Bermuda Dreams Chapter 1

Chapter One

Tom dreamt of golden triangles. They flew at him in flashy arrays, lighthouses at their tips, framing seas below. He didn't want to be flying in this sky alone, no, not in a dream, when fine young ladies could've been up there with him too, nice-hot thots to squeeze love juices out as he fell, spreading it all above him to form a parachute of marmalade! He would glide through the portals, a black trojan, forgetting all about the flung engagement rings. No, love would not shine with such brilliance as the glittery speck he noticed shoot across skies over combers, the orb transforming, when he got closer, into a pair of spread-out wings against a passenger airliner.

Suddenly he found himself inside this aircraft, idly lounging in a recliner to the left of a cabin's walkway, a view of the cockpit breathing wide in his peripheral and then with a gaze forward, shrinking to an indiscernible chamber. In his dreams these faraway areas had always been like invisible lungs, retracting to remind him of their unreality, then expanding at significant events.

Above the aisleway, a digital sign spelled out an enigma in red letters: Bermuda. The invisible lungs breathed in the title, showing the profundity in all its clarity, yet the announcement did not sail forth with bliss, rather, it flung an anchor of worries into Tom's thoughts - Bermuda, a familiar haunt, islands nestled in a crescent amongst oceans, struck his memory as a rocky money pit, its only escapes - throwing down enough money to keep buoyant.

Tom cringed at mistakes made on his last trip, even admitting to himself, he had dug too much into pockets to pay for Dark n' Stormies and other cocktails in Hamilton. The pubs on Somers Island, a stony octopus, had stung tentacles into his wallet, sucking it dry for a living wage, yet Tom, being a black dude from Cali, debt-ridden and struggling through college, found much relief with time spent at the eye of the Bermudian hook, on the cheap island of Saint George's.

The decor of this breakaway isle, kept a colonial modesty, contrasting Hamilton's commercialism with its high-rises skirting waterfronts full of yachts. The eastern island's dwellings, stone vestments of pink and yellow pastels, provided enclaves of respite.

In this town, Tom's dream took him to the porch of a two-story inn, an old Georgian mansion, a wink of white under sunny skies, and a living testimonial to a family's greatness. He remembered this house on his last visit, with its balconies and stepped limestone roof.

Tom tried the front door, his pushes met by resistance, but after throwing muscle into a shove, it gave way, and a stench, reminiscent of moldy newspapers, escaped from within to hit his nostrils. The lobby he knew in the past, a line of rooms flanking a desk with travel pamphlets, morphed into an expansive suite of beds laden with luggage.

Guests ran by, picking up clothes to shove them into suitcases. One middle-aged fogy, sporting a bald forehead of dark skin nestled between a grey-haired crown, halted to size up a new arrival. Tom knew this guest as family, his uncle, whom he had not seen since a year prior's wedding ceremony. It amazed Tom to see him.

"We're goin' to be late for the plane!" Uncle Charles threw Tom a plane ticket. "But I found your pass under all my clothes. So lucky for you, you'll not be stranded here."

"For reals?”

" Yeah, we gonna be late!”
 
"But I jus' got here. How can we be leavin'?" Tom began to brood over missed opportunities. He never got to explore the island's western hook on his last trip. With family here, the excursion for the Royal Dockyards would have been worthwhile, but now, in surprise, they hurried to escape.

A wiry old Asian woman, Aunt Lin, bent over Uncle Charles's efforts, watching him as he shoved piles of shirts into a suitcase. She swiped away at loose strands of her close-cropped black hair in anxiety. 

Behind them, children ran about the place, causing a ruckus. Two kids played tug of war with a beach towel, as another got onto a mattress to hop on it, mocking a father's struggles with laughter."Hey, Ted. " Uncle Charles wove his hand in front of the springy boy. "Get off dis' bed, now! I done tol' you, ya can't be jumpin any beds here! You want Mama to get you with the switch?"

"Nah, Pa. I just having fun."

 "Fun? Vacation already over."

A knock at the door threw silence. Tom shivered against an onset of chills, wondering if a maid had busted open a freezer. An explosion shot into the room. Powerful gusts hit Tom's back, launching his muscular frame into the air, and flung him against a wall. He floated there in a paralyzed stance, breathless, and distraught.

"What the hell?" Tom looked behind him.

A Gombey, a colorfully costumed holiday dancer, struck a jig in the doorway, its skirts flashing pink and yellow tassels. The lively whooshes of vibrancy from its dance kept the conductor afloat, but tense-ridden. Tom wanted to shout at him for a release, but he had no voice. He felt like a helpless spectator forced to view a dark ceremony.

The dancer’s face, hidden behind a mask, with painted impressions for eyes and an agape mouth, shown like a scowling mound of soil—its plot, support for stems in a vase cap hidden behind fluorescent hues—its outgrowth, tall peacock feathers.

Tom tried to break free from his invisible chains by kicking, but his legs hung limp. He wanted to embrace Uncle Charles to say goodbye, but the family ran out. Another chance came, when the old man, in forgetfulness, ducked back in to go for one last bag. 

He took up the luggage, giving Tom a googly-eyed look, and then turned away to leave, with an oddly spoken farewell.

"You shouldn't have ate Keazah's cake! Now she go hungry for sure!"

Uncle Charles's legs caught the reverb of the nearby dancers' shuffle and went bouncy on his exit.

Keazah? Yes, Tom remembered her from his last trip, an island beauty, who had clung to him, jumpy from nights in a club. She had a sparkle in her eyes mirroring the island's waves at lap against a beach under moonlight and when her smooth brown skin touched his brawny arms, it hit silky. Why would Uncle bring up such a woman he hadn't known?

The Gombey dancer, now alone, threw more flair into his colorful act. He shuffle-danced from one wall to the next, florid neon swishing about the place in explosions of light. It made Tom feel floods of renewal rush at him—the pink throwing cherry blossoms, the yellow, a wash of escapes. He wanted to reach out and grab these beautiful realities, but a godly power held him hostage. Who was his master? Not the dancer, since he had no whip. Tom could only guess a spirit kept him from the fulfillment of his desires.

An unseen snare drum, beating out a tattoo, intensified the dancer's movements, and the sea of emotions it flung up, made Tom recall more and more those sleepless nights in Keazah's arms. She had sprung into his life, out of pink Bermudian sands, a temptress, a new flower hungry for blossoming experiences. It terrified him to think something had befallen her. They did everything safely together, or had it been enough? Tom knew of miracle babies, the Jesus kids, grown from ghost seeds, but their rarity struck like a patch of roses growing out from a toilet. Kids just didn't happen that way.

Fate from nightmarish diseases then grappled his thoughts, invisible killers, and he feared viruses got inside her. No, Tom could not recall a time he got sick from making love. 

The Gombey dancer threw himself into a spin, made a pounding stomp against a floorboard on his launch, and then stood at attention. A silence fell over the room. 

"We don't invite Tom fooleries in Saint Georges!"

The Gombey's exclamation came out in a haughty rebuff, with a flourishing wave of his arm until it stopped horizontal midair, the movement trumped with a nod.

Tom fell to the floor. He felt a release from hidden fetters, got to his feet, and ran for the doorway, forgetting his tormenter in hopes of catching up with family.

Outside, a pink metro bus, a metallic cupcake amongst a backdrop of stone shops and still harbor waters, drove off, the scene swallowing Tom's approaches. 

"Stop that Jimmy Cap! Stop it!" Tom hit against the bus's pink metal side panels sliding past his fingers, hoping to get the driver's attention. He needed this ride to make a flight back home. Above him, in passing windows, passengers laughed down at his struggles. The bus kept on. 

In the distance, an imposing limestone boulder, plump and chunky, stuck into the shuttle's path, its cut tunnel, a rift between rocks.  The bus rammed into the cave, scratching its sides against walls, and fled into the darkness. Tom gasped in relief, realizing his avoidance of doom. 

"I gotta find another way out!"
 
Tom's entreaty came out in a tremble, for a crowd of Gombeys emerged from the cave in a motley of tropical colors, and went after him.

Tom fled for the turquoise waters of a bay, seeing cement pegs jutting out from the docks, their teeth at reach over the harbor to connect another island. Each pillar stuck close enough together to allow a leap from one to the next. He didn't remember these remnants of a causeway on his last trip, but its escapes kept him hopeful of a successful crossing.

Behind him, a drumbeat started up again accompanied by jangles of worn bells stuck to a pursuer’s lithe movements. Tom ran past shops and onto a quay. He didn't want to be jumped and taken for his money if he truly was a baby's daddy. Back home, he toiled in poverty at a working-class hell and a new kid would only worsen problems. Also, what about his aspirations to finish college? A baby would kill his efforts. It felt like running from the police!

With a frantic leap, he got himself atop a pillar and standing straight on its pedestal, he swung his arms up at his sides to keep balance. The other step jutted out from a wet opal abyss nearby. It seemed reachable, but in the back of his mind, he worried about the chances of breaking a leg or belly-flopping into the seas. He went for a jump, made it, and then righted himself again.

A Gombey leaped after him, mounting the first step, its proximity, causing Tom to launch for but another platform, yet as he threw himself across, his foot slipped on landing. Adrenaline kicked in to reclaim his balance, and when righting himself, a glance back came with a dancer’s sporty act atop the first step.

The Gombey got busy on his rock, exhibiting such incredible acrobatic feats in his hits and slides of deft footwork, he looked like an angry crab punching with claws at invisible foes all over its post.

A roar broke above. Tom turned around to look, catching sight of a passenger airliner as it took off for the blue from a forward island. He knew it flew out of Saint Davids, a tree-covered limestone stretch curved in the shape of a sling, where planes flung out as if from a slingshot, to fight a bigger Goliath in the clouds.

In his straights, Tom yearned to be up there with them, to knock out this nightmare, and flee his frustrations, but the Gombey behind got antsy, the drumming louder, and he doubted making it onto the island as ready ammo for another throw.

The jump ahead needed muscle, its distance spanning waters nearly twice as vast as his previous challenges, and like in most dreams, he feared a splashy plunge, for in the depths lurked creatures. The fear kept him hesitant, but a faster drumbeat and a sudden rustling of clothes from a Gombeys leap onto another step, pushed him off into a lunge for the impossible.

Halfway through the leap, trouble hit with fierce winds, and he lost the jump. Tom gasped as the water came at him. Before he hit, something black breached out from under the watery surface, its arms flung out in an embrace. In awe, Tom recognized the plump face of his roomie, Big Roy, glaring at him, droplets of saltwater splashing out from his round wet cheeks to mist juicy lips and shiny eyes. The wading jolly tried to catch Tom, yet when they met in a hug, darkness fell, a bright light blinded him, and then he awoke.