The Dress

Along the beach, where all the bars and restaurants and fancy hotels are, there was a parking lot-ish area cluttered with little food vendors and clothing stands, loose-fitting dresses billowing in the wind. I wanted a dress but feigned interest, didn’t want to bargain or barter until my peripheral vision captured just what I was looking for.

A tiny Bajan woman with extraordinarily small features asked if I was “a’browsin.” I liked the way she said that and replied “yes.”

The dress was mid-calf length, asymmetrically cut, brown with purple tie-die on the front and green on the sides, at the hem. The woman said the dress was perfect for me because I’m tall and then she flexed her arms like body builders do.

“Oh yeah?” I said, amused, “because I’m a big girl, you mean?”

She laughed and nodded in agreement. “Yes, yes!” she exclaimed, “The men will call you a STRONG woman!”

I liked the way she said that too, and I bought the dress.

Conch

There is a thing about conch – hah, as if there is only one – and into one long sentence I shall express the thing about conch. In just a moment. First there are some shorter sentences.

A conch is a shell. You can blow or hum on this shell and make a sound. There is a thing that lives in that shell on the ocean floor. That thing is also called a conch.

I am not crazy about shellfish or things that suck dirt for sustenance, to which the conch is classified, but I recently ate an oyster with my occasionally charming ex-boyfriend and I even more recently had a sex dream about said ex-boyfriend, and so when I saw the conch on the menu – the laminated sheet of paper stapled to the front of a shack on the beach – it seemed karmic that I should eat the conch. The conch reminded me of oyster, which reminded me of ex-boyfriend, which reminded me of that sex dream, which made my mouth water. I did take notice – though not enough – that the conch was listed between the oxtail and the goat leg.

The conch comes fried or curried. I asked for the fried conch but the waitress (also the chef and cashier) said something in French which I of course cannot understand but which was a clear expression of preference for the curried conch. And so, I asked for the curried conch. For future reference, when ordering curried conch on a Caribbean island, you should consider that “curried” does not necessarily mean “cooked.” In fact, sometimes, “curried” means “pull it out of the shell, chop it up, and sprinkle it with ox juice.” Sometimes.

It came on a huge plate, piled high with salad, rice, beans, potatoes, plantains, and (drum roll) so, so, so much conch. The waitress / chef / cashier hovered by our folding plastic table, smiling and wringing her hands, waiting for my conch review. Mom watched. And giggled. I had to eat the conch. And, I had to enjoy the conch.

Conch does not taste so bad. Especially with spoonfuls of the flavorful rice and beans, or chunks of the buttery potatoes. But the consistency is weird…all tentacle. Conch is tough, probably because it’s designed for sucking shit off the ocean floor, and when you eat conch, it sticks in your teeth – strands of muscle to flavor your palate long after the plate is cleared. Its texture has a weirdness that also sticks with you, like the shit in your teeth. It is a weirdness so profound that, when you try to describe it the following day while sipping coffee on the deck of a beautiful yacht, the memory and lingering flavor will gross you out so thoroughly and completely that you won’t be able to deliver the promised long sentence about conch, that you will be completely lamely not able to converse with the handsome tattooed shirtless older gentleman you would normally be drooling over, that you will run away from the table to dry-heave over the railing, that you will wonder whether you fucked up your sexual karma due to the perceived connection between oyster, ex-boyfriend, and now-sickening conch, that you will feel clammy and conchy and shaky and sweaty and run back to the railing for a second dry-heave and wind up delivering the long sentence after all.

Nothing personal against the conch. It was a beautiful presentation.

The Library. You know, the one with all the books.

I went in for Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas - that sort of thing.

The way things actually turned out - Deliverance - yes, the real 1970 James Dickey thing.

Something about the forces of the universe is working out today...because as much as I thought I needed me some Tom Robbins, I'm lovin me some Deliverance.

Mm mm dirty nasty creepiness.