Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

Mus’ be, he said.

I’m sorry?

It’s like a religious item, I said. He’s a priest.

A what?

I was pretty paranoid by then and also still a little high from the spliff on the boat which didn’t help and so I like go off on this long rap about how I-Man can’t be separated from his Jah-stick on account of he’s like the Pope of Rastafarianism, a world renowned religious leader par excellence and besides it’ll protect the plane and the rest of the passengers and all which confused her and by then there was a bunch of other people in line behind us who even though they were from Vermont they were getting restless.

I go, The stick’s alive, man. Nobody can touch it but him without getting bitten.

She smiles like yeah sure and grabs the stick and yells, Ow-w! and lets it go instantly and sticks her hand in her mouth like a little kid.

I-Man took his Jah-stick then and his passport and his bag and boom box and I grabbed up my pack and ID and our tickets and boarding passes and we split from there without another word. We found our gate and went through the x-ray machine and sat down to wait for the boarding announcements.

Finally after a few minutes of just sitting there I turned to him and said, How’d you do that, man?

Do what?

You know. Get the stick to bite her. How’d you do that? He just shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t know and didn’t care either.

I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs and smiled inside and I thought, This is gonna be some wicked strange adventure. I’m thinking, Bone, man, wherever you were before you’re on the other side now.

Even though it was summertime our fellow passengers after the Miami airport anyhow were mostly tourists I guess taking advantage of bargain rates which is how the one guy who was sitting next to me explained it when I asked him why he was going to Jamaica now instead of waiting for winter.

It’s off season, kid. Cheapereno, he said. Plus it’s a package. Which means you don’t have to leave the hotel for anything You know what I’m saying? Whatever you want, they got it right there at the hotel. You get me, kid? he says like wink-wink nudge-nudge.

Yeah but don’t you want to travel around some? You know, like maybe get out and see the country, do some trampoosing, man.

Naw. We’re comin’ to party!

Meaning him and about thirty or forty of the others on the plane who all had these couch-potato bodies and big hair and wore acid-washed designer jeans and tanktops, both the guys and the females who were about half of the group. Some of them were already wearing these straw hats they’d gotten in the airport. Miller-timers I call them. People who don’t like to leave home without their ice chest.

Jamaica’s a long ways for a party, I said.

He goes, Yeah! like that’s the point. They looked like they were into getting seriously laid a lot and by black people if possible and smoking some heavy reefer and snorting coke only they were too uptight to do it in America so I didn’t push it. I guess you do what you can where you can.

They were older singles in their twenties and thirties from Indiana and I think they all lived in the same condo development and had cheesy jobs like in malls and I guess they didn’t travel much because when the plane landed even though it was dark down there and you couldn’t see anything out the window yet except the lights of Jamaica which are the same as the lights of anywhere they all clapped and cheered and hollered Yes-s-sss! and All right!

The guy beside me pumped his fist and grinned and said, Let the games begin!

Go for the gold, man, I said and pulled my backpack and I-Man’s flight bag and boom box down from the overhead bin and brought I-Man his Jah-stick from where the lady had asked him to stow it up front and he’d said no problem. Up to now I’d never even been as far as Albany and here I was like in a foreign country which the first time can be a real shock to the system. Except I was with I-Man who even though he was a foreigner to most people to me he was my homeboy practically and my spiritual guide and on his native ground now so I could be cool and just follow along behind him like I was only going to Albany instead of Jamaica and I went there all the time.

When we’d stopped off and the plane was waiting I guess for gas in Miami me and I-Man’d walked around the airport a little and took a piss and so on and watched the Indiana party animals so it wasn’t like we were actually anywhere then except normal America where it’s mostly white people running things. But when we got off the plane in Jamaica it was real different. All the people in charge were black for starters and that can throw you off if you’re an American. I was pretty used to that from hanging with I-Man of course but it was weird to see my fellow white Americans getting suddenly all nervous and loud and dumb like they couldn’t read the signs and the black people couldn’t speak English.

They were scared I guess and when they were getting their suitcases off of the conveyor belt they started yelling and grabbing their stuff and dropping it and generally fucking up so the Jamaican airport guys had to pay a lot of attention to them to get them to go where they were supposed to for having their bags checked for drugs and such and for getting their papers stamped. Plus it was really hot even though it was night and everybody was sweating like mad which they weren’t used to and which I think pissed them off like they’d expected the whole country to be air-conditioned. Me and I-Man already had our bags and didn’t have any papers to get stamped on account of I-Man’d said not to bother filling them out when they gave them to us on the plane. No need fe deal wi’ Babylon, Bone, he’d said when I asked the guy next to me for his pen when he was through. Forget-tee, he said which was one of his favorite words. Forget-tee.

Now though I wasn’t so sure with all these soldiers and customs guys checking everybody out but I just followed I-Man and his magic Jah-stick as he stepped away from the Americans struggling to find their bags and crossed the room to this one guy who stood by the gate and looked like he was the head customs guy, this big potbellied black dude with sunglasses and a mustache and a toothpick in his mouth and a clipboard in his hand.

He would’ve been the main guy to avoid if I’d’ve been alone but I-Man just comes right up on him and they start talking in Jamaican which I’d never heard I-Man do before, he’d always talked English before which I’d thought was his native language. But they have this other native language that they only use with their fellow Jamaicans. It has quite a lot of English words in it but it’s mostly African I think. I got so eventually I could understand it pretty good but the first few times I heard it they could’ve been jabbering in French or Russian for all I knew.

Anyhow from what I could figure the customs guy and I-Man were like true homeys or something because after they exchanged views for a few minutes he just waved us through this separate little gate and we’re suddenly out in the main part of the airport which is open to the street and there’s all these Jamaicans with vans and taxis waiting, fifty or a hundred of them, some with hotel signs and even buses waiting and a whole bunch of women carrying huge trays of souvenirs and Jamaican shirts and straw hats and so on and some skinny kids standing around ready to panhandle or whatever and these tall cool dudes in sunglasses even though it’s night with short natty locks and their belts undone and their flies half open, evil-looking guys who’re probably coke dealers or just trying to look generally available for white chicks from Indiana and everybody’s watching the gates and waiting to pounce as soon as they see a regular American come out. There were some cops too in striped short-sleeved shirts and blue pants who were mainly watching the Jamaican civilians, probably to keep them from scaring the party animals when they came out and realized that they hadn’t been safely herded inside their hotel yet.