Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Bob Marley is Elvis in Jamaica. Maybe even Jesus. He’s certainly omnipresent. And the good people of Jamaica have embraced the western way of remembering their fallen heroes and icons: with cheap, tacky souvenirs.

There is a Bob Marley drink, Bob Marley hats, t-shirts, stickers, magnets, pipes, rolling papers, shoes, ashtrays (Kids! Kids! Stick a lit cigarette in Bob Marley’s eyes!), pins, do-rags, playing cards, towels (dry your loins with Bob Marley’s face today!), figurines, spoons, wristbands…

Well. It’s forgivable. At least, more forgivable than the constant references to Cool Runnings.

Once we reached the resort, Noelle and I were treated to a sharp decline in Marley-themed crap. Cold facecloths and more wide grins met us directly off the shuttle, and we were ushered into the lobby, our non-facecloth bearing hands filled with champagne glasses. Mind you, we were going on nearly 24 hours with little to no sleep and gave our thanks with glazed eyes and overwhelmed expressions. Nevertheless, we stumbled through the check-in process and trudged after another smiling staffer, who hauled our luggage across the resort to our room.

Only the glimpses of frozen drinks, white sand, and a clear blue ocean could have motivated us enough to do anything that first day. Those, and hunger.

It didn’t take long to settle into the all-inclusive routine, broken up with various water-related activities. Sleep, eat, tan, swim, drink, eat, drink, take a walk, shower, drink, drink, and drink. Okay, maybe not that much drinking.
The snorkeling expedition was well worth it. Fish and plant life I couldn’t begin to identify swam and wafted barley inches from arm’s length.
On day three, a shop owner offered to sell us weed, hash, oxycodone, and various other recreational drugs. I, having enough drugs in my system already, declined. He was friendly and shameless, but I guess that comes from a culture that is slightly more relaxed when it comes to recreational drug use. A distinct lack of furtiveness was evident, very unlike the paranoid culture brought on by the U.S.’s fake Drug War™.

It was the rainy season in Jamaica, and you could set your watch by the weather. Sleep in, have breakfast, lie on the beach for a couple hours, take a dip, and head inside for lunch, because rain is scheduled from noon to between three-thirty and four-fifteen. After that, it’s back to the outdoors.

Of course, you’re expected to stay outside, or at least that’s the impression I got when we decided to spend a day lounging in our giant fluffy bed, soaking up the air conditioning. The housekeeping staff comes by four times a day to make up the room, restock the minibar, turndown service, and one other duty I never discovered. Perhaps a relaxing, full-body massage with release or something.
Turndown service was the best, mainly because they’d leave behind little cards with Jamaican sayings printed in all caps, like:
RAMP WITH PUPPY IM WI LIK YUH MOUTH
Or my absolute favorite:
COW CAN’T HEAR, DEM NECK BELONG TO DA BUTCHA
Imagine that lying on your pillow when you’re abut to shuffle off to sleep. (I have in no way altered these words of wisdom; they are reprinted verbatim.)

Live music was played nightly at the largest of the restaurants. These were lounge-esque night club acts, for the most part. Singers dressed in uncomfortably heavy suits, sweating profusely and belting out Lionel Richie – no, thank you. The best of them was a trio of what could easily have been street musicians playing a blend of old Jamaican standards and similar-sounding North American songs, Bobby McFerrin-like.
Apparently hip to the fact that American men are too manly to dance, the resort had a wandering group of male staffers who plucked wives and wives-to-be up to dance, which I thought was both sweet and a little creepy. I was not too manly to dance, but largely too gimpy.

This might all seem disconnected, and it abruptly swerves from topic to topic, but it’s actually a fairly accurate chronology. The resort was designed to remove the burden of thought, and so we did little in the way of thinking. As soon as something struck our fancy, off we went to do it.
We did not scruple to cancel and change plans at the drop of a hat, and wandered around without the slightest concern for how we spent our time. Other couples seemed to have packed a month’s worth of activities into each day, getting the absolute maximum amount of “vacationing” in for their dollar. Somehow, that seemed to fly in the face of the intent. There was no desire to sample everything, and so we left a fair few things undone. I suppose that is desired by the resort as well: “Next time, we’ll do the parasailing!” Emphasis on the “next time”.

By the time we left, we had done enough to satisfy the need to ‘get our money’s worth’, and had not found ourselves bored with the place. I doubt I’d have felt the same if every day was a race against the clock.
And sure enough, the day came to leave, and we weren’t wishing for more time. Nor were we homesick. It was just the right amount of hedonism, indolence, and indulgence.
Though I would have done quite well with a little less Bob Marley.

First of all, our fight from Chicago to Montego Bay was piloted by Captain Malcom Reynolds. Of course, it had a French pronunciation, but still; Malcom friggin’ Reynolds! (If you’ve not seen Firefly or Serenity, this will mean nothing to you.) I took it as a good omen. Despite this, it was a cramped, three-and-a-half hour flight, and we shared it with a score of loud, obnoxious, teenage missionaries. All this started at four o’clock in the morning. The missionaries I took as a bad omen.

Clad in red t-shirts with “Ambassador” screen-printed on the front and “Send Me” on the back, their idiotic antics and typically empty-headed banter left me grinding my teeth and reflecting on why other countries hate us. Callow as they were, not a one saw any irony in the large dollops of western moral hypocrisy they were about to serve up to the people they intended to “help”.
One noticed that I was watching MST3K on my laptop, and through the earphones, I heard him remark on it. I turned to Noelle, indicated my laptop, and said, “I really wish I had gay porn on this thing.”
There was no in-flight movie, about which I was ambivalent. On the one hand, I had no desire to see Matthew McConaughey‘s vapid expression staring out at me from twenty drop-down screens, but on the other, it might have pacified the shrieking horde of future ex-Christians.

Refreshment came in carts, and was as you might expect, excepting that this was Air Jamaica, and so tea biscuits and banana chips replaced the usual pack of nuts or bag of Doritos. I chose the banana chips, and was pleasantly surprised that they weren’t over-sweetened, as the might have been had they been of American manufacture. Fluids were largely alcoholic in nature, and I got my first clue that there would be no such thing as a non-alcoholic, caffeine-free, sugarless drink in Jamaica, unless you counted water.
But I digress.

Touching down in Montego Bay, we experience yet more of what our English friends refer to as queueing, or, as we might put it, standing in line after line after line.
The courtesy and and hired deference had yet to begin, since we hadn’t quite reached the indolent safety of the resort’s lounge at the airport. Perhaps to serve as a contrast to such indulgent treatment, or perhaps as an unnecessary reminder that all Jamaicans did not exist to serve the whims of tourists, the customs and security personnel greeted us with all the officious ill humor we have come to expect from purveyors of illusory security worldwide.
We were halted at the first queue, where we were expected to fill out immigration cards. It seemed simple enough, save that we didn’t have a pen, and the two disinterested officials refused to provide any. After a time, we scrounged a mechanical pencil, filled out the form, and were sent to the second queue with a casual sneer. After another forty-five minute wait, we were told by the next tier of bureaucrat that the card must be filled in with ink, whereupon we were sent back to queue #1.
Of course, had the first tier of officials said as much, we’d have been already well on our way to the resort by now. I’m sure they had a good laugh over that.

Eventually we broke free of the incessant queueing, and immediately were swept into the theme park version of Jamaica. A representative of the resort met us almost immediately after we cleared customs, and (being that we’d taken twice as long as was expected to pass through the bureaucratic gauntlet) had already piled our luggage onto a cart. With a wide smile and a jovial quip about our lateness, he hustled our tired, cranky selves to the lounge. We paused only long enough to establish that we had enough time to race outside and choke down a cigarette, and proceeded to do so.
We also got a healthy dose of both the Jamaican atmosphere and the endless spread of knick-knacky bauble-junk that was to be repeated wherever gift shops or souvenir stands were.
Gulping water and carcinogenic smoke, I eyed the steel drum player sheltered in a cubby, and remarked to Noelle that despite the humidity, it wasn’t too hot for comfort.
This would prove to be true for the entire trip, though with the humidity (and under the glare of midday sunlight), I sweat much more than I would have at home.
In short order I met the only other person I was allowed to tip for the next seven days in our shuttle driver. Like every other person involved with the tourist trade, he was friendly, engaging, and humorous.

The shuttle ride was both enjoyable and a lesson in the slight differences inherent in another culture. For instance, the rules of the road seemed to be that there weren’t any, and despite this – despite missing pedestrians and vehicles alike by fractions of an inch at high speed – I saw no indication of road rage or crashes as an every day occurrence. Also, I quickly understood that Jamaica as a whole moved at it’s own speed. This was part of a pattern of inefficiency that never once seemed a bad thing. The driver struggled with a canned, underproduced tape that was intended as a broad orientation/sales pitch for tourists. It seemed to eventually defeat him, for which I was glad, since he’d run out of the admittedly funny and informative patter he used to occupy us for the one and a half hour ride to the resort itself in Negril. Thus, he was forced to play music instead, and I suggested he put in something that he liked to listen to, rather than pander to us. After a few more failed attempts to engage his weary and cranky audience, he lapsed into silence and we all enjoyed the music and scenery.
The scenery was both beautiful and somewhat tragic. The ubiquitous brochure-quality panoramas you find wherever Jamaica is advertised do not lie. In fact, I’ve always assumed – cynical consumer that I am – that they are the product of days of location scouting, set up, and waiting for the perfect lighting, when actually, you could point a camera practically anywhere and wind up with a similar picture.
Unless, of course, you point it at the equally ubiquitous indicators of depressing poverty. Populated areas are almost entirely made up of small houses in varying states of disrepair and clusters of tin-roofed shacks. While largely free of the litter and pollution associated with such, it nevertheless gives the impression of urban squalor. Unlike the United States, and much like the rest of the world, Jamaican towns seem to be tightly packed and crowded, so that no point (worth going to) is more than a few minutes walk away. Of course, the disproportionately small number of cars is yet another clue as to why this is.

Despite game attempts by practically every member of the resort staff to the contrary, I never shook the nagging thought that while I sipped frozen drinks and was waited on hand and foot, few if any of the thousands of dollars Noelle and I spent would ever reach the multitudes of Jamaican poor.
Upon arrival to the resort, I slipped the shuttle driver a twenty, which I later learned was approximately $1580.00 Jamaican.

Sobering thoughts for our first few hours of vacation.
For once, it was indeed the destination, and not the journey.

We eventually got an indoor dog. Noelle had initially wanted a giant, ass-kicking superdog, but realized that our situation and living environment wouldn’t support such a choice.

So, we got a little anklebiter – not that he’d ever bite – of a Bischon Frise, and appropriately named him Spike, short for William The Bloody. Take a bow, Buffy fans.

Crating Spike proved less than effective, which didn’t much bother us, since it’s a hit-and-miss technique, and we (Spike included) were happier with him roaming freer than that.

Anyway, all of the above to say that the downstairs quarter-bath became Spike’s bedroom for his first year of life. Recently, however, he has progressed in both temperament and training to the point that he now shares a bedroom with Noelle and I. At first, Spike relished his new arrangements, busily snuffing around the new digs, and generally behaving in that doglike blend of excitability and contentment.

This evening, however, he paced the room restlessly, frequently coming to a stop at the door and emitting a forlorn whine, then returning to the bed to gaze at me with his puppy eyes laden with meaning.
“What’s wrong, fluffy boy?” I asked him. “Have you already figured out it’s just a bigger bathroom?”

He continued to stare in his affectionate and inquisitive way, and I scratched behind his furry ears.
“I hate to break it to you, buddy, but they’re all just bigger bathrooms,” I told him. “Even for Mummy and Daddy.”
How lucky for him that – being a dog, and a barely more than a pup, at that – he had no idea what I was talking about. The rest of us have to muddle through, from bathroom to bathroom.

So far, so good.

It’s interesting, since the above phrase carries with it an intimation that something is about to go wrong. So far, so good seems to be the cynic’s only nod to good news.

In this case, not so much.
We chose one of those all-inclusive resorts, taking even thinking out of the picture, which normally I loathe, but again, in this case, not so much.
We have to give our brains a rest some time.

I’ll go on and on with a pedantic, banal, detailed description of our environs another time; for now, just a few points.
First, they’re not kidding when they say all-inclusive. There is nothing to do but get up and relax. You don’t bother counting coin, hemming and hawing over the menu. You just point at what you like, and they give it to you. It’s almost a nirvana for the lazy. Generally, I like a little more interaction. But there is a fuzzy kind of freedom in dropping all of your mental burdens like a bag of bricks and being that guy. The one who sighs audibly and indignantly when he encounters a door that isn’t automatic, and must actually use his hands to open it.
Of course, that’s the whole point, here.

With a bar every fifty yards and six or seven restaurants, it’s as easy as it gets. Just walk up, accept the royalty treatment, eat and drink as you please, and walk out. Probably to another bar.
Just kidding. There’s too much to do to spend your time hanging off a lacquered shelf and being too insensible to absorb your surroundings. If there’s a water/leisure activity they don’t have here, I can’t think of it either, and so they are forgiven for it’s absence.
Of course, the drinks are not too strong – not that I’d really know, since the medications I take limit my alcohol consumption to effectively zero, and I therefore must rely on Noelle’s judgment – and the food isn’t rock-your-world awesome. Nor are the rooms off-the-charts plush. The beds are ever-so-slightly too firm, the shower/bathtub could us a little de-liming, etc. But as I remarked to my wife, we’re not paying the hefty price tag for really cool fixtures.
It’s the experience, in toto. No complaints, here.

And there is something odd about Jamaica (by which I mean the theme-park version of Jamaica, as presented by a resort owned by rich, non-Jamaican white guys). It gets into your blood. Having spent the better part of a decade hobbled by chronic pain, I am used to “can’t do” and/or simply letting things that require more mobility pass. Since coming here, I have performed feats of physical prowess and endurance I once thought lost to me, albeit with slightly gritted teeth. Jamaica hasn’t magically healed me or anything. But it has made a difference.

So far, so good. And with no expectation that things will take a turn for the worse. What’s going to happen, anyway? Somebody laughs at my sickly, pasty, fishbelly-white legs? Bah. Noelle’s already beaten them to it. And therefore, it’s cute.
No problem, mon.