The long and winding Stairway to Heaven

The pick-up truck was ass-in-your-neighbor’s lap full. 2 benches facing each other. School kids in their white and blue, heading back to the village, a few elderly oblivious to the gated community conveniences of Over 55 living, and some child bearing women, one of whom I’m sure would relish the virile seed of a young white man.

I approached. Their eyes went deer-in-the-headlight. Gringo. Money. Visa. Husband. Imperialist. Money and Visa. Old Spice. I know what they were thinking. It’s always the same. But the discriminated class like myself know how to handle these situations.

I decided on the boy. 15 or so. Trying to get educated. He’d receive the question. Give him a chance to show off in front of the ladies, the ones he was meekly flirting with. Allow him to handle communication with this striking foreigner, a story he could tell his grandkids in the village one day.

“Excuse me, does this truck go to Playa Medina?”

“No comprendo.”

Maybe I didn’t speak loud enough.

“EXCUSE ME, DOES THIS TRUCK GO TO PLAYA MEDINA?”

“No comprendo.“

Alright, there’s a chance my Spanish is too sophisticated. I’ll slow it down.

“Ex cuse me does this truck go to play a med in a?”

“Mas o menos.”

“Que?”
“Mas o menos”

I can’t believe he’s giving me the mas o menos treatment. It may mean ‘more or less’ but it’s more like a ‘whatever,’ especially when it follows The ‘No Comprendo.“ Is this the story he wants to tell his grandkids, how he told the royal imperialist ‘whatever.’ And ‘No Comprendo.’

“I’m asking you a simple question. Does the truck go to Playa Medina? There are 2 choices. Neither is mas o menos.”

A blank stare. That was his answer. Not one of the two choices. Before I could spear him with my saber, an elderly woman in the rear of the truck spoke up, “Si, we pass Playa Medina.”

This younger generation. Even in the 3rd world sticks these kids are losing their social skills.

Turns out there was one skinny butt place left. As I climbed into the pick-up, I decided to pause in front of the Mas o Menos boy. I think he was gossiping about me with his school friends. If I didn’t lecture him, nobody would, and this vicious cycle of racism would continue, destroying the honest fabric of the Venezuelan countryside.

“I may speak with an accent, and I may not be from here, but I speak Spanish, and I deserve a little respect. I don’t appreciate the attitude, and by the way, there plenty of white people like me who speak your language, so you should be careful how you speak about us.” Yeah, this is how my black brothers in America must feel, The Man always up in their face conspiring against their progress. Now I had my own bout with discrimination.

I turned to face the crowd in my new 4 wheel drive living room, their faces darkened by the low hanging aluminum roof. I expected the older ones to be thankful for a job they neglected. But no. No thanks for saving the youth. Just more blank stares. Peasants.

The Truck stopped. I must have dozed off. It was like a C-130. Jump. Jump. They were all shouting Playa Medina. Aqui. Aqui. Before I could utter a syllable, the truck was gone, and I was standing in the middle of the road. Me. Forest. And a small potholed road. I couldn’t see the sea, smell the sea, nothing. I was about ready to cry ‘deceit’ again, when I saw the Playa Medina sign behind me. Cool. The truck did drop me off in the right spot.

Behind the beach sign, was a dry dirt road heading through the forested hills. A woman who had been eating too much of her own supply sat behind a glass case of wilting empanadas, the brutalizing sun having decided to bake the grease right off of them. Her ‘Jesus’ t-shirt told me at least I was in a blessed place.

Despite the sign with it’s directional arrow and dusty road entrance, I asked the Jesus groupie where the beach was.

She pointed down the dirt road. Just like the sign's big blue arrow. Divined knowledge.

“Is it far, the beach?”

“Si.”

“How far?”

“Far.”

“Can I walk?”

“No. It’s far.”

“Is their transport?”

“Mototaxi.”

“How much?”

“Thirty.”

“For a moto. That’s crazy. I paid that for an hour long car ride. Thirty, really, it’s thirty?”

“Thirty.” And then she proceeded to take out three 10’s, counting them off for me.
Something about my face that day must have screamed idiot. Probably the eye shadow.

“I don’t see any motos here. Or car. Or anything. Does anybody even live here? How long would it take to walk.”

“I don’t know.”

“An estimate, some idea…”
“Thirty minutes.”

“That’s a popular number with you. You should really stick with 33 though. It would make HIM happy. I’m going to walk.”

“It’s dangerous. You can’t”

Dangerous. Crime. Be very careful. These were the modern day slogans of Venezuela. According to the populace, in every town, every city, a wave of carefree hooligans pillaged freely. The police were co-conspirators, and the masses held themselves captive behind concrete walls and barbed wire.

After a month In Country, including a stint in one of Caracas’ ‘worst’ neighborhoods, I stood convinced that my first world barrio of scumbag Puerto Rican gangs would pulverize these alleged thugs. It has actually been my safety plan, in case of attack; Flash the Latin Kings gang sign, yell something about ‘Respect’, and utter a few words of reggaeton. Sure, crime is an unlucky game of chance, and I had just been lucky so far, but here, in a land devoid of traffic or heartbeats, the worst thing happening was the violation of someone's donkey. And 'violation' is probably a disrespect to the donkey's own carnal entitlement.

I started down the auburn dirt road, risking rural crime and a half hour slog.
But I couldn't remove the thought of that woman. Her attitude. She wasn't helpful, at all. No smile, no friendly advice. Just negativity. Throughout Venezuela one will find people eager to share a laugh, offer help or even a drink. It's your typical warm and friendly latin country suffering from yet another scheming government, but somehow the public still finds a way to enjoy. Except that woman. Which made me think why one negative experience outlasts a positive one. Really outlast. Is this why the newspaper never has a story like "Family Enjoyed a Day at the Beach" or "Strangers on Bus now Eating Dinner Together"? Perhaps the news is full of Murder Corruption Arson because we, the general public, want to get angry. That feeling of injustice, or dismay, or DoubleUteeEff, excites us, penetrates us in a way that positive stories are unable to do.

And now I felt the fear creeping in. Logic no longer works. You think you may understand the root causes of paranoia, but alone, white and alone, on a deserted road in a crime plagued nation, you too become another victim. The lush tropical forest now harbored an armada of potential threats, as every rustle became a bandit in hiding. I tried to maintain my cool, but as I approached my first pedestrian, machete in hand, bare foot, I began to imagine the attack. Me running. The bandits circling around, my gang signs a failure. Maybe I could defecate on them during the rape. Why don't more male victims of forceable cock take a dump on the penetrator? I can't imagine any rapist wanting to violate that.

Why was I walking through a peaceful melange of singing birds and coconut palms, the sea somewhere near, the air fresh, and me, thinking about the worst habits of man. I would not succumb to this disease, this perverse fetish of mankind, this burglar behind every bush way of thinking. Besides, worst case, I squeeze out some poop.

An orange painted concrete home, clean and small, sat set back from the road. An older gentleman attempted some repairs on a dying vessel. He probably couldn't get it up, so I felt safe in approaching him.

"Excuse me sir, Hi, how far a walk is it to Playa Medina?"

"About an hour. Be careful though. Dangerous. There is a woman who sells chocolate though. Good luck."

Another half a mile passed until the next home. The chocolate lady. She sold it out of her living room. Raw. She saw my bitter taste reaction, and offered me another treat. Go ahead and try it. Free.

So this is how it will go down. Not from behind, but right in front. Clever. American's aren't the only ones hip to the lure-them-in-with-sweets mutilate them later thing. Halloween techniques have gone international. Maybe I could do like the undercover narcotics officers and feign ingestion. Do those guys really pass up the chance to snort smack? I doubt it. I'll eat it, then walk away real fast.

But before I could escape, she offered me another one. I wasn't crazy about the first, but maybe the half kilo a sugar she dumped into each candy would get me through this hike. I felt bad not buying one. She didn't. Gave me a smile, wished me a good walk, and of course, advised caution.

Another mile or so of thick forest yielded the occasional home, usually built solid with concrete, painted some color or another banned from the gated subdivision. Where was the poverty, the begging children, the crumbling shacks?
Was this the result of Chavez, the saviour of the poor?

"No, the government doesn't do much for us. Everybody here grows food, sells food, and most have had their properties for a very very long time. You know, you do repairs over the years, make improvements. Life is alright here. Yeah. Not too far. Maybe half an hour."

That older guy was relatively upbeat. Healthy looking. No distended belly like the charity commercials. As I continued along the road without end, he added, "Just watch your things, careful, good luck."

Things...outside of those bestowed upon me by Our Holy Father, I had nothing. No credit cards, phone, bag, towel, nada. Why do people even feel the need to say 'be careful?' If you walk along the street, especially in a fairly poor country, wearing a Rolex, holding cash in your hand, giving handjobs to shady men on the side of the road, well, you deserve a good mugging. But don't most people, across every society, take a regular degree of caution in their dealings with both strangers and strange environments. Is it really necessary to tell somebody that? And don't most people, when they come into an area that looks like a ghetto, with a lot of young men hanging on a corner, or a street full of abandoned houses, don't most people instinctively know what black women scream in the movie theater, "Run, bitch."

Further, why do people feel the need to say 'be careful' at all. If I borrow your car, do you really think that I'm going to drive ninety down a dark alley and slam into the mayor's brick garage, that your 'be careful' will save your car. No. Instead, I'm not going to relax, so when I need to accelerate and pass the drunk idiot threatening my right of way, I'm going to remember your 'be careful' and rear end the swerving Escalade. Humans. We are guilty of creating the paranoia that enslaves us to fear. That's why I always hold stock in American insurance companies.

I tried to relax. Soon the rustling creepiness revealed lizards and yellow bellied birds. The salted air became a nasal treat promising salvation just around the corner. I must have walked an hour by now. An older man with a toothless grin sat behind a table piled with yucca. A granddaughter accompanied him, under a mature avocado tree.

"You have any yucca that I can eat now?"

"No, only these. You can cook them though. We grow them here."

"That's alright, I'm without a kitchen at the moment. Is it safe for you two to be sitting at here? You aren't worried?"

"Serious? No no, we always sit here. It's very peaceful here. Without problems."

"But I heard it was dangerous, that's why I asked."

A curly haired man appeared from behind some other fruit tree. Probably the whitest farm man in Venezuela. Could be an albino. You ever see a black albino speak like a brutha? That's freaky.
He was munching on a piece of fruit. Oblong and brownish. The paranoid side saw him going for the machete on the farmstand table, taking me prisoner, and having me translate Danielle Steele novels, oral re-enactments and all. The sensible side of me said he was White.

"Are you going to Playa Medina?"

"Yeah, I hope I'm going the right way. I've been walking since the highway, maybe an hour or so."

"Sure, sure. You're close. Almost there. Where do you come from?"

"The U.S., but I'm not an Imperialist, just a colonizer. A friendly colonizer like the Swedes. Not the French."

"Not to worry my friend, we are not Chavistas here. Nor anything political. They are all liars. And cheaters. We are fine here. We take care of ourselves. Come take a look."

And the curly haired caucasian escorted me across the property. His smile wouldn't sleep as he proudly pointed out the large avocado tree, a few from the mango family, some coconut palms, breadfruit, another large tree with some long straggly fruit. Across the street was a small area full of cacao trees bordered by a couple of hillsides seeded with corn and yams.

"The people come down here to buy what we have. Sometimes I take it to the nearest city, where you probably came from, and sell it there. It's not much but we live ok."

"And the crime problem? Doesn't your family worry about safety?"

"Here? No, (he is laughing) this isn't Caracas, or some other city. In the country it's fine. No problems."

He then walked me down into the small forest of cacao plants. Here is where my body would be found. The embassy would call for an investigation. The local authorities would claim it's an accident. My local paper back home would have a brief story on the murder, shoved back on page 4 below the story about a Uzbeki woman giving birth to nine children at the age of fifty-seven. I'd soon be forgotten about, another casualty in the transnational crime wave terrorizing the citizenry everywhere. Maybe I could fight back, make myself into a national hero, the new Simon Bolivar. I'd single handedly show the nation that Imperialists stand up to thugs, that capitalism is your friend. They'd bring me in front of the National Assembly where the harrowing details of my near death victory would inspire a small revolution. The exasperated working class would take control from the current propagandists, drawing inspiration from my act of rebellion. Schoolchildren would arrive from across the nation, descending upon the cacao tree where the movement was born, where a Gringo stood up for the rights of the common man.

My opportunity for achieving national holiday status was sabotaged by my captor's sheathing of his rural dagger, and offering of a cacao fruit.

"You can eat it. Sure. It's sweet. The seed that makes the chocolate is inside, but this part here, you just suck it. Don't eat the seed, it's not good."

What a value! One cacao fruit must have had a hundred seeds, each with it's own yummy membrane. What person discovered chocolate? How could anybody figure out that this slightly bitter, practically tasteless seed, normally discarded, would taste so freakin' good when mixed with a bit of sugar and melted over somebody's nipples.

I said my goodbyes, and took my choco sucking to the road, the ocean paradise promised to be only a few curves away. I was a bit put off, not receiving a 'be careful, danger' warning, but somehow, some way, I was managing.

It was probably close to noon, when the entire country closes shop, closes school, and returns home for the meal of the day. A school kid or two would now pass, giggling as they saw a gangly white man fellating their prized export. Really, who figured out this lychee looking, grape tasting fruit would conquer the primal desires of females the world over.

The road creeped up, down, curved, sometimes a patch of pavement, but never a view of the sea. Waves? Where was that soothing sound from option 3 on the alarm clock?

The cacao seeds were empowering. Fearlessness, confidence. They returned. No longer did I see a gang of gypsy children plotting my assault. Just kids enjoying the carefree ways of car-less roads. The machete wielding barefoot men carrying mysterious baskets of unseen cargo. They weren't interested in my buttocks. Nor my wallet. They were simply machete wielding barefoot men carrying mysterious baskets of unseen cargo. Life be good.

My first crossroads appeared. These are the metaphors for life, you know. I was prepared to ask for guidance, knowing the decision was one of slaughter or salvation, a late night embassy call to my family or coconuts on the sand. There were people choosing both routes. By the time I arrived, the pivotal choice looming before me, the count was two and two. Dead even in the amount of pedestrians going slaughter, going salvation. I looked to the sky for guidance. A skinny woman with droopy breasts and a runaway child passed to the left. 3 - 2. The Left wins. Typical Venezuela style. The Lord always finds something to show you The Way.

As the azure waters and deserted hammocks pulled me to the left, guided by Him, I noticed a large piece of wood, supported by a long stake.
Playa Medina >
Coincidence or Fate. God or a lot of conservative molecules. Once again, I would abandon the Left for sensibility's sake.

Immediately the Right yielded the first proper business of the day's journey. A small bodega guarded by 3 shirtless men. To me, it was Wal-Mart. But probably with better wages. Candy bars, chips, brightly colored sodas, fried snacks, inferior toiletry products. It was the diet of the American ghetto.

"Do you have water? A bottle of cold water, por favor."

"Let me check, I don't think we have water."

"It's ninety-five degrees here. I see eight refrigerated shelves of cola. One for each color of the rainbow. You must have water."

The older of the three guardians, most likely the father based on the other two's similar looks and his highly developed abdomen, went hunting. Some time later he returned with two choices. A ten gallon tub of water, or a small bottle covered in bodega muck, neither of which came from chilled environs.

Disgusted by the Bodega Buddha's incompetence, I left without purchase. It was punishment. Hopefully, me depriving him of thirty-eight cents would teach him good business practices.

People in Venezuela complain about the economy, as they are keen to do the world over. But here, they really struggle economically despite the oil wealth. One reason is the complete lack of differentiation. Offer something unique, offer something better. I thought it was common sense, but that could be cause it's capitalist common sense, not socialist common sense. At night, in any Venezuelan town, you'll find four stands, side by side, selling food. Each one offers hamburgers and hot dogs, with the same toppings, on the same quality meat, for the same price. No one offers exotic toppings, or milkshakes, or grilled soy patties with an organic tamarind sesame sauce. What local nutrients allow the frontal lobe to develop such that one may think, "Honey, I'm going to get into business for myself. Be my own boss. You know the plaza, where Juan, Jose, and Hector sell hamburgers, I'm going to set up a hamburger stand." And do the wives speak up, or perhaps the husbands, and say, "Honey, there's enough burgers there, maybe you should sell eggplant parmesan or something."

It's not just food. Go to a Venezuelan market. Twenty-five vendors all selling the same low quality, Chinese made clothing. The Fruit Market, not only does each table sell the same produce, from the same farm, but not one person has ever thought to sell fresh juice, right next to the place you're buying fresh fruit. There is capitalism here. There is a free market. And lots of options. Of the same fucking thing! People complain to me about the dominance of the Chinese and Arabs in the marketplace. But as one Lebanese shwarma vendor told me, after of course he emphatically told me he was Christian, and that Muslims will destroy the planet, he told me, "people here, they not think, only follow. Conformist I think you say. Don't work too hard. Want to enjoy. For me Venezuela is good life. Lot of opportunity. Easy to make money. You have been here. You understand now. Look how they think."

I shouldn't be so hard on Venezuela. After all, they are one of the few non- American nations to adopt baseball as the national sport. Then again, if there is one sport more boring than soccer, it's the one where a testicle tugging man stands on a small hill, looking paranoid, taking two minutes to release a tiny ball that will soon land in the paws of a crouching fat man, only to be returned to the paranoid man on the hill who will repeat the process. The sport's purists say Cubs fans aren't true fans cause they spend their time getting drunk at ballgames. I claim they are intellectually superior.

And Venezuela isn't alone in this refusal to offer the customer something new. It's the plague of the developing world. Venezuelans, Bolivians, Malaysians, they all have complaints against the U.S.
Politically, they have reason. But at least we're a country of innovators. Without the television, internet, telephone, automobile, or microwave popcorn, the planet would still be playing with rocks, making finger puppets over the fire, and not having the privilege to regale their children about the times they walked twelve miles to school.

Thirsty, out of cacao seeds, and slightly embarrassed over my new found pride in microwave popcorn, I pushed my way through. The road had an end. Hopefully, it wasn't mine. The initial joy of the unknown, the nature, the adventure, well, it was wearing. The midday sun was burning like a spicy curry coming out the other end, the forest stopped shading, and machetes were no longer a threat, nor relief from the piercing sounds of a Weed-Wacker. Where were the bikinis? Where were the beach shacks with t-shirts reading:

I GOT WASTED
&
TASTED
(poorly drawn animation of woman intoxicated enjoying cunnilingus, depicted below in neon)
PLAYA MEDINA, VENEZUELA

There were zero signs, divine or physical, that the shoreline was near. Worst, the road was climbing. Where were those billboards from Orlando that appeared every few miles, with an "Are we there yet?", followed by a mile marker countdown? Another clever business idea for the locals. Maybe I could offer that to the proprietor of some beachfront lodging.

Since my departure from Our Holy Lady of the Wilting Empanada, I'd been passing small plantations of mangos, avocados, plaintains, and soursop. Should I have been surprised that the only produce I'd encountered in miles of walking was yucca? There are few products of the earth less edible than an uncooked yucca. And most of those will kill you.

I mentally masturbated myself to the pleasures of fresh fruit. But the teasing was leaving me blue-tongued. If not for my fine upbringing, and tetanus fears of the rusty machete, I'd be pilfering these Edenic gardens, strolling these here by-ways like a mad-man, fruit cum dripping from my face, violating one seed bearing treat after the next.

Naturally, just as I was about to forsake a childhood of fine etiquette and an expired tetanus booster, a barred window appeared on the horizon. Behind her, she offered the prized Yellow Phallus. They were the asian style ones, real small. But there were mounds of them. Shopping for bananas when you don't have a kitchen is always a matter of survival, not stock. You just need one or two, not the whole bunch.

The window was their living room. A mother and pre-teen son hovered. The window's ledge perched over a small hill, giving them ample lookout space for security, surely a high concern when you are the road's only purveyor of fine local produce.

The mother gave me a big smile, a 'como estas' and stuff, probably just bait to jack up the price. I know the game. I buy three baby cock bananas, and get the whole kilo price.

"Can I get three bananas please?"

The indentured servant of a son handed them to me. He smiled also. Oh man. When you get two smiles, you're really dealing with the racket. And plus, with their monopoly on the fruit trade, I may blow a day's budget on these poop stoppers.

"Cuanto cuesta?"

They both smiled again. Shit. I don't know if I brought enough money. This was suppose to be a day trip.

"Los bananos, cuanto cuesta?"

Again with the smiles. And an additional gesture, the gentle waving of the backside of the hand. Go.

Really! I could just have the bananas. What's the catch? Maybe Dad is waiting down the road, trying to get me with my guard down. They know I'm hungry, that they've got the corner on the banana market. I'm going to let my guard down, get lost in my own bananarama. Clever. I felt a slight tinge a guilt over my diatribe against their lack of creativity. They just get creative in other ways, like Mexicans with ducktape.

I gave a gracious thank you, and slogged on, pacified by my monkey treats. I kept an eye open for mischievous activity, but Daddy never came out from behind the bush. The road continued. Where was that confounded bridge?

The best three bananas of my life were resting comfortable in their new imperialist belly. There were no more school kids, no more machetes. The village, if that's what I passed, had vanished back into the trees. There was still salt in the air, but no wave sound, no glimpse of turquoise through the leaves. What time was it? It felt like hours had passed.

An man with a fedora appeared. Aged but alive, his wife beater complementing his old man poly slacks very nicely. You have to talk to a man who wears a fedora. It's an unwritten rule of life. Ask for discounts at hotels, keep the thermostat at 68 in the winter, and always speak to old men in fedoras. All unwritten. All rules. Young men in fedoras. Pricks. Definitely don't talk to them.

He smiled, invited me to sit down. He was sitting under a thatched roof awning, sloped gingerly off a compact adobe house, it's solitary window blocked, preventing nosey women from passing in the early night hours, hoping to find someone else with their same Restoration Hardware colonial series sofa.

"Life looks difficult for you. Is everything alright?"

He laughs. Not the hearty laugh of youth, but the laugh of wisdom that only the severely retired (that word was not re-tarded, just to emphasize) seem capable of.

"I still work sometimes. I farm some days. My wife passed six years ago, and my children still live nearby. Many days I come out here (to the little hut we were sitting under) to see what is going on."

"Yeah, there's a lot to see on this road. Lot of movement. Hey, men in fedoras have a good life story. You must have something interesting to share with a
yeoman here."

He presents that laugh again. I trust this man. My culo is safe with him.

"You must have heard about Chavez. I think he's very popular in your country." Slight laugh.

"I've heard about him, yes."

"The opposition wants him out and there are a lot of lies going around. I have seen a lot of governments in my life and this is one of the better ones. There are more health clinics now. Free ones. And you can even get eye surgery done. By the Cubans. No charge. And the kids don't have to pay for university any more. The government has built a lot of homes for people who don't homes. And we have access to food basics like rice and sugar and coffee that the government subsidizes. Other governments wouldn't do this for the people."

"And the corruption, isn't that still an issue that prevents things from getting done, even common projects for the community?"

"Sure, of course. Chavez can't change the people in this country. That attitude will take generations."

"And what do you know outside of politics?"

"Well, I make hats. Do you want to see?"

Who knew? He rose slowly from his spot on the mud wall, his age obvious in his delicate paced movements. He opened up the door to the little mud house on the prairie. Housewives everywhere are jostling for position, 'I always wanted to know what was in that house,' 'do you think he has any cool antiques we can get, maybe real cheap?', 'his kitchen is probably so dated it's hip again.'

A mud walled studio of hats. Dried palm leaf hats. Vietnamese style. Fedora style. Baseball style. A lot of craftmanship. But I couldn't imagine anybody would actually wear one. I didn't see any machete boys with massive palm leaf sombreros.

"Sure, some people. Tourists buy them. They really like them."

I imagined at some point during the year, for at least a day, there were other outsiders who came here besides me.

"Do you worry about the crime? Is it dangerous to sit outside like this, alone, no bars on your window, so close to the road?"

"Crime? There is no crime here. It's a tranquil place. We are in the country. Caracas, Cumana, the big places, they have a lot of crime. Here it's ok. Just be careful."

BE CAREFUL became like my 'ciao', my 'hasta luego'. I prepared myself for the endless trek.

"My sister has a posada by the beach. Tell her you saw me," he said politely as I turned to leave.

I thought I'd combine one unwritten rule with another. "Will I get a discount if I mention your name?"

He laughs that laugh again. The potbelly shakes a bit this time. "I'm Freddy. It's close to here. You will see Posada Angela at the beach."

Freddy Fedora. I like it. And no matter how many times I hear the beach is 'close', I still get excited, like a teenager on yet another date with that really pretty Jehova's Witness. No matter the statistics, Hope is what makes us human.

Freddy gave me another shot of confidence. Any minute now.

Ten minutes later, no sign of heavenly blue waters, but a man built things with his bare hands, an open air shed harbored his previous accomplishments. Was he a divine sign? Why am I meeting a carpenter now? Of all the trades, all the professions, the one I come across practices the craft of Our Saviour.

No beard, cropped hair, and dark skinned, but who knows, maybe before the myth spread, J.C. looked just like this. Why does the Christian world insist on a middle eastern man looking white?"
Does political correctness and 21st century Wikipedia knowledge not tell us different?"

He was humble though, inviting me into his shop and showing off his works. Exact replicas of fishing boats, end tables, and a few chaise lounge chairs. I'm still not sure why Blacks and Latinos sunbathe, but perhaps there are certain ones who fear that the explosion of tanning parlors is giving an unfair evolutionary advantage to the Whites.

I admired his tools. A handcrafted axe, the forging points clearly visible on the iron. A primitive saw. A salt weathered hammer. Nails you wouldn't find at The Home Depot. This was a craftsman. A man who refused to cheat with power tools. He knew the modern age destroyed the individuality of craftspeople, leaving them consigned to producing perfection, surfaces void of scratches and hand-cut curves, those impeccable signs of labor, allowing the buyer to know the sweat that created his table.

"I really like your tools. You don't find tools like this in my country anymore. It's all mechanized. Electricity. No more bloody knuckles, no more love the wood 'till you bleed attitude."

He rose from his sunken stool, and calmly pointed behind. An wobbly extension cord ran from a house across the road, draped over an electric line, and down behind his work shed. A newer Bosch circular saw sat sideways, next to a large electric palm sander.

"Have you heard of IKEA?"

"No, what is that word?"

"They are a furniture maker. From Sweden. The land of blondes. Have you seen a blonde before?"

"On television, yes."

"Do you feel that the image of Cristo takes away from some of the respect you deserve?"

"Que?'

"You appear to be a talented carpenter, just like Him, but due to colonialism, melatonin levels and other factors, you are unable to appear as He has been made to appear."

Confusion, and then light laughter ensue. "I'm not very religious, but I think I make a strong chair. Do you like this one?"

"It's a bit heavy to carry, sorry. I'm trying to get to the beach. I'm sure it's close, right, cause I see you're making beach chairs?"

"Yes, yes, real close. Right over there."

And...and...where's the 'be careful'? Maybe a man created in the likeness of God's son, who always has a sharp instrument nearby, well, that is a man who knows no fear.

I had come to accept that Playa Medina was a sham to punish foreigners, primarily Europeans and North Americans for their centuries of abuse in hispanic lands. They, the locals, know the white man has an insatiable desire for gold, for toilet paper, and for the perfect beach. The Latin American, they'll swim in the closest body of water to their house. If there is a roadside puddle deep enough to bathe, the family will be out there, grills lit, beach umbrellas, radio blasting, kids playing in the water.

The white man has this drive, a deep biological drive, to locate the most deserted beach imaginable, void of all life, that requires at least three forms of transport and two days to reach. He checks the travel publications to ensure nobody has placed his private sandy utopia on a Top 10 list. After he makes sweet sweet love to his awestruck mate, he enjoys the raw power of unadulterated
nature until sunset. He quickly returns to an area where there is cell phone coverage, excitedly calls his developer buddy Chaz, and within a year an eight hundred room resort opens. All inclusive. Great deal. Make sure to ask for a discount in the off-season.

People in Venezuela knew about the beach, at least about it's existence. They claimed it was one of the country's most beautiful. But hardly anyone had actually been to it. I was beginning to understand why. That clever clever Chavez devised a way to psychologically torment the Gringo. He's smarter than his chimp face reveals. Construct a myth, a modern day El Dorado. Call it the country's most sought after and undeveloped beach hideaway. Keep the road void of transportation and ply the locals with free rum and illegal salsa mp3's. Tell them to instruct all foreigners that danger awaits, but the sea is near. And if they manage to reach the end of the road, they'll find the sign:

PLAYA MEDINA
COMING SOON

I considered turning around, maybe going back to all my new acquaintances and telling them how wonderful the beach was, and that today the government people were down there giving out free bags of cheetos. Oh, you haven't heard of cheetos, huh? Well, imagine a bag of potato chips, with ten times the flavor. If it's good enough for America's ghetto children, it's good enough for all y'all.

But my plan of counter-insurgency was foiled by Freddy Fedora's sister's place. A man made beach chairs two miles back, and now accommodation. The ocean was near. I couldn't waste anymore time though. If I didn't push on, night would come and that's when the wild monkeys start the pogroms. I saw a younger girl cleaning around the garden. Much too young to be Freddy's sister, or even daughter, but then again, in a culture where the average man has a new mistress every two to three years, who knows how late into life Freddy Fedora's poppa squired offspring.

Without stopping, I asked if she had any cold bottles of water.

She smiled, invited me to come sit down, have something.
"Sorry, I have to get to the beach."

"You're here. This is it."

I should have gotten angry. My scheming government hunch was correct. But I didn't. Cortez, Pizarro, Pol Pot. They didn't give up.

"I'm sorry, we don't have water, but we have a lot of different colas. Very cold."

I decided I could settle for some fresh juice. "Do you have any fresh juice, maybe some coconut water?"

"We have juice, yes. Not fresh, but it's in a can. Very good. Come and have one."

The last fresh juice in a can I bought in Venezuela actually said, "contains 3% real fruit juice." And the slogan was prominently displayed with pride.

Parched, but still alive, I continued.

The girl wasn't kidding. This was Playa Medina. Was I having mirages, hallucinations of paradise lost and found. I was like those Fountain of Youth explorers who finally decided that some small lake in Florida would suffice for their failed adventure but they would lie to their Iberian cousins since they weren't getting off their paella stuffed asses anytime soon.

The sign said:

Bienvenidos a Playa Medina

I made it. There was nothing resembling a body of water, or sand, but the sign declared my success. Like those tourists who spend two hours in the New Delhi airport, get an immigration passport stamp, and now feel they can talk about the complexities of Indian society. I was one of those. I could go back now. I did it!

How would I describe the beach to people? What about my treasure, my moment of explorer's bliss? My runner's high. What would I tell Chaz when I called?

The path continued. Up. To the sky. At this point, I deserved to walk to heaven. Up I went. The road was rockier than before. Uneven and rutted. I increased my pace. The posada was the last sign of life. If I ran fast enough, I'd wake up from my dream and be asleep on the beach, or, at least, I'd make it more difficult for the guerillas to attack. As I neared the top of my ascent, the road split again. One went down, and the other jogged sharply to the right. Finally. Down. This must be it. I knew an elevated ocean didn't exist. Here we go. At last.

I almost didn't see it. Another piece of agitprop. I wanted to ignore it. I wish I hadn't seen it. Chavez was winning. Imperialism was going down. Why would there me a sign pointing up. How could this not be the direction to the beach. I wouldn't succumb to socialist brainwashing. Americans don't follow directions. We do what we want. I'm going down.

That's when the guilt hit. Some call it the subconscious. Or instinct. Divine intervention. To me it was mental warfare, waged on behalf of this
anti-yankee obsessed government. Damn Chavez. I followed the sign.

Dejected, beat, and out of saliva, my head slung down like the boy who lost his chocolate bar in the sewer. I'd probably eat that bar at this point, but no matter. I was a prisoner of my own heritage. I belong to the United Party of Perfect Beach People, and I could do nothing to escape my destiny. At least I would die in peace, among the trees and lizard guano.

The mirage was back. The beach appeared again. More emerald than turquoise, but something was coming through the trees. I rubbed my eyes. Again. I walked faster. To a larger clearing. Motherfucker. That's a beach! Several hundred feet below was a bay fit for kings. That perfect crescent. Aha. Medina = Muslim = Crescent Moon = Sword = Death to the Infidel. Shitshit. I ate pork last night. I cursed Chavez. I didn't assfuck that donkey I saw earlier. I'm the perfect infidel. I looked around rapidly. Did they use IED's here, or would they come from the jungle, brandishing the swords of Mohamed? Clever Chavez, aligning himself with yet another one of our enemies.

With renewed vigor, the prize in sight, I started skipping. Something about skipping makes you smile. Try it. It's impossible to skip and be pissed off. You'll never see a pissed off skipper. Never. Even if they ambushed me, tried to permanently silence me about the end of the road, I would die happy. Skippers die happy.

The Highway to Medina started dipping. My pains were forgotten. There was a God. I was so happy. I skipped faster. I could see the palm trees. They were everywhere. The dream was coming true. All I needed was some classic rock and a few bikini clad blondes to jump out of a large freezer, and nirvana was mine, all without having to blow myself up. The blondes probably weren't virgins, but no problem. A little experience can't hurt.

I was about to tear my clothes off, and skip naked to the sea when I saw her. I put my pants back on, and approached her from behind. Not like that though. A little woman with a brightly patterned dress. Barefoot with a wicker basket on her head. She didn't hear me, and I didn't want the basket to fall if I scared her, but I had to talk to her.

I spoke up softly. "Hola. I walked here. All the way. From the highway. Yeah, can you believe it. Pretty far, huh? I'm not sure how far. Maybe 50 miles. Far. I did it! I walked here."

"Ok, you are here now but you shouldn't walk, it's dangerous."

"How did you get here?"

She laughed, the laugh of a woman not scared to hang with the boys, a hearty toothless laugh. She must have been eighty years old. Fifty-five without a life in the sun. "You think my husband dropped me off? I walked here too. Everyday. I come down here to sell sweetened fruit treats that I make in my house."

She spoke with sarcasm and a genuine smile. She could have been a pirate's wench. And she just left that basket on her head while we talked. How did she do that?

"Why weren't you scared of the danger? You are easier to jump, and probably more tasty for some of the locals."

"Ha. You think I'm an old lady. I'm tough, boy. Everybody knows me here. I have no problems."

We walked the last five minutes together, a sort of bittersweet time for me as she made good company, and had a sharp sense of humor for an elderly woman who walks miles with a basket of sweets on her head everyday. But my sense of pride was diminished. Maybe the beachfolk would think she helped me along the walk. She didn't! I'm a survivor! But nobody would believe me now.

The sand went all the way back to the mountains, filled in by a sea of palms. Through the labyrinth of trunks I saw somebody cooking. I ditched Baskethead and went straight for the cook.

There were three of them. A younger fit guy in his mid-twenties with a bunch of coconuts. A more realistic Jesus than the carpenter, graying in his long beard with a White Sox cap on flanked the petite female chef de cuisine.

What did we have today? A grilled seabass with mango chutney reduction on a bed of lightly toasted asparagus tips.
Organically raised dirt served raw over a generous amount of mucky seagrass. I'd eat her frying pan at this point.

"I have fish, plantains, and salad. For 35."

"What kind of fish is it?"

"Fish."

"Sure, fish, yep, I know that type. Ok. I'm going to drown myself for an hour, but if I make it out, I'll take one of your specials."

"No problem. Enjoy. Relax. Don't worry. I'm happy to serve you when you're ready."

Nice woman. Maybe it's the fish that's dangerous not the walk. We'll see.

There was one stand selling beverages. I could care less about competition in the marketplace at this point. I prayed he had water. But maybe we've been deceived in America. Like milk and q-tips. I could probably survive off these hot pink colas. All these people are alive without drinking water. Once again, America sells the snake oil. But Venezuela won't take the bait. I decided I'd settle for a neon yellow bottle I'd been eyeing for the last week. Probably loaded full of nutrients.

I didn't know the brand name so I ordered by description which sounded something like 'the soda that looks like nuclear waste'.

"I think we are out of that. We have cold water though."

"Nobody has water around here. Is this real water? Or some kind of sweetened clear beverage?"

"Yeah, we sell water. It's the foreigners like you who come here. They always want water."

If heaven had a taste, this was it. Tablet purified water bottled in a shack never tasted so damn fine.

"I walked here. I'm tired man. All the way from the highway. You know how far it is?"

"Eleven kilometers. That's a long walk. It's dangerous."

"Please. I made it fine. Why do people say it's dangerous? They are creating paranoia, spreading fear for no reason."

"Why is the White man so smart? You think you know? You've been here one day. You don't know. For us, who live here, no problem. It's very safe. But for a foreigner, it's a problem. They come by motorbike and look for people like you. White people. Then they rob them. A French guy came here last week, and when he got here he was crying."

"Well the French aren't exactly bastions of strength. World War Two. Men in tight jeans. Sarkozy."

"Doesn't matter. It could happen. You were lucky. You should take a mototaxi back."

"They are expensive. I'll look for a ride back. Somebody will give me one."

"You look around yet. There is only one group here today. One vehicle. That white bus over there. And I think it's full."

"Well, worst case, I'm moving into your hut here."

"Yeah, I understand. The price is high. But we are fighting inflation. Crazy inflation. Sometimes the prices rise weekly here. We are the only country in South America with this problem. It's this fuckin' government, and this liar Chavez. I voted for him the first time . I was full of hope, but not this. This is suppose to be a tourist destination, and we have no facilities, no good road, no security. Our currency is only available on the black market for foreigners. Our president spends more time giving money to Cuba than he does caring about our problems. He picks fights with America and then doesn't understand why other countries don't want to invest here. We're importing everything and making nothing. 2012. That's our hope. This man, this idiot has had twelve years and nothing is better here. He says he is helping the poor, but the people are suffering more now than before."

I know this guy could have continued for another hour, but I didn't have much daylight left, and the water was awaiting my christening. Normally, I love to pick the brains of guys like the water pusher, but now was not the time.

"I'm with you man. Socialism is always conducted for the good of mankind by the worst of mankind. It's a political failure. Long live Imperialism." And I skipped into the emerald escape.

If heaven offered a bath upon entry, a bath you had been waiting your entire well behaved life to have, then this was it. Palm trees, virgin forest, mountains, and that perfect half moon bay. Not a concrete dwelling or parking lot to be seen.

There are Playa Medinas around the world. I've been to a lot of them. Even resisted making calls to Chaz. What made this special? It had to be the walk. I could have found some travel agency in a larger city to arrange an air con van to take me here. Would have been a lot easier, quicker, and safer. Isn't that what the modern world affords us: easier, quicker & safer. Even if I took the overpriced motorcycle from the highway, it would have set me back four bucks. Was risking my life worth four bucks? Mankind has been through a lot to make my life easier. I have the fortune to be born to the majority race in the country with the most economic opportunity in the world. Why not execute that privilege, and arrive at this lovely paradise with more time in the day, less sweat, and less risk?

Because some people want to shut off the air conditioning and open the windows. Because on a walk, or a bike ride, I might find things that I would never notice in the car. Because an in- person conversation makes me feel a bit more human than a Facebook update. If there's not enough time in your life, you're not doing it right. A destination is meaningless without a journey. There are a thousand playa medinas in the world, and another thousand mountain tops. You want a photo of you posing in front of the temples of Machu Picchu? Why not crop one in using PhotoShop. It's not much different. The memories, the experience, they come from the trek, not the summit. Hikers understand this best. Otherwise they'd drive thirty minutes up the mountain instead of the four hour trail on the other side. And once again, this excursion to Atlantis reminded me of that.

But that poor kid in the pick up truck, the one I attempted to chew out in Spanish. Now I understood his 'more or less' answer when I asked about the truck coming here. We certainly didn't stop at the beach.

I thought I felt solidarity with the Blacks and other victims of discrimination. I mean, I'm a foreigner. I get stared at. I get ripped off. I thought this kid was playing with me. But is it possible a lot of people stare at me, and talk behind my back, and don't always respond to me because they're not accustomed to foreigners, especially those that speak their language with a thick imperialist accent. Is it wrong that a black resident in an all white neighborhood gets stared at? Does that mean the people don't like him, that they're out to get him, or just that he looks different than the others, like a girl with a tattoo of a bloody butterfly on her forehead? Is America racist because Mexicans decide to live in a neighborhood where other Mexicans live? Is the waiter a homophobe cause he ignores a table where a happenstance homosexual has been badgering the shit out of him for no reason? When will America finally wake up and realize that they don't have to call a careless driver a 'fuckin' spic'? A simple raceless, 'fuckin' asshole' will suffice.

Venezuela, despite it's multitude of perceived and actual problems, at least doesn't suffer from the race issue. Because here, the Blacks fucked the Indians, and the Indians fucked back, and the Whites fucked everybody. So it's not uncommon for a family to have a black son, a brown one, and a white one, all from the same parents. We killed off the Indians, isolated the Blacks, and thought we were an open society when Catholics started fucking the WASPS.

There were screams interrupting my tangent. I hate that. Just when I wanted to get into the intricacies of yellow fever amongst a certain class of educated effeminate white males, someone is yelling for me. I think.

There's a group of people dancing and playing in the water, about 100 yards away. They are the only other people in the water. And there's a lot of them. One guy is screaming at me and pointing out into the horizon. I think he sees a whale. I see something in the distance. I give a big smile and the thumbs up. I go back to my tangent. But he keeps yelling. They probably want me to pay more attention. I stop floating. I start looking around excitedly, pointing in the same direction, and then I splash water up in the air. Maybe that will mollify their screaming.
But it doesn't. I put the tangent down, and begin to swim over to them, but they are mock swimming back. That's not cool. They are doing bad swim imitations in the air, like a special olympics synchronized swimming team. I stop swimming. I want to return to my floating tangent. They are pointing out to sea again. Oh crap. It wasn't a whale. They lost a yellow ball. One of those cheap supermarket plastic things you find in the cages, the ones your parents always made you put back. I guess they bought one. Couldn't anybody in that group of forty swim? Were they testing me, cause my adventure was done for the day? How could a group of people that large come into the ocean, and not one person know how to swim? Maybe they were the group with the bus. I could be the hero and secure my ride home. I started to swim. But the wind and current were moving the ball faster than my strokes. It was probably two hundred yards away. I started to give up, but they were cheering me on, several of them doing that palsy style swim motion. Where were they along the walk? They could have spread out along the route, giving me marathon style encouragement. I pushed on. I could bring home the yellow ball. I wasn't going to be the cruel parent. Everybody should have the joy to play with one of those bouncy balls. But the ball kept moving, and the free market was winning. Four bucks. I'll take the mototaxi.

And as the market claimed another victory, I was off to fetch my tangent when they started screaming. Again. It was the muscle man with the coconuts. He was swimming out. The whole group of Jerry's kids was ignoring me. Not one still had faith in my ability. And the Man I forgot about rose up inside me. I wanted to bring home the Yellow Ball! I resumed swimming out to the horizon. And they corresponded with more cheers. The race was on. I had a headstart but CocoMuscles was gaining. He was coming freestyle, and I had been approaching with the granma doing morning laps style. I hated freestyle. It was the whole kicking and flailing at once. Too much coordination. But I had pride on the line now, and my very essence of manhood, not to mention four dollars. I could feel him graze my feet. I tried to kick harder, maybe stick him in the eyeball. I looked up, the ball must have been three hundred yards now. It slowly became a lost token of triumph. The Lack of Compassion parents winning once again. My competitor was giving up. And with his retreat went my desire to be a Man. We swam back to shore together. Breaststroke. The way real men swim. He looked over to the group of disappointed faces, who had grown quiet and solemn, and then he looked at me and said, "Evangelicos!" And laughed.

It's nice to know that even in the desolate confines of Venezuela, evangelicals have the same reputation as home. But I couldn't laugh. They may be my salvation ride out. Could I endure a bus full of evangelicals? I had to spend the four dollars now. I'd pay five if necessary.

The fish lady who cooked the type of fish known as fish cooked my fish. The coconut guy gave me a nut, free of charge. The fraternity of men. If I was a woman, I'd be jealous of his pecs and want to know where he got his tight trunks. But guys, we are sporting folk. A competitor is our friend. Especially when you both give up the big race.

The old lady who walks barefoot to the beach everyday to sell products from her head returned. She wanted a cigarette, and when she didn't find one, she asked to see my newspaper. Then she disappeared with it, off under the palms. I was reading that, you know.

The bearded guy with the WhiteSox hat came over next. Maybe he would take my shorts. He made jewelry. The kind you find at the beach. Earrings made of driftwood, and bracelets from leather and polished seeds. But he didn't try to sell me anything. Only had a few things to say.

"I'm not a Chavista. I thought he would change the country, help the people, but his government is using propaganda to deceive the people. The tourists have stopped coming here. Inflation is killing the country, and so are the delinquents. It's not a safe place anymore. There are good people in this country. But the corruption and lies of these bastards is destroying us."

"Hey, there are good people in America, but our government isn't exactly effective. That's why our number one news program is a nightly satire."

"We're not even clever enough to make a satire, man. I've been traveling around my country for over thirty years now. Man, I know every corner of this place. I tell you man, I probably spent a night in every village we have. It's a beautiful place. Really, man. Beautiful people. But it's the worst I've seen it, and the crime is unbelievable man. I'm telling you. Bad."

"Have you seen a lot of crime?"

"Well, I'm living here now. It's a tranquil place. But I've lived in the bigger cities, and been around. A lot."

I had to be more specific. "Have you been robbed, kidnapped, raped?"

"Yeah, once. I was on this beach. Far from here. It was late at night, and I knew sometimes punks hung out there. I should have known better. They stole all my stuff. Really sucked."

"So you've been robbed once in thirty plus years of traveling across this country?"

"Yeah."

Who reports the truth? The newspapers or the citizen? Why don't more people trust their own experience instead of the front page?

The meal was here. I'm surprised she didn't fry the plate. It was three bites until I discovered the entombed plantain. The salad was lost in a batter of mayonnaise. And the fish looked like some kid caught it with a makeshift pole on the river. To me, it tasted like The French Laundry. If there is a joy to be found in hunger, it's that everything tastes good.

The mototaxi guy had left, and the covered shack man closed up. If I wanted to catch my main bus later tonight, the Chosen Ones would be my only hope out of paradise.

I went up to some of the women to ask for a lift. I figure they would have more sympathy for a quitter. The men may still be harboring some hostility about losing their bouncy yellow ball. Plus, they're Christians. Who want YOU! "Hi. I'm stuck here. Spiritually. Can I get a ride?"
Denied. Denied again. They weren't exactly mean, but the bureaucracy was governmental. After five passive rejections, I went to the top. Without a driver, Christ couldn't help anybody.

The driver relaxed on a mattress under a Palm tree. Did he really bring a bed with him? I was going at him with the Poor Me Pity Plea. It had to work. Should probably be a free ride too.

As I leaned down to offer my hardship, the basket lady decided to join me. Perfect. With her wrinkles and barefeet, the driver would be begging to take me.
He thought it over, said something about the lack of seats, but then realized I was willing to stand. An affirmative verdict was coming when my walking associate blurted out, "he'll pay twenty."

I gave her the eyes of rage. "Hey, I'm a professional negotiator. I can handle this."

"What. I'm helping you. Pay twenty. You have a ride."

"Where's my paper you stole?"

"I didn't steal it. I still have it."

"Well I'm leaving and I don't have it back, so you stole it."

"I don't steal things. Here."

It was in a plastic bag full of old newspapers. What the...was she a hoarder? Is it a possible to hoard in a society where people have nothing to actually hoard? Why was she dragging a garbage bag full of newspapers?

"Can I take the first few pages? I will give you back the rest."

"I didn't read them yet. Fine. Take it."

So she ripped off the first eight pages and stuffed them in her garbage bag that she dragged along with the basket on top of the head. The fact that she actually looked like a baglady was not lost on me. The basket made her more resourceful.

"Do you have a cigarette for me?"

At her age, she could use crack if she wanted. But I still didn't find a pack of cigarettes in my coconut.

I looked back to the driver. He agreed, about the ride not the crack. I was hoping without the cover charge.

The bus was already filling up. I waited by the doors until everybody was on so I wouldn't take anybody's seat. But the remaining passengers wouldn't board. They stood in a circle around me.
All had those good Christian faces you find wearing ties and skirts, walking around your neighborhood, knocking on doors, inviting you to a free lunch. An older gentleman my father's age stood beside me. And he may have been the one person more white than me. Germanic, probably. Maybe he was the American. The international evangelicals always have some founding American pastor. But he spoke to me in Spanish.

"Why do people think we come from monkeys? How can we come from monkeys? The bible says where it is that we come from."

I wasn't going to lose the ride. Obviously Adam was the first man. He would never have a name like Nguku or Xiang. It's only a natural we are created from one of our own ribs. Monkeys. Ha. Never.

"Yes sir."

"I'm asking you, I want to know why is it that they say we come from monkeys?"

He had bright red cheeks, puffed full of wisdom. He smiled, the smile of a man who knows the answers to his own questions.

"They are fools sir. How can we come from monkeys?"

And they all laughed, saying in creepy unison, "How can we come from monkeys?" And continued that knowing laugh.

The Nazi child refugee spoke up again. "If we are from monkeys, then why don't we live in the jungle? Why do we walk on two legs? Do I look like a monkey? Who says we are from monkeys?"

"The fools sir. The infidels."

"Yes, you see, our visitor here knows something. But let me ask you, where do your parents come from, or where do there parents come from? Are they monkeys?"

The gathering group of faces all looked at me. "My grandmother is definitely not a monkey sir. But she eats a lot of bananas and sometimes goes to the bathroom where she wants."

"Ok, and her parents, were they monkeys?"

"I never met them so I can't tell you for sure Sir."

"I want to know. Were the parents of your grandparents monkeys?"

"Most likely not sir."

"And their parents, the parents of your grandparents parents?"

"If you don't consider Jews monkeys than no. No sir."

"No, no. We are from the Jews. They are not monkeys. It says right there, in the Book, that we are created from the rib. Why do they say we are from monkeys?"

Crap. This was going to be a long ride. Is there a right answer? Do I let the old white man answer everytime, the way those that feign intelligence expect? Do I break down and cry, and then start speaking in tongues?

I didn't have to answer. The bag and baskethead lady was back. But before she could ask for another cigarette or take the Evangelical Daily, the cherubic pasty spoke up again, this time in the direction of one who was certainly in Jesus' circle of vagrancy.

"Why do we come from monkeys? Why are they saying we come from monkeys?"

The crowd's growing eyes turned to face it's newest victim. The bag and basket lady was ready. Her face changing from the smiling sarcastic woman I met earlier to one of rage.

"We are not from monkeys. We can not be from monkeys. God created Adam and Eve...

And the old man leader spoke up, "Haha. You see. She knows. This lady knows the truth." And his minion nodded approvingly. "And.."

"And this was the work of God."

"Do you see brothers and sisters, this is someone who knows the word. Continue our new friend, please continue"

Did I not know the word? Was I going to have to out-Amen the baglady? I was prepared to crucify her if it got me on the bus.

Her eyes were falling out of her head now. She looked angry. "GOD wanted to make US in HIS image. This was the plan..."

Interrupting again, the main interrogator is lit up, his face beaming with joy, his soul affirmed by this wrinkled token of sanity. "Go on. Tell us. Tell us." And the crowd was closing in on her. Ready for it. Ready for the full history.

"GOD did this. HE is responsible. HE is who did it."

"Yes. Yes. Yes."

"GOD then had an orangutan rape Eve to punish her for eating the apple. Eve had the child of an orangutan. EVE DID THIS. WE ARE FROM THE ORANGUATAN. WE ARE NOT FROM MONKEYS. ALL OF YOU. ALL OF US. WE ARE ORANGUATANS."

He still had on a smile, and asked, "Are you serious?"

"SERIOUS, AM I SERIOUS? YES. This is what GOD DID TO US. I'm NOT going to believe in a man who CREATES US from ORANGUATANS. HE has PUNISHED US."
The group tried to respect the older woman, and tried to change the subject, but she kept screaming, "WE ARE FROM THE ORANGUATANS. THIS IS WHAT GOD DOES TO US"

One of the men who was unable to swim for the yellow ball is taking her things and attempting to prod her onto the bus. But she is resisting, trying to take back her things, demanding that she'll walk. But the Christians have other plans for her. She's on her way to Bible Boot Camp and she knows it. The incapable swimmer is now dragging her, despite her protests and shouts of "oranguatan, we are cursed from the oranguatan!"

I didn't know if I should laugh or intervene. Finally Bag & Baskethead rustled free, grabbed her bag and basket, and fled up the hill on foot. That's a woman determined to walk. Maybe she was the direct descendant of chimps.

As we began to board Our Holy Father's large white station wagon, I came to realize that this was my day of Reckoning. A life of blasphemy in the name of spirituality brought me to these people. Secretly, unconsciously, I was ready for a life in service of Christ. The singing, the field trips, the knocking on doors, the excessive fooling around without penetration. I was ready to submit.

A hairless faced boy, eighteen or so, turned to me, his smile revealing early age orthodontics. His eyes widened with power imparted from The Saviour, and his high pitched Spanish demanded, "How can we come from monkeys? Are we monkeys? Are we not from man created by God?"

Were they ever going to change the topic, maybe ask about abortion or stoning?

"We are not from monkeys. The elderly woman outside says we are from orangutans."

The bus united in laughter, an almost diabolical laughter. They all chanted 'orangutans' in mock unison, before putting forth another hearty laugh.

The straight tooth smiling youth pastor in training took the energy of the crowd, and raised his voice one more octave, "Monkeys! Monkeys! Are we from monkeys? How can we be from monkeys! Does she look like a monkey? Are you a monkey?"

Firmly believing in the fallacy of evolution, I shouted, in my best and loudest Spanish, "WE ARE NOT FROM MONKEYS!"

The crowd roared. One teenage girl stood up from the rear to cheer. The pubeless pastor went with the energy.
"We are not from monkeys. We are humans. Created in His likeness. Jesus Christ is our Saviour and the monkeys are STILL monkeys!"

A barefoot man, brown skinned with greasy hair, stood up by the driver, and began to play a melodic tune on the guitar. "They saaaaaaay that weeeee are frooooom monkeys, they saaaaaay weeeee are frooooom monkeys, but the childrennnnnn of Christ know, weeeeee are froooom him, frooooom HIM, thank yoooooou Lord, oh thank yooooou Lord, for creating usssss...."

I had to clear my mind of monkeys. I couldn't help think what the Hanuman people of India would think of this tribe of anti-primates. The song went on, the lyrics repeated for those still in doubt. I used the distraction to scan the bus. There were several young blossoming women under twenty-five. Were they all really virgins, the vagina sealed until a man promises before God to love there vagina until death? Surely, there was one who violates, or has violated, or would like to be violated? The one with the funky glasses, and yellow skirt. I bet she veered from the Christian Pop, probably took in some Justin Timberlake or somebody. Maybe she was one of these notorious Christian 'Everything But' girls. Kissing, Handspanks, nippleslurping, anus ringing. In the eyes of a literal Lord, these were not violations. She was definitely down.

And the boys, how could they not be weighed down by swollen balls of seminal fluid. Singing, dancing, taking field trips with all these young women. If they weren't at least nocturnally emitting in the dormitory bunkers, the pain of walking would be unbearable.

A man interrupted me. Pulled me back from those illicit thoughts. It was my first interrogator. The son of nazi emigres, the one I affectionately called 'my brother.' He was pointing to my shorts. "We are taking you with us today because it is God's will. Today you are with us, and we are praying you remain with us...

Shit. This really was it.

"And we will help you. We do not wear the shorts like you have. This is not God's way. The bible prohibits it. But today we accept you."

"Have you been to Canaan in the summertime? Why would God care if man exposed his shins? Look, I know I have skinny calves, not very masculine, but should I be punished for this?"

"This is not for us to question. It is written by God."

I had to be careful. If they kicked me off the bus now, I'd be stuck back on the road to nowhere, nightfall less than an hour away.

"Ok. Yes sir."

"And we are making ourselves in the image of Our MAKER. This is why the women wear skirts."

"Was a God a transvestite?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why would God wear a skirt?"

"He didn't wear a skirt. He directed that women wear skirts. That they should not wear the pants. A woman should not be revealing the shape of her body."
"I wish you would tell that to some of the pudgy Puerto Rican women in my neighborhood who insist on wearing spandex shorts to the supermarket. I know God would not have approved."

"Absolutely. A woman can not wear shorts."

"I am still confused. Help me, please. In the time of the Bible, shorts and pants didn't even exist. There were still women in loin cloths."

"This is what the Bible says. We follow it's rules."

He then pointed to my hair. "And the Bible tells us that men can not have hair below their ears."

"I can put my hair up in a pony tail."

"But it will still go below HIS order. You can NOT deceive HIM."

"Jesus had hair like mine, actually, I think, it was probably a bit longer. Not as nice. Look at my waves, and natural highlights. Definitely an improvement."

"HE says that upon the death of Jesus, that no man shall have long hair again. The hair shall be cut just below the ear."

"Jesus accepted everybody. Why would he have a problem with men who aped his hairstyle. On the contrary, he would probably feel like Rick Springfield or that guy from the 90210 tv show, proud to be leaders in a new fashion."

A voice interrupted our conversation. I turned around, from my seat in the front, to see the entire bus, forty people, all staring right at me. The eyes of the Lord were bearing down on me. The walk was still far. Another fat man spoke up. More hispanic this time. He took on the oratory style of preacher. He was clearly preparing to take over the reigns when the Deutschland poppa croaked from monkey caca. Spittle left his mouth as he spoke, his spanish littered with a lack of proper education.
The bible was open on his lap, and he tried to not read from it.

"And she shall wear no clothes which reveal her form. And he shall dress in modesty and respect." Spittle.

"Yes."

"And no man shall have hair below the neckline. And no woman shall have hair above the neckline."

"Yes."

"These are teachings that we must follow."

"Yes."

The cultish eyes of the bus locked on me, like a KKK rally in Harlem. Would they cut my hair on the bus? Could somebody at least feather it?

The spittling man continued to rant, moving on from dress codes to the differences between their church and others.

"Do you know the difference between us and the others?"

I wanted to say 'one chromosome.' But I obediently replied, "No."

"They say the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three. We say they are one."

It was like telling a blind person that blue and yellow make green. But again, I responded with obedience. "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

Shit. I was afraid of this. What do I say?
"Yes, I understand."

"What do you understand?"

Damn. Bastard. He knows my tricks. "That all three are one and not separate."

He accepted my answer and moved on to another topic. I had trouble following. His Spanish was an unreceptive television trying to tune, but in the end, the roving lines continued to only reveal a nipple and a foot.

He demanded answers. Instinctively, I threw out another 'yes.'

"Yes what?"

"Can you please repeat the question Sir?"

He was ranting about the son of the devil and the son of god. I couldn't understand anything else in between. The question came again. "Son of God" I answered.

"Son of God, what?"

Motherfucker. This guy was a genuine motherfucker. Did he really need complete sentences. Wasn't it enough that I let you lunatics hijack my soul for an hour? Couldn't I doze off, just for a few minutes without hearing anymore preaching?"

He repeated, "The Son of God and what?"

"The son of God. Not the son of the devil. I would choose the son of god. We are the son of god. If you choose to be the son of the devil you must return. Return at once from the evil of the devil. We are created from his likeness. We are not from monkeys. We do not reveal our form. We are all from the son of god."

Three different people were clapping. Others were smiling. They were eating it up. I had a future here after all. One woman stood up from her chair, almost flipped from a pothole, and shouted, 'he's with us,' which brought on more cheers.

My Inquisitor only allowed a stern, 'OK.'
And he continued. Again, I became lost in his spittle, dreading the question. It was high school English redux. Why would I read Wuthering Heights? Couldn't we read Larry Bird's biography? But Mr. Crawford would still call on me. You learn to interpret from the back of novels.
"And what would YOU say to that?"

"We are the SON OF GOD. We are NOT the son of the devil. We are not from monkeys. We are not from orangutans. We are here for HIM. WE ARE GOD'S CHILDREN."

Again, my fans rose to applause. A new woman, wearing a faded orange second hand American t-shirt, shouted, "He's with us."

And more cheers. Laughter. Applause. I could do this, I thought. Being an evangelical is so much easier than being a Mason. Maybe I would start my own chapter.

The Inquisitor was still not satisfied. "Ok. Corinthians twenty-two five tells us..."

Lost. He spoke, and my mind went to the gutter. Wuthering Heights continued. I slept with my eyes open until the next question appeared. Another monkey retort followed, which begat more cheers and led to the next reading and question.

Abruptly, he changed direction. I only knew this cause I heard the word Indiana and Kentucky. I knew those things. I remembered those. The trance was ending. Hey, I'm American. Those are my people! "Yes, yes."

"We have brothers there."

"Are they illegal? Do you want me to bring them something?"

"They are your brothers."

"I only have one sister."

"You have brothers too. They are the founders of our church. Close to you. Indiana."

Now my memory was coming back. Rural America. They brought the world Bush and primate Christianity.
"Yes, of course, Indiana. Yes. I know them. It."

"You will visit them for us. We have many brothers around the world."

"And none of them come from monkeys!"

They ate it up, banana and all. Even the Inquisitor roared at that one.

Somebody started talking about dinner, and for a moment, the attention strayed from the skinny white boy built in the likeness of Cristo.

I met a nineteen year old in the projects of Medellin, Colombia last month. A young guy getting ready to apply to university. He wanted to study photography. We spent the day together after meeting on the metro. He was from one of the roughest neighborhoods in Medellin, and he thanked the Church for saving him. His life was dedicated to Christ. He had a mohawk and a couple of earrings. He wore skater shorts. He never talked to me about religion, didn't care what I did. He only brought it up when I asked. He didn't drink, do drugs, or get involved in the rampant gangs. But he was his own individual, one of the most unique people I met in that country. He wandered the city talking to strangers, not about Christ, but about their lives, taking their photos and getting more lost in his city. He was an example of how religion can help people. He showed me that the Church wasn't always made up of evangelizing crackpots. In a choice between street gangs and God, he made the right choice, and knew it was a personal one, regardless of what others chose. He still had friends in the gangs. We met a few.

"What? How do you think it should be?"

Crap. The Inquisitor was bearing down again. There were only so many words on the back of the book cover.

"Monkeys. We are not from monkeys. We have chosen the son of god. I will cut my hair!"

Applause. Laughter. Fists went up. I saw them way in the back where the bad kids like to sit.

I drifted off. Socialism isn't a bad idea. Why shouldn't everybody have equal and affordable access to health and education, to pensions and employment opportunity? Can't an individual be allowed to create the life he wants for himself without government taking it away from him? These two things are not contradictory. Western Europe has proved this for decades. Why does Chavez want the people to believe capitalism is evil, and that you are either with his program or against it? Why would a man who claims to love all his people, to want to better their situation spend time dividing the country? Why can't he put protections in to protect the general public while allowing those that want to prosper to do such? Would Jesus have really cared if you didn't want to follow him? Would he ostracize you? Would he punish? Wouldn't a biblical GOD let you do what you wanted, and how you wanted, as long as you could avoid murder and theft, adultery and transfats?

I could tell I was getting close to civilization. It was the town of Rio Caribe. My bus left from here. I would be at the main plaza soon.

"Stay with us. We have a place for you here. And food. We will be traveling to other parts of Venezuela, visiting our brothers. We will take care of you. Your money is no good here."

They knew me. They were tempting me. It was a challenge from none other than our Master. I had to be strong. Somebody here knew I was a frugal bastard who loved to travel. I could save some money, travel longer. Why not?

"I'm sorry. I can't. My bus is leaving soon and my mother is waiting for me in the next city. She came here to see me. Otherwise I would."

Disappointment was evident. I was hurting them. They were my new family.

"We don't even know your name."

"Seth"

The original Inquisitor, the jolly white man with the spectacles, he responded immediately. "Do you know who you are?"

Another metaphysical riddle to the nature of our existence? But this was one riddle I knew the answer to. "I am the third son of Adam and Eve. I was put here to make up for the sin of my brother Cain. I am here today for you!"

He smiled a big Santa smile, and gave me a one arm man hug. He then turned around to repeat for the bus. There was a brief silence, and then loud cheers filled the bus. The Plaza Bolivar was approaching but the driver wasn't slowing down. I had a family here. They would provide for me. There were beautiful women to take for my wives, swallow my seed and bare my children. I would never be in need. This the life God wanted for us.

The bus was passing the plaza. I stood up from the front of the bus. The guitar player moved from the aisle. I turned around slowly, purposefully to face my minion. Jaws opened slightly. Even the grueling Inquisitor was looking at me with great expectation.

"WE ARE NOT FROM MONKEYS!!!!!" I shouted.

It was Live at The Apollo Theatre. They were in the aisles. I saw tears in one woman's eyes. Really. Girls in the back broke out in song. The guitar man picked up his instrument. Couples were hugging.

The plaza was packed with vendors and families enjoying the late afternoon. I motioned for the driver to stop. Before the excitement let up, I waved to the crowd. We blew kisses at each other, and I as I stepped off the bus, it's wheels still turning, I turned from my new family, and began running away, directly through the central plaza, shouting, "Evangelicos!"

They knew. And they laughed as loud as my new monkey friends.

Who will be Our Saviour?

Roberto was my new buddy. A solo traveler is in constant search of the new buddy. It's like trying to pick somebody up. Every single day. Tit size, hairstyle, protrusive panty line. Doesn't matter. Straight or gay, mobster or clergyman. You are ambi-everything. It's not about sex, or lifetime fraternity, it's a matter of temporary companionship. Somebody who can hold a conversation, maybe last until dinner. Anything more is the god damn lottery.

Roberto and I were waiting in the customs line, getting ready to board a ferry for Trinidad. Earlier in the week, I learned that there is water transport between the eastern tip of Venezuela and Trinidad. But it wasn't much cheaper than a flight. It would take me a couple of days to reach the port, after hours and hours of pickup rusty car bumpy bus rides. The whole process could have been capped in less than two hours, door to door from Caracas. But then I'd miss all those great roadtrip experiences. Valentine's Day in a seaside lover's brothel. A young guy on his first business trip, who wanted to share a room with me so he could afford the cable television upgrade. We snuggled briefly, after departing to separate beds. The oceanfront market where the choice between twelve kiosks was either hot dog or hamburger. The one man selling falafel closed up shop early so we could spend the night together. No snuggling. But I still think it was possible. And sure, a day trip to two of Venezuela's most sought after beaches.

Why Trinidad? Nobody believed me when I told them it was to eat. But it was. After almost a month in Venezuela, I had tired of the Chavez talk, tired of the spectacular landscapes, and most of all tired of sauceless everything. The Spaniards didn't conquer for spice. They conquered for gold and the native cooch. The British, probably due to a lack of culinary aptitude, or the King's refusal to eat another mingin' meat pie, knew about flavor. And kidnapping Africans with a diet of tasteless starch was not the answer. So they started shore dumping boatloads of poor subcontinent Indians, the Eastern ones. And then some chinamen arrived to exploit the markets. Soon after, a gastronomical orgy erupted that would deliver one of the America's richest cuisines. And sauce. Lots of sauce. That's what I wanted.

Roberto was a thin black man, a youthful sixtyish, wisened by spectacles and made fit by running shoes. Shiny white ones.

"Su padre debe ha sido un ladron, robo las estrellas del cielo, y se les puso en sus ojos."

"Are you asking me that as a question or telling me? Is there a reason you assume that my father would have been a thief. And I certainly am not understanding why he would steal stars and put them in to eyes."

"Oh, I didn't know you speak English. Hi. You going to Trinidad also?"

"Yes, I am as a matter of fact. I'm actually Trinidadian by birth, but I have lived in Venezuela for a very long time. And you? You coming for the beaches or to enjoy the famous Carnaval?"

"Yeah, not really, I'm taking a vacation from Venezuela. I want to eat something different."

"Ha. Yes. The food there is certainly different. But you understand, you would save yourself a lot of time and expense if you simply brought yourself to a local Chinese restaurant."

"If they didn't dumb down their food for the masses, you'd have a point. But you ever watch what the Chinese eat when they all gather in that smoky back room, right before they lock the front doors? That's stuff you'll never see on the menu. They're not eating orange ketchup sauce, sloppy wet noodles, and fried eggrolls. I don't trust a man who won't serve me what he makes himself. But they're the future, so get used to it. The anti-imperialists here will be crying for the day when America used to rule the world with high fructose Coke and IMF loans."

"You have a lot to say, don't you?"

"Well, I haven't spoken English to a local in a month. Do you go back home often?"

"Well, my home is Venezuela."

"I'm sorry. It's because you're black and speak the queen's English. Really, you're English is impeccable."

"Yes, why, thank you. But if you remember, I said I was born in Trinidad."

"Yeah, uh, right. So, tell me about the food I'm going to eat."

Roberto was a genteel fellow, but at least I had somebody to spend the three hour boat ride. He knew exactly where to sit. Always trust a man who knows the best seat in the house. That's in a revised bible somewhere. A cushioned nook tucked into a corner, bordered by the free non-spirituous drink woman, and the flat screen television showcasing America's finest in action cinema.

A heavyset woman with a beaming smile entered our nook. She took the only other seat, to my right. I had seen her in the immigration line, and remembered her because of that face. You know her face from waiting on line at the post office, or the airport. You've got to choose the counter person who will make your trip hassle free. One of them you know is a dick. It's in his face. You get him, you're screwed. The other one is hard to read, poker face, he's your wild card. There's your definitive bitch, the reason we have mother-in-law jokes, who probably hasn't seen a living phallus since the Nixon administration. And then, there is her. You are drawn to that face. You've been watching her in line the whole time. You want her as a neighbor, as a drinking buddy. You are calculating your odds. How fast or slow do the people in front of you need to move so you can have HER. You're next. That position alone is stressful enough, but you're too focused on the one middle age Mexican man who can't seem to understand your new best friend. She's too nice to dump the loser. You know this. That's why you want her. But now, just this once, you want her to go power cunt on this guy and let you in, cause DickFace is getting the change ready, so you don't have much time.

I got HER. Roberto was nice, but she was IT. I dumped the bilingual Arthur Ashe, who seemed unfazed as he picked up his newspaper.

She was Lina. Lina was my teller. She wasn't flirtatious, or calculating, nor cranked out on her shrink's meds. Just talkative, in the friendly sort of way you don't mind, with a slight Caribbean lilt that welcomed you like a steel band on the dock.

"I take it your from Trinidad."

"And what makes you say that?"

"Other than the fact you are black, uh, well, it's, it's your British mannerisms."

"Hey, there are black people in Venezuela too," she threw back, chuckling.

Roberto was doing the librarian thing, staring at me from beneath his glasses, barely concealed by the day's headlines.

"Yeah, I'm sitting next to one."

Roberto came out from page two, and smiled at Lina before introducing himself. He started talking to her, but I had to interrupt, lest he appropriate my Girl.

"So, Lina, what brought you to Venezuela, was it those fine young latin men?"

"Ha. You're crazy. All the fine ones I met were gay! But, my friends there were hairdressers, so it makes sense. I went there for the hospital. You know the medical service is Venezuela is much better than Trinidad."

Roberto raised his head above the paper. "It's true." And he slinked back down.

"Yeah I've heard the system is fairly efficient there. I'm assuming THOSE are real, that at least you didn't go for that."

"You are something boy. But you're right. I saw a lot of women with big things. And billboards everywhere for it. No, I think that's one thing I don't need." And she laughs to herself.

Roberto has a boyish grin on his face as he peers through the paper.

I order us some drinks. Real men always order drinks from an open bar, especially a non-alcoholic one. I often do this on airplanes as well.

"How you know I be drinking Coca-Cola?"

"It's a learned talent."

When diet colas aren't available, always order them a coke. Going with the faux-sprites is too risky a guess. Note: this game is extremely difficult with mountain dew and dr. pepper added, and RC Cola replacing coke.

We talked about our varying impressions of Venezuela, which differed widely due to it being Lina's first time in mainland Latin America. Strange considering the close proximity, but then again most of America has never been to Mexico. And really, why bother when most U.S. towns now offer a genuine cantina and happy hour margaritas.

"Did you have an opinion on the Chavez question, cause it seemed everybody there had one?", I asked.

"No, not really. I spent too much time having fun with my friends, and shopping! (She points to her tower of branded plastic carry bags)"

Roberto looked at me, then Lina, then back to the news.

"Hmmm. Maybe you have a point. I should spend more time shopping, and less time talking politics. Thanks."

Venezuela has one of the most controversial governments in the world. I respect anybody who can leave that place with no opinion on the political situation. Why are men so obsessed with politics? At this very moment, men, in countries across the globe, are pontificating on the demise of their once proud nation, regaling their esteemed colleagues of the park bench with baseless facts and statistics. You will not find women doing this. And one may induce that this makes them the more intelligent gender. Until that same one comes to recognize that those women are instead discussing the marital life of a dethroned actor and his lousy choice in romance with that skanky, very very skanky, reality television tramp.

Lina and I avoided politics, and Trinidad
reality television, which must exist if Luxembourg has one. It's true. They do. In two years, the entire nation has already been on at least once.

We went from small talk to the difficulty in finding people who are willing to think outside the box. Lina was a girl who dressed like a guy, worked on farming projects that would transform growing practices on the island, invited strangers to her house, and enjoyed fishing with old men in remote parts of the island. At thirty-four she was considered an old maid in a country where she should be getting ready for her first grandchild. She wouldn't marry if it meant sacrificing her freedom. We bonded over being the black sheeps of the family.

I told her what I tell the intellectually frustrated around the world. You got two choices. Move to a large cosmopolitan city where the gayhipbrainyweirdforeignpoor melt to provide the complete pantheon of humanity, or isolate yourself in the country, otherwise there is no escape from the banality that man has created for himself.

"Yes, sure, I understand what you be saying, and I am thinking about it. Maybe to Venezuela, or Orlando, Florida. I was thinking about there too."

"The first will be no different than Trinidad. And Orlando...did you grow up with a Daffy Duck fetish? You're better off in your own country."

"It's because I found some good supplies for my farming projects from Orlando."

"Hey, I've mail ordered motorcycle parts from Calhoun, Alabama, but I'd move to Port-Au-Prince before I went there. The internet has made the world closer. But it hasn't changed the distribution of open-minded people."

She spoke to me like we'd been friends for years. And it felt like that. I felt bad for Roberto though. I could tell he wanted in on the action but his Crown taught manners prevented him from throwing me the cockblock. I decided to take a walk on the Lido deck, and let the two paisanos discuss the bizarre habits of the white man.

When I came back down, Roberto had mounted Lina from behind, while the bartender was feeding her coke with the soda gun.

No, that wasn't happening, but I thought it might as I descended the exterior stairs. Instead, disappointedly, they were chatting genially, very british, but they left my spot on the bench vacant so that they had an unusually large gap between them. The white man resumed his position.

I told Roberto about the family of Killer whales I saw passing the ferry, but he wasn't taking the bait. Apparently, they don't pass here this time of year. How would I know that?

Lina and I continued to talk about the differences in the two neighboring countries, and about the difficulties in running a Trinidad hair salon when you're working a full time job constructing mobile phone towers.

Then she brought up God. This is not an easy question when traveling outside a major metropolitan city. The world is full of believers who can not believe that somebody doesn't believe. Talking about being spiritual, believing in higher powers, astrology, none of it works. If you don't believe in a person known as GOD, and really, if you are not verse in some part of the Bible, you might as well be the anti-christ. Unless the other conversant is an evangelical. Then you are saved. Literally. You become their personal mission.

"Come on now, it's not like that. I don't care. Really. It's ok. I wasn't religious, I mean, I didn't go back to the Church until five years ago."

An important grammatical note for those versed in the complexities of human language. If somebody puts the definite article in front of 'church', this is very different then a non articled 'church', as the former always refers to a new Christian fellowship bent on water boarding you before Senor Saviour, and the latter means they are not really religious but rather experiencing some personal issue in life that is bestowing guilt upon them for not attending the Sunday rituals of their childhood. The latter are always less worrisome.

"Please, seriously, I don't care. It's cool. It's my personal choice."

She sounded believable. But I remained suspicious like Roberto behind the newspaper.

"So, how has Church life been treating you?" was all I could think of.

"What? Are you scared of the church or something? You think we all be crazy or something. You should come with me some time. You'll like it. And the songs are really really nice."

They pull you in with the music, and next thing, you're explaining to your heathen friends why you're wearing khaki slacks and ringing their doorbell at 10am on a Sunday morning.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not going to force you or anything. But it's brought a lot of happiness into my life. And it's also brought somebody new into my life, who has become very important to me."

"Oh yeah babe. That's what I'm talking about. You went to Church for the reason people should go to Church. To get some ass!"

"Boy, you are seriously not right. He's fifteen alright. He's a boy."

"Hey look. I'm not Christian. I don't judge."

"No, you still don't understand. I want to adopt this boy. He has become really special to me."

"That is seriously kinky, even for me, that is one game I'm not into. But again, no judgement."

"Hey, he's gay alright. Well, he thinks he's gay. But I'm trying to help him out of it. I'm his social counselor at the Church, and I've been working with him for almost a year. We are making progress. He's had it really tough at home."

"So, you think that keeping him in Church will lessen his desire to dance to Madonna?"

"He's actually into Lady Gaga, but we're trying to change that. You don't understand. He's very confused, and he needs guidance. He's from a difficult household. They are illegal immigrants from Guyana. He was abused, and he has gay siblings so he thinks his sexuality problems come from that."

"Alright. That's possible. Especially because Guyana may be the one place in the world I can't make a clever joke about. Maybe that's why the whole family is gay because with a poor English accent, which they have, it sounds like Gayana. The power of suggestion, when done through nationalism is very hard to fend."

"Boooy....He should be waiting for me when we get of the boat. I'll introduce you."

I had a problem. I wanted to meet a travel friend. A local Trinidadian. And I had met two. Roberto was out, dozed against the non-spirituous bar, and probably offended by my offensiveness. Then there was Lina, who so effusive and alive, but honestly thought she could change somebody's sexual orientation with prayer. Fundamentally, I should have ran, or swam. But I thought I'd challenge myself, give her a chance. It's worked for me and my Republican amigos. I even tune in to ol' Oxycotin Limbaugh once in awhile now.

At one point, as we neared Trinidad, the choppy seas were rocking the ferry to the point that every passenger was either sick or asleep. For a moment, it was just me. Roberto was still having dreams about crumpets while Lina was trying hard to find off the mariner blues.

Customs and Immigration proved why land/port borders are so enlightening into the differences between nations. Airports are relatively organized the world over. There are exceptions but they don't compare to the insanity that ensues at some land crossings. I've actually been stuck in a genuine no-man's land, without permission to return to either country (Syria/Lebanon, Djbouti/Somalia), forced to prostitute myself to mr. baksheesh. So, in Venezuela, a hodgepodge of plainclothes 'officers' allowed pandemonium to ensue before randomly choosing people to have their bags inspected which literally involved moving the zipper down the bag, waiting until a 3 count, and then moving the zipper back the other direction. In Trinidad, an armada of uniformed striped officers met the ferry where they had all the passengers line up with their bags. The Trinidadians passed the line test easily, even the half breed Roberto. The Venezuelans, one hundred percent of them, would leave the line and walk to the front of the inspection table, where they would have to be told to get back again. The Trinidadians, having had the British etiquette of Billyclub beat into them, would calmly escort their undisciplined neighbors back into the line where the offense would repeat. And the Venezuelans, bred on a diet bribery and enjoyment, would not get mad either, but continue to walk out of the line. The Trinidad customs then individually went through each article in each piece of luggage. Lina did not appear to have any motorized sexual gratification devices. An older Indian gentleman may have.

Lina introduced me to Anthony, her adopted Guyanese heterohomo, waiting alone in the crowd of anticipating families and taxi sharks.

It was still strange to speak English, but equally relaxing.

"Hey Anthony, what's goin' on man?"

"Hello. Its' so very nice to meet you."

Anthony wore a pair of tight, slightly torn grey jeans, with an equally tight t-shirt emblazoned with a swirling pattern of colors surrounding some blonde pop star's face. He had indigenous facial features entwined with an extremely angular jaw and fine black hair that perfectly went over his left eye. A pair of worn converse and a drawer full of rubber bracelets rounded out his winter ensemble.

He was sooooo gay.

So gay that I considered pulling out my Ricky Martin CD and inserting it in his...cd player merely to watch him dance.

"You must be a friend of Lina's."
It was the unmistakable high pitched lisp that evolution injected into the homosexual chromosome to prevent women from wasting crucial years of their gestational clock.

He did speak a nice Queen's English though.

"Yeah, Lina and I just met on the ferry. But we're just friends."

I always keep my sexuality ambiguous with prospective and actual homos. You wouldn't want to jeopardize that free german chocolate cake your waiter, just call me Carl, might happen to leave on your table.

Lina stared at me, and then started to laugh. She always laughed. I liked that.
"He's going to be visiting Trinidad for the week. I told him your mother made really good rotis."

"Ohhhhh, you like the Trinidad food. Why yes, my mother does in fact make quite a delicious roti. Tonight you'll just have to try one."

And yes, that roti, an orgy of squash, potato, spinach, goat meat, curry and pepper sauce encased in a handmade Indian roti, was better than any single dish I ate in Venezuela. A culture without good sauces is a dying culture.

The following morning, with Anthony off at school, Lina took me on a driving tour of the northern part of the island.

"Hey, you know why I'm here. You can skip the beaches and the jungle stuff."

"It's alright. You can relax. Be cool. Ok? I've already got it all planned out. We're going to eat mango and pineapple chow at my favorite little stand high above Maracas beach. And then you're going to eat the original Bake and Shark at Richards. They quick fry a shark right, so it stays real moist inside, and then they fry a real sweet doughy bread. Then you put on sauces of tamarind, garlic, and corriander which we call shadowbenny, and you add fresh cucumbers, cabbage, and pineapples. You won't find better. If you are still hungry after, we will go for some creole food in a small town I know on the other end of the coast."

After a lunch that may have possibly provided the best sandwich of my life, and this comes from somebody averse to hyperbole, the two of us crashed on the beach. An older lifeguard, his muscles on their last days, passed by. It was Lina's childhood swim instructor. Every place we went somebody knew her. Even the head customs woman at the port yesterday. I don't think there is a single lifeguard in the entire country of Venezuela.

We lie on our backs, under a palm tree, the shade easing digestion into our bloated contentment.

"So, alright, what did you think of my new son Anthony?," Lina questioned as she rolled over to her side to face me, her warm smile always required makeup.

"He's nice. Really nice. And very very gay."

"Come on. Why you go be sayin' that?"

"Did you see how he unzipped my pants with just his two front teeth?"

"He did not. Come on. I want to know what you think."

"I feel like we've built a strong friendship, really quick, so I'm going to be honest with you."

"I hope so," Lina quickly added, expectation in her dark eyes.

"I'm not a professional homosexual detector, alright. But, in my worldly opinion he's so gay that if Miss Universe herself tit raped him, he'd cry like a very very gay boy getting tit raped by Miss Universe."

"She's a Tranny, you know."

"Miss Universe is a tranny? Don't bullshit me, really?"

"Boy, what is wrong in your head. I said she is a Trini. That's what we call people from the island."

"Oh. Well, anyway, he'd still cry."

"I don't care. He tell me he's not gay, and I believe him. He wants help, and I'm going to help him. He's such a sweet boy, and his family really be a terrible family. They are abusing him."

"Lina, you seem like such an intelligent woman. How can you not recognize what is happening here? He doesn't like his house. There probably is something not right going down there, or maybe his mom just won't let him wear make-up. Regardless, he's looking for someone he can look up to, and who will support him. If it means telling you he's not gay, then he'll do it. But he's gay. And you shouldn't try to tell him he's not."

"I'm not telling him he's not. It's his choice. And he listens to our pastor, and follows God's word."

"Do you think homosexuality is a disease?"

"No, I know it's not a disease. But if somebody wants it to stop, God will help them."

I didn't want to ruin a delicious post lunch beach rest. I changed the topic. Sort of.

I was lying on the sand, my back to the lifeguard station, facing Lina. She was staring up at the coconuts. "Are you a lesbian?"

She must have laughed, laughed heartily for a solid minute. "You really don't know me, do you. I love sex. With men. Too much. That's why I gave it up."

"You don't give up sex. It gives up on you."

"No, I did. When I started going back to the church, I made a vow to God. I will not have sex again until I am married."

"Are you shittin' me? If I started rubbing you right now, and then took you back to your little SUV back there and tried to mount you on the back seat, you wouldn't go for it?"

"What makes you think you're my type?"

"Good point. Am I too skinny? Too white? Yeah, it's a color thing. Black women at home never dug me either. It's cool. I can still look though."

"You are silly. First, I am going to tell you that I will not date any more black men. No more. The black Trinis are all cheaters, all of them. They be having two other girls and you never know until too late. You have their baby and then they off to someone else. No. They aren't ever going to be with me. Second, I'm serious, I am. I took a vow. And I haven't broke it in five years."

"You said something about dating. You still date?"

"Of course, I just broke up with my boyfriend of a year. He was from Peru working here in construction. He wanted to marry me but I didn't think I was ready yet. There are still things I'm doing in my life. I told you about my two farms. I'm still creating growing systems to turn out organic plants really really fast. And I'm not ready for a husband."

I should have been more interested in her inventions to revolutionize small farming practices. I meant to ask her more about it earlier, but instead, all I could utter was, "You dated a guy for a year and didn't have sex with him? Seriously, cause in my sexual theocracy that would be apostasy punished by a hanging from your clitoris. Did you do everything BUT, cause that could conceivably work?"

"No. My clothes stayed on. His stayed on. It wasn't about that. We loved each other. But I couldn't go through with it."

"For the sake of that guy's testicular longevity, I sincerely hope he was masturbating frequently."

"I didn't talk about those things with him."

"You believe in God, right. He created man, and woman. He gave me a penis and you a vagina. He made sure they fit right inside of each other. Real nice and tight. Maybe not the women who've had six kids, not even one of your Trini boys could satisfy that. You ever notice the penis doesn't exactly vacuum fit an ear drum either. He also made sure the anus could fit a flesh, silicone, or vegetable skinned penile like object to keep boys like Anthony happy. The girls were given tongues. Lina, God wants us to enjoy life, to use the tools he's given us. With consent of course. Unless it's a rape fantasy thing. But that's still consent."

"Come on now. That is not what the bible be telling us. It's between a man and woman who are married. And let us say ok, that I be using your logic boy. I have a finger that fits perfectly in my nose, right, but should I be puttin' my finger up my nose?"

"Absolutely."

We fell asleep on the beach, and then carried on godless and sexless, but still laughing all the way to that creole restaurant hidden between two houses on a desolate country road, where buttered cassava and callaloo, a spinach okra cream thing, were another reminder of the culinary paradise enchanting me.

The next morning I had new accommodation. It was an unadorned wood plank room, just off one of the capital city's main streets. Cobweb covered bathroom, barred windows, dusty floors. Just my style.
I had written an old friend about my last minute trip to Trinidad, where he was born. Hours before my ferry left, his mom wrote to tell me that I could stay in a place she uses on the island. And she left me a few contact numbers. I called the one she felt I should definitely meet, a family friend she called him. Pete told me he'd be there immediately. And he was.

There are doppelgangers and then there are older versions of doppelgangers, which is really just an older version of the person being doppelganged, which really just sounds like a bunch of drunk german men taking turns penetrating a rotting schnitzel.

This man was the older version of my friend. I wanted to yell 'Davis.' He had aged considerably and lost some weight, but it was Davis. Him and another guy walked around the small courtyard like they saw ghosts. I unlocked the massive military padlock on the iron rod enclosed front porch.

Pete gave me a hug instantly. And started to look at every corner of the porch like a disoriented Bob Vila, but blacker. The lighter skinned guy with him, more coffee with lots of whole milk than his partners unadulterated black, he immediately started questioning, in a heavy Trini accent, which is not easy to replicate, "Hey boooy, where be Davis? You be hiding him? Hey Davis, come out here boooy, and give your godfather a hug. Davis? You be bringin' Davis with you?"

Was he fucking with me?

"Hey brother, take it easy alright. I don't think Davis is here," Pete stated, lamentably, to his partner. And then added, looking at me, "This is my brother Nigel, Davis' uncle, and yes, it be his godfather too."

Uncle Nigel then looked back at me, "And you be knowin' of course that this is the man who brought Davis into this crazy world."

I didn't know, but I should have guessed from the features. "Yeah, of course.'

"Is Davis going to be coming here to meet you while you're in town?," Pete asked me, the slightest hint of hope in his words.

"Not unless he planned a surprise trip I don't know about."

"That would be nice, boooy" they both practically mumbled at the same time. They seemed to have a habit of using boy like some of us in America use 'man'. But they stretched it out and spun it with Caribbean tinge.

The two of them spent the next twenty minutes rummaging around the small grounds talking about the house with each other.

"Hey brother, you remember when we come down here, and Davis be right there in the pram, and you be with Marleen, both you playin' with the boy together, yeah booooy, and I over here doin' the faces and things."

Pete smiled. He smiled exactly like his son. The face went from pensive to radiant in milliseconds, displaying clean, big, bright teeth that could light up a photo shoot. And then, back to the pensive.

"Hey brother, look back there, oh that where we brought the basketball, and we be worry Marleen's mother be comin out and yellin' at us, and Marleen just be a comin to sit right there."

"Yeah. Yeah, right." Pete didn't say much. He would simply respond to his brother's jarred memory and then return to his sleepwalk, lost in his own world of thoughts, and maybe touch, really softly, a piece of fence, or a window, or try looking into the locked part of the house.

"How long has it been since you came here?," I wondered aloud.

The brothers stared at each other, and after a few moments pause, Pete said with some hesitation, "over thirty years. Davis left here with his mom when he was one, and moved to the States."

"Yeah boy, Davis not be back here in a very long time. You bring him back here, bring Davis back to see his family," Uncle Nigel practically demanded.

I had no idea. How could I not have an idea that a friend doesn't know his father? We weren't the closest of friends, but we were much more than acquaintances, friends for almost twenty years. He didn't talk about his family. I never bothered to ask. I didn't talk about mine. Most of my male friends didn't talk about their families. Is it a guy thing? Why don't men talk with other men about their family issues? Is it because we too Man to even realize we have an issue?

Pete was drifting again. Thinking about something. He returned his gaze to me. Melancholy. Lost nostalgia. I couldn't tell, but it filled his eyes. "Next time, alright, you'll bring Davis."

I choked down a tear. And after, a few more. I had my own history, one I never shared with Davis. My father also lost a big part of my childhood. I never thought it bothered me. But for many years, when I'd see a father alone with his son, I'd stop and watch them. I never understood why. I watched every detail like a boy going to the zoo for the first time. How the father showed his son to tie the shoe. The motions his hand made. The way he looked up at his boy, pat him on the head. Sometimes the boy would lift into the air, a superhero unwilling to come down. I'd watch the muscles of the fingers, how tight they grasped the child's small fingers, and the triumph they shared when they made it across the busy street. I never thought it about it. There was no lost sleep, or abandonment anger. I accepted our relationship. But like the mindless channel flipping that occupies so many lives, you'll always stop for a moment at the nature shows. You have no idea why, but you can't get over how the animals interact with each other. Their behaviors, and what they must be thinking. The father and son channel. It pulled me in. Everytime. It still does.

"Hey booy, get your things, you are going to come meet Davis' family," Uncle Nigel said enthusiastically.

In the ten minute the Port-of-Spain's middle class homes, the brother's must have slowed down a half dozen times to greet friends on the street. Uncle Nigel was boisterous, always yelling out some joke, in a heavy patois that left me wondering about the British educational system. Pete would always follow with a contrasting coolness, easy and relaxed. And then came that smile. Knocks you out every time. He was definitely the boy's father. And each time, with each encounter, he'd pop to life, for a brief second, and shout, "This is MY SON'S FRIEND. He came to see us!", and the person on the street would offer a sort of smiling congratulation.

The home was in impeccable condition. A 1950's ranch with manicured grass ringed by an assortment of precisely placed tropical plants inspired by someone's trip to the local botanical gardens. An older woman sat rocking on a metal chair., the porch's white iron gating cloaking her exact movements.

She rose slightly from her throne, adorned in the tablecloth patterned smocks that have been imparted to grandmother's the world over. Her features were of neither son, but soft, almost East Indian. She was a woman without bitterness in the face, a teller I would choose waiting in line at the bank. However old she was, a bit of her youthful attraction still remained, as she gently hugged me, the clearly spoken dialect of the colonizers surprising my ears. "Hello there. Welcome to the Iverson home. Is Davis with you?"

I never knew if they were being cheeky, or serious. "No, he's not."

"Tell me, will you please, how is my dear boy Davis, and his family. I hear about his new grandson, Johnson, they tell me he looks to be like my late husband."

"If your husband's dad had a thing for British chicks, then yeah, I guess that's possible."

"Oh, I must tell you, you surely don't know, but you are to be more correct than you jest. His grandfather was a Scotsman from Tobago, and married one of the slave girls. We are Trinidadians you must know. We come from many different races, that's why my boys don't look alike."

"I didn't want to ask. I thought maybe y'all live in an open society here, rebelling against the Queen's conformity."

She kept a light smile on her face, never disappointing my choice in teller, "No no. Not us anyway. We were married for sixty-two years until his death. Very happy years."

"Dad was a fine man. Tough. A sportsman. A true athlete. How is Davis, is he playing sports?", the deprived father asked me.

"Man, if he's not working, that's all he does. Probably saved him from a scholastic career of intoxicants like many of our mutual friends. Mostly, he's crazy about golf, and basketball."

"My boy. He be thinking he is Tiger Woods or something. Well, I not be going to do that, but basketball is my game." His face was lighting up, joy coming out from somewhere. "Two times a week, the old man here still be going to the club, playing with the boys. You tell Davis to get back here, his daddy will take him to the hoop, boooy!"

He delved into the same trash talk his son would do. How our genes can be progammed... Fuckin' weird.

I had a brief thought of the Gayanese, Anthony, and that there's no way I could tell his father what sport he's into.

The two sons escorted their mother and me through the house. It was one memory after another. Always prefaced with, "Davis' auntie did this, and this is where Davis' Uncle Berry did that." Through an open door, a slumbering giant was coming to. He made his way out to greet us.

Holy crap. Davis' uncle was General Colin Powell. I knew The General had Caribbean heritage. But he's my friend's fuckin' Uncle.

"General Powell. It's an honor. Really, I had no idea. Davis never told me. You should have got the party nomination in 2000. You're the only person in that party with common sense, and dignity. Well, there's another guy, some congressman, whose name I forget, but he's not a true leader like you Sir."

"What the...booy, I don't even live in America, I came into town for Carnaval, from Toronto."

The other two brothers are laughing. Uncle Nigel says, "Boooy, that not be the first time he hearin' that."

"Oh. Sorry. Canadians are nice. Real fine folk. Practically American."

He didn't respond. He was actually a man of fewer words than Davis' dad.

"Mommy, you should take out the books. Show him some of the history here," Uncle Nigel proudly said.

The boys always referred to mother as 'mommy.'

The next hour was spent rummaging through the faded kodak remnants of a middle class Trinidad family. Most of the memories were proceeded with, "that's Davis'..."

I couldn't get over the variations in skin tone. In America there would be a lot of questions over paternity, silent questions never spoken. But not here. Venezuela is an extremely racially mixed culture, probably one of the world's most blended, but I had no idea about Trinidad. Philistine.

"We are quite the diverse family. There are East Indians on my side of the family, and of course African, and there are the Scottish on Davis' grandfather's side, and we even have Jew."

"Mommy, who was being the Jew man again," Uncle Nigel confusedly inquired.

"It was from my mother's auntie side."

"Mommy, didn't what is her name, auntie, auntie Ellen, she is marrying a Jew man, right mommy."

"No, no, it wasn't her who marry the Jew," mommy rebuffed.

A ten minute debate ensued over the rightful spouse of the family's new Jew.

"Well, now I know why Davis used to hang around a lot of Jewish guys. It wasn't just to dominate them in basketball. He's pre-programmed. I never saw him eat matzoh though."

Uncle Colin Powell went back to sleep. The two brothers kidnapped me again. We were back in the car. Pete driving, Uncle Nigel in the back, barking directions at every corner.

Pete never reacted, never snapped back. At one point, he merely looked at me, opened up that grin, and put forth, "I be living with this my whole life." And they both started laughing.

He drove exactly like Davis, and Davis was slow in coming to the wheel. He must have been twenty-one until I saw him drive for the first time. But they both had that slouch, the chair pushed back, and the one arm hanging straight of the wheel's edge. Biology. The nature channel.

Nigel went into the liquor store and returned with three Stag's, a palatable local pilsner. Trinidad followed the rest of the developing world. If you're driving, and you're thirsty, why not.

Uncle Nigel was ready for another before Pete even reached the label mark. He drank slow, without urge or even desire. Periodically, he'd take his free hand and give himself a quick swig, then place the napkin covered bottled gently back between his legs.

We passed a few more old friends. Uncle Nigel would be leaning out of the car, practically grabbing them. The preternaturally cool Pete would flash the smile, and exuberantly add, MY SON'S FRIEND." It became obvious the brothers didn't come around the old neighborhood that frequently.

Uncle Nigel ran into a roti shop to grab lunch for the house. Pete merely looked ahead, relaxed and quiet, until he turned to me and asked, "My boy, tell me how he be doing, is the family alright?"

"I haven't seen them since October, but they seemed pretty happy with the baby and all."

He looked like he wanted to ask something else. But he didn't. He nodded his head up and down approvingly, and then looked ahead, the half full beer sitting unloved between his legs.

The meal rewarded with the rich and spicy curry flavors that never made it across the channel to the anti-imperialists. Colin Powell and Mommy joined us at the kitchen table, the same table they had been eating at since infancy.

After a few more questions about Davis, they finally forgot I was there, getting lost in family history, in laughs over forgotten names. They were so comfortable with each other, all of them obviously wanted to be at that table. Uncle Nigel could have come back with a pitcher of water instead, and they'd all still be talking the same.

Mommy Granma excused herself to go take an afternoon nap. But before she left the table, she looked me in the eyes, her glare subtle and inviting, and pleaded, "Please tell my grandson to come see his grandmother. Please do that for me. Tell Davis he has a history here, and a lot of family. His new family needs to know us. I want to know them. It's been so long since the last time I had the chance to see my grandbaby. You will tell him won't you? I don't have much time left here. I'm an old lady you know."

I couldn't help wonder if Davis knew his family here? Did he even care? We talk so irregularly, and never about these things, I didn't know if it was my place. Maybe I shouldn't get involved. But if I don't, he may never know, reach old age and be smacked with an explosion of regret as he tries to trace a past he never bothered to know.

The brothers decided I should go for a seabath. I didn't think they were the types to indulge in spa treatment, but if Colin Powell is down, I'm down.

The bay was prototypical Caribbean, an elixir on the wall of some bygone travel office in Omaha. I couldn't find the spa house though. Nobody was covered with mud on the shoreline. And the slender Trini muscle soothers were hiding.

"Hey, where do they do the seabaths at?"

"Boooy, what type of question is that. Where you think the seabath be? You drink something when we not be looking?", Uncle Nigel scoffed.

"I know this is a trick question. I do. But I don't exactly know the answer. I'm guessing we may have to swim to get there."

General Powell spoke up. "Nigel, boooy, he's from the U.S. Canadians probably wouldn't understand either. A seabath is a swim."

"Hey boooy, what you be thinking a swim be, it be a bath in the sea," laughed Uncle Nigel.

"This be my place, boooy. Every day. Be spending a good two hours here. Escapin' booooy," Pete said with childhood glee.

"Booooy, what kind of job let a man have all day lunch at the sea. Always finding a way my brother here," Uncle Nigel laughed.

Pete and I seabathed away from the other two. He wanted to show me the bay, so we could visit the rocks where the kids jumped from, and the rocks where the people fished, and the spot where the egrets would land. This was his bay. Margarite bay. A former U.S. submarine base that America sequestered to sniff out German UBoats. Eventually the locals realized The Fuhrer had vanished, and protested until the Yankees gave back their isolated seabath bay. Pete swam me through his sanctuary.

We treaded water a couple hundred yards from the shore. Pete told me about growing up in Trinidad.

"It was a different time boy. It was the time of the black power days. Yes. The afros and all. Trinidad was under the British, and we recently had our independence. But the black man, he didn't respect himself. The British told him he was second class, man. The black man must know his place. Nobody taught us that we had a history and we needed to be proud of that. We didn't know how to respect ourselves, and with black power we did."

Our legs kept kicking, and Pete opened up a bit more. "I took to the pan. You know the pan? It's the steel drum. Nigel and I would go play with those guys all the time. I did that for years. You see, to play the pan was to be free. A lot of these guys were not from good places. It was a rough thing, not like today. And our middle class parents not be liking it, or boooy, my daddy would give us a good hit. The pan groups would fight with each other, and then play more pan. It was probably like a gang for us, but not like the gangs you see today. More brotherhood. More fun. And a lot less violent. I met Davis' mother at the time. Boy she was something. Marleen. It was the pan and her. And then Davis be comin' along."

He paused for a few moments, his legs stills motioning in a circles. "Davis was it man. I tellin' you boooy, I lovin that child. But I just wasn't ready. You know what I be saying, I just was not ready."

He paused again. Longer this time. His almond eyes weren't wet from the sea. He came to. "Yeah, I was in my early twenty's but to me I was still learning life. I didn't know nothing. I didn't study. I didn't have a good job. I couldn't take that responsibility. When my boy was about one, Marleen took him to the states."

It was me who paused. Memories of a childhood separated from my father wrapped their tentacles around me, the water rising to my head. I could barely keep my legs going. I wanted to hug him. But you can't hug another man in deep water. You can. But you can't.

I didn't know how much I should pry. But I didn't have to. Bit by bit, Pete told me a story.

"She left, and I kept with the pan. My brothers and sisters all got married. All six of them and then there was me, be all alone. My father had a yell at me one day. He not be understanding what I be doing with my life. Times were tough. I was lost, you know. I was good at one subject in school, really man, I only passed one, and it was in the sciences. Then my buddy Kevin comes back from the states, says he be having a place for me to go in Boston. I think I be making that decision in a few days, and before you know something, I am living in the states."

Pete would speak, and my mind would drift to my own dad. What he thought in those years I was gone, and did he want us back?

"Boy, I got into my studies. It was the first time in my life I was doing it. I was doing it right. I made the dean's list every semester. And I was feeling good about myself, boooy. I wanted to see Davis. Marleen was only living a few hours away. I tried to get in touch with him but it was hard, you see. It was real hard. Marleen had married another man, and they had children, and I didn't feel like I was Davis' father anymore. Another man had been raising him, and I knew he was feeling angry with me, and I couldn't do it, man. I wanted to. But I felt like I wouldn't connect."

The pause was at its longest now. We both drifted for awhile. The other two brothers had left the seabath, and were sitting on a massive log driftwood, laughing.

He returned, his island inflection progressively getting more distant, and more remorseful. For a year or so, their time overlapped in Trinidad, where the Mom had returned Davis, and dad began to know his son. Within a year Davis was back in the States.

Pete was appearing to be a proud man, an unsure man, and exuberantly passive. Throughout his story these traits seemed to prevent him from gaining contact. Davis came back to Trinidad briefly, when he sixteen, and it was the last time the two of them saw or spoke to each other. That was twenty years ago.

That evening, Pete and I went alone to his sporting club, where he had promised to teach Davis the finer points of the basket. It was a pre-carnaval event, and one of Davis's other uncles was scheduled to sing.

The two of us sat on a concrete wall,
toward the back, away from the crowd, exactly how Davis would. From his perch, everybody had to pass, and from his slouch he could salute them all, his beer left untouched between his legs. A blinding smile, and the obligatory "MY SON'S friend, all the way from the States to see me." He knew a lot of people.

After the show, we strolled over to the panyard, the expansive parking lot the steelband used for practice space. Colin Powell and some cousins joined us. The asphalt was covered in hundreds of steel oil drums, boys and girls of all ages tapping away to calypso melodies.

"Booy, this is it. I spent a lot of good years with this group. It wasn't like this back in the day, boy. No girls. And a rough looking crew. Rough! We helped start this group. Now they are being one of the biggest in Trinidad. You should see the fans they have at Carnaval time."

It wasn't your meet and greet steel drum hobo at the cruise ship port. This was an orchestra. But at some point, a band without wind, and without some diversifying rhythm, starts to sound like a bunch of people banging on a steel drum. It was time to say good night.

"Hey, I'll see you again, right?", Pete said hopefully.

"Yeah, of course."

"Make sure you tell Davis his daddy can still play the pan. He needs to come to Trinidad and see it."

I needed the levity of Lina. It was less complicated, less personal. With Pete, he was my father half the time, and I had to struggle to hold back the tears, every reminiscence told whipping a cyclone of buried history through my mind.

She arrived early. Is that wrong? I didn't know if I take my time and make her wait until our scheduled pick-up, or do I rush. What does British etiquette say?

Anthony was with her. A large puppet wearing a knight's helmet and face like Burt cloaked his hand as he greeted me with his new friend. I refrained from putting my finger in and out of it's mouth.

We were headed to the northeast of the country, where some of the more spectacular landscape could be found.

"Yes, don't you worry, I already have
a place for us to eat. In the middle of the country side. Really sweet owner. And she makes really tasty roti's."

Anthony brought the puppet to our table. The proprietor, an East Indian woman not very fond of hand puppets, eyed us with suspicion.

Anthony had on a similar outfit to the other day, tight and tighter. One earphone remained in his ear throughout lunch. I assumed they were instructions from God. He told us about how much he was enjoying Church, and how just absolutely wonderful the service was from last night. Lina gave me the 'Aha' look.

"What is Lady Gaga like?", Anthony asked abruptly in high pitch Guyanese English.

"Well, Anthony, she's a taurus, and loves taking bubble baths with rose petals in her free time. Her vices are fudgecicles and Maury Povich."

"Oh my god. Incredible! What's a fudgecicle?"

"You'll find out one day," I added with mischievous grin.

"Anthony, do not believe him," Lina chided.

"Don't believe me. Why. I'm an American. Why wouldn't I know about Lady Gaga?"

"Really, that's true. She likes bubble baths," Lina asked, this time in a more hopeful voice.

"No. I made that stuff up. Do I look like I listen to Lady Gaga?"

"What do they say about her in the U.S.", Anthony prodded like a schoolboy trying to find out his best friend's sister's shower schedule.

"They say she may be a tranny."

Anthony quickly asked, excitedly and looking right at me, "What is that?"

"It's when a woman isn't really a woman, or she's mostly woman except for a slight deviant of nature found between muscular thighs."

"Oh my god. This is what they say about Lady Gaga!," he responded, shocked.

"They also say she's a real artist, somebody not afraid to express herself, who is able to blur the line between sexuality in a way that challenges people's method of judgement. She gets called the new Madonna, but hopefully she'll remain in the Desperately Seeking Susan phase."

"The pastor at our Church says she's the work of the devil, and that her music is the mouth of the devil," Anthony told me in a voice neither hurt nor surprised.

I glared at Lina. She saw me, but she wouldn't look over.

At a rocky beach where Lina spent time fishing with a dreadlocked old white man, we hopped from rock to rock as the waves crashed below and mist formed around us. Anthony went off on his own.

"So, you're going to let Anthony decide on his own if he is gay? If your pastor says that about a singer, I can imagine what he says about gays."

"Alright, I will admit that it was strong, but he's a respected pastor, and he's trying to guide these kids," Lina retorted, almost unsure of her own words.

"Are you serious? Do you believe yourself? This is Lina, the same girl who used to enjoy sex until her legs went numb. And now, look at you. You're not letting this kid choose what he wants to do. The church is choosing for him."

Anthony was coming back over the rocks, his puppet choosing the steps. Lina was staring off into the sea.

Anthony returned, a smile on his face, offered a greeting from Sir Camelot, his puppet's new name, and headed down to the beach below, turning back around to wave at us with Sir Camelot.

"Look, I love this boy. He is such a good kid. You don't know what he has been through. His family is not good to him.
His stepfather forces him to massage his feet. They make him clean everything. He is a slave to that family. His mother already forced him on the street once.
He's practically living at my house. I don't know if I will have my own son, and right now he feels like one. He such a genuine boy, and with such a big heart."

"Yeah, I can see why. He's a good person. And if what you say about his family is true than I hope you can raise him. But if you really love this kid, then let him be gay. Introduce him to gay friends. You owned a hair salon. You're a gay yellow pages. Show him that he's not alone."

"I'm not forcing him. He can decide on his own."

"On his own? You're bringing him to a church where the leader, the most respected man there, is telling this kid he's going to hell for his sexual orientation. Which as much as you don't want to believe, isn't his choice. You are an adult. You have the right to choose your religion, and practice anyway you want. You don't have the right to bring a kid to a place that is condemning his nature. No Parent should force any one religion upon an impressionable child."

"It's not his nature to be gay. You don't know if it's his nature. I told you about the abuse."

"Ok, then get him professional abuse counseling, not quackery. Lina. Look at him. The boy doesn't have a single guy friend. He hangs out at the mall with girls buying makeup and listening to Lady Gaga, and he talks like a Guyanese Liberace. If you want to help him, get him out of the church and over to a hairsalon."

"I'm not going to take him out of church. He can make up his own mind. But the church is already helping him. He's back in school. He's making so much progress."

"He can't make up his own mind when he looks at you like a mother."

Lina returned to the waves. Her eyes lost on unseen objects. She would rotate to watch Anthony making animal shapes with sticks in the sand. I needed to find a way to get Anthony alone, not to rim him, but to tell him. He needed to know. I might not get to tell Davis in person, but I could help this kid. Madonna is getting old. She needs new fans.

The following evening I went looking for Pete. A normal citizen of the twenty-first century would have rang him. I'm a twentieth century revivalist, desktops and landlines all the way. In the battle for first world admittance, Trinidad is annihilating it's socialist neighbor. It's complete absence of phone booths, lack of internet cafes, and dearth of adequate public transportation almost guarantee it a spot among the Davos nations. Unfortunately, for a traveler with limited funds, you can only have encounters by using the last person's phone you are with to call the next date. I forgot to call Pete in my focused quest to isolate Anthony, and now I was forced to go mobile vagrant in Trinidad's pedestrian-less byways. Another bonus that will work favorably into first world status. I approached two different people chosen for their prodigious use of late model blackberry's. Very first world. The admission was about to be finalized when both candidates claimed they had no more credit. Definite demotion. Only those on public assistance are permitted by first world law to have mobile phones that are not on a monthly plan.

I went to the housewares sounding event of the year, Panorama. It was Trinidad's largest Pre-Carnaval weekend event, a field full of hundred person steel bands vying for a spot to compete on Carnaval weekend. An estimated 200,000 people showed up to basically hang out, or 'lime' as they say. With a large ex-pat community, it's a time for people to come home and re-connect. Trinis of all ages gather around coolers full of drink to laugh and dance until the early morning hours. I just wanted to find Pete, and eat. I ate. Jerk chicken, pigs tail in thick and creamy corn soup, baked and buttered cassava, popcorn. Hells yeah, popcorn! It doesn't matter how good the food. If somebody is poppin' fresh corn, and you can get it hot, you've got to get it hot, then you get it. It's never bad. You can't fuck that shit up.

I had less luck with Pete. I thought I saw him several times. But I was a self-created victim of race inverted bias. This is when one race assumes all members of a different race look the same. White people are convinced all Asians look the same. People swear their children on it. You ask any Asian if they can tell white people apart, and they will tell you NO. Of course, a white person reading this is adamantly saying no, that's impossible, how could anybody confuse his cousin Michelle with his wife Abigail. Go ahead, ask an Asian. And you'll come to realize the near impossibility of finding universal truth.

I walked round and round the hundred person steel pan ensemble that the Iverson brothers helped initiate four decades earlier. Pete was right. There were fanatics there, screaming and dancing for a bunch of people hitting an oil drum. For two hours. Eventually, I ran into somebody I met the other day. I didn't have many friends on the island but I'd met a few. Why did I find her? Cause she was white.

I started losing sleep at night. I never lose sleep. I'm the guy who falls asleep standing up on an elevator, only to find out I missed my floor. Five times. If only people in elevators spoke to each other...
I kept thinking about Pete, and Anthony too. But it was Pete that was making me lose sleep.

I re-connected with my father as I got older, to the point where he's probably my closest friend. I wanted that for Davis. But I knew he could be stubborn, and worst, having been out of touch with him for so long, I felt out of my element like a gay Guyanese in an evangelical church. Davis' family wanted to see him so bad. They were practically crying to get him home, to the land of his ancestors. I still didn't know what I would say to convince him.

Are fathers human? Are they not entitled to mistakes? Should they be above the tenuous morals that labor to guide humanity? Why do children assume parents are superheros?

Shouldn't an adult son realize
his own mistakes, the crimes of his youth? Shouldn't a son so eerily similar to a father, who enjoyed (struggled) a prolonged adolescence frolicking for nearly ten years in un-decisive undergraduate studies, shouldn't this son have some morsel of understanding for a youthful father's inability to confront the joy-killing reality of child rearing. There had to be a way to allow Davis to see his father's pain, regret, and grave mistakes.


Lina and I went out to dinner the next night. She came without the puppetmaster.

"Alright, tonight, I want to take you to a new place. It's somewhere that I really love. I hope you'll like it," Lina told me like a schoolgirl telling her mom what she wanted for Christmas.

"Cool. You know me. I'm the skinny dude who eats like a fat man that can't sing. Where are we going?"

"Syrian."

"Yeah, alright, not exactly Trinidad style, but I love some good babaghanoush and tabolueh salad, Probably no beer though. That teetotaler Mohammed screwed us. Maybe they'll have hashish for the hookahs, The Mo Man is cool with that, as long as no women are present and no fewer than four men share a pipe, which has something to do historically with lilfe in the Sahara, where the arabs would have to shield the Holy Prophet, who ripped off the Bible and claimed it was his own, from the frequent sandstorms that would irritate his foreskin during the midday penis suck performed by his slaveboy Bilal. And that is the real reason Muslims must remove their foreskin. Don't look at me like that. Go to Wikipedia for yourself if you don't believe me."

It was the restaurant of local oil executives, and stock traders, and women from the bottom, dressed for the top, looking for a lifetime supply of sugar. It was the size of a football field, with a fifty foot dome ceiling, and at least twenty three large flat screen monitors confounding the diner with sporting events from around the world. A stock ticker ran above the bar, the dizzying fractions fattening the already fat and continuing to emaciate the rest. Faux gold picture frames strung out along the walls like women at an unpatronized brothel. They held the autographed jerseys of major league sports stars from the States, forcing one to question why any sane person would want the signature of another person. Wouldn't a photo of you and the celebrity crouched down in the middle of your four friends smoking a hookah be a much more personal piece of memorabilia?

The waiter wore flair. I explained what that was to Lina. She now understood they were outlandish symbols of triumph to demonstrate how many Palestinians were refused entry into Syria in order to surreptitiously take control of Lebanon by starting a civil war there.
WooHoo!

The menu was GreekDiner enormous which was probably the owner's clandestine tribute for another nation that shared the same adulation of the male rear. There were such Syrian staples as chicken ceasar salad with your choice of balsamic or honey mustard dressing, crispy chicken tenders, bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches which were stacked with toothpick things and cut into quarters, and there were the Phoenician delicacies of bbq ribs and hot sauce chicken wings. America was honored briefly in the appetizer section with a plate of falafel and Syrian celery sticks.

Lina closed her menu before I even got to page seventeen.

"I already know what I want. I want the medium sauce chicken wings with the bleu cheese dressing and a slice of oreo cheesecake for dessert."

She was torturing me. She must have known it. I wouldn't even drive by this place in the States, which is hard to do, you know, when it exists four fold in every single town with a main street and a heartbeat.

I asked to speak to the manager. Cause that's what you do in a Syrian restaurant.
The boy with the Lebanese flair promised he would send somebody over.

Another boy with flair, slightly older than the first came to our seat. More East Indian the African, and very proper.

"Hi. Are you the manager?"

"Yes. I'm currently the head waiter on floor duty, sir. How can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah, can I speak with the Syrian please?"

"If you are to be referring to the owner of this establishment, he's not here tonight sir, but I would be happy to assist you."

"Ok. I need you to give him a message for me. Alright. Can you do that?"

"Yes sir. I can do that."

"You promise."

"Yes sir. I make the promise."

"Ok. You tell the owner that an American citizen was here tonight, and that I represent the Restaurant Trade Association of America, and I demand that he begin to advertise this deceitful institution as an American restaurant immediately, and he cease and desist from promoting this establishment as Syrian."

"Yes sir."

"And one more thing. Don't forget this. Make sure you tell your boss that we don't serve off label ketchup. It's Heinz. This here bottle and brand may look similar, just like Asians, but they're not. Get Heinz in here right away. And don't buy Hunts either. Hunts is for people who drink RC Cola and enjoy saccharin product. Don't represent that side of America."

"Yes sir."

I may not eat at Fridays, but it's like someone talkin' trash about your idiot brother. You'll defend him with everything you got, but to you, he's still an idiot who needs to get a job and get the fuck out of the house. He's fifty-two for christ's sake.

Lina was oozing bleu cheese from the left corner of her mouth, rambling about her hydroponic herb growing projects that will revolutionize Trinidad farming. I should have been more interested because she was some kind of wonder in the engineering world, trying to legitimately better the health of all Trinidadians, but I was still pre-occupied by Pete and Davis. It's all I thought about. I knew I'd get a chance to corner the Gayanese somewhere. She was not budging on him. But maybe she could help me solve the father son dilemma.

She was now dipping my french fries in her bleu cheese. When friendship has reached the point where one feels comfortable eating another's fries without asking, you can proceed with more pressing issues.

"Lina, tell me, don't you miss orgasms?"

"What? What are you asking me about?"

"Well, you're eating my fries. I figured it was time. Forget it. Look, I need your advice. You know I've spent some time with my friend's father, and I've told you about their situation."

She nodded affirmatively while increasing her dipping prowess to two fries per dip.

"What should I do? The family is literally dying to see him, I mean they may die before he makes it back here, if ever."

"Don't get involved. Let him figure it out."

When somebody gives an answer you don't want some will keep pushing. I'm a pusher.

"In most instances I'd agree with you. Even though I think I just saw you dip a threesome of my fries. But this guy is too proud and too embarrassed to get back in touch with his son. And I don't think the son is much different. They haven't spoken in twenty years. And...and...if I hadn't resumed a relationship with my father, he probably would have stayed quiet too. We're not built with vulvas. We don't know how to handle emotion. Look at the simplest level of emotion. Physical pain. A woman gives birth. She cramps, bleeds, and bitches every month. A man gets a cramp, and he calls in sick from work and has woman making him chicken soup."

"Ok, sure. Maybe you have a point. I haven't told you something, but my father left us when I was nine."

"Before you continue, are you telling me this because you are eating my fries. Is this the international rule of trust?"

"Boooy, I do not understand you some times. My father left us. We were four siblings. Didn't come see us, or talk to us. Nothing. Booy, I tell you I had so much anger against my father. Then one day I got a message from God. In church, they were talking about forgiveness, and you could not connect with God if you didn't have forgiveness in your heart. It was then I decided to contact my daddy."

"You see that, the Church is good for something."

"Now, why you go be saying that?"

"What, did I say that out loud?"

"It's cause of Anthony isn't it? He's not gay, and if he is, then that's between him and God."

"That kid is going to end up married to an innocent local woman, fucking homosexual heroin addicts in the alleys of Port-of-Spain, and give his wife AIDS and be dead himself before he's thirty."

"You're being crazy now."

"The sooner you tell him God loves men who suck off other men, the sooner he can start evolving."

"You are mad, you know that, completely mad."

"So what happened with your dad, did he end up being gay?"

"Noooo. My daddy is a Man. I took my brother with me the first time. You met him. He's a big guy, and he was scared. He wouldn't even look at my father, he just be standing behind me like a little boy, and daddy and I begin to go at it. First I tell him I forgive him. He don't say a word. For a long time. Then he starts to cry. Then I'm yelling at him. Then I hear my brother saying things. Soon all three of us be crying. My daddy explaining what happening all those years. I couldn't believe my brother. He broke down. He let go. And in two days, we were actually laughing about things."

"And today?"

"That was four years ago, and now I talk with my daddy every week. My sisters too. My brother not as much but he still talks with him and his kids visit with him. It's nice. Real nice. I thank God all the time for the wisdom he gave me to forgive."

Lina was looking for the flair boy. She was ready for the cheesecake. My fries had vanished into the Syrian bleu cheese void.

"Tell me something else. Is it common here, this issue with man bailing on the families."

"Booooy, you do not know! Mostly in the African community. Not so much with the East Indians. And you see it in all class of Africans here. Sometimes they have other women, and sometimes they don't want the responsibility. That's why I do not be dating black men. I told you the other day."

"Why do you think though, why is this so common in the black community? I should tell you in the lower class black community in America that it's almost a given."

"I don't really know. A lot of people here say it's a result of slavery. The plantations broke apart the family, and a man was basically taught that his woman would never be his so why bother. Some others have said it may even come from African tribes where the men were accustomed to having multiple wives. I know slavery be affecting us as blacks. I didn't grow up with money, but you know what, it was the past. You have got to get over it boy. I ain't be one of these black people who are going to blame our sad past on my life. I made something with my life and I am proud of it."

I ordered one cheesecake and told her to enjoy most of it.

"Enjoy 'most' of it. You can order your own. I will pay for it."

As we walked out the door I caught the eye of the head boy in charge. He was too far across the room, so I grabbed a bottle of the closest ketchup and made a slit motion across my throat.

You can't be having freedom fries with socialist sauce.

I almost bought a phone just so I could call Pete. But I'm too cheap so I went over to the basketball club to find him. Apparently Trinidadians don't play basketball when the court has puddles. Well, if you guys can't handle the rain, you might as well go back to the bobsled. Or is that the Jamaicans? Is there a difference? Sometimes its' all Asia to me.

Lina had stopped by my place. She knew I was phoneless, and if I wasn't scavenging for the waiting of succulence of street food in my local neighborhood, I was enjoying the jailed confines of my front porch. And she had brought Anthony again. The puppet was gone, but a small purple feather was protruding from his ear. Today was going to have to be the day. I had to get him away from Lina.

In limp wristed falsetto, with great enthusiasm, Anthony greeted, "Hellooooo, how ARE you? I was missing yoooou."

"Hey. Cool. Hi."

We we're off to the south of the country. I think she wanted me to try her favorite Church's chicken in the country.

"Today I'm going to take you to some towns that are predominantly East Indian with very Indian dishes that you don't find so much hear."

"More hot. Like mommy's," Anthony added.

Lina stopped for gas, and I had a chance. I lied about my love of Lady Gaga to initiate the foreplay. I was about to tell him about the wonderful world of bathhouses and Pride Parades when she opened the door.

At the restaurant she went to wash her hands, and I tried again. But for some reason I couldn't just tell him. I needed an intro. I'm like that sometimes. As I began getting into American shopping malls, she busted me again.

We were coming back from a small walk along a fairly rough beach. I walked fast to get near Anthony. But each time I caught up, he'd wait for Lina. When she stopped to make a phone call, I tried again.

"What's your father like?" was the best I could think of.

"He's Amerindian. They are the natives of Guyana. If you take a real good look, I have some of their features. I haven't seen him in ten years, but I hope to go back this April."

"You know, there is something I want to tell you."

"Ok. No problem. Go ahead please. What is it?"

"Its, um, its, well..." and before another sensible word mumbled from my mouth, she was within listening distance. Shit.

The road curved through green and more green. The East Indians like to party on the rivers and the Blacks went down to the ocean. Nobody could tell me where the Chinese went. We passed them all, enjoying a Sunday in Trinidad. Outside of the towns, the country was pure green. Tropical forest and ocean, and tasty roadside stalls. We stopped at one, slightly larger than a stall, where Lina knew the owner.

Curried crab and dumplings. Island spice and rich curry saturated the crustaceans every tendon, which is a good thing, cause a crab without sauce is a monumental waste of time.

After lunch, Lina went into the makeshift kitchen to talk with the owner.

"Hey Anthony. Come here, man. I want to talk to you. No, right here is cool. Look, I've got to tell you something. It's just between me and you, alright? No, I'm not gay. Why would you say that? Do I look gay? Anyway, um, hey, uh. Alright. Here it is. There are lots of gay people in my city. Happy, successful gay people with husbands and careers. Many of them came from small towns and unsupportive families to find a community of people here who showed them that it was perfectly natural to be gay. Some of them listen to Lady Gaga and some like Sepultura. Not many, but they do what they want. And there are communities like this in major cities around the world. If there is a God, he'll love you for being you. Alright?"

He just stood there with this smirk on his face. He looked like he was about to laugh, eerily reminiscent of Edward Norton in that movie where he tricks Richard Gere about the murder he actually premeditated.

"I know all this. I cut my hair short and stopped wearing make up to keep them happy. I'm only going to church so Lina won't get mad at me. When I'm eighteen I'm leaving Trinidad to go study in another country when I can be myself again. I only need to wait a few more years."

Son of a bitch. I should have been ecstatic. I'm a helper. I want to help people. And now, something was short circuiting inside. I should tell Lina when she gets back. This kid is milking her. Or is it another mutually beneficial relationship when 'using' serves a higher need. Lina was my friend. It hadn't been long, but she was obviously a person who would do anything for me. Anthony went to the bathroom when she got back. It was a test. God likes these kind of tests.

I gave her a one arm hug when she got to the car door. Told her how much I appreciate what she's done for me. Then, with sincerity in the eyes, I paused.............and told her once again what a great kid Anthony is.

"Oh, and one more thing. I always forget. Can I borrow your cell phone? I'm glad you have credit. Oh, I forgot it's cause you still work for the mobile carrier."

Pete invited me to spend the day at his office. I insisted on coming out by public transport. Why do people with cars assume that waiting for a large chauffeured vehicle to pick and drop you off is so difficult? I'd be there, don't worry Pete. I've got to see what type of employment warrants a three hour lunch.

In a sprawling complex of buildings, three different security guards came to my aid in typical Trinidad fashion. It's not the chaotic effusiveness of Venezuela, but a cordial Britishness that wants to assure that you are going to be alright. On the third man, we found him, hiding out on a second floor exterior stairwell, looking off into the parking lot.
I hadn't been this happy since I last saw my girlfriend. I'd been thinking about Pete like a peasant thinks about a television set he saw in town one day. I had to get back and see him, and now we were together. He gave the enthusiastic "MY SON'S FRIEND, all the way from Ameica to see him" greeting to a few colleagues in the hallway.

This man was a stranger a few days ago, like the billions of strangers we don't know across the world. And now I wanted nothing more than to bring his son to him. And maybe something more. Something personal. To know. Why? Why did he do it?

We sat in his office, a medium sized sanitized room with linoleum floors and two walls of books. A desk sat uncluttered with a dustless flat screen computer monitor. A few miscellaneous boxes sat half opened in the corners. A large laboratory desk with rectangular mandarin cabinets ran opposite the computer wall.

"Boooy, I've been here for twenty two years. They created this position for me. Not long after I came back from Boston, I had this. A director. I went from nobody to somebody in charge of all these laboratories here. This year I'm going to retire. In Trinidad we be doing that at sixty you know. Got to enjoy the life until we be too old."

He started to review his life again. Just like our swim at the old submarine base. The end of colonialism. Black power. The changing male. His meeting of Marleen, and the birth of Davis. The pan. The lost worthless feeling. The confusion. The slow reentry into humanity that began with his university career. He pulled out a yearbook.

"Class of 84. Man, you are younger than I thought," I uttered with slight confusion.

"Boooy, I told you I was slooooow. At least ten years older than the rest of my class."

With the pride and nostalgia of a boy looking at his varsity sports photos, Pete went methodically, page by page. Naming professors, even secretaries. There were photos of the only black student at a lab microscope, and the only black student laughing at the quad. Other than the beard. It was Davis. Exactly how I remembered him.

"Yeah booooy, you see that white boy there. That was Eric Ramanelli. We played basketball together. Good jump shot."

I interuppted the flashbacks. I had to. I had to know. Again.

"Why didn't you try to spend time with Davis? He was so close to your school."

No more Eric Ramanelli. His pause was extended. The eyes had that thin pond glaze that damned them from the pain that wanted to pour through. He spoke up slowly, but deliberately.

"I tried. I wanted to. It's just...It's just...things were not good between me and Marleen. And she married this other man, you see. There was another dad in his life now, you see. I could not compete. I didn't want the conflict. And school was doing me right. Everything was starting to work in my head. Man, I'm I'm telling you, it just wasn't comfortable for me. I wanted to see him. I did...."

How many absent fathers go through this? Drowned in the pestilence of masculinity: toughness. We're too tough to drink a frozen cocktail with an umbrella peering out the top. We're too tough to tell our friends our problems. We're too tough to hug. We're too tough to admit we fucked up, cry, get yelled at, and have to figure out how to get over it.

It was obvious, painfully obvious to the point that my day was a constant battle to keep my tears imprisoned in their pool as Pete would continue to drift back to some occasion or the other when he wanted to contact Davis. And each time it was the same. He'd pause. His eyes would quickly well up. And another part of his life would be shared; the new wife, her kids, his difficulty relating to them, and a constant theme: a desire for peace and quiet. He wanted life at the slowest, least stressful speed imaginable.

Only a few years ago, at a time when his wife recently passed, he made a trip back to Boston, a few hours from his son's new home. He thought it was the time. He could handle it. At fifty-six years old he could admit that he was no longer a man, but human. He called Davis, and they began to speak. He was doing it. But Davis had questions. Lots of questions. He wanted answers. He wasn't going to give Dad a free pass to enjoy the fruits of grandchildren without the assorted pains of fatherhood. As Pete puts it, "the boy, my boy, he had me on the stand, man. Right up there. And there be no jury man, only the boy. I could not be there. I did not want me no conflict. I'm a man of peace. Silence. It was too much. Maybe I was not ready...."
And the mist started to form before a new thought came out to wipe it away, show he was still a man.

Pete would talk about how great his job was because everybody left him alone. He was all alone. He'd go on about how great his daytime seabath escapes were, simply him and the water, seabathing back and forth. Alone. The way he wanted it. And then he took me to the open box on the floor. There were photos. The first time faded one was Marleen, "she be lookin' really fine, booooy." Probably a high school portrait. Then a young pre-teen photo of Davis. "One of the only photos I ever got of my boy. Can you send me some photos, please? I would like that very much."

He went to the computer, clearly a man of his generation as he awkwardly pecked at the keyboard, denied entrance to his own account. When it opened, after the third try, he had a large photo blown up on the screen. Johnson, Davis' son. "Marleen send me that." He looked at his unknown grandson, his radiant teeth refracting from the screen.

He began to pick up old science books, and thumb through folders. He'd stare at the walls. "This is all I have. This is my life. These things. What am I going to do next?" And he'd wonder aloud, a man not really looking for what he'd do next, but one who was trying to figure out what he'd done in the past.

We spent so much time talking he missed his three hour swim break. To compensate, we went for Chinese and a tour of his house. "Yeah boy, they be my life now." Five small yappy hairy dogs. "And those too. That's where I sit to be away from the world in peace." It was a kempt yard full of mature fruit trees.

"I am with this one woman now for about five years. Pretty East Indian lady. We see each other a few times a week but she be wanting the marriage and I think I could be there but man, she has two kids. Teenagers. I'm still trying to figure out how to be with my own boy. And he a man now. I can not be taking care of girls. I can not do it man."

We had to be back in the office in case somebody, by chance, may want to see him. A few hours a day he said, he has to do at least that.

Does a flawed man, a man who deserts, a man who is unable to conquer his own insecurities, does that man deserve his prodigy?

There was only one question I needed to know. It was for my Dad. It was for Pete. It was a response to all the children who haven't had fatherhood in their home.

"Do you still think about your son?"

"Every single day of my life."

And like evolutionary clockwork, Pete and I both, we turned our gazes to opposite corners of the room. Boxers without a coach. I couldn't hold it for long. I thought I was keeping MAN proud, calling in the sandbags, staying tough. But the dampness of my cheeks told me different. Soon I tasted it: Weakness. Not Pete though. It was an impressive display of man conquering emotion. Heroics. A TKO. His pupils were swimming. Seabathing back and forth, trying not to drown as Margarite Bay turned on him. I was convinced he was going down. I never saw a man so ready to burst out of manhood. But at sixty years old, he had still had it. Tough as that kid on the court.

"Hey, you will tell my boy to come back to Trinidad right. His daddy would like to see him."

Do I get involved? Lina had told me not to. And after all, we're a society of non-involvers. "I'm not getting involved." It's a mantra of humanity. Yeah, yeah, I know, his wife is ruining his life. He's miserable. But I'm not going to say anything. It's not my place. I'm not getting involved.

He's always drank. That's how he is. I know, I know it's got him fired. But he finds other work. Look, I'm not getting involved! So what if he's my brother.

She's always been that way. She needs help. No, no way, I'm not getting involved.

Is he hitting her? Well can YOU do something. Who cares if you don't know them. What? You can't just leave her there on the sidewalk. Why aren't you getting involved?

If I hadn't re-discovered the joys of a father later in life, I'd probably be just like them. One more peon perpetuating a false myth.

Davis had to know.

I finally made it to the internet. It was one of those emails you normally erase. A generic name and a subject of "Last
Longer for LESS." It had nothing to do with how I could stay in Trinidad longer. Then another that said "hello???" Why the three question marks? One is sufficient. You want to ask if I am around. I understand 'hello' posited in the interrogative. Probably a bot. No, it was a new email friend. Lina.

The last two nights had been chaotic at Church. Even the prime minister was involved. Members were having visions. Four different members with the same vision. At 6am tomorrow there was going to be a massive earthquake in Trinidad. Two hours before my ferry left. She told me it was a message from God. I should be careful.

Funny, just as I was thinking about involving God, she sends the premonition. Do I blame God or the false prophets in her minion?

It's too bad Davis isn't a believer. I could bring him in with the Forgiveness thing. Can't exactly have one infidel preach fidelity to another infidel. If I called him, he'd probably tune me out. I can't exactly blame him, as the majority of his memories with me consist of my younger self, running around naked, harassing people with my testicles. Not exactly playing the pan.

Now is when I needed God. Leave the gay guyanese to enjoy Lady Gaga and the pleasures of bearded fellatio, and come help my friend Davis. Please. I sent him a letter. Long and detailed. And then I prayed, for the first time since my childhood, I asked God to bring a son back together with his father. Please.

The next morning the earthquake hit. Almost exactly at the premonitioned time. Right at the island's major city. Except it was in New Zealand, eleven thousand miles away.