evicted because "it she island"
This cay is where the marine iguanas hang out according to Captain Ryan. In particular by the black log. Two young boys stand atop this log. One twirls a weighted fishing line like a lasso and whips it about thirty feet into the sea. While he fists it back the other boy screams encouragement. There will be no marine iguanas here today.
My sister asks the older boy where we might be able to find an iguana. “Ovah deya,” he says, pointing up beach.
Ovah deya we go. Around the bend a young lady hangs laundry to dry by the sea. A titanic woman whirls out of a creaking hammock from the house on stilts behind us and bellows “Off de beach! You doan follow de rules!”
What rules? We don’t need no stinking rules! We don’t know whether to say something belligerent, like the previous, or run for it.
“Is RUDE come heya and no say hello to me fahst.”
“Hello, then!” Pops says cheerfully.
“OFF DE BEACH!”
We begin to depart like whipped dogs. “We didn’t know,” I holler.
“Nobody tell you?” The matron crosses her arms—twin slabs of ham.
I shake my head.
She snorts like a water buffalo pondering a charge and my good will evaporates. Good luck catching me! I think. I envision her descending the stairs and waddling toward me at her greatest speed whilst I rub driftwood together to make a fire and then collect wild herbs and boil them into tea and sip it until, refreshed, I swim around the cay, after which, wearied, I take a nap, awaking to split a coconut and drink its water, whereupon I stroll off at the precise moment she reaches out to strangle me—oops, just missed.
Captain Ryan is perturbed by our eviction. He’s new to the Belize base and nobody told him anything about Lime Cay etiquette and now he looks bad.
We sail to nearby Hunting Cay. I accompany Ryan to pay our Sapodilla Cays Marine Park entrance fees.
In front of the office two large men play basketball on a half court. They seem loath to stop on our account and so do not. The bigger of the two pushes for the net, his Rasta cap swinging about like a sack of roots, and performs a clownish pirouette, tossing an air ball about three feet off mark. He leads us into the office panting.
Ryan says, “What’s the deal on Lime Cay? Some lady just kicked my tourists off.”
“Yeah. Daht Sally.”
“She says we have to say ‘hello’ first?”
The big man shrugs his shoulders unsympathetically. “It she island.”
I realize suddenly that I want to be Sally. I want her to evaporate and me to materialize in her place. Pasty tourists from all over the globe email me, eager to fund my laziness. Years pass. I settle into the inertia of my dictatorship and also my hammock, AKA my throne. For I am king on this island, answerable only to the queen, and even then not always. Our word is law simply because It we island.
“Ingrates!” I shout whenever tourists round the bend. “You’ve failed to lay flowers at my feet and sing hello in falsetto whilst weeping copiously.”
“Hello!” they sing. Some weep, others scramble for flowers.
“Too late! Those who can do impressive bird calls or twenty cartwheels in a row can stay.” And to those who refuse I bellow “OFF DE BEACH!”
ever want to eat a boat? i have
