my way.
So, you going around the world, yeah? he asked, trying for sincerity.
I don’t know, I said. Probably not. I only have a year.
Just hanging around the Caribbean? Nothing wrong with that. You a lucky man. You got your lady wife and your boat wife. That why you rename boat. In case the woman leave, you marry the boat.
OK, I said, finishing the last swig, gripping the bottle neck extra hard.
No, en serio. Be careful of storm, he said. Seriously. You could have chicken ass.
Chicken ass?
The storm. Tormenta. Chicken-ass storm.
I started to laugh, wearily now. That sounds—I got to tell you, that sounds funny, man.
Not funny. His expression clouded over. The storm is not funny.
I believe you.
You asshole if you think that funny, he said.
Friend, I said, leaning hard on the counter. I am asshole. Just ask my wife.
With that, I turned away and started my tired march up the hill to Juliet & the kids.
Culo de pollo, he said to my back. Remember.
I waved without turning.
Everybody want to anchor! Don’t anchor for culo de pollo. Anchor is worst. Just go in the open. Lots of open. OK?
When I didn’t respond, he said, loud enough for me to hear, Hijo de puta.
* * *
—
Why couldn’t we ever keep it going, Michael and I? Why couldn’t we convert the small moments of success into a season? I look into these windows now, up and down this suburban block. It’s evening, but not yet dark. The windows glint, opaque. I can’t see in. How do others do it? I hold my breath: The evening is hushed. If they argue, they do so very quietly.
February 17. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Narganá. 09° 26.47?N 078° 35.24?W. NOTES AND REMARKS: Sitting on deck waiting for sun to rise, trapped on the mainland. All night long me & Juliet have been tossing & turning. We forgot about bugs. Here on the mainland, bugs rule the world. The houseflies are big as prunes w/ wings. They crash against the lockers all night long. But it’s the mosquitoes that kill you. The boat has turned into a torture device. Open the hatches = mosquitoes. Close the hatches = suffocation. Open the hatches just a crack = death by disco music. Bum! Bum! Bum! Bum-da-bum! From where I sit (lying inside the sail cover on the boom) I can hear the actual dialogue of an episode of Law & Order from somebody’s house ashore. It’s like Sam Waterston is inside my head. I’m in Hell.
It’s been a little stressful. We fought. You don’t know quite what to do w/ the adrenaline when you sail through bad weather. But the thing about Juliet is she hates being wrong. If she thinks that you’ve won an argument she keeps doubling back to it. Trying to make connections between the argument she lost & any unrelated thing.
So we’re walking through Narganá, which is a real shit town, it’s true, looking for provisions, & we’re both feeling pretty sympathetic to the people, because they have high spirits, very friendly kids, even the dogs on the rooftops wag their tails. But also they live in squalor, surrounded by trash, empty chicha bottles. Which is just depressing given that their traditional cousins are out at sea living in the wind & talking to their ancestors & ignoring the uaga, the strangers, the merki—us. But these mainland Guna have just given all that up. Their history. Their independence. Their sea.
Sybil & George walk the dirt streets looking serious. I want them to see this. I want them to know how lucky they are to have a big home back in CT. But I am the uaga and it’s not my goddamned business what these people do. Honestly you could convince me they are happier than us.
But Juliet has to get into it.
A beautiful island, she says. Except for there’s trash all over