I went to the Bermuda Triangle but I'm still a square

Patrick Kiley

Talking in My Sleep

I went down to the Dominican Republic over break. When I told people this, most of them gave claim to a bewildered interest, suspicious I suspect, because they didn't know what the follow-up question or comment ought to be. I wouldn't have been able to tell them.

This is probably because that fustian word, "republic," sounds more meaningful than "United States." It just won't jive with notions of tropicality, notions that Jamaica and Bermuda (etc.) have subsumed into the very concepts of their seemingly origin-less names, names that sound like the votes of marijuana farmers and other palm people whom have never seen snow.

But the "Dominican Republic" is Christian and somehow democratic, a salty vapor shaped unlike us yet carrying a familiar taste. Yes, the Caribbean has politics, government and diesel engines that pollute their slivers of coast with as much grit as any nuclear warhead.

In the words of Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction": They got the same shit over there as they got over here, but it's just there it's a little different. The paradox I confront is that my impression of the Dominican Republic would be both oversimplified and understated by this observation. Sitting inside a cabana, my ears getting bombarded with Spanish verse, the ocean finally ending footsteps away, its hard not to stop and think: Where the hell am I? And then you look down at the Coke bottle in your hand. Siempre.

I think Vince's thought holds true for the typical tourist, for the reason that people tour in order to see what's the same and what's different. When she returns, the tourist tabulates her experience on a scale of relative likeness and that's why only the insane might say: "You know, I think Tibet really has something of Iowa in it."

So they've got McDonald's, Coke, rum and Coke, television, books, computers: Basically all the tangible things that keep Americans going, whether or not we admit to it. The little differences? A ubiquitous swarm of mopeds, abundant prostitutes and an eagerness to dance the merengue before crowds of aghast white people, who smile and bob offbeat. But think about it: We have window-tinted SUVs, a thriving porn industry and dimly lit clubs where men and women grind together their unmentionables in near solitude and anonymity.

I'm a cultural scholar. Wait, no I'm not. That's what I meant to say: I am not a cultural scholar. To be honest, I didn't spend much of my vacation consciously aware that I was there. I was usually reading or sleeping, or craning my neck to watch the zooming mopeds in covetous awe. At least, that's what the photographs show me doing. I have no actual memory of leaving this state. It's good to be home.

But I didn't want to seem lazy in my experience. That's why I lied. I wanted to bring back with me at least one reputable statement about the Dominican Republic, something that would make people want to go there or definitely not go there. I was going to bring back some sand and ocean water in a jar, but I couldn't get the lid off.

Well, I've flipped through my trip photos once more to find helpful information. In this one it looks like there are various white people on the beach together. A lot of the men have mustaches and many women are topless, so they must be European. One man is looking down at a dark Dominican boy, who is offering to shine shoes for money. Most of the people are barefoot or wearing sandals, which probably accounts for the apparent confusion.

In the water is a pack of wind-surfers, their sails lying flat as fish fins on the surface. They're all looking back at the beach as if the sunbathers forecasted gnarly waves.

This looks like the quintessential photo: A bald man with no smile and grubby hands is sitting across from his dinner-date, an opalesque native in a skin-tight mini-skirt. He must have paid for her. They are drinking Presidente, which is beer in green bottles. He seems oblivious to, or perhaps in appalling denial of, the fact that everyone in the restaurant is looking at them. I remember this part, everyone was looking. That woman looked so much like those smooth wood sculptures they carve down there.

- Patrick Kiley can be reached via e-mail at pkiley@umich.edu.