The smell of rainfall filled my modest efficiency. The sun was slowly making its way up and light was beginning to pour through the shutters. I stirred in my bed, my makeshift fan blowing barely-cool air across my skin. I looked out the window to see majestic clouds bathed in the first light of dawn, the discordant green light reflected off of the rainclouds bathing the land in a soft chartreuse. The lone coconut palm outside swayed in the wind, it's fronds clacking like bones and it's coconuts hanging full and ripe, ready to fall at any minute.

 I got a machete at Home Depot in anticipation of pilfering coconuts from my landlord. The green ones are the good ones, their creamy flesh is like pudding and the milk is a refreshing drink. The first green coconut I had, the man I bought it from told me it would give me "new energy" and to "go home and make babies". I didn't believe that sales pitch. It was good, but not good enough to make babies to. Unable to find a stray green coconut, I got a brown one at a roadside stand. Overnight, it began to ferment. When I got home from work the next day, it had fouled my table with leaking coconut milk. I put it in the shower and with a couple whacks with the machete, it flew apart, spewing milk and rind everywhere. My shower smelled deliciously of coconut, but the coconut itself was no good for eating, having oxidized. 

Theft of coconuts is regarded as a breach of etiquette. When I was on St. Croix, I visited the beer drinking pigs. The beer drinking pigs are located in the rainforest of St. Croix and there are some large coconut palms on the property. I witnessed a young gentleman in his attempt to steal a nice, ripe fallen coconut. Unfortunately for him, the bartenders also witnessed the theft.

"Did you tell him he could take that coconut?"

"No, I didn't tell him he could have any coconut."

"He just took that coconut."

The coconut was shortly returned. Too many mammawannas. I'm not even sure of the spelling, but the mammawanna is trouble in a shot glass. Part honey, part fermented roots, and largely 151 rum, it lays waste to all in its path. Staggering up to the beer drinking pigs, I was surprised to meet two brutes, maybe half a ton apiece, with a thirst for beer greater than my own. The original beer drinking pig died from liver disease, his memorial is prominent on the property, an obelisk topped by a pig weathervane. Since the original beer drinking pig died, they only feed them O'Douls. The pigs don't know the difference. The first pig encountered will take the can whole and crush it in its mighty tusks, spraying all nearby with foam, chewing the can and sucking the essence from it. The second pig is more gentle. It takes the can and daintily crushes it, sipping the contents and politely spitting the can to the ground. 

The search for coconuts continues this week. I have my Columbian-made machete and I have determination.