The Rock

The boat rumbled to a stop a half-mile offshore, rocked by the stronger waves washing over the reef. Just ahead was Hell’s Gate, a massive chunk of coral rock jutting from the breakers; centuries of wind and water had carved a hole straight through the center of it. I sat on the bow of the boat, taking in the strong Caribbean sun pounding down out of the clear sky – and then I let myself tumble off the side along with the others.

It was maybe twenty yards of swimming until the sea floor rose enough for me to stand tall, one hand gripping half-buried pieces of submerged coral rock for balance against the waves pouring through the Gate. Another ten yards and we could see the fissure in the rock, a jagged path leading into the narrow opening of a cave. We climbed. Inside, the sandy path and low overhangs – this narrow, rocky throat, whistling – opened onto a two-story grotto, circular as a grain silo and honeycombed from eons of weather. On every tidal surge, white foam boiled up from the pool at our feet, connected by an underwater channel to the sea. We climbed, scrambling up the sharp rock – made the top of the overhang, the arch, with its vista of turquoise water stretching to the far Antigua shoreline.

At my desk in New York a few days later the red marks on my palms from the rocks’ jagged teeth are fading into dull clouds. We’re closing the cigar magazine; my skin is peeling around my forehead and below my eyes, from an overdose of tropical sun – yet I haven’t seen any sun in days.

Another 1,000 Miles East From Yesterday...

Yeah, Antigua. Wind tinkling through wind-chimes hanging above the front door of the villa, whispering through the pines, stirring the surface of the infinity pool that spreads from the entrance-way of the dining room to the beach. Sitting by the aforementioned pool with a notepad, trying to transform notes from the Football Hero into something resembling a story, and not doing too well, because the view of the water and the misty islands beyond keeps distracting me.

North Dallas Forty

I am kneeling on a square of dirt near the Texas/Oklahoma border, petting and scratching an appreciative older bulldog. Through the cell phone pressed to my ear, one of my editors bellows at me from 1,500 miles away; calls everything I am and do into question. I move to scratching the dog under the chin, and it smiles and wags its long and sloppy tongue. A few feet away, an aging Football Hero whispers to his champion horse, easing it around the entrance to the barn.

The editor begins to screech. I say nothing, simply move to rubbing the bulldog's belly. It chuffs softly, rolls over for more. The sun moves like liquid over the Texas Hill Country, making the shadows under the trees sweep and dance. I gaze at the slope leading past the stands of green trees to the far distance. In New York City, the editor launches into his second wind, a true Homeric rant -- and the bulldog chuffs again.

"Huh," I finally grunt into the phone. My first and only word in twenty minutes.

The aging Football Hero has his shirt up, showing off the scars of old Super Bowls. He laughs, heartily. And even though the editor later calls up again, and apologizes, and says none of that was directed at me ("It ain't personal"), the feeling I had looking over those hills stays with me: That I could chuck the open phone casually into the nearest ditch (the device still squalking with righteous indignation even as dust filled the speaker holes), hop the fence, and stride into the sun-dappled grassland; to become one with the beasts and the grasshoppers, to somehow sink roots deep into the Earth, into something eternal and with meaning.

--

The essential existential conundrum, Dallas, late-night: *What* exactly do you choose to eat from the lobby venting machine -- Cheez-Its, or Fritos? What does this say about you as a person? And why is it that Chicago, DC, NYC and LA seem to be the only cities in America that serve real food after 8pm?

For lunch, we stopped at a gas/BBQ/groceries complex carved from dust and weathered boards somewhere in Oklahoma. Great ribs; soggy fries; names and dates written on the walls in Sharpie, reminding me of Morgan Freeman's bar in Mississippi. A plague of black and somehow antedeluvian crickets had swept through, filling the bathroom, hopping on the warped wood of the porch. Before climbing back into the SUV I wiped the dirt from my boots, patted the pocket of my cargo pants where the digital recorder with the Football Hero's stories about Super Bowls and plane crashes, cheerleaders and finding salvation, sat waiting for transcription; within 24 hours I planned to be on an island far southeast of here; I paused for a moment to breathe in the dry air.