CHAPTER 3
Jah Mon and all that crap.

Kyle wasted little time in calling Virgil and giving him the good news. Virgil was an excitable kind of guy to begin with, but when Kyle told him yes, Virgil about strangled on his own excitement.
     “Dude!” was about all Virgil could get out the first couple of minutes on the phone. Maybe a “Fuckin’ Duder!” thrown in.
     Virgil told Kyle it would all be arranged. Just show up at the airport and a ticket – a first class ticket – would be waiting. As for Kyle’s things, they would be packed up for him and put into storage in Florida, should he decide he needed something like his Star Wars shoe horn or the alarm clock that shouted, “WAKE UP MAGGOT!” in the voice of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in “Full Metal Jacket.” Which really was a pretty cool toy.
     It didn’t go unnoticed by Kyle that his whole life could be wrapped up in one day. It was the best argument he could provide for himself should he suddenly get cold feet about this adventure. In the back of his rebel mind, Kyle held a secret desire to shed all possessions (and maybe some of the responsibilities) and find a simpler existence. One without schedules or deadlines or text messaging.
     Kyle caught a plane to Florida, immensely enjoying first class and fooling himself into thinking the flight attendants all wanted in his pants because of his seat assignment. He felt successful. A driver approximately 16 feet tall was waiting for Kyle at the gate holding a sign that said “Mr. Whitman.” Kyle guessed the lettering on the sign was a new version of Helvetica, and wondered if it would’ve been funnier to say something like “Kyle?” or “Mr. Whitman, your life is calling.”
     Kyle swallowed his signage disappointment as he greeted the gargantuan man holding it.
     The driver, a Caribe Indian descendant, smiled, took Kyle’s one bag, and led him to the stretch limousine that waited curbside. As he slowly entered the limo, Kyle once again fooled himself into thinking that now, the entire airport wanted to bone him. The driver, all smiles and no words, put up the privacy barrier and off they went.
     It was a fairly long drive from Miami to Key West. Good thing Kyle drank the limo’s Cabo Wabo tequila and watched reruns of “I Dream of Jeannie” on Nickelodeon (drunk just enough to be fooled into thinking Jeannie would find him attractive) to make the ride short. Normally Kyle would worry that something was up, what with the star treatment, the satellite tv in the limo, free booze, a chauffer. But for some reason, he just let the “Old Kyle” out to play, the one who would drink your tequila and get a boner over Barbara Eden.
     Or take a job in a place he’d never been for a man he’d never met.
     The limo came to a stop just as the sun was beginning to set. To Kyle, it might as well have been midnight with the tinted windows encasing him. His door opened and the driver stepped back. Kyle, feeling fine from the tequila, stepped out and greeted the Key West air with a yawn and a stretch.  His bag was already unloaded and deposited beside the driver. Kyle looked up at the driver and gave him a smile. The driver smiled back down at him.
     “You know mon, I give you fif-tee dollah if you tell me his name,” someone off to Kyle’s right said. The voice belonged to a central casting Rastafarian man dressed in a tight Italian soccer shirt, camo cargo pants, and red Keanes. Yes, one hand held a lit blunt.
     Kyle considered the Rastafarian man. Then the driver. Then the Rastafarian. Driver.
     “His name is Maxwell,” Kyle said matter of factly.
     “You sure ‘bout dat mon?” the Rastafarian said.
     “Pretty…sure.”
     “Yes. But arrrrre you poseeteeve?”
     Kyle looked up at the driver once more.
     “I have no idea what this man’s name is and I am nothing more than a xenophobic hunk of racist shite for not even asking,” Kyle said. “You can throw the burning tire over my head now.”
     “No problem mon,” the Rastafarian said, turning to the driver. “Ju mon, whatever your name ees, put the white fella’s bag in my plane please.”
     The driver smiled broadly as he picked up Kyle’s bag and began to walk towards the plane.
     “Look at you, you beeeg giant of crazy,” the Rastafarian added. “I bet you sum kinda wicked when da moon comes out, eh?”
     About his plane.
     It was an amazing piece of transportation. A 1956 Grumman HU-16C Albatross. It had seen better days or, depending on your outlook, had been seriously broken in. Maybe it was the fading southern light, but the plane had a certain glow to it. Imagine a low angle shot of the fuselage as we pushed in, showing the plane as a hero, the red sky behind it, like a Spielberg scene in which we meet someone or something that is simply bitchin. Kyle, having a somewhat cultivated fetish for aesthetics, stumbled along the dock towards the plane, his mouth open.
     The fuselage was divided into three colors: Red underneath, a thick black center stripe and green over the top. The wings were gold. The name “Selassie” painted on the side in script.
     “Dis my plane, mon,” the Rastafarian said.
     “Hold on,” Kyle said, raising his hands before him. “What’s your name?”
     “My name is Sebastian. Everyone calls me Seebee. S.E.B.E Seebee, hay!”
     Kyle lowered his hands. “Sebay,” he said.
     “No no,” Sebastian said. “Seebee – like “C.B.”
     “Got it. Seebee, your plane is…it’s, she’s – do you call a plane a ‘she’?”
     “Jah mon, tha’s right!” Seebee said. “And isn’t she a beautiful she?”
     “Seebee, this plane is a fucking flying piece of art. It’s the amalgamation of science and art all rolled up into a shiny metal aeronautical post modern masterpiece!”
     “Wait until we get airborne, mon,” Seebee said. “Like you float on da wings of angels, mon.”
     “Will we be getting high in the air?” Kyle asked.
     “Jah mon, ‘bout eighteen thous feet, mon.”
     “No, I mean, can we burn one down in the cockpit and all?” Kyle asked, pointing to Seebee’s hand that held the lit spliff.
     “Oooooohhhhhh mon, ha!” Seebee said. “Nevah when steering de plane. You finish for me mon?”
     “Could I?” Kyle asked a little too enthusiasticly.
     “Compliments of Air Selassie, mon,” Seebee said handing Kyle the joint.
     Kyle took a hit and looked out at the ocean. The sun was halfway under the horizon. The air was warm, the water making a dingy bell sound in the distance. Kyle looked up at the sky streaked red and orange and let his breath out slowly, exhaling the smoke.
     “So Seebee, I’m about to embark on a new life,” Kyle said.
     “Jah mon,” Seebee said, thinking to himself how many times he’d heard white tourists feel expansive about the universe, life, high yield bonds, etc…
     “Ah, fuck it,” Kyle said. “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
     Seebee smiled. It wasn’t often a tourist toked and spouted Hunter S. Thompson. Seebee decided that maybe this guy, this “Kyle”, would be okay. The others were assholes before they hit the dock. Seebee knew they wouldn’t last long. The Caribbean’s no place for gamers or fast trackers with quick mouths. You have to roll with things, let them unfold before you and take it all in. Then make a move. And getting yourself drunk and high on your way to a predicament you know nothing about, well that could be only one thing in Seebee’s mind.
     “Fantastic!” Seebee shouted clapping his hands together. “We fly!”