The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [59]
“Savings? Sailors with savings? I’d like to meet these sailors, David. Bring them to me tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Savings. That’s very amusing, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir. Amusing.”
Emer opened her sewing box again. She sat up in her bunk and reached for something on the shelf above her. She unfolded the old woolen cape on her lap and inspected its ragged seams and hems. “No point in making something pretty if it’s not perfect,” she thought, and began fixing a raw edge with her needle.
But something inside her burned when she thought about Spanish treasure. She’d had enough of being poor and desperate. She was sick of re-hemming the same old cape. Maybe it’s time I faced the facts, she said to herself. Maybe it’s time I get what I deserve.
From the moment I stepped off the plane in Montego Bay, my life became a sort of dream world. It was as if I split in two—my body down at the baggage collection area while my eyes watched from the door. My hand paying the taxi driver while my ears listened to the locals speaking patois.
I was frightened of the hordes of people gathered at the roadside, yelling to the taxi man. I was afraid of the erratic and dangerous drivers, the roads pockmarked with huge potholes. I grew so paranoid that I shivered with cold, even in the still, tropical air. Each time the taxi stopped, poor people approached—selling, begging, singing, smiling. Some stood back and glared at me through the window glass.
When I reached my hotel in Negril, a barb-wired compound guarded by men with walkie-talkies, a man showed me to my room. He seemed nice, but as my mouth asked him questions and my hand shook his, my eyes still perched somewhere else, fearing the worst of everything. No one seemed trustworthy. I locked my door and sat on the bed, listening to the squeaky ceiling fan above my head.
I even chickened out of going to dinner in the hotel restaurant and ordered room service. It was as if I had left Emer back in Hollow Ford, just when I needed her most.
I fell asleep early, feeling pathetic and stupid.
But I woke up determined.
After a breakfast of fruit and cocoa bread, I began my journey southeast, heaving my army duffel bag into a snorkeling boat I chartered to take me slowly to the next coastal town. That night, in an attempt to reclaim my courage, I went to a small live reggae show and danced a little. I met two girls there from Ohio who’d just graduated too, and even though we had nothing in common, I hung out with them for a few hours. Emer would have wanted to feed them their own giggly livers, but I still couldn’t find her anywhere.
The next day as I ate my fruity breakfast, I looked at the other tourists eating their breakfasts. I imagined feeding the fat guy’s eyeball to the skinny urbanite with the Brooklyn accent. I scalped my waitress and secured her curly hair to the now one-eyed fat guy. If Emer would only show up, she’d think this stuff was hilarious. But she didn’t.
When I found a crusty boatman and secured the next leg of my journey, I imagined stealing the boat from him. I imagined holding his dreadlocked head under the water’s surface. How he’d shake and quiver. How the sharks would eat him. Still, no Emer.
Later that day, when Billy’s Bay appeared in front of me, I felt her stir in my ribs. I let the boatman pass and then asked him to turn around, so I could see the bay again.
“Can you take me there?” I asked, pointing to the empty beach.
He found the one route to shore between the jagged reefs and stopped the boat. I paid him and he nodded, smiling with three teeth, and then he steered the boat out again into the calm sea and headed back west.
I watched him disappear, and felt frozen. I had followed my nose this far, and had no idea what to do next. I walked toward an arrow-shaped sign advertising a hostel and followed it, uphill on a path that cut through a thick grove of grape trees. When I arrived at the hostel, an adobe-type place built to withstand hurricanes and covered in blooming vines, I met the