Trouble in Paradise

To recap:

My wife and I were on a Native Son ferry somewhere between Tortola, B.V.I., and St. John, U.S.V.I.

The ATM machine in West End, Tortola had rejected both our debit and credit cards.

I had ten dollars in my pocket. The only reason we were on the ferry at all was due to the purchase of a return ticket on Native Son several days before. At the time, it had been a mistake: Guides warned against getting locked in to a return ticket because the ferry schedules and businesses were potentially so untrustworthy!

Now of course we were happy to have tickets at all, since we had virtually no money!

We had confirmed at check-in that the ferry went to Charlotte Amelie in St. Thomas, and not just Red Hook.

We had confirmed with a crew member upon boarding that the ferry went to Charlotte Amelie and not just Red Hook.

We had breathed a huge sigh of relief (into our hands, that is, since our breath was stinky with rum, after self-medicating at the Jolly Rodger and on the ferry ride) as we passed through customs at the stop in St. John. St. John felt a quantum leap closer to home. It felt like America, dammit.

The sun was shining, the passengers were laughing. We had accounted for all our luggage.

That is why it was such a shock when as we reboarded the ferry, our feet leaving nativish turf, the crew member shouted out West End! West End. The same crew member who had confirmed Charlotte Amelie now informed us that the ferry was returning to Tortola. West End!

He was abrupt when I tried to interject, "After Charlotte Amelie, you mean." He was snarly when I insisted he had himself confirmed Charlotte Amelie to us not forty minutes before. He was a stocky, short, sweating twenty-something black man, and he snarled over the can of Amstel he drank off in a moment.

No money no time no credit card no debit crad no phone no St. Thomas no plane no plane no plane

And I a typical foolish insulting annoying Yankee. No doubt. I could take anything at that instant, any stereotype or insult. Except foolish. I read in a moment the fact that we were the only passengers 'booked' for Charlotte Amelie. And we didn't count. What a joke on the foolish Yankees.

No amount of rum could prevent the sobriety then of absolute fury. I fumed in the seat beside my wife as we headed for Red Hook and told her and myself that we would indeed find that the ferry would continue to Charlotte Amelie--that he was wrong. That businesses couldn't act this way, and that, despite our tall amount of cultural distrust built up precipitously in our short stay, this would be a shafting of proportions too unseemly even by Tortolan standards.