Crash Allen Exhibits Tortola

Today was a hike up Sage Mountain National Park in Tortola. The tour dispatcher is a 55-ish white woman with blond dreads and black, painted on eyebrows.  I was removed from the tour because it was a mistake, then put back on the tour, then removed, then finally, officially put back on. I sat in the cab of a converted truck/taxi thingie. The truck bed was converted into bench seating for 25. I rode between our tour guide Allen (nicknamed Crash—who is also the maintenance man and isn’t paid enough, which he informed us) and a large sweet lady named Debbie from Alaska celebrating her birthday (sorta) with her sister and her sister’s husband.  She kept pointing things out and apologizing because I had been to the island before. The best part of Allen was that he was very funny and dry and would say “here’s another horrible view” at every gorgeous overlook. He also knew everybody we’d pass so he’d honk and wave at them. If you want someone to be humanized, like say, a huge frowning Island dude, watch him wave and walk towards his house, followed by a perky tabby kitten who is clearly his friend.

 

Crash took us up horrible, scary switchbacks and one lane roads with drop offs that make you want to jump off them so you don’t have to worry about falling. The only time this was a problem was when he was looking for a number in his cellphone while he was also moving forward via the giant truck. He informed us that Johnny Depp purchased an Island and that Richard Branson, of Virgin (“he owns everytin virgin but the virgin myeeree”), owns a $55,000/night resort. Tortola has the common Caribbean policy of “you pay no property tax if your house isn’t done or painted” with the common result of nothing painted and/or finished but people living or conducting business very happily inside.

 

We trotted around the National Forest (owned by the Rockefellers) and Allen told us that he went to college for “economics and…one other ting. I can’t think of the word. Architecture, that’s it.” But that he “went to work every day. Every day. Sitting down and looking at numbers and lines. I hate it. So boring.” And everybody on the tour aggressively commiserated with him, which I decided is because that is their job. “Then one day I did this and I never went back.” He also told us about a wine that will make you drunk for 4 days.

 

Allen informed me that one guy he honked at was named “Tink de Worst.” This is because “he came to me telling me things his lady was doing and what should he do. I said, ‘think the worst’ and it stuck.”

 

We went to a rum factory for a 12:30 p.m. eye-watering vapor inhalation/taste.  When we left, about 6 little kids were standing near the exit of the factory, one was hitting a wall randomly with a stick, a few others were jumping around yelling. Allen pulled up to them and said an ice cold “don’t be rude.” Those kids froze and dropped their jaws and all looked sick, like he read their mind.

 

The truck has a PA system that you can hear in the street. Allen delighted himself by pointing out someone who loves his stock car too much. That someone got in his souped up mobile and revved the engine. Allen won and laughed very hard. In front of the high school, he informed us that morons go there. In front of the two story National Assembly (bottom floor) Supreme Court (top floor), he said “they make the rules on the bottom, break them on the top.” In front of the rough part of town, he said “this is the Ghe-Tto. You can get anything you want in here and I mean anything. No laws.” O Allen, you imp.

 

Tonight we are going to watch Slumdog Millionaire, but a bootleg copy. Someone watched part of it and said “do you think they will mind if the sound comes a little after the mouths?” So.

 

One gentleman in our crew does not let his bottom lip ever touch his top lip when speaking. So he’ll say “my mom” via his bottom lip touching his top teeth.

 

The Romanian cruise staff guy says “hell-LO-oh” like a sorority girl princess and “DEE-te-dee” which is the tagline from Carlos Mencia.

 

The two things a castmate said to me that made me laugh a great deal: both times completely sincerely: “are you making a generalization or are you talking about me.” And: “no seriously, I don’t date princesses. Because when I date women, I treat them like queens.”