{"id":885,"date":"2020-12-06T16:13:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T20:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=885"},"modified":"2021-12-01T16:14:48","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T20:14:48","slug":"turtle-under-cover","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/creative-nonfiction-archive\/turtle-under-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"Turtle, Under Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"abstract

Internal<\/em> by Shanell Kitt<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Turtle, Under Cover<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Kyle Ingrid Johnson<\/p>\r\n

Part One<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I can\u2019t be a West Indian woman. I\u2019m New England born and raised. It\u2019s the mid-1980s and my friend and fellow cruise-ship crew member, Lincoln, and I are living on a very small island in his home country, running a nightclub. My new neighbor says, \u201cYou can be no West Indian woman until . . .\u201d She always wants to teach me something useful. I listen to her, anxious to learn, but not wanting to attempt a transformation. I simply want to live comfortably here.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The woman hanging clothes on the line is telling me I have a lot to learn to live in her country. I have learned a great deal already. I am thinking of all the books I have read; she is thinking about practicality.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

How to clean a fish. I have read all about them in a book, studied their photographs and colors. I recognize them now: grouper, bonefish, snapper\u2014many kinds of snapper; I like the yellowtail and also the red. There\u2019s Sailor\u2019s Choice, a name I love, and angelfish, which I want to use in combination with inn should I ever own one\u2014the Angelfish Inn.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

My neighbor, Truly, has a tough side that appeals to me. She\u2019s sturdy and muscular, and even though she often wears dresses, it\u2019s because the weather is hot and she wants to stay cool. I have seen her in trousers\u2014I\u2019m thinking of the day she was fixing her car\u2014and I keep picturing her in a bar in P-Town, a place I might be if I wasn\u2019t here.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Truly looks indignant when I tell her the fishermen clean the fish for me down at the docks. \u201cYou can be no West Indian woman until. . .\u201d She starts off most of her sentences this way. She frowns. Why would I want the men to do what I could do for myself? She\u2019s right, of course, but I wonder how much time I want to invest in learning. I am more of an observer. That said, I don\u2019t stand by and watch her hang clothes. My hand dips into the jar that holds the wooden clothespins and I help her hang the sheets.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

B-Bo and Sunny run the kitchen at our nightclub. They tell me that I was seen hanging laundry with Truly Corey. That true? I explain that she has been teaching me to clean fish, prepare conch, how to fix rock lobster. She is trying to teach me how to be a West Indian woman. B-Bo and Sunny exchange a look. They tell me that they cook all that food right here in the bar. \u201cJust buy it from us. Better for you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the big deal?\u201d I ask Lincoln.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cPeople here are real church-y.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve noticed. A crowd might stay at the nightclub well beyond closing as Saturday night moves into Sunday morning, but everyone gets up with the sun and goes off to church.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cNo one here is gay. There are no lesbians. You can\u2019t be bisexual. Look, anyone can teach you to clean fish or turtle or remove a conch from its shell. You don\u2019t need Truly.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He reminds me that most people on the island come to our bar. It is one of only two nightclubs on the island and has a reputation for being well-run and safe.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to scare anyone away.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This means people of all races and sexual orientations come to our bar, but heterosexuality remains the norm. Straight people can flirt on the island, but gay people can\u2019t. Won\u2019t. They know the rules. And now I know them, too.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Truly has a hearty laugh that rumbles out of her like a surprise thunderstorm. It can pop up any time, but doesn\u2019t appear often. She is laughing now as she says \u201cThis a lesson in patience. You can be no West Indian woman until . . .\u201d\u00a0 Here we go again. We\u2019re leaning against the outer wall of her house watching the conch shells that we\u2019ve lined up on the fence.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I am waiting for the conch to emerge. We\u2019ve punched tiny holes in the top of each shell, and propped the shells up on a fence, open side down. Eventually, whether they want to or not, the snails will be dangling outside their lovely pink homes, not aware of the beating they are going to get once Truly gets her hands on them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYou American women too impatient.\u201d I wish she\u2019d smile, but she is scowling. I am checking my watch, timing how long it takes the conch to come out into the sunshine.\u00a0 When they do, Truly is immediately at the wooden cutting stand in her backyard where she does all her tough seafood preparation.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On other islands, particularly in the French West Indies, tenderizing the conch is called \u201cbeating the lambi<\/em>.\u201d And Truly is surely beating it. That mallet is going up and down and it looks to me as though all the frustrations of Truly\u2019s life are rushing from her head to her heart, down her arm and into that fist grasped around the mallet handle. I watch.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She doesn\u2019t offer me any conch. It was just a lesson, not a meal. I thank her and go home. Later that night, after the bar is closed, I sit eating B-Boy and Sunny\u2019s cracked conch\u2014fried conch in local parlance\u2014and with every tough but delicious chew, I think of Truly and her mallet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In town by the docks, there is an old, rusted pick-up truck with two fishermen in back. I know they are fishermen as their hair matches the rust on the truck. It happens when one spends a life on the water, especially for conch divers. Hold the breath, dive down deep, and grab as many conch shells as possible from the ocean floor before surfacing. Even the fishermen who stay in their little boats have rusty hair. The saltwater gets to it. Black turns to red.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I look. The fishermen are grinning. Two very large and, I suspect, very old turtles are upside down in the truck bed. On their backs, the turtles can\u2019t escape. I have never seen any this large outside of an aquarium. The men talk to me about the turtles, how many people crave turtle meat; they tell me these old dinosaurs are headed to local hotels. I don\u2019t crave it, but I eat it. There\u2019s the chewy part that reminds me of minute steak. There\u2019s the tender meat that I liken to veal stew, but there is also the gelatinous part under the carapace that the islanders think is the best and most desired part of the turtle. I have tasted it and found it unappealing; the texture is difficult to love.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I once watched Truly cut up a small turtle. I admit that I had feelings for that turtle. As she dissected it, I imagined she was a forensic pathologist performing an autopsy, and I kept waiting for her to tell me something significant about its life. After all, I knew how it died. Truly murdered it with great gusto.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When I was a very little girl, I was given a book of Japanese fairytales that I loved. One of the stories featured a magical sea turtle that visited the beach and took special people on the back of its shell down to an enchanted kingdom under the sea. I knew the story wasn\u2019t real, but I wanted it to be. I wanted to meet that turtle one day and go deep down to that place.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I told Truly about the fairytale turtle, and while hacking away at the creature\u2019s innards, she said, \u201cYou American women, always dreaming. You can never be a West . . .\u201d\u00a0 Yeah, Truly, I get it. I really do.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\"\"

Destination<\/em> by Shanell Kitt<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Part Two<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln and I settle in on bar stools at The Pot Spoon, the only local restaurant still open from the days when we lived on the island. Hyacinth isn\u2019t running it these days. She sits in a chair and talks to the customers, although it is hard for her to see them, her eyes almost blue with blindness. Her daughter, Zella, is now in charge.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cMa. Ma! You remember these people? They used to run the nightclub called The Lady, up on the ridge. They\u2019ve come back for a visit.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYou been gone long time,\u201d Hyacinth remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She may not be able to see, but her memory is sharp. We go over the dates when we lived here and when The Lady was open. We had the bar for four years, but that was two decades in the past.\u00a0 Still, we remember our routine. Every day we would drive into town to eat lunch at one of the little places where everyone went. We had three favorite restaurants, each one run by an island woman. For most islanders, lunch was the big meal of the day, and for $4 at most places or $5 at the airport\u2019s Flyaway Caf\u00e9, one could eat heartily while, at the same time, seeing others and catching up on all the town news.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We tell Hyacinth that she always had the best food. We reminisce about her fried pork chops and coleslaw with rice and beans, her roast chicken with potato salad, and her special fried rice that was always both soft and crispy and contained a variety of flavors and spices.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cPeople liked your nightclub,\u201d she tells us. \u201cIt was a nice, nice place compared to that other one. The Uprising.\u201d We all laugh about the contrast of the names. \u201cYes, your place was the classy one.\u201d Hyacinth shifts in her chair. We ask about The Uprising.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cBurned down, long ago. I don\u2019t know much about nightclubs now. Zella could tell you. I think there\u2019s a couple. Not much has changed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Zella sets our beer down in front of us and, as I pick up the tall bottle, I think how strange it is to be drinking beer, something I rarely do at home, but which feels very familiar and comfortable on the island.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYeah, not much change here. Just us islanders and the expats as usual. A few more tourists than in the old days. Population about the same, around 4,000. But you probably won\u2019t run into many people you know. Anybody who could left here and moved to the big island. You should see it over there! Supermarkets, big hotels, resorts, stores with the same sort of stuff you find in Miami. They must have 25,000 people over there now. Planes coming in from everywhere. Cars like a traffic jam. But here, well, we\u2019re the same.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We ask about other restaurants we used to go to and what happened to them. The Salina Restaurant? They tell us the owner died and the place closed years ago. We reminisce about their menu, too, and how we would always go on Tuesdays as that was grouper fingers with grits and beans. Or we\u2019d try to get there before lunch ran out on Fridays as curried chicken was the specialty.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Back then, the cooks made just one meal per day. On a chalkboard, customers could read what was for lunch. When the cook ran out of food, she just shook her head as someone entered the door and said, \u201cLunch finish.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I ask about The Flyaway Caf\u00e9, remembering Wednesdays as being the day for bonefish alongside pear bush and rice. Pear bush is a type of cactus that I never learned how to cook, even though my neighbor back then, Truly Corey, tried to teach me.\u00a0 Lincoln remembers how he loved The Flyaway\u2019s stewed beef with stew beans and rice. A few minutes later, he is talking about their great barbecued chicken with plantains.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cShe moved to Miami to live with her daughter and grands,\u201d Hyacinth tells us about the woman from The Flyaway. She also mentions that the airport now has a small hamburger stand that pretends it\u2019s related to McDonald\u2019s. \u201cNo one from here likes their food.\u201d She sucks her teeth in derision. \u201cJust some of the expats and the tourists. It not real food.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln switches up the conversation and we start asking about some of our old bar patrons. Hyacinth and Zella seem to know where everyone is and what happened to everybody. We learn who is retired and still living on the island; there are very few, it seems.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYou should go see them!\u201d Hyacinth encourages with certain names we mention. \u201cThey\u2019d love to see you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But more often than not, we hear that the people we knew have moved over to the big island, mostly due to work or to be near family members who now live there.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need for the men to go to sea anymore,\u201d Hyacinth says in a nod to the time when men such as Lincoln and those in his age group went to work on cruise ships or freighters.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There wasn\u2019t any choice. It was either go to sea on a big ship or stay home and go to sea on a little boat as a fisherman. There were a few government jobs here and there, and that was about it.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Zella puts fresh bottles of beer in front of us and asks if we\u2019d like some ribs she\u2019s just made. We nod, and as she heads toward the back to get our meals, she says, \u201cYou know, a lot of the young folks go away to college. In Jamaica, Barbados, sometimes even in England or the States. If the government pays, they have to come back here to work, but if they pay on their own, they just disappear. Marry up with someone from that country and stay there, don\u2019t return.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I am wondering about my friend Truly Corey. She was a neighbor of ours when we lived here and ran The Lady. Somehow, she managed every time I saw her to point out that I couldn\u2019t be a West Indian woman until I learned something or other that she felt was important: how to clean a fish to perfection, how to get conch meat out of its shell and tenderize it, how to cut up a sea turtle and cook it properly, how to identify pear bush and prepare it to cook it with rice, how to use saltfish to its best advantage, how to walk out in the bush and carefully choose herbs to prepare in a tea known as \u201cbush medicine.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Of course, I wasn\u2019t particularly interested in learning everything that Truly felt was necessary to teach me. Much of it was messy, like cleaning fish. Some of it was complicated, such as cutting up a turtle, and certain missions we went on just seemed dangerous, like finding the right herb to make medicine. What if I picked the wrong herb by mistake?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As much as Truly wanted me to learn these tasks so that I would fit in on the island, it was she, herself, who really didn\u2019t fit the mold. She was a very, very West Indian woman, but yet, in many ways, not one at all. Truly knew everyone, talked to those she needed to, and participated in all island festivities such as carnivals and jump-ups, as well as all other traditional island customs such as going to church on Sundays. But Truly was different. She lived alone, and no island woman did unless she was a widow, perhaps, and her children were in another country or on another island. Truly had no husband, no boyfriend, and no children. Truly was what the islanders call mannish. During that time period, away from the island, I would have said butch. I always looked at her as a lesbian who didn\u2019t know she was one. I might have been wrong, of course, as there were times she looked at me or said something or just did something that made me think, \u201cShe does know herself.\u201d But if I made a joke or tried to bring up a subject she didn\u2019t want to hear, she just went back into her comfort zone of trying to teach me how to be a West Indian woman.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I once asked Truly if she would come to our nightclub and dance with me some night. Soca, I specified, as it was sexier to dance to soca. Not reggae, I added, as I knew that would be her option. She looked at me and asked if I knew what a turtle did when it wasn\u2019t comfortable. Before I even had a chance to answer her question, either in a scientific or flirtatious way, Truly told me, \u201cTurtle get under cover. That why it has shell. Good for hiding. The shell always there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\"\"

Saved by the Message<\/em> by Shanell Kitt<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I never asked her to come out and dance with me again, but by then I had learned how careful gay people had to be on the island. Truly might come out and dance, but she\u2019d dance with the guys she\u2019d gone to school with. Or even with the expats. Truly was a good dancer. If I was busy behind the bar serving drinks or in the corner taking on the role of DJ, I would lift my eyes periodically to watch her dance. Dancing with Truly was a little fantasy of mine that spiced up my otherwise placid island life. Doing any more than that was definitely out of the question.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cSo, who else can we catch up on?\u201d I ask. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking of some of our old neighbors and wondering where they are and how they are doing these days. Remember Truly? Truly Corey? What\u2019s she up to?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I am surprised but pleased that, under the lip of the bar counter, Lincoln pats me on the thigh, not as a warning, but in a supportive way.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Zella looks across the room toward a man who is methodically eating his way through a huge pile of ribs. Must have been a double order.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cHey, Clive \u2013 wasn\u2019t she some cousin to you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWho that?\u201d He is concentrating on his meal and not listening to our conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cTruly Corey.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYes. Yes.\u201d He wipes his lips with a napkin. \u201cShe my father\u2019s sister\u2019s daughter.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhat happened to her?\u201d Hyacinth asks. \u201cShe die?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYes. Yes. She die. Long time now.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln\u2019s hand reaches for my thigh again and gives it a comforting squeeze.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I have to ask.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The man shakes his head. \u201cSome cancer. Some woman kind of cancer. Took her quick.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI am remembering now,\u201d Hyacinth takes a sip of the cola that Zella has just delivered to her. \u201cShe die same thing as Eveline up at the Salina Restaurant. Yes, cancer took them both. Same year, too.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Zella is wiping down the bar counter. \u201cFor long time here, we had many women dying of cancer. All kinds. Breast cancer. Uterine cancer. What\u2019s that other one? Cervical? But not so many deaths now. Over on the big island, there\u2019s a new hospital. You should see it. Lots of doctors and nurses and equipment. Yes, women go there now for check-ups. When somebody sick, they don\u2019t send them off to Jamaica or Puerto Rico or Bahamas like they used to.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cStill, not everybody trust doctor.\u201d Hyacinth takes a long swallow of cola and sets the can down beside her. \u201cEven if back then we had big hospital, those women, maybe they wouldn\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cTrue, that.\u201d The man has finished his ribs and rice and is looking in his wallet for some money to pay Zella. \u201cI don\u2019t trust no doctors. \u2018Specially those ones from England.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln asks the man who he seems to remember, but who doesn\u2019t look familiar to me, \u201cWhere is Truly buried?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cMethodist Church graveyard, behind the salina.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Outside in our rental car, Lincoln turns to me. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I know you were looking forward to seeing her.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I shrug. Actually, I expected her to have moved somewhere, perhaps to the big tourist island like everyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln has a teasing look on his face. \u201cYou never did learn to clean fish properly, and to this day, your peas and rice are always too soggy, and they don\u2019t have enough thyme.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I laugh. So true! All those lessons about how to be a West Indian woman, and I failed almost all of them.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI remember I was afraid you\u2019d actually start an affair with her and we\u2019d lose all our business at the bar.\u201d Lincoln is driving the car, and I don\u2019t know where we are going.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cOh, I liked her. She was different from the other women, but you warned me and I listened to you. And she<\/em> warned me, and I listened to her. We didn\u2019t have a lot in common, but I liked that she wanted to teach me things. And she was a great dancer! I loved to watch her dance!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI danced with her plenty times,\u201d Lincoln is laughing now, and I am remembering how, if the song was right and all available men were on the dance floor, that Truly would come up to the bar and beckon to Lincoln who would obligingly leave his post as bartender and head off into the soca beat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cHmm\u2026 yeah, I remember that. It was beautiful to watch the two of you dance.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln\u2019s been in my life now for decades. We\u2019ve always gotten along well. He does his thing and I do mine. We give each other a lot of room and a lot of respect, and somehow over the years, it has all worked.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We pull up near the Methodist Church in the back of the big salina. The whole area behind the town is covered with these salt ponds where, years ago, the big business was in raking salt. Now they just sit and mirror the sky. No one rakes salt anymore.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The sun is high and heavy as we walk toward the graveyard. I always found the graveyards on this island to be a bit unreal, as though they are pretending to shelter the dead but the dead aren\u2019t there. The gravediggers don\u2019t use shovels as much as they use pickaxes to tear up the limestone that sits under the surface of most of the island. It takes a long time to dig a grave here; one man can\u2019t do it alone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Row upon row of white wooden crosses mark the graves. From a distance, across the salina, they look like a flock of egrets posing beside the white church with the red roof. The newer graves have whiter crosses unless someone\u2019s family comes by regularly to repaint. The grave markers in the back haven\u2019t weathered the years well and are now just gray wood. Any name painted on them is gone as well.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I shake my head. I didn\u2019t want to come here, but Lincoln didn\u2019t ask. He is just acting like the West Indian man he is. One says goodbye to the dead.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWell, we missed the funeral,\u201d he says. And I think about how we didn\u2019t know, busy with work and our lives in a city far away. Truly didn\u2019t have a lot of close friends, and no one would have thought to tell us.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We meander around the crosses. A real egret is sitting on one and we startle it and watch as it flies up over the graveyard and lands gracefully at the edge of the salina. Lincoln seems to know where we are going. I don\u2019t see how, but he is weaving his way through the rows, probably mentally counting how many Methodists usually die per year, and figuring out where Truly is by that sort of strange calculation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He stops and points. I look in the direction of his finger and see a cross, a kind of lukewarm white with strips of paint coming off the wood on the side closer to the sea. Her name is there, somewhat faded but readable: Truly Corey.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We stand for a while and stare at the grave marker. I feel nothing, just hot and sweaty in the afternoon heat of the island. Lincoln is quiet. Maybe he knows this is the place he will return to one day. I know he always keeps a life insurance policy with just enough money on it to pay for a body to be flown home. I see the bill come in, and I see him write the check for it, but I never think about what it really means. Now I know that one day, he will be one of these white crosses. And what will I be? A donation to science. I have already filled out the donation papers for a local medical school. Different endings. A New England one and a West Indian one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0\u201cReady to go?\u201d Lincoln asks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cJust a minute.\u201d\u00a0 I take a black marker out of my bag and lean over the cross on Truly\u2019s grave. I start to draw a turtle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lincoln looks around to see if anyone is watching. But we are alone in the graveyard by the salina. I draw a sea turtle. It is swimming in the ocean, heading north. Its head and its flippers are outside of its shell, and it is free.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"headshot<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Kyle\u00a0Ingrid Johnson<\/strong> was born in Vermont and has lived in the Turks & Caicos Islands, Florida, and Puerto Rico. She currently resides in Boston.<\/span><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Turtle, Under Cover\u00a0 Kyle Ingrid Johnson Part One I can\u2019t be a West Indian woman. I\u2019m New England born and raised. It\u2019s the mid-1980s and my friend and fellow Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3398,"featured_media":0,"parent":1310,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions\/1588"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}