Is this how he would have done it?
All day long I’ve been shaking the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson. I’m in Puerto Rico. By myself.
A small, glass table is pulled into the middle of the room, the darkness of the ocean seen through the front door. The apartment is small, in New York it would rank as claustrophobic. Being able to cast open the door onto a deck that eventually lets itself down onto the beach really opens it up.
Part of me wishes my neighbor would shut off the light above the gas grill now that he’s done cooking. He probably wishes his neighbor wouldn’t sit typing in the dark.
I always wanted to come back to Puerto Rico. The only other time was for a bachelor party, and it was over before anyone realized it was happening. We were corralled into the city of San Juan, cordoned off from the rest of the island by casinos and other tourist attractions. Not to say that this ocean view apartment isn’t a tourist attraction of sorts. It certainly is, it just lacks the bright lights and overbearing schmaltz that go with, say, a luxury hotel in the heart of the nation’s (commonwealth’s) capitol.
This time it’s different. I drove a long, westerly drive on Route 22, burning my gringo forearm by hanging it outside the driver’s side window. One of the amazing things of the drive is that the ocean really does sneak up on the driver, right after Arecibo. The road twists north and suddenly: blue. It happens again long after 22 feeds into route 2, but the first time is wholly unexpected and charming.
It’s amazing that the details of a foreign place can evoke memories of familiar things. With no one in the passenger seat to distract, it’s easier to be reminded of distinct feelings and times from fifteen years ago, even if the players in your life have remained fairly constant.
It’s much too difficult to describe in an interesting way the details of what brought me here. Or rather, what brought me here alone. They’re mundane. Boring. A story you’ve heard way too many times. Most people don’t travel alone, and even in this small resort I’m an anomaly. There are couples here, moving in pairs. Who is this freakish animal? And why is he talking to us?
There was a girl, but that wasn’t the point of the trip in the first place. She just happened to fit in when the plans began to bubble. Trouble ensued in the months after all the details were sorted and paid. Time kept moving, the trip appeared and everyone became all WTF about it.
I wasn’t however, and I’m still not. I’m hard pressed to give a defining characteristic about what I do feel, and the only thing that I come up with is: ok. Every time I start to think I need to do something, that I’m wasting time and some shit is going to go down tomorrow whether I’m prepared or not, I realize that no. I’m lucky. I don’t know if this will ever happen again. Probably not. Life will unfold when I step back into New York City. Things will take place. Time to get your Zen on while it lasts.
