Nelson Mandela Lends a Fist…

This is a true story.

It was yet another crazy, inebriated Wednesday night at Sib’s, a popular St. Thomas hangout nestled in the hills above Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas’ only real town. It was time to get back down to town somehow. The usual way back to town is via taxi. But for some reason, I wanted to walk it. It was a fairly easy downhill walk, and a clear night to boot. I could only talk my then-roommate Mike, a cool, go-with-the-flow surfer-dude who like me, was also from Florida, into doing the walk back. Everybody else in our rather large party posse opted to either continue partying at some after hours dive in Frenchtown or taxi it back home.

Living in St. Thomas the previous few months had been a welcome change for me. I was finally free from the mediocrity and just plain depressing mode of life I had in Florida. I was finally able to seriously pursue my dream of getting into sailing and cruising the islands. Albeit doing really demanding work on charter yachts.

I was able to live a fairly carefree lifestyle taking on shifts at my leisure at a bar/restaurant close to the waterfront in Charlotte Amalie. At the age of 25, life was good for a change. I was making insane tips at my bar gig, doing good charters, worked basically when I wanted to, and was smack in the heart of the Caribbean.

I had made the move to St. Thomas in the fall of 1989 after: a) finally getting fired from my Olive Garden job I had come to hate in Orlando; and b) selling my house in Daytona Beach just before it was to go into foreclosure. I managed to squeeze a few thousand from the sale of the house. So I sold off pretty much everything else I owned, and bought a plane ticket to the Virgin Islands. My friends all thought I was out of my mind.

It didn’t take me long to sell off my stuff and get good homes for my dog and cat. It was tough saying goodbye to them, my friends, my family, and the life I knew. But I felt that if I didn’t do this now, I’d never do it. This was my only chance. I was solo for the first time in a long time (my then-girlfriend had just headed back to Holland several months before). I had no commitments, nothing to keep me in Florida. It was time to go.

I got there knowing absolutely nothing about the islands. It was to be my first real foray into life in the Caribbean. I thought it would be better to go in blind with no prejudices or preconceptions. The island’s beaches, reefs and crystal-blue waters were everything I imagined, and more. Looking off the East End’s white sand beaches towards Tortola, St. Johns and the other islands was one of my favorite sights ever. I got work on charter boats rather quickly and was able to sample the other islands, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The culture of the island was a strange mishmash of American, European and West Indian. The locals were friendly and courteous for the most part, but aloof and distrusting of mainlanders. There was a bit of apathy for the mainlanders who came to the island to live and work. Maybe they felt a bit invaded. The local Rastas were not the usual peaceful, loving ones. They were angry and bitter guys for the most part. This caught me by surprise, because most Rastafarians I’d met in my limited travels by that time were easy-going and peaceful.

I learned early on that the local rastas were rather racist and extremist. They didn’t particularly like whites, Arabs, Hispanics or anyone that wasn’t West Indian. They’d look you dead in the eye when you walked by them. If you looked away, they would know that you’re afraid or intimidated by them. They would remember you and stare you down everytime after that. They liked intimidating and keeping mainlanders in fear.

Remember, this was an island of less than fifty thousand people, you were going to see them again and again. One guy I met soon after I got there who had been on-island a couple of years gave me some sage advice. All I needed to do was keep looking at them and not look away. They will probably still not like me, but at least they’ll respect me. I started heeding his advice. Sure enough, the “staring” eventually became less and less frequent, replaced by curt nods of acknowledgment instead.

I had been on St. Thomas a couple of months when February 11th came around. That was the day Nelson Mandela was finally released from the South African prison where he had been held for more than 27 years. The news was out in a big way over the islands. St. Thomas was in a jubilation mode that was rather surreal. People spent hours over days after the news dancing in the streets, celebrating, chanting and more.

It was almost as if Nelson Mandela was from the Virgin Islands. Surely he was revered in these parts, along with Bishop Desmond Tutu. There were streets, parks and circles named after them everywhere. I was half-expecting a homecoming parade, with Mandela himself waving from the backseat of a convertible. Of course, we were all happy to hear of his release, and the level of celebration I witnessed during those days was something that needed to be seen to be believed.

The angry sullen Rastas were happy and jubilant for the first time since I’d arrived to the island. They all walked around wearing colorful Nelson Mandela T-shirts, like all the other locals, with huge smiles on their faces. It was refreshing to see them all happy for a change. Whenever they would walk by each other on the street, they would raise their fists into the air and scream to each other “Mandela Free! Mandela Free!” and just keep going. For a good couple of weeks, it was all you’d hear among the normal hustle and bustle of the busy streets of Charlotte Amalie town, day or night.

It was just a few weeks later when Mike and I were hiking down the hill from Sibs that Wednesday night. Things had quieted down and it was back to business as usual on St. Thomas. We needed to get through town to get home. Our shared pad was at Yacht Haven, which was essentially on the other end of the waterfront. To go the long, “safe” way would mean staying on the main road we were on.

This main road cut across the hill over town, and then curved back down to town after Blackbeard’s Hill. The short way down would be to take one of the perpendicular roads that went more or less straight downhill towards the waterfront. The only problem was that most of these streets took you through a part of town that was affectionately called “The Combat Zone”. It was called this primarily because of the increased drug gang violence that was happening on the streets in this part of town. Homicides were becoming almost a weekly occurrence, and gunshot victims almost a daily one.

It was a rather quiet weeknight, things looked and sounded tranquil at this late hour. I told Mike we should just take the short way. Mike didn’t seem to like my plan, nevermind that we were both pretty plastered.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I asked pragmatically. “I don’t know, get shot by a crackhead maybe?” Mike answered dryly.

“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? Nothing’s gonna happen. It’s almost three in the morning. Let’s head down Bunker Hill Road. That will bring us right to the center of waterfront, then we’ll just have to walk a few blocks along the harbor to Yacht Haven.”

“OK… but I got a bad feeling about this,”

Mike shrugged and started walking again. I really liked how easygoing he was. That made him a good roommate and party wingman. We started heading down towards Bunker Hill where the road forked off from the main hill road. There was not a soul on the streets around here. We were a bit nervous the first few blocks, because we walked through some serious slum area.

Most of the houses were just shanties made of rotting wood and old, rusty corrugated roofing. Many of them were still leveled or left roofless from Hurricane Hugo, which passed through here just a few months back. Some of the roofless houses were covered in canvas and tarp to try to keep the inside dry. It looked like a losing battle to us. This was where the worst off of the island lived, and we were just easing through while they slept as quietly as we can. I can see Mike was not enjoying it.

I tried to keep things light by shifting our whispering conversation to other lighter subjects, like the girls we were hitting on back at Sibs, trying to count how many B52 shots we did, and so on. It seemed to work. A few blocks later, things started getting rather civilized again, though we were still well within the “Combat Zone”. There were a few more people lurking the streets. Alas, they were all locals, and we stood out like martians. We might as well had been albino. I remained good-natured and just looked them all in the eye as we walked by. I’d give them customary local greeting, “Alright? OK?” as we passed, getting the occasional nod or “OK” back. I looked at Mike, and can see that he was getting nervous again.

“What in the hell did you get me into Tony?”

At the corner of one block, there was Walter’s, a bar I had heard of. It was a local dive, my boss at the bar I worked at went there often to play dice with the locals. I got the crazy idea to go see if he was there. Heck, we can have a beer while we’re there, I thought aloud.

“Are you frickin nuts dude? Those rastas in there will cut us up for sure, let’s just keep walking”. Mike was obviously not up to it.

“Ah come on, we just walked through most of the Combat Zone, nothing bad happened, did it? Nothing’s going to happen in there either. Besides, my boss Kev is probably in there, he’ll cover us.”

“I don’t know Tony, I told ya I got a bad feeling about this. We’re two white, very NON-local guys going into a rasta joint in a bad part of town. That’s not considered a smart idea.”

“Ah come on Mike, first round’s on me, and I promise you nothing bad will happen. Just trust me, dude…” I tended to say “dude” a lot more than usual when I was around him.

Mike kept shaking his head. By this time, a couple of rastas hanging out by the bar entrance started wondering what we were up to. One of them came up to us and with an ugly sneer, asked if we were looking for some rock. It was probably the only reason any white person would be in this part of town this time of night.

“No man, we’re cool, just want to head in for a beer”

“I wuddnt do dat mon, you not welkum in dat bar”

“No worries, a buddy of mine’s in there, we’re good.” the drug dealer just rolled his eyes as he walked away. Mike was now even more disturbed at my idea than before. Somehow I still got him to walk with me up to the door. Dance-hall reggae was blasting from the woofer-thudding sound system. There was a lot of ganja aroma wafting out through the door cracks. By this time, Mike was sweating profusely. Probably wondering to himself what he, this easy-going bleach blond-maned, blue-eyed, Florida surfer dude, was doing in this situation.

“Come on dude, it’s going to be cool. Let’s go in and have a beer.”

Mike gulped and said nothing, giving only a slight nod.

The doors were the kind that you push apart with no knob holding them closed. They had panes of cracked or taped colored glass from top to bottom. Bob Marley and Ganja stickers adorned both doors. I could see a second of hesitation on Mike’s part, but he shrugged and soldiered on. He knew that he was now committed. To walk away now would surely cost him the respect of the onlooking rastas. They’d remember him for as long as he was on the island.

I pushed the doors apart and we walked in together. We took about three steps into the place and just stood there to get a look around. I scanned the room, which was smaller than I expected and surprisingly crowded, looking for my boss Kev. Kev was a lighter-skinned, mixed race guy, I figured he’d be easy to spot.

Within the next thirty seconds or so, the buzz of conversation waned, and all the heads in the place turned to the door to look at us. It was a very strange scene. Although the music was still blasting, I couldn’t hear it anymore. There was a relative dead silence because nobody was talking. I can see some of the guys whispering to each other and pointing. I looked over at Mike, now wearing a look of absolute terror on his face, trying to hide it with a futile, faint, fake grin.

He looked back at me from the corners of his eyes without turning his head. He was on the verge of freaking out. Admittedly I started to feel nervous too. Despite the warning from drug-dealing rasta guy outside, I hadn’t counted on this kind of reception. Worse, my boss did not appear to be there. I started thinking that the best thing to do would be to just turn tail and walk out. But then a few big, mean rastas came in behind us and just basically stayed there, blocking the door. Not a good sign, I thought.

One rasta who I’d seen before in town a few times, walked up to me. He clearly was not happy I was there. He was a bit shorter than me, looking up at me eye to eye. He had this crazy-eyed glare. His dreads were foul and matted up. No matter what, I wouldn’t look away.

“Muddah skunge, what you tink you be doin heah boy? You no how bad we can cut yo’ ass and trow you ot on da street, crazy-ass white boyz?”

Ok, this was bad. I kept looking at him, wondering what my next move should be. The seconds seemed like minutes. Mike was now tapping my arm with his elbow, as if to say, “Tony how the hell do we get out of this? What’s the plan?”

The next few seconds, it felt like I relegated myself to my subconscious. I was in a strange daze. I kept my eyes fixed on the rasta guy, who by now was mere inches from the tip of my nose. I found myself processing a dozen questions at nanosecond speed trying to analyze the situation. I was almost meditating. Though I was now pretty terrified at the situation we were in, having heard plenty of stories about these machete-wielding Rastas, I was still thinking pretty clearly.

I knew I had to say or do something to get us out of this. I looked at Mike again who was now clearly scared of what may happen next. And despite the strong rum buzz I had going, I knew exactly what was going on. I realized I got him into this situation and had to get him out, as well as myself.

With the rasta guy still in my face, I snapped out of my seconds-long daze, and threw both of my fists into the air. A brief pause afterward, almost as if it was choreographed, I yelled “Mandela Free!” as loudly as I could. Mike looked over at me and his jaw dropped. He wanted to say something but couldn’t, he was in disbelief. There was a brief moment of silence after I was done, despite the blaring music. The short, angry, and rather bad-smelling rasta who was staring up at me now had a look
of total surprise.

Then he smiled and turned around to face the rest of the guys in the bar, who were already chanting “Mandela Free! Mandela Free!” in unison. I kept my fists up and just kept shouting along as much as I could. It took Mike a couple of seconds to catch on, but he started pounding air and chanting too. Within minutes, amid all the chanting, a couple other rastas brought us each a beer. They then took us over to the bar. Everybody was pressing flesh with us, impressed that we both knew the local island handshake. There were at least forty or fifty scary rastas in that bar that night, and within minutes they had all greeted us with names and handshakes.

For the next two or so hours, we had nothing but rum, beers and ganja shoved in our faces. Mike especially liked the ganja. The rasta guys taught me their dice games, and I gambled what little money I had left on me. I lost it all, but had a great time playing. The “Mandela Free” chants continued intermittently through the rest of the night, and even wafted out into the streets again.

At one point, Mike looked at me while drinking and laughing, “Dude, I don’t know how you came up with that move, but I think it was the ONLY thing you could have done or said to get us out of that.” We high-fived with fat spliffs between our fingers and laughed. We both realized just how lucky we were and how good the timing was. Finally, last call passed, the place closed up and we were all thrown out of the place. Daylight was just creeping on the night.

The rastas all remembered us of course. Any time Mike or I would see one of them on the street or anywhere on the island for that matter, they’d hail us and make sure to point their fists in the air and yell out that now famous chant. Some of our mainlander friends saw this happen, and couldn’t for the life of them understand what was going on. That is, until they heard our story about that fateful night at Walter’s. Neither of us ever had trouble walking through the Combat Zone again after that.

Some of the best nights I can remember from my two-plus years in St. Thomas happened at that dank local dive, called Walter’s. I even won some of my money back.