Jeff Ashmead

UPDATE: Read below for the "why" of the dark ending of Tropical Delusion. See more pictures on posts at www.facebook.com/TropicalDelusion.

TROPICAL DELUSION By Jeff Ashmead

THE REST OF THE STORY . . . . . .

Overlooking the pounding surf of the Pacific Ocean the phone rang - Oregon has been our home now for years. The prefix for the number was from out of state - Texas. Texas. I smiled at Sherry, pushed the answer button on the phone and put on the speaker. The gentleman who bought Maya Jardin called out to us as though he were walking up to us on the beach. Hey Sherry and Jeff, Y'all got a few minutes.

Every time we hear Stans voice, we hear an angel’s voice - albeit with a Texas drawl. The man who relieved us from the dread of another long-distance phone call from our rental manager, Carlos - something needing our immediate attention, a guest with a problem, an official needing money.........our neighbor with another bone to pick. Stan continued, "Well, y'all know that lot next to yours? (no man's land) Well I bought it."

Let me back up here a little, before I go on with what should be for you, some entertainment.

Sherry and I, after escaping Mexico, with but a few personal items and our sanity - ended up in Washington State - Eastern Washington, in a little town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hay fields, apple orchards and acres upon acres of grape vines. This is where the book was written. A place of remote quiet and big open sky. It felt like America - something we really needed. In fact, I remember landing that first time back in the States, going through customs and the passport agent saying, "Welcome home". To this day I still get chocked up and my eyes tear, just as I did then, hearing those words.

Going back thru dozens of note pads for reference of all my interactions and events that took place during our time in Mexico - I relived and wrote down the stories - many of which never made it into the pages of the book. There was the comical story that set the stage for the book - I had always intended that to be the opening from the first time I heard it and laughed at its absurdity. But the ending, I kept putting off because it was not written down anywhere or on one of my many note pads. It was something I kept inside, a password of sorts to something far too sensitive to be found by another.

I have had some hesitation in telling this story, but here it is.

I received a phone call early one morning. We were vacationing in Italy, my cell phone rang and someone I hadn't spoken to in two decades asked me If I had heard the news about Scott, a childhood friend and neighbor. I walked out of the room and onto the veranda, my head in a giant conch shell and nothing but the voice in my ears. Scott walked into his ex-wife's beauty parlor, shot her point blank, and then proceeded to kill everyone else in the room. I rub my hands together and take my breath back even now, recounting this. Eight dead. I had spoken with Scott maybe three or four times over the past four years, and when he brought up his wife, and how she was treating his small son - his lips would

come together tightly and bitterness would come across his face.

As I look back what I most remember and what struck me most, is not what he said, but what he didn't. Scott never talked about killing his wife - a lot of ugly things were said, but no plans of an execution. Those he kept inside, probably turned them over a hundred times to examine in every detail - chew on until every last drop of black poison filled his soul.

With the rest of Italy behind me and a flight home across the Atlantic, I walked thru the front door, sat at my desk, drained my own poison from within me - and wrote my book’s dark ending.

In Oregon, where we finally made our home, we're surrounded by trees with a view of the Pacific Ocean a mile and a half in the distance over a dark green forest. Yes, we built the house. No, there isn't a story to tell. Everything was done on time - there was no miscommunication, and we didn't have to bribe anyone.

It took us another 7 years after leaving Mexico to sell Maya Jardin. There were few offers after the stock market crash, but when things started to improve, the offers came in one on top of the other. Stan came in with his and we put it on the top of everyone else’s. And we kept it there. Stan wanted Maya Jardin and there wasn't anything or anyone who was going to stand in his way. Stan had read the book, so there wasn't anything to hide. In fact, the book just made Maya Jardin all the more intriguing to him - and our neighbor, Zora, became his personal challenge.

As we sat there looking over the wide Pacific, Stan, with what sounded like a devious smile in his voice, told us of his plans to build himself a casita on the lot and for it to be two stories high. I'm not sure if Stan was getting bored and needed a little excitement, but by buying that piece of real estate that separated him from Zora - it sure as hell was coming his way.

Every few months we'd get a call from what sounded like the happiest man on earth living in paradise. He’d send pictures of Maya Jardin with a new grass roof, some new stairs leading off the ocean balcony down to the pool deck, his interactions with Carlos and his family, and his own family and friends having the time of their lives.

What ever happened to Zora ? Well, all is quiet. As Stan put it - when the construction started, she flew off the handle, called the authorities and cried out to all who would listen - as expected. But when Stan showed her the survey he had taken of the lot (and her own new buildings situated on top of and blocking the public access to the beach). He never heard from her again.

Here on the Oregon coast the ocean is rough and the air is cool - nothing like Soliman Bay.

But for us - it's Paradise.