what about the natives, who want to do something with their lives, what is left for them to do in society?
Not too much, unfortunately. The natives essentially have to decide whether they will stay in the villages, where their ancestors have lived and died in obscurity for generations, or seek new lives by moving to a city or to the mainland USA. As Kemp says, “They heard the word, the rotten devilish word that makes people incoherent with desire to move on…the cheap, hot, hungry world of their fathers and their grandfathers…was not the whole story,”(60). They know that there is a glimmer of hope of a better world outside their villages and, like Kemp fleeing St. Louis, they will risk anything to chase it.

I have previously written about Kemp’s fear of losing his youth. These apprehensions are most visible when Kemp’s co-worker, Addison Yeamon is present. Thompson uses Yeamon to represent everything that Kemp wishes he could be: Yeamon is youthful, free, and has the one thing Kemp has desired most since arriving in Puerto Rico: Chenault, the girl from the airplane.
In the newsroom, Yeamon is known as a wild-man. Sala, a reporter, recounts that Yeamon once, “’Knocked all our drinks in the dirt and flipped the table on some poor bastard who didn’t know what he was saying—then threatened to stomp him!’”(20). Yeamon represents the kind of reckless youth which would lead one to do something like hitting a man with a table and threatening to kill him. Yeamon is entirely self-absorbed and gives no attempt to sympathize with others: the pain that the man in the bar feels never even crosses Yeamon’s mind. Kemp envies this recklessness, seeing it as a feature of the youth which he has lost but yearns to regain. Kemp states that “Listening to [Yeamon], I realized how long it had been since I’d felt like I had the world by the balls…”(23). Yeamon is certainly a man who feels that he has the world by the balls: he is young and strong and can hit people with tables if he wants to because he has his whole life ahead of him to change his path if he so chooses.

The greatest symbol of Yeamon’s virility, however, is his beautiful girlfriend, Chenault. Having a beautiful girlfriend like Chenault is a symbol of a man’s youth and strength. It shows that a man is so amazing and manly that he is able to attract a woman who has plenty of men to choose from. Kemp has wanted Chenault since he first saw her on the plane to San Juan, but knows that because Yeamon represents the ideal of man better than he does, he can never have her. After seeing Chenault and Yeamon playing on the beach (it is not clear whether the two are playing or making love in the scene, but if they are meant to be playing, it is certainly narrated in a way meant to suggest the physical act of sex), Kemp remarks that, “The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories—not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost…”(37). Kemp takes Chenault’s love of Yeamon as yet more proof that Yeamon is young and strong, while he, Kemp, is growing old and impotent. This is why witnessing the scene reminds Kemp of missed opportunities: seeing Yeamon’s youth displayed so clearly has forced Kemp to think back to his own youth, which he sees as wasted time.

Why would Kemp admire Yeamon when he is so crazy and reckless? Yeamon certainly does not display many qualities which would traditionally be described as “admirable”. And yet the symbols of youth Yeamon possesses are so potent that Yeamon, who any reasonable person would view with disgust, is an object of envy to Kemp. Yeamon is a character Thompson created to embody every ideal Kemp wishes he could return to. Therefore, observing the characteristics and actions of Yeamon is an excellent way to explore Kemp’s innermost emotions and values. It seems clear that Kemp is not done pursuing Chenault. It will be interesting to see how he overcomes the barriers which aging has set before him in that pursuit.