Chapter 5

I have decided that Joci is either going to make it, or know in her own mind that she hasn't got what it takes to be a career musician. I think she'll make it. Either way, she has graduated from pulling a wagon full of air tanks. I called Don to get two of his guys to build a room behind the office for a music practice room. Buddy wanted to yank my chain, and he gave me hell about the practice room, and reminded me that I told him I wasn't giving up any more space to the dive shop. I got him good, I told him if he thought Joci didn't deserve it, for him to go tell her, and when Ireni quit kicking his ass I would tell the other girls. He asked me if he had anything she might need, he would be happy to get it for her. Marko called him a big weenie. I asked him why he wasn't helping on the wizard boat and he said they were moving it up to the building so it would be closer to tools and materials. They were also going to rig a tarp for some shade. Andy and Rae had power washed out all the compartments where the water and poop tanks had been. Andy washed the engine rooms, and he and Marko thought they may be needed here in the shop so they drifted on up this way. Sounded like good thinking to me because most anything beats running a power washer.

I guess my sidekick quit me, she said she needed to get up to speed where she could gain everything she could when her teachers got here. I tried to explain that we could get more teachers later on but she was determined that she was not going to waste their time nor my money. She said that now that she had the opportunity, she was not going to fail. Damn, we have created a monster, as I listened to her play, I wondered why she thought she was not good enough.

In a week we had finished the music room complete with air cooler and a triple pane window with air gaps between the panes to stop noise. Our sound proofing was probably not up to industry standards but sometimes you just had to remember that this was Belize and you had to make what you had available do what you needed. All I know is, my sidekick is a happy girl. She has played guitar 12 to 14 hours a day non stop and even if she is good, I think we were all glad to get her into the room. The ukelele teacher was the first to come and she was thrilled to get the new ukelele. We left them in the room singing and playing. At night they would play and sing for about an hour in the dinning room and the first day, after maybe 4 or 5 hours she was playing a ukelele like she was born with it. The teacher told me it was mainly because she was one hell of a guitarist and musician. When the next dive cycle started he took lessons in the day and he and Joci played music at night. The last night he was here they did Somewhere Over The Rainbow and the harmony was amazing. You could look around and see people with tears in their eyes.

Elke and Heidi made it home, some dirty rat had told the local newspaper that two of the local girls had made the big time in modeling and when the private jet belonging to Gloria's father landed they were ready with cameras and reporters. They handled it well but beat on me once we got in the taxi. I asked them if they were going back and they said that the people doing the advertising wanted to come down here around the islands to take photos and videos for the next advertising but they thought it might be a while. I told them I got a new sidekick but she only lasted a day and quit on me. They laughed about that but told me that they had heard Joci play her guitar and they were glad she would be able to continue. I told them that the Karaoke machine had not been turned on in a while because Joci was singing and playing every night for about an hour. Lena was going to buy her a new PA system and some other electronics to use at the island

I had to take them to the burrito shop so they could talk to Mary. I told them that they were making a fortune just like I told them they would. Why mess with something when it's working and making money. They said she might need to make changes or hire more people and a lot of other reasons so we stopped. I listened for a few minutes and Mary was telling them that the butcher was having trouble getting enough briskets so he was smoking chuck roast, but it tasted the same to everyone in the shop so she told him it would be OK. They needed another freezer for starfish, and half a dozen other things. I quit listening and walked around looking to see if everything was clean. I set down with some kids and started peeling potatoes. I worked at that for about 20 minutes until the girls were ready. I washed my hands and we left. They wanted to stop at the dock and see how the stand was working. The girl told them that she would get hit hard and fast a few times but she was able to handle it. The only complaint she had was that the man who picked up the used cooking oil was not very pleasant nor clean. Elke was the one who called him so she said she would check into it. It was the same guy that picked up the oil from the bakery so something must be changed somewhere.

We stopped at the bakery and Elke asked Julie if the man that picked up the used oil was the same one as always. She said that the man that had always picked up the oil was sick for a week and the guy who picked it up last time was the one who processed the oil after it was collected and he did stink. I wondered how they processed it and what it was then used for. It sure didn't sound like something I wanted to do. I was about ready to tell that I wanted to go home, but they finally decided we needed to go. I asked them how the boat sales were going and Heidi said Mandy told her they could sell twice what were being produced. Remembering back when Anita went nuts with sales, I figured that about two years and then sell might not be a bad idea at all. There would still be a market for Gloria and Mandy but they were not going to be able to sell at the numbers they were for very long. Everybody wants something new and there is no way to tell what it might be. You just had to jump on it when you saw it coming and ride it until you saw the end and bail out while you still had plenty of money.

We were ready to leave when a taxi pulled up and started unloading more bags than a tourist would have. I told the girls to hold up, I thought our soil scientist had arrived. We went to the taxi and met Patricia or Pat and welcomed her to Belize. She is an average looking girl, not beautiful the way Garry described her but certainly nice to look at. She was starving so we got some fried pies and cokes and loaded up to head for Caulker. I told her that the girls had just arrived also. She told Elke that she didn't remember seeing her in the airport. That got them to talking about all kinds of things that didn't interest me. I went by Hicks Caye to show Pat where she would be working and she asked how she would get around. Heidi told her we would give her a boat to use and she said she didn't know how to drive one. Heidi said no problem just set in Levy's lap and he'll teach you, and we'll get you fixed up with an L Team uniform, you'll be ready to play in the dirt before you know it. The poor girl looked terrified until Elke started laughing and told her we would teach her to drive a boat and get her fixed up with a uniform and teach her to dive, but she didn't have to set in my lap unless she wanted to. She smiled and asked if she could change her mind later. I figured she would do alright with us. Heidi started telling her all about L Team and the different things we did. I gave her the grand tour of the islands and saw most of the frame structure was completed and they were driving more piles in sort of a ring to hold the sand. Pat was really interested in that, but I told her it would be a few days before she could start work. She said she needed to find a carpenter to build some leach boxes and she needed a few supplies. I told her that Sandy was the person to see when she wanted to order something and I would point out the old fart that would build her whatever she needed. By the time we reached Caulker she had relaxed a lot and was starting to look around at the beauty of the place.

I told Elke and Heidi that we might want to show Pat around a bit before we turned her over to Ireni. We went out the side door to where they had the wizard boat and the other boat from the drug dealers. All the girls working on the boats were wearing bikinis. Brende and Twilia climbed down to visit the girls and see who the new girl was. Pat asked Twilia if they always worked in bikinis and Twilia told her that she was not going to want to wear anything else because she would melt. She told Twilia that she would probably get sunburned, but Brende told her that most of the time you are on a boat and it has a canvas top that would keep the sun off and as long as she tried to stay out of the sun for the first week she would be fine. Then Brende and Twilia took her to get some bikinis. Heidi said "well that was pretty slick, you didn't have to tell her the work uniform was a bikini." They went to change and I climbed on the boat to see how the rebuild was going.

They had a grid of string lines set up to find high and low spots on the deck and were filling the lows and knocking down the high spots with belt sanders. Rae said they were going to use two layers of glass over the whole deck when they got it leveled out. I told her it sounded like overkill but she said the only way they were going to fasten down the seats was to lay hardwood 1 X 3's on the deck and set the rows of chairs on them. After they figured out where they went they would mark the deck, remove the chairs and epoxy the wood to the deck, then glass over them. That would give them something to screw the seats to. They were trying for a crown down the middle of the deck of about 1/2" so the water would run off. Lupito had the seat frames made but had to order more pink and green nylon material and more foam padding. The nylon top for this thing will be huge. It didn't take me long to see all I wanted and I thought I would go bother somebody else.

I saw Brende and Twilia coming down the stairs, their hair was wet so I guess they had quit for the day. I asked what they had done with Pat and they said she was with Ireni, Monee, and Sandy ... We went through the office into the dining room and found them. Heidi and Elke were with them and they were talking about whose tits they would most like to have so I went and got a coke. Mercedes said it looked like the new girl was going to fit in just fine. I asked her if she was putting something in the food to make them act that way. She told me if she was, she would double up on it and watch the show. I would go see what Joci was up to, but she would just tell me to go away so she could work on her music, so I wound up setting with the girls.

Elke told me that Gloria and Mandy are shipping several boats down here to use in the commercials and they intended to leave the boats with us in trade for room and board for the film crew and whatever help they needed. It sounded like a good deal, I think I would prefer watching a film crew over watching mud flying through the air and covering everything that gets close to it. Dredging is not at the top of my list of want to do jobs.

Things were rocking along pretty good, the mud doctor had some boxes and had different mixes of mud and sand in them. She poured distilled water on them once a day and then ran test on the soil after it dried. Some of the boxes she used chemicals on and some she didn't. She said unless there was a huge difference, she wasn't going to use chemicals because they might cause some harm to something and she would catch hell. She had a lab of sorts set up on the patio out of the way and seemed happy playing in the mud.

Joci's guitar teacher had come and gone and she had another one on the way. I had to buy her two new guitars and a new amplifier. She told me she was going to learn electric blues style slide guitar because she needed it for something she was recording. I forgot to mention that she now has some digital recorders, half a dozen microphones, a couple of keyboards, a vocal harmonizer, and a bunch of other things that would make you back up and say "wow" and she wouldn't let me play with none of it. Everything had a hard case made to fit so it wouldn't get hurt moving it to and from the island. They still had not found her a singing partner for the island, but they had listened to several CD's that people had sent for audition. She had picked out the best one and said she might have to bring him down on a 60 day contract because Lena's island was getting close to being complete and she wanted to be ready for opening.

I had to take a tow boat and flat top barge to the port to get the boats from Gloria. They had been assembled and tested, taken apart and shipped along with all the survival equipment for the Warlock model. So, now we have a Warlock, a Wizard, and a Sorceress. The Sorceress is a 28" catamaran made the same as all our other cats. It does have a neat looking front deck section that curves in toward the middle of the boat about 12 inches. So instead of it being flat across the front it has two points over the hulls. The console is in the center of the boat and much shorter than what we use, it also has a captains seat that is wide enough for two people and sets more like setting in a car. It has fiberglass panels that screw to the deck and they make it look more like a speed boat or motorboat from the front and sides and disguises the fact that it is just a really good utility boat. The vinyl graphics are burnt orange and sky blue with a bit of red and black, they look like big swirls of color. A definite improvement over our plain Jane cats.

The Warlock is pretty close to the same boat we built for Gloria and Mandy with the exception of the camouflage color. It still took a hell of a long time to strap down all the camping gear that comes with it. The Wizard is the same boat without all the junk strapped to it. It has more fuel capacity and is set up for island hopping with plenty of lockable storage and seating. The instrument panels are about the same and both are equipped with radar and GPS with large screens. The side panels have a picture of a Wizard throwing a fire ball and they have a lot of color. The graphics didn't do much for me, but Brende and Twilia had a fit over them. I think they have both decided that after the commercials are made, this is going to be their boat. I keep waiting for someone to claim the other two, I thought Elke was going to claim the Sorceress but she just keeps looking at them and not saying anything. Then Joci came out of her music room and wanted us to come listen to something.

She had a song that she found on U tube that she wanted to do but she could not pronounce the words. The words were on the video but I couldn't even read them, much less pronounce them. It was obvious that it was an island sounding song, but I couldn't help her. Heidi asked if Lila wasn't from Hawaii and spoke some island language, maybe she could help her. It was a pretty song and I asked her what it was about but she had no idea. I thought it might be a good idea to find out before she put a lot of time in it. She could play the guitar and ukelele parts and had the music down. When Lila came in, Joci grabbed her and drug her off to the music room. I followed them in to see if Lila could help her. The song was in Raratonga, a language from the Polynesian islands, or in this case the Cook islands and while it was a bit different dialect, Lila understood it and could pronounce the words. Lila was not a real great singer but she could get it done and after she listened to it a couple of times she could sing along with it and Joci started learning the song. It seemed like a lot of trouble to learn a song when you couldn't speak the language so I left them to it. The next day she could do it better than the girl from Cook islands.

Joci's next teacher was a wild looking guy from Atlanta. He stuck around 3 days teaching her slide guitar and told her if he stayed longer she would be teaching him, and then her 60 day contract showed up. His name was Branden and he thought he was wonderful. After two days she told him that she hired him, it was not the other way around. He would need to sing when she wanted him to, and sing what part she wanted him to sing. Play what she told him, or he was going to have to hit the road and she would do it without him. He didn't like it but agreed that it was her gig and she did hire him. A few days before opening at the island, we hauled most of her equipment to the island and set it up. Herb and Don had built a stage that was about two feet higher than the floor of the club. Lena and her crew had decorated it with artificial vines and flowers. It was against the west wall of the restaurant and the roof came out from the west wall about 60 feet so there was never any sun on her instruments. After 4 or 5 in the afternoon it was dark enough that the lights lit the stage. The only thing she had to carry in was her guitars and ukelele and I figured that she would never be without helpful volunteers.

At last the island was ready and it opened with a bang at 9 o clock on a Saturday morning. About 1 o clock Lena called the taxi's and told them to quit bringing people because there was no place to put them. Elke, Heidi and I hauled cases of beer and soft drinks because they were running out, and then the kitchen started running out of food. Lena made a deal with the Burrito sisters to bring out two complete set ups like they had in the burrito stands and they started selling burritos and starfish. Lena decided that she would keep the units and buy the supplies from Elke and Heidi. It was like adding two more burrito locations with the difference being Lena's girls ran them. When Joci quit singing at 8 o clock she told the people that there was taxi's waiting out front and if everybody waited until we closed at 9, some of them were going to have to swim home. Some of the ones who had a few too many beers thought they could. Damn there were some sun burnt, lobster looking people getting on the taxis. There had been a few arguments when some of the people got cut off from beer and about a dozen got thrown out for causing problems of various kinds.

We stayed and helped clean up. I ran the can crusher for a few minutes then got put on a rake for half an hour. There is a walkway or dock at the back and a floating incinerator for paper. It runs off propane and is closed so no sparks get out of it. The people that have the pump boats for the sewage are picking up the garbage and bales of crushed cans. Saturdays were about the same for a while and between 1 and 4 on Sundays were busy but weekdays slowed down to 3 or 4 hundred people a day. Compared to 1500 on Saturdays it was quiet. Lena is charging twenty a head to get in and they spend another 40 to 50 on food and drinks, so she is knocking down some big money. I know her overhead is high but that's still a bunch of bucks.

Joci and Branden rode back to Caulker with the girls and I. We helped carry their instruments to the music room and Joci followed us upstairs. She said Branden was a real shit and she was having a hard time dealing with him. I told her to kick his ass, but she said if she did he would leave for sure and she wasn't ready to handle the music by herself because she couldn't get the sound she wanted. I told her we would get to listen to her tomorrow if we didn't have to make supply runs for Lena.

We got up at the regular time and all of us made it to breakfast. Brende and Twilia had their girls at one table and were trying to figure out better ways to deal with all the customers hitting them at once between 8 and 9 PM. I felt bad for them but just had no idea how they could work it out so I stayed out of it. Joci went and knocked on Branden's door but couldn't get him up. She came back to the table and told Twilia and Brende that he didn't want to get up. Twilia went in the office and got a key card and waved Joci and Brende to follow her. I thought I had better go make sure they didn't kill him. When I got there I heard Twilia say, "Well you ain't in Kansas anymore Todo, so get your ass up because this is end of cycle day and the girls have to clean the room and change the linens" I don't know what he said but he hit the floor right after he said it. She told him "Look dumb ass, we all have a job to do here and you are making somebody's job harder than it should be. Now you get up and don't give me none of your shit because I don't like you one damned bit, and I'll hurt you" Lila came back to see what was going on and herded the girls back to the dinning room. She told them to give him a chance to make up his mind and he couldn't do it with them standing over him. A few minutes later he came out, went through the line and set down to eat. When he finished he went to the music room and started packing. Joci followed him to make sure he didn't take any of her toys. I went in the office and got 1,500 dollars and gave it to him. He got his suitcase and Buddy drove him to the taxi stand.

I spent a few minutes with Joci, she said everything was alright she just needed to make a new song list. She was going to take all her guitars so she could switch off and the music wouldn't sound all the same. I had told Lena that I would haul food supplies for her but she called and said she had roped Jin into taking them and some beer. I asked where she bought the beer and she had found out where the beer truck driver lived and ran him down. She had got my truck from Jennifer and moved the beer to the dock. I told her to save us a table because we wanted to listen to Joci. She was only playing from 2 till 4 today so after lunch we loaded her guitars and ukelele and left for Lena's.

There is not room to tie up boats at the front but there is a long service dock along the back. There is a neat little area just off the stage where Joci can leave her guitar cases and whatever else she needs. It's only about 6 feet square but it is enclosed and a safe place for her to just step out on to the stage. I told her we would just watch from there but she wasn't having it and made us get undressed and set at the table Lena saved for us. The table next to us had two guys from the states and they were talking about Joci and Branden. One of the guys told the other that while he could play circles around the guy, he wasn't so sure he could keep up with the girl. The guy told him he knew damned well that he was no match for the girl but he was still going to ask them how they got a job in this place and what he would have to do to get one. Joci had finished whatever she was doing on stage and came to the table. I told her the guy at the next table wanted to ask her something. She asked him what he wanted and set down with them. Heidi and I started talking about the large paper towels that you set on. She was saying it was a good thing because she didn't want her ass setting where somebody else had set. I told her that Lena had told me to stack them all up last night so she could use them again when they dried out. She wasn't buying it.

Joci took the guy to the stage and they were looking at some sheets of music, then she got a guitar and started singing and then told him where to come in with harmony. They didn't have the PA turned on so I couldn't hear them very well but she seemed pleased with him. She showed him something on the guitar and handed it to him and picked up her ukelele. They went through several parts of songs and after half an hour came back to the table and she told us he was going to do the show with her. I asked her if they didn't need to practice first and she said he didn't need any practice, he just needed to know what they were going to play. It was getting closer to time to play and Joci didn't seem the least bit worried and she had worried about Branden even after spending 16 hours a day working with him. They got up to play and I told his friend to move to our table so Lena would have another place for customers.

After introductions we found out that the guitarist is named William Benjamin Rogers and had been given the name Trey when he was small. The friend was named Wes and they had lived next door to each other forever and had played in a lot of garage bands together. They had gone to a community college for two years and although Wes wanted to continue his education, Trey was not going back to school and was looking for work as a musician. Wes told us he played bass but was no where near the same level musician as Trey and did not have the ability to get any better. We got on the topic of nudity and both of them had been around a lot of it on vacations with their parents over the years. He asked us how long we had been nudist and Heidi told him almost two days. Then they started raking poor ole Wes over the coals and teased him until it was just constant laughter and bullshit at our table.

It didn't take but one song to know that Joci had found her music partner. I was going to have to figure out a way to keep Trey. Wes quit talking and started listening and then said it looked like he would be going home by himself to explain to Trey's parents why their youngest child did not come home. I told him that he was not going to have to explain it because Joci had a recorder hooked into the PA system. He could just take them a CD and tell them that's what happened to your boy.

Wes went home the next day with money and instructions on the guitars and equipment to send to Trey. They said that shipping them would not be too bad because he has road cases for them. I had no idea what road cases were, I just knew that Joci was happy and she and Trey worked some long hours getting things exactly like they wanted, and it did sound pretty.

The next thing that happened, we were invaded by a film crew and sound technician and after a day of looking at every island and sandbar withing 30 miles or so they decided that they wanted to use the Tiki island, one of our original rental islands. The sun only suited them for 2 or 3 hours a day and that was about one hour after daylight. They wanted island looking girls so I loaded up all the hula dance students. Joci took her ukelele and had them singing some silly song on the way there and the producer had some kind of idea about the boat and warriors stealing the hula girls. Then everyone got in on the party and had ideas running every direction. The producer just kept writing and nodding his head. They unloaded a ton of stuff and had the girls walk through dozens of scenarios while the film crew moved them forward and back until they got the lighting right. Then he told Joci that he wanted a hula sounding song with the words he wrote down for her. She brought the sheet of paper to where Elke and Heidi were watching. She told them to read it to her the way they thought the guy wanted it. After having all of us read it to her she took it back to him and told him to read it to her the way he saw it and she started playing while he was talking and watching where he was pointing. Then he had them all walk through it another dozen times and we went back to Caulker and the film crew set in the dinning room all day with drawings and decided how to do the scenes. Trey came in and got he and Joci a coke and told the producer guy that they had something ready for him to listen to, so all of them went crowding into the music room. All of them came back but the sound guy and they were happy so I guess she got the song the way they wanted it. After lunch the sound guy brought out a CD and Joci played it on the Karaoke system. They said the music was complete but they had some doubts about the boat scenes and wanted to know who we had that could approach the island wide open and turn sliding up to the sand so Joci could jump on the boat and then the boats take off wide open.

I told them that probably any of the drivers could do it but I couldn't pull them off the dive boats. Heidi told them that we just had one male boat driver and pointed at me. They asked who they could have for the other two. I asked the girls who they thought we could free up for a couple of days and they suggested Rubi and Dani, so we, along with one of the crew went to find them. Rubi and Dani didn't want any part of it but said they would drive taxi's for Brende and Twilia so we went to Lena's to use the radio to find them. They were both on the big boat and were halfway to Lena's so we waited for them. Rubi was happy that they could both run the big boat instead of being separated on the small boats. The film crew guy explained to Twilia and Brende what they needed done and that the light would be best from about 1 till 3 for that side of the island and we could practice after they ran out of light tomorrow morning on opposite side of the island. They agreed to do it and Rubi and Dani went with them to watch how they ran the taxi and where to stop.

When the light was right the filming started and they had brought out a big CD player and speakers for the girls to dance to. They went through it 3 times and then started filming and filmed it 3 times. Then went through the other scenes, and were finished before they ran out of light. Then it was our turn. They wanted us to come flying into the beach and turn, slide sideways, Joci jumps on my boat, and away we go. I talked it over with Brende and Twilia and we went through it slow a couple of times, then hit it. I don't think they were expecting that much water but they sure were happy. Then they had Twilia slide in and throw a imaginary fireball. They had her dressed as a sorceress. Then Brende did it dressed as the wizard. Then I did it dressed in Rambo clothes. We had to improvise a ramp for Joci to be able to run and jump on my boat, she plopped down in the seat next to me and we drove off. They said we were through, hell it didn't look like a commercial to me. Joci and Trey went to play and the rest of us went back to Caulker. They called to tell the commercial company that they were through but the plane wouldn't be free to come get them and their equipment for 3 more days, so I hired them. Yep, we are going to make Joci and Trey some videos. The film crew was happy and the sound guy was really fired up. I gave them a thousand dollars each and they were already being paid for their time and they did us a hell of a job. We got six videos on the island with lots of different scenes and music overdubs, then about 20 songs where they had a fixed background and just set down and played. They would be separated with one song on a CD so Joci could overdub more music onto them. I don't know yet how much they spent on the equipment to do that, I do know it went on my card. The sound man promised to find them the equipment to do their own videos and add sound to them. I had told her whatever it took, we would get it done.