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| A Strange and Terrible Day |
| 05.07.04 (5:48 pm) [edit] |
This morning in the gardens I came across a feather, brown on one side and black on the other. I had been reading a book about centuries old Indians who tied feathers to trees for a prayer and so I picked the feather up and tied it to a tree. I wondered why I was doing it and realized I really didn't know, so my prayer was for the good of this island. I didn't know.
A call came to my job at 12:30 that a friend of mine had died on his boat. Beau...how do I describe Beau? He'd been in Viet Nam, he had blown out his knee right before I met him. A gentle soul, sweet, with a bit of a lisp but not a lisp really, a speech defect if you will, but simply Beau. I'd often talk with him on the ferry back and forth to the big island, where he'd go for VA treatment, laughing about tricking the psychologist about his drinking, which started early and ended late. Beau was a serious alcoholic of the sweetest sort, who was offered *help* many times and chose his own road. He lived on a friend's boat and that is where he died.
When I heard about it I went down to the dock. He was still on the boat and island insanity was reigning. A young cop was there and we were waiting for the ambulance to come back...they'd been there and left, waiting for a ME who had to fly over from the big island. I sat next to Rebecca, we only wanted to insure some dignity when they took him off the boat, but that was not quite in the cards. The cop and some locals spotted a baraccuda and one went to get a spear gun. They shot the barracuda as we sat there, hollering and laughing, while a couple people went onto the boat and looked at Beau (which I could not do, who WERE they?).
We waited...and waited, for the ambulance to come back, more people showing up all the time. The man who shot the fish got his boat and came around to get it and while we sat there, a man dove into the water, got the baracuda and carried the fish dripping blood down the dock - the cop more interested in the fish than in Beau.
Finally it all came together, no ME around. Two ambulances and one truck. They went on the boat with a white plastic bag. They came up, carrying him roughly and laid him on the dock. A man came up to us and said, If you can't give us 300.00 we can't take him to the big island. A woman had 200.00 and I had 100 (bizarre, I NEVER have that sort of cash on me) and we handed it over and they loaded him onto a board and put him on the truck. But there was a moment...Beau's arms stiff...and the cop with his boot lifed to kick it down - my insides clenched and ready to kill - but he stopped himself looking at us - and they loaded him for the trip to the airport.
More bizarre moments, his ever present fanny pack not found, was he murdered? So insane to think of that here but yes, it could happen - but no, they found the pack and all the money and we have to think he fell and hit his head and died. He died. A world without Beau.
Rebecca and I went to have a drink to breathe again. Tonight was a party to welcome a sweet woman to the island and a man who is a friend held me for a long time, asking and saying are you ok? petting me like a forlorn pet....which I needed badly. All night he came to me to do this and finally, after letting Kelly know how happy I was to have her here I had to go, to come home and write this out because...let the prayer feather fly, let Beau be free, but oh I miss him I miss him his sweetness, his being, his silly stories. I miss Beau and at the same time release him...as I did, his body on the dock, be free be free be free, it is not you there, please, you are beyond this now.
It hurts.
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