↑ 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
x
Das Boot (32/33)
December 26, 1990
Choose a different dreamscape
7am – Castries, Fiji airport.
Waiting for a plane. Rain splatters the glass doors and the strip of cement leading to the tarmac where I can see the mid-section of a white plane, red+blue stripe indicating American Eagle. Gray skies. Gray day. Rain, speckling the glass, rattling to the ground, soaking the grass and the palm fronds which bow beneath the lush weight. Raining! Reminiscent of Cancun, that first night + day in the rain. The depression + weight + exhaustion I feel.
Leaving the St. Alamé leaves me empty + tired. They sail on today, toward Barbados to secure the necessary papers to return to the States. And me? I caught a cab to Fiji airport which cost $20 US dollars and left me with exactly $3.50 US, or $4.50 short of the required exit tax.
“Do you take credit cards?”
“Not for the departure tax.”
“A bank?”
“Holiday. Everything is closed.”
“… I guess I’m in this country forever.”
But no. A beautifully generous + helpful German came to the rescue. Perhaps his wife or daughter caught wind of my plight, because as I stood there searching for a fellow American, and searching for the courage to approach one should one appear, suddenly:
“I hear you have some sort of problem with leaving?”
So kind. Without any opportunity on my part, placed the $20EC in my palm. There is a Santa Claus! Sooo kind.
“Perhaps,” I said, “if you give me your address, I could…”
A wave of the hand. A shake of the head. A hint of a smile.
And I think of Christoph advising that I hold on to the twelve US I had. “That’s the minimum one should travel with in these capitalist countries.” Nah, I thought. Get on the plane (I already paid for that), they supply lunch. John meets me at the airport in RI. Home free! Not so easy. $8 US departure tax. Robbery is the word.
Dreams:
Galvanized too abruptly into motion to retain the fragile spiderweb which visited me and wove light + color through my hair. An image: outside Zachary’s liquor store in Prov (?) Someone is telling me about how someone else (Colleen (?) (Hem’s)) is off visiting her new rockstar boyfriend in Boston. The guy has 6 kids her age and money in the bank. He’s fifty years old.
—
The rain has ended leaving a heavy gray quality to the air outside the now open door. The steel of the plane (aluminum actually) glows faintly bluish in the light. This waiting room slowly fills with an odd combination of fellow travelers heading from + towards their various destinies. If each one were a string stretching from the past towards the future, right here, in this room, we would have a knot. Maybe a tangle A snarl? Perfectly braided macramé?
I’m heading home…