The Canadian was groaning piteously.
“Oh sweet Jesus, it hurts like hell. Is there anything we can do?”
“Urine helps,” volunteered the waterlogged tour guide who had fished him out of the bay.
The wife had bobbled her way to the side of the boat and was trying unsuccessfully to launch herself out of the water. Reluctantly, Michael gave her a hand—actually, two hands. (He later complained of severe back strain.)
Once on the boat, she rushed with tiresome histrionics to her husband’s side.
“Did you say urine?” she asked the tour guide.
“Yes, ma’am. It helps with the pain.”
For a heart-stopping moment it appeared as if she might divest herself of her ruffled swimsuit and squat, for all to see, on her husband’s leg. Blessedly she thought better of it and cried out to one of her pasty sons across the water.
“Jerry! Come pee on your father’s leg!”
Young Jerry huffed his way back to the boat and, with remarkable composure, obeyed.
Twenty-Nine
What’s in Store?
Vieques isn’t exactly a shopper’s paradise.
A thorough inspection of all the gift shops in Isabel takes less than an hour.
You might manage to kill forty-five minutes strolling through the emporia of Esperanza, but only if you dawdle with intent.
And yet the island’s stores are intriguing in their own way.
Take the hardware stores. When you buy a house on a tropical island, have it gutted and start over from scratch, you inevitably spend a lot of time wandering up and down the aisles of the local hardware stores, searching desperately for things they almost certainly don’t have.
During our first couple of years on the island, there were days when we spent more time in the hardware store than we did at the beach. As much as I enjoy home projects, this equation seems to violate several basic laws of nature.
There are three main hardware outlets on the island (and several smaller ones), all locally owned. Nales, the largest of these, would be considered a modest mom-and-pop store in an urban setting, but in Vieques it’s the place to see and be seen for the home improvement set.
Situated behind a chain link fence, near the intersection of Routes 200 and 201, Nales is spacious by local standards. It has a large courtyard and an open-front shed to the south of the main building for bulk purchases of stone, plywood, and gravel.
Inside there’s a decent, though hardly outstanding, selection of garden supplies, hardware, and household goods.
There’s even a paint shop in the rear. This is where we had so meticulously registered our color choice the year before only to have it equally meticulously ignored by Daniel when it came time to paint the interior of our house.
Nales is an acquired taste. The staff could be a little more friendly or helpful and the item you’re looking for is almost certain to be out of stock. And yet we like the place.
Maybe it’s because we’re always a little bit happier on Vieques than anywhere else, whatever we happen to be doing at any given time. Maybe it’s because we love our house and—despite the fact that we may occasionally grumble about the effort required to keep it in perfect order—we honestly enjoy every last chore.
Or maybe it’s the intangible things about the place, like the Siamese cat who seems to inhabit every corner of the store, fixing patrons with her defiant crystal blue stare before curling briefly but affectionately around their legs.
Or possibly it’s even O-Lan, the young woman who runs the paint corner with cool efficiency but who blushes charmingly when you ask about her unlikely name (her mother was a Pearl Buck fan).
If Nales doesn’t ring your bell there’s always the hardware store in Floridá, which couldn’t be more different.
Here the pace is slow and friendly. The staff members go out of their way to be helpful. Considering the store’s small size, its stock is plentiful if unpredictable. It was here that we found the charming set of blue and white dishes for our kitchen and the strangely hard to find step-stool that has (literally) supported so many of our household projects.
But it was also here that we spent a sweaty quarter-hour looking for a spade for digging in the garden before being told, “We don’t have.”
Then there’s Bonano’s, the testosterone-driven hardware store on Route 200 just outside of Isabel. If Vieques were a high school, this is where the tough boys would hang out.
The staff is almost exclusively male and often abrupt. The aisles are dark and narrow, and there’s an indefinable air of menace about the whole place.
Hands down, this is my favorite of the three.
☼ ☼ ☼
Vieques has more corner stores than it has corners.
Well, not quite, but you get my point.
Our favorite, El Encanto, on Route 201 just beyond Nales, is a convenience store and bar rolled into one.
I’ve often tried to imagine walking into our local 7-Eleven in D.C. at ten in the morning and finding a group of middle-aged men and women sitting around drinking beer and gossiping with a jukebox blaring in the background.
Somehow it just doesn’t compute.
And yet that’s what you’ll find at Encanto any day of the week.
The soft drinks and bagged ice are kept in the bar section of the store and the first few times we ventured into that part of the establishment we didn’t quite know what to expect. After all, it was crammed full of people drinking, dancing, and generally whooping it up at breakfast time.
Usually they just ignored us. But one morning they invited us to join them.
“Too early!” we cried.
They laughed at our abstemiousness and ordered another round.
Meanwhile, on Route 997 are two bodegas known to us, respectively, as the Store That Has Everything and the Store That Has Nothing.
It’s hard to imagine how the latter stays in business, since it has almost no stock. I sat in the car one afternoon while Michael dashed into this particular colmado with a list of six or eight staple items—toilet paper, milk, Windex. In other words, nothing remotely out of the ordinary.
He was back in less than five minutes with a miniscule carton of milk bravely defying its expiration date—and nothing more.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They didn’t have anything on our list except milk,” he said in his matter-of-fact way.
“What do you mean?”
“Their shelves are almost literally bare.”
“But how do they stay in business?”
He gave me one of his famous Looks.
“I didn’t ask.”
The Store That Has Everything, on the other hand, is tiny and absolutely stuffed to the gills with inventory.
The Store That Has Everything (Colmado Mambo)
You can barely get in the door without knocking something over. You’d think the proprietor of the Store That Has Nothing would stroll over and buy a few items just to brighten up his shelves.
Unlike El Encanto, there’s no bar in the Everything Store, but that doesn’t mean they don’t serve alcohol.
One day a courtly older man in the queue in front of us, approached the register and spoke a few words in a low voice to the cashier.
Without missing a beat the young woman placed a small glass on the counter, uncorked a bottle of rum at her side and poured the elderly gentleman a double shot. With a charming flourish he raised the glass, toasted everyone in his general vicinity, and knocked back the drink in a single gulp.
Price: one dollar.
There’s also the Green Store in Esperanza, which features an outdoor seating area for drinking and general breeze-shooting.
And then there’s the store in Isabel we’ve dubbed the Hot Store because it’s always at least twenty degrees hotter in there than it is outside. Finally, let’s not forget the new so-called big box store across from the electric company that sells things in bulk like Sam’s Club, only at a smaller discoun
t and with a wine bar attached to its front.
But the Vieques establishment that takes us roaring back to our childhoods more than any other is the “dime store” on the main drag in downtown Isabel. This place bears an uncanny resemblance to the Woolworth’s of our youth, circa 1968, right down to the gerbil on the treadmill, the chirping parakeets, and the pungent, all pervasive odor of plastic and linoleum.
It also closes for an hour at lunch time.
We love this place simply because it’s redolent of a world long past, when a Saturday afternoon visit to the five-and-dime was something we looked forward to all week.
If the store were trying to be quaint in a time-warpy sort of way (think Colonial Williamsburg or any of the other calcified, self-conscious theme parks that pass for history in modern America), it wouldn’t be.
But it’s not trying to be anything.
It just is.
Thirty
Chicken Out
I’m not much of a cook.
This doesn’t particularly bother me.
But I’m much less philosophical about the fact that Michael doesn’t cook either.
Yes, we slog our way through a limited repertoire of dishes on a semi-regular basis when we’re in D.C. This includes a stir-fry of chicken and veggies made palatable with the last-minute addition of a Madras curry paste; baked chicken coated in honey and Italian breadcrumbs; and a pasta dish involving tuna, mayonnaise and—
Oh never mind, you don’t want to know.
Usually we go out to dinner.
Lots of our friends, especially those who don’t own second homes, make a habit of dining at one of the many Fine Restaurants around town, the places Michael and I venture into only when we’re trying to make each other feel okay about turning a year older.
I’m always impressed and I always have a lovely time. After all, there’s something heady about eating a forty dollar piece of fish. But deep down I always feel like the food is wasted on me.
More often than not we end up at one of the many (admittedly) lower-tier but much-loved eateries near our apartment. One of the nice things about living in a city is that, with any luck, your house is within walking distance of cuisines from practically every corner of the globe. Our apartment building is a prime example of this uniquely urban phenomenon: walk two blocks north and you’ve got French; two and half, Tex-Mex; four, Thai; five, Japanese.
Or, if you’re feeling a wee bit weary, just pick up the phone and order Chinese.
This is one of my biggest weaknesses, particularly in cold weather. Just think about it—for a decent tip (we’re talking five dollars here), a perfectly nice man will bring a cooked meal to your door. Yes, it’s true, you have to pay for the food, but you’d also have to pay for it if you cooked it yourself—and it wouldn’t be nearly as tasty.
Unlike me, Michael occasionally gets tired of Chinese.
“I can’t eat it two nights this week,” he’ll lament as I’m speed dialing my order for Kung Pao chicken, though he often gives in at the last minute and shouts “General Tso’s” just as I’m about to hang up.
In Vieques, our feeding habits are pretty much the same. We’ve tried almost every restaurant on the island at least once. Of these, we generally rotate between three or four favorites. If we’re in town for a week, we usually eat at home the first night, then rotate among Tradewinds, Duffy’s, El Quenepo and Conuco the other nights.
When we cook at home in Vieques, we keep the fare even simpler than when we cook in D.C., partly because of the heat, but mostly because we just don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking when we’re supposed to be having fun.
Michael usually grills steaks or chicken, and I’ll steam whatever green vegetable I can find (they’re not always easily accessible on the island).
Sometimes after dinner we drive into Isabel and buy a Dove Bar, which we share on the way home.
This constitutes a big night on the town.
☼ ☼ ☼
When we’ve had a particularly exhausting day in Vieques, or when we’re just feeling lazy and can’t bear the thought of cooking or spiffing ourselves up to go out to dinner, we opt for take-out.
Okay, don’t get excited.
While the term take out suggests dozens of choices back home in D.C, it suggests a grand total of three options in Vieques: cheap Chinese or pizza in Isabel–or (drum roll please) fried chicken from Chicken King, a modest eatery across the road from Nales on Route 201.
Of course, let’s not forget the ubiquitous food carts and trucks dotted around the island. Hoards of people swear by them, and we’ve actually found several of them to offer delicious cuisine. A prime example is the food truck called Sol Food positioned at the entrance to Camp Garcia.
Sol Food and its sister food carts around the island serve an amazing variety of Puerto Rican goodies, including bacalaitos (salt cod fritters), papas rellenas (stuffed potatoes), pastelillos (similar to empanadas, but with a flakier pastry) and whole roasted chickens. Also, several offer piña coladas.
Heaven on wheels.
But back to the more mundane choices.
Since we don’t eat pizza (yes, I realize that this is grounds for prosecution under the Patriot Act), we can’t offer you any startling insights into “pizza Vieques-style.”
Sorry.
And frankly the less said about the Chinese option the better. I’m sure Meiwah in Isabel has its fans, but every dish we’ve ordered from there has been smothered in brown gravy and plopped on a bed of greasy fries.
Chicken King, on the other hand, is a revelation.
We’d driven past the place dozens of times without paying it the slightest bit of attention—until the afternoon Jane mentioned she’d just had lunch there.
“Best fried chicken I’ve ever had,” she remarked.
“Really?” Michael replied, half-jokingly. “Better than Popeye’s?”
She rolled her eyes.“That garbage! Are you kidding?”
This got Michael’s attention. Although we normally avoid fried food, every six months or so we skulk up the street to Popeye’s for our biannual greasy-chicken fix.
He even suggested we give Chicken King a try the very next night.
We couldn’t wait.
The place is certainly nothing to look at—basically a ranch-style house painted orange with a sign out front reading Chicken King & Ice Cream.
The front porch is dusty and starkly furnished with a couple of uninviting picnic tables, and the interior, if anything, is even less appealing—linoleum floors, fluorescent lights, formica tables.
But the chicken that evening smelled heavenly, and the clientele (seemingly all local) gave every indication of enjoying their meals.
We studied the menu behind the cash register. Having determined that the chicken was sold by the piece, Michael placed an order for seis presas (six pieces) in his best junior high Spanish.
“No chicken,” he was told by the unsmiling woman behind the counter.
“I’m sorry?” he said, his mind boggling at the notion of no chicken in a place named Chicken King (it reminded us of the doctor’s bald announcement several years earlier that he had no medicines in the Vieques hospital emergency room).
Noting Michael’s expression, the grim-faced lady turned to one of her more pleasant-looking colleagues for assistance.
“You wait for new chicken?” the colleague smilingly asked Michael. “They cook now.”
“Hmm,” Michael said, turning to me. I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. To be honest, it smelled so good I was prepared to pitch a tent and wait all night.
“Okay,” he said. “Sí.”
We grabbed an empty table and studied the crowd around us. It comprised the very young, the very old, and every age in between. Some were paying rapt attention to a TV suspended high up on a wall while others chatted amiably. All munched enthusiastically on their food.
Finally our seis presas were ready.
With a little flourish the server flung op
en the glass window that separated the front of the store from the kitchen and reached in with large aluminum tongs to pull out our chicken, which she placed in a brightly colored box and overlaid with enormous fried potato wedges.
“Thank for you patient,” she said politely.
“De nada,” we replied in unison, bolting for the door.
We couldn’t wait to get home and eat.
And was it as good as Jane claimed?
Better.
Thirty-One
Wild Things
The more time we spent working in our Vieques garden, the more we realized just how bound together land and sea can be on a Caribbean island.
One particularly hot afternoon I was unspooling the hose, to water the plants at the far end of the terrace, when I spotted an unfamiliar sight—a large shell stuck to the exterior wall of the house.
Who put it there, I wondered, and how did they attach it?
Idly I reached over to pull it off but it wouldn’t budge. Then, very slowly, it began to move.
Which got my attention.
As I watched its glacial progress up the wall it dawned on me that I was looking at a hermit crab and that, unbelievable as this fact might seem, it was actually trying to “flee the scene.” Its presence on our porch, a couple of miles from the ocean, boggled my mind.
But what to do about it? I certainly didn’t want to hurt or upset it in any way, but at the same time I didn’t want it crawling through the window and attaching itself to my face, Alien-style, at two in the morning.
So I pried it very carefully from the wall and, after taking an admiring look at its bright red body and the way it had arranged itself so snugly in its stolen home, I ambled downstairs and laid it in the thick grass in our side garden, crab-side down.
The fact that it didn’t immediately scuttle away didn’t worry me—as I had already seen, it was incapable of anything remotely resembling scuttling.
But when it was still loitering in the same spot an hour later I became moderately concerned. And when it was still there at dusk I became downright distraught.
The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House Page 19