↑ Vantage pt for Jay Levine at tippity top of crow's nest before he jumped.
Das Boot: the first and perhaps most profound of the Dreamscape categories in that it describes not only the day-to-day adventures of a Caribbean escape, but also a moment that was much of a fulcrum or a rubicon for everyone involved, both a gathering and a dispersal. They were all twenty-four or twenty-five years old, an age where everything in the past seems like prologue and the next turned page is where the story really begins. There was a lot of debate about what comes next: plans hatched, destinies reconsidered. And soon after: Sebastian heading for Brazil, Christoph to Argentina, Helene to New Zealand, our pal Jayson and Natalie both to New York City. And the more we studied these pages, the stronger the urge became to apply allegory and deeper significance to everything that was written. And although 'reality' strongly resists such neat and tidy structuring, nonetheless here it is.
-- Eds
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Das Boot (19/33)
December 18, 1990
Choose a different dreamscape
–> Later
Another day fraught with time passing and ant-like activity. Rose at the traditional 8:30am and, while shadows + sunlight crept around the walls, quickly jotted down the previous dream. Then this, that and the other.
Interesting and scary the way the drug paranoia left me, finally w/an acid residue of persecution fear which I can, almost at will, slip in and out of. Phrases take on double meaning. Always I sit, helpless, at the center. Any time, it seems, I am capable of recalling a shadow of the fear I felt and a vague shiver will jump up my spine. Useless, really, and unfortunate, and living proof of the cautions of hallucinogens.
So, last night, whether or not I made this previously clear, we ran dry on potable eau. Parched. Cracking. Chapped. Today, after a tremendous breakfast of homemade yogurt, wheatgerm, veggie burgers, toast, jam, oats and milk, packed ship + pulled anchor for Union Island. In transit, I finished the letter to Helene, which I proceeded to post upon arrival. Along with letter to Soph. Along with postcard to bro+J. Very communicative. On return trip, I hovered in the crow’s nest, capturing the boat below me on film and gazing in wonder at the immeasurable ocean.
We witnessed a private performance by a German reggae singer who, along w/her rasta husband and 2 rasta children, visited our boat for tea and German conversation.
Dinner on shore, again over open flame. Chris remains and perhaps I should have joined him, but I didn’t and why not? My back still burns. I shall, hopefully, sleep more deeply and rewardingly on board. Today, for the first time since I can recall, I did not swim.
How ‘bout all sitting (Sebastian, Nattie, Helene, myself) in a dim + cool Union Island bar, sipping pepsi or O.J., scribbling postcards. Dim + cool. Calm, relaxed. Black man w/hat pushed low over his eyes watches us from one of the white-slatted chairs around the table…
And tonight Dexter revealed that, contrary to popular belief, this is not his 1st yacht (schooner, actually. Rear mast is higher than the foremast. “Catch” = opposite. “Sloop” = single mast) expedition. Not his second. His fifth! International little, sly manipulator. He comes here all the time! If not on sailboat then by ferry and he knows people here who give him work. He knows people everywhere. Turns out that it’s not uncommon for St. Vincentians to travel to this corner of the Caribbean. More here now, he told me, than locals! And then he says…
“Maybe when you go back… maybe you… maybe all you, send me a walkman?”
I chuckled
He said, “What? You don’t think I need a walkman?”
I said, no, that i didn’t think he needed a walkman.
It seems we will stay a full, free, day here tomorrow, then head out on Thursday (?). Back to Kingstown.