The Rum Diary Read online

  The Caribe casino was on the second floor, a big smoky place with dark drapes around the walls. Sala wanted to work alone, so we separated at the door.

  I stopped at the blackjack table, but everyone there seemed bored, so I moved on to the craps game. There was more noise here. A group of sailors were yelling around the table as the dice bounced on the green cloth and the croupiers raked chips back and forth like frantic gardeners. Scattered among the sailors were men in dinner jackets and silk suits. Most of them smoked cigars, and when they talked it was with the accent of Ne'Yak. Somewhere in the cloud of smoke behind me I heard a man introduced as the “biggest crook in New Jersey.” I turned, slightly curious, and saw the crook smile modestly as the woman beside him burst into wild laughter.

  The roulette wheel was surrounded by low rollers, most of them much older than they wanted to look. The light in gambling rooms is not good for aging women. It catches every crease in their faces and every wart on their necks; drops of sweat between fallow breasts, hairs on a nipple momentarily exposed, a flabby arm or a sagging eye. I watched their faces, most of them red with new sunburns, as they stared at the bouncing ball and nervously fingered their chips.

  Then I walked back to a table where a young Puerto Rican in a white jacket was giving out free sandwiches. “The fat is in the fire,” I said to him.

  “Si,” he replied gravely.

  As I started back toward the roulette wheel I felt a hand on my arm.

  It was Sala. “Ready?” he said. “Let's move on.”

  We drove up the street to the Condado Beach Hotel, but the casino was almost empty. “Nothing here,” he said. “Let's go next door.”

  Next door was La Concha. The casino here was more crowded, but the atmosphere was the same as the others -- a sort of dull frenzy, like taking a pep pill when what you really want to do is sleep.

  Somehow, I became involved with a woman who claimed to be from Trinidad. She had large breasts, a British accent, and wore a tight green dress. One moment I was standing next to her at the roulette wheel, and before I realized what was happening we were in the parking lot, waiting for Sala -- who, in the same weird way, had found himself with a girl who turned out to be a friend of my date.

  After much effort, we fitted ourselves in the car. Sala seemed agitated. “To hell with the rest of the shots,” he said. “I'll get them tomorrow.” He paused. “Well. . . what now?”

  The only place I knew was Al's, so I suggested we go there.

  Sala objected. “Those bums from the paper will be there,” he said. “They're finishing up about now.”

  There was a moment of silence -- then Lorraine leaned over the seat and suggested we go to the beach. “It's such a beautiful night,” she said. “Let's just drive along the dunes.”

  I couldn't help laughing. “Hell yes,” I said. “Let's get some rum and drive on the dunes.”

  Sala mumbled and started the car. A few blocks from the hotel we stopped at a bodega and he got out. “I'll get a bottle,” he said. “They probably won't have any ice.”

  “Don't worry about it,” I said. “Just get some paper cups.”

  Rather than drive all the way out to the airport, where Sala said the beaches would be deserted, he turned off near the edge of Condado and we stopped on a beach in front of the residential section.

  “We can't drive here,” he said. “Why not go for a swim?”

  Lorraine agreed, but the other girl balked.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Sala demanded.

  She gave him a stony look and said nothing. Lorraine and I got out of the car, leaving Sala with his problem. We walked several hundred yards down the beach and I was curious. “You really want to go in?” I said finally.

  “Certainly,” she replied, pulling her dress over her head. “I've wanted to do this all week. What an awful bore this place is -- we've done nothing but sit, sit, sit.”

  I took off my clothes and watched her as she toyed with the idea of removing her underwear.

  “Might as well keep it dry,” I said.

  She smiled, acknowledging my wisdom, then unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties. We walked down to the water and waded in. It was warm and salty, but the breakers were so big that neither of us could stand up. For a moment I considered going out beyond them, but a look at that dark sea changed my mind. So we played in the surf for a while, letting ourselves be knocked around by the waves, and finally she struggled back to the beach, saying she was exhausted. I followed, offering her a cigarette as we sat down on the sand.

  We talked for a while, drying off as best we could, and suddenly she reached over and pulled me down on top of her. “Make love to me,” she said urgently.

  I laughed and leaned down to bite her on the breast. She began to groan and jerk me around by the hair, and after a few minutes of this I lifted her onto the clothes so we wouldn't get full of sand. The smell of her body excited me tremendously and I got a savage grip on her buttocks, pounding her up and down. Suddenly she began to howl: at first I thought I was hurting her, then I realized she was having some sort of extreme orgasm. She had several of them, howling each time, before I felt the slow bursting of my own.

  We lay there for several hours, going at it again when we felt rested. All in all I don't think we said fifty words. She seemed to want nothing but the clutch and howl of the orgasm, the rolling grip of two bodies in the sand.

  I was stung at least a thousand times by mimis -- tiny bugs with the jolt of a sweat bee. I was covered with horrible bumps when we finally dressed and limped back down the beach to where we had left Sala and his girl.

  I was not surprised to find them gone. We walked out to the street and waited for a cab. I dropped her at the Caribe and promised to call the next day.

  The Rum Diary

  Three

  When I got to work I asked Sala what had happened with his girl. “Don't mention that bitch,” he muttered. “She got hysterical -- I had to leave.” He paused. “How was yours?”

  “Fine,” I said. “We went out about a mile, then raced back.”

  He eyed me curiously, then turned and went to the darkroom.

  I spent the rest of the day doing rewrites. Just as I was leaving, Tyrrell called me over and said I had an early assignment at the airport the next morning. The mayor of Miami was coming in on the seven-thirty flight and I had to be there for an interview. Rather than take a cab, I decided to borrow Sala's car.

  At the airport I saw the same sharp-faced little men, sitting by the window, waiting for the plane from Miami.

  I bought a Times for forty cents and read about a blizzard in New York: “Merritt Parkway closed. . . BMT stalled four hours. . . snowplows in the streets. . . the Man in the News was a snowplow driver with a Staten Island background. . . Mayor Wagner was up in arms. . . everyone late to work. . .”

  I looked out at the bright Caribbean morning, green and lazy and full of sun, then I put the Times away.

  The plane from Miami arrived, but the mayor was not on it. After several inquiries I discovered that his visit had been canceled “for reasons of health.”

  I went to a phone booth and called the news room. Moberg answered. “No mayor,” I said.

  “What!” Moberg snapped.

  “Claims to be ill. Not much to write about. What should I do?” I asked.

  “Stay away from the office,” he said. “There's a riot going on -- two of our scabs got their arms broken last night.” He laughed. “They're going to kill us all. Come on in after lunch -- it should be safe by then.”

  I went back to the coffee shop and ate my breakfast: bacon, eggs, pineapple and four cups of coffee. Then, feeling relaxed and stuffed and not particularly caring if the mayor of Miami was dead or alive, I strolled out to the parking lot and decided to visit Yeamon. He had given me a map to his beach house, but I was not prepared for the sand road. It looked like something hacked out of a Philippine jungle. I went the whole way in low gear, the sea on my le
ft, a huge swamp on my right-through miles of coconut palms, past wooden shacks full of silent, staring natives, swerving to avoid chickens and cows in the road, running over land crabs, creeping in first gear through deep stagnant puddles, bumping and jolting in ruts and chuckholes, and feeling for the first time since leaving New York that I had actually come to the Caribbean.

  The early slant of the sun turned the palms a green-gold color. A white glare came off the dunes and made me squint as I picked my way through the ruts. A grey mist rose out of the swamp, and in front of the shacks were negro women, hanging washing on slatted fences. Suddenly I came on a red beer truck, making a delivery to a place called El Colmado de Jesus Lopo, a tiny thatched-roof store set off in a clearing beside the road. Finally, after forty-five minutes of hellish, primitive driving, I came in sight of what looked like a cluster of concrete pillboxes on the edge of the beach. According to Yeamon, this was it, so I turned off and drove about twenty yards through the palms until I came up beside the house.

  I sat in the car and waited for him to appear. His scooter was parked on the patio in front of the house, so I knew he was there. When nothing happened after several minutes I got out and looked around. The door was open, but the house was empty. It was not a house at all, but more like a cell. Along one wall was a bed, covered by mosquito netting. The entire dwelling consisted of one twelve by twelve room, with tiny windows and a concrete floor. Inside it was damp and dark, and I hated to think what it was like with the door closed.

  All this I saw at a glance; I was very conscious of my unannounced arrival and I didn't want to be caught nosing around like a spy. I crossed the patio and walked out to a sand bluff that dropped off sharply to the beach. To my right and left was nothing but white sand and palm trees, and in front was the ocean. About fifty yards out a barrier reef broke the surf.

  Then I saw two figures clinging together near the reef. I recognized Yeamon and the girl who had come down with me on the plane. They were naked, standing in waist-deep water, with her legs locked around his hips and her arms around his neck. Her head was thrown back and her hair trailed out behind her, floating on the water like a blonde mane.

  At first I thought I was having a vision. The scene was so idyllic that my mind refused to accept it. I just stood there and watched. He was holding her by the waist, swinging her around in slow circles. Then I heard a sound, a soft happy cry as she stretched out her arms like wings.

  I left then, and drove back to Jesus Lopo's place. I bought a small bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on a bench in the clearing, feeling like an old man. The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories -- not of things I had done but of things I failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeamon and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull.

  It was lonely, sitting there on that bench with Senor Lopo staring out at me like a black wizard from behind his counter in a country where a white man in a cord coat had no business or even an excuse to hang around. I sat there for twenty minutes or so, enduring his stare, then I drove back out to Yeamon's, hoping they would be finished.

  I approached the house cautiously, but Yeamon was yelling at me before I turned off the road. “Go back,” he shouted. “Don't bring your working-class problems out here!”

  I smiled sheepishly and pulled up beside the patio. “Only trouble could bring you out so early, Kemp,” he said with a grin. “What happened -- did the paper fold?”

  I shook my head and got out. “I had an early assignment.”

  “Good,” he said. “You're just in time for breakfast.” He nodded toward the hut. “Chenault's whipping it up -- we just finished our morning swim.”

  I walked out to the edge of the beach and looked around. Suddenly I felt an urge to get naked and run into the water. The sun was hot and I glanced enviously at Yeamon, wearing nothing but a pair of black trunks. I felt like a bill collector, standing there in a coat and tie, with my face dripping sweat and a damp shirt plastered to my back.

  Then Chenault came out of the house. I could tell by her smile that she recognized me as the man who had run amok on the plane. I smiled nervously and said hello.

  “I remember you,” she said, and Yeamon laughed as I fumbled for something to say.

  She was wearing a white bikini and her hair fell down to her waist. There was nothing of the secretary about her now; she looked like a wild and sensual child who had never worn anything but two strips of white cloth and a warm smile. She was tiny, but the shape of her body made her seem larger; not the thin, undeveloped build of most tiny girls, but a fleshy roundness that looked to be all hips and thighs and nipples and long-haired warmth.

  “Goddamnit, I'm hungry,” said Yeamon. “What about breakfast?”

  “Almost ready,” she said. “Do you want a grapefruit?”

  “Damn right,” he replied. “Sit down, Kemp. Stop looking so sick. You want a grapefruit?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don't be polite,” he said. “I know you want one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Give me a grapefruit.”

  Chenault appeared with two plates. She gave one to Yeamon and put the other down in front of me. It was a big omelet with bacon laced over the top.

  I shook my head, saying I'd already eaten.

  She smiled. “Don't worry. We have plenty.”

  “I'm not kidding,” I said. “I ate at the airport.”

  “Eat again,” said Yeamon. “Then we'll get a few lobsters -- you have all morning.”

  “Aren't you going in?” I said. “I thought that migrant story was due today.”

  He grinned and shook his head. “They put me on that sunken treasure thing. I'm going out with some divers this afternoon -- they claim they've found the wreck of an old Spanish galleon just outside the harbor.”

  “Did they kill the migrant story?” I asked.

  “No -- I'll get on it again when I finish this one.”

  I shrugged and started to eat. Chenault came out with a plate of her own and sat down at the foot of Yeamon's chair.

  “Sit here,” I said, and started to get up.

  She smiled and shook her head. “No, this is fine.”

  “Sit down,” said Yeamon. “You're acting peculiar, Kemp -- this getting up early doesn't agree with you.”

  I muttered something about decency and returned to my food. Over the top of my plate I could see Chenault's legs, small and firm and tan. She was so close to naked, and so apparently unaware of it, that I felt helpless.

  After breakfast and a flagon of rum, Yeamon suggested that we take the speargun out to the reef and look for some lobster. I quickly agreed, feeling that almost anything would be preferable to sitting there and stewing in my own lust.

  He had a set of skindiving gear, complete with a big, double-strand gun, and I used a mask and a snorkel that he'd bought for Chenault. We paddled out to the reef and I watched from the surface as he probed along the bottom for lobster. After a while he came up and gave me the gun, but I couldn't maneuver very well without flippers, so I gave it up and left the diving to him. I liked it better on the surface anyway, floating around in the gentle surf, looking back at the white beach and the palms behind it, and ducking every few moments to watch Yeamon below me in a different world, gliding along the bottom like some kind of monster fish.

  We worked along the reef for about a hundred yards, then he said we should try the other side. “Got to be careful out there,” he added, paddling toward a shallow opening in the reef, “might be sharks-you watch while I'm down.”

  Suddenly he doubled up and plunged straight down. Seconds later he came up with a huge green lobster, thrashing around on the end of his spear.

  Soon he appeared with another one and we went in. Chenault was waiting for us on the patio.

  “A fine lunch,” Yea
mon said, tossing them into a bucket beside the door.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Just tear the legs off, and we'll boil them up,” replied Yeamon.

  “Damn,” I said. “I wish I could stay.”

  “When do you have to be at work?” he asked.

  “Pretty soon,” I replied. “They're waiting for my report on the mayor of Miami.”

  “Fuck the mayor,” he said. “Stay out here and we'll get drunk and kill a few chickens.”

  “Chickens?” I said.

  “Yeah, my neighbors all have chickens. They run wild. I killed one last week when we didn't have any meat.” He laughed. “It's fine sport -- chasing them down with the spear.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. “These people will chase you down with a spear if they catch you shooting their chickens.”

  When I got back to the office I found Sala in the darkroom and told him his car was back.

  “Good,” he said. “We have to go out to the University. Lotterman wants you to meet the power mongers.”

  We talked a few minutes and then he asked me how much longer I intended to stay at the hotel.

  “I have to move pretty soon,” I said. “Lotterman told me I could stay there until I found a place of my own, but he said something about a week being plenty of time.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, he'll have you out pretty soon -- or else he'll stop paying your bill.” He looked up. “You can stay in my place if you want, at least until you find something you like.”

  I thought for a moment. He lived in a big vault of a room down in the Old City, a ground-floor apartment with a high ceiling and shuttered windows and nothing but a hotplate to cook on.

  “I guess so,” I said. “What's your rent?”

  “Sixty.”

  “Not bad,” I said. “You don't think I'll get on your nerves?”

  “Hell,” he replied. “I'm never there -- it's too depressing.”

  I smiled. “Okay, when should we do it?”

  He shrugged. “Whenever you want. Hell, stay at the hotel as long as you can. When he mentions it, tell him you're moving tomorrow.”