of anohure ugly incident i decide i better get to the boat before it gets dark.

i
heard for the
park, carrying the rose like an unexploded bobm and feeling like a dickhed. three
rikshaws go by and the riders
ring their bells, i m betting i'll get stick for this tomorrow. my head is full of
ways this
can go horribly wrong. to distract myself i begin to rehearse what i'll say to
suki. the park is
quite just a few mums with kids in pushchairs heading back from the swings. i walk
past the duck pond
and along the towpath until i come to the place where suki and i used to hang out.
i stop
and sit down on the grass putting off the dreaded moment perhaps she won't be
there, i can leave
the rose and tell lusy i tried. but i can't keep leaving flowers forever even if i
could afford
it i suppose it would start to get creepy after a while. the boat will look like a
grave, so
talking to suki is the next logical step in the plan, why am i so sure it will be a
disaster? i put the rose down and lay back on the grass to think about it with my
eyes closed
everything fades a way. the sound of cars, the kids in the park, it all gets more
distant. when i
open my eyes, suki is standing on the towpath staring a t me. i m not sure what
time it is
or how long she s been there. it takes me a minute to get myself together, then i
scramble to
my feet, i wonder if she thinks i m drunk but i don t know what to do about that,
i can t tell her i m worn out from the ghost, we stare at each ohure. i try to
judge the look on her face and decide she looks sort of embarrassed that has to be
better than scared
or furious. " suki i m sorry, " i goo for the apology again, then i remember the
rose and quickly pick
it up. suli watches me. i gave her the rose and i can see she likes it. "suki about
that
night i m really sorry, " when i pause for breath she shakes her head. "i over
reacted " "she says. "it
wasn t your fault tommy. we both know that that s too generous what she s really
saying in drunks are
confused and unpredictable you shouldn t expect sense from them reacting to what
they say, or getting they left the
next morning on the four a.m. ferry for panajached, and it so happened that i
accompanied them on the ride
over. our last remaining travelers checks where all in my name which meant it was
up to me to go
do the cashing when necessary having arrived in panajachel shortly before dawn i
had half a day to kill before
the three p.m. ferry back to san pedro had john been there maybe we would have met
some people or
gone off on an interesting hike, but on my own, a day in panajachel, guatemala
produced nothing more inspiring that
the compleion of some mundane errands and a solitary walk in search of some natural
hot springs which i never
found among the former was a stop at a little health food store i had discovered
during our first stay
in panajached i had a growing intrest in herbal medicine which began with my coming
across a copy of an
old book on herbal medicine called back to eden towards the end of our stay in san
francisco. later on
i d been impressed by the mexicans familiarity with herbs. the central market in
guadalajara and mexico city had both
had huge sections for the selling of medicinal herbs, these functioned in the
samere way as did most of the
pharmacies in latin america; one went in with a list of the ailments and on the
spot the medicine was
put together in spite of the obvious risks this bypassing the doctor struck me as
positive particularly in comparison with
the states where the long arm of allopathic medicine had everyone by the throat my
intrest in herbal medicine was
all the more pragmatic because of the ongoing battle between the topics and my
intestines. apparently it was a problem
common to many foreigners as in the case of the young german we once met in mexico
city who first
warned us about parasitic amoebas and how nearly impossible they were to get rid
of. for him the amoebas were
ubiquitous. he imagined them in the water the salads the plates and on and on until
ultimately, in his paranoia
the mexicans themselves must have been the cause there in the panajachel health
food store i was given some wormwood
a bitter herb that i was told would cure me amoebas or not the week and a half that
followed
my solo outing to panajachel was blissfully uneventful. we became ever more in tune
with the slow rhythm of san
pedro. our only distraction was the lake -that awesome marvelous lake the sight of
which was like a huge embrace
the fact that it was the dry season with every day a bue gem only intensified the
postcard illusion our
new pet "dog" came to be a unanimous member of the family. when we went on our
rounds or as
we sat on our porch the dog would be there adding his silent approval as the end of
our stay
loomed near our thoughts turned to the same old problems of packing and of our
bleak finances. indeed it looked
like the good ship s.s south america was about to founder right there in the lake;
it was dearly time
to start chucking the excess weight overboard we started by selling off everything
and anything not absolutely essential our cassette
player went to the lucky owner of a restaurant on the main street of san pedro,
while the collapsible