Belize City teetered on stilts… swayed in the noise and smoke… ramshackle and hapharzard structures natiled together, glued together, ready to fall apart… erratically angled planks, timber, walls… about to tumble, split, creak and crash into a cloud of dust and chaos. The streets were dense with people, traffic, confusion… ants pouring out of the cracks… everything teeming… bodies moving all ways along the lurching roads. Passing in a taxi… an overweight and high ranking military man stood on the corner… dark impenetrable glasses… grunts and machine guns to hand. Outside the police station, a hundred cops languished on the balcony, the steps, the tarmac. The people continued to swim… reggae music poured from the car radio… shouts, aggression, forceful gestures… it all spilled over the path. Belize City was an ill ordered swarm.
Katriona and I, we’d hooked up with this Dutch fellow in Mexico… Martyn… the three of us sat waiting at the marine terminal. When finally the boat arrived… our taxi to Caye Caulker… everyone pressed like mad to get on board… slipped folded bills to jump the crush. The trip took nearly an hour… storming over the waves… the wind whipped our hair chaotically. The Cayes were fingers of green in the turquoise… sometimes untouched tracts of vegetation… other times luxury resorts… trimmed lawns and golf courses. Finally we docked at Caye Caulker… two separate islands broken by a narrow channel of water… the southern is built up with hotels, housing, restaurants, tour operators… the north is a largely undeveloped wilderness of mangroves and palms. Everyone clambered out something wobbly.
Martyn found a nice little guest house and we all stayed there for the duration… Natasha’s place near the football field. We checked in and took our stinking clothes to the laundry… we left the guest house for some private time and recovery.
Popeye’s had a happy hour… a two for one deal on rum and coke. So we sat there and ate and drank and talked. The bill was enormous but we didn’t care… just glad to have made it all the way from Mexico. We left Popeye’s and picked up a six pack from the store. Belikin is the national beer… a rich and malty brew most lauded by the locals. We sat in the guest house and had a good glug glug… made a little conversation about nothing in particular.
Then Martyn and I went out and took a few drinks in a bar by the water… whiskey… we knocked em back and talked politics. When the bar shut, we sat on the steps by the disco and drank beer. Then Ricardo, the ‘Pirate’, he showed up and started to talk.
“Eh motherfucker, let me tell you, I am the fucking revolutionary leader of Belize… just like Cuba, motherfucker, the revolution is coming here…”
Ricardo banged on at us… increasingly slurring, increasingly wild…
“Eh motherfucker, I was working for the fucking Colombians… I had to pay to get out… ah, those fucking Colombians… they’re coming for me… once you’re in, you’re in for life…”
Ricardo told us about his time with Che Guevara… peppered it liberally… ‘let me tell you motherfucker’… that was his favourite phrase. Then he turned to me.
“You are a revolutionary, motherfucker… I can see it in your face… you have Indian parents…”
“I don’t have Indian parents…”
“You have Indian parents, motherfucker! I know a motherfucking Indian when I see one!”
Then he came out with the best of all… I couldn’t resist it… the story of the Mayan vase.
“I have a motherfucking vase.” He said. “Mayan. Fifteen thousand dollars this vase cost… Beautiful! It is the vase… that the priests put the hearts inside… the hearts of sacrificed women!”
“Can we see the vase?” I asked.
“No way motherfucker! If I show you this vase you will steal it. It is so fucking beautiful you will want it for yourself…”
Eventually we persuaded him to show it us… we grabbed some more beer from the disco and headed off down the road.
“This vase, motherfucker, so beautiful…”
We got to his place… this little boxcar on stilts… this dilapidated matchbox. Shit. So we all climbed up to his space… cramped and strewn… we all slugged on our beer and he fetched the vase.
“So beautiful…”
I took it carefully and looked… ah yes, very beautiful… I didn’t know what to say… the man was clearly insane… so I just nodded with approval and gave it back. Then the grass came out and we all had a smoke… Ricardo talked in his way… animated… I can’t remember what was said. Then all of a sudden, we came to an edge… Ricardo’s eyes were wild and bloodshot… the words came blasting out…
“Do I have a reason to shoot you motherfucker!? Do I… Have a reason not to shoot you!? Tell me, motherfucker, tell me!”
He kept saying it over and over… I was really quite stoned… I had to think carefully.
“Do I have a reason to shoot you?!”
Over and over… head spinning, ears ringing.
“Do I have a reason, motherfucker, tell me!”
The ambience was suddenly ugly… unnecessarily tense… Martyn tried to difuse it.
“We are all friends here…”
“You shut up gringo motherfucker! You’re in my house now!”
And the question went on…
“Do I have a reason to shoot you… to not shoot you, motherfucker!?”
“No,” I said eventually. “You don’t have a reason to shoot me…”
“Good,” said Ricardo… immediately calm… and the joint moved down the line.
We left on amicable terms… as fast as possible… said goodbye and went stumbling into the night. I liked Ricardo, I really did, despite his problems. A man alone in a box invariably gets strange… that’s how it is with aloneness and four staring walls… it’s a special kind of place… futility gets realised… real horror makes itself known. Ricardo was good man, you understand… in spite of desperation… he had good spirit.