Finally I got drunk and went to bed. Martin woke me up the next day and we had breakfast in the drugstore before taking off for St Thomas. The day was bright and blue, and we had a good crossing. By the time we came into the harbor of Charlotte Amalie I'd forgotten Vieques and Zimburger and everything else.
The Rum Diary
Thirteen
We were still in open water when I heard the noise. The island loomed up like a big mound of grass in the ocean, and from it came the melodious pounding of steel drums, a steady roar of engines, and much shouting. It grew louder as we entered the harbor, and there was still a half mile of blue water between us and the town when I heard the first explosion. Then several more in rapid succession. I could hear people screaming, the wail of a trumpet, and the steady rhythm of drums.
There were thirty or forty yachts in the harbor; Martin eased his launch among them, heading for an empty spot at the pier. I grabbed my bag and hopped out, telling Martin I was in a hurry to meet some people. He nodded and said he was in a hurry too; he had to go over to St John to see a man about a boat.
I was glad to be rid of him. He was one of those people who could go to New York and be “fascinating,” but here in his own world he was just a cheap functionary, and a dull one at that.
As I walked toward the center of town the noise became deafening. The street reverberated with the sound of roaring engines, and I pressed forward to see what it meant. When I got to the corner the crowd was so thick I could barely move. Down the middle of the street ran a bar, more than three blocks long, a series of wooden booths full of rum and whiskey. In each one of them, several bartenders worked feverishly to supply the mob with drink. I stopped in front of one that said “Rum 25 cents”. They served the drinks in paper flagons, a chunk of ice and a violent slug of rum to each one.
Further down the street I came to the center of the crowd. I kept inching forward until I found myself in an open space, ringed by thousands of people. It was a Go-Kart race, little engines mounted on wooden chassis, driven by wild-eyed drunkards, screeching and sliding around a course laid out in what appeared to be the town plaza.
At close range the noise was unbearable. People were shoving me from side to side and my drink kept spilling down my shirt, but there was nothing I could do. Most of the faces around me were black, but all through the crowd I could see American tourists, white and sweating and most of them wearing carnival hats.
Across the square was a large building with a balcony that looked down on the race. I decided to go there. It was only a hundred yards away, but it took me thirty minutes to fight and slither through the mob, and by the time I sat down on the balcony I was weak and soaked with sweat.
My drink had been knocked out of my hands somewhere below, so I went to the bar for another. For fifty cents I got a dash of rum and a lot of water -- but it came in a glass, with normal ice cubes, and I felt a confidence that I could drink it at my leisure. I was in the Grand Hotel, an ancient grey structure with white pillars and ceiling fans and a balcony that ran the length of the block.
I wondered how I was going to locate Yeamon. We'd arranged to meet at the post office at noon, but I was already more than an hour late, and the post office was closed. I could see it from the balcony, so I decided to stay there until I caught sight of him, then try to get his attention. In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.
The Go-Kart races were over now, and the crowd turned to the band for amusement. Another band appeared, and then others at different corners of the square, each leading a train of dancers. Four steel bands, playing the same wild tune, came together in the middle of the square. The sound was incredible; people were singing and stomping and screaming. Here and there I saw tourists trying to get out of it, but most of them were carried along in the mob. The bands moved off together, heading down the main street. Behind them the crowd linked arms, thirty abreast, blocking the street and both sidewalks -- chanting the music as they jerked and staggered along.
I had been there a while when a man came up and stood by the railing in front of me. I nodded hello, and he smiled. “My name's Ford,” he said, extending his hand. “I live here. You down for the carnival?”
“I guess so,” I replied.
He looked over the railing again and shook his head. “A violent thing,” he said solemnly. “Be careful, you never know what might happen.”
I nodded. “By the way, maybe you can tell me some other hotels in town. The bartender says this one's full.”
He laughed. “Nope, not an empty room on the island.”
“Damn,” I said.
“Why worry?” he replied. “Sleep on the beach. Lots of people do -- better than most hotels.”
“Where?” I said. “Are there any close to town?”
“Sure,” he replied, “but they'll all be full. Your best bet is Lindbergh Beach, out by the airport. It's the nicest.”
I shrugged. “Well, it may come to that.”
He laughed. “Good luck.” Then he reached into his shirt pocket. “Come out and have dinner if you have time. It's not expensive -- it only sounds that way.” He laughed and waved goodbye. I looked at his card; it was an advertisement for a hotel called Pirate's Castle -- Owen Ford, prop.
“Thanks,” I muttered, tossing the card over the railing. I was tempted to go out there and eat a huge meal, then hand him a card saying, “Worldwide Congress of Non-Paying Journalists -- Paul Kemp, prop.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Yeamon, looking wild-eyed and carrying two bottles of rum. “I thought you'd be up here,” he said with a grin. “We've been checking the post office all day -- then I realized that any professional journalist would seek the highest and safest spot in town.” He fell down in a wicker chair. “What else but the balcony of the Grand Hotel?”
I nodded. “It's nice, but don't get comfortable. This place is sold out like all the others.” Then I looked around. “Where's Chenault?”
“I left her downstairs in the gift shop,” he said. “She'll be up -- can we get ice here?”
“I guess so,” I said. “I've been getting drinks.”
“For God's sake,” he replied. “Don't buy rum here. I found a place where you can get it for seventy-five cents a gallon -- all we really need is ice.”
“Fine,” I said. “Go ask.”
As he started for the bar, Chenault appeared. “Over here,” he called, and she came over to the rail. Yeamon went to the bar and Chenault sat down.
She fell back in the chair and groaned. “My lord!” she said. “We've been dancing all day. I'm nearly dead.”
She looked happy. She also looked as pretty as I'd ever seen her. She was wearing sandals and a madras skirt and a white sleeveless blouse, but the difference was in her face. It was red and healthy and damp with sweat. Her hair hung loose and free on her shoulders and her eyes glittered with excitement. There was something especially sexual about her now. Her small body, still wrapped very tastefully in plaids and white silk, seemed ready to explode with energy.
Yeamon came back with three glasses of ice, cursing because the bartender had charged him thirty cents for each one. He put them on the floor and filled them with rum. “These bastards,” he mumbled. “They'll get rich selling ice -- look how the rotten stuff melts.”
Chenault laughed and kicked him playfully in the back. “Stop that silly complaining,” she said. “You'll spoil the fun.”
“Balls,” he replied.
Chenault smiled and sipped her drink. “If you'd let yourself go, you'd enjoy it”
He finished pouring the drinks and stood up. “Don't give me that crap,” he said. “I don't need a mob to enjoy myself.”
She didn't seem to hear him. “It's too bad,” she said. “Fritz just can't enjoy himself because he can't let go.” She looked at me. “Don't you agree?”
“Leave me out of it,” I said. “I came here to drink.”
She giggled and held up her glass. “That's ri
ght,” she said. “We came here to drink -- just have a good time and let go!”
Yeamon frowned and turned his back on us, leaning on the railing and staring down at the plaza. It was almost empty now, but far down the street we could hear the drums and the howl of the crowd.
Chenault finished her drink and stood up. “Come on,” she said. “I feel like dancing.”
Yeamon shook his head wearily. “I don't know if I can stand any more of it.”
She pulled at his arm. “Come on, it'll do you good. You too, Paul.” She reached out with her other hand and tugged at my shirt.
“Why not?” I said. “We might as well try it.”
Yeamon straightened up and reached for the glasses. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I can't face it again without rum -- I'll get some more ice.”
We waited for him at the top of the stairs that led down to the street Chenault turned to me with a big smile. “We have to sleep on the beach,” she said. “Did Fritz tell you?”
“No,” I said. “But I found out anyway. I know one that comes highly recommended.”
She grabbed my arm and squeezed it. “Good. I want to sleep on the beach.”
I nodded, seeing Yeamon approach with the drinks. I enjoyed Chenault in this wild condition, but it made me nervous. I recalled the last time I'd seen her full of drink, and the idea that anything like that might happen again, especially in a place like this, was not a happy prospect.
We went down the stairs and walked along the streets, sipping our drinks. Then we caught up with the mob. Chenault grabbed hold of somebody's waist in the last row of dancers and Yeamon got in beside her. I stuffed the bottle I'd been carrying into my pants pocket and fell in next to Yeamon. In a moment we were sealed in by more people behind us. I felt hands on my waist and heard a shrill voice screaming, “Take it off! Take it off.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw a white man who looked like a used car salesman. Then the mob surged left and I saw the man stumble and fall. The dancers trampled him without missing a beat.
The bands kept circling the town and the mob kept growing larger. I was dripping with sweat and ready to collapse from the constant dancing, but there was no way out of it. I looked to my left and saw Yeamon, smiling grimly as he executed the jerky shuffle-step that carried us along. Chenault was laughing happily and swinging her hips to the constant thump of the drums.
Finally my legs threatened to give out. I tried to catch Yeamon's attention, but the noise was deafening. In desperation, I lunged across the chain of dancers, knocking people off balance, and grabbed Yeamon's arm. “Out!” I yelled. “I can't stand it.”
He nodded and pointed toward a side street a few hundred yards ahead. Then he grabbed Chenault by the arm and began edging toward the sidelines. I whooped distractedly as we bulled through the crowd.
When we got clear of the mob we stood there and let it pass, then we started off toward a restaurant that Yeamon had seen earlier in the day. “It looks decent, anyway,” he said. “I hope to God it's cheap.”
The place was called Olivers. It was a makeshift, thatched-roof affair on top of a concrete building with boarded-up windows. We struggled up the stairs and found an empty table. The place was crowded, and I pushed to the bar. Singapore slings were fifty cents each, but it was worth that much just to sit down.
From our table we could look up and down the waterfront. It was jammed with all kinds of boats -- sleek power cruisers and scraggy, native sloops full of bananas, tied up alongside sleek eight-meter racing hulls from Newport and Bermuda. Beyond the channel buoys stood a few big motor yachts that people said were gambling ships. The sun went down slowly behind a hill across the harbor and lights began to flicker in buildings on the wharf. Somewhere across town we could still hear the frenzied beat of the dance as it moved through the streets.
A waiter appeared, wearing an Old Spice yachting cap. We all ordered the seafood platter. “And three glasses of ice,” Yeamon told him. “Right away, if you don't mind.”
The waiter nodded and disappeared. After a ten-minute wait Yeamon went to the bar and got three glasses of ice. We poured our drinks under the table and set the bottle on the floor.
“What we need is a gallon jug,” said Yeamon. “And some kind of a knapsack to carry ice.”
“Why the gallon jug?” I asked.
“For that seventy-five-cent rum,” he replied.
“Hell with it,” I said. “It's probably worthless.” I nodded toward the bottle on the floor. “This is cheap enough -- you can't beat good rum at a dollar a bottle.”
He shook his head. “Nothing worse than traveling with a rich journalist -- throw dollars around like beans.”
I laughed. “I'm not the only one working for Sanderson these days,” I said. “The big money is just around the corner -- never lose faith.”
“Not for me,” he replied. “I'm supposed to be doing an article on this carnival -- checking with the tourist bureau and all that.” He shrugged. “No dice. I can't sneak around digging up facts while everybody else is drunk.”
“Nobody's drunk,” said Chenault “We're just letting go.”
He smiled lazily. “That's right, we're kicking off the traces, really raising hell -- why don't you write a good stiff note to the Smith College alumni letter and tell 'em where they missed the boat?”
She laughed. “Fritz is jealous of my background. I have so much more to rebel against.”
“Balls,” said Yeamon. “You don't have anything to rebel with.”
The waiter arrived with the food and we stopped talking. It was dark when we finished, and Chenault was anxious to get into the streets again. I was in no hurry. This place was peaceful, now that the crowd had thinned out, but it was close enough to the chaos that we could join it anytime we wanted.
Finally she dragged us down to the street, but the dance had petered out. We wandered around the town, stopping at the liquor store to buy two more bottles of rum, then returning to the Grand Hotel to see what was happening there.
A party was going on at one end of the balcony. Most of these people appeared to be expatriates -- not tourists, but the type who looked like they might live here on the island, or at least somewhere in the Caribbean. They were all very tan. A few had beards, but most of them were freshly shaven. The ones with beards wore shorts and old polo shirts, the boating set. The others wore linen suits and leather shoes that sparkled in the dim light of the balcony chandeliers.
We barged in and sat down at a table. I was fairly drunk by now and I didn't care if we were thrown out or not. The party broke up just a few minutes after we arrived. Nobody said anything to us and I felt a little foolish when we were left on the balcony by ourselves. We sat there for a while, then wandered down to the street. A few blocks away we could hear a band warming up. Soon the street was jammed once again with people, all clinging to each other and dancing the strange dinga that we'd learned earlier in the day.
We humored Chenault for a few hours, hoping she'd get tired of the dancing, but finally Yeamon had to drag her out of the mob. She pouted until we found ourselves in a club full of drunken Americans. A calypso band was hammering and the floor was full of dancers. By this time I was drunk. I fell into a chair and watched as Yeamon and Chenault tried to dance. The bouncer came over to me and said I owed fifteen dollars for the cover charge, and I gave it to him, rather than argue.
Yeamon came back to the table alone. He had left Chenault to dance with an American who looked like a nazi. “You rotten butcher!” I yelled, shaking my fist at him. But he didn't see me, and the music was so loud that he couldn't hear. Finally Chenault left him and came back to the table.
Yeamon led me through the crowd. People were screaming and grabbing at me and I didn't know where I was being taken. My only thought was to lie down and sleep. When we got outside I slumped in a doorway while Yeamon and Chenault argued about what to do next.
Yeamon wanted to go to the beach, but Chenault was for more dancing. “Don'
t order me around, you goddamn puritan!” she screamed. “I'm having a good time and all you do is sulk!”
He knocked her down with a quick whack to the head, and I heard her groaning somewhere near my feet as he shouted for a cab. I helped him lift her into the back seat and we explained to the driver that we wanted to go to Lindbergh Beach. He grinned widely and started off. I was tempted to reach over the seat and give him a rabbit punch. He thinks we're going to rape her, I thought. He thinks we grabbed her off the street and now we're taking her out to the beach to hump her like dogs. And the bastard was grinning about it; a criminal degenerate with no morals.
Lindbergh Beach was across the road from the airport. It was surrounded by a tall cyclone fence, but the driver took us to a place where we could climb over it by using a tree. Chenault refused to make any effort, so we shoved her over and let her fall in the sand. Then we found a good spot that was partly surrounded by trees. There was no moon, but I could hear the surf a few yards in front of us. I spread my filthy cord coat on the sand for a pillow, then fell down and went to sleep.
The sun woke me up the next morning. I sat up and groaned. My clothes were full of sand. Ten feet to my left Yeamon and Chenault were sleeping on their clothes. They were both naked and her arm was thrown over his back. I stared at her, thinking that no one could blame me if I lost my wits and pounced on her, after first crippling Yeamon with a blow on the back of his skull.
I considered trying to cover them with her raincoat, but I was afraid they'd wake up as I hovered over them. I didn't want that, so I decided to go swimming and wake them up by shouting from the water.
I took off my clothes and tried to shake the sand out, then shuffled naked into the bay. The water was cool, and I rolled around like a porpoise, trying to get clean. Then I swam to a wooden raft about a hundred yards out. Yeamon and Chenault were still asleep. At the other end of the beach was a long white building that looked like a dance hall. An outrigger canoe was pulled up on the sand in front of it, and under the nearby trees I could see chairs and tables with thatched umbrellas. It was somewhere around nine o'clock, but there was no one in sight I lay there for a long time, trying not to think.
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