Charlie, Mary Jane and Karen King

Ok, I’ll try and make this post as brief as possible, but last night is up there as one of the most random nights I’ve experienced in quite a while. Dunny, Andy and I made the executive decision that a beach pub crawl was in order that night. So, we started at the bar at our resort and made our way along the beach until we reached Tony’s bar at the end. We also saw Greg Blewett and Damien Fleming along the way which was a mini highlight of sorts. All the bars we visited were fairly tourist-oriented, except Tony’s Bar, at the end of the beach, which is primarily locals. When we arrived there, we were greeted with a mixture of blank stares, handshakes, smiles and suspicious looks. A short, dreaded guy, Marcus, that reminded me of Sanka from Cool Runnings (the dude with the lucky egg) was the first to greet us. He was by far the friendliest of the locals. Another tall local came straight up to me, shook my hand and said, “Charlie?”, to which I replied, “No, I’m Adrian”. He almost fell off his stool with laughter, muttered something to the dude next to him in the local dialect and then turned back to me and said in the stereotypical deep West Indian voice, “No, no. Charlie for the nose, man”. Yep, I felt like an idiot. I weaselled my way out of purchasing the local blow, and instead settled for a couple rum punches. By the way, these aren’t any rum punches. These are literally half rum topped up with a cocktail mix and a cherry. Someone inexperienced with alcohol, such as Tim Bunting or Haydn Scarr, would be on the floor after eating the cherry alone. I quickly made it known that I was half Trinidadian, to attempt to earn some credibility amongst the half a dozen patrons there. I should also add that they certainly take their pool exceptionally seriously. I also don’t think I’ve heard so many gay euphemisms relating to balls, used in the one sitting.


Wide eyes.

Anyway, it wasn’t long until the ‘Charlie’ guy was back, but this time selling me the local ganja. His words were, “Hey man. I have weed. I am also a cop. Now how much you want boy?”, before dropping his stash on the floor. I hesitated for a second, before he muttered, “You look scared man.”, to which I responded, “but you said you’re a cop, so just gotta make sure, y’know”. Eventually, I was taken across the beach to his ‘crib’ to meet his partner in crime “Bro”. To avoid a confrontation I purchased US$10 worth of the local plantation. I returned to the bar where Marcus was looking slightly concerned. About another half an hour of pool and Antiguan banter transpired until the ‘Charlie’ guy and Marcus hit a point of disagreement. This set off a heated argument between the two. We could barely understand a word, as us two white guys and one half-caste sat there trying to work out our escape plan. It turns out they were arguing about who should have sold me the weed. Apparently Marcus had done all the hard yards being friendly with us, and then the Charlie dude cut Marcus’ grass, so to speak, by underhandedly selling me his ganja. We downed the remainder of our punches, stood up, did the round of handshakes and exited stage left. Funnily, a couple of their last words to us were “One love, man.” That’s one of the things we’ve noticed about the Caribbean – while the locals occasionally get angry, they never get fired up enough for anything to snowball into fisticuffs. This is either through their inherent happy nature or sheer laziness.


Andy and Dunny partake in local rituals. I just watched.


Dunny gettin' doggie from Karen King.

Anyway, we didn’t let the night end there. We headed up to the main road, towards Potters Bar where there seemed to be a few stragglers still kicking on. Three rum punches were ordered. A couple more drinks in and we were approached by what we’d guessed to be another paralytic Australian tourist. “Are you guys Aussies?”, the lady slurred. It turned out that this lady, Karen, was an Aussie who’d been living in Antigua for the last two years. What was she doing here, we asked? Well, of course, she was the wife of Bennett King, the coach of the West Indian cricket team. So, as you do, we went back to her place when the bar shut. Quite bizarre really, considering she has teenage kids and is in her early forties, but we ended up hanging there until around 5am, consuming more rum with some swimming thrown into the mix, just to keep the possibility of death omnipresent, along with repetitive singing of “We are Australian” (the Telstra ad version).

We are one, but we are many. Apparently.