A Trip to the Beach (7 page)

Our furniture arrived, and Bob spent several days unpacking boxes, trying to make the house comfortable. He was knee deep in Styrofoam peanuts when he heard a man in our yard yelling repeatedly, “Inside. Inside.”

Bob opened the front door to investigate. The man stood grinning and barefoot, his bare belly hanging prominently over his tattered plaid shorts.

“Good afternoon. I Rigby. I lives next door,” he said, pointing to a house under construction. Bob would have been surprised to hear that someone lived there had Joshua not explained why so many houses are unfinished in Anguilla.

Locals rarely borrowed money to build their homes. They usually did all the work themselves with the help of brothers, uncles, and cousins, and the project went only as fast as spare money became available. Trickle-down economics was truly visible here. Tourists spent money, and it flowed directly to Anguillian homes.

“Hi, Rigby. I'm Bob. My wife and I just moved in.”

“I done made some fish
suup.
” He pointed again toward his house where several men were doing the Anguilla sprawl on his porch.

Taking this as a dinner invitation, Bob followed Rigby over his gravelly yard, strewn with debris in various stages of decomposition. Pieces of plywood, half buried by rocks and sand, lay rotting beneath weeds and an entanglement of vines. The jagged terrain was no threat to Rigby's leathery feet; he walked nonchalantly over the rubble.

As the two men approached the porch Rigby bent down, picked up a rock, and threw it at a goat standing on the makeshift table next to the Coleman stove used for cooking. The rock missed the goat but connected with a battered aluminum pot, which fell off the table and clattered across the concrete floor. The startled goat jumped off the table and sauntered around the back of the house to lie down in the shade.

If built from stone instead of cement blocks, Rigby's house could easily have passed for a Roman ruin. Most of the structure had no roof, except the one room where Rigby lived. The rest was nothing but columns holding up blue sky. A rusty cement mixer sat in the middle of the future living room. Next to it, bags of cement were kept dry under a graying piece of plywood covered with overgrown weeds and sea-bean vines. Shovels, trowels, and buckets lay on the floor where they had been dropped at the end of the last building effort—always handy whenever Rigby again became inspired.

“Your house is coming right along,” Bob said.

Rigby grunted. One of the other men lounging on the porch opened his eyes and said, “He ain' done much after he woman leave.”

“Wife done went back Nevis,” Rigby muttered. “Took all the furniture with she. Kids too.”

“Sorry,” Bob said, wondering where all the furniture had been in a house with no roof.

“Local fish
suup,
” Rigby said, proudly presenting Bob with a brimming bowl of clear liquid containing a large fish head. Bob stared at his bowl, and a fish eye stared back. Rigby continued ladling soup into various containers, making sure everyone got a head.

Bob sat down on an overturned plastic pail, trying to avoid eye contact with his soup. The man next to Bob sat on the edge of the porch, legs dangling over the side, slurping from the bowl and chewing on his fish head. He intermittently threw the fish bones into Rigby's yard, where several chickens had appeared and were joining the feast. They clucked and scratched at the ground, picking up bones and other tidbits as they were discarded from the porch.

Bob continued to stare at his soup until another of Rigby's guests spoke up. “Rigby, the man need a spoon.” Rigby stopped drinking his soup and, with a fish head in one hand, passed Bob a large cooking spoon with the other. Bob was embarrassed by the special treatment.

He knew he had to eat the soup or risk offending his new neighbor. Raising the foot-long spoon to his lips, he held his breath and sipped the broth. It was surprisingly good—garlicky and a little spicy. But he didn't know what to do with the head.
There's no way I can eat that thing,
Bob thought as he continued to sip from the serving spoon.

Several of the men were helping themselves to seconds, and one came over to Bob with a full ladle, pouring it generously into his bowl.

“Thanks,” Bob said.

“You ain' like the fish head?” he asked.

“I just haven't gotten to it yet.” Bob pulled out a piece of white meat from behind the gills and popped it into his mouth. It wasn't bad except for the bones. He chewed, trying to separate bones from meat and tossed them off the edge of the porch like the rest of the men.

Rigby disappeared, emerging a minute later with a half-gallon jug of Mt. Gay in one hand and a stack of paper cups in the other, and began filling the cups with rum.

“Not too much for me, Rigby,” Bob said, again hoping not to offend anyone.

“I take he other half,” the man next to Bob spoke up.

All but one very large man had finished eating, and Bob watched as he struggled to his feet and helped himself to more. He stood at the soup pot searching with the ladle for fish heads, finally giving up and filling his bowl with more broth. After plunking down in his place and polishing off the soup, he turned to Rigby and said, “Rigby, I still hungry. What for dessert?”

“Ain' got no dessert,” Rigby replied. “Drink yo' rum.”

“I have some dessert,” Bob offered, remembering the coconut sorbet he had made the day before. He was going to surprise me by testing several recipes in our new ice cream maker. He hopped off the porch, causing the chickens to scatter, and made his way across the piles of junk and into our yard. He removed the tub of sorbet from the freezer, spooned it into the glasses we had bought on St. Martin, and pulled a loose shelf out of a kitchen cupboard to use as a tray.

“Ice cream?” the hungry man asked Bob. “I loves ice cream.”

“Got any spoons?” Bob inquired, realizing he should have brought those too.

“No man, jess the one you was usin',” Rigby answered, taking a long swig of Mt. Gay.

“I'll get some,” Bob said, and he ran to the house, hoping to return before the sorbet reduced to a puddle. On his way back to Rigby's with a fistful of spoons, Bob suddenly remembered an East Hampton wedding we had attended at a magnificent beach house surrounded by lush green lawns and immaculately trimmed hedges. Several hundred of New York's most discerning, dressed in beachy fashions, gracefully plucked smoked salmon and caviar canapés from silver trays; waiters in black and white glided quietly through the crowd with champagne. Bob smiled, picturing wedding tents set up in Rigby's rocky yard, where the goats could try the canapés. He was honored to be sharing fish
suup
with these men.

Rigby and his friends couldn't wait for the spoons. They were making short work of the sorbet, and as Bob climbed up to join them the fat man offered a glass and said with a smile, “Piña colada.” As Bob took the glass, he realized they had poured the Mt. Gay over the coconut sorbet and were all enjoying tropical drinks. After finishing his piña colada, Bob went home and called to tell me about his first Anguilla dinner party.

Jesse's semester ended and he joined me in Florida, where he was quickly immersed into the trucking business. We still had eight vanloads to be taken to the loading dock, invoiced for customs, and shrink-wrapped on wooden pallets to be handled by forklifts. It took us three days—lugging, documenting, and packing. We were quite a spectacle: mother and son packing tons of restaurant equipment and Rubbermaid plastic containers on skids.

After almost a month of marathon shopping, I longed for the beach in front of our restaurant. I couldn't wait to get out of the traffic and away from the malls and superstores. Even our bunker of a house in Anguilla seemed to me a paradise compared to a Marriott in Florida. Jesse and I made a pact to spend a day relaxing in the sun as soon as we arrived on the island, before jumping into construction.

I was nervous about the amount of luggage we had, but when we reached the check-in for San Juan I remembered that flights to Puerto Rico always pushed their baggage capacity to the limit. An unruly crowd of people, apparently returning home after a visit to the States, jostled and shoved, trying to reach the counter first. Huge cardboard boxes and oversized suitcases held together with duct tape were being skidded toward the scale; many were overweight and needed to be opened and repacked. They had boom boxes, TVs, camcorders, computers, tools, hair dryers, clothes, toys, and even plumbing parts. The man ahead of us was trying to send a toilet through as baggage, and the ticket agent flatly refused. He dragged his toilet off to the side and moved to a new line, hoping to get it aboard with someone more lenient.

We checked in amongst a throng of screaming children hauling giant carnival-like stuffed animals and wearing Disney World shirts and Mickey Mouse hats. The mob scene continued at the gate, despite the announcement to board by seat number only. As soon as the flight number to Puerto Rico was announced, all three hundred people leapt from their seats and jammed into the boarding area. After every square inch of storage space on the plane was crammed full and the zealous mob forced to sit down, we were finally ready to depart. Jesse and I slept the whole flight, waking to the traditional roar of applause as the plane touched down in San Juan. It always made us laugh.

The small American Eagle flight to Anguilla was momentous; for the first time, we were not arriving as tourists, but going home. Bob was waiting at the airport, anxious to surprise us with the car he had bought for $2,500. After hugs and kisses, we wheeled the luggage out to the parking lot and up to the smallest automobile I'd ever seen.

“Where's the rental jeep?” I asked.

“This is our new car,” Bob said proudly. “It's a Suzuki—ten years old, but runs like a charm. The hatchback gives us a
little
extra room for hauling things around.” It gleamed in the sunlight from a fresh coat of wax, even though the red paint was a little faded here and there.

“I love it,” I said.

“It's cute, Dad,” Jesse added generously.

We had trouble fitting our luggage in, but as we drove away I exhaled a long sigh of relief. Bumbling along at 25 mph in our tiny car was far more agreeable than defending myself at 75 mph on Interstate 95. The briny smell of a salt pond drifted in through the open windows, and I felt every strand of muscle in my body relax.

“Let's go to the beach,” I said.

We ran in the house, rooted through piles of boxes for bathing suits and towels, and drove to Meads Bay. The afternoon sun was still scorchingly hot, and Jesse and Bob dove into the water to cool off. I watched as a split-tailed frigate bird circled lazily, coasting on the wind currents somewhere way, way over my head. The waves rolled in against the beach, continuing their gentle but relentless foray, as if the grains of sand forever needed reorganizing. Covered with suntan lotion, safe upon my towel, my eyes closed as I surrendered to the rhythm of the sea.

Chapter 4

Island time. It slowed our heartbeats and eased our blood pressure. In this easy-glide rhythm, stress evaporated—things worked themselves out. We had pictured ourselves propped against a sprawling shade tree, eyes half shut, the world turning slowly under us as it has for millions of years and probably will for just as long.

Slowing to this tempo was not as easy as it looked. Our containers had arrived, but they were padlocked by customs. Tippy the customs broker was an expert at clearing containers and promised to have our entry completed in just a few days. After a week, not only had he neglected to call us, but he was nowhere to be found. His girlfriend, tired of our increasingly panicky calls, finally directed us to the domino game under the mahogany tree by Ashley's Grocery. Sure enough, there was Tippy playing dominos.

“I was gonna call you this afternoon,” he said as he shook our hands.

“Tippy,” Bob began, “where's our entry? It's been a week. You said a couple of days.”

“Too mucha pages,” he said. “An I ain' know what all this stuff is made of.”

“What do you mean, made of?” I asked, following him to his car, where he handed us the stack of invoices we had given him from which to calculate the duty.

“You gotta say what everything here made of.” He held up the mile-long cash register tape from Home Depot. “See this?” He pointed to the first item. “What this is?”

“Fencing . . . eight hundred twenty-six dollars,” I read out loud.

“But what's it
made
of?” Tippy insisted.

“It's a wooden fence,” Bob said.

“Okay, you gotta write down what every item in that container is made of. The dishes: pottery or china? Wine racks: metal or wood? If they's metal, what kind? Brass, aluminum, or what? See, everything gets charged at a different percentage.”

We stared in disbelief at the hundreds of items on the receipts. “You have to be kidding,” I said.

“Customs don't kid about nothin',” Tippy said. “They pretty serious fellas. You got a lotta papers here—this gonna take a lotta carbon paper.”

“Carbon paper!”
I lost it. “You can do all this on a computer, right?”

“No, man. Customs makes you show all your figuring in long division on a separate paper. And they makes you fill out all the forms in triplicate using carbon paper.” He handed all the receipts back to me, said to bring them back when everything had been identified, and returned to the domino game.

We stayed up until four in the morning, trying to reconstruct everything I'd purchased. Home Depot receipts were time-consuming but fairly easy. We just had to decipher their cash register codes for each item. Some purchases, however, were not as straightforward. It wasn't clear how to categorize artwork, for example. Was it made of paper? Or did we have to note the material of the frame? And what about the chairs—did the total cost get separated between the rattan and the seat cushion, or was it just counted as a chair? And what about the brass tacks where the fabric was upholstered? And was the cushion stuffed with foam or polyester? We had no idea and could picture the customs officials tearing a chair apart to determine its contents. We broke everything down as much as we could and labeled every receipt with a thorough description.

Tippy's stellar reputation as a customs broker was nothing compared to his fame as a domino player. Clearly the game had priority, and though he assured us that progress was being made on the paperwork, he could always be found under his favorite tree. Our containers remained padlocked in front of the restaurant while Bob and the Davis brothers sulked around aimlessly with no materials. Tippy played dominos.

In Anguilla, the game of dominos requires only a table, something to sit on, a set of dominos, and, most important, shade. A domino tree is centrally located in almost every village, strategically placed where taxi drivers congregate, in front of a grocery store or even at a gas station. The game's popularity is understandable in the eighty-five-degree weather, and besides, it's easier to drink a Heineken while playing dominos than, say, soccer.

But it is serious sport. There are week-long domino tournaments. There are domino teams with uniforms. There are traveling domino teams that fly or boat to other islands, claiming international trophies.

I used to think dominos was an easygoing diversion in which players ponder a move and quietly place their pieces on the table in an orderly, even reserved, fashion. Not in Anguilla.

The technique for slamming is highly developed and practiced. Dominos are discreetly hidden in one hand—held like playing cards—and once a play has been determined, the chosen piece is raised slowly above the table, as if the player were sneaking up to assassinate a fly. Once this slow, methodical arm raising has created sufficient suspense,
bam
—the domino is slapped down on the table, often with enough force to bounce the pieces several inches in the air.

The exuberance and gusto with which the pieces are slammed down actually makes it a lively spectator sport. Heated games often last long into the night, with small crowds of anxious onlookers waiting to get a turn. Sometimes several tables are lined up in a row and players rotate between games. Bets are placed, money changes hands, and the slamming rhythm intensifies as the stakes rise. Instead of a throbbing head from too much partying, a domino champion wakes the next morning with a throbbing hand.

Finally, after two more weeks, Tippy had finished the entry and I went to the treasury to pay the duty. The outdoor waiting area was filled with people waiting in lines at various windows as if buying tickets at Grand Central Station. Instead of destinations such as Boston or Philadelphia, the signs over each window read DRIVER'S LICENSES, STAMP DUTY, TAXES, MAIN CASHIER, ANGUILLA NATIONAL LOTTERY, and, over mine, CUSTOMS DUTIES. This was where the island did its business—everyone came here at one time or another. In line with me was a barefoot fisherman, a heavyset man in a business suit, and a smartly dressed young woman with a Cap Juluca name tag on her jacket.

“I'm here to pay the duty on the Blanchard's shipment,” I said to the woman behind the glass window.

“You got a real Sears catalog here,” the woman said as she began stripping staples from the two-inch-thick bundle of papers that Tippy had assembled for her. She separated pink from blue from yellow, stamped them all furiously, and initialed each stamp. She slid one copy out through the slot in the window, apparently for me to examine, and I asked if I was paying in U.S. or E.C.

“That'll be $26,240 U.S.,” she said, “or $70,323 E.C. Take your pick.”

After I had caught my breath again, I slid the check under the window and asked, “Now, how do I get the containers unlocked?”

“You have to call and make an appointment for the field agents to inspect the merchandise as you unload it.”

“But I wasn't going to unload everything until we need it. The stuff will just be in the way.”

“Once the containers are opened, you have to take everything out so customs can check it against the entry,” she explained patiently. “You can put it all back if you want.” I drove away trying to think of a way to break this news to Bob. He would not be happy about spending a whole day unloading the containers, only to load them again.

The field agent couldn't come until the next day, and I knew once Bob got his hands on the lumber, there'd be no more free time—so we took a beach walk while we still could. At Maunday's Bay, where Cap Juluca's white villas stretch its entire length, the sand is flat and hard and the water is calm, shallow, and extra green. Bob, Jesse, and I left our shoes in the car and walked the mile-long beach with our feet in the water, watching sand crabs scurry into their holes as we approached. Across the channel, St. Martin's verdant mountains poked up out of the sea, and to the west, the extinct volcano that is the island of Saba rose majestically 2,900 feet, its head in the clouds. Resort guests were sunning on lounge chairs in front of their villas and a beach attendant was offering them small cups of lemon sorbet for an afternoon cool-down. Another attendant passed with a tray of cold washcloths, which people lazily spread out on their parched faces and tummies.

“It just hit me,” Bob said, “that all these people might really come to our restaurant. Look at them. You know, this is a tough crowd. These people are used to the finest restaurants in the world.”

“You sound a little nervous, Dad,” Jesse said. “Don't you
want
them to come?”

“Of course I want them to come. But did you see that woman who just passed us with the big white Gucci sunglasses? She's not gonna be easy to please, you know.”

The restaurant slowly began to take shape. With the customs ordeal behind us and the containers beginning to empty, we settled into a daily schedule of construction and landscaping. We worked from dawn to dusk seven days a week, taking dips in the sea to cool off—sometimes hourly. The heat was unrelenting. I had always loved long days reading a good book on the beach. The sun's soothing warmth had felt like a massage. But working under it for twelve hours was quite another thing. We knew now why the locals craved shade.

I did much of the gardening in my bathing suit, and my skin quickly took on an Anguillian hue—Clinton teased me about looking as dark as a local. Bob went through quarts of sunblock, and after the first few weeks of redness even he began to bronze. We learned how to pace ourselves to get through the day; we consumed gallons of water and came to respect the slower, unhurried, but deliberate tempo of the Davis brothers.

The landscaping transformation was magical. Tangled, overgrown vines were replaced with white beach lilies, pink oleander, ferns, palms, yucca, and bougainvillea in pale yellow, apricot, and fuchsia. A huge, gangly sea grape was pruned and converted into a generous shade tree; wart fern carpeted the ground beneath it. We laid a stone path that wound its way under the sprawling branches of the sea grape and down to the beach. A picket fence bordered the gardens near the front entrance, and within only a few weeks, the bougainvillea's creeping vines were weaving in and out of the white boards, spilling over on both sides of the fence with bunches of contented blossoms. We planted two lime trees in hopes of providing juice for daiquiris at the bar. A bed of allamanda sent leggy stalks skyward, with large yellow flowers that popped open at the end of each, and a bed of Mexican firecracker grew like a weed, covering itself with tiny red buds.

The owner of the nursery in Florida where I had bought the plants gave me his only rule for gardening in the tropics. The recipe was simple, the man said: “Just add water and bake.” The reliable Anguilla sun easily handled the baking. Water was the problem. A rare and precious commodity, water was in short supply. June and July had brought no rain. To fill our cistern from the island's desalinization plant took three truckloads of water—about 7,500 gallons—and cost us $300. Our thirsty garden drained the cistern and our checkbook every five days. Shabby and Clinton watched with mild disapproval as we diligently drenched the ground surrounding the restaurant. We had created a garden monster.

The Davis brothers were skilled masons but enjoyed learning to build with wood as much as Bob liked being educated in the local patois. But Rocky, the oldest brother, needed more translation than the others. Perhaps he watched less TV, or maybe he had less contact with tourists; whatever it was, Rocky's conversations were impossible to interpret. “Busithoffhelongtoo,” he said with lightning speed, handing Bob a piece of wood.

As Bob continued to stare blankly, Rocky slowed down a little. “Busit hoff he long too.”

Clinton translated. “Bust it in half, he want it shorter.”

Shabby chimed in. “He wants you to cut that piece of wood for him. It's too long.”

The days were hard and hot, and we couldn't bear the thought of cooking dinner. We became regulars at a local barbecue place half a mile up the road. Bernice was the proprietor of this low-budget, backyard operation made up of a homemade grill like the one we'd cooked our lunch on in Barbados years ago, a fryer, three plastic tables, and an Igloo cooler filled with ice-covered drinks. Extension cords stretched overhead to several bare lightbulbs that dangled from the fronds of a palm tree swinging in the breeze.

When we arrived, the grill would be heaped with ribs and chicken legs, and the island staple, rice and peas, was always simmering in a slow cooker on a nearby plywood table. Bernice, in her oversized Calvin Klein T-shirt, wielded a cleaver in one hand and a family-sized bottle of Kraft barbecue sauce in the other. There was no need to advertise here: a big speed bump in the main road in front of Bernice's house did the job. Each passing car—after much tooting and waving—slowed to a crawl to clear the bump, getting a whiff of the smoky barbecue aroma. Madison Avenue couldn't have created a better marketing campaign.