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Dominican Republic

 

A friend flew me to the Dominican Republic to go deep sea fishing on his fishing yacht.  Pedro Martinez was on the plane and one guy in the group gave him a hard time saying, ‘hey Pedro, why aren’t you on the mound’ only to find out he was on his way home because his father was at death’s door.  I was excited; this was my first trip with him and my first time on a yacht.  I romanticized yachts not for their status or luxury but for their ability to free me from the constraints of society.

We partied to the maximum that first night even though we had to get up before dawn.  I dragged myself out of bed and we drove still drunk in our golf carts to the marina at Casa del Campo, which was unfortunate for one member of our party who mistakenly parked his off the side of the pier onto the aft deck of a ship to the fury of my friend’s poor shingled father.

  I had been deep sea fishing once before in the middle of the day sober on a large boat and actually caught something so I thought I would be fine even though the conditions were the complete opposite.  I made the worst wager of my life.  I thought that I could pass out inside in one of the bedrooms before I got sea sick while we were on our way out to the Gulf Stream.  WRONG.  I came out about 45 minutes later and let the hurl show begin. 

I sat on the top deck with a bucket between my legs heaving for hours.  I’ve lost 550$ in less than 90 seconds playing online blackjack, I’ve been dumped by my soul mate; but I have never felt as bad as this day.  My right arm was totally numb and I couldn’t keep water or Gatorade down.  I never once complained, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to spare but also because I didn’t want to be off the invite list for more of these trips, assuming I lived.  Finally at the end of the day, over 9 hours after we had left, when we were on the way back in, I could take small sips of Gatorade every so often.  When we posed for the group pic, I held up the bucket while everyone else held up the Wahoo they caught.  Despite the paradise we were in, I went straight to bed after the best sushi dinner I’ve ever had; the captain made it from one of the fish we caught and I promptly threw it up afterwards.

 I felt so bad and I was so anxious that I was seriously injured or ill that I couldn’t even fall asleep and was afraid to take a sleep aid for fear of falling into a coma.   I finally reached the poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release but still could not drink alcohol the next day.  I got to hear stories about how they had the wildest night dancing with hot Latinas at the strip club.  But I didn’t even care.  Eventually by the last night I was ready to go hard again but everyone else was pulling up.  We drank a good amount but no crazy story for one of the coolest trips I have ever been on.

 On the three hour ride on the way back to Santo Domingo I got my opportunity.  My friend’s dad had his own driver in the DR because he spent a lot of time there.  This guy Fausto was driving us in the van and decided to pick someone up who needed a ride: a native prostitute.  I started flirting with her in Spanish, mostly just joking around but then all of the sudden she moved to the empty last row of the van and so I said fuck it and went back there.  She pulled my dick out and to my surprise said in English ‘it’s beautiful’.  I suspect that’s the only thing she knows to say and that I’m not the only client that got that compliment.  She went down on me while the rest of the guys in the van had their heads straight forward and no one said a word for the whole time.  It took a long while, mostly because I wasn’t attracted to her at all and she had put a condom on.  It was hot in the van and she was really laboring so I felt bad, closed my eyes and imagined someone else and willed myself to come.  We stopped shortly after to drop her off, I gave her 40$, which was probably way overspending but she had worked hard, took off the condom and pissed.  It was the in the final hour that I was able to squeeze a great story out of the trip. 

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. 

 

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

 

Yet the stories are neither useful nor admired even by their creator.

Or maybe he disagreed "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about"

 

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?"

 

The mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same.

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