“You bettah?” Sterling asked. “You ahlright now?”
“I eat too much of dose dahmn eggs,” Ulysses explained without much remorse. “Mundo say eggs still eggs even when dey snotty ahnd stink, but I eat too much. De first one taste good ahnd I must keep eatin dem.”
Bowen stared at the boy and felt himself gagging reflexively. He felt his eyes squeeze tight with convulsion, his jaw thrusting away from his skull, his insides closing in upon him as though he, too, had stumbled to his hands and knees to gulp seawater the way a dog will chew grass to make itself heave. The sensation passed into a weightlessness, a rough freshness, and he turned away from the water and walked back to camp.
The men scattered to play pedro, to wash the cooking pots, to listen to Gabriel tell a story about a Providence boat that disappeared in Serrana with his father aboard. The wind fell off completely. A small flake of moon rose and gelled the sea. Out in the darkness the coral reefs relented and let the tide pass over them unbroken. Bowen lay on his blanket in the sand, waiting for sleep. The cards ticked loudly against the pedro players’ soft conversation. The words spread entropically out into the night and somewhere, far out to the black sea, slipped underwater and were lost, flying like souls through an exquisite silence.
Mundo’s Sign
In the fading darkness, the small boats, twelve in all, were dragged into the water from the camp on Southwest Cay. Masts were stepped quickly and the sails unfurled in the placid security of the coral lagoon. Wind-filled and ghost-white, they rounded the leeward edge of the cay and scattered in all directions across the fishing banks.
Bowen was in the bow of Mundo’s catboat, huddled against the cool dawn breeze. He and Gabriel faced each other, their knees bumping together, but Gabriel lay back relaxing, his arms spread out along the gunnels as if he sat in a bathtub. Mundo was in the stern, his brown flesh sallow without true light, eyes and cheeks puffy, evidence that he had not slept well. Bowen hugged himself, his head down, shivering as the veiled pastel sun lifted from the sea behind him. A bird landed on his shoulder.
“Doan move, mahn,” said Gabriel. “Daht is good luck.”
The white man turned his head slowly to look at the bird. It was a green finch, little enough to fit in his hand. Through his T-shirt, Bowen felt the light pricking pressure of the bird’s claws as it balanced to the rock of the boat.
“A bird never landed on me before,” he said.
“Daht is good luck,” Gabriel insisted. “Good fah de boat.”
The bird fluttered from Bowen’s shoulder to the gunnel and then hopped down between his feet, pecking at flecks of dried fish. It ran rodentlike under Gabriel’s seat, in and out of sight in the shadows.
“Keep you head down low, Mistah Bone,” Mundo said. The word Mistah was a joke, a taunt that Bowen had finally to accept. A friendship with Mundo had not been easily established. Bowen had come to Providence because he had heard that sea turtles were still numerous in the waters of the archipelago. They were something he wanted to know about, creatures whose habits informed his own pursuits, the omnibus sciences that made his life what it was, a quest for worlds lost or hidden, for knowledge unavailable to ordinary lives. His interviews with the fishermen led him to Raimundo Bell, the man most respected on Providence Island for his abilities in the water. Mundo had no interest in him at first beyond a natural suspicion, but Bowen offered to trade a share of the everyday work for a seat in Mundo’s boat. If it was a question of proving oneself, Bowen did so, he hoped, through his sweat and dirtiness and exhaustion. The difference in the lives of the two men gradually diminished until they took each other for granted. Still, Bowen could not talk Mundo out of calling him Mistah, or pronouncing it in a tone that underscored the conspicuous nature of their relationship.
Mundo balanced upright in the back of the boat, the two rudder lines gathered from behind him, held in his big hands like the reins of a horse. “Gabriel?” he warned. Mundo was rarely more than laconic and yet Gabriel always responded precisely. Mundo stooped down, dark and solid, steering for extra wind.
“Yes,” Gabriel answered, rising up. “Goin speedify directly, mahn.” He began to coil in the mainsheet. The boat heeled and pressed into the tinted water, going faster, bracing the men against the windward hull. Mundo jibed the boat. Once the sail had luffed Gabriel allowed the boom to swing over, combing the back of Bowen’s hair. The canvas inhaled again and held the breath. Bowen sat up straight and repositioned his weight in the boat. He could see the sunrise now, chalked with lavender towers of clouds lining up away from it. The light was like a warm hand on his face.
Behind them they heard the slapping of another sail as it dumped wind. “Look dere,” said Gabriel. “Ezekiel turnin ah-cross, too,”
“Daht bitch,” Mundo grumbled, and twisting his neck he shouted back, “Ezekiel, you old piece ah fuck, you tink you cahn race me, mahn?”
Ezekiel would not answer, nor would he look toward them. Within minutes he had let his boat fall far in their wake. Months ago, Bowen had approached Ezekiel because he heard the doddering fisherman had once caught a malatta hawksbill, a crossbreed between a hawksbill and a green turtle that the experts Bowen had read insisted was only mythical, a tall tale. He wanted to know if they were wrong. Mundo said he himself had shot a malatta, two years ago on the fishing banks in Serrana, and that he had seen the one Ezekiel had netted before it was butchered and sold to the Japanese. When Bowen went to Ezekiel for verification, the old man was incoherent, a pathetic figure who could not focus his memory. Bowen pitied him out loud to Mundo. Mundo said Daht mahn steal from de mouth of he children. He beat de wife fah rum money. Mahn, when de devil need feelin sorry fah?
“Mundo, where you goin, mahn?” Gabriel finally asked. Bowen had watched him fidgeting, building up to the question until he was certain of their course. Gabriel was a handsome man and knew it well, shaving his sideburns into broad flairs and wearing a gold cross on a thin strand of wire around his neck. He had once told Bowen he was too good-looking to be a fisherman, that he would like to work in a shop or as a waiter. But on Providence there was no other work but fishing for a man who did not own land. Mundo didn’t seem to care though. Mundo loved the sea and never questioned what it brought him or what it took away.
“Mundo, you sleepin?”
“Jewfish Hole,” Mundo said, spitting into the water and watching it twirl out of sight. “Headed up daht way.”
“True? Not Five Shillin Cay?”
“No.”
Gabriel licked his teeth and asked why not. Last night after supper they had discussed where they might fish today. Mundo had argued that if the wind stayed the direction it was, they must sail for Five Shilling Cay or Aguadilla Reef instead of closer waters. That was fine with Bowen because he wanted to go ashore on the cay and see what there was in a place where man never came. Light bulb, whiskey bottle, piece ah plahstic baby, dead fumey stuff ahnd birds, Mundo told him. Maybe a malatta hawksbill, too, Bowen added, and Mundo had said De malatta can be anywheres, mahn. Daht’s only luck.
“Mundo, wake up now. Dis a bahd wind fah Jewfish Hole.”
Mundo peered at them both through hooded eyes. “I get a sign,” he said. Bowen wondered what he was talking about. Mundo stared past him, out of the boat, measuring the waters of Serrana as if these eighty square miles of unmarked banks were city streets he had grown up on. He veered several degrees off the wind; Gabriel automatically trimmed the sail.
“So you get a sign, Mundo?” Gabriel probed.
“Yeah.”
“What’s that supposed to be?” Bowen wanted to know. Perhaps the two men were humoring each other to pass the slothful time of the sail. Mundo was too serious and impassive this morning. He should have been singing. He liked to sing when they were sailing: Jim Reeves, Bing-Bing, salsa, anything.
“I get a dream lahst night daht was a sign.”
Bowen sniffed at this revelation, fretting. Back on Providence, Mundo didn’t play the lottery so he nev
er talked about his dreams like those who did. The town would stir in the morning and somebody would be claiming they had a dream, a good one, and then the dreambook would be consulted, a finger-worn copy published in Harlem in 1928, and the dreams figured out. No, I tellin you, a white horse is six, de white cow is two six, ahnd a white lady is six one one. In dis dream you see a white lady milkin a white cow? Oh ho! De lady come first, so daht six one one two six. No, I tellin you, is de lady come first, mahn, not de cow. If blahck on de cow, daht six two. A boy would be sent running to Alvaro’s shop to buy the number. But Mundo always said the lottery was foolish.
Bowen dipped his hand over the side to feel the water. He liked the unworried, surging speed of the catboat, the white and rose and amber colors of the bottom refracted and blurry, just colors streaming by through the window of the surface. “Is that so?” Bowen asked. “You had a dream?” Mundo said yeah.
“I didn’t know you dreamed, Mundo,” Bowen said. “Did you dream you saw a white lady wearing a white dress riding a white jackass?”
“Mistah Bone think you makin joke, Mundo,” said Gabriel. “He believe you jokifyin.”
Mundo’s eyes sparked, showing Bowen the hubris he saw in many black men. “Dis a sign fah dis place only,” he replied harshly. He was moodier than Bowen had ever seen him. This place, Bowen thought. This place wasn’t a place at all. It was wide open. It was openness, sunlight shattered blue and unstopped in all directions. There was another world beneath, a mint-cool wilderness, treacherous and lush, but here on the surface the boat pushed into an empty seascape.
“No kidding?” Bowen asked.
“No.”
“What’s the sign?”
“Fuck a mahn.”
“Oh yeah?” Bowen said incredulously.
“Fuck a mahn.”
“Daht a funny sign, Mundo,” said Gabriel.
“What’s he talking about?” Bowen asked Gabriel almost incidentally, squinting beyond him to study Mundo. His skin was slicker now in the sun and the light stuck across Mundo’s narrow face in sharp pieces, leaving him cheekbones but no cheeks and emphasizing his stolid mouth, lips parted but no teeth visible. Bowen expected Mundo to grin at him but he didn’t. His distance seemed acted out, like part of a magician’s masquerade. He’s playing with me, Bowen thought. No, he decided, looking at him again, he’s serious.
“So Mundo, you fuck a mahn, eh?” Gabriel said.
“Yeah, boy,” Mundo answered. He began to uncurl his arms and legs from the tight ball he sat in and warmed up to his story. “I dream I fuck a mahn. I stayin in Costa Rica, in Puerto Limon, when I play basebahll in de leagues, ahnd I stayin in dis residencia. Dis girlie mahn come to visit wit a bottle of aguardiente. We drink de bottle, den I fuck him.”
“Oh ho,” said Gabriel, as if he were saying, Yes, I see.
Mundo navigated the boat through a porcelain blue channel that furrowed between two ridges of coral. Outside the reef, the water deepened abruptly, a darkening translucence. The waves rose to one-third the height of the mast. They were on the open sea now, outside the coral walls. The faraway sail of Ezekiel’s boat had disappeared. Mundo followed the reef northward. Already the sun was strong and Bowen was acutely aware of its power to stupefy. Before the words dried up in his mouth and his mind muddled, he wanted to know what it was about the dream that meant something to Mundo.
“You dreamed you fucked a man,” he said cautiously. “What does that mean? What kind of a sign is that?”
“A good one,” replied Mundo.
The bird reappeared on Mundo’s knee. He made a quick grab for it, but the finch was in the air, scooting low over the waves.
“Come again next day,” Gabriel called after it. The bird hooked east toward whatever land might lie that way.
The mystery had become too much for Bowen. He mimicked Alvaro the bookie and his high rapid voice, like a little dog’s: “Costa Rica, dat’s two oh one; mon’s arsehole, dat’s nought; drinkin aguardiente, dat’s oh oh oh. Boy, you get a nice numbah dere, Mundo. Put a fiver on it, mon.”
Mundo’s weak smile made Bowen feel patronized. The black man blinked ostentatiously, widening his hidden eyes as if only now he had reason to come awake, to come away from the dream.
“No, let me tell you, Mistah Bone. Dis sign mean I must shoot a big he hawksbill,” Mundo said emphatically. He raised his thick right forearm. His fist clenched, the dark muscles flexed from elbow to wrist. “Big!” he said.
“Mistah Bone doan believe,” said Gabriel in a sad, false voice. He nodded at Bowen. “He is a sci-ahnce mahn. He only see sci-ahnce.” Then Gabriel laughed, pushing Bowen’s knee good-naturedly.
Hearing Mundo and Gabriel talk about the sign made Bowen feel for a moment that he had lost all contact with them. He leaned forward earnestly, resting his forearms along his bare thighs. He could not resist speaking and yet he hesitated, sure that he was being drawn into trouble.
“Tell me, you can shoot a hawksbill turtle because you dreamed you assholed somebody?” An image of the dream flicked through his mind: Mundo bent over slim, tar-black buttocks, mounting like a beast, the girlie mahn in a stupor, slurring a languid, corrupt Castilian. “How is that?”
“How you mean, mahn?” Mundo looked keenly at Bowen, a challenging eyebrow cocked, teasing him with a crooked smile, ready to invite Bowen into his house and then beat him at dominoes all night long. “You evah fuck a mahn, Mistah Bone?”
“No,” Bowen said immediately. He was surprised that the question had embarrassed him so easily, as if it exposed a level of manhood he had not achieved.
“Mistah Bone want to investigate everyting, but he doan fuck a mahn yet?” Gabriel said, his voice scaling to a parody of a question.
“Some men just be like womahn. Gabriel—right?”
“Daht’s true. It’s de same, mahn.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bowen said, shaking his head ruefully. He tried to play along. “Let’s let it all out.”
“So Mistah Bone,” Mundo continued, “you evah take a womahn like daht?”
“My God.”
“You doan like it?”
Bowen folded his arms across his chest and refused to answer. There were pieces of himself he did not wish to share, even in a game. To be forced to this realization, to admit that something in him would instinctively retreat into rock like a sea anemone, made him angry.
“Mistah Bone,” Mundo said, “when we reach bahck to Providence we find you a mahn to fuck.” Gabriel winked at Bowen.
“No thanks,” Bowen answered coolly. “You two black queers.”
Separating himself from the conversation, Mundo came up off his seat to look around. Bowen wondered how he could know where they were when there was absolutely nothing out there to sight on. Mundo sat back down, rocking rhythmically from side to side, letting the waves loosen his shoulders and neck, danced by the sea.
“Fuck fucka fucka mahn,” he chanted.
“Sail the boat.”
“Sailin like a real bitch right now.”
“Black man bullshit. Jungle stuff.”
“Uh-oh, Mundo. Mistah Bone vexed now wit dis dream bodderation.”
“All right. All right. Enough,” Bowen declared. “Do that trick, shoot the turtle, then I’ll start fucking men. Maybe you first, Gabriel.”
“Oh me God, Mundo.” Gabriel laughed. “Look what you talk Mistah Bone into.”
“He gettin de picture now, boy,” Mundo said. “You doan worry, Gabriel. Mistah Bone lookin hahd to fuck dis bunch ah guys bahck in de States who say malatta hawksbill a make-believe. You not hear him say so?”
“I got the picture now, so let’s drop all this somethingness out of nothingness.”
“Pretty talk,” said Gabriel.
Bowen resented his ambition described through such a coarse metaphor, but now that the point had been made, he felt comfortable again with the two black men. Mundo said nothing more but sat quietly like a schoolboy with an expression of overbearing innocence.<
br />
They sailed for another twenty minutes, cutting progressively nearer to the reef until they were only yards away from the foam left behind by the waves that broke across the shallow coral. Then the reef bowled inward, pinched by a channel which they rode through into calmer water. After a short distance, Mundo tacked back toward the inside of the main reef, and when they were a couple of miles down-current from the channel, he steered into the wind.
“Come, you workin today, mahn?” Mundo called. Bowen looked at him stupidly. He had let himself fall into a daze, the light, like thick crystals growing on the water, overcoming him. His deeply tanned skin felt scratchy and sore and gluey.
“Get de sail, mahn. Quick.”
Bowen jerked himself out of his lethargy and stood up, holding the gunnels for balance. He concentrated on his equilibrium, judging how the water moved the boat until he was sure of himself, straightened up, and then leapt from the bottom of the boat to his seat. He grabbed the mast with one hand and extended the other one out toward Gabriel. Gabriel stood behind him, rolling the sailcloth onto the boom as far as he could, passing it to Bowen until the flour-sack sail was furled around the wood and the boom was parallel with the mast.
“Gabriel, watch out,” Bowen said.
“You okay, Mistah Bone. You become ahn expert.”
But Bowen wanted to know that Gabriel was ready if he should lose his footing in the pitch of the boat. He lashed the boom and mast tight together with the sheet line, grunting as it took all his strength to lift the long heavy mast from its step. He rested the butt on the seat, spread his arms on the poles like a weight lifter and lowered the mast slowly to Gabriel and then Mundo, who had their arms up ready to receive it.
When the mast was down, they passed it back to Mundo far enough so he could get it under the seats to stow. Bowen pulled the two handmade oars from the gear in the bottom of the boat. Slipping them through the rope oarlocks midway on each gunnel, he jammed them back into the boat and left them ready while the boat drifted. It was still early in the morning.
Easy in the Islands Page 20