Gone Bamboo (25 page)
Authors: Anthony Bourdain
A
fter a long day at the beach, they ate dinner at Talk of the Town, on the bay in Grand Case. It started to rain. The tin roof of the clapboard lolo was soon drumming with heavy raindrops, water leaking through in spots, so they had to move their chairs to a dark corner near the tiny kitchen.
The wind picked up, and on the street people ran for cover, huddling in doorways, suddenly crowding the Talk of the Town's makeshift bar, jabbering in loud patois, the rain louder now, making sounds on the roof like a machine gun.
An American couple hurried from their open jeep to take refuge in the smoky shack. The man, a rosy-cheeked retiree in white, and the wife, a pained-looking creature in a blue jacket and scarf, appeared lost. They stood frozen in the dark shelter, eyes adjusting, clearly looking for a friendly face to direct them back to their hotel.
"Ask
them,
honey," said the woman, seeing Henry and Frances in the corner. "They probably know," she whispered loudly.
The man gave Henry and Frances a careful look, measuring them against the sea of black faces pouring into the lolo's bar area. He took in the faded jump vests, the kaffiyehs worn around their waists like South Sea natives'. He saw how Frances was feeding chicken bones to a flea-ridden dog under the table, the animal's jaws making crunching sounds as he wolfed them down. He waited for one of them to talk, to look up at him, acknowledge a white man's presence in the room, but they didn't. They just sat there, drinking beer and eating chicken, saying nothing.
These were clearly not people you asked for directions back to the Great Bay Hotel and Casino. With their too-dark skin, bare, dirty feet, and ragged clothes, the way their teeth flashed eerily white when they opened their mouths to take a bite of chicken, their wild, tangled hair and somehow debauched expressions, he was not comfortable approaching them.
He turned to his wife, confident that the feral-looking couple in the corner would be of no help, and said, "No, honey . . . They aren't American. They don't speak English in here. C'mon. We'll ask at a gas station." He hurried his wife out the door as if the place was alive with anthrax spores, preferring the downpour to this cramped, frightening place at the end of the world.
When they were gone, Henry and Frances burst out laughing. Hearing them, the proprietor came out of the kitchen and asked if they wanted anything. Henry called for more beer.
"They
aren't
American,"
he said, mimicking the middle-aged tourist. "They don't speak English in
here."
Frances, still smiling, leaned back against the stained plywood wall and put her head on Henry's shoulder. "I feel kind of good about that," she said. "I guess we've really gone bamboo."
"Yes," said Henry. "And we're never going back."
Anthony Bourdain is the author of
Kitchen Confidential
and
Bone in the Throat (New York Times
Notable Book of the Year). He is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City.