Flamingo Coast by Martin Jay Weiss

Author:Martin Jay Weiss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2018-12-19T22:18:10+00:00

Chapter 23

The bright yellow Lamborghini rumbled into a marked-off space right in front of the open-air bars that served as the gateway to the Batabano festivities. Heads turned to notice the stunning couple that emerged.

Jennifer took in the carnival funfair. “It’s a full-on Mardi Gras!” Jennifer observed.

Children paraded around George Town in a mass of color, enjoying face painting, mask decorating, and snow cones. The finest Caribbean musicians performed a kaleidoscope of song, dance, and pageantry with acrobats. Limbo dancers and masqueraders featured their arts and crafts.

“I’ll bet New Orleans doesn’t have that.” Jack said as he pointed to the queen and king chasing a boisterous Pancho (prince) as he set fire to Moma (a big straw-filled doll).

“What are they doing?” Jennifer asked, amused by the scene.

“They’re displaying our version of Easter, Carne Levale, giving up meat for lent.”

“Which explains those shish-kabobs over there,” she joked.

A J’Ouvert parade marched into the street. Muddied and painted masqueraders celebrating Caribbean culture and heritage surrounded a music truck and danced.

“Batabano is an annual event to promote business for local bars, restaurants, and shops,” Jack explained. “It’s a culmination of all the flavors and cultures of island life mixed with all historic and modern influences—a stimulus for all senses, often a collision of inherent conflicts.”

Jack took Jennifer’s hand and led her across the street where there was less tumult. They passed a young family, the mother and father both trying to wipe swaths of BBQ sauce from their little girl’s face. Jennifer noticed that Jack was staring with a dispirited gaze. She assumed it provoked a memory.

“Are your parents still in England?” she asked.

“I’m not from England,” he told her. “I grew up on this island, in the West Hills.”

“But you have a British accent.”

“I went to boarding school in Manchester. They pounded all the Haitian Creole out of me; it stuck.”

“Haitian?”

“Half Haitian. My mother came from Port-au-Prince. My father is an Irish Paddy.”

The boarding school explained his incongruent accent, but it didn’t explain how a child from a shantytown was able to pay for such an expensive education. “A private school in Manchester must’ve been unusual for a kid from the West Hills,”

she prodded.

“My parents didn’t pay for it…” He paused, seemingly reticent, and then he told her, “Marshall Shore did.”

“That’s…generous. Why—?”

He turned skittish and cut her off, “Rule number two, remember?”

She did. “Don’t ask Flamingos about their past,” she said. “But you’re not a Flamingo, you just work there. Besides, you already know all about me.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

She put her hand in the crook of his arm and they walked in unison for a while. He looked like he wanted to tell her more, so she didn’t press, waiting, and then he told her, “My mother had died, and my father was laid off when there was a building freeze. We were dirt poor…” He paused, like that was all there was to say, or all he should say, but then continued, “I was working at the hotel, as a bellboy. I was lucky to have the job.

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