Generally, I take my time coming to conclusions about things, I watch everything. Some people find it a bit creepy and unsettling, I get that… I don’t speak unless I have something important to say, don’t engage in frivolous conversation unless the situation calls for it. I’m ok with and enjoy silence, which is probably why I don’t mind being along on the boat. I’ve noticed that if you’re not talking all the time, ear budding your tunes, texting, or playing a game, you can hear things that most people just miss. The majority of people everywhere have the attention span of a Nat now, they have to be buzzing around something all the time to feel normal. No one is ever just still.
I’ve been to George Town a number of times now, and it’s to the point that I can identify the regular townies, where they are and what they are usually doing. There is the guy by the liquor store who loads and unload trucks and cars with cases of… well we really don’t know what, but boxes of stuff, I’m assuming booz. There is the jerk chicken and ribs bar-b-que guy (smell of cooking meat wafting everywhere), he is the guy whose brother used to run a local bakery, but then their mother died a few years ago and the baker stopped baking (sad loss, from my perspective. The mom sure, but the loss of baked goods too, just keepin it real), the meat guy and I have talked. Then there is another guy who has a large white cooler placed next to a local business, he stands in the shade of the building all day long, I’ve often wonder what he was selling out of that cooler. He is a very-very slender guy, dark-skinned Bahamian, his clothes are layers of light weight cloth, each layer seemingly a different color, but the most distinctive thing about this guy is the tall white turban wrapped in circles on top of his head, almost hat-like, one assumes it holds a large amount to hair (dreadlocks?). His appearance immediately suggests drug use, as in a Rastafarian, Bob Marley, follower kind of thing… Now, as unlikely as this seems, he is our hero.
Yesterday, I went to town, sat at Sherrie’s Tropical Bar, drank a few beers and ate Conch Fritters. I saw people of all kinds coming and going, cruiser couples, small vacation groups, and townies. The townies were all younger girls who knew the bartender – conch frier. A lovely girl by the way, not in the gorgeous sense where everything is perfect, (naturally or by the knife), she was just a normal girl, with a small mole above her upper lip, but she had an infectious smile. I though, now that’s interesting, usually the locals don’t eat at the same places as the visitors do, but then again this is more a bar then restaurant or grill, and the girls were there for a Strawberry-banana daiquiri and an order of conch fritters.
After my last fritter and beer gulp, it was time to settle up and move on, almost immediately upon standing there was this blast of cold, not cool, but cold wind, followed by cold driving rain. There I stood waiting for my change while the staff was busy closing windows and door openings. The girl behind the bar says to me, ‘if you want to clear out a place here, just let it rain’, as I looked over my shoulder, everyone was gone. Partly drenched, I got my change, the bar tender said thank you for coming, and I was off. The rain had lightened slightly and I took shelter under a roof overhang right next to the cooler guy. I pressed my body into the building where I could feel the heat of the cinder blocks from being in the sun all day, radiating and warming one side of me and it felt wonderful. While I was standing there a young girl of maybe 18 – 22 opens the door of the business, her hair and nails all done up to perfection, I learned the business was a beauty parlor. The cooler guy said something unintelligible (at least to me) to the girl in the doorway. He picks up his cooler and carries it inside the business and leaves it there, as he walked by me the lid popped open a little and I could see what was in the cooler… small brown glass bottles, like tiny medicine bottles with tiny black caps, humm I thought, little bottles, what could that be? As I looked a little closer in the cooler, I could see some printed literature, I didn’t have my glasses, so I squinted hard trying to focus my eyes on the sheet… I was finally able to read it before it passed by… our white turban guy makes and sells his own tropical fragrances (who saw that one). I thought, that’s impressive as hell… he’s an entrepreneur, obviously low overhead, ability to franchise, could be on the next episode of shark tank, I’m not kidding, I’m impressed.
Anyway, he puts his cooler inside the beauty shop, gets on his bicycle, that could have been made in the 1940s, and looks like it has been outside since then, the entire bike is rust brown… not paint, it’s covered in rust, no other colors, no markings, or insignias are visible, just the rust. He starts riding his bike away. I notice in front of me walking in my direction is a different looking sort of fellow, he is waring multiple shirts, all different colors and unbuttoned, multiple pairs of shorts over at least one pair of long leg jeans. He has a large back-pack strapped to his shoulders. He is unshaven, but then again so am I, wind blown hair, ditto… you generally get the sense that he is living off the land, sleeping outside, its obvious from the clothes he is waring that he isn’t a cruiser or vacationer. He is hitch-hiking, thumb’s out, pointing in the direction of traffic, (it’s one way here), but he’s walking in a completely different direction… I’m thinking, you’re not getting any closer to your destination, but then again there might not be a destination at all. The white turbaned bike-rider is passing the hitch-hiker and says to him, (which I could understand), ‘it’s not legal here to thumb and the police station is right over the bridge’, (which we just walked over), the hitch-hiker turned to face the bike-rider and as he was about to speak, the full bizarre picture comes sharply into focus… the hitch-hiker is carrying something bright white in front of him, something that couldn’t be seen from behind… it’s a 6-month-old baby, waring nothing but a diaper, the baby’s skin was white as white can be, brand-new white, now exposed to the bright sunshine that had returned after the shower passed. The bike-rider says to the hitch-hiker ‘and mon, you need ta cov-r dat baby up, or it get burn’d to a crisp’, the hitch-hiker responds ‘what’, in an American accent. The American hitch-hiker is in his mid-thirties.