But the indignities weren’t over. The immigration officer wouldn’t let him in until he spoke some French to prove his passport was valid. He’d never seen a coolie with a French passport, he said. This must be some kinda racket. Look what I have to go through—in my own country, Ian thought. This would never happen in Paris.

Neither would this. He’d walked into baggage claim, which looked like a huge hangar with a carousel. Three flights had come in, and the frustrated passengers were shoving and shouting as if they were ringed around fighting cocks, as if two bloodied birds were spurring each other for the kingship of that mountain of vinyl grips and cardboard boxes.

He circled the crowd cautiously, poised on his toes, ready to pounce at the first opportunity. He saw a crack but before he could move the crowd spat out an old man in a three-piece suit who backpedaled with a carry-on bag in his hand. Ian shook his head and opened a pack of cigarettes. Fuck, he needed a hit. Crack. Heroin. Speed. Something.

Outside, he sat on the curb of the shaded walkway and waited for Fire, assailed by heat and sweat and noise. Taxi? No. Taxi? No, star. Taxi? There was a feel about the place of a bus stop at a market or the waiting room at a country clinic. He looked around. The waiting area for arrivals was over his shoulder—a few plastic chairs in front of a TV set that was hung from the ceiling and encased in iron bars. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, but no one complained. Maybe standing gave them the feeling of hanging out.

Fuck, where was Fire? He must’ve been waiting over an hour now. He wasn’t sure. He’d sold his watch. Maybe he should give in to one of the cab drivers. And go where though? He needed a place to stay. Somewhere safe. He had money in his bag for his mother. What did she look like now? He closed his eyes and tried to form her face.

Through the rumble of voices and the grunts of cars he heard his name. He opened his eyes and Fire was standing in front of him, in sandals and cut-off jeans. His gauzy yellow shirt was rolled up over his forearms and open at the neck. And his hair, which was in dreads now, was knotted on top with a leather thong.

“Pussy, where you was?”

The ruffneck greeting made Fire smile. And in the sureness with which he took his hand and pulled him to his feet, Ian knew him again as a brother.

With Fire at the wheel, they set off for home, leaving the flowered parking lot to join the speeding convoy that raced along the single-lane highway down the center of the beach-trimmed peninsula, an overgrown sand spit really, that stuck out from the rest of Kingston like a thumb.

Ian had forgotten about the beauty of the drive. And as the salt spray tickled the hair on his arms, and the sea breeze licked his sun-warmed skin, he was overwhelmed by the sense of space and freedom, and felt the urge to cry. On his left was Kingston harbor, gray water brushed into waves by doting breezes. On his right, undulating sand dunes shimmered against each other like sea-wet nudes arranged for the lens of a dirty magazine.