Waiting for Happiness at Johnno’s

Johnno’s at Sandy Ground on Anguilla. Photo by David Lansing.

Glennis drops us off at Johnno’s in Sandy Ground and tells us to wait there until Happiness comes to pick us up.

“When will Happiness be here?” I ask him.

“That’s the thing about Happiness,” says Glennis. “You just never know.”

While Luscious and I are waiting for Happiness, I wander in to Johnno’s. Glennis told me that Johnno’s makes their own hot sauce and it’s excellent. There’s not much going on in Johnno’s shortly before noon on a Thursday. There’s a man in a green shirt drinking a beer by himself and a young woman behind the bar washing glasses.

“I hear your hot sauce is pretty good,” I say to her.

“Our what now?”

“Your hot sauce. Glennis told me you make your own hot sauce. You know Glennis, right?”

“Oh sure. Everyone know Glennis.”

“Do you sell your hot sauce?”

“Do what now?”

“Your hot sauce…do you sell it?”

“Naw. It’s just…” and she reaches down beneath her and brings up a condiment jar of a murkey brown and gray liquid. “We don’t bottle it,” she says. “It’s just in a big pot in the kitchen.”

“Can I taste it?”

“Do what now?”

“The hot sauce…can I taste it?”

“Without no food?”

“Just a taste.”

She pushes the jar over the bar towards me. “I don’t suppose I could disturb you for a spoon?”

She finds a spoon and slides it across the bar. I dip it in to the jar of hot sauce and put the tiniest amount on my tongue.

“Well?” she says.

“It’s alright.”

“Alright? Alright?”

I shrug, shove the spoon back over the bar, and go back outside where Luscious is sitting at a wooden picnic table on the sand waiting for Happiness. She asks me what I’ve been doing.

“Eating hot sauce,” I tell her.

“Was it good?”

“It was awesome. But don’t tell them that.”

Luscious nods towards the dock where a small boat is pulling up. “I think that’s us,” she says, standing up and grabbing her bag.

“Happiness?”

“Happiness.”

Happiness is just waiting to take us to Sandy Island. Photo by David Lansing.