Papak’s Midwinter Kiss
by John Haymaker
part 1
Kendra checked her cell. A text from Julie: “What happened 2U last night?”
“Seen Ryan?” is all Kendra texted back.
“Kwan did. w/the dancer. @the beach. hurtling beer bottles. @midnight.”
After dinner on Christmas Eve, Kendra and Ryan squeezed into the Tiki bar on a Caribbean Island with Julie and her fiancé Kwan, looking for open seats among heavy teakwood tables arranged around a dance floor beneath a thatch roof. A ring of bamboo torches lit the perimeter of the bar, revealing a pool in the distance, rippling reflected light. A band played loud American rock tunes with Caribbean rhythms and accents.
Kendra and Ryan threw back a few Tequila shots and flights of mescal at a table with Julie and Kwan, who sipped fruity cocktails and held hands, constantly twiddling each other’s fingers. Kendra was jealous of Julie’s flyaway hair that lifted in the breeze while her own lilted in the humidity. Kendra watched how Julie and her fiancé seemed the perfect pair: Kwan with his easygoing smile and Julie always bubbly and perky, and both wore matching tropical print shirts that evening.
The hotel manager, a chubby, round-faced, middle-aged islander in a pink Polo shirt and Bermuda shorts, stood on the sidelines doing the twist vigorously from the knees up, keeping his sandals planted firmly in place on the cement. He seemed to be a former promoter for Spring Break events, for he was quite adept as an enabler, riling up a crowd and keeping drinks flowing.
Ryan and Kendra had been at the bar an hour already when a dusky-skinned, anorectic young man appeared, his hair a windswept wave of tightly wound golden brown curls. His presence on the dance floor soon had everyone backing up to watch him dance. Kendra pointed, saying, “Wasn’t that party boy in front of us at reception?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, wagging a finger. “I remember he had a Moroccan passport.”
“He’s probably a runway model or something,” Julie said.
Kendra laughed, nodding. “He’s beautiful enough; could be.”
He did have the look: chiseled nose, angular cheeks, epicene and graceful but clad in stretch denim, grunge t-shirt and loafers. He had the moves, simple moves, but confident, cool; a two-step, a snap of the fingers, an easy roll of the shoulders, forearms beating time. Other patrons soon copied his dance moves; he no longer had the floor to himself, but he’d set the pace and the bar was hopping.
Julie and Kwan were up, dancing back to back; Julie tossing her head about, laughing, imitating the patrons imitating the party boy. By the time Kendra got up off her chair and nudged Ryan to the dance floor, the drum and bass slapped down the last beat sharply and abruptly, leaving the amps buzzing while the singer announced over the static, “That’s it for us. We’ll see you back here on New Year’s. For now, sit tight and order another drink while the incomparable Marco prepares his fireworks!”
The bartender switched on a tuner behind the bar to play electric funk, which kept the bar rollicking, and he carried an earthen jug out to a stool beneath the torches. “That party boy’s a hoot,” Julie said as she and Kwan returned to their table and eased back into their seats, holding hands and leaning against one another. The party boy crossed to the bar and ordered a drink.
A diminutive, frizzy brown-haired girl of maybe seventeen in a blouse and short skirt wandered from her parents’ table, carrying a drink they’d discretely ordered for her. She took a seat at the bar a few stools away from the party boy, who blew her a kiss. When she blushed, he slid over onto a stool next to her. They whispered into each other’s ears, giggling. A minute later their lips were pressed together in a lingering kiss.
The girl’s parents watched from their table, the mother feigning cheeky indignation, covering her mouth with a hand. The father laughed, glowing with embarrassment but nodding as if he approved. Every guy and girl in the place felt that kiss as if it had landed on them. Julie planted a devilish kiss on Kwan, and Kendra licked at her own lips, eyeing the party boy as if tasting his kiss.
Jealous, Ryan brushed his hand across Kendra’s back, but she leaned forward and threw back a last shot of mescal and slammed the glass down a tad harder than intended and turned to ask Ryan, “Another flight?”
“We’ve probably had enough,” he said, shaking his head, already starting to nod off.
The electric funk still set a groove, and the pepped-up party boy curled an arm around the frizzy girl’s waist and coaxed her off the stool and onto the dance floor, which didn’t require much effort; she was tipsy. When he twirled her around, she lost her balance but latched onto the mic stand with both hands, straddled the chrome plated stick and vamped a sultry pantomime.
The mother rose abruptly from the table to tug gently at the daughter’s sleeve, pulling her back toward their table as the father rose. He calmly wrapped his arm around the daughter’s shoulders and the parents casually walked the girl away. The party boy idled back to the bar, ordered another drink and joked with the bartender, mocking the girl’s thrusts, pretending to hold a pole between his legs. The bartender laughed, jerking a cocktail shaker in one hand, making it equally suggestive.
The manager grabbed a mic and, over the funk beat, introduced: “The incomparable Marco, the Island’s hottest Fire Dancer, here for one night only!”
The bartender cut the music. The party boy turned around, leaned back and rested elbows on the bar. A drum line of three young men with bongos strapped over their shoulders stepped forward from behind the ring of torches, fingertips rapping furious rhythms across taut animal skin, building to crescendo.
Beyond the pool, Marco burst into view ringed by a fiery halo as both hands held foot-long fiery rods, the flames flickering and surging upward, trailed by plumes of sooty smoke. A stalky islander, shirtless and muscular, he approached the Tiki bar, rustling a short grass skirt and woven palm bracelets and anklets, juggling the flaming rods in arcs overhead accentuating the rapping bongo rhythms.
When he gathered all the rods into one hand, he raised the earthen jug off the stool and dared bar patrons to sample his brew; fearing its potency, they recoiled. Marco grinned, took in a mouthful and spewed it out toward his torches, sending balls of fire shooting a meter into the air. Smoke billowed after each volley and hung cloud-like in the air, carrying fumes and stench of coal oil. The patrons gasped.
He leapt around the floor between tables, bending backward, swigging mouthfuls of the coal oil from the jug and spewing out streams of fire, unafraid, as if living within flame were second nature. He perhaps saw a welcoming look in Kendra’s eye; for he danced to her table, jumped on top and blew a long breath of fire dangerously close to the thatch roof. He leapt down, grabbed her hand and danced her to center stage. A bit tipsy, she stumbled in her heels.
Julie gasped with a hand over her mouth. Marco twirled Kendra round once, twice, then backed her onto a bar stool and danced in her honor, juggling his flaming rods in a dazzling blur, shaking his grass skirt with fury front and back, and then performed a limbo beneath an imaginary pole, revealing an endowed bulge beneath a loosely wrapped red loincloth before dancing her back to her seat, still unsteady on her feet.
Ryan smiled toward Kendra meekly upon her return, but Kendra was star-struck; she kicked off her heels and ran around the table barefoot, headlong toward Marco. Marco lunged away and blew a blaze toward the stars, then grinned, teasing her to guess where he’d leap next. She kept pace with him as he spewed fire and danced round and round between tables.
She was dizzy when the bongos beat an intense final romp and stopped, only to realize Marco had already disappeared beyond the torches, beyond the pool. Kendra followed, or had tried to, but reappeared a moment later beneath the torches, looked left, then right, before vanishing once more into darkness.
The party boy grinned and shook his head and raised a glass toward Ryan, who rose from his seat, fists clenched and walked out beyond the torches.
He strode down the broad walkways between domiciles where lighting beside the walkway was spotty, blocked by shrubs and masses of decaying leaves. A hidden insect world stirred in trees overhead and underbrush, their chirps and hums rose and ebbed, buzzed loudly and simmered down in waves. The hum of a generator behind the pool house blended into their song. Ryan let the breeze blow across his brow. He wanted to close his eyes as the cool breeze whispered past, but he needed to find Kendra.
He feared she’d get lost in the maze of walkways between buildings. He’d never seen her so drunk, and he wasn’t at all sure why she left; she could be mysterious at times, sometimes walking fast ahead, almost skipping, pulling at his hand and then letting go without warning. Maybe she just needed air and wanted to run.
Until he rounded a corner, Ryan had nearly forgotten Marco and almost didn’t recognize him. Marco and exchanged his primitive garb for blue jeans and a poplin-striped dress shirt, unbuttoned down the front. Kendra held Marco by the wrists, pulled him toward the room, giggling devilishly. Marco grinned, his bare-chested masculinity hulked before her. He could have resisted but gave in inch-by-inch as she backed toward their room’s door.
Ryan stayed hidden in shadows, figuring Marco, a paid performer, would do the right thing and leave. But when Kendra let go of one arm to fish out her keycard from a back pocket, she fumbled the card, and Marco snatched it out of the air with a juggler’s grace and pressed it to the door. A green light flashed, and Kendra leaned back into the sky blue door and hit the handle.
Ryan remained hidden, still believing Marco would show her in and leave. Though Marco seemed shy about going any further, the door gave way and Kendra pulled Marco across the threshold. A breeze shut the door fast behind them.
Ryan shook his head. He clenched his fists as anger flashed across his face. He grabbed his wallet and thumbed through for his own keycard. Several credit cards fell. He bent down and grabbed at them, trying to collect them all but folded only a handful into his wallet when loud music started up. Ryan pounded a fist on the door and jiggled the handle. When no one answered, he backed up a couple of steps and made a short practice run toward the door as if about to charge.
Sudden movement on the walkway distracted him. The party boy strode by a few paces down the walk, his shirt unbuttoned, shirttails billowing in the wind. An unmistakable scent of reefer wafted Ryan’s way, sweet and aromatic. The party boy smiled and proffered a joint with one hand and turned the six-pack of beer he carried sideways alluringly, flashing the golden logo for Crown, a prized local brew.
Ryan stood back from the door, steadied himself on his feet, shook his head and shrugged. He bent down to gather one or two more cards from the walkway before jogging a few quick steps to catch up with the party boy, who was walking backwards, holding out the joint for Ryan.
“You forget your key?” he asked dismissively with a shrug, as if offering something better.
“It’s here somewhere,” Ryan said, shuffling the remaining cards into his back pocket. He reached with his free hand for the joint and took a toke. The reefer was stronger than expected and Ryan held it in but a moment before letting out the toke with a cough. “Sorry.”
“It’s all good, my friend,” the party boy said with a grin, his accent as alluring as his look.
Ryan nodded, clasping a hand over his chest while coughing once more. “I’m Ryan, by the way.”
“Well, Ryan, we’re lucky there’s no moon tonight; starlight’s all around.” The party boy turned round and round adoring the heavens, then returned his gaze to Ryan. “And my name’s Papak,” he said, reaching to shake hands with Ryan, who regarded Papak’s handshake to be as delicate as his features.
Ryan took another toke and repeated the name to himself, ‘Papak,’ and laughed, imagining himself with such a name for moment, then repeated to himself, ‘I’m Papak.’
The wind picked up, and the surf broke with violence, explosive at times as high tide approached. The wind blew Ryan’s hair out of place, and the collar on his blue golf shirt raised up. The temperature dropped as Ryan and Papak approached the beach. Even before the sidewalk stopped, small drifts of sand obscured the concrete.
Papak dropped his sandals between a couple of beach chairs and tables and took a hit off the joint and passed it back to Ryan, who kicked off his loafers and took a seat. Papak piled sand around the beer carton. “That’s enough to keep it cool,” he said and seated himself across from Ryan. The surf pounded relentlessly. Lights offshore seemed to ripple with the stars.
“Where you from?” Papak asked.
“Atlanta. You?”
“From all over,” Papak said as he pulled a bottle by the neck from the carton. “Morocco, Algeria, a year of school in France.”
Hearing Papak’s worldly creds, Ryan suddenly felt provincial. “I haven’t travelled much outside the states.”
“Well, I’ve never been to USA. Maybe one day.”
Papak twisted at the bottle top, but it wasn’t a twist-off and didn’t budge. “Let me try it,” Ryan said reaching.
“No worries.” Papak wrapped a hand over the bottle top, pressed the base of a hefty thumb ring under the cap crown, and pried upward with a quick jolt. Papak’s femme physique belied his true strength. He passed the opened bottle to Ryan, who smiled, and handed another bottle to Papak.
“Have you been to the Caribbean before?” Ryan asked.
“My first time. Last year they sent me all over the Mediterranean.”
“They?”
“I model for Abercrombie,” Papak said, unsurprised to see Ryan’s jaw drop as he said so.
“So what is this, like a holiday between fashion shoots?” Ryan asked, still shitting himself that this guy really was a model, as Julie and Kendra had guessed.
Papak shrugged. “You can’t do fashion shoots and runway walks every day,” he said. “So in between they pay me to work crowds at resorts, show off the latest styles and get people excited about new trends. You?”
“Accounting, growing people’s portfolios; that kind of thing.”
“Like 401k’s?”
“Some of that, too. They don’t send me to hotels much. Or, if they do, it’s to some crappy conference, not a resort.’
“Then you better enjoy yourself now,” Papak said and set his beer bottle in the sand. He rolled another joint. “How would you like that Marco’s job?”
Copyright © 2022 by John Haymaker
