Back Home or The Final Mykel's Caribbean Blog

by Mykel Board

ENTRY TWENTY

Nov, 2013

[Recap: From the start, it doesn't look good for this trip. Everything goes right... always a bad sign... Nothing portends disaster like everything going right.

Easy subletter in New York... smooth flight to Miami... promises of “meet you at the airport/seaport”... $10 a night accommodations in Guyana, the rest free.

Uh oh! Too good. The better the news early, the bigger the fall later. And things get worse. (Better) Miami goes so smoothly you could cry. The only problem is a lot of rain-- heavy rain. The streets are rivers... waves in the pool. I get wet. Very wet.

Then to Trinidad, where my friends pick me up at the airport and take me drinkin'-- and more drinking. It doesn't rain so much in Trinidad.

Then to Guyana.

In Guyana, my facebook friends from KEEP YOUR DAY JOB! meet me at the airport. The two weeks of my stay in Guyana are adventure-filled, and beer-dulled. Most days, it rains. Sometimes for just an hour or two in the afternoon. Sometimes all day.

“I don't get it Mykel,” says my pal Jamal. “This isn't the rainy season.”

“Rainman,” I say.

He still doesn't get it.

The plan is to travel to Suriname with Keep Your Day Job! But, uh oh... a drummer problem. Two drummers agreed to tour with us. One, a close friend, the other, more PUNKROCK. They ditch the friend for the punkrocker. He bails at the last minute. The now former-friend doesn't answer emails. This cannot work out. We go to Suriname anyway-- drummerless. It works out.

In Suriname, I stay with Jose, a punkrock student and his super-generous parents. They cook for me every day. I'm the guest of honor. It rains a lot.

Then it's on to French Guiana, where the brother of one of my top ten pals, Simon, lives with his girlfriend Marie. His name is Florian.

I take a small boat across the river that separates French Guiana from Suriname. The captain lets me choose my port of entry: “legal or backtrack?” I choose legal. At customs, I annoy the white immigration officers by asking for a passport stamp. It's raining.

My first days in French Guyana are distress free... unless you count the bottom paddling I get from my friends' spare bicycle. I have one of the best days of the entire trip: canoeing through the Amazon with Florian as my French guide. Chased by dogs, paddle-blistered hands, bitten by mosquitoes, stuck in the roots of swamp trees... it's wonderful.

The only thing better, I'm told, will be THE CARNIVAL... an all night festival my hosts and their friends have been working on for months.

Nope.

It rains... pours... torrents of rain... non-stop. A field of dreams turned to mud. I'm outta there the next day. After a banana boat ride back to Suriname, I again find myself back at Jose's. It's monkey meat and gamelon--- probably less of a strange combination than it seems. Then, back to Guyana.

This time, I'm staying a couple of days with Peeps. The IT guy you met the last time I blogged about the country. ]

This will be the last entry in the Caribbean blog. I want to write about Detroit, but that was months ago and I've already forgotten. Maybe I can dig up my notes.

Right now, let's go to Ryon's (Peep's) place where I've got the front room... full of windows... with my own bed and a fan that blows just right in the sultry air.

(I stole this one from his Facebook Page)

Ryon (pronounced Rye-On, with an emphasis on the ON, to distinguish him from Ryan.. pronounced Rye-In) is the IT guy. Ryan is in Keep Your Day Job Exclamation Mark guy. My other friends call Ryon PEEPS, because of his thick glasses. And, he's one of those people who is cool enough not to care about nicknames. (Unlike me, who is easily irritated by shorty, baldy, or gramps.)

Besides me, Uncle Kennard is also staying at Peep's place. Skinnier than An Intellectual History of American Football, Kennard's not his real name. I can't remember what it is... and the internet tells me Kennard is the number one boy's name in Guyana. Unlike most Kennards, this guy is... let me rephrase that, unlike most of the humans on earth, this guy is...

“Yeah Mykel,” he says, sitting on the couch next to me, wearing only a stained pair of boxer shorts. “Did I ever tell you about how we were poaching fish from Suriname. Always one step ahead of the cops... weird... catching fish on an empty stomach... you know meth...” he waves his hands in the air as if dispersing smoke. “Well, you don't feel like eating... so... where was I... the cops... they were after us... POW! POW! I don't know if they were trying to scare us with the guns or... look at this...” He shows me a round scar on his shoulder, “that there's a bullet hole... not from that time... from some other time... Anyway... we were hauling in the fish... no visas, of course.”

“I didn't think fish needed visas,” I say.

He looks at me and squints.

“Where was I...,” he continues. “Oh yeah, the cops were shooting at us, so we had to go inland... follow a stream... just a little biddy thing... mostly mud... but it went through... far enough away... I mean the cops were afraid of going in there... caymans and howlers... I donno... but we got away... then we realized we didn't know where we were or even how to get out... so we stopped to do some more fishing...”

And it goes on like this for some time. Most of the stories have left my head in fits of senility over the last year, but this guy was absolutely the most interesting person I met on the entire trip... and he cooked me French toast for breakfast. I wish I had a picture. (I'm going to have to steal a lot from the internet for this blog!)


I'm only in town for a couple days. So Gavin, Ryan, and Ryon arrange my farewell party at Peeps' place. We meet early and go to the local SURVIVAL supermarket, just around the corner. We pick up some BANKS for the party. I enter the store and see a big sign: WEDNESDAYS SENIOR DISCOUNT-- 62 or older.

Oh yeah, in case you forgot, BANKS BEER (actually headquartered in Barbados) is the main beer in Guyana. Here is a fine (internet) picture of the beer.

"Hey, I can save us money” I say, turning to look for my fellow shoppers. They're gone. I'm an escaped toddler in the Christmas rush... A lost puppy fallen from the box... I'm... where are they?

I walk around the store looking for my friends. Not here. There's no way in hell I can find my way back. I'll be spending my last night in Guyana... on the floor of the supermarket. I'm done for. Serves me right for so much good luck!

I leave the store.

Ryan stands outside looking worried. “Where were you Mykel?” he asks. We're gonna bring all this beer home.

“I coulda got you a discount,” I whine. “I'm old.”

“Oh that Senior Day thing?” he asks.

I nod.

“It's no good for booze,” he shakes his head. “They don't think old people should be drinking.”

SHIFT TO RYON'S HOUSE, the front room... “my room.” It's a party... my party... a ton of people... all my favorite Guyanese. Gavin and Ryan and Jamal and Addevi and people I don't know, and their friends. Only Uncle Kennard isn't there.

And the beer starts... then a bottle of Jack Daniels KYDJ! brought back from Suriname... duty free.... then a bottle of Jim Beame I brought back from Suriname... duty free... ... then the weed... It's coming on 9 o'clock.

NINE PEE EM and the party is ALREADY in full swing. I'm beat, the trip has caught up with me. In New York, I'd be just starting at Nine. They're here for me and I want to go to sleep. I try to be nice, but my eyes close. I feel my head wobble on my neck.

“My” bed is full... packed. People lying and drinking and smoking... a couple I don't know makes out at the edge. I can barely keep my assload of real estate. I can't stand... I don't have to... someone shoves another Banks into my hand.

I need to sleep... I'm going back to Trinidad tomorrow. The music is loud... mostly hip hop. Somehow I slip deeper into that assspace. I sleep, an old man falling asleep at his own farewell party. I can't help it... I...

BANG! The silence wakes me up. I open my eyes, but the rest of me is paralyzed. I hear a shuffling around the room. All I can see is directly in front of me... empty beer bottles... cigarette butts... roach ends... empty scotch bottles... cigarettes butts in empty beer bottles. There's more shuffling... I think it's Ryon... I have no strength to move my eyeballs to check.

Into my field of view moves Peeps. He's wearing pajamas or loose sweat pants or something. I want to look up, smile, let him know I'm awake, but it's like a dream. I can't move.

He's cleaning up. Moving the ashes from one beer bottle to another. Shuffling left-over contraband and heavy things I can't see. My eyes are locked-- like the rest of me... unable to move in their sockets. Then I notice it. His pants... pajamas... I don't know... they're sticking out in front... just a bit... poking up like happens to guys in the morning... a little tent. I shouldn't be staring at this. I shouldn't even be noticing. I can't help it. I can't do anything... turn away, even close my eyes... This cannot come to anything good. He's gonna look down... see me staring... then I'm in trouble...

The glass of the bottles clinks as he goes on his way, clearing, cleaning, he and his hard-on... still right in front of me... turning this way and that... I shouldn't be seeing this... I am seeing this... I should close my eyes... I can't close my eyes... I can close my eyes... I wake up and the room is empty.

I forget how I reach the airport that day. Probably the KYDJ! guys drive me. In Trinidad, Randy's brother Real picks me up at the airport. I'm staying with Randy at his parent's house. There is some tension in the air. I dunno. I get the feeling they're not happy to see me. Randy and his brothers are fine. But mom and dad... I don't know.

I'm only here a few days. Randy has scheduled some studio time. I was supposed to have written the words to a few songs. I had the MP3s in my computer--- the whole trip. More than a month to work on lyrics. I fucked up... forgot.

It's all last minute, and the words don't quite fit the tunes... or they do, but I didn't rehearse them enough. One song that Randy called PENN STATE, I rename I'M A PERVERT.

I love to release the feces and grease of a brown one

I love to splatter dung matter as I down one

Off your ivory tower my friend

A nice brown shower my friend

CHORUS

I'm just a pervert. You know I'm just a pervert

I'm glad to be a pervert... a pervert for you.

I love to explode just off the commode and then eat it

All the whole while releasing my fly so I can beat it.

You think I'm reckless my friend?

Want a pearl necklace my friend?

CHORUS

I love to sit close to the toes of my host and to taste them

I love to sniff deep and they call me a creep when I embrace them

I won't be saved by you

I'm depraved by you...

I'm a pervert. I'm just a pervert

Here I am in the studio... a fancy place... a relic in this age of home recording... a professional place... people who know a Sennheiser from a Shure... A real recording room... I can see the engineer and Randy on the other side of the window that looks into the control room. It's a chorus of eye-rolling.

All on Randy's (and Bryan's) dime... and I'm just fucking up... one tune after another. I can't make it work. My voice won't go the same way as the music. I have no control... like my eyes at Peeps' place.

I'm just a Pervert! I'm just a Pervert!

I sing/shout... missing the beat every time. The harder I try, the more I fuck up. Eventually, we give up.

“Good job, Mykel,” Randy says to me the same way you might tell a toilet-training toddler “Good job,” when he just about hits the bowl.

The next day of my short stay it's off to the hummingbird sanctuary with Randy's mom. Also joining us is the mother of Bryan, the singer in ANTI-EVERYTHING and one of my recording sponsors.

Bryan's mom, a school-teacher in Port of Spain, greets me with “Mykel! I've heard so much about you. I've wanted to meet you for a long time.”

What a switch! Usually people who've heard so much about me... run like hell when they get a chance to meet me.

On the way to the car, I dump the lyrics to I'M A PERVERT and the other sick songs in a garbage can near the street. Then I get in the car... and we're off.

Randy's mom drives us to the sanctuary. Up in the mountains, through dirt roads that run along the sides of cliffs. My ears pop. The roads become narrower. The scenery becomes more... er... rustic. If they threw me out of the car and raced off, I'd have no idea where to begin. They don't.

Finally, we park... not in a lot... but in a precarious space at the edge of a cliff. One false move and it's Thelma and Louise! No false moves.

We get out of the car and walk up a steep hill to a closed gate in front of a massive house. Randy's mom rings a bell, and the gate swings open by itself. It could be the entrance to Dracula's castle. On the other side of the gate is another steep climb to the bird sanctuary where the birdman of Trinidad has thousands of hummingbirds... different colors... sizes from bumble bee to a Peeps-size erection.

The first thing I notice is the hum. I don't hear it. They're hum-fucking birds and there's no hum.

“Why do they call them humming birds?” I whisper to Bryan's mom.

We sit on what looks like a large porch outside a country house. There's going to be a lecture, and then a tour of the sanctuary. There are chairs and space for about three dozen people.

“You don't hear it?” she asks.

The sanctuary head, an elderly colored gentleman, looks at me and smiles.

“Some people can't hear it,” he says. “I'm not sure what it is. But for some people, humming birds don't hum.”

“It's 35 years of punkrock,” I don't tell him. “Waddaya expect?”

The presentation is fascinating. All the while this guy is telling us the history of the place, these tiny birds are flitting around him and the feeders hanging around the porch.

[Aside: Bird-watching is something I've changed my opinion about. I had this image of bird-watchers as nerdy old people in the park-- with binoculars. Hah! David Klauber, the only friend I have left from high school, is a bird-watcher. He's also my only friend who's gone to more countries than I have. He's visited Port Moresby, the highest crime city in the world. You can't walk on the street after 5 o'clock because some guy with a bone in his nose is gonna come up behind you and cut off your head... and shrink it. He went there to see this special bird you can't see anywhere else in the world. So don't tell me bird-watchers are wimps... They follow their passion... danger be damned... more than any other group I know... including bungee jumpers-- or punk rockers.]

The birds are amazing, fascinating, I took a ton of pictures-- and I can't find any of them. They're gone from my hard drive... from the camera... from the back-up. Disappeared like my memories... sad... but real. So here's a picture I got off the internet: 

Back at the bird sanctuary, I lean over and whisper in Randy's mom's ear. “This is terrific. Thanks for taking me. I wonder how they can maintain all this for free.

“It's not free,” she says. “It's expensive.”

They paid for me! And a lot... wow.I had no idea.

“Tell me how much it was,” I don't say. “I'll be happy to pay my share.”

I still feel a bit guilty about not paying anything. Such a good time on someone else's dime... er... dollar. I should have taken them out... but there was the feeling... the strange unwelcomed feeling I was getting from Randy's mother. Nothing overt, but just a cold feeling... very noticeable among these warmest Caribbean people.

It's my last day in Trinidad. Randy's mom won't even talk to me. Her only words: “I'm so busy, I just don't have time to talk.”

I'm worried. What's up? What happened? Maybe she found my PERVERT lyrics in the trashcan. I dunno...

It's leaving time. Rael's driving me to the airport. Mom's upstairs doing something with the laundry. Sorting or bagging or something... bent over a suitcase. I walk over to thank her... say good bye...

“I'm leaving now,” I tell her.

“All right,” she says.

“Thanks for everything,” I say, walking towards her. I reach out to give her a hug. She pushes her hand in my chest... completely repulsed.. a DON'T TOUCH ME gesture. I don't get it. Had she walked in on me when I was... er... doing something private? I didn't use the sheets as a tissue. What's the problem? Guests aren't supposed to do that? I don't know the etiquette here. But I bet I'm not a guest again. Had she seen me through the window? Heard the rumors? Read the book? I don't know, but it's very sad... for me.

[OH NO! A long time ago, I complained to a friend of mine that she seemed annoyed. I asked her what I'd done. "It's not just about YOU, Mykel." she said. I thought it would be cool to make her an IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU, MYKEL t-shirt to wear around New York. I never did it though. 

Now, after trashing Randy's mom, (She and Dad were so GREAT to me the first time I was in Trinidad), I find out that there was all kinds of background stuff I wasn't aware of. Personal problems, health problems, troubles that had NOTHING to do with me. I need to make an IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU, MYKEL t-shirt for HER to wear! I feel better now, knowing that it WASN'T me. But I also feel guilty about complaining about her hospitality. 

Have I learned my lesson? Somehow, I doubt it.]

At the airport, I buy Rael some Royal Crown chicken and we share a farewell meal. My last taste of the greatest fast food chicken on the planet.

From Trinidad, it's on to Miami, a night with Alan and Sharon, then back to New York. When I arrive, it's not raining.

My apartment looks different. My subletter has returned to Australia. In her wake, the bathtub is white. 30 years of soapscum have been removed from the sink. I can see the grain in the wood floor. I can run my hand along a shelf without the need to wash immediately after. All the lightbulbs work. There is no garbage in the kitchen bin. The refrigerator smells like... like... nothing.

It'll be a week or so before I feel that I'm really home.

-end-

============

[You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the RSS link at the bottom or by joining the Yahoo group for readers of Mykel Board's rants

You might also want to check the blog of Mykel Board's Columns .

WARNING: The Column Blog is neither PC nor PG. It might make you mad, or disgusted. The thin-skinned, politically correct, and easily sickened should stay away. You have been warned.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! In an ultimately useless effort to rid myself of apartment junk, I'm giving away CDs, cassettes, VHS videos and more. Just pay separate shipping and handling. (Sorry, US addresses only). The details are here. ]

More than Spanking the Monkey or Mykel's Caribbean Blog Chapter 19

by Mykel Board

ENTRY NINE-

TEEN

Nov, 2013

[Recap: From the start, it doesn't look good for this trip. Everything goes right... always a bad sign. Nothing portends disaster like everything going right.

Easy subletter in New York... smooth flight to Miami... promises of “meet you at the airport/seaport”... $10 a night accommodations in Guyana, the rest free.

Uh oh! Too good. The better the news early, the bigger the fall later. And things get worse. (Better) Miami goes so smoothly you could cry. The only problem is a lot of rain-- heavy rain. The streets are rivers... waves in the pool. I get wet. Very wet.

Then to Trinidad, where my friends pick me up at the airport and take me drinkin'-- and more drinking. It doesn't rain so much in Trinidad.

Then to Guyana.

In Guyana, my facebook friends from KEEP YOUR DAY JOB! meet me at the airport. The two weeks of my stay in Guyana are adventure-filled, and beer-dulled. Most days, it rains. Sometimes for just an hour or two in the afternoon. Sometimes all day.

“I don't get it Mykel,” says my pal Jamal. “This isn't the rainy season.”

“Rainman,” I say.

He still doesn't get it.

The plan is to travel to Suriname with Keep Your Day Job! But, uh oh... a drummer problem. Two drummers agreed to tour with us. One, a close friend, the other, more PUNKROCK. They ditch the friend for the punkrocker. He bails at the last minute. The now former-friend doesn't answer emails. This cannot work out. We go to Suriname anyway-- drummerless. It works out.

In Suriname, I stay with Jose, a punkrock student and his super-generous parents. They cook for me every day. I'm the guest of honor. It rains a lot.

Then it's on to French Guyana, where the brother of one of my top ten pals, Simon, lives with his girlfriend Marie. His name is Florian.

I take a small boat across the river that separates French Guiana from Suriname. The captain lets me choose my port of entry: “legal or backtrack?” I choose legal. At customs, I annoy the white immigration officers by asking for a passport stamp. It's raining.

My first days in French Guyana are distress free... unless you count the bottom paddling I get from my friends' spare bicycle. I have one of the best days of the entire trip: canoeing through the Amazon with Florian as my French guide. Chased by dogs, paddle-blistered hands, bitten by mosquitoes, stuck in the roots of swamp trees... it's wonderful.

The only thing better, I'm told, will be THE CARNIVAL... an all night festival my hosts and their friends have been working on for months.

Nope.

It rains... pours... torrents of rain... non-stop. A field of dreams turned into mud. I was outta there the next day. After a banana boat ride back to Suriname, I found myself back at the home of Jose and his family in Paramaribo.]

“What did you think of French Guyana?” asks Dad. “Pretty primitive wasn't it?”

“Were the roads paved yet?” asks mom. “We haven't been there in awhile.”

“And the crime?” continues Dad. “Did you feel in danger? Did people try to rob you?”

“I think you're confusing it with Detroit,” I tell them.

They don't get it.

I explain how I liked the country and found the people friendly, much like Suriname. The people speak French instead of Dutch... and there are more French French in French Guiana than there are Dutch Dutch in Suriname. Otherwise, it's just the same... except... “While I haven't seen the jungle in Suriname,” I tell them, “I paddled through it in French Guyana. It was beautiful.”

Uh oh! Last time I made a casual comment-- about wanting to see the local synagogue-- I got the whole magila. From kissing the mezuzah to the post-shabbos Borei Pri Hagafen. I mentioned fishing... and bang... mom made me the most delicious armored fish soup this side of the Corentyne River.

(For an interesting look at the PIRATES in that river between Guyana and Suriname, check this out.)

Remember this picture?

armor fish stew

What now? I mention JUNGLE some- thing's gonna happen. Sometimes, I'm such an idiot.

“Jungle?” says Dad. “You want jungle? Tomorrow!”

Bang! We're off the the wilds of the Suranamese jungle... at least the part we can get to by car... their car. It's a whirl of trees, ports, weird food... and I forgot to charge the camera battery! I'm so sorry I didn't get... THE MARKET on film... er... on pixel. You'll have to settle for Google images.

We pull up to a local market... on the outskirts of Nowhere... a nothing village in the middle of No Place. Mom, Dad, Me, the only white(ish) people for miles. A woman is selling intricately patterned blue-on-black fabric. Another one has an odd assortment of roots... many looking like those much shared internet photos.

“Come here Mykel,” says mom.

She's standing next to a large freezer chest... the kind they sold coke out of before you were born.

Mom speaks to the native lady. She nods and opens the chest. Ice fog emerges like in a horror move. Inside are various cuts of meat. Then I see it. It looks like a baby's shoulder and arm, with a woman's hand attached... frozen... white as a zombie. There's a ragged cut... outlined in dried blood... where the shoulder used to attach to a chest. On the palm of the hand is what looks like a snowcone. I later find out it's rice.

“Aap de hand?” asks mom.

The woman nods.

“It's a monkey's arm,” says mom. “A delicacy around here. Should I ask the price for you?”

I stare at the thing... not really able to answer... in retrospect, I expect mom was kidding... but at that moment I'm... not horrified... not shocked or disgusted... just slack-jawed and amazed. And no camera!

Here's someone else's picture from the web... it looks a lot less human than the one in the chest.

Monkey Meat

It's a great trip of course. But these people. They're SOOOO nice it hurts!

Ah, there's so much more to tell, but my life is also full of other trips, other adventures with more to come. So I need to speed up this narrative.

My next day in Suriname is filled with a Gamelan chase.

I just happened to mention... to Dad... that an American pal heard about the Javanese influence in Suriname and wanted to hear some of that music.

Pow! Dad is on the phone... calling friends. Then, back into the car... Jose and I are off with dad, visiting this friend and that friend. Dad knows everyone in the capital!...Chatting, getting directions... going here... going there... sleuthing... including an encounter with a giant snail.

More sleuthing... finally, a copy of an ancient CD obviously copied from vinyl. Another trip to find someone who can dupe the CD... a trip back to the CD owner to return the original.

An hour... two... three... all for me! Wow! I'm afraid to say anything else.

“You really have a lovely home.”

“Oh Mykel, if you like it. It's yours. I'll draw up the lease transfer.”

No, that didn't happen, but Dad did arrange for a taxi to pick me up... at 6AM.

It was that taxi that picks me up to bring me back to the ferry to Guyana... a real ferry... with lots of people and tickets and cars on the boat. The ride is uneventful. Once on the ship, it occurs to me that I still have to get from the Ferry to Georgetown.

I have about 400 dollars-- Guyanese dollars. Value? About two US dollars. I don't think that'll get me very far.

I'm the only white guy on the boat... and that's the way I like it. Maybe I can play the stupid-poor-white-guy-in-distress. It won't take a lot of acting skill.

Here's a nice guy... fatherly with touches of gray appearing in his close-cropped hair. Next to him sits his wife... frumpy but dignified... and kid... a girl about 7, her hair braided in corn rows.

“Hi,” I say. “Are you by any chance driving to Georgetown on the way back?”

“We are,” says the man.

“Could you give me a lift?” I ask.

“We can't,” says the man.

“The car is full,” he explains, shrugging. “You know, Suriname shopping. It's cheaper there.”

“I understand,” I lie.

I ask another guy, this one younger and hipper.

“Sorry man,” he says. “I'm here with my mates. (Mates?) What they say goes.”

The ship pulls close to the Guyana port. The passengers are in their cars... engines started. A line of cars has started at the exit ramp to Guyana. Maybe a dozen wait to leave to ship.

I walk through the carbon monoxide to the first car in line... Look in the window... the back seat is filled with zippered plastic bags and open paper shopping bags. Sitting on the front seat is a man about my age, a plump woman with very bad teeth, and a little girl. Actually, the little girl is standing... on the seat... bouncing up and down... saying something I can't hear through the closed window. She looks at me... laughs.

I move to the next car.

This is the one with the guy and his mates-- all teens or barely twenties. There are four of them, each with a Red Bull (the drink, not the animal) in hand. They look like they'd had quite a time in Suriname. I'm guessing it might be lucky that I can't ride in that car.

Then, the third car. In movies... in literature... in eggs... it's always the third something... that's the payoff. Three wishes, three curses, three minutes... So this should be the one... life imitates art, right?

Nope. This is an ancient Toyota (NOTE: most of the cars in Guyana are Japanese cast-offs. Since, like Japan, people drive on the left, and since Japanese cars last longer than Guyanese people... it makes sense... although it's strange to see people in this English-speaking country, trying to figure out what メニュー means on their touch screen.) The car is a ぽんこつ車. I'd be amazed if it made it off the boat, let alone all the way to Georgetown.

Car number four: This one's also a Japanese car... a bigger one... SUVish. Mom and dad in the front seat, brother and sister in the back. No bags... plenty of room for skinny Mykel. Yeah right.

“Are you going to Georgetown?” I ask the driver through the open window.

He nods.

“You got room for one more?” I say in my most pleadingly desperate voice.

He turns to his wife. She shrugs. He speaks over his shoulder...to the boy in the back seat.

“Open the door for the man,” he says.

Yeah! Right!

If you've been following the adventure, you remember that Guyana is the only place I had to pay for accommodations on this trip... and that was a measly $10 a day. This time, my KYDJ! friends found me a place with Ryon... aka Peeps! He's the guy whose parents hosted the nasty dinner where the band fell apart (or so I thought... You can read about it here.)

Anyway, here's peeps with his (and my) beverage of choice... probably a BANKS!

Peeps

IIt is NOT Ryan who plays guitar in Keep Your Day Job. This is a cool IT/techie guy who'll end up giving me some bootleg... Whoops, I don't want to say any more... the NSA is snooping, don't you know? I'D NEVER DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL! Got that NSA? Me and LEGAL are tight... like that. See ONLY LEGAL! Get it?

Ryon's place will be the scene of my farewell party... the location of the weird uncle... one of the most interesting guys I meet on this trip filled with interesting people and... well, you'll find out about it next month.

-end-

============

[You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the RSS link at the bottom or by joining the Yahoo group for readers of Mykel Board's rants

You might also want to check the blog of Mykel Board's Columns .

WARNING: The Column Blog is neither PC nor PG. It might make you mad, or disgusted. The thin-skinned, politically correct, and easily sickened should stay away. You have been warned.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! In an ultimately useless effort to rid myself of apartment junk, I'm giving away CDs, cassettes, VHS videos and more. Just pay separate shipping and handling. (sorry US addresses only). The details are here. ]

Back on the Banana Boat or Mykel's Caribbean Blog Chapter 18

by Mykel Board

ENTRY EIGHTEEN

Nov, 2013

[Recap: From the start, it doesn't look good for this trip. Everything goes right... always a bad sign. Nothing portends disaster like everything going right.

Easy subletter in New York... smooth flight to Miami... promises of “meet you at the airport/seaport”... $10 a night accommodations in Guyana, the rest free.

Uh oh! Too good. The better the news early, the bigger the fall later. And things get worse. (Better) Miami goes so smoothly you could cry. The only problem is a lot of rain-- heavy rain. The streets are rivers... waves in the pool. I get wet. Very wet.

Then to Trinidad, where my friends pick me up at the airport and take me drinkin'-- and more drinking. It doesn't rain so much in Trinidad.

Then to Guyana.

In Guyana, my facebook friends from KEEP YOUR DAY JOB! meet me at the airport. The two weeks of my stay in Guyana are adventure-filled, and beer-dulled. Most days, it rains. Sometimes for just an hour or two in the afternoon. Sometimes all day.

“I don't get it Mykel,” says my pal Jamal. “This isn't the rainy season.”

“Rainman,” I say.

He still doesn't get it.

The plan is to travel to Suriname with Keep Your Day Job! But, uh oh... a drummer problem. Two drummers agreed to tour with us. One, a close friend, the other, more PUNKROCK. They ditch the friend for the punkrocker. He bails at the last minute. The now former-friend doesn't answer emails. This cannot work out. We go to Suriname anyway-- drummerless. It works out.

In Suriname, I stay with Jose, a punkrock student and his super-generous parents. They cook for me every day. I'm the guest of honor. It rains a lot.

Then it's on to French Guyana, where the brother of one of my top ten pals, Simon, lives with his girlfriend Marie. His name is Florian.

I take a small boat across the river that separates French Guiana from Suriname. The captain lets me choose my port of entry: “legal or backtrack?” I choose legal. At customs, I annoy the white immigration officers by asking for a passport stamp. It's raining.

My first days in French Guyana are distress free... unless you count the bottom paddling I get from my friends' spare bicycle. I have one of the best days of the entire trip: canoeing through the Amazon with Florian as my French guide. Chased by dogs, paddle-blistered hands, bitten by mosquitoes, stuck in the roots of swamp trees... it's wonderful.

The only thing better, I'm told, will be THE CARNIVAL... an all night festival my hosts and their friends have been working on for months.

It's the night of the big carnival... the party... the festival... what everyone's been waiting for. And it rains... pours... torrents of rain... non-stop. A field of dreams turned into mud. Ankle deep.... calf deep... knee deep... gooey... drenching mud. Soul destroying... depressing mud. My fine hosts have their plans dashed... and they've got a grumpy guest on top of it. It's embarrassing how bad I act after being treated so well. And it's coming to an end right now.]

Lucky thing too. I'm not often grumpy, but when I am.... loogout! The weather improves for my early morning trip to the ferry to Suriname. I check the guidebook to make sure I've got everything.

WARNING: All visitors to Suriname from French Guiana must have a ticket OUT of the country. A return ticket from another country is not valid.

SHIT! The only return ticket I have is my plane ticket from Guyana to Trinidad. That won't do at all. Ok, I have a plan: If I take the regularly scheduled ferry, I can buy a round-trip ticket and throw away the other half. It'll cramp my style a bit, because I can't take one of those cool banana boats... and it'll cost me some extra money. But it's a plan!

I arrive at the ferry terminal at 9AM. The ferry leaves at 12:30. Florian and Marie have to go to work... they drop me off early, and I wait. The terminal office isn't open yet. Outside is a wood booth-- sort of like a big police box... hexagonal... the inside about the size of my NYC apartment. Benches line the inside. On one of them lies a middle-aged man with very bad skin. On another, two men, both white... both jowly... sit, engaged in deep conversation... something about the nature of women. Most of their French I can't understand.

I take another bench, my bags on either side of me. I'm tired, worried about my offended hosts, worried about my lack of ticket out of Suriname, my clothes still wet from last night's fiasco at the carnival.

I slowly nod off... there is the sound of chains... a nightmare... cue the rotting corpses... rivers of blood... cue the vagina dentata ... no... It's not a dream. Eyes now open, a short white guy in green pants and a matching t-shirt (the Nigerian flag!) is pulling off the chains locking the ferry terminal. The others in my little wooden booth are gone. Picking up my pack and computer case, I climb down the few steps to the ground and walk into the ferry terminal.

A guard stands at the door between the concrete pier and the concrete immigration building. I flash my passport at him. He waves me past... into the ferry terminal. Through an outer yard into a waiting room. My fellow passenger on the banana boat sits next to me one on of the hard wood benches.

Before long, there are a few others: some women with a lot of packages, one turban-not-feather Indian man, who looks as tired as I am. There's also a very big, very black guy with a holstered gun. He is not sitting, but pacing up and down the room, like an expectant father.

Half of one wall of the room is a window into some kind of office. There are two desks with computer screens and lots of wooden in-boxes... most of them a filled with papers.

I check my watch. It's 10:00. Three and a half hours until the boat leaves. I read a Dutch novel about a guy whose son barbecued a homeless lady in a phone booth. Think about writing something. Look at my cellphone. (I don't have a watch.) Read some more. Think about writing some more. Read some. It's noon.

There is some new movement. In the office with the long window, a man enters. He wears what looks like an official uniform... all white with a black-brimmed red cap. I walk over to him.

“C'est que vous parle Anglais?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Can I buy ferry tickets from you?” I ask.

“You can buy ferry tickets on the ferry,” he says. “You pay on the ferry. There are no tickets.”

No tickets on the ferry? That means no return tickets. That means no entry to Suriname. That means I can't get to Guyana. There are no direct flights from French Guyana to any of the other Guyanas. I'm stranded... fucked!

Ok, when the going gets tough, the wimps look for another way out.

I pick up my bags and head for the dock, leaving the ferry terminal. It's hot outside. Fucking hot. Hot like those days where the sweat collects along your back... forming little tributaries, rivulets that collect in a torrent... down your spine, over the coccyx, sliding through the gluteal crease to bathe in saltwater, that errant hemorrhoid.

International Trans-River Transportation

There! Next to the pier are a few of those banana boats... like the one I took here in the first place. Only one seems to be manned. A black guy in bright green shorts, wearing a yellow t-shirt (the colors of the Jamaican flag!)sits by the engine.

“Vous voulez aller au Suriname?” I ask him.

“Legal or backtrack?” he asks.

I consider. If I go the legal way, I may be denied entry, as I don't have a ticket out of the country. If I go the illegal way (backtrack), then I may have trouble LEAVING Suriname, because I won't have an entrance stamp. There are no banana boats to Guyana.

I make my decision.

“Legal,” I say, figuring if they don't let me in, I can go back out and take the boat to some illegal port of entry.

“Fifteen Euros,” he says. “Okay?”

“Pourquoi parlez-vous avec moi en anglais?” I ask.

“Because your French sucks,” he says.

I put my bags into the boat and climb over the freeboard... into the boat. The captain pulls a cord... like on a lawnmower motor... the engine starts. I can barely make out the Suriname entrance port on the other side of the Maroni River. That, however, is not where the captain heads his vessel.

We're off in the completely wrong direction. Right angles to the other shore... headed South when we should be headed West. This is a kidnapping... a ritual slaughter... a thrill kill. My floating body will wash up in on the Brazilian coast... my testicles will never be recovered.

I fall silent as the boat moves southward.

Moving closer to land... ahead is a bare rocky coast... looking like god piled up a bunch of boulders and let 'em slide... tumble one after the other... into the river. A man comes into view... climbing over the boulders toward the river... in one hand he has a briefcase. He's black... wears a blue suit and a white shirt with a bright red tie. (the colors of the Korean flag!) As the boat approaches, he waves to it with both hands over his head... a passenger in a sinking ship waving to a rescue plane... er... bad analogy.

The boat pulls up to the shore and the man climbs in with considerably more aplomb than I had. We're off again... this time in the right direction.

Before long, we've crossed the river and gotten out on the wide dock near Suriname customs. My new friend and I pay the captain, climb up the concrete pier and enter the customs and immigration area.

It's like a greenhouse surrounded by a small courtyard. There are benches in the courtyard, and an electric glass door that leads to the inner waiting room. We go through the glass door.

The room is freezing. The air conditioning is on with such force, I can see my breath. The sweat on my spine freezes to an icy sheen.

Next to me sits my friend from the boat. In a corner, a young woman presses an icepack to her jaw. Her face is bruised... swollen out of shape... There are welts on her arms. Somewhere, I bet, there's a man to report she “fell down the stairs.”

Slowly, she rocks back and forth, groaning. I try to concentrate on my book. It's hard to concentrate on burning homeless people with the blasting air conditioning and the bruised moaning woman.

I go outside. A man lies on a large metal container, sitting next to him... one arm over his body, a woman looks down at him. There is love in their eyes. When they hear me, they both turn and look at me. The love has left their eyes.

“Too cold for you?” I ask.

The man nods and the couple return to their man-to-woman-to-man gazing.

Okay, it's getting too hot outside. I return to the refrigerated waiting room.

There is nobody new inside, except for a man in uniform speaking to the walloped woman.

“Now, let me understand,” he says. “You entered French Guiana backtrack.”

She nods.

“Then you were attacked in French Guiana, raped and beaten, your passport and money were stolen, and someone was nice enough to bring you back home by boat.”

She nods again.

“Come with me,” he says.

The woman struggles trying to stand up. The uniformed man helps her to her feet. She stands and the two of them leave the refrigeration unit.

The man with the briefcase and I glance at each other. Both of us with raised eyebrows and a shrug.

Another uniformed man comes out and looks at our passports. He sends us to a window where a clerk stamps them ADMITTED TO SURINAME and the date. Yes! Back in the land of square coins!

Then, it's out the other side to figure out how to get from the terminal back to my friends in Paramaribo. It's not that difficult.

The rain starts.

-end-

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