Page 33 of Justice for Radar

“Oh, my God,” I uttered, and he gave a wicked grin.

“They deserved it,” he said.

“What happened to the slaves?” I asked worried, and he winked at me.

“I’ve already said too much. You’ll get it on the tour.”

I nodded.

We had a sumptuous dinner. All of it farm-to-table and inspired by the people who had once inhabited and worked this land. I let my eyes wander the framed photos on the walls going back through the years, all of them photos of the original house inside and out. Time marched along the dining room walls and I was enthusiastic about this tour we would take.

I love history, and this was like living and breathing a sliver of it.

“Let’s have a taste and do a little bit of shopping while we wait for the tour,” he suggested, and I nodded. We chatted quietly and he let me wander the shop while he paid for our dinner and a couple of flights of rums which was the distillery’s specialty.

“Jussy,” he called softly when they were ready, and I turned from the glasses with the Sugarland logo on them and went up to the bar.

To taste the different rums available was an experience, and I felt as though my nose glowed from it. I was glad that we had the tour between us and attempting to ride back to Ft. Royal and it was nice to just be able to relax and sip rums, discuss cocktails and to laugh with Radar and the tasting room’s bartender – not sure if there was another name for it.

“Which one you like best?” Radar asked and I bit my bottom lip and considered the rums in front of me, light to dark. Some aged far longer than others and in various types of barrels.

“I really kind of like the Raw, and the Locker,” I said. Raw was the lightest rum, raw and fresh from the still, good for mixing cocktails. The Locker was their darkest rum. Thick with molasses and spices, and according to the label on the bottle from the deepest darkest parts of the sea where Davy Jones’s locker resided.

“I dig the Locker, too,” Radar said with a nod. He eyed me. “You were looking at those glasses over there,” he said. “Why don’t you go on and pick four. Two for me and two for you to take home.”

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“You ain’t buyin’.” He cut me off before I could protest. “I’d like to remember you and today if you don’t mind and I’d like to send you home with a reminder that things weren’t all bad down here.” He winked at me with a smile, and I bit my bottom lip to contain mine from getting too big.

I nodded, and I went back over to the shelf and called back, “Which style?”

He chose, and I chose the two that I liked best. I ferried them to the counter two at a time. He had a couple bottles set aside too, a bottle of light and a bottle of dark, waiting to go into the bag that the tender was fixing up. He wrapped the glasses carefully and put them into sturdy cardboard boxes with the distillery’s logo on them.

“And two for the afternoon tour, correct?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Radar said, handing his card over. I tried not to look at or fret over the total. It wasn’t insubstantial.

“You want, I can hold this behind the bar until the tour is through,” the man behind the counter, a bald guy with a big salt and pepper mustache said to Radar, and Radar nodded.

“That would be great, man. I would appreciate that.”

He held out a strip of a wristband at me and I stepped forward and let him affix the wristband for the tour around my wrist.

“Tour starts in about an hour, fix you a drink for the front porch?” he asked. “It’s included with the ticket price of the tour.”

“What looks good?” Radar asked with a grin as he handed me the drink menu.

I raised my eyebrows and asked, “You trying to get my liquored up?”

“That obvious?” he asked coolly, and I giggled. I finally settled on a Rum Runner while Radar ordered something called a Cuba Libre, which I had never heard of.

“It’s just a rum and coke with lime,” the bartender said affably as he set about making our drinks. “Just leave your glasses on one of the tables out front when you’re done with ‘em,” he said, handing our drinks over.

“Sounds good, thanks, man.”

The bartender nodded, and we went out into the heat and humidity of the day under the lazily turning ceiling fans on the porch. It was nice after the super chill of the over cranked air conditioning inside. We found a pair of rocking chairs with a table in between them and sat down, overlooking the fields of sugarcane in front of us.

“It looks like bamboo,” I said, and Radar sipped his drink and smiled at me.

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