Episode 1: Belize City

After an ardous trip to Corozal, a city of just four thousand a few miles south of the Mexican border, I was relieved to be back in Belize City. It almost felt like home. I stopped by Shen’s Pagoda, hoping to run into Sumei and renege on a commitment I’d made earlier in the week. No luck. She was off duty. During daylight hours Shen’s was a popular dining spot, although never without its quota of marginal characters. After dark, however, it hosted a decidedly less reputable crowd.

Little more than a large undivided room surrounded on all four sides by screened windows, the restaurant consisted of approximately twenty tables and almost as many ceiling fans. An oversized circular bar occupied the entire back half of the space. It was already crowded when I arrived, and I was fortunate to find a stool without neighbors. I had no need for conversation. I’d spent the day talking. Tired and thirsty, I ordered a Belikan, the national beer of Belize, but before my first swallow I had unwelcome company. A short heavyset Hispanic man took up residence on one side of me, and a large muscular Black man on the other. They said they’d seen me on the street. A newcomer, they figured, and were curious if I had business in Belize. Perhaps they could help.

*****

After an uninspiring decade (1978-1988) in Boston, I was overdue for a change. Dissatisfied with my circumstances and lacking a convincing reason to remain in town, I latched on to the idea of traveling to Belize as a convenient excuse to leave. A little-known Central American republic seemed an ideal place to disappear for a while. There would be no one around to inquire about my plans or prevent me from being unduly hard on myself—an unproductive pastime in which I often engaged. With no other city beckoning, it also provided an exotic cover story for my exit. Besides, I was just deluded enough to believe I might encounter something or someone that would provide a reason to stay. But who was I kidding? Escaping to Belize was an easy way out of Dodge, nothing more, nothing less.

During my tenure in Beantown, I had slowly, but inexorably, lost track of my priorities. Forsaking more creative endeavors, I’d begun accepting positions in finance and operations. Although inexperienced in both, I was a quick study and a born manager—a talent that served me all too well. And while a far cry from earlier employment choices, management presented its own unique set of challenges and just enough satisfaction to help pass the time. It also paid extremely well, providing a lifestyle that quickly grew comfortable. I had always assumed the situation was temporary and that ultimately I’d reverse course. Yet when more creative opportunities presented themselves I was reluctant to take my shot.

My dilemma was simple, the solution was not. And changing jobs wasn’t going to solve my problem. I’d already tried. Seven different positions at four different companies in ten years. As I exchanged one employment opportunity for another, I was happy to leave the glamour jobs to others. And more than willing to do what many would not—especially since I had few real credentials. Fortunate not to  be burdened with an insatiable ego, I preferred to avoid the limelight whenever possible. Still, a healthy measure of professional street smarts and a strong work ethic allowed me to find success as a manager. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to manage, I wanted to write. But concerns about the extent of my talent, and a debilitating dose of inertia, kept me on the sidelines. Besides, I wasn’t at all sure how I would support myself. Having failed in college to acquire even the rudimentary skills of a writer, no one was going to pay me to learn. Already enjoying a seductively easy lifestyle, making a change would have required a significant leap of faith, and I was both unwilling to do so and ill equipped for the task.

So I said goodbye to Boston, a town I very much liked, and headed to Belize, a place that hadn’t even been on my radar until Morley Safer of 60 Minutes put it there. With the mid-twentieth century Fort George Hotel as a backdrop, Morley stood in the heart of Belize City extolling its virtues. An ideal spot for expatriates, he said. The country was exotic, undisturbed, and inexpensive. As a regular 60 Minutes viewer, I took notice. I needed to get out of town. Why not Belize? Boston no longer felt viable. If I stayed, I would need to reinvent myself—yet again—and I was tired of doing that. Instead, I opted for a different strategy or, actually, no strategy at all.

Already unemployed, I wasted little time preparing to leave. In less than two weeks I gave away almost everything I owned. Selling felt wrong and would have taken too long, and putting my possessions in storage would have served only as an unwanted anchor. All that remained to do was attend my going-away party. Initially disposed against it, I eventually acquiesced. To have not done so would have been bad form and I had no desire to leave Boston on a sour note. And while I hadn’t kept my Belize plans private, my preference would have been to quietly slip out of town. But after word of my departure became widespread, that option disappeared.

Located a few blocks down Commonwealth Avenue from the Boston Common and a few blocks up from my fashionable parlor floor studio, Montana’s Bar and Grill was my home away from home. I had enjoyed more than a few memorable moments there. Always crowded on a Friday after work, the impromptu party challenged the occupancy limit, but no one seemed to care. A steady stream of drugs and alcohol kept the party going, but shortly after two in the morning there was nothing left but the remnants of a good time.

I was glad I hadn’t nixed the affair. Over the course of a boisterous, laugh-filled evening, friends and colleagues had gone out of their way to wish me luck and express their gratitude for the assistance I had offered over the years. Careening from job to job, never quite finding a home, I regarded my time in Boston as something less than a success. But, apparently, I’d influenced more than a few lives, mentoring some, advancing the career of others. From my vantage point, I was just doing my job. Happy to help if I could. Nonetheless, everyone appreciates being appreciated and I was no exception. It was a grand party and a terrific send-off. And while most of the revelers had as little an idea of why I was headed to Belize as I did, no one let it spoil the fun.

Slim, clean-shaven, with the remnants of a baby face juxtaposed against prematurely gray hair, I was still young looking at forty. An introvert by nature—until alcohol upset the applecart—I was also often edgy and uneasy but managed to hide it well. Born in a small town two hours north of New York City, my destiny lay elsewhere. Only ten weeks after entering this world, I moved with my parents, my twin, and an older brother to Milwaukee. It was 1947, Truman was president, and the post-war boom had begun. After an eight-year stint in the Midwest, my family moved back east to Long Island, where I spent the second half of elementary school and all of high school in the upper middle class enclave of Old Westbury. It wasn’t until college at the University of Wisconsin that I genuinely understood not everyone had it so good. Although newspapers, magazines, and television had alerted me to my privileged status by portraying the difficulties of others, their problems weren’t real to me. They didn’t live in my neighborhood.

Easily disenchanted, I had amorphous goals and a penchant for impulsive behavior. I dropped out of college twice, spent some time in Ann Arbor making films with a friend, and avoided the Vietnam War. After graduating in 1970 with a BA in nothing and having eschewed the benefit of on-campus employment interviews, I spent a few fruitless years in New York supporting myself with a series of menial jobs. Unable to find my footing, I returned to Madison and began a career in broadcast television. Seven years at the local NBC affiliate afforded me the opportunity to maneuver from production to management, a misguided endeavor I would later come to regret. Still, I enjoyed the recognition I received.

Bored but ambitious, I tried casting my line farther afield. With the help of a friend, I managed to secure a job in Boston as a news cameraman for WRKO-TV, a CBS-owned and operated station. Although that position ended abruptly, several other production positions followed before I veered away from the creative side of the business altogether—an ill-considered move. And in my obsessive pursuit of more satisfying employment, I allowed two important romantic relationships to disintegrate. In the end, though, my decision to abandon a decade-long tenure in Boston was less the result of thoughtful appraisal than an intense need for a change of venue. 

Influenced no doubt by images I’d retained from Bogart’s 1944 film Passage to Marseille, I wanted to travel to Belize by boat. Unfortunately, no passenger liner made this uninspiring city a port of call, and booking passage on a freighter was far too expensive. So was sailing. The overland route was my next choice. I could trade my Triumph TR6 for a Jeep and drive. Friends, however, were quick to dissuade me of that notion. Driving alone through Mexico without the benefit of speaking Spanish was sheer folly. Reluctantly, I had to agree. That left flying as the only option. First, though, I needed to dispose of my car. Since I felt an obligation to visit my mother before setting off on an open-ended trip to Central America, I decided to drive to Florida and fly from there. My father had already been dead fifteen years. Smoking three packs of cigarettes a day for his entire adult life, lung cancer mistook him for a volunteer. I remember my father as a good guy, just not a happy one. 

On the route south I stayed with friends, avoiding the cost of motels. Frugality now a necessity. Although I may have failed in Boston to alter the course of a rather ill-defined career, I had nevertheless made good money. I had also, however, lived high, been generous to a fault, and rarely thought about tomorrow. Now, as I headed to Belize, my savings were meager and I was twenty-five thousand dollars (sixty thousand dollars today) in credit card debt; an amount destined to increase as my Belize fantasy unfolded. I had a plan, though, albeit not a particularly responsible one. With plenty of credit still available on my eight active cards, I would simply pay each card’s monthly minimum with a check from a different account. To be sure, this was not a solution to my overall debt problem, but what the hell? If bankruptcy became necessary down the road, what difference did it make whether I owed twenty-five, fifty, or even a hundred thousand dollars?

Although just shy of her eightieth birthday, my mother was still employed as a radio dispatcher for a local pest control company. She also managed the upkeep of her home in a no-frills retirement community in Boynton Beach. While admirable, these undertakings did not make living with her any easier as neither endeavor prevented her from being a well-meaning but annoying presence in my daily existence. I needed to get my affairs in order quickly. I sold my TR6—a car I loved—to a feckless idiot, putting me at risk, I feared, of permanent karmic injury. But I didn’t have the time to wait around for a more suitable buyer. I then rented a safe deposit box and a post office box, far less emotionally charged events. I left the keys for both with my mother, along with a set of instructions. She would check the postal box regularly and inform me of its contents and stay well away from the safe deposit box unless circumstances required her to do otherwise. Although unfazed by my remark, she also failed to see any humor in it.

After a short five-day sojourn in Leisureville, an ungated, poorly landscaped, cookie-cutter retirement community, I was off to the Miami airport where the sheen on my ex-pat notion began to fade even before I boarded my flight. First, though, I had to endure a long, tedious drive on I-95 with my mother at the helm. A notoriously cautious driver, she had also shrunk as she’d aged, and I was concerned with just how much she could see beyond the dashboard. I was also quite nervous. Not so much about her driving, although that was a cause for concern, but about traveling to Belize on a lark. What exactly was I doing? I certainly hadn’t given the trip proper consideration. I felt as if I were walking on stage without having learned my lines.

I fully expected to feel like an outsider in Belize, but I was surprised to discover I was the only non-Hispanic person in the Sasha Airlines waiting area. Equally disconcerting—especially to someone ignorant of any language save his native tongue—every loudspeaker announcement was in Spanish, with only an occasional nod to an English translation. Although I had done remarkably little preparatory research on Belize (formerly British Honduras), I knew the official language was English, making my choice of countries appear reasonable. Unlike the rest of Central America, Belize was a mix of Mayan, Mestizo, Creole, East Indian, Chinese, and European cultures. As a result, English had remained the country’s official language even after it gained its independence. Only after my arrival did I discover it wasn’t the King’s English, but an idiosyncratic variant quite foreign to the uninitiated.

Once airborne, I tried to park my concerns and relax. Not in the mood to read, and unable to sleep, my mind gravitated to my recently abandoned life in Boston. As much as I tried to steer my thoughts in a positive direction, they insisted on rehashing the uglier parts of the last decade. High hopes had accompanied me from Madison, but there were problems from the start—not the least of which was that I’d never shot news before, let alone in a major market. Talk about a leap of faith. That problem was, however, surmountable. Others would not be.

But before self-recrimination got out of hand the plane encountered severe turbulence. The woman in the seat next to me took the opportunity between stomach-jarring bounces to make the sign of the cross. I wondered if she knew something I didn’t, and only hoped her prayers were broad enough to include me. Ignoring the rapidly flashing seat belt sign, she suddenly rose from her seat and pushed her way past me in a desperate attempt to reach the aisle. Once free to move about the cabin, she sprinted toward the lavatory but failed to make it in time. Had she not panicked, overlooking the little brown paper bag in the seat pocket in front of her, an ugly situation might have been avoided. Selfishly, though, I was glad she had put enough distance between us to render her misfortune outside my area of concern. The turbulence, though, had forced the pilot to fly unusually low. Panoramic vistas of lush tropical forests, algae-covered swamps, and the turquoise blue water of the Gulf of Mexico were my reward for having entertained thoughts of an early demise.

As the plane began its final descent I once again found it necessary to reassure myself I was in for a grand adventure because I wasn’t entirely convinced. Belize was among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. What if Morley was wrong? What if Belize City wasn’t an ex-pat’s haven? What if I were about to descend into a serious mistake? Too late, of course, for those concerns. And as I exited the aircraft, the extreme heat and humidity I encountered did little to reassure me. Slowly making my way across the tarmac—no jetways for Belize City—I realized I was one of only seven passengers who had deplaned. All the rest were on their way to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Belize City was but a minor stopover.