Free Eating Aliens: One Man's Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species by Jackson Landers Page B

owner of. Bottom Harbor was full of American ex-pats, locals, and the odd vagrant surfer. It also had WiFi access. After a couple of drinks, I decided it would be absolutely necessary to become a regular here.
    I offer this as tried-and-true words of wisdom: If you find yourself alone in a strange place where you don’t know anyone but you’ve got important things to get done quickly and you’re going to need help, find a good bar and show up repeatedly. Buy people drinks with abandon and tip the bartenders lavishly. This is the fastest way to make friends and get information.
    Bottom Harbor became my watering hole for the next eight days. Even when it meant going home to eat nothing but hot dogs and stale bread, I showed up at Bottom Harbor and spent money. This ended up being a wise move. Julian and Jon introduced me to a number of people at the bar: Double Dee, an American ex-pat bartender and co-owner of the bar, so named for her massive bosom. Abe and Allie, bartenders and brothers from Oregon with whom I would later go spearfishing.
    One night I met a very young Bahamian man named Smith, who wore a red shirt and black pants. Julian and I got to talking to him about drinking and driving on Eleuthera, which is apparently legal and appeared to be almost a national pastime.
    “Just don’t hit nothing and nobody cares,” Smith advised, displaying his melodic Bahamian accent (sort of a Jamaican accent, but softer and with a whole other dictionary of slang). He took a pull on his beer and continued: “Whatever you do, don’t get into an accident, especially after dark, mon. You run into something or go off the road out here and you’re f**ked, mon. Ain’t nobody coming. Go ahead, you call the police. After eight at night, no police officer coming out there. Nobody’s coming and you’re just f**ked. So don’t get into no accidents, mon.”
    I didn’t know if Smith was exaggerating, but the next day I told Jon what Smith had said and asked if there was anything to what the kid had been telling me.
    “Smith? You know who he is, right?”
    “Not really.”
    “Smith is the f**kin’ magistrate, man. He runs the police department for this whole part of the island.”
    “That kid looked about eighteen years old! He didn’t have on a uniform, just a red shirt and black pants.”
    “That’s how they roll, man. Smitty is all hooked up through his family. I don’t know how old he is, but Smitty is the law around here. Hell, he was on duty, too.”
    That first night, I ended up at the octagonal home of a friendly American ex-pat attorney named Sherman, whose wife somehow knew who I was. When it was time to leave, neither Jon, Jordan, nor I had any idea how to get back to Mojo’s place. Someone suggested that Julian’s shorter and quieter brother, Basil, guide us home.
    One of the biggest mistakes of my life was letting Basil drive my rental car. There wasn’t much choice, however, given that Eleuthera doesn’t have reliable street signs and I had no clue where I was in terms more specific than “somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.”
    Anyway, Basil was mind-bogglingly drunk. I suppose that someone driving a car can perhaps swerve a bit or drive extremely fast, but doing both at the same time is really pushing one’s luck. I contemplated my own death, and seriously considered opening the door and making a jump for it. After fifteen minutes of the most terrifying journey of my life, much of it spent off the road, Basil let himself out in a town close to Mojo’s place. I gratefully took the wheel and followed Jon’s borrowed Jeep.
    I spent my first full day on Eleuthera driving around with Jon and Jordan in an open Jeep with holes in the floor and a twelve-pack of the local Kilik beer in the back. We met up with Double Dee and the brothers from Oregon and arranged to caravan to the north end of the island to explore some caves. Later, we found ourselves stranded by the side of the road with an overheated engine and