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10.

TWO NIGHTS LATER, RETURNING HOME FROM WORK, still forlorn over the mysterious whereabouts of Mountain Moses and wondering how I might be able to contact his father, I find a mangled postcard waiting for me in the mailbox. My breath stops in my chest. On the front of the card is a picture of a gorgeous tropical island with the seductively lovely name of Poisson Rouge. “Lose Your Cares on Poisson Rouge Isle,” reads the legend across the bottom of the card. On the back are five words in careful, small print block letters: “I found your Paradise, Johnny.” I flip the card hungrily over and over for more. No return address. No explanation of where the island is or how I might find it.

I am overcome by the fear that I will never have the courage of my convictions, and this blended with disenchantment and the prospect of a lifetime of line cooking melts quickly to resolve. This is the ticket out, the dawn, the door, the kind hunter opening the trap. I may only have one chance. The body’s euphoria rises and begins to kindle and knock liked good premium grade in the engine of a General Motors subcompact. I calculate my net worth: deposit back on my apartment, eight hundred blue book for dented, oil-burning, not-quite-paid-off Vega with 98,000 miles and cracked windshield, plus four hundred in my savings account equals …not much.

My hands tremble as I read the summary from an encyclopedia from the Colorado Springs Library and learn that Mountain’s Poisson Rouge is an island dependency of the USA.

USA? Why haven’t I heard of it then? At a pay phone I call a travel agent, who gives me the eager pitch. Dollar the currency of the realm. No passport, smallpox vaccination, or visa required. Hit the bull’s-eye and win a free teddy for your girl. “You’ll love it there,” he says. “They got white beaches and blue seas warm as swimming pools. Pretty black girls. They still bottle rum in an ancient stone distillery on the east side. You heard of the Mariner’s Trove?”

“I’m not really looking for a tourist spot.”

“Nobody knows about it yet. Only 3,700 people live there. Can’t reach it by plane. You only got one hotel on the west side, and two thirds of the island is National Park. Can’t touch it. Pretty rustic. Plenty of room if you want to roam.”

“I’ll call you back as soon as I sell my car,” I say.

“We’ll be here,” he says.

Poisson Rouge has such a silky feeling on the tongue, like dahlia petals or the flesh of a tropical fruit. I will find myself a pretty black girl, settle into a hut on a beach, and write a novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mango. Of all the beasts of the earth, Mountain is the only one who understands. Mountain knows. I must find him. I want to call him, tell him not to leave. I need to move fast, before he decides to mistakenly return to the plagued and merciless shores of the USA.