A Ras Fawty-Leg
This morning two of our crew went back home. It was sad. Now it’s just me, Shrek, JT and the Minnesota Triplets. There will be no more replacements.
Yesterday afternoon Shrek ordered two dozen gizzadas from the fruit lady at Chances. He's gonna take them home. I bought four and ate them all at Sun Beach - washed them down with a Cran Wata.
I’ve only got another twelve days and my 2013/2014 Negril adventure will be over. But a lot can happen in twelve days. Stay tuned.
Last night just after sunset, we were sitting at Sunnyside. I was sipping on a rum. I noticed a small group of Jamaicans gathered near the surf and looking at something in the sand. It’s normal to see tourists huddled together and peering at something, but seeing Jamaicans do it is unusual, so I hopped down from the bar bench and strolled over to have a look.
Somebody had chopped a ‘fawty-leg’ (a big poisonous centipede) in two and the front and back pieces were still writhing around on the sand. I was surprised to see it on the sand, since these things normally live in the bush and dank places. I have no idea how it got there, but there it was; in two pieces, writhing and twisting and working its many legs. The Jamaicans were standing well back from it. They were making sounds like, “Ewwww!” Like they were really disgusted.
One of the beach boys got a stick and flicked a piece towards the water, except it didn’t go where he wanted it to go. Instead it flipped through the air and landed near where another guy was standing. He jumped backwards like he was a jack-in-the-box and yelped. Then he let a couple of bumbas off at the flicker. I heard the word ‘poison’ expressed emphatically. Then they both laughed and pushed the pieces into the sea. Which didn’t seem like a good idea to me.
I’m swimming almost every morning. I love it. I get in early when the water is still flat and the beach is pretty well deserted. It’s like escaping into another realm for a while. Once I hit my rhythm the swimming is automatic and my mind drifts aimlessly. Today I imagined that the ripples in the sandy bottom were sand dunes in a trackless desert and I was jetting above them at twenty thousand feet. My early morning swim is like a form of meditation for me, very calming; except this morning when I thought I saw a piece of the fawty-leg from last night floating in front of me.
