The last thing mother told me was never step inside a taxi with a white license plate. Things you don’t want to tell mom about: the broken rubber, the drugs and the white taxi. Somehow I think the taxi would be the worst conversation of the three, especially after drinking rum punch all day and smoking the pot that cop sold me on the beach.
Fading in and out of blackout, while trying not to slur my words to the cabbie who will take me back to the Hotel Samsara on the cliff of Negril. Mike, my best friend, is sitting next to me in the cab. A spoiled rich kid, with curly blonde hair and a mouth that will say anything because his father is an important lawyer, but otherwise a great kid. Perhaps it is his ignorance that makes his company so appealing.
We are putting our lives on the line with someone named Honest John, who is lighting a joint, driving a 5 speed stick shift and carefully sipping on his Red Stripe beer bottle ,carefully controlling his spillage, but not paying attention to the road.
Should’ve listened to mother.
One thing I’ve noticed about
I can’t believe Mike just called Honest John a nigger. Did I hear that right? How could he be so fucking ignorant? I light up the joint tucked under my sleeve praying that I misheard Mike.
We are dead. My mother won’t even get a death notice. This country doesn’t give a fuck about the tourists.
The Tamboo, Margarittaville, we should be heading in the right direction, no Margarittaville is opposite way up the beach. I hope we didn’t just pass Margarittaville. Ahh, a wave of comfort washes over me, realizing we are headed to the cliffs from the row of palm trees swirling by in my purple haze. We pass the hotel and suddenly Honest John slams on the brakes of his Hyundai.
Where the fuck are we?
We should’ve taken the red taxi for two dollars more. I have no clue where we are going, probably the slums, not the Sean Kingston slums, but the stab-you-in-the-back-for-being-a-white boy-slums. I should’ve paid attention to my mother.
Black out ensues.
I wake to a gang of four Jamaicans smacking my face off of the concrete and Mike is nowhere to be found. I should’ve paid attention to mother. Another blackout. Goodbye world.
It is never fun seeing a man hold a machete over you while another rummages through your wallet, convinced he has found Bill Gates’ son. Welcome to my current state of affairs. Too scared to fight back, too drunk to speak. I should have pulled out of that girl, my mother won’t care about the pot, but she’ll be furious over the white cab. Such is life; I suspect mine will end shortly as the cool Jamaican breeze blows my shaggy hair over the lacerations on my cheek and takes away the intense heating pain of my bashed-in face. Life was good before the white cab, before the pot and before the orgasm foam hook-up party leading to my sex romp, but especially before the white cab.
Should’a listened to mom, before Mike and I were turned into co-recipients of the 2008 Hide and Seek Players of the Year awards. Mom would be proud of the accolade, but upset over the white cab.
Blackout looms but I won’t be able to tell as my eyelids are swollen shut. Should’ve listened to mother.
