"Bulwonkle, Tourist Detective" (working deep cover on the paradisaical isle of Nohwar)

What can I say, you know, I can proffer no rational defense. She literally had me at “hello”. I couldn't even begin to say exactly why some gestalt of physical mannerism, physique and her blue eyes and her calm, strong and yet open energy. Now how possibly to articulate just the energy of her a grounded, even nature and it was so clearly just how Michelle had been created by God. I felt my ego boundaries melting and thought, “O shit, here we go again, man, down that rabbit hole of love.”

For better or worse, that's how I am, right, just how I was made by God: While to the world I show a fist, in love I am that guy following my heart around like a puppy on a leash. 

Come on, I entreat Michelle, swim with me? 

No, she says, it's chilly this morning and I'm tired of fighting that Sargasso. I'll stay and drink all the coffee, she winks, you go ahead, Love, knock yourself out.

Don't drink all the coffee, Michelle. Don't be an asshole, I tell her serious as I can be as I start off across the couple dozen yards of sand separating our deck from the shores of the Caribbean.

You're such a huge asshole, Bull, that you are not allowed to ever call anyone else an asshole, ever. I know we went over that rule several times already.

I yell back, You have too many rules, you know that right!

Just go swim and let me drink coffee in peace, Bull. I can't laugh hard this early in the morning or something bad might happen. And keep your goddamn trunks on and I mean it now! You have a responsibility to be a good citizen!

I turn to face Michelle dropping my shorts on the sand – you’re not the boss of me, I yell back at her. I look up and down the beach a good, slow, easy inspection with a hyper-vigilance honed since suffering early childhood trauma: turn your weaknesses into strength, I always say. But such is the life of a Tourist Cop working deep cover in paradise where, by the way, you really have to keep your wits about you at all times because paradise has a way of sneaking up on you and cleaning your clock when you least expect it, man.

Anyway, everything's copacetic, time for a good swim.

I don't know why but I thought of Michelle giving me a hard time about swimming naked. Fucking society right, it's a classic Freudian trap. The Id is such an innocent monster and wants to run around naked, happy and free and crap all over the place. That poor little bastard  just gets shoved back into its box by social pressures and all it wants is to be itself. So it's no wonder that twenty years of life sees people so uptight that they cannot take a proper crap for god's sake. I work myself up as swim against the very slight current of the morning tide, the water feeling slightly warmer than the air today. And then there you go, I can't swim naked in the ocean because I am surrounded by these anal retentive types. Well my Id is free, dammit. 

I stop to float for a long while on my back and look up at the clear blue sky. I think of forming a support group called, “Anal Expulsive Anonymous” but decide against it for more or less obvious reasons. The money would be in Stupid Anonymous, I just know it. I'll instruct the members to mail in their thoughts and feelings to me on the back of twenty dollar bills, right. Damn, that's like free money hanging on a money tree waiting to he plucked. Note to self, Bulwonkle: get on that chop chop. It's hard to find time because deep cover tourist detective work is more than a full time job, man, it's a way of life.

I swim back still a little bitter about that tourist family and all the fuss they made when all I was doing was trying to help, as usual. Someone needs to be concerned about their safety as tourists! Besides that their children should see adult genitalia so they can come to accept that our human form for what it is something natural and nothing to be freaked out about. Jesus Christ these people are positively primitive.

Back on the deck, I grab us both a cup of coffee and join Michelle overlooking the aqua marine waters glistening brightly with morning sunlight. 

Here comes a family down the beach now Bull, she says, patting the chair next to her, sit down next to me and be quiet and leave them alone.

I say a bit more defensively than I mean to, are you still talking about the uptight family from the states -

You were naked lecturing them with their children right there -

Whoa, hey, I never lecture! I was welcoming them to our fair island and giving them some friendly and I might add free safety tips.

Whatever, Bull, just sit here with me hold my hand and smile.

So I do and happily so. I love Michelle for a lot of reasons but definitely one is for being such a perfect smart ass. We watch the family slowly make their way past, husband and wife holding hands walking ankle deep in the surf with the two small children, a boy and girl, frolicking along a little deeper in. All of them pink as baby mice. Blue sky and Caribbean green sea as a backdrop. Coffee. Michelle’s hand in mine. Life is good and our little isle is safe and sound for pink as baby mice families to carelessly wander the beaches. 

I lean over and kiss Michelle on the neck then ask her seriously, how come no matter how hard I try to come across, you know, and really talk to people, they end up mostly saying, “Please don't hurt me, Mister!”? Another thing I love about her is how I can talk to her about anything and how she takes me seriously. Michelle really gets things.

She says, It's a combination of the delivery, standing way too close which, by the way, we've talked about that, remember personal space! And then there's your eyes, Sweetheart. She stoops to kiss me on the cheek going for another cup of coffee and I die a little bit just looking into her bright, blue eyes and that smile. It’s not your fault, Babe, Michelle touches my cheek, that your gaze razes people to the ground. They think you’re insane but I know you’re just a bit aspy.