Blog 5-Ferry trip from the City to Karaya

At La Fabrica I looked up through the weave of palm fronds at the sky. It was a deep, defiant blue, so much more blue than the City sky. The carablancas were gone. Instead of getting right to transcribing from my notebook into my webpage I watched my phone video of our crossing on the Cayo Karaya ferry. I hadn't looked at it since I'd shown it to Patria our first night here. I found an image I wanted for the icon of this page. I made a still. So maybe I hadn't been procrastinating. I always forgot that mental puttering was a good way to find my writing mind. The still showed a bit of the ferry's hull, of the deck, and my last image of the City as the ferry pulled away, a gray silhouette of skyscrapers, the City's uneven, predator teeth.

Entered from my marble notebook journal:
Day 1 in Palenque:

Ferry trip from the City to Karaya
We stood on the deck of the noon Cayo Karaya ferry like happy tourists, watching dolphins jump the ferry's wake. Their bellies glistened. "They're a pod," my son Machi told little Taina. She jumped as they jumped. "We're a pod too." Taina was right, we were our own odd human pod: my just reclaimed exfriend Julia, her six year old granddaughter Taina, my just returned disappeared 17 year old son Maceo (my precious Machi) and me, still reeling from getting laid off.
We were in the middle of the Caribbean sea, the City no longer visible, Isla Karaya not yet in sight. A young man with a long brown face, black hair, and a high Taino nose, in a green leaf print Guardia uniform watched us from where he sat in a blue plastic chair bolted to the deck. Machi asked him to video us with my phone. The Guardia smiled, reached for the phone and just as he pointed the camera at us a dolphin jumped out of the turquoise water. He'd caught the shiny dolphin in the brilliant air. Taina bounded with the dolphin yelling, “I can't keep up. I will keep up.” Julia laughed, “I just can't stop her.” The video caught me saying, “You are so different with your grandchild than you were with your son David.” Julia glared at me. First time I noticed it.
I'd been afraid of Julia's judgment and her wrath all those years she wouldn't speak to me, and now that her son David was a Desaparecido and she had let me into her life again, I was still afraid of her. Just then in the video Machi squatted and held Taina tight by the wrist. He stuck to her and I stuck to him. His tenderness for the girl, child of his disappeared best friend David, moved me to tears. With Taina he forgot his thugboy mask, the one he grew last year, his Desaparecido year on the street, the year I'd missed between 16 and 17.
The young Guardia came over to where Machi and I stood together and pointed the camera at us. I heard his voice over an image of me, short brown hair, square face, almost giddy grin. “You look alike. You must be his Mother." His voice was a bit raspy, warm. I could hear the smile in it. "You look like an odd boy, with your short brown hair and small body, dressed the same as your son.” I smiled. I was wearing an old pair of Machi's jeans and one of his old t-shirts. "An old boy." I said. Taken straight on, the shot showed Machi looking the Guardia over. I waited for the Machi glare but instead he smiled. Now the video showed the snack bar in the distance. "I'm Franz. Francisco but I go by Franz." They walked off toward the snack counter in the middle of the deck. The Guardia panned the shelves with chips, pretzels, and cookies. I heard him say, "Look at the food they're killing us with," just before he shut off the camera. I was disappointed to discover later, the first time I watched the video, that I couldn't spy on what they'd talked about.
Alone with me by the railing Julia said, “Don't look upset. Do you imagine Maceo's going to be glued to your side?” I shook my head. “I'm scared whenever he walks away. I still can barely take in that he's back. ” Standing by the ferry railing with Julia I watched the two young men eating hot dogs and talking. The Guardia wasn't much older than my son. “When has Machi ever been friendly to somebody like a cop?” Taina jumped again, her long black braids bounced. "Look at Taina," I said, "Her joy is bigger than her body!"
Machi came back with a big grin and put his arm around my shoulder. He whispered, “That Guardia Franz isn't what he looks like.” He kissed me on the top of my head. I could tell he believed he was already making moves to find his father. A dolphin leapt, showed its glistening belly. We were going on a terrible errand to look for our Desaparecidos, but in that moment I was utterly happy, arm in arm with my boy, watching dolphins.