Chapter 23. The Honeymooners

The only vehicles I’d seen in the mountains were cane trucks, and buses. We saw more Mercedes rental sedans now that we were on the coast. The three of us, were still walking on the road in the morning, and trying to get to Ocho Rios, when a Mercedes with a newly-wed couple from Long Island stopped and picked us up. After exchanging hellos and pleasantries, the driver proudly passed a joint but, being used to big fat spliffs, a joint amounted to a paltry offering to us.

Dennis did the talking, “Where did you get this shit?”

“We got it from a guy in Ocho Rios… we’re staying at the Playboy Resort. One of the grounds keepers…”

“You should get your money back… this shit is shake. You ain’t on Long Island anymore.”

I was thinking Dennis was rude but knew Dennis had a sense for making a little money off the stash he managed to hold on to despite the maneuvers of Hoss Bozz’s clan.

The newly-wed wife was pissed at Dennis’ cheek too, “You got anything better?” she whined.

Dennis was already sorting out some tobacco from a pouch. He deftly opened his bag to spread the contents on a sheet of bread wrapper. The odor of ganja filled the car. Wifey could see she was in for an unusual treat while Dennis labored fondly with creating a masterpiece of a spliff.

“We don’t smoke tobacco,” she protested.

Dennis ignored her self-righteous tone and rolled another spliff, passed them up front to her and Hubby and smirked, “Light it up. You won’t notice the tobacco… I promise.”

It was amusing to watch her puff on the spliff and try to pass it to someone. The car filled with smoke and she looked confused when she saw that everyone already had their own. She got lost in her head wondering what the proper etiquette was for passing a spliff in Jamaica.

We all ended up at the Newly-Wed’s cottage in the Playboy Resort beyond Ocho Rios. We enjoyed a meal in the cottage prepared by the couple’s hired cook. The conversation spun around how much this, or that cost; where we went last; and everyone was perfectly lit. Despite the opulence, I felt I’d seen enough of this Americanized version of island living. I longed to be back in the hills with the Grower’s people.

I knew the locals needed to have a job and a job at a resort was high on the scale compared to the cane fields. But it seemed to me to be a difficult dynamic... the relationship between the condescension on one hand and servitude on the other. We went to the beach with the Long Islanders and were served as guests by what was called, Beach Boys. Yes, grown men called boys! I should have enjoyed the beach with Stan and Dennis but I felt uneasy. It could have been the Ganja, but I sensed a contempt hidden under the commerce of polite patois, smiles, and cartoonish laughter.

I watched the Long Islanders whose reciprocal, forced-tourist, smiles betrayed their uneasiness too. We swam regardless and listened to one of the “Boys” tell us about how we should exercise more as he did handstands and cartwheels in the sand... laughing and smiling his contempt.

Finally, Mr. Newly-Wed told us, as courteously as he could, that we must move on. We left the next morning before the couple awoke and headed back to Ocho Rios and Saint Ann’s Bay where Dennis had acquaintances with whom he’d arranged to rent a room before leaving Miami.

Those two towns had a vibrancy and island ambiance that was better suited to my sensibilities. I loved wandering down streets lined with houses painted in bright blues and greens… oranges, yellows and reds. I loved the market place with all the fruit and calls from venders. It was far away from sanitized Jamaican experience of the gated and fenced-off Playboy Resort.

Dennis led us to one of the houses where we were greeted by two white couples in their late thirties/early forties. One couple was British and the other two were from Chicago and Detroit and they called each other dear and honey so it wasn’t easy to tell which ones were with which ones. Both couples taught at a private school in Ocho Rios.

The afternoon rains came and afterwards we all sat on the porch discussing the current political realities going on in far-away Kingston. All four were committed to the ousting of Hugh Shearer by any means. Mr. Brit was most adamant, “Shearer… pshaw… he’s a black labor leader alright. But not all that enlightened.”

Ms. Detroit was more sympathetic, “He came out from the rough and tumble labor struggles of the thirties and forties. Don’t be so hard on him, dear.”

Stan was bored, “Hey, you know. I come from Detroit, too.”

She seemed equally bored, “Really, what part?”

Before Stan could answer, Mr. Chicago sneered, “What, after he used the government to put down student protests in Kingston.”

It looked like Stan was hitting on her, “South, near the GM… you know, Poletown plant.”

She smiled at Stan, “I grew up in Dearborn.”

Mr. Chicago was trying not to be uncool about the conversation getting away from him but was failing, as evidenced by the veins popping out on the sides of his forehead. He retrieved the argument, saying, “He fuckin’ squashed Rodney… made our Democratic Convention look like kid’s play!”

Ms. Detroit intervened, “Yeah, but he did some good. You know I agree with you dear. But our friends here might not know what we’re talking about.”

Mr. Brit took a pull off his spliff, “You see, even though Shearer was a labor leader he considered socialists such as Rodney to be dangerous. Then he pissed off the radicals when he put down the Walter Rodney student riots in 1968.”

Now, Ms. Detroit was indignant, “No, they were protests until the government… Rodney’s a historian and a supporter of the Black Nationalists. He’s been to Cuba and has Castro’s endorsement, for chrissakes. It’s a movement growing stronger than the passé labor union movement.”

Mr. Brit’s snobbery was in every word, “People are fickle. Michael Manley inherited the reins of the People’s National Party from his dad.”

Mr. Chicago expressed unbridled excitement about the prospects of the election, “Come on, people. You must see, Manley’s going to create a government that would be decidedly pro-secondary education.”

Ms. Brit’s enthusiasm was equal his, “Yes, it’s going to be a choice for liberal, social democratic, values!”

I sat quietly listening to the talk feeling completely estranged from their enthusiasm.

“Is Michael Manley white?” I interjected, trying somehow to become a part of the conversation. I wasn’t aware that I would have seemed to favor Mr. Brit’s argument.

With open distaste for her husband’s opinion, Ms. Brit was quick to answer, “Yes, he certainly is, but, until the education system in Jamaica can bring the people up, there is little hope for a black Jamaican Prime Minister.”

“You mean like Hugh Shearer?” I wondered whether the growers from the Cockpit Country were compelled to support either Shearer or Manley.

“You have to understand,” Mr. Chicago spoke with an air of condescension and was obviously irritated that this hippy questioned the consensus of erudite academicians, “that; to us, and most importantly, and the people of Jamaica, Shearer is an Uncle Tom.”

“Oh, I see.” I had no real reason to care one way or the other who ran Jamaica. It wasn’t my house but any fool could see that these were white liberals from Chicago and Great Britain that came to Jamaica, so caught-up in their academic importance, that it wasn’t likely the place would be run any better under their stewardship. “It is confusing to me… that’s all I’m saying." To make my case, I said, "A black man is Prime Minister now and a party with a white liberal wants to kick him out because he turns out to be against Black Nationalism. Just seems a little weird…”

They excluded me from all conversation from that point on by talking past me like I wasn't there. Stan fared better than me. He left with Ms. Detroit while the others were absorbed in debated the minutia of Socialist policy to be enacted when their party won. I didn’t care because I’d only learned as much as I had from listening to people talk and reading an occasional newspaper. I didn’t really care… except for the patronizing attitudes. It did seem strange to me, however, that the intelligentsia universally sides with communist dictators and leftists over any democratically motivated worker’s party. I suspected it had more to do with ideology than it did common sense. 
I remembered how my leftist pals down at the Red Lion coffee shop in Spokane after Kennedy and Khrushchev were eye to eye over the Cuban Missal Crises. They were all screaming hysterically, “Hands off Cuba!” They were oblivious to the threat of nuclear annihilation posed by Nikita and his alliance with Fidel Castro. Never mind that Castro was and has been a bloody dictator whose murderous oppression will never be fully reported until the day after he is dead and gone.