Jean, who of the four French-Melanesian fellows we met last night smoking weed at the nakamal was the quietest and most stonery, nods skittishly when I ask if the guys across the way have 'cannabis'.

Jean wears a real-deal beard, the kind achieved through weeks or months of unkempt growth, and a reflective-chartreuse traffic vest, though it's not clear if he works as a road worker during the day (he might just be into the look?), and he certainly doesn't work as a policeman.

We're not quite sure the story on Jean -- though members of our crew have sighted him twice this day around town and wondered if he's not pseudo-homeless each time. What's clear is that this might be the dodgiest moment of my life. His frantic nodding seems a parody of skittishness -- and a parody way, way over the top, at that -- but it's not.

I am made so uncomfortable by his nodding that I almost forget the task at hand -- almost. Get cannabis. Find it somehow, preferably not getting arrested or too severely ridiculed in the process. More immediately, figure out a less narky, more discrete word for the substance in question. Speaking French would be a start.

Labels: hapless fisherman