Nesomania

We left a "Pour Your Own Bar" called Larry's Landing in Cruz Bay at about 1 in the morning. This was after the Pour-Your-Own rum bar, open bar dinner reception at Rhumb Lines. This was after a few pours of champagne on the beach at Cinnamon Bay. This was after my friend Paddy married my new friend Cara, his best friend. This was all after a long week and long weekend of pouring our own drinks and having drinks poured for us at various places across Cruz Bay and St. John.

I am in the Virgin Islands.

It was pointed out to me that the name Virgin Islands comes from St. Something Or Other, who was either martyred or chose to die with a bevvy of some 11,000 virgins. I always assumed it was because the islands were either uninhabited or because they were just so lush and pristine. Uninhabited they were not. Native wars had been subjugating one group or another to someone else for hundreds of years. This is a place whose history includes scuffle after scuffle.

And now I am here.

There are bars and cafes and cafe bars scattered through downtown Cruz Bay like... well, like islands across the Caribbean. These bars and cafes are piloted by beautiful women in thin black dresses or short khaki shorts. They are nice enough. They leave work around 1 in the morning, more or less, and seem to be accompanied by their significant others. They look up at tourists like me with a death stare as they walk along the streets' edge. It is similar to a look dispensed by the local West Indian population. Less toxic.

West Indians are nice or not. I have traveled in hostile or semi-hostile environments. I drank and spent money around Aboriginals in Australia. I travelled through and volunteered in a remote village in Honduras. I passed through Eastern Europe and pushed my comfort level a little further and further away from my western sense of ease.

This is different.

The local television shows a PSA about the importance of good fathering. It is one of the most shocking PSAs I've ever seen. A boy talks about not going to school and how easy it is to get by without school. A girl talks about being traumatized by how her father behaves when he comes home.

I've seen a lot of young people. I spend a lot of time wondering what they do, here. They spend a lot of time on cell phones. They ride in cabs together and booka-booka at people they pass on the street. The drivers don't ask them for fares, but instead exchange pleasantries and leave them go on their way. Men who say hello but don't smile tell me about the 'Doctor' with his access to ecstasy, and I suggest that's not my kind of medicine. They go to locals bars and hang out by pool tables at Larry's. They make passes at tourists. They don't say much to me.

From the balcony of Woody's Saloon the larger West Indian women watch me without nods, smiles or any seeming recognition. I am an animal walking through their yard. I am of no consequence. Little to none. There are so many people working at these restaurants, and I have no idea what the thinking is. What is the motivation? Why escape to the US Virgin Islands for seasonal work? To meet, to screw, to snorkel? To slip into the background? To find something passing, unstable and impermanent? This is almost a segregationist culture. It seems nearly impossible to mix well with the local population. It seems nearly impossible to make little impact upon the culture. Hell, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the local culture from the tourist accommodation.

And maybe that's the appeal. Odd place to visit, illuminating place to stick around? Maybe there's a break point at which time everything makes sense, here. There's a rhythm in every place, and perhaps after enough time it is all too easy to tell who is a tourist and with a few turns of their head to understand what they're looking for. I have yet to see a West Indian on the beach. I have, however, seen them manning road-construction equipment, making home improvements and hammering, sauntering through the park downtown and looming over the streets from balconies filled with death stares going breaking through me. Perhaps amongst themselves they are happy enough to maintain every day and make their living.

I don't know the answers to any of the questions I've posed today. I don't even know if any of the facts I've supplied hold water. I am surrounded by water. I don't understand, yet, how the currents are working.

All I know is that the rain feels cool when it rushes down from clouds and blankets the canopy.