ever had. At home, breakfast consisted of a bowl of sugared cereal
and a coke.
“Do you eat like this every morning?” I asked.
“Most of the time. You know, with all the things that grow wild
and can be caught on this island, I haven’t used any of my own money
for food in years.” He reached into his bag and pulled out two large
blueberry muffins. He offered me one.
“Wow! You made muffins from ingredients you grew on this
island? That’s unbelievable!”
Laughing, he said: “No, not exactly Jake. I don’t have anywhere
to plug in an oven. Those are from Boy’s Shaky Bakery. I caught some
fish and gave them to Noi for his “Shitface Bouillabaisse.” Then, he
gave Boy some marijuana to put in his hash brownies, and Boy gave
me a bag of these. I love blueberries and they don’t grow on Samrin.”
“Sounds like a good system,” I said.
“Works all right.”
“Hey, Tree, did you trade any fish for a coke or something?”
“No coke, but how about some coconut milk? There’s plenty in
all those trees.”
“Okay, but how do you get them down?”
“Well, the Thais have these long sticks that they smack them
down with, but I almost got nailed by a falling coconut once, and
besides, I prefer to do it the other way.”
“Which is?”
“Climbing up the tree and throwing them down.”
“Climbing? But those are huge! You could fall and break your
neck!”
“Only if you let yourself fall. Don’t you trust you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then who can you trust?”
“You. I trust that you can’t break my neck when you are up in
that tree. I’m staying here.”
“What if I told you that I wasn’t thirsty?”
“Then I’d drink sea water.”
“What would you do if I wasn’t here? Come on, it’s exhilarating.”
“Dying is not exhilarating.”
“You’re not going to die. Come on.”
We walked a little ways down the beach and up the side of the
hill. Jutting out at an angle from the hill was a coconut tree that had
to grow away from some limestone in order to get its fair share of
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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