The menu is about the same as the other eateries on the island, since everything fresh must be imported from the mainland, except fish. But Auberge has one exceptional feature: its amazing toilet. I have never figured out how to flush the thing, nor has anyone else except the restaurant owner, an engineer by trade who designed and built it. Its operation is extremely complex, with pulleys and ropes and buckets bringing up recycled water from somewhere beneath the floor.
"What are we gonna do, Mo?" The Kid asks between bites of blackened grouper. "Are we gonna stay here, or go home, or what?"
"We're not going anywhere for a while, since there's not a flight back to the states for a week," I say.
"We get our day-rate, no matter what," Guicho grumbles. "It's in our contract."
"Nobody gets paid if we don't shoot anything," I snap. "Where do you think I'd get the money?"
"Leave her alone, Guicho," The Kid says. "She's a freelancer like us. Mo'll figure it out."
"The contract says we'll be paid for every day we're here," Guicho persists.
"It says I'll pay you for X number of shooting days," I retort.
"Hey, it's not our fault the fucking airline lost our fucking equipment. If that camera is damaged or lost or stolen, I'm adding that onto my bill."
"Add away. I won't pay it. It's not my liability."
"Stop it, you guys," The Kid interjects. "I don't want to listen to this all week."
"Look, Guicho, I'm working on getting the camera over here on a charter flight," I say. "Until then, drink your rum, lay on the beach, chase the tourist-babes. But I'm only paying for room and meals until we start shooting. That's final."
"That's not final, Rojo," Guicho says.
“Are you that hammered? My name is not Rojo, it’s Mojo, as you know.”
“Not with that hair,” he says, draining his drink with a sly grin. “S’gotta be Rojo. From now on.”
I take a deep, calming breath. The waitress appears with another double rum for Guicho, a frozen daiquiri for The Kid, and a glass of tea for me. I look out at the softening sky, the wide expanse of ocean, deep teal near the beach, then close along the horizon, the navy blue line of the wall. The waiter comes out to light the candles. Guicho gets up, goes into the Rube Goldberg bathroom. I follow him, move a heavy mahogany carving up against the door, the Kid and I leave. We imagine Guicho back there, amongst all that machinery, with no way to get rid of his own waste, and no easy escape.
"I need a swim," The Kid says as we walk down the darkening road back to the hotel. "Let's hit the pool."
"Pool?" I snicker. "That pool hasn't had water in it for a lo-o-o-ng time. You're forgetting the drought."
"Well, let's hit the ocean, then."
The Kid and I float in dark space, the moon new, the sky crusted over with stars, planets and galaxies. Heavenly bodies you never see from anywhere on the mainland, like the megapolis monster of Miami, which radiates toxic visual waste up into the sky, making it dull as denim.
I waited for the bumps. That is when I realized I must get out of South Florida. I was zooming down I-95 through Dade County, driving to yet another shoot location. Even at this inhumanly early hour, I was locked into twelve lanes of pure adrenalin-stoked, spleen-bursting hell, ubiquitous cup of coffee in hand. Even with a spill-proof cup, I had managed to slosh the brown acidy stuff all over the seat of my Blazer. And this was no ordinary cup, but a caffeine delivery system, with special baffles, chambers and complex, sliding lid layers. Unconsciously, the cup started toward my lips...hesitated...then I bounced over the bumps, one, two, three...and then, the cup continued on up to my mouth. And that is when it hit me. I had waited for the bumps. I intimately knew every pothole, hump, every single highway imperfection after fifteen years of mind-numbing, jaw-grinding delirium driving this cursed slab. I had sat through the most interminable, bladder-busting parking lot traffic jam scenarios on earth, had guns pointed at me by coke-addled road ragers on a mission to get one car head of everyone on their way to nowhere. It was time to leave.
The Kid and I are quiet for a long time, adrift in the warm, wet, safe, ocean-womb. Finally I say, "You know, sharks come in closer in to shore at night, to