“
There wasn’t any white light. I
think it all just goes black when you die. No Pearly Gates, for
sure.”
“
That’s about the gist of it.” Willy
paused for a minute, watched a gull come in close overhead, tilt
its head to scan for food. It eyed the crab on its second pass,
circling back and hovering against the wind, but didn’t come in for
the kill. “Keep it to yourself, though, if a miracle ever happens
and you get off this cruddy rock.”
“
So that’s it? You’re telling me you
know there really isn’t a heaven? Not even a chance?”
“
Relax,” said Willy. “You can still
believe if you want.”
“
That’s just great.” Dash shifted
his weight, propped up on one elbow. “I didn’t believe, but at
least I still had the option. Like flying saucers.”
“
They aren’t real,
either.”
“
Stop!”
“
And Santa Claus,” said
Willy.
“
I get it.”
“
Bigfoot.”
Willy began picking through the scattering of
shells surrounding them. “Humans get jazzed up over the whole
eternity thing. But what kind of life would there be for a god who
had to keep an eye on billions of dead people? Imagine the noise
from a million symphonies of human complaints. You’d have the only
suicidal god in the universe.”
Dash squinted. “So why pretend?”
“
The world would be out of control
without a promise of an afterlife. Remember when your grandma
died?”
Dash had to think. “I was in fourth grade, Miss
Tate’s class. My father took me out of school and drove us real
fast to the hospital. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I
was afraid to ask while he was turning the wheel back and forth
like that. I thought we were going to crash.”
“
Your folks told you it was all
okay, that Granny was headed someplace better. She was off to
finally see her husband who died before you were born,” Willy said.
“Imagine not having those little nuggets to spread when trying to
make death sound like a million dollars to a crying
kid?”
“
Maybe I wasn’t dead long enough,”
said Dash. “And maybe you’re wrong, too. I always hoped I’d get a
chance to see George again.”
Willy shifted, putting Dash back in his shadow.
“Your dog when you were a kid?”
“
Stop reading my mind.”
“
No, I swear I wasn’t.” Willy shook
his head. “Everyone wants to see their dog again.”
D
ash struggled with his
lungs, hacking up froth and having to stop every few steps as he
dragged the seats up the rocks. He wedged the row in front of the
lava bench to face the ocean. He’d have a prime view in a
comfortable seat, use the rim of the tide pool as a foot rest, and
be able to cool his feet. The lower halves of the seats were out of
the shade of the fat palm, the soft material baking in the sun. All
parts were intact, including the bottom cushions that doubled as
flotation devices and the trays behind, although the magazines and
barf bags were long gone from their pouches.
He squatted before the seats, eyes following
the curving lines of fabric pulled in place by hands in a distant
factory. He imagined the sturdy shoe over a switch that began the
machine-gun sounds of heavy thread lacing it tight. The stitches
were geometric patterns, repeated and perfect, not like any jungle
shapes, not like anything in the waves or the clouds. He brushed
bits of sand, pulled away dead strands of seaweed, careful not to
leave marks from his bloody fingers.
The cushion was still damp when he lowered into
the blissful comfort of what he guessed was an aisle
seat.
The sun was down, and he was dozing when Tiki
flopped into the seat next to him, a candle made from a small
coconut held to her stomach, the flame barely alive. She bent her
knees and drew her feet back, then ran her hands over the material.
“Manu wants you to come.”
Dash rolled his head away from her, the top
third of a giant moon just now peeking over the horizon line. “I
used to love the moon.”
“
He said not to make him send
warriors. But that’s not going to happen; all the men are too full
of clap-clap to find the path. They would stumble into the jungle
and be food for the night things.”
“
They’re celebrating,
huh?”
“
The drinking circle formed this
morning. Even the boys too young were invited. The cup passed until
everybody fell asleep with the sun in the top of the sky. Then they
woke up and began passing it again. Some made pee on
themselves.”
“
Sounds like quite a
party.”
“
I like your chairs. They’re like
the ones in the missioners’ boats, but even bigger.”
“
I found them this
morning.”
She leaned forward over the tide pool, gazed at
her bluish reflection, her head in a half-moon phase. She touched
her cheek with the back of a hand. He couldn’t tell for sure, but
thought he saw teardrops send ripples over the dark water. “When
you make a white baby, no more girls will leave the island. It will
keep me here forever, until I am old and then die, until I am put
into the waves.”
Dash wanted to tell her it was a great thing,
not just because the girls were taken from their families, but
because of the horrific things she didn’t know about. But he wasn’t
saving anyone. He’d stuck his penis in a broken fuselage and lost
any chance at being a hero. He was doomed, and so was she. And the
villagers were either naïve to what the soldiers did with the
girls, or refused to believe. He was just as guilty for not telling
her there’d be no kittens.
She turned to look at the sky, then back at
him. “The moon is climbing. Manu will be angry.”
“
All right, lead the way.” He
groaned, getting up, muscles sore from the battering. A hundred
tiny scabs had begun to form on his legs and hips. There was a golf
ball-size knot on the back of his head.
He followed her into the living tunnel, the
walls vibrating from the intense insect noise. The vegetation
pulsated when you stopped and held still for a second. Stepping
carefully over the sharp grass, he imagined tossing a raw chicken
leg into this part of the jungle to watch the creatures come pick
it clean like in a time-lapse movie. Vines would slither out of the
rich earth to envelop the bones, pull them under. It was a relief
to see someone had recently been through with a machete, had
chopped back a layer of reaching hands. If he ever got away from
this place and somehow bought a home, he’d pave every inch of lawn,
uproot every stick of shrubbery.
They emerged from the outskirts into the smoky
village, and Tiki led them across the compound by the light of a
large cook fire and glow of the moon. She dropped her candle,
turned, and ran to where kids had formed a circle to play keep-away
with the ball.
“
Sit down, Cracker,” Manu said, and
two men inched apart to make room. Dash could see in the dim light
how tired the old man was, the creases in his narrow face deeper
than ever.
The first sign of trouble beyond the stink of
urine was a break in the usual ceremony. The clap-clap cup was
filled and passed directly to Dash. He stared down at it,
unsure.
“
Don’t just look at it,” said Manu,
and the dozen other men mumbled drunken encouragement. “Smooth like
silk. Comes from the best fruits, and my people’s special
ingredient.”
Dash nearly asked, then decided he didn’t want
to know. He sniffed the awful mixture, readied himself for the
taste of gasoline. When he tipped the cup to his lips, the man next
to him grabbed his wrist and the back of his head, making the
noxious liquid pour into his mouth. He choked down the entire cup,
his vision going momentarily white as if he’d been punched in the
nose. The circle of men hooted and laughed while as he coughed
hard, trying to catch his breath, his lungs already raw. When the
burning subsided, he realized the alcohol was already taking
effect. The faces of the men seated across from him drifted out of
focus. His cuts and bruises no longer ached.
Remembering the tradition, he leaned forward
and spit, even though the cup had been passed on. It brought more
laughter and he clapped along with them, then had to concentrate on
not falling over. The man who’d grabbed his wrist walloped his
sunburned back and made a comment in his own language. It sounded a
lot like
mazel tov
, which got Dash laughing and coughing
more.
“
You are here for a
reason.”
Dash looked across at the chief, blinked hard
to get the double-exposed image of the old man back into a single
frame. His forehead felt wet and his mouth bone dry. He had a
sudden epiphany regarding the importance of cold beer as a chaser.
He thought of the crude old saying about giving your left nut for a
cold brew, then laughed again at what a shitty deal it would be for
anybody getting one of his testicles. Both nuts were as worthless
as the rest of his gear down there.
Then his giddiness drained away. He was like a
drunk on a barstool when the lights come up at last call, a broken
man whose only value was his death, spending his final days
surrounded by people who looked upon him as a barely tolerable
enemy. They’d been murdered by whites, and the missioners had
condemned their beliefs. He was a eunuch with a death sentence. No
son to toss the ball, or daughter to take on trips to the zoo.
Overcome with melancholia, he tried turning to where the children
were playing their game that was a lot like soccer. He fell over,
and it took both his neighbors to set him upright.
He thanked the men, patted one bony
shoulder.
“
The Volcano God has spoken.” Manu’s
voice was steady, and suddenly sober. Dash stared across the
circle. “She says you will make a baby to satisfy the men who steal
our children. She says the baby will be worth much treasure and
will bring peace for our people. In exchange, we will pray to the
Volcano God and ask her to take you home.”
Manu paused, turning to look at the men nearest
him, then signaled for one in particular to come close. The chief
spoke low, and the young man in black warrior underwear cupped a
hand to his ear. They exchanged words, and the old man finally
nodded and turned back to Dash.
“
The woman will be fertile in four
days, maybe five,” Manu said, and the men on either side of Dash
jabbed elbows into him, one making a clucking sound. The clucker
also made a circle with two fingers and tried sliding an index
finger in and out, but he was too drunk and kept
missing.
Dash reached down and touched the front of his
underpants. There’d been no miracle. “What if I can’t?”
“
You have no choice,” said Manu.
“You will do it for my people.”
“
That’s not what I mean.” Dash’s
head was spinning from the harsh alcohol. He struggled to find the
right words, tongue fumbling in his dry mouth. “What if it doesn’t
work? What if it’s broken? What if I can’t do it?”
The men flanking Manu cut him off with angry
words in their sing-song language, spittle flying. The clap-clap
cup was knocked to the center of the circle by flailing arms, where
it spun twice and stopped with its open mouth facing Dash. The
chief allowed the men to have their say, then held up both hands.
The circle of warriors fell silent, their chests heaving, bloodshot
eyes bulging all around.
“
If there is no baby, then the
cracker goes into the Volcano,” said Manu, who reached for the
clap-clap cup and gestured to one of the warriors, who filled it.
“We feed her with a human sacrifice. She always likes
that.”
D
ash barely remembered
stumbling through the tunnel toward his soft airplane seats after
the clap-clap was gone. The fresh candle he’d had—one of the fat
ones made from a coconut shell—was now bobbing in the tide pool.
The seat made the pounding in his head bearable, and the steady sea
breeze kept him from being eaten alive. His eyes opened when the
seat dipped to accept the weight of Willy’s bulk.
“
Never been in an airplane before.”
Willy was shifting his great thighs and buttocks to fit.
Dash coughed, rubbed his temples hard. “You’re
not in one now.”
“
Pretty night.” Willy raised a hand
toward the setting moon. The sky was already lightening in the
east. “So there was a little window here to look out? With a shade
to open and close?”
“
They’re going to throw me into the
volcano.”
“
They believe human sacrifice will
calm her down. And before you ask if it works, I have no clue.
Except maybe if you factor in the power of suggestion. If they
truly believe good things are coming, then maybe they will. None of
that hocus-pocus on my island.”
“
You didn’t have a
volcano.”
“
That’s true,” said Willy. “But they
wouldn’t have done anything so barbaric unless the situation was
pretty dire. No luck with your Penis God?”
Dash sighed. “Same old nothing.”
“
Sorry. The village women are
sprucing up your own special love hut. A sacrificial virgin all
picked out. A real looker, too.”