The Tropicana was a quaint bamboo resort consisting of two two-story cabanas on either side of a swatch of beach, a swimming pool, and an outdoor bar and patio attached to the ass-end of a restaurant…besides the driveway off the main road and a few equipment shacks, that was all there was. It was in the outdoor bar that I spotted Johanna, mixing up drinks for a couple of guests, slicing fresh fruit and running noisy blenders, looking the part of tropical wonder…I sauntered over and took a seat while she had her back turned, taking up a menu, making invisible like air. When she turned and saw me, a smile formed on her face, but she kept the fluidity of her task at hand, didn’t skip a beat on my account, and turned again almost as fast. From there she simply said, “I thought I said come by Sunday?”
“Yeah, you did say Sunday, but I couldn’t just run over here and let you think I was desperate…besides, Sunday being the Lord’s Day, I thought today would be better.” To this she smiled even more curatively and began rearranging bottles of alcohol in the well, feigning business and exactatude…I could see clear right through her guise and we were rolling…I’d need my high-seas license for this one…
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Ah, I’m on the run as you can see from the sweat running down my face..eh? Maybe some juice or aguardiente?”
“How about some mango and papaya juice” she countered…sure for sure I countered sounds good…” So, did you enjoy our various mixology the other night on the dance floor?” The furrowed brow glare meant that I needed to say this instead: “Did you enjoy dancing with the stupid honky the other night at Iguanas?” I said this of course with a Libra shit eater grin, and the aftertaste of cowjuice and rainmakers…
“Oh yeah, you were something…you were Punta like a Puta…hee hee hee” she gushed…some kind of dancer you are, yes.” She had a great indescribable accent, part comic genius, part little girl, part Spanglish, part Creole, part wanton, part electronic…it made me erectate right under the bar in my jammy surf trunks…so erectated was I that I had to use the straight-up-tuck-under-the-waistband boner camouflage system I had first developed in junior high Spanish class when the sexy and blonde curly forties movie deity teacher who was dumber than hammers would scold us for ignorance…ah, many hard-ons ago…now it was getting kinky and vive le pou…
I could tell Johanna was a goofer, and was interested in itching for an ape, seeing my white spark and pistol-whipping eyes…we were going to play for a whole month I predicted right there on the spot, and clinching the client I said to myself under my breath “yer gonna pay with Ramona” but knowing this: Can’t help self, black pussy calls, black intrigue, black chaser, black pink imperative…
- Michael Price
