Frenchtown

There is a district in Charlotte Amalie called Frenchtown, which is where almost all of the indigenous white people (not transplanted here like me), also known as Frenchies, live. They have an insatiable set of skills when it comes to gutting and cleaning fish, dropping the f-bomb with a serious accent and growing supermullets. "Tim," you may be saying to yourself, "I've heard of a mullet, a skullet, a brullet, a femullet, a feskullet and even the rare African-Amerimullet, but not a supermullet. What on God's green Earth is that?" Well, I've drawn up the following illustration to help you visualize it:


As you can see in exhibit A, the supermullet features mid-length, disheveled hair up front (the party). As demonstrated in exhibit B, it also features a bevy of extra long hair down the back (the after party). This combination of party and after party fully fits the mentality of a Frenchie as they can be routinely found working with beer in hand.

The Frenchie and the supermullet are not the only defining characteristics of Frenchtown - the district is also well known for its number of good eateries. DC and I decided to swing over to Frenchtown to grab a sandwich from the deli, as we were going to pick Justin up from the seaplane a few hours later and the deli was on the way. To accompany our half sandwiches, we each purchased a six pack of beer. Finding a cozy seat on a cement block 10 feet away from a gutting station (lovely atmosphere), we ate and drank our way through the meal. Since Frenchtown was relatively small and neither of us had ever really explored it, we decided it would benefit us to walk the streets and check out some of the other menus.

A pizza place here, a taco stand there, and a few minutes later we were at the end of the street reading the menu for a bistro. That's when a gentleman whose name I did not catch came up and asked us for 60 cents. I found this to be a very specific and peculiar amount of change about which to be inquiring, for two reasons:

1. Exactly sixty is tough to come by as many people I know take the quarters when they get change but leave all other denominations in the tip bucket, but more importantly...
2. You can't buy anything for 60 cents anymore, not even a cup of coffee. I'm ruling out the fact that he was going to purchase one stamp, because I think he probably would have just asked for the exact amount of 42 cents.

After regretfully turning down his request for the pocket change, he moved on to plan B; "how about one of them beers?" I was sort of shocked but mostly impressed by the audacity of his request - it was like asking for one cookie and getting denied, then immediately asking for two. Maybe that was his plan all along - go for shock value in hopes of impressing me, like "The Naked Man" move from How I Met Your Mother. Needless to say, it worked.

DC and I made our way back down towards the deli and grabbed a pair of seats on the patio area of the restaurant on the corner. Placing down what was left of our beer in front of us, and looking to kill an hour before we had to get Justin, we start to people watch. There was a creepy lady pushing an empty baby carriage up and down the street, there were some kids playing a game of baseball across the way. At one point a pretty girl went by and DC threw out the smoothest game he had with an unenthusiastic "Hey." When she didn't respond, but instead tripped over a rock on the road, he stood up and shouted with paradoxical enthusiasm, "good I'm glad you tripped!" She didn't respond that time either.

All of a sudden, we see our friend that had asked for the 60 cents. If I had been him, I would have cracked that beer open the second it was given to me, because down here beverages get warm fast and he was not armed with a koozie. While not armed with a koozie, however, he was armed with a keen sense of street survival skills. First, he searched around and found a bucket. Then he went from restaurant to restaurant, asking for ice. When one finally obliged, he cooled the beer down (until the mountains were blue), proceeded to McDonald's (told you Frenchtown had good eateries) and traded the beer for a sandwich. I could not believe my eyes. There was no way for me to know this when I first provided his instrument of merchandise, but I was at the onset of the chain reaction that hoisted the Beer Bartering Baron of Frenchtown to the halls of greatness.