Grown Man Cries in The Bahamas Chapter 2.5

East Bay Street was dead, pools of fetid rainwater steaming under the sun, a pregnant potcake slinking from under an abandoned car. It was an hour reserved strictly for mad dogs and Englishmen in which I found myself flip-flopping from marine store to marine store, ready to shell out yet more money that I didn't have.

        But wait a second Tom, isn't your girlfriend rich?  Our financial situation had everyone perplexed. If she was heiress to an estate in Devon, then why was I always broke? The simple answer was that there is a reason why rich people stay rich. The other was that Alice was determined to live like "most people," which meant frugal daily living, chatting to old people at bus stops, direct debits to a string of charities and a strictly fend-for-yourself attitude towards boyfriends. The sailboat was her idea so she'd invested the most -  her quarterly allowance, my life savings. And now she'd gone and left me at the mercy of the storms.

Entering Marlin Marine was like stepping from an oven into a fridge. A young white kid nodded at me from behind the cash register. He was eating what I recognized as an All-American Sub and washing it down with an extra-large fountain drink - $5.99 from On The Run across the street.

            Too cool for a “Good afternoon!” he probably expected me to chuck down a fifty and stock up on bait, no conversation necessary.

            “I’m looking for a dinghy,” I said.

            “What size?”

             “Uh..."

            "How many people?" He wore his Marlin Marine cap so low over the eyes so that I was forced to focus on his teenage mustache.

            "One, maybe two."

            “We got ten foot RIBs on sale for one five,” he said.

One five. I hated it when they did that. What's wrong with saying one thousand five hundred? It's fucking expensive - the price should sound long. And anyway, what the fuck was a rib?

"Rigid Inflatable Boat." The kid pointed with the messy end of his Sub.

The display boat was a smart grey colour with a shiny black engine. I twisted the throttle, saw myself burning through the harbour, pulling up at the Green Parrot on Paradise Island.

But one thousand five hundred dollars. Fuck. Maybe I could knock him down. I still had the five hundred pound inheritance from my uncle Stephen. Mum had said to use it for something sensible. Hurricanes. I needed it to protect my investment. Plus it was a safety issue...

I flipped the price tag. $899.

 “Take ten percent off that," said the kid.  But you’ll need a bigger one for two people,” he munched. “If you wanna get her up on the plane.”

            Thirty-three years old. My friends back home were married and buying homes.

I wandered the rows of boating stuff, flipping price tags, imagining what Jimmy Bones would say if I showed up with a large inflatable banana and an oar. I let out a crazy laugh and was heading for the exit when the kid piped up again.

            “‘Scuze me Sir, you Mr Sutcliffe aye?”

            I tilted my sunglasses and nodded up as if he’d foiled my disguise.

            In turn he lifted the brim of his cap and he looked the same as every inbred white Bahamian, eyes close-set, all-year tan, probably the son of the owner, undoubtedly a student, couldn’t quite pinpoint him. 

            “Spencer Albury, class o’ 2003!” He said, followed by little hoot. “Remember me!? Mr Barnett’s class! Graduated las’ year!”

            I recognized him from his dopey smile and Beavis-and-Butthead nod - Spencer Albury - total fucking stoner, didn’t give a shit because he was going to quit school at sixteen and take over daddy’s multi-million dollar crawfishing fleet. A thorn in Sid’s side until the night we all shared a joint in the car park of the Green Parrot marina bar.

            “Still at St Bernadette’s dude?” he patronized.

            “Yes.”

            “Yo, where’s ya wife man, she’s so friggin’ cool!?”

            When it came to weed, Alice had a nose like a sniffer dog. “She’s not my wife,” I said.

            “Ok den...”

            I made a step towards the door.

“Yo Mr S, you lookin’ for somethin’ cheap aye?” He had me in a nutshell. 

         Back onto the blistering tarmac to the marina next door to meet "Cha'les," a mixed looking bloke with coarse red hair, drowning in a stripy polo shirt. In return for the last of my savings, I was ushered to a mosquito-infested store cupboard and presented with ten feet of flaccid, off-white rubber and an eighties outboard motor - a Johnson 15.

“Can you help me pump it up?” I asked.

Cha’les looked at me like I’d requested a blowjob.

“Gotta pump?” he asked, leaning against a mooring post, smoking a Black 'n' Mild.

         A few generations ago, my sunburned ancestors would have whipped him. But right now, I envied him. He embodied the hazy-lazy droopy-limbed solution to the summer. And I was just a sweaty, ranting white man, sun-cream burning my albino eyes as I flip-flopped from marina store to marina store.

Several hours later, having dropped another fifty on a pump and then gone back again for a different valve, the pale blob of a dinghy began to show signs of life. It dawned on at this point me that the situation drew a strange parallel to my alcoholic uncle’s final years in and out of ICU. So right there and then I dubbed the boat Stephen. If boats were usually women - so what? I guess that made him a transvestite.

Finally, with the sun setting under the Paradise Island bridge, I motored into Nassau Harbour. Twisting the throttle was a childhood dream; I’d always wanted a motorbike. Stephen reared up like a fiery mare, roaring and bellowing white smoke. But when I shifted my weight forward to settle the bow, we took off skipping past the boatyards, cutting a whitewashed path on blue. For the first time in my life, I was planing.