Читать книгу Does This Island Go To The Bottom? - Eric H. Pasley - Страница 12

VIDSS dive operation was a revolving door. The turnover rate for instructors was high due to the amount of work you had to do and the volume of ugly and bazaar tourists you had to deal with. The average instructor lasted about two and a half to six months. VIDSS was the epitome of a cattle dive shop. It was just plain crazy.

I hadn’t been on the island very long when two other divers joined the ranks of VIDSS. Erin, who was a divemaster, came from California too. She was young, maybe twenty one or twenty two, and full of spunk. As a divemaster for VIDSS she couldn’t teach, so she acted as an Assistant Instructor until the dive shop could send her to an instructor course over in St. John when one opened up. Erin fit right in with the rest of us. She had that typical instructor slash divemaster personality; Adventurous and fun.

About a week after Erin arrived Dan, Erin and I were kicking back in the Tutu slum when we heard the growl of a safari bus. It was Marty the Jew with the other new instructor. Then the dumb son of a bitch starts honking his horn like we didn’t hear his ratty engine coming down the driveway. I opened the front door and a petite girl with short brown hair jumps out of the safari bus and grabs her dive gear from one of the empty rows of benches in the back. Marty gave a wave and backed out of the driveway blowing gray blue smoke from his dog turd out of the car window.

“Come on in,” Dan said.

She is really cute.

“I’m Dan and this is Erin and Eric.”

“Hi, I’m Veronica H.” She said shaking our hands.

“How do you like the place?” Erin said gesturing with her hand.

Veronica H. just stood there for a moment slowly looking around and then she said with a half smile, “This place is a real shit hole.”

“I said the same thing.” I made eye contact with her. She was really cute.

“Wait until you hear the goddamn goats up on top of the roof during the middle of the night,” Dan said, looking up.

“Goats?” Veronica asked.

“No, it’s not goats,” I said. “It’s the Chupacabra.” Veronica looked at me with a puzzled look for just a few seconds then started to laugh. That’s when I noticed her tongue ring. I almost melted. I needed a beer to compose myself. Veronica H. was hired to teach diving on one of the Princess cruise ships. VIDSS was the dive operation that supplied dive instructors for a fleet of ocean liners along with the Raddison Diamond.

Veronica H. settled in as best as she could in that rat nest. Later, we all went out for a few beers at a little bar down on the corner. We got shit faced. It all turned into a blur. I know the local lady behind the bar was getting annoyed with us because she stopped serving us rum and beer. I think she should have cut us off a little sooner because when we got back to the Tutu slum, I found myself trying to get into Veronica’s shorts.

“Behave, Eric,” she said. “You can sleep next to me but that’s as far as you get.”

I tried to say I was sorry, to apologize for my drunken actions, but found the only thing that came out of my mouth was a defining belch.. It sounded worse than those

godforsaken goats. Dan and Erin, who were bunking in the bedroom on two single

beds, just busted out in a fit of laughter. Veronica H. joined in.

Not long after that night, Veronica and I did hook up. Funny how things happen. Christ, I was ready to play the field, have a different girlfriend every week like you are suppose to when you are a dive instructor in the islands. But no. I had to shack up with a female instructor several months after I arrived on St. Thomas. However, little did I know that I still would play that instructor role down the road.