Actually boarding the boat proved to require a lot more work than I had imagined. Instead of bringing the boat in closer to shore so that everyone could hop off of the sand with one foot and hop onto the boat with the other, the (boatmen?.....boatmen!) boatmen left Miss Ayanna right where she had been the whole morning, bobbing to and fro in the choppy waters a good fifty feet offshore. That meant that to get on the boat you had to actually wade out into the water and then climb the ladder onto the main deck."Who nex?! You!" He was looking at me. Shit, man! For a split second, I contemplated asking him to carry me to the boat instead, but then I looked him up and down and concluded that he was probably too skinny to do so. Steups. Das why ah doh deal up wit no blasted skinny man.
If ah CAN feel de bone, den leave me alone!
I threw my beige Trinidad & Tobago bag (the one with the red hibiscus on it) over my left shoulder and raised my wrap skirt (thanks, Ren!) up to my crotch. I started wading into the water slowly, but the impatient glare the mean rasta man was sending my way convinved me to quicken my pace. I waded through the water hurriedly and this, of course, caused the waves to go wild, slapping against my legs with huge splashes. A giggle escapes me and by the time the other boatmen has helped me climb the ladder onto the boat, my wrap skirt is soaking wet. Steups. Well that's just fucking great! Now I'm gonna have to walk around in a wet skirt for the whole damn day!
There are two long wooden benches on either side of the boat and, towards the front, there is a shorter bench that connects the two on the side so that there is a horseshoe opening towards the back of the boat. I take a seat on the bench to my right and wait for everyone else to board.
After everyone has boarded the boat, the two boatmen rush around the ship collecting tickets from everyone. Then I hear their footsteps above us on the upper deck and their booming voices as they shout orders to each other while retracting the anchor. As the mean rasta one makes his way back down onto the lower deck, I see his legs coming down the ladder and it looks as if he has small coconuts trapped inside of his legs. Nice legs, I think. I'm a sucker for well-defined calves. The other one comes down right after him and they exchange a couple of words before the mean rasta one claps his hands and clears his throat. He is speaking, probably introducing both the other guy and himself, but I am not paying attention.....his voice.....his voice. It booms, yet it is humble; it commands, yet it caresses.....I could listen to this mean rasta man all day.....
Miss Ayanna shuts her loud mouth again as we approach our second stop (the first one was Pigeon Point).
In his best American accent: "Alright everyone. Now, if you look down below us you will see the corals. Do you see them?"
Everyone rests either their elbows or hands on their knees and leans over to look at the rectangular glass that occupies most of the boat's floor. He starts talking again but I am not really listening.....something about potato corals and soca warrior fish.....
Ah wantuh piece ah pork. Ah wantuh piece ah pork. Ah wantuh piece ah pork fuh meh Christmas! Shit! Nadia's phone. She snatches her bag from underneath the bench and starts to rummage through it. At first, no one seems to notice, but it's taking Nads a pretty long time to find her phone and now everyone is looking at her. The mean rasta man notices that he has lost everyone's attention and he starts to glare at Nads. Oh sheeeee-it! Nads, find yuh blasted phone an turn it off quick, gyul! I think to myself. She finds it, but instead of silencing it and shoving it back into her bag, she answers it. Can you believe this shit?! Enough is enough.
"Um, excuse."
She sends him an apologetic smile and continues to whisper into the phone.
His eyes go wide. "Dahlin, not in de rasta man school!" Everyone starts roaring with laughter and the mean rasta man smiles. This is the first time I am seeing him smile. It illluminates the already bright skies.
Everyone's still laughing and then, finally, it hits me: pork, rasta................ohhhhhhhhh! I can join in on the laughing now. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
He is standing on the other side of the boat, behind the opposing bench, with one foot propped up on the bench and his arms crossed and resting on top of his knee. He continues to talk and when his eyes meet mine, I feel like he is talking only to me. I nod my head and pretend to be listening, pretend not to be intrigued by this beautful rasta man. When our eyes begin to meet more frequently, and for longer periods of time, I condemn myself to looking only at the fish and corals below.
He tells everyone that they are free to go into the water to check out the corals up close and pretty much everyone gets in line to receive their snorkel gear. Nadia stands up and takes her wrap skirt off and now she is wearing only a bikini, exposing her humungarious ass. When she get so bold?
"Jo, yuh goin in de watuh wit yuh skirt on?" The look on her face makes me feel rhel stupid.
"No." Damn! I didn't have a pair of shorts or anything on hand, just this wet skirt..... Steups. I just won't go in the water. I'll just sit here on the boat. Steups. Nah. I didn't come all the way to Tobago to sit in some damn boat bitchin about a wet skirt. Steups.
I stand up and remove the skirt from around my waist. Then I take off my tank top. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breath in. Breathe out. Make sure no one is looking at me - coast is clear. Okay. Proceed. There is no one left in line and as I walk out onto the open part of the lower deck, I start to give myself a pep talk: Be cool, Joanne. Kalme ko ou and jes relax. People wear bathing suits all the time. Just because you have all your goodies hangin out for all the world to see doesn't mean you gotta get all stupid.
I walk up to the other boatman and although he is wearing shades - these ridiculously stupid! white shades - I can feel him violating me with his eyes. It's as if they have left his head and are grabbing at my hips, my thighs, de boobies. I want to ask him, "What in the blue fuck are you lookin at?! Like you've never seen boobies before or what?" I want to karate chop him in the neck and then punch him in the stomach. I want to slap that stupid grin off his face and shove him off the boat. All these things I want to do to him but I just grab the snorkel gear out of a basket resting on top of a cooler and make my way to the ladder. He steps in my way and holds out his hands.
"Lemme put dem on fuh you."
"No. I got it."
I step around him and make my way to the ladder; climbing down carefully because I am wearing my flip flops. (They tell you to wear shoes because the jagged rocks on the shallow seafloor can do some serious damage to your feet.) Once in the water, I splash around for a few seconds to get used to the cool water and as I stand back up to put my googles on, I see that he is staring at me from the boat. Chills. I stick the mouthpiece into my mouth and bite down hard before swimming off as far as I can. And the whole time, while the fishies are darting about a few inches below me, in my head I am coming to this conclusion: I don't like that guy; I really don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment