It felt like some kind of temporary uppercut knockout that one stumbles from at around six thirty a.m., when the sounds of big Al willing the day to work emerge…but no, as I rolled over and knew by that drowsy numbness and thick head I was in trouble—I knew even before Dean made it down to warn me to rise that pain is the constant companion of pleasure...but we did our best to abate, taking motion sickness pills, a Mexican form of Alka Seltzer and two Ibuprofin and gulping them all down with as much bottled water as we could stand...this is why, when you feed it pills and exilirs, the ego becomes a terrific monster...! So we made coffee, talked a little with Judy, checked the radio, gathered our tanks of air, regulators, fins, wetsuits, stocked two coolers full of icy Belikan all the while Al and Rear readied the boat out on the dock, warming the two yamahammer 225’s to run fast and sure, Dean and I taking every chance we could to sit on the beach and come alive...
So we left the house of prompt service and Big Al steered the vessel southward towards with rear and Dean both nervous for the reef and Al’s tendency to see poorly and drive quickly...but we made it to our dock not too many down from my mother’s house, which I espied as always from the water because of its glitter silver tin roof that stood out like a skinflint among masters...we were picking up Enrique the diminutive all-skill local who would drive us, guide us, master us, bait us, and cook for us as well...he was a soft and noble heart...he took over the boat as if it were his honored captain father and I felt a sense of grace and manifest destiny colored brown and repeated God send you nine beers or fish if you prefer so happy was I whose hangover was replaced by a feeling of well-being on open water with the breeze as warm as napalm and Dean now handing me my first beer right in the plain sight of his dad which I couldn’t really believe but old Al, he and his offspring were on vacation and beer it would be...but 8 a.m.? I picked up that bottle and gave it a couple silent kisses and laughed and said to Dean next to me in the fore of the ship “son of a bitch.” We clinked bottles from top to bottom in what had originated as a Sharpe trademark and braced ourselves for the open ocean which was fast approaching via the cut...I put on my headphones while the front of the boat bounced many feet in the air and crashed down on the back of every wave with a resounding thud, making much communication near impossible …
And I could tell hereof quite a number of things, amusing and remarkable though they were, which transpired on that boat that day but suffice it, in the interest of short wind to say that we A) drank all the beer B) Dove for forty minutes and speared ourselves about ten fish C) Had a beach cookout masterfully created and located by god guide lost at sea abandoned island in sun with beers while big Al bone-fished in the straits within eyesight and D) Deep Sea fished out about twenty more pescado of all variety... making for E) an incredible and exhausting day trip...when I finally rolled home at five thirty and showered, all movements like the walk of an elephant, sure and perfect, the bed in my east facing ocean view room felt like the other side of...Valium. God did I pray that Dean would fall down and not get up, find his own sweet bed and displace the drive to lay and conquer…and the house being empty of my mother, seemed to be holding me in its arms allthewhile sighing and closing out the grey dusky light of obstacle...three ceiling fans whirred and groaned their Sisiphusian fate, the breeze did its work on the curtains and the somnambulant angels were drifting down on my black horizon...I was falling and falling and falling...never had I been so relieved from a day’s drubbing...
And there was Ramona, whom in all my reverie had faded some, eyes open and dim, then closed she came upon me—words are not the experience and most-so in the drowsy claret of exhaustion. She was prancing in front of me in the now legendary sarong, turning and turning, towards me, away, then back, stopping to her whimsy while I stumbled along boracho and with half control of my movements, losing her into the distance, the bleak future...I couldn’t catch her, much less my balance nor my wits or the particulars of joy, it was sheep, dip and barnacles, molasses, carnival, the guts of New Orleans, Dreams, dreams, all of it! I stood smiling halfway in the door, it was surely a dream, I must’ve drifted off into some near-real self-luminous cognition and a hunger for something rousing my wits, lifting my boozy carcass to the front door where I couldn’t really see and I think I was naked, yes, this was one of those naked dreams and my teacher was at the door, Rishi, and in the distance I could see a dovecote full of what appeared to be lusty ladies, arms and legs and breasts in their skin and moving with a break-beat audacity...and in front of me there he stood, with his alms bowl, tattered cloak, and blu-blockers, the venerable Dean Sharpe...it was the devil I saw, and there was no dream, only a cold reality buttressed by the pivotal face of him, and my dumb visage staring back in disbelief...after a day like that he was there, bright-eyed and smoked. “Price, you ready? Huh huh huh huh...C’mon Price we gotta harumph harumph man, y’know, these ladies are out there waiting for us somewheres!” I had been backing up as he naturally stepped himself into the house, smiling, I think, at his unbelievable audacity, rather tenacity and stamina but did I wish him gone at that moment and I wry-smiled it back at him—“Amigo I’m spent like easy mexican pesos against the dollar man, I’m fucking tired… Jesus are you serious about this? I’ve been hallucinating and am sure delirium tremons are due to arrive any minute...couldn’t we do this tomorrow night? Aren’t you tired?” “Price man, I’m so worked too, I haven’t even slept, not a wink. Al put me to work cleaning fish and digging holes when we got back. Those chicks leave tomorrow morning so this is our only night Price, this we gotta do...C’mon, take a shower and I’ll call their hotel...” “I said I’m dying here brother...and enlightenment doesn’t mean dying you fool...” “Price get wet while I do some reconnaissance and find them bitches...”
-Michael Price
