Fish Eating Bats
When I learned we weren't going to Mexico and were heading instead for Puerto Rico I dispensed with even the pretense of learning more Spanish. Or adding to the three page internal phrase book that best describes my understanding of the Spanish language. Also I gave up on good manners, positive attitude, belief in an afterlife and that right wins over wrong and that some fish can fly and that some bats do eat fish.
In the Aguadilla Airport the taxi drivers hanging by the baggage carrousel all hawked their services eagerly in English. And the young woman behind the rental counter also spoke perfect English and I would guess Spanish as well, although there is some doubt as to whether she was aware of the fish eating bats from Isla Mona. No extra nada I said and got assigned a Kia Rio at the cheapest price possible, a white one, and after signing and initialing and receiving back my paperwork I headed off with Bernadette into the early morning heat of Puerto Rico. The wheels of my carry on luggage clicking over the pavement made enough noise that Bernadette commented on it. That's on account of I have the all terrain wheels I explained to her. This baby can go anywhere, through sand or mud or wet concrete.
The rental car parking lot was small so we were not immediately concerned that we had forgotten the rental woman's exact directions. We both knew she said fourth row after the guard booth but whether left or right after that....?, we really could not say with any amount of certainty. No matter really, the car was not anywhere. This we verified after three young guys, from three different car rental agencies, none of whom spoke English by the way and made me regret the careless abandonment of my studies, searched the lot for us. No big deal. The one youngster loaded up our luggage and drove us the short drive back to the terminal and we tried again. This time the woman gave us a car that had not even been checked in properly, and was right outside the door in a much smaller lot, and this one also a Kia Rio compact, but a blue one. She even told us exactly what slot (number 8) the car would be in.
But getting the hang of things now, we took no time at all to come to the conclusion, all by ourselves, that the blue Kia was not around either. There were no Kias at all in this lot so when I saw a car of similar size, a Mazda 3, arguably an upgrade, but as it and the Kia both only have four tires I could not see that it was a huge upgrade, I suggested to Bernadette that while she waited in the not exactly sweltering heat, I would copy the license number and see if we could just take the Mazda. I did not, but thought about saying, but hey, you keep an eye on this one.
Walking up to the counter and trying my best not to project a frustration which I truly did not feel, I apologized to the woman with two words in Spanish (from page one of the internal phrase book), and then continued in English to explain that the blue Kia was also absent. I felt not happy to be the one bringing to attention that many of their cars were seemingly disappearing into thin air.
I tried to joke with the woman a little and after signing and initialing all the forms for a third time, and after which she made her own little joke by saying--we'll try not to charge you three times, I smiled, said see you in two weeks, and then Bernadette and I drove off in the Mazda, only briefly concerning ourselves with the ramifications inherent to the fact that because we were taking the car from the unofficial lot, we were therefore not exiting through a guard booth, so that our papers could be checked. Also, although the license on this car matched the one on the paperwork, the color listed was gold. I cannot really describe what the color of the Mazda is (if forced I would say green) except to say that it is not gold.
After finding this place on the beach and realizing that the waves were crashing barely a hundred feet behind the comfortably sized backyard, we entered the house with the key a trusting owner had left under the mat, rifled through our bags and after quickly putting on our bathing suits, jumped into the ocean.
The unhappy ending to this day was that later in the evening, pulling shit out of a musty and polluted thin air, an air that was also possibly inhabited with a slew of missing rental cars, I started and then continued to carry on a nasty fight with Bernadette. It took me awhile, too long for sure, but I did eventually come to the conclusion that on this particular occasion I was, rare as it might seem, completely wrong, about everything, and this morning after finding not one single blunt and rusty machete wedged into my flesh, I felt fairly certain that possibly I had been forgiven, and so today was a new day.
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