Week 21 - Tourist Season - Part 2

Tourist Season Part 2

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Continued...

Trouble, trouble, trouble... Vicente had plenty of trouble, and then some. A girl was dead. A tourist. An American. Washed up dead on the beach, found by some early morning surfers. Her head had been cracked open.

Vicente wasn’t quite ready to call it murder per se, but he knew for sure that there was more going on than a simple slip and fall. That much was pretty obvious. Maybe she drowned first, or maybe she hit her head first. Maybe it was fun and games turned accident. Or maybe she had help finding her demise somewhere along the way.

It could have been the reef. A slip in the water and the rocky terrain did the rest. It could have been. Not likely. There was the alcohol in her system, among… the others things.

It could have been the reef. He could still possibly blame the reef. But he’d have to look the other way on a lot of other things.

Could he look the other way? How much of an investigation would be demanded of him? What did the other tourists think? What had the locals already heard? What else had already been said across the island and by whom? Vicente couldn’t be sure of much, except that with every passing minute, more and more people would be talking. And that meant that word would make its way across the entire island, and soon if not even sooner.

He wished he could just blame it on the reef and call it an early day. But he wasn’t the first or only one at the site. Renaldo would probably go along with whatever Vicente wanted to call it, but they would both have trouble getting any and all tourists to do the same.

Perhaps it was just some late night swimming. Perhaps she passed out on the beach and got carried away with the tides. Perhaps a million things.

But it probably had something more to do with whoever helped fill her stomach with those drugs.

Vicente knew that. He just didn’t want to admit it quite yet.

“Maybe she died happy,” suggested Renaldo, in reference to her altered states.

Small consolation, thought Vicente. No parent would want to hear that or take it as a possible relief. No parent would want to hear they had outlived their child. Vicente didn’t have any children – that he knew of – but he could imagine the loss and suffering. Anything he and Renaldo had to say now was simple justifications.

Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Not on the island. Not on his island. It was Vicente’s job to make sure they didn’t. This was his island. It was his responsibility. The people trusted him. Without that trust, things could fall apart, and fall apart quickly.

“Gonna have to deal with the Americans,” Renaldo continued, in response to Vicente’s silence.

“I know.”

“News. Publicity. Investigators...” he let that last part trail off. Renaldo knew enough to know what this island was about and knew what too many investigators might bring. He wasn’t trying to antagonize his boss, or remind him of something he already knew; he was simply worried about his job and his lifestyle.

“I know,” stressed Vicente, beginning to show signs of losing his cool.

Vicente hated that. Part of the appeal of this island was the privacy, the lack of foreign intervention. There were several members of the community that wanted to make sure the nearby neighbors never had a foot on the sand or an ounce of influence. They aimed to keep it that way. It was his job to make sure crimes like this didn’t happen, especially to the tourists that visited. It was Vicente’s responsibility to keep the status quo. No one wanted too many prying eyes. No one wanted big splashes or sensationalized scandals. Sovereignty was a fickle thing and isolated freedom was only that when it remained isolated.

“You want to talk to the other girl? The one with all the screaming?”

“You already talked to her,” Vicente answered, halfway between a question and a statement.

“Yeah, but she’s real upset. Wants to make sure the police know. Wants her gov’ment. Demanding everything, pronto.”

“She’ll want the world to know. She’s going to be famous now, whether she wants it or not.”

‘I have more important things to do than worry about her,’ was the part Vicente only said to himself. He knew there was nothing to be learned by talking to the friend. A drunk girl was dead and another drunk girl wasn’t going to be able to shed any additional light on that. The friend would be lucky to know a single name or face of anyone she had met last night. Plus Vicente was in no mood for tears or screams or whatever the girl had to offer. He certainly wasn’t going to listen to any threats of entitlement made from some foreigner that carried no weight here. He was going to have plenty of headaches in the hours and days to come. He didn’t need to add one more to the list quite yet.

“Talk to her again. Let her talk. As long as she wants. Write down whatever she has to say. Make her feel as important as she needs to feel. Make sure she knows she was heard.” This was Vicente’s way of saying ‘try to get her to shut up, if you can.’

“Sure boss.” This basically meant ‘not a chance in hell of that happening.’ “And what do we do after that?”

“Let me worry about that.”

Minutes later Vicente made his first phone call and within the hour he was sitting face-to-face with his bosses – the men in charge. To Vicente they were his bosses. They might have had their own boss, but if they did Vicente didn’t know. He was sure he wouldn’t be allowed to know either. There was security in isolation and limited involvement. Vicente was just a cog and would never see the whole machine. A well paid cog, but a cog all the same.

Vicente called them ‘The Wealth.’ They weren’t government, they weren’t elected or official, but they were the money-men behind a large part of things here. They were his benefactors. And they made the system on the island work. They were the wealth and so Vicente called them just that.

They had names, of course, and sometimes he used them, but he was sure they were fake. He had heard them called so many different names by so many different people on the island, there was no point in pretending. He called them ‘Sir’ to their faces and ‘The Wealth’ if he had to speak of them to someone else. But he tried not to do that. Their anonymity was part of the deal. Usually. On a day like today, they had to be involved. And he had to be the one to report it to them, although usually they already knew everything he had to tell them. They paid for it all, so they made sure to be very well connected and always in the know.

‘The Wealth’ – two very rich men. Not brothers, but definitely connected through other means. They spoke English, but didn’t seem American, or British. They just sort of existed outside of national borders. One was fat and quiet and one was tall and did the speaking. Both were very very serious. The tall one had a mojito sitting there in front of him, but he never drank from it. Vicente couldn’t remember ever seeing him drink, even though it seemed as if he always had a drink set out during their meetings. Perhaps it was an invitation. Or a test. Or perhaps it was set out to make men wonder why it was there and break their concentration. The other one smelled like day old hangover, but Vicente couldn’t be sure. Perhaps his friend set drinks out to rub it in the face of the fat one and taunt his alcoholic tendencies. If that were true, then the tall one was a real bastard, but he was also very much the one in charge.

Vicente had worked for them for years. They silently and secretly controlled the island and pushed it where they needed it to go. When new ‘friends’ arrived, Vicente made sure they were set up with whatever they needed. Usually Vicente was given simple tasks and left to run the day-to-day of the island. He vetted tourists and long staying foreigners. He took control of bad situations and made sure they didn’t escalate. And he looked the other way when he was told to. Vicente had collected money and things but that was rare. He had left the island to help the occasional new arrival relocate, but that was even rarer. Most days he dealt with random drunks or petty theft and that was about it. Killings almost never happened. Ever. The natives knew it and appreciated it. They didn’t always know what went in to keeping the peace, but they were happy it was kept. The peace was kept and set and that was usually enough to keep everything continuing on the same trajectory. And then something like this had to happen.

Usually his meetings were quick and painless. Either he was there to update them on comings and goings or ask for a hand in solving a problem, or they were there to tell him when they needed something done. This was not a quick or painless meeting.

“Do you know why this island works?”

Vicente was well aware of how things worked on the island and who was directly responsible for it. But he also knew he was going to hear it all again.

“This island works because of the trust given to us from our special inhabitants. They trust me, and in turn I trust you. I gave you this job because I thought I could trust you. I thought you could handle it.”

“I can. I will.” Vicente wondered how the fat one felt when the tall one would say ‘I’ instead of ‘we.’ If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. The silent backer. Maybe he was the leg-breaker of the two and wanted to be left out of these sorts of dealings.

“I expect you will try. But I need better than that.”

“What do you want me to do? Find the guilty party or find a guilty party?”

“The public needs a guilty party. But they can wait a day or two. Make a show of it. Make it loud and make sure everyone knows. Put pressure on whomever you need to put pressure on. Whether you think they were involved or not. I want the public to know you are in control. But don’t take too long. We’ll settle for a guilty party before we settle on no guilty party.”

Vicente nodded. He knew he could do that. This was the easy way out. A simple solution that everyone could smile and nod at and agree that things were solved and over. A simple solution would allow people to go back to their normal and life on the island would continue. But Vicente knew that wouldn’t be all there was to do in the end. In the end, someone who was really guilty was going to have to be found and punished. The public status quo was one thing, but the island status quo required everyone falling in line. Having someone out there that knew they could get away with murder was only going to upset things further along down the road. Vicente knew this and he was smart enough to know ‘The Wealth’ realized this too. Just as he had that thought, the tall one continued speaking.

“I know you’ll do what needs to be done to protect what we have here. But I need something extra. Certain guests of ours have grown complacent. They forget who owns this island. They forget how things are run. They’re letting their old habits resurface and the island will suffer if they are permitted to continue. We don’t need one broken rule by one anonymous person to act as tacit permission, so the rest of them start thinking that they can break rules too. Make sure they all know what is and isn’t acceptable.”

Vicente sighed. This meant he was going to have to head to the southern side of the island with all the private estates. He was going to have a lot of uncomfortable conversations today. More than he wanted to have.

To be continued...

Week 20 - Tourist Season

Tourist Season

Matthew Ryan Fischer

The surf came crashing against the rocks. It was the first thing Lisa noticed in quite some time. The waves. She could hear the waves. Over and over and over again. Things were sounding rough. Rougher. It must be late. Or maybe a storm was brewing. She always imagined the surf got rough late at night or when trouble was coming. The waves hadn’t sounded like that during the afternoon on the beach. Not like that. They were calm and quiet and it had been a perfect day to lie in the sand and get her feet wet. But things were different now. It was dark. Late. And things were definitely getting louder and louder.

Or at least that was the way it seemed when Lisa really thought about it. A crescendo of noise. A ‘crash-endo’ she joked to herself. That hardly made any sense. It didn’t have to. Lisa was drunk and she liked to make bad jokes to herself when she was drunk.

Things were wobbly. She wanted it to stop. Her vision, her equilibrium, her concentration – everything was off. She wanted it to stop. She knew enough to know it wasn’t going to stop. Not for a long time. She hated this moment – the moment of drunken clarity where she could realize she was too drunk for her own good and that nothing was going to fix that for hours and hours yet. Maybe she could sleep. It seemed like that might be the easier thing to do. Lie down in the sand and close her eyes. She wanted to, but she knew she couldn’t.

Sarah should have been there. Sarah was good in these sorts of moments. Sarah.

Lisa looked around. She had almost forgotten Sarah. She wasn’t sure where she was. She was on the beach; that much was obvious. But she hadn’t been there all night. She couldn’t have been. She remembered dancing at the bar. Lots of dancing and lots of drinking. She wasn’t at the bar anymore. She knew that. Sarah had been with her before. Maybe she was still there now.

Lisa tried to stand up. She wobbled. Dizzy and disoriented, she sat back down in the sand.

There was a bonfire and music. And men and women dancing and drinking. Not the same as the bar though. She repeated that to herself. She wasn’t confusing things. She wasn’t blending things together. She had been at two different parties tonight. At least two different. She had been drinking and had been browning in and out for a fair amount of time. She couldn’t be exactly sure she had only been to two different parties tonight.

 It was spring break. She was supposed to be drunk. She was supposed to have missing moments of merriment. That was what vacations were for.

That’s what she told herself. And she agreed. She was sure Sarah would have agreed if Sarah had been there to agree.

Sarah was missing. Where’s Sarah?

“Where’s Sarah?” she finally said out loud.

“Don’t worry baby...” said a heavily accented male voice. A man’s hand was suddenly resting on her arm. “Just relax.”

“Where’s Sarah?” Lisa drunkenly mumbled again. What she really meant to say was “who the hell are you?” Lisa didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t know who this man was and didn’t know why his touch was so familiar.

Seven days. Seven days in the Caribbean. Seven days of escape and fun and free will. Lisa had never left the states before. And this was spring break. Spring break was supposed to be all about fun and free will. Tropical islands with tropical drinks sounded like the perfect spring break solution.

It had been Sarah’s idea. Sarah’s RA was going to chaperone the trip and it was supposed to be safe. The island was supposed to be safe. Lisa knew it to be safe. She had heard the horror stories. She was no fool. It was a chaperoned trip to a tourist town on a tourist island, with a reputation for treating its visitors to a good time.

Lisa suspected Sarah had decided on this trip for none of those reasons. Nick was going on the trip too. And Lisa knew Nick and knew Sarah had a thing for Nick. Lisa hadn’t expected to see much of Sarah at all once they got to the island. She thought the two of them would be off together. And they had been at times. But they were there with as a group and there was partying to be done as a group as well as the private partying that could wait until later.

Perhaps Sarah was with Nick, back at the hotel. Nick wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. Lisa tried to remember where the hotel was.

They had ridden on a bus to get to Florida. They had taken the bus. It was cheaper than a flight. Much cheaper. Flights were getting more and more expensive. They could afford the vacation and they could afford a group rate on the bus and boat to the island, and so there was little left to debate.

Lisa had never been to Florida before. She didn’t really think that this trip counted either. The bus reached Florida during the middle of the night and she had slept through most of the state. She had woken up to find the bus at the harbor in Miami. It wasn’t dawn yet and they couldn’t board the boat yet. Lisa was groggy then and she was groggy now.

The boat was her gateway to the new, the exotic. All she had felt was great anticipation at the thought of what was to come next.

It was going to be a great week.

It had been a great week.

Lisa didn’t have a boyfriend. There were other boys on the trip. She didn’t know them all. Sarah knew more, but Sarah didn’t even know everybody on the trip. It wasn’t a trip of friends. It was a trip of people that signed up on a sign-up sheet in the dorms. Still, some of them were really nice and a lot of fun. During the bus ride Lisa thought that maybe, just perhaps, there were one or two that she would fool around with. They were fun and looked good enough. She was on spring break after all.

This man with his hand on her arm had not been on the bus. He had not been on the boat. He was an islander. Lisa thought hard and could almost remember him from one of the bars. They had been dancing. She could remember dancing.

The beach seemed full, even though it was night. There were bodies and boys everywhere. It was a good time. The drinks were flowing and it was a good time.

But Sarah was missing. Sarah wasn’t at the beach and she wasn’t dancing, and Lisa definitely knew she didn’t want this strange man’s familiar grasp on her arm anymore.

“Where’s Sarah?” she asked no one in particular. Without waiting for a reply she began yelling Sarah’s name. “Sarah?! Sarah!”

She and Sarah had been at the beach. She could remember Sarah was there before. Earlier. At the bonfire. There had been boys and booze and a bonfire. And not always in that order.

They had been at a bar earlier. Much much earlier. There had been tropical fruit and rum and rum and iced fruit drinks and fruit soaked in rum and rum soaked in fruit. There had been a lot.

They had been at the bar and they had drank and danced and they had met the natives. The natives were restless and there was new prey in town.

They had come to the bar with their travel companions, as part of a group. But they had left with strangers.

They were dancing with boys and getting drinks. They were mixing drinks and dancing and native music. And there had been a beach and there had been a bonfire.

And Sarah had been dancing with someone. Not Nick. Definitely not Nick. She had been dancing with someone, a native, a man. Not a boy.

She had been dancing and now she was gone.

“Where’s Sarah?!?”

“Calm down, baby. Don’t worry.”

Lisa pushed the strange man off her and stood up.

“Where’s my friend? Where is she!!” she screamed in his face.

She kicked him back when he moved to stand. She kicked the strange man away and ran off into the crowd.

There were people dancing and drinking and it was almost dawn.

“Where’s Sarah?!?”

No one was answering her.

Dawn was cracking and the waves were getting louder. The noise was everywhere and no one was paying any attention to her.

Where’s Sarah? Where’s Sarah?

People were leaving the beach. The morning vendors were arriving with their fruit to sell. Lisa saw a surfer heading for the water. The loud waves, the loud and powerful waves, and this man was going to conquer them all.

Lisa ran to the water. She ran after the surfer and to the water’s edge. She didn’t know why, but something in the water was stirring.

“Help me! Somebody help me?! Help me find my friend!”

The surfers looked at her. The dancers looked at her. The stranger that had been holding her arm before looked at her.

Lisa was all alone.

*                             *                             *

Vicente didn’t like being woken up early. He didn’t like being woken up at all, but liked it even less when it was extra early. Occupational hazard, he supposed. It was barely dawn and Renaldo was at his door bringing him more bad news before the day had even begun.

Vicente yawned a massive yawn and rubbed his eyes. His shoulders ached. He was exhausted. He hadn’t been sleeping. He never slept well during tourist season, and it seemed like tourist season only got longer every year. Or maybe he was just getting older. Whatever. He was tired. It was tourist season, which was fun, for seemingly everyone, except him. He was law and order and tourist season meant there was alcohol everywhere. All the time. He was always always busy. Always.

“What is it?”

“Trouble on the beach.”

Vicente hated trouble. He hated it even more than he hated being woken up extra early.

“There’s always trouble on the beach.”

There were tourists and drinking on the beach and when you put those two things together, then invariably something was bound to go wrong. Always.  

There was trouble that Renaldo could handle and then there was trouble trouble. Vicente knew Renaldo knew the difference, but he was still holding out hope that he had been woken for no reason and would be allowed to go back to sleep.

“Not like this…” Renaldo informed, letting his voice trail off slowly. He didn’t say it. He didn’t need to say it. Vicente heard the words anyway. Without saying it, what Renaldo meant to say had been said. The silence just hung in the air, dripping, and foreboding. The silence was to quantify the trouble and indicate that this was real trouble. Not any of that normal trouble. Real real trouble.

Real trouble – on an early morning such as this, it was exactly that which Vicente did not need.

To be continued...

Week 19 - The Sand On My Back

The Sand on My Back

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Somewhere off in the distant sky, the trail of smoke blended in with the darkening clouds, and Tommy lost track of which was which. The plane was little more than a dot now, but Tommy had watched it take off and followed its path across the sky. Away, away it flew. Away into the yonder blue. How many planes took off each day, Tommy didn’t know, but he had followed the planes that took off today. There had been five. Tourists packing it in and going home, wherever home was. The seasons didn’t change much on the island, but they still did back home, and tourists were always on borrowed time. Tommy didn’t envy them that. He didn’t miss calendars or schedules at all. He did miss the changing seasons a little. Not snow. But the rest was okay.

Tommy’s back was getting wet. He lay on the damp beach while looking up at the early evening sky, and the waves were coming in higher and higher now.  The soft sand was soaked and what remained was a mush he could sink into. He had been lying in this spot most of the day and wasn’t inclined to move. He didn’t like feeling wet though. And he knew if he stayed too long, the light waves would only grow and legs or more would soon be covered. He knew all of this. His back was wet and he knew he would have to move before too long. He just hadn’t found the proper motivation to move yet.

Above the tiny little dot raced away, but he remained, motionless.

He looked up at the plane, flying away. He asked himself why anyone would want to leave paradise. Seasons be damned. Jobs and schedules be damned. Modern life made no sense – there shouldn’t have been anything to miss.

“Hello my friend. Enjoying the weather on this evening are we?”

Tommy recognized the voice without looking. Vicente was not Tommy’s friend. Not in the conventional sense anyway. Acquaintances maybe. Partners. Allies. But not friends. Still, the men had uses for each other, and Tommy wasn’t going to begrudge another man for looking out for his own interests.

“Do me the favor of sitting up, please.”

“Afraid I might wash away. And what if I did? Where would you be without me?”

“Where would you be without me? Plus I would be remiss if I let one of our guests drown.”

“Guest?”

“Of course. You are a most special guest.”

“I’m not going to drown.”

“Do me this courtesy and sit up.”

“Float away, float away. That sounds so nice – to just float away.”

“Ah. You are dissatisfied tonight.”

“I’m dissatisfied most every night.”

“We have solutions for that. Very lovely solutions.”

“I’m well aware of what this island has to offer.”

“That’s not all, of course. There are many reasons you should appreciate this island. And I don’t mean the women.”

“I do, I do. I appreciate everything you’ve come to offer me here. But I pay for all of that. And there are some things you cannot pay for.”

“Some. But not many. You are free here. You are offered protection. You are offered a venue to satisfy your appetites. Is it my fault if your appetites are faulty?”

“I was just laying here in the sand. I have yet to criticize your hospitality that I pay for.”

“Just as I am only asking you to sit up a little, and allow me to keep offering you that hospitality.”

“I admit it’s a simple request. But maybe I’ll choose to stay and simply float away… and then where would you be?”

“I have already been paid for your protection. You float away, I am paid either way.”

“And here, I thought our friendship wasn’t about the money.”

“Our friendship is fine. And so is your money.”

“So it is.”

Tommy sat up a little.

“What is the problem, Thomas?” Only Vicente called him Thomas. Tommy didn’t like it, but he didn’t hate it either. It just made him sound too serious. Tommy never felt serious in his life before coming to the island. But things had changed and maybe he had too, without even realizing it.

Vicente continued, “Missing the tourists already? Don’t. It will be cold somewhere soon enough and then there will be new visitors for you to admire. It is always cold somewhere. In the meantime, if you are lonely, well that I can take care of.”

“No.”

“You’re sure? There are women all around us my friend. Other things as well. Anything you like.”

Tommy was silent. He thought about the plane, flying away. That could never be him. He could never go home.

“You’re sure there is nothing I can get you?”

Tommy didn’t reply. He looked back at the sky and tried to find the airplane against the darkening sky. There was a dot that he couldn’t make out. The plane should have been in the clouds by now; it was unlikely that Tommy was seeing anything at all, other than his own meandering imagination.