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The rock jetty had let me down. Again.

After roughly three hours of trying and failing, I yawned one too many times and decided to turn in. This was going to take more than time. This was going to take patience. So I laid across the bed, texting my girlfriend and flicking my knife open-closed-open-closed, questioning what I'd write about if I couldn't pull off the design of my adventure.

Over the next several days, the charming aspects of Al and Cassie became apparent, their openness coming from a place of genuine kindness and educated understanding, which then reinforced the quality of the elderly couple that was also staying there, given that they were Cassie's parents. They even asked me to begin eating with them.

That might not seem like a big deal, but these people didn't know me from Adam and were good people, whereas I was prepared to pull a knife on someone a few days previous. 

After a couple of days of this, one of their friends stopped by, a Spaniard who taught wind-surfing on the adjacent island, skin brown, worn from the sun and sea spray, and we all sat around the table, eating our fish, noodles, and moldy baguettes dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. They didn't care about the mold but I tore it off in incognito-style, hiding my shame at my apprehension, feeding it to the ants in the hope that the distraction would take them away from my feet. It didn't work, but what was the worst that could happen? 

It's only an ant, after all... 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present:

But that's for later.

After the meal, the Spaniard rolled a typical European spliff, slightly conical, with substantially more tobacco than the sprinkling of marijuana that dusted it, a rolled filter at one end, a twist at the other. Lighting it, then without taking a puff, handing it to Al, he looked at me and said in broken English "So where are you from?"

I was hesitant, knowing the stigma that is attached to America pretty much everywhere else in the world. Still, Al and Cassie knew, plus, I'm a terrible liar. When I try, it come out broken and nonsensical, coupled with what I would guess was a flushing face that screams "I'm guilty!!! Off with my head!!!" 

"America," I said.

"Which one?"

It was like he was setting me up for a punchline, the sonofabitch.

Still, eventually the spliff came to me and was then passed, came and passed, came and passed again, and the world seemed to make just a little bit more sense. There we were, just humans, each of us a product of our genes and means, pushed through the meat grinder that is the Human Condition, and yet we found ourselves on common ground, sharing laughter, the smell of the ocean, the sun glittering on lapping waves, and a taste of a life unfettered by the secrets of our past. 

And then Al dropped a bomb on me. 

I'd asked him about how safe he felt on this island, given the innate corruption that's the mainstay of most small, underprivileged towns and cities. They even had to bribe the police.

Coming soon to a street near you...

Coming soon to a street near you...

How did he retain any semblance of peace?

"There would be no point in me owning a gun," he said. "If someone were to try to rob me or my family, all they would have to do is take the gun from my hand. And with it, they could kill us all."

What the fuck?!

If someone poses an immanent threat, you kill them! A whole lot! You kill them until their dead, then kill them some more. You kill them so hard that their family members feel it from miles away, suddenly afraid of the dark force that has enveloped, destroyed, and digested piece by piece a member of their lineage. We're all meat! Kill or be killed! That's the nature of the world!!! 

But it isn't.

Not for Al. Not for Cassie or her parents. Their world offered them something more; something beyond what was in our base instinct, beyond the meat grinder of the Human Condition. It was unfathomable to me, beautiful, fragile, and strange like snow landing in succession to form a perfect orchid. The idea of this was something worth dying for.

And since the underlying concept was beyond me, placed patiently at my feet by people of pure benevolence, it was worth fighting for. 

At a certain point, Al looked away and I turned my gaze to the clouds, nodding as if I'd been told a secret truth by a winking god.

That night I went out to the rock jetty, my mind unraveling as I tried to wrap it around the thought of being so nonviolent. It was simply too much. And the distraction held my subconscious back from making the progress I was looking for. I walked back to my bungalow more than a little frustrated, but with an idea of how I could show my gratitude toward my generous hosts for the questions they posed.

So I laid in bed again, flicking my knife open-closed-open-closed... and that's where it stayed.

And the idea came to me: What if I simply get rid of all my weapons? All my knives I have back home, any memorabilia that reminded me of violence toward another human. Get rid of the weapons and, by doing so, get rid of the violence inside me. There was a long pause, where hope and fanatic joy bathed my future like the sun was bathing the other side of the world. 

And then something inside me lurched.

And I flicked the knife open again.

The next day I decided to return the favor by providing some weed for my hosts. I hailed a cab and we spoke to one another brokenly, his face lighting up when I mentioned marijuana.

"Si! I have you!"

And with that, he peeled off, leaving me clutching white-knuckled to the door of the car with plumes of dust rising behind us like an angry mob. We stopped just beside the airport, a man that looked like he was fresh off the boat from Jamaica, grey-dusted dreads hanging from a green, red, black, and yellow cap, gaunt and ashy, with three teeth in his head and eyes more red than white, approached us.

 The two spoke back and forth in a mixture of the island dialect and Spanish, ending with Pope Reggae declaring "Ya cyant git de ganja here, yah? De poh-leese, dey catch you? Ya gwan ta preeson. Ya dan wan preeson, yah?"

So I looked at the man, smiled, and thanked him, recognizing that the last thing I wanted to do was end up in a Nicaraguan Prison over something as stupid as marijuana. I turned to the cab driver and said "No estoy preoccupado. I'm not worried. I don't need it. Just take me back and I'll pay you."

The cabby smiled, spoke a few short sentences to Pope Reggae, then continued driving in the same direction we were originally heading.

Concerned, I turned to the driver.

"Eso es no importante! No necessito marijuana!" <---translation: "Fuck prison."

"Es okay, man. Claro. I got you."

And off we went, driving around cattle and through woods, the whole time filled with me politely trying to convince this man that I didn't want any marijuana.

And all he would do is smile and say "I got you!"

Eventually, we pulled up to another bed and breakfast, painted entirely orange in the customary "bright makes right" fashion, the cabby leaving me to wait with heart thrumming as he walked around the corner of the building. After 5 long minutes, he walked back around, leading a pregnant woman who stopped thirty feet from the car, gesturing and grimacing at random.

The cabby approached once more, declared the amount in Cordobas, grabbed the cash from my shaking hand, went through the transaction with the pregnant woman, then sat back into the driver's seat, reaching over and handing me five small pieces of paper bundling the green.

"Where next?"

My heart was still beating to death-metal drums when he dropped me in front of Mama Lola, a restaurant filled with strange designs and overlooking a breathtaking landscape. 

Ordering a Tona and a steak, I sat on the balcony in silent contemplation, running over the reasons why I came to this place, what I wanted, and the hand I'd been dealt. 

As I walked back to the bungalows where I was staying, the wind picked up, burning any exposed skin and sticking to every bit of sweat that had accumulated over the day's worth of travel. 

Once I arrived, I took a shower, had my dinner with Al and Cassie, then found myself once again on the black rock jetty, trying to find the lynch pin to my psyche. 

I went through the same list of terrible thoughts and memories that I had gone through previously, the times I'd hurt people, the times people hurt me, and all the violence that I couldn't prevent. I methodically looked at different perspectives, different pains and what they led to.

I'd break myself down, goddamnit, because that's why I came.

And it still didn't happen.

Instead, naked and raw, I felt a gentle pressure on both sides of my warring mind, as though giant, invisible hands had cupped them with subdued care. These hands slowly lifted the two defining pieces of me, recombining them like clay on a potter's wheel, leaving me with a supreme sense of confidence in who I was. 

Indeed, on that night, where the black sky met the dark blue ocean, where the mist and sand, carried by a rising tempest, mixed to aggravate and soothe me all at once, I was made whole where I'd been broken. 

I am a Violent man.

And a Good one.

And the storm began.

 

 

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