissue paper, meaning an additional two weeks of work cutting out the old deck and rebuilding it, not to mention the extra expense. Needless to say, this news was definitely not music to Rob’s ears as he hopelessly shook his head watching Grandpa make his move on the domino board.

  Rather than stick around to listen to Rob’s moaning, Alex took her drink and excused herself to join Grandma for their ritual of afternoon tea.

  “Like I sai before,” said Grandpa, seeing that Rob was about to burst a seacock.3* “You have to learn to take everything as it comes. That’s the only way you’ll ever be happy.”

  “So, I should be happy about loosing two more weeks of charters?” queried Rob.

  “When there’s a problem you know you can’t be changing, you just gotta learn to go with the current or it be driven you crazy. You know, go with the prevailing wind flow.

  Distracted from the game as he watched Alex on Grandma’s verandah, Rob absentmindedly matched a 2/1 to Grandpa’s opening play. Taking notice, Grandpa was quick to point out the other profound analogies that dominos offered, such as the similarities between dominos and relationships.

  “You see, it takes two of a kind to be making a match,” said Grandpa. “If what you’ve got in your hand is no match with what you need to play the game, you just got to keep on drawing from the boneyard4** until you find one that does. Take that big city girlfriend of yours up in the States. There just weren’t no a match there. Just cause you think you love someone doesn’t always mean you be making it work together.”

  Rob, sat there staring off at the ocean thinking not about Sydney, who he now knew he’d never really loved – not in the true sense of the word. Instead, he was thinking about Julie Anne and the ways in which he had loved her. “Why was it so easy to fall in love back then?” Rob wished somehow he could go back ten years and do it all over again — differently. “Young love was blind love,” he realized. “It was nothing but blind faith in another human being. It was believing that they felt the same for you as you did for them… knowing that this person in your life was never going to leave you. You never saw the object of your love’s faults because in your eyes they had none,” thought Rob. “It was as if love was a filter that strained them all out of the picture making everything about the other person seem perfect. How easy it was back then to throw yourself into love with everything you possessed. Into the abyss of what you believed was everlasting true love. Is there such a thing as true love or was it just blind desire to lose yourself in someone else? After all, if you have another person to rely on, you don’t always have to depend on yourself for all the answers. But once you’ve lost that first love your heart is never the same, it never recovers from the wound, and sometimes it never comes home again. Like a rebellious child who’s gone off in search of something better, or like the ancient Incas who would sacrifice a man by cutting his heart out. Some women have the talent of the executioner when it comes to slicing it quickly and cleanly from your chest… like Sydney,” Rob realized, agreeing with Grandpa who had just wisely surmised that Sydney was not now, nor never had been a match for Rob.

  “The one thing that dominos are, that life is not, is that they be just plain black and white,” continued Grandpa, jerking Rob out of his self-distraction. “With dominos, you can see what you got in front of you just as plain as day. Unfortunately, life’s not always quite be so easy to read. Sometimes we like to fool ourselves into believing we got a double-six in front of us when one be in truth a five. The most important thing you need to figure out is what it is you really be looking for, whether it be what you consider a 6/6 or a girl like Alex. Once you get that part right, all you got to do is learn to focus your attention on what you want an’ just ask for it. Then you’ll be seein’ just how fast you get what you need to win the game.”

  Puzzled, Rob looked from the dominos to Grandpa about as lost as a weekend sailor without a compass. “Ask who?” questioned Rob uncertainly.

  “The Universe, of course,” replied Grandpa looking up to the heavens as if he were amazed that Rob would even question the source of all infinite gifts and wisdom. “It may not come in the exact form you want, but you be getting what you need if you just let go and keep the faith. It takes a lot more energy to make the world work the way you think it should than be accepting what it is. You got to stop your intellect from planning everything and lettin’ it be the captain of the ship. Sometimes you have to let that great one source guide you,” Grandpa said pointing skyward, “It be always puttin’ you in the right place if you just trust that it will provide.”

  Finally, someone was getting through to Rob as he followed Grandpa’s gaze skyward.

  “Why do I feel like I’ve just stumbled onto the world’s first barefoot, domino* playing, rum drinking guru,” thought Rob. “I always thought I could find all the answers on my own… at least until recently. Here I find this simple, uneducated soul who’s lived under a palm tree most of his life, who makes me feel like I’m still in kindergarten in the big scheme of things. Four years of college doesn’t have a thing on one game of dominos with Grandpa. I guess teachers can come in all types of disguises,” pondered Rob.

  “Yes, they can,” I said agreeing with Rob’s observation. With that Rob looked up as if he had actually heard. Finally, Rob was looking in my direction. Now if I could only get him to start listening we’d be well on our way to that ultimate state of enlightenment or Nirvana, as B
uddha would have it, or as Rob hoped – Paradise. I really shouldn’t complain so much however about Rob’s lack of awareness, since in truth he was far more advanced than many of those on Earth that my associates up here have been assigned. But, Rob still had a long way to go and I was more than happy to finally have a little back-up help Earth side.

  1*GRENADA – An island in the lower Windwards at the bottom of the grouping of islands known as The Grenadines. Grenada was originally named Concepcion island by Columbus, then renamed Granada by the Spanish after their beautiful city – later called Grenada by the British who have had the greatest influence on the sizable Caribbean island. Most recently it made the evening news when the U.S. decided to invade and undo Castro’s take-over under the guise of freeing a handful of American medical students from their communist regime.

  2*DEAD RECKONING – A procedure by which a vessel’s approximate location is deduced by its movement since the last accurate determination of position. In other words, a general guestimate of where you think you are now, in relation to where you thought you were the last time you looked, and somehow never quite ending up where it was you’d hoped you’d be – which often involves missing entire islands. Assuming of course you didn’t just miss the boat all together in the first place.

  3*SEA-COCK — A valve that can close off a through-hull fitting, in the case of an emergency or rough seas – to keep the vessel from filling with water and sinking.

  4**BONEYARD — The main bank of dominos that players draw from when they can’t make a play from their hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Fear

  “There is no love without risk,

  and there is no love without loss.