Cigarrrreeeeeettts! - excerpt from 'Walk Good' (edited)
This is my take on beach vendors – from nine years ago. Things haven`t changed that much!!
Cigarrrreeeeeettts!
I was up early this morning. I can’t say for sure what time it was, probably around 6:00 o'clock; the sun had just risen. The roosters were heralding the new day and I was watching the morning colors fill the sky. I had wandered down to the beach, which was totally deserted, and then back through the hotel parking lot to the road. At that hour of the morning there is virtually no traffic. I was standing in the hotel driveway beside the road when I heard the rising scream of a kamikaze bike approaching at full throttle. I looked in the direction of town and saw it coming, a rapidly growing blue and white blob of color. Within moments the apparition was upon me,
“EEEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWW”, it blasted by creating a sharp gust of wind in the still morning air. It was moving FAST, how fast, I cannot say, but the Doppler Effect on the shriek of the engine was very pronounced, and I swear the color of the bike as it flashed by me seemed to shift from blue to red.
I caught a blurred glimpse of the helmet-less driver as he streaked by; bent over the gas tank, teeth bared in a wide grin, his shorts and T-shirt slapping in the slipstream. A moment later the bike was out of sight around a slight bend in the road, the sound of its engine rapidly fading. Soon all traces of its passage were gone and the tranquility of the early morning reclaimed its rightful place. It's odd, but standing in that cool calmness, I began to question if the bike really had gone by, or if the whole thing was a fanciful flight of my imagination, or perhaps a lingering dream. Or maybe I had just seen a ghost? As I knew from my experience with Danny and Keith, some Jamaicans believe in phantoms. Had I seen the duppy of a young man who had met an early demise on his fast motorcycle, condemned to ride the Jamaican roads in the chill of the early mornings to atone for his sins?
I know not, but I do know that in Negril, the line that divides reality and fantasy is narrow, fuzzy and meandering.
Later in the morning, after my obligatory jaunt, I trek up to a quiet section of beach a little beyond The Negril Tree House resort. I walk along in the surf, kicking my bare feet in the warm, clear water, squinting into the bursts of reflected sunlight dancing off its surface. At this precise moment, I don’t have a care in the world. I’m slowly making my way toward the north end of the beach. Ahead, at the far end of the long crescent of surf and sand that stretch enticingly before me, I see Booby Cay, my Treasure Island, sitting just off shore.
I walk for what feels to be about twenty minutes, not that I care, as time has become fluid and I’ve totally lost track of the hours and minutes. I know that it’s mid-morning, and that’s good enough. The sun is pounding on my back and right side. I’m plastered with sunscreen and I have a T-shirt draped over my shoulders, but there is no shade on this stretch and I feel the sun slowly gaining the upper hand.
On a previous visit, I was caught out here in the middle of a blistering afternoon without a T-shirt on a cloudless day and it was brutal. That day, I made my way back to the hotel in hundred-yard bursts across the parched sand from one shady refuge to the next. Only mad dogs and sun-starved Canadians go out in the noonday sun, and there are plenty of both in Negril. I have no idea how far I’m going to go this morning, but since my agenda is clear today (like every other day), I’ll go until I turn around, wherever and whenever that may be.
I’m walking one of the last undeveloped section of beach in Negril (excluding Bloody Bay) and although I dearly hope it stays undeveloped, it probably will not. Along this five hundred-yard stretch the beach is wide and the sand is white and clean and has a fresh look to it. It massages the bottom of my feet as I walk. The fact that this portion of the beach is undeveloped hasn’t stopped vendors from setting up here, because there is still a lot of walking traffic that passes by. All along the edge of the beach, where the sand gives way to the grass and trees, vendors have set up shop. There are no permanent stands or stores, everything on display is set up early in the morning and torn down just before sunset. For a couple of hundred yards along the beach, lines have been strung from tree branches to poles stuck into the sand and hung from them are sarongs, wraps, towels and T-shirts in a dazzling array of colors and prints. They flap and wave in the breeze, creating a phantasmagoric, ever changing kaleidoscope that summons passersby, ‘Come on over! . . . Look at me!’ they beckon. On the sand, laid out on tarps and planks in and amongst the flapping fabrics, are rows of seashells and woodcarvings, and liberally interspersed throughout are makeshift display stands with the inevitable collection of bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
I’d visited these stands before and had no particular interest in looking at them again, but as I pass a bright flash of color teases at the edge of my vision. I make the fatal mistake of glancing, just for a microsecond, in its direction. This brings the sharp-eyed vendor, who until this moment was hidden in the shade of a tree, abruptly to her feet. Any passerby with white skin will draw the attention of the vendors, and newcomers whose skin is still pallid or is showing tones of pink or red are especially attention grabbing, akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“Suh! come heah. . . over heah suh!” she calls out, walking out a bit toward me, raising her arm high above her head and making the ‘come over here’ motion with her fingers.
I shake my head, wave and keep on moving. “Suh! Come an’ see what I have, you can jus’ look, no problem.” The ‘come over here’ motion now involves her whole hand and lower arm. I do a mental shrug, remind myself that I’m in no hurry and walk over to her, reasoning that it’s the courteous thing to do.
“Hello, suh, how are you today?” she says, smiling and holding the magazine that she was reading up to her brow, shading the strong sun.
“Oh, I’m great today!” I reply. “What more could one ask for? The sun is shining, the weather is sweet . . .”
I examine what she has on display. Hanging from a line strung between the curved trunk of a coconut tree and a length of weathered 4x4 lumber stuck deep into the sand, are several large multi-colored beach towels. One of them is decorated with the Jamaican flag, a large yellow ‘X’ with green triangular patches above and below and black triangles to the sides. The yellow is emblematic of the sunshine that blesses the island, the green represents the verdant vegetation, agriculture and hope for the future and the black is symbolic for past hard times, oppression and burdens borne by the people. I’ve also heard some say that the black is representative of the skin color of the majority of the Jamaican people. The flag, adopted on Jamaican Independence Day, August 6, 1962, also has a motto;
‘Burdens and hardships there may be, but the land is green and the sun shineth.’
I grasp the edge of the flag-towel and stroke it, considering its symbolism.
“Dat’s our national flag,” the vendor says.
“Oh yes! I know, and a very beautiful flag it is,” I say. And I mean it. I don’t know why, but whenever I see the Jamaican flag, I get a warm, comfy feeling, more so than when I see my own Canadian flag. I’m somewhat baffled by this. My wife says it’s because I think I’m Jamaican. She jokingly calls me ‘white Rasta’. When we have company and they see my collection of Jamaican memorabilia and note that reggae is my music of choice, Amy says, by way of explanation, “Oh, he thinks he’s Jamaican.” Maybe there is something to it. Someday I’ll visit a hypnotist and get regressed; I have a suspicion that I may have lived a past life in Jamaica.
I briefly check the other beach towels, one is decorated with large multi-colored parrots perching in green foliage, there are several with varying hibiscus flower patterns and one is adorned with starfishes and sea horses on an aqua background.
“Do you like dat one?” the vendor asks, pointing to the starfish-patterned towel. “I give you special price today.”
“I don’t’ think so,” I reply, “I’m all fixed up for towels.” I move over to her little display stand. Among the trinkets I spot an interesting looking pipe in the shape of a horn. I pick it up.
“Dat’s made from de cow’s horn,” the vendor says.
The pipe is polished to a high sheen. It has a bowl mounted in it for smoking material, a mouthpiece and there’s a plug that can be removed, I pull it out.
“You put water in dere, dat’s a water pipe,” she explains.
“Oh, very nice,” I say, admiring the workmanship.
“You can have it for twenty dollars,” the vendor offers.
I put it down, “No thanks,” I say, “it’s very nice but I don’t need a pipe.”
“I’ll let you have it for fifteen dollars,” she counters.
“Naw, I really don’t need it . . . thanks anyhow,” I turn to leave.
“Ten dollars,” she says.
Aha! That’s it, the ‘walk away’ price, always the lowest! Some vendors refer to it as the ‘Italian’ price.
