Authors: Robert T. Jeschonek
Chapter 3
2
130 Million Years Later
Bermuda
The flight to Bermuda was short and smooth for Simon and Ishi. Not a cloud or a dick in sight.
The landing was like a dream, easy and gentle. Going through Customs was also a breeze. It was all such a relief after the craziness at home.
Walking out of the airport into the warm
afternoon
sunshine, breathing in the salt air of the ocean, Simon couldn't help smiling. For the moment, he forgot about why he'd
gone
there
. All that mattered was the soft breeze, the blue sky, the waving palm trees.
Ishi pulled on the wide-brimmed white hat she'd brought and
beamed as she gazed at their surroundings. "I like this place already," she said, leaning against his shoulder.
Simon kissed h
er on the cheek. "You and me both." He felt
a sense of well-being,
an inner warmth that
equaled
the outer warmth around him.
Maybe things were going to work out fine after all.
That was what he thought before they got into the shuttle van.
At first, when the
white
van pulled
up, it looked perfectly normal--well-maintained, a few years old, with "Island Shuttle" painted in big black letters on the side.
The driver, when he hopped out, looked perfectly pleasant--an old guy, maybe in his mid to late sixties, with
skin like licorice and a knobby head with patchy black hair.
Simon handed him the tickets he'd bought at a counter inside the airport, and the man loaded Simon and Ishi's luggage in the back of the van. Then, he held the door for Ishi
and gave her a hand stepping up into the cabin.
"Call me Papa Free.
That's 'Poppa' with an 'O.'
" He said it with a wide, white smile. "I hope you'll enjoy the lovely scenery on the way to your hotel."
"Thank you," said Simon as he followed Ishi inside. He sat beside her on the bench seat behind the driver's seat and took her hand.
Seven more passengers boarded the shuttle before
Popp
a Free
swung the door shut
and got behind the wheel. "Prepare to be amazed at the wonders of beautiful Bermuda
,
" he said, and then he started driving.
At first, the ride was relaxing, a perfect tour of the island.
As the van
cruised
along the open road from the airport
,
gliding British-style on the left side of the road,
Simon watched the scenery flow past--palm trees, pink sand beaches, and sparkling azure waters.
It looked like a tropical paradise.
Further along, the van
zipp
ed
inland, swooping through neighborhoods that obstructed the ocean view
, replacing it with a different kind of beauty. Rainbow clusters of houses covered the hills, each one painted a different pastel color--pale bl
ue, green, red, purple, and yellow. Every house was
topped with a
white limestone roof carved in tiers to capture and direct the flow of rainwater.
Special shutters in many colors slanted from every window, attached at the top and propped open at the bottom to let in the fresh air.
The sidewalks were filled with dark-skinned and light-skinned people alik
e, dressed in colorful clothing. Business people whisked along with suit jackets over shirts and ties...and shorts instead of dress slacks, showing off dark socks and polished dress shoes.
Whenever Poppa Free hit the horn, whoever was nearby waved and smiled at the van.
Automatically, Simon liked what he saw. Bermuda struck him as a pretty, friendly place, the perfect
spot for a
vacation getaway.
Poppa Free made a good impression, too, coming across as a
laid-back bullshitter
with
a boatload
of
crazy stories and opinions
.
But that good first impression of Poppa went downhill fast.
"
This ain't Bermuda."
Poppa Free
shook his head fiercely
as he ran a stoplight in downtown St. George's
. "
You've come to the wrong place."
"Then where
are
we?"
Simon
kept staring out the window, watching the colorful pastel buildings stacked up along both sides of the street.
"Oh, they
call
it Bermuda."
Poppa Free's
knobby head bobbled on his scrawny neck.
"But
it makes me sad, 'cause everything
here
has gone rotten."
"That's too bad." Simon was only half-listening. He was
too
busy watching
a troop of thirty or forty school children marching down the sidewalk in matching uniforms--the boys in white button-down shirts and brown shorts, the girls in white blouses and brown skirts.
"It's all about
money
now." The driver rubbed his thumb and forefingers together.
His tone turned sharply bitter.
"All about the
rich
. All that's left for my
brothers
is
scraps
from the table
."
"That's terrible." Ishi squeezed Simon's hand. When he glanced at her, she winced.
Now that
Poppa Free's folksy ramblings were taking a darker turn
, Simon started to feel restless
.
Looking around, he wondered how far the van was from the hotel he and Ishi would be staying at
in the city of Hamilton.
Bermuda wasn't that big of a place, so hopefully they'd get there be
fore Poppa Free got much gloomier
.
Simon wasn't in the mood for gloom. He didn't want anything to spoil the good vibes he was getting from Bermuda. He needed all the good vibes he could get before he faced the International Dicklympics and Horne Shaw.
As the van left St. George's and rolled along a stretch of open shoreline, Poppa Free drummed on the steering wheel.
"In the old days, my brothers lived in the trees. Right there."
He
pointed
to
a cove lined with low brush. "
Then,
they
drove 'em out and burned down all the trees to
keep
'em out."
"Wow," said a middle-aged woman sitting
behind Simon and
Ishi.
She sounded stuffed up, as if she had a bad head cold.
"That's awful!"
"We had a
good life
here," said
Poppa Free
. "Puttin' up tourists in our own homes...
playin' our own music...smokin' marijuana. Now all a' that's over. The rich do whatever they want, and the cops
keep the rest of us down."
"No more pot, huh?" said a guy in the back.
"Oh, it's here, all right."
Poppa Free snorted
. "But now, the
government
controls it.
They catch some poor scapegoat
and take his
shipment...but it goes out
one
door and comes
back
in
another.
And guess who makes the
money
?"
The angrier Poppa Free sounded, the faster he drove.
As the
van
ca
reened
along the narrow
two-lane
road,
it crossed the outskirts of another
town, filling up with clusters of p
astel houses.
Traffic thickened, but Poppa Free barely slowed down. He
dodged and passed aggr
essively, pulling maneuvers that sent Simon's heart racing
.
"They don't care about us."
Poppa Free
tooted the horn, and a black man on the sidewalk grinned and waved
as the van hurtled past
. "They want to take away everything we have and leave us with
nothin'
."
"
How awful
," said the woman
with the head cold
.
"I didn't know it was like that here."
"They don't
want
you to know," said
Poppa Free
. "But I'm getting' the word out with my music."
"Your music?" said the woman
with the cold
.
Poppa Free
tooted the horn again, and
three
heavyset
women
on the street
grinned and
waved. "Rhythm and blues and soul."
He
pulled a CD case o
ut of the wide-open glove compartment
and handed it back to Ishi. "I've played with Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye,
Smokey Robinson,
Aretha Franklin, the Temptations
,
all
a' them. All right here in Bermuda."
"That's great." Ishi gave Simon the CD case, which had a handwritten $20 price tag stuck on the corner. The
black-and-white
cover
photo
inside the
clear
plastic case featured
Poppa Free
, posing
under a palm tree
in a floral shirt and leather
porkpie
hat
with an electric guitar
in his arms
.
"Music is the
testimony
, see? Speaks to the
heart
."
Poppa Free
looked in the rear-view mirror, gazing intensely at his passengers, and
pounded his chest with his fist. "They
try
to take that treasure, too, yeah? Like right there!" He shook a finger at a blocky
white
building on the corner as the van
barre
led past. "
Used
to be a
theater
there, till they
tore it down and put up a bank.
"
"A theater?" said Ishi.
"It was
our
place," said
Poppa Free
. "We had our
shows
there. It was the center of our
community
and
culture
.
Now
what do we have?
Where
can my brothers go?
Nowhere
, that's where!"
Simon
passed the CD case over his shoulder to
the woman sitting behind him
and wished the ride was over. After a long day of travel--driving from Melville to Baltimore, getting through the airport, flying to Bermuda--he wasn't in the mood for
Poppa Free's rant
.
It looked like t
hey'd be parting company soon, though
. The tall, sleek building
s of Hamilton
, the island's biggest city,
rose around them--gleaming banks and insurance companies and investment brokerages. Any minute now, the van would pull up at Simon and Ishi's hotel.
"I
tried
to do right by my brothers."
Poppa Free
tooted and waved at a woman on the street. "When I ran for minister, I promised to build
five
community centers
. The
government's man promised to build
ten
. Guess how many he's put up since he beat me?"
"None?" said Ishi.
"That's what I'm sayin'
!
" The driver hit the horn hard, this time for no
apparent
reason. "
This place don't do
nothin'
for my brothers. We got to
take
what's ours.
"And we
will
.
My soldiers are ready to take back this island.
Believe
it. We're gonna raise up our
music
again."
Simon's gaze met Ishi's
.
No one on the bus said a word.
He
guessed they were all on the same wavelength.
Just in case
Poppa Free
's not a huge bullshitter, and he really does have
armed
soldiers
on speed-dial
, let's not piss him off.
"Thanks for listenin', folks."
Poppa Free
slowed the van and turned left into a hotel driveway. "I
got lots of stuff to express, you know?"