Slope Media Group

“A Rum To Remember”

It was our last spring break, and I had just arrived at this god-forsaken island on a Boeing 747. It was clear to me that the locals had lost all work ethic and any sense of urgency, for the runway was never completed and was perhaps 50 feet too short. I prepared myself to utilize the mutilated passengers in front of me as a cushion, in the event of a catastrophic crash. Looking forward to a valuable life lesson, I was sorely disappointed when tranquility prevailed, and we came to a stop in a small pothole. As the door to the aircraft opened, I pushed past the crying baby who should have been bashed to death against the windows 600 miles ago, and I disembarked in shorts and a t-shirt. A wave of fire swept across my body as I walked directly onto what seemed to be the landing strip, and I realized that no matter how much you pay, a third world country’s best is just never going to be good enough. Evidently asking for walls in the terminal was asking for too much; it was half a mile from our plane, and was built of straw and palm branches – a hut of colossal proportions and severe structural deficiencies.

I had promised myself that I would be polite, that I would try and reach some common courtesy with the locals. But the airport and its exit were filled with people that I disliked, and I got the distinct impression that everyone was trying to rob me.

A monkey was dancing on the floor next to me as a man played some bastardized string instrument. The owner slid his hat to me on the ground, in an upside down manner. I thanked him. It is not very often that people provide you with a means of disposing of used up chewing gum; I took advantage of his services, and left him crying on the floor.

I arrived at the resort hotel at a snails pace, and tipped the shell of a man driving the van to lower the chances that he would kidnap us all. I looked at my watch, it would be an hour until the poison took hold, and that infernal baby crying on the plane hung lifeless in the arms of its mother. She would finally learn a lesson about manners, and judging by the looks of this country, I had little to worry about from the local police.

I checked into my room and found my friends on the beach, lying on lawn chairs and staring at the crystal blue water. I wondered if they had any inkling of who I really was, of the monster dwelling inside. But then they all hugged me, and shouted that we should all get another round of roman cokes – so no, they hadn’t the faintest idea.

In the Caribbean, rum flows like water. Whether this is because the actual water will give you dysentery, or because the life of a native is so miserable that its best not to face it in full sobriety is a mystery. What I do know, or rather believe I know, is that days pass in a blink of an eye on that stuff. Roman cokes morning day and night – the New Yorkers never drunk anything else. The real stuff was to hard for them, and trying other drinks would risk putting oneself out to look like a pussy. Is it respectable for a man to drink a Pina Colada made with coconut milk from the palm trees a stone throw away? Best not to risk it, they said. Best to get a Bacardi and Diet Cola; that was the cultural thing to do.

Every once in a while a feral dog would pass by, a starving child, or a hooker who would steal stuff she found lying on the beach. After a few days of swimming, it became apparent that the water was crystal blue because of suspended sand particles, which had also happened to kill off all the clam beds. There was an alarming overabundance of parasite laden seaweed, an under abundance of fish, and bleached coral as far as the eye could see. This country offered little of interest to me, and I was ready to leave by the third day, at least until I received a present.

My friends had stopped by the gift shop to buy a few Cubans so that they had an interesting story to tell back home. It would be the most interesting thing they had done in 21 years of life, which is probably why they ended up in the Ivy League. While in the store, however, they noticed an interesting bottle of rum. They decided to buy it, and a couple of coca colas for the beach.

It was El Diablo’s 12 year old rum. I stared at the bottle from my sandy chair and lifted my sun glasses. Astonishing, just astonishing. I rechecked the math in my head to make sure that I wasn’t mistaken. We opened up the bottle, and drank the best rum that this country had to offer. It had the faintest taste of pork. We laughed and talked about the day’s activities and life after college. It is a pity that my friends were still operating under the impression that they were vegetarian, for I happened to know that we were all cannibals. Delicious.

It was not my first time in this country, I must now admit. I had been there as an adolescent, on a trip with my mother and father. It had been a different resort, in a different region of the island an hour or so away. We had been having a rather fun afternoon fishing on the dock, illegally using eels as bait, when my parents ran into a well-to-do couple and their well-to-do son. He was about my age, and his name was Thomas. As my parents and his parents talked, Tom and I spent several hours on the beach playing soccer, volleyball, and swimming. It is a shame that when we parted for the day, his parents happened to mention that I was short. I’m sure that they hadn’t meant anything by it, but as a matter of personal standards, I couldn’t let it go. That night there was a storm.

Thomas’s room had a beach front patio, and his family had decided to sleep on it this night, because they evidently thought it would be like a campout.

“Tom,” I had said, nudging him quietly, “I have something cool to show you.” I was careful not to wake his parents. Why carry 90 lbs of weight, when it can carry itself. We walked out of the resort with flashlights, backpacks, money, and water. We walked about 5 miles to our destination. It was the ‘El Diablo’ sugar plantation.  I looked for the field of sugar cane with the highest growth, and walked up to it.

“We have arrived. Do you like it?” I asked Tom.

“What was it that you wanted to show me? We’re just in a field.” Tom responded.

“Oblivion.” I said, as I smashed a brick into his left temple. He fell to the ground unconscious. To be on the safe side, and to limit unnecessary bloodshed, I crushed his windpipe. His belongings were buried deep in the soil by the road, where they would never be plowed to the surface, and his body was dragged into the center of the sugar cane field and tied upright on one of the plants.

Sugarcane is truly liquid gold, because you don’t have to separate anything out. A mechanical harvester is 10 feet tall and filled with rotating razor blades. It leaves a path of nothingness in its wake, and a jumbled pile of mush in its collection vat. I stayed just long enough to watch Tom be ground to nothingness, and then I headed back to the hotel. When my parents asked me where I had been, I said I had taken a jog around the countryside.

Now that I have had 12 additional years of experience with semantics, I realize that when Tom’s parents called me ‘little guy’, they were probably referring to my adolescence, rather than to my short stature. Ether way, his parents should be proud to know that their son’s harvest had indeed made a fine Rum.

I smiled, and continued to sit on the beach with friends, drinking El Diablo rum, and staring at the crystal blue waters. That night Jeff would stay in, while everyone else went out to dinner. I would go to his apartment and ask if he wanted to take a ride through the countryside. A decade from now I would come back to this country with a wife I had not yet met.  We would have Rum. By god WE WOULD HAVE RUM!