Off The Reservation

I was still recovering from the flu when I arrived in Negril. I was weak and still a little unsteady on my feet, but by the time I arrived in Negril, I was up for more than sleeping in a lounge chair.

The Coral Beach resort was smaller, cozier, owned by a Jamaican doctor and not an American corporation. That was much of its appeal. And both Trelawny and Negril were family resorts, unlike Hedonism. There were kids of all ages about, so people were much better behaved. A naked swinger humped Becky’s leg once at Hedonism. I don’t care how sex-positive you are, that was rude, disrespectful, and a little creepy.

That said, there were a lot of Europeans about. The woman went topless. That was distracting at first, but by the next day I was taking it all in due course.

There were a lot of Americans, too.

There was one very important American. She was a New Yorker. She was pretty. She was about my age. When we spied one another we took to chatting. Before long she’d meet me at the beach bar after 3 pm, and then again in the waning hours of the night. She disappeared between those times, returning giddy and drunk each night. I wondered where the hell she’d gone. The resort was quiet. The bar I was seated at was the only distraction after the nightly show had packed it in for the night. So where the hell did she go? I asked her. She talked about the sunset strip and all the parties that carried on there. She asked me if I’d like to go. I said sure, but when the time came, she and her friend were already gone. When she returned, even more drunk than I was, I’d already gone to bed. We flirted by day, and had she been sober, things might have followed their natural course; but I was sober by day and she was not, and I didn’t feel right about doing anything while she was in such a state.

Before long, she was gone and later that same day, I met another New Yorker. She was a backpacker. She’d just spent a month tramping around the islands, ending in Jamaica where she wanted to bask in a little luxury after hostels and budgetary restraint. She and I noticed one another straight off. We too were of a like age, and single, surrounded by an abundance of families and retirees. I asked her to lunch, but didn’t see her after that. She’d donned her daypack and was off to see Negril. I envied her daring do. I looked for her for dinner, but if she was there, I didn’t see her. I did see her at two in the morning. She sat by me at the bar, made small talk for a bit, and convinced me that I ought to be off to bed.

The next day I asked her to have dinner with me. She accepted.

Midway through the meal, she said, “You must be so fucking bored.”

I said, “Why would you say that?”

“Because you’re not an alcoholic,” she said, “and you were totally hammered last night.”

“That’s encouraging,” I said.

She explained: I was sober by day. I did not smell like an alcoholic. I was easily convinced to lay off the booze and go to bed. And she said that I remembered the night before. Therefore I could not be an alcoholic.

Having known plenty of alcoholics in my time, I could see the holes in her logic, but I was eager to see where she was going with all this.

“You need to get off the reservation,” she said.

“The reservation?”

“The resort. This is just a fairy tale that feeds you food by day and booze by the gallon. The entertainment is freeze-dried and as boring as fuck.”

“And what do you propose I do?” I asked.

“You’re coming with me,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“The sunset cafes.”

“Been there,” I said.

“Rick’s Café?” she asked.

I nodded, “Among others.”

“Not there,” she said, “the real ones.”

We caught a cab outside the resort. She haggled the price with the driver like a pro. I think we headed south. We travelled about 5 or 10 minutes, arriving at a car park filled with cabs, the drivers leaning against their cars, heaters glowing about their faces. The lot smelled like tobacco and cannabis. So did the beach when we spilled out onto it. There were people everywhere, Jamaicans, Europeans, North Americans. There were accents folding over one another with each step. I heard Ska to the left, reggae to the right. What do you want to hear, she asked me. Ska, I said. An hour later we were back on the beach, seeking food. We found a little cabana where a woman as wide and she was tall was slaving over a wok. Two, my saviour said, and two baskets of jerk pork were handed over at a ridiculously low price.
We wandered up to a bon fire that blazed high into the starry night.

She kissed a man there. He introduced himself. He was from Bonn.

“You know how to get back?” she asked. I stammered a little so she coached me. “Remember that Ska bar? Up that path beside it is the cabs.” She taught me how to haggle for the price. Settle it before you get in, she said. She told me what to pay. “No more,” she warned. “If he asks for more, walk away. He’ll drop his price.”

I must have seemed a little unsure of myself, because she said, “You need to navigate this on your own. Walk up and down the beach. There’s lots of clubs and bars and people having fun. You’ll do alright. Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Ska, reggae, rap. Disk jockeys and dance. I had the time of my life.

She left the next day, and I fell in with a group of New Yorkers. Yes, there were a lot of New Yorkers at that resort. I took them to that same beach that very night.

I’ve never been back to a resort since.

I can’t remember her name. I only knew her for a few days. But she changed the course of my life.