Short Story: Guitar, Gum, Papers

I was standing on a pitch black area of beach with a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum in my hand, watching the confrontation between Mark and the toothy Jamaican man and feeling increasingly nervous. The man’s face was inching closer throughout the conversation, his voice getting louder. I glimpsed at his hands in case they concealed a weapon. I looked longingly toward the part of the beach 100 yards ahead, well-lit and sure to have security guards on patrol. I wished we were standing up there.
“If I don’t get money, how am I supposed to feed my children?” The man said. He had told us earlier in the conversation, when things had seemed more friendly, that he had come down from the mountains to sell a random selection of goods on the beach. He couldn’t go home without enough tourist cash to feed his three kids. His boy was 13 he said as he gestured the boy’s height with a hand wavering around his neck line. He had been with his woman for 14 years, unmarried but happy. Mark held the cigar awkwardly. We had asked for none of this stuff, but had them pushed into our hands anyway. It had seemed like a gift.
“I want you to have this,” the man had said, pushing the cigar into Mark’s hand and the chewing gum into mine. “Oh, thank you very much,” we said. What a friendly man. What a nice thing to do, to offer us little gifts for visiting Jamaica.
“Do you need rolling papers?” he said. The terrible mistake had been to tell the guy that yes, we needed rolling papers. Now he had something on us: he was providing a service rather than being a nuisance and a charity case.
Rolling papers (which we later discovered didn’t work – the sticky edge was completely useless), a “Jamaican cigar” and a pack of chewing gum. These weren’t gifts. The man asked for 500 Jamaican dollars (about eight bucks) and Mark had paid him kindly, just to help out, when really this horde would have cost us a quarter of the price anywhere else. Plus, we hadn’t wanted any of it. The man seemed thankful at first. He knew he was getting more money out of us than was necessary or fair. We thought it was the end and continued our walk to find dinner. The plague had been brief and was over.
But on the way back, after ironically realizing that we had – in fact – given away our dinner money and only had 300 Jamaican left, the man approached us again in the dark patch. He squinted at Mark’s face and I thought he would offer a salutation of appreciation, but he was angry.
“How much did I tell you?” he asked.
“You said 500 Jamaican.”
“Do you have to lean in close when people speak?”
We didn’t understand. Mark asked him what he meant. He repeated the question, which we realised was passive-aggressively sarcastic, and then said: “I said THREE 500s. You only gave me one. So I came looking for you.”
Oh shit. This was not good. He was lying, of course, but we were in that dark patch of beach again. No use calling for help with a glance at security or walking away to safety. We wouldn’t get far, and who knows what this guy was on or how far he was willing to go. He was asking for $23 for a cigar, papers and chewing gum. It must have been a dry day.
“I saw you open your wallet with all your money down there,” he said.
Damn! We had been checking to see if there was enough money for dinner. He had obviously spotted an opportunity and thought he’d milk our stupid, tourist asses for all we had.
“We’ve only got 300 J,” Mark said.
“That’s all you got?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have more money in your hotel room?”
Damn, damn, damn. Now what? But Mark was thinking on his feet.
“We’re going home tomorrow, so no, this is the last of it.” He handed over three 100-dollar bills. I was getting teary with anger, but it was a smart move. The guy took it and left us to walk sullenly back to our room.
I was angry. What a failed evening! We were left hungry and pissed off, while that guy had abused us for responding in a friendly way and wanting to help him out. It was the only moment during the whole week that I wanted to go home, where there were no hustlers and we were safe.