The Atua Man

by John Stephenson

  They left frustrated. Byron was waiting for them at the coconut tree to which the Mata‘i was tied. He wanted to take them to an expensive French dinner at L’O a la Bouche, a famous waterfront restaurant that was known for serving the best food in the South Pacific. Larry’s dictate to not leave the boat unattended was ignored.

  On the way to the restaurant they stopped to watch a dance troupe practicing in the park. To a Tahitian, dancing is like breathing—everyone does it. Larry had planned the trip so that they would be in Taiohae in the Marquesas for the Bastille Day Festival in July. He thought the fête in Papeete was too commercial. But for the next six weeks dance troupes on all the islands would be practicing the ‘upa‘upa and rehearsing for the competitions that would take place throughout the archipelago.

  The men watched the dancers for a while. The girls had pareus tied low over their jeans. Their hips moved in time with the beating of the to‘ere, a drum made from a hollowed log and played with short sticks. The drummers varied the rhythm and tone by hitting the log in different places, and the girls matched the beat with their hips. The guys wore pareus tied up like Speedos and moved in and around the girls, their knees whirling, answering the girls tempting gestures. The top dancers were guys in grass skirts, their long hair held up with turtle shell combs, and they danced both the male and female parts.

  Byron said, “You know, they’re mahu.”

  “What’s that?” David said.

  “Homosexual,” Byron said.

  “So?”

  “Islanders call it the third gender. Most native people respect that social category. It’s not put down. Mahu are just gay; rae-rae are transgender. You’ll see rae-rea women in most dance troupes. Shamans, artists and storytellers are many times third gender people. Most of the dancers here are third gender,” Byron said.

  At the restaurant the conversation drifted onto the topic of native tribes. Byron knew a lot about the Mayan tribes and the Yucatec people of British Honduras, where he had a home. He was interested in how the Polynesians compared to native Caribbean people.

  I wonder what would have happened if the missionaries hadn’t come to these people? Jason asked.

  “There’d have been a lot more fucking.” Byron had never talked like this on the boat when Larry was around. After dinner he invited the boys up to his hotel for a nightcap.

  They continued talking on Byron’s balcony with the honking horns and diesel fumes of Papeete drifting in. Byron had changed into a silk robe and the three of them lounged on the bed that filled his lanai, what the Hawaiians would call a pune.

  “Let me see your hands,” Byron said. Jason and David obeyed. “You can tell a lot about someone by their palms. I can read a palm as well as any shaman or voodoo priestess. A woman in Haiti taught me. She activated my feminine side. All of those animist religions are matriarchal. The pagan part of Christianity is matriarchal through the Virgin Mary. The women have the power and so do those men who have embraced their feminine nature.”

  The boys looked at each other with a mix of fascination and disbelief. They’d never seen this aspect of Byron.

  Byron held David’s hand up and turned it front and back. “Dave has the hands of an artist,” Byron said to Jason. “They’re supple and sensitive.” He turned to David, “Your element is water. All that creative energy must express itself through them. I’d never have thought of you as a sailor.” Looking closely at Jason’s hand, he continued; “Where Jason here is a man of the Earth … square palms, powerful fingers, almost peasant hands. His element is fire and these hands are meant for transformation.” He turned squarely to Jason, and with great sincerity said, “You’re impulsive, Jason, and I bet you do something great with your life.”

  The boys laughed and pulled their hands away.

  Byron persisted, not letting them go. “I haven’t finished.” He moved closer, facing the young men, putting Jason’s hand on his knee, and at the same time turning over David’s hand. “Don’t move, Jason. I’ll get back to you. Dave, you have an incredible lifeline, very long with lots of vitality. I bet you’re great in bed.” David pulled his hand away. But Byron held on, “Come on. Don’t be touchy. Your love line is full of emotional trauma. Are you insecure in your love life?”

  “Who makes up all of this shit?” David said.

  “This is ancient. Protestants discount it. Catholics fear it. Scientist can’t really explain it because it’s so true. This line is your head … Oh wow! That’s great! Deep, sloping, and creative. Uh, oh! Your fate is linked to someone else.” David squirmed. “See how it touches your life line?”

  Who’s he talking about, Lillian or Jason, David thought.

  Byron picked up Jason’s hand and put David’s hand on his other knee. David pulled away

  “Keep it there, Dave,” he said. “This connects us. Makes the reading stronger.”

  Byron drew Jason’s hand closer and turned it over like he’d done with David. “Jason, Jason, Jason. You’ve got a very strong life line. If I were a shaman, I’d say you were nearly immortal. You’re like Dave with your strength and enthusiasm. You also have a long curving love line. It’s deep. You have a very strong love for someone, perhaps you’ve already met that person, or not, but when you’re together you’re as one, freely expressing your emotions and feelings. Your head line shows adventure and enthusiasm for life. You’re strongly controlled by fate and have the tendency to try to harness it. You can’t control your fate.”

  Byron took both the boys’ hands in his and closed his eyes in a kind of meditation. “I can never tell Larry that I do this,” he sighed. He pulled them close and hugged each one of them and kissed each one on the cheek. “I want you two to spend the night with me. I want to make love to both of you.”

  Jason burst out laughing, but David did not laugh. “What the fuck! Was all this just a big come-on?”

  “Absolutely not. Everything I told you is true. That’s why you are reacting like this. If you do this with me, you’ll be free one way or the other.”

  David got up. “Come on J.J., let’s get back to the boat.”

  Jason sat there. Byron still held his hand. “No. I’ll stay a little while longer.”

  David left, looking at Jason like he’d lost his mind. He was more than disgusted.

  When Jason returned an hour or so later, David was in the cockpit, ready for sleep. He turned away, shunning his friend, then rolled back. “How on earth could you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Fuck that dirty old man.”

  “Aren’t you the tolerant one tonight? No compassion. No understanding.”

  “Why did you stay then? I’ll admit Byron is slick. He’s been hot for you since we left Honolulu. I never thought you’d actually do it.”

  “What?”

  “But then you betrayed me in high school. My dad thought I was a queer and moved us to Orange County.”

  “I thought he got a job there,” Jason countered.

  “You don’t remember playing Indian at Camp Josepho and getting busted by the ranger for being a couple of fags?

  “Yeah. That was nothing.”

  “Nothing? Don’t you remember the dream, or the vision, or whatever you want to call it? I always thought you conjured that up … like we were in some rite of passage with a band of Indians. You don’t remember that?”

  “I remember we were going to meditate and get close to nature and try to experience some kind of mystical union.”

  “Then where did the Indians come from?”

  “I guess that was your experience. I remember we put our costumes on and went up by the spring to see if we could feel the history of the spot.” David wasn’t getting what Jason was saying.

  “I always thought that you rejected me because of what my family believed, that you thought we were a little crazy, and that our religion bordered on being some kind of cult. You were the only one that I could be honest with. Then your dad was so hostile and you all left town. I didn’t he
ar from you for months. I never thought you were a queer. Hell, I got hard-ons riding the bus. I’d carry my books in front of me so nobody would notice.”

  David laughed, remembering his own embarrassments.

  “Fuck you,” Jason said.

  “No. No. It’s not about you. I suddenly understand after all these years.”

  “I didn’t do anything with Byron, Dave. I just wanted to see how far he’d go.”

  “I’ve never met someone so out there, so blunt in his sexuality.”

  Jason was laughing too. “Sometimes I feel like such a stranger on this planet. I don’t really understand human relationships. I mean, why is Larry mad at me all the time? I get it, but I don’t. I don’t meet his expectations, so he wants to punish me. I don’t get that. Why would anybody want to punish someone, make them suffer, hurt them? It doesn’t do anything for the oppressor.”

  “Face it, Larry is an asshole,”

  “Davy, you’re the only one who never judged me.”

  “Until now, I guess.”

  “I’m not sure that’s judgment. I think we’ll always love each other.”

  David thought a moment, and then had to blurt it out. “What about Lillian?”

  “What about her?”

  “Are you really in love with her?” David asked.

  “Of course!”

  “It didn’t seem like it in Honolulu, except for the grand public display at the restaurant.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  David couldn’t admit that he was. “You kept leaving. You never went to class. I think Lillian felt you didn’t care about what she was doing to help your mom.”

  “How do you know what she felt?” Jason grew serious, as serious as he could be after a couple of bottles of Puligny-Montrachet and a close encounter with a sexual swinger. “I never go to Mom’s classes in Hawaii. There’s something about that group that turns me off. They don’t recognize what I have to offer.”

  “Are you talking about Larry? Do you want his approval? Jesus, J.J., I thought this trip was about deeper things than that.”

  “It’s about finding out who we are. You just told me something very moving. You’ve always been my best friend, the one I can share my deepest secrets with. I’m so sorry you misinterpreted that time in junior high, and I’m so happy you’re here now,” Jason said.

  “I’d kiss you, but then I’d have to tell everybody that we’re gay.”

  Saturday May 27, 1989

  The end of that week Larry moved back on the boat with his daughter Melanie. She was in great shape, very pretty, and tall like her dad. She had an infectious smile and greeted both David and Jason formally at first, but her handshake turned into a quick hug as if to say, “it’s going to be rather intimate on this boat and I want things to be fun and congenial.” In everything else – except in her height – she was his exact opposite. Where Larry was stiff and wiry, she was smooth and fluid. Where Larry never revealed what he really wanted, Melanie was straightforward and frank. As nice and polite as Melanie was, Larry was mad and abrupt.

  “What did you two do to Byron?” Larry was not really interested in an answer. “Because whatever you did, he left. You two are going to have to pick up the slack.”

  Larry unlocked the aft cabin and opened the companionway for Melanie. “Come, darling, let’s get you settled.”

  The boys looked at each other and laughed. “Pick up the slack?” Jason said. “Byron did nothing but occasionally steer.”

  A few minutes later a truck pulled up opposite Mata‘i’s mooring and honked its horn. Larry popped out of his cabin and ordered Jason to bring the repair guy out to the boat. He was lugging a new heat exchanger to install, and some brackets with six jerry cans for extra fuel and water. The man installed the brackets and jerry cans on either side of the forward cabin, and then went below to change out the heat exchanger.

  A half hour later another truck arrived and began honking. It was from the market, delivering their provisions for the next three months. Larry said he couldn’t count on getting anything from the Marquesas. The boys started stowing the food, but Larry interrupted and told them to leave that for later.

  Larry and the boys walked up Boulevard Pomare to the gendarmerie to get their papers and straighten out the firearms issue. Larry warned the boys to say as little as possible, noting that they couldn’t speak French anyway. However, if they were asked about rebel groups or the purpose of the guns, they were to plead ignorance of island politics and say that the guns and ammo were only there for their protection.

  Larry came out of the gendarmerie headquarters smiling and totting his weapons. The authorities had had no problem with the guns, however, they did with the ammunition. Larry was allowed to keep one box. Next, Larry led the way to the immigration office. The boys waited outside guarding the guns while Larry retrieved the crew’s passports and visas. The last stop was the post office, and Larry went in alone.

  David didn’t trust Larry and bolted into the building. The clerk handed Larry a package of letters tied up with a string. Larry untied the string and sorted through the mail. He refused two of the letters and handed them back. David thought he saw his name on one.

  “Why did you give those letters back?” David was angry and abrupt. “Is that our mail?”

  Larry was cool. “It was the wrong general delivery address.” He again sorted through the small pile of letters and shook his head. “Nothing for you. Jason has a letter from his mother.”

  “But you said ‘refused.’”

  “No. I told her they were in the wrong pile. They were for somebody else.” Larry walked past David with the ease of a seasoned liar.

  Outside David was on Larry’s heels. Jason saw David’s rage and dropped the bag of guns on the ground. “What’s going on?”

  “He refused our letters,” David shouted.

  “You didn’t get any mail,” Larry said firmly.

  “You’re lying!”

  Jason ran into the post office and up to the one open window. “I want the mail for Jason St. John and David Walker!” he demanded.

  The clerk did that great French put-off by pursing her lips and letting out a gasp of air that meant everything from “fuck you” to “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jason reached through the window grabbing the pile of mail near the clerk, only to be pulled back by a couple of security guards. Jason broke free and ran to the bank of phones that lined one wall of the office. It looked like a set from an old movie. Jason fumbled for some change and got an operator on the line.

  “I want to make a collect call to Lillian Harvey in Honolulu, Hawaii.” He gave the operator the name of the hotel. He heard the hotel clerk responding to the operator, saying that Lillian wasn’t there. Jason needed more money to stay on the line. By this time, Larry had entered the post office, hovering over Jason.

  Jason put his hand over the mouthpiece; “Larry, I need some change. Please!”

  Larry just smiled and pointed to his watch.

  Jason yelled into the phone, “I know she’s there!”

  “The party you want is not there,” the operator said and then the line went dead. Jason jiggled the receiver hook.

  “Larry, I need change. I need to call my mother,” Jason was frantic to know what was going on.

  “We need to get back to the boat. Your mother can’t do anything for you here.” He turned and walked out. Jason was so angry that he ran from the post office all the way back to the boat.

  “I always thought he was too immature for this trip,” Larry confided to David as David pulled the dinghy to them from the boat. “His mother thought it would do him good, make him grow up, accept his responsibility and service to her Ministry. I can see that he’ll never be a spiritual teacher.” The men stepped into the dinghy and David pulled the dinghy back to the boat. Larry continued, “The only worthwhile thing Jason had done was to invite you along. With Byron gone, I’m going to need your help.” Jason overheard this and watched
Larry put his arm around David’s shoulders.

  Chapter 23

  The South Pacific

  Monday May 29, 1989

  The Mata‘i left Papeete early in the morning—a week after arriving and two days after Melanie had moved aboard the boat. They took on water and fuel at the commercial pier. The boys hoisted the sails outside the reef and Larry set a course around the north shore of Tahiti, past Point Venus and into the South Pacific. Larry planned to island hop through the flat Tuamotu Archipelago, which meant “the distant islands.” But sailors called them the “dangerous islands.” Culturally the people there were the same as the people in the Society Islands—Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora. They spoke Tahitian, danced the ‘upa‘upa dances of Tahiti, and in ancient times, followed the same gods. But they were outliers, far away from the social core of Tahiti, struggling to survive on an archipelago made up of atolls and reefs. The land barely reached six feet above sea level. The trade winds blew over the hardscrabble earth without resistance, and the currents were unpredictable and treacherous. Larry was not going to sail through these islands at night.

  With Mata‘i on a broad reach, Larry estimated a day-and-a-half at sea before reaching the first island, Rangiroa. Jason and David settled into their at-sea routine, which meant trimming the sails and maintaining their course. Larry was mostly tinkering and only joined the boys during social hours. Melanie enjoyed the sail.

  Larry always cooked the main meals. There was a table in the cockpit, and when the weather cooperated, everyone would take their meals there. But that didn’t mean the crew would be eating holding paper plates in their laps. No, the table always had a cloth on it, and some sort of centerpiece. Ashore, Larry made the centerpiece out of flowers. At sea, he’d pull together a centerpiece using shells and glass balls arranged in a wooden bowl. Dinners always started with cocktails, and Larry served only French wine with the food.

  Melanie enjoyed steering the boat. While Larry was below cooking, Melanie was at the helm, and the boys bombarded her with questions.