This entry is one of nine that I wrote in roughly 8 hours and over a 28 hour period. I apologise for the quality of writing, but had to type furiously to get it all out before I collapsed. I preferred you read it in order:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 The party was certainly and odd mix of people. In Trinidad, there are different kinds of clubs for different kinds of people, with the occasional odd person out sifting uncomfortably through the crowd. In Tobago, we realised that there were two main groups – guntas (my new term for hard-core niggers), and preppy, drunk white people. It was interesting to see the two groups… congeal. That’s just about the perfect word to describe it – congeal makes me think of re-refrigerated 8-day old gravy – all of the ingredients that had been separating themselves with time (the oil, the chicken juice, the butter) are re-gelled together into a discloured gooey mix. The Shade.Mae was the first to make the observation that Tobagonian chicks were not particularly good looking. We were the hottest girls in the party. Hell, we were the hottest girls on the beach – two photographers took pictures of Kerri and I; I suspect we will be the centre-fold of some obscure Tobago magazine.
Mae was also the first to point out that Tobagonian men had no game. As a warning to all, grabbing a girl’s hair and saying:
“Baby, is this hair real?” Is not a good precursor to asking for a dance.
Tobago’s woman are a sight for sore eyes because they are better seen while blinking rapidly, and Tobago’s men are a bunch of guntas. I think one is a direct result of the other, but asking which was the cause and which was the result is like asking which came first – the chicken or the egg.
Anyways, we danced, we drank. Zodiac kept buying me drinks, and although I had publicly stated that I wanted to get tipsy that night, I simply could not. It is not that I went chicken, but that I lost the taste for the alcohol. If I could have gotten tipsy while skipping the alcohol consumption, I would have. But the vodka left my stomach with an acidic flavour that is comparable to the feeling of hydrochloric acid eating at your stomach lining if you do not have breakfast in the morning – except without the empty feeling. I tried my best to drink one Smirnoff Black Ice, and then I left the second by the sink on my 14th trip to the bathroom.
I danced with all of the boys on the trip – Kris, Rum, Harry, and Zodiac – and also with Kris’ friend we met on the boat ride and then at the party, and finally with some strange fellah who I considered good looking enough to justify a dance. The party was getting crowded, and although it was outdoors, it was becoming uncomfortably warm. Zodiac took my hand, and said that we ought to go outside for air. I agreed.
We went to his car. I climbed into the front and put the seat in recline. From his seat in the back, he reached over and tried to touch me – on my side. I wriggled away and told him I did not want any of that. He steupsed – an uncouth sound made by sucking your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
“I am an arsehole,” he said.
That was how he started off. He continued by explaining... no, make that stating, because explaining implies giving clarity to the other person, when all I got was a riddle… that he never forgave, and he never forgot, and that he realised that he needed to be one of those guys who did not give a fuck. He understood, he said, that I had already told him that I would never be with him, but he now saw that he had to be one of those guys who did not give a fuck. This much came out after much prodding and probing. Zodiac refused to volunteer much more information than this, and I found myself having to stop and turn it over in my mind to be able to formulate a response that was suitable to what was behind the words that he said, as opposed to the words themselves.
Immediately, my mind referred to that night just over a month ago, where after pacing the length of three ATM machines several times as Zodiac withdrew money, that I told him that I did not want to be his girlfriend. He accepted my decision, and neither of us referred to it again. I assumed the matter dead, but apparently it was not. It was still alive in Zodiac’s mind and in his heart, alive in the form of some obscure hope that I would change a decision that I had spent 2 weeks trying to come up with.
I explained to him that I knew what it was like to be in love with somebody you could not have, and that it was difficult to bear. However, I told him to go through life not caring and not being true to what your heart really felt was not the way to live.
“Me, personally, I cannot and will not do that. Sure, I tried it for some time, but I knew it would not work. Numbing myself to the pain would make me feel dead inside. I already accepted that I am an emotional person, and that when my heart wants something I would never stop wanting it, and because of that I will be susceptible to being hurt and pain. I accepted this because this way I knew I was alive. I am not telling you not to do as you wish – it is your life. It may work for you for a few years, but I am certain that eventually you will realise that it is no life to live. So take the pain, and after some time, it will let up.”
Actually, that was a far more eloquent and succinct form of what I told him. Tiredness and a bottle of Smirnoff drained me of what articulacy I possessed that night. I am not sure that he responded, and if he did, he did not say anything different to what he had told me before. What I am certain of, however, is that he left the car, and slammed the door. Then he just walked off. I continued lying down in the car, initially unsure as to what to do. Should I leave the car and go in search of him? Should I stay in the car until he returned? He had to return, he could not possibly just leave me there. My exhaustion helped me to a decision.
I dozed off.
I have no idea how long I spent in the car before someone was tapping on the glass. It was Rum. I opened the door and he asked me what was wrong with Zodiac. Apparently, Zodiac was sitting on a stone at the edge of the road a few cars away from me, out of sight. When Rum tried talking to him, he was not making much sense. Rum wanted to know if everything was okay, “everything” included both Zodiac and I. I told him I was fine, but I could not say the same for Zodiac.
Rum then explained that he and Harry had been searching for Zodiac and I everywhere, and eventually decided to check outside when they could not find us. That was when I saw Harry approaching the car. Directing his words to Rum, Harry said that some guys not far from us could not find the keys for their car, and they wanted to borrow Rum’s keys to try something. The alternative to whatever-they-intended-to-try was to smash the window. Rum shook his head and gave Harry his keys, and Harry walked off.
I followed Harry’s path, wondering at the commotion, but did not see much of anything in the dark. That’s when I saw Zodiac appear from the side of the road and gesture wildly to two guys – the same guys who were about to smash their car window.
Rum returned his attention to me, begging and convincing me to get out of the car and come back inside with him. Eventually, I acquiesced, and followed him to where Zodiac had returned to his stony road-side seat.
Me: “Zodiac, we’re going back in. Are you coming?”
He did not look at us. He gave a little tick, a non-directed gesture with his hand, and then a short, aggressive shake of the head.
Me: “We can’t just leave you here…”
He ticked again, then got up and then strode off to the car. Rum and I gave each other a look, and then went after him. By the time we got to the car, Zodiac had already gotten in and started the engine. Before I could bend over to look through the front passenger window, he drove off. Rum and I exchanged looks again. I cannot remember who asked what we should do, and who suggested that we go back in, but that was the gist of the conversation, and that was what we decided.
Back inside, we leaned against the railing of the stairs, away from the crowd, and he gave me insight into what my oblivious mind did not note.
The first person I danced with was Harry, and apparently, after I danced with him, Zodiac was talking shit to him, “putting him down” according to Rum. And then after Rum danced with me, Zodiac told him to go buy some beers, basically telling him to go away. And after that he positioned himself between me and them, so that they could not dance with me again. I did notice that at some point Zodiac got behind me and would not move, but I did not take it on.
Not five minutes had passed since we came back inside, when everyone suddenly crowded around us.
Liz: “Okay, we’re ready to go.”
I shook my head and chuckled.
Me: “Zodiac is not here.”
Mae: “Fine, we’ll just get someone else to drive us.”
The simultaneous laughter and shaking of the head happened again. This time, it took a little longer before the words came out.
Me: “No… you don’t understand. Zodiac went with the car.”