Lot on the Beach

There’s a habit of the mind that sometimes goes by the name of  “the license plate syndrome,” referenced to a quote by the physicist Richard Feynman:

You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!

         

What he’s referring to is the habit of seeing coincidences as highly unlikely and even developing magical thinking surrounding the accidental conjunction of events.   Of course, what we don’t recognize are all the non-coincidences that happen all the time.   The coincidences simply attract our attention.  Toward the end of his life, Feynman tackled the issue of magical thinking with gusto, and the above quote is typical of this period in his lectures and writing. 

When the coincidences really pile up – one on top of the other – it’s difficult not to wander into the realm of magical thinking.   I had one such “Houston, we have liftoff” experience where I felt as if I was rocketed into a rarified realm and found it difficult to reconcile events.

The first episode was a strange dream that stuck with me over the years.  When I was 22, I lived near Paolo Alto in order to tend my thesis experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.   It was called the Time Projection Chamber, and as a graduate student, I frequently had to do owl shifts: midnight to eight AM.    This meant that I caught my sleep at odd hours.   Frequently after shifts, I’d have to go to right into meetings and perform other work during the day, getting home mid afternoon, grabbing a snack and then going to sleep. 

One evening during this time, I had a strange dream.   In it, I was wandering through a maze of underground passageways associated with a subway system.   In large cities- London, and New York, for example, there are stations that service multiple lines, and the interconnects between the platforms can be a complicated maze of stairs and tunnels leading in seemingly random direction.   The dream-maze had a distinct Victorian-era feel to it with brickwork and ornate carvings on the railings.  It was also dirty, as I remember the gritty appearance some of the subway stops in my native Philadelphia.   An Indian woman walked beside me in a sari.   We approached a ticket booth that had an iron grate on the front of it, welded crudely together.   Behind the grate sat an old man.   He wore a blue conductor’s uniform with bright brass buttons and a conductor’s hat.   The man had long white hair flowing over his shoulders and a long white beard hanging down.   He looked like a cross between an Indian and an African.   I was standing in line behind some people who were purchasing tickets from him.

The woman in the sari began to speak.   “This man is of Vedic origins.   He knows the secret of the scriptures and can reveal them to you.   But, be careful in your Homeric eagerness that you do not destroy yourself with that knowledge.”  

Walking up to the booth, I pushed a couple of dollar bills across the gap underneath the grate, and the man handed back a ticket.    I turned around, and a subway pulled up to the platform opposite the ticket booth, entered the subway and sat down next to a window. The train pulled out of the station and into a long dark tunnel.   On the side of the tunnel were red and green lights spaced every ten meters or so.   As the train came up to speed, the lights passed faster and faster.   I felt myself get sleepier and sleepier.   As I fell asleep in the dream, I woke up in real life, and found my face in buried in a small puddle of drool.   The alarm was buzzing.

Over the years, the image of that old man and the phrase about not destroying myself in my “Homeric eagerness” rattled around in my mind for some time.

Fast forward to twenty years after that strange dream.    I flew to Jamaica to get some rest and relaxation after a taxing stint as computer and physics coordinator for my experiment in Geneva Switzerland at the Large Hadron Collider.    Packing light was the way to go and my suitcase had some shorts, a few tee shirts and I brought my banjo to jam on the beach with the local musicians, as I’d done in the past.

There’s a small hotel situated in the middle of a seven-mile long stretch of beach in the town of Negril: Charela Inn.   It has a decidedly European clientele, while Americans tended to head to the larger resorts of Hedonism, Beaches, Sandals, Club Lido and the like. This trip was during spring break, and the beach was packed with American college students, who partied hard.   Charela was an island of calm in the sea of students.

The spring breakers had a distinct social structure. There'd be a "boys only" pack walking by, where they'd check everyone out, and then a "girls only" pack.   The "girls only" packs were filled with ultra-thin women, trying to look their best, be cool and such.  The "boys only" packs weren't so much concerned about their weight, but showing their bravado and hoping to get laid.   Both packs were very much out of tune with the island, and they constantly wanted to be insulated from the culture by American culture - McDonalds, the all-inclusive resorts, that kind of thing.

Spring breakers in Negril.

A unique aspect of Jamaican culture is the Rastafarian religion.   It has its roots in Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa movement.   The religion’s name comes from Ras Tafari, the name associated with the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.   He was born Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael.  As he ascended to power, he became Ras Tafari, where Ras is a noble title, much like Duke.   Eventually, he adopted the name Haile Selassie. 

The post of Emperor of Ethiopia is historically linked to the Queen of Sheba and Solomon.  Garvey saw this linkage as direct evidence of a continuous birthright that identifies the Jamaican people as a lost tribe of Israel.   Selassie is considered the savior of African peoples by the Rastafarians:  the messiah predicted in Isaiah.  The Rastafari only read the Old Testament, and view Western culture as Babylon as these were the slavers who brought them to the New World from Africa.   There is a strong identification with the Babylonian captivity, and verses from the Psalms pop up occasionally in reggae lyrics. 

Ras Tafari aka Haile Selassie in coronation regalia.

Jah is the name of god for the Ratafari, derived from the Hebrew Yahweh.   Believers will speak of Jah-love, and hold that there are two selves: one of the person and one as an inner reflection of Jah.   Thus, they substitute the phrase “I and I” for the first person singular pronoun to indicate their identification with Jah.

The concept of Babylon has extended beyond the land of the slavers that took the Rastafari from Africa and has become synonymous with the trappings of American culture:  Disney, MTV, Burger King.   So, through a twist in fate, the American college students were ambassadors from Babylon.   Although they bring in tourist dollars, they are also a reminder of the role of Whites in slavery.

One afternoon during my stay at Charela I went to a small outdoor eatery called Sonia's Place for a Jamaican patty.  Sonia is an ample, god fearing woman, who looks like Aunt Jemima, with a bandanna wrapped around her hair.   I grabbed a Redstripe (Jamaican beer) from her cooler and ordered up my patty.  Pretty soon, three American college girls on spring break came into the patty-place and sat at my table.  It was communal seating there, and the other tables were full, so they had little choice but to sit at my table.

The girls started to chat amongst themselves about their experiences on the beach.  They started to share their stories with me.  I'm assuming that this is because I didn't look like a horny young college student, perhaps a sympathetic older man in their eyes.   As it turns out one of them, Suzie, was being oogled by a guy who was staying at their resort named Martin.  They'd flirt with the boys, and Martin in particular, but only enough to get him interested in Suzie, at which point, they'd pull back when he displayed any interest.  I think Martin asked Suzie to a reggae concert and they were debating whether Suzie should accept this invitation.  They giggled at the various things Martin did to try to entangle Suzie in some plot that they undoubtedly thought would lead to sex.  It wasn't precisely clear why Suzie would want to avoid this, but OK.  The girls got their patties to go, and departed. 

At this point, Sonia came up to me, and gave me a long stare.  She sat down in front of me, and patted my arm.  She said "I tell you".   "eh? Tell me what, Sonia?"  She looked at me in the eyes again and said "I tell you...Me hoosban and me, I finally divorce him, but I have to pay some one for to drive me to Kingston Town"  It turns out that she got fed up with her good-for-nothing husband dogging around on her for 12 years.  She was scared to death of Kingston and all the crime there, and had to save up her money to get a bodyguard to take her there.   It was a long tale, but I won't bore you with the details.   Now that she was legally free, she'd been flirting with a taxi driver.   She said she was in love with him, but because she was a god-fearing woman, she wouldn't do anything with him, as he was married.

Almost on cue, a cab pulled in front of the stand, and an old Rastafarian-looking character ambles over to the table and sits down with Sonia.   They started to make goo-goo eyes at each other.   He asked to kiss her (right in front of me), but Sonia refused.  "Now, darling, I tell you you cannot do such things..."  He tried his best, "But, Sonia, you are my only love, why not..."  At this point, I felt like I was eavesdropping,  so I picked up my Redstripe and wandered back to the beach, while Sonia and her boyfriend continued to make nice-nice.

I went to my room, picked up my banjo, and headed out to the beach.   I sat there, picking for a while, watching the college girls and boy-packs wander by, hoping perhaps that some cute girl-pack would actually stop to sing a tune and chat.  Fat luck.

Some of my musician friends wandered down the beach.  It was a trio of Joseph, who plays acoustic bass, and lugs this monstrous thing up and down the beach on his shoulders and plays for spare change.  Dervin, his son, sings and plays the snare drum.  They were accompanied by a new guy, Cedric, who sings and is also a part time gigolo.   Jamaica is the only place I've seen with a high-ish density of gigolos.  I don't know precisely why, but evidently this gigolo concept is popular with some women, particularly single European women who end up in Negril.

We jammed and indulged in some reggae-bluegrass fusion - me picking banjo to traditional reggae tunes.  It sounds pretty good, actually.   As it turns out, they had a "command performance" gig down the beach with some Germans.  They wanted me to accompany them, as I wouldn't take any of their tip money and was an added special attraction.  So, figuring I had nothing better to do, I accompanied them to the hotel where the Germans were staying.

One of the Germans was a giggly zaftig woman of about 23 or so.  She had her hair in braids and was a bit toasted on rum.   Cedric, the gigolo guy, sensed some action, and started dancing with her as he sang.  The German girl loved this, so we played a couple of more tunes in this manner.  They played one of my favorites, which borrow lyrics from the Psalms:

By the rivers of Babylon

Where he sat down

And there he wept

When he remembered Zion.

For the wicked

Carried us away to captivity,

Required from us a song

How can we sing King Alpha's

song in a strange land?

So let the words of our mouth

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sight

Over I

The Germans gave the guys some wrinkled bills for their efforts.

Cedric stuck around to pursue his luck with the German girl, and our happy little band dispersed.

I wandered back to my hotel and sat down and picked a few more tunes. The little stretch of the beach owned by the hotel was deserted at that point.  Every Tuesday afternoon and evening they have a sunset boat tour that they give, and the place had emptied out for this.  Since I grew sick of the schlocky boat tour the first time I was on it, I decided to perch on the beach.  So, here I was with about, oh, 70 meters of empty beach front, with these gaggles of American college students wandering by periodically.

I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have some of those girls come sit down and be an audience for me, but alas, they were in their own little world and just kept walking by, not even looking.   The sun had gone behind a cloudbank and I was on this isolated stretch of darkness in the beach.

From a distance, an extremely tall Jamaican wandering up to me.  He was wearing a conductor's hat, and the remains of a conductor’s uniform with brass buttons – slightly worse for the wear, but clearly recognizable.  His appearance was striking:  he had long white dreadlocks falling from out of the hat and a long white dreadlocked beard. He appeared to be half-Indian and half-African.  Silently, he walked up to me while I was playing and sat down in the sand at my feet.  I got to the end of one song, and he motioned for me to do another.  While I was playing, I thought to myself "well, he's not a cute American college student, but he is an audience..."  I chastised myself silently for being so arrogant as to refuse an audience in whatever shape it might take.  I started to think a bit about this guy, how there is a universal person in all of us and how he may very well have been an American college student in another parallel life.  I recalled the "Beauty and the Beast" story about how the old crone was actually a sorceress in disguise.   Perhaps this guy was a sorceress in disguise, trying to test my purity of heart.  I decided to play tunes as best I could, as if I were trying to impress that sorceress in disguise.

Saint Anne's Reel is a beautiful tune that supposedly harkens from Cape Breton. I began to pick it out on the banjo.  When it's played slowly, it's unbelievably beautiful, and gets all the birds chirping nearby.   As I played, I kept thinking about this guy and the universal nature of all souls.

After I finished St. Anne's Reel, he stood up and regarded me for a second.  He said "Ja, mon, you know about de universal spirit"   I couldn't believe this.  How on earth did he know what I was thinking...???  His eyes were wide and pupils dilated, despite the bright sunlight. When I looked into his eyes, I felt like I was getting lost in them, as if a universe unto themselves.   He continued:  "Ja mon, you must follow your heart, you 'ave a strong force....you must do de good and see de good in udders mon..."  I kind of nodded in agreement, mesmerized by this Jamaican Svengali.  My stretch of the beach was dark and empty, but you could see light hitting just past the margins where here were people playing, drinking, shouting, but all some distance away.  I was in some kind of isolated dark space.

"Ja mon, I may look like a Jamaican, but I am not in reality.  In reality I am de reincarnation of Lot."

I was taken aback.  "Lot?  Eh?  You mean that guy whose wife was turned into a pillar of salt?"

"Ja mon, dat be de one."

"And, what is up with Lot these days."

"Ah, mon, you see, I am here to lead my people to the land of Canaan.

Dey have been suffering as prisoners of de Babylon.  My people are tired, dey are weary, dey are desiring of de promise.  I must lead them into de land of promise."

I said "and, uh, why, uh sure...."

He continued:  "Ja mon, but you see, we are a poor people.  We do not have de resources of de people of Babylon.  It is difficult to travel to Canaan with no resources."

All of a sudden a light bulb went on over my head.   I offered "Ah, resources!  I bet a guy like you could use some traveling money to get to the land of Canaan."  He said "Ja mon, dat be de case."

So, I reached into my backpack and pulled out a couple of bills and handed it to him.

He started to walk away, and said "Ja, may de spirit be wid you..."

At that moment, the sun was out of the cloud-bank and right on the water.   There was a brief "green flash", a somewhat rare phenomenon associated with the refraction of light in the atmosphere.  I was distracted for only an instant, but when I turned my gaze back, the guy had vanished.  Either he'd dissappeared into thin air or sprinted away,

or....

I had dinner that evening, and when I retired to my room, I picked up the Gideon’s Bible in the drawer next to the bed.  I reread the passage about Lot, and most of the details came back to me.  

I turned off the light and slept fitfully.  At some point, a huge wind began to blow from the sea. This is particularly odd for the evening, as the usual wind pattern in the nights is to have wind come down from the hills, creating the so-called “coffin-breeze” – the wind only comes from the sea during the day. The wind billowed the curtains inside the room and I felt oddly detached from the world, and felt some kind of odd presence permeating the room.   It was scary, as I didn’t know what to make of this presence and the wind.   I just kept staring at the billowing curtains as if they had some presence within them.  And, then, it just stopped.  It didn’t tail off or die away.  It just stopped. 

I asked the next morning to the other guests about the wind, and they didn’t know what I was talking about. When I returned to Negril the following year, I asked all of my Jamaican friends about the strange guy in the conductor’s uniform with the white dreadlocks. They seemed to know about everything and everyone on the beach, but none of them could identify him from my description. 

The flight of Lot by Gustave Dore.