by Tod A
Then I popped open my trusty Hermes Rocket and banged out a few pages of notes. I used the little portable only for my diary and my book. The laptop was reserved for commercial gigs.
The so-called air conditioner blew the hot air around and made a lot of noise doing it. But the beer was iced, and it felt good to be stationary for a while, clacking away at the old keys. I finished the bottle and decided to order some more.
A framed sign hanging over the nightstand read:
For Front Desk, please ring 0.
For Room Service, please ring 3.
For Massage, please ring 7.
For Problem, please ring 9.
I felt like telling them that I already had enough problems, but to bring on the beer and the massage.
So I did.
Five minutes later there was a gentle tapping at the door. A small boy brought in a tray with three large bottles of Oh-Cha, a frosty mug, and a bowl of ice.
Soon there was an even quieter tap: the masseuse. I introduced myself and motioned for her to come in.
“My name is Wulan. My name is meaning Moon.” She was about twenty, tiny but fit. “What is your name meaning?”
“I don’t know.” I’d never thought about it before. “Nothing, I guess.”
She squinted at me. “Nothing?”
I had never been able to afford massages back in New York. A hundred and fifty bucks an hour was well above my means. This one was going to cost me five dollars. I couldn’t wait.
“Okay, Mr Mark, let us begin our session. Please remove your clothing, be comfortable and relaxed on the bed.”
Wulan pulled a cassette player from her bag pressed play. The sound of chanting filled the air. I stripped down to my boxer shorts and fell face down onto the mattress. She took a flask of oil from her bag and placed it on the bedside table.
“How many hour treatment you desire?” she asked, starting on my feet and calves.
“I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes. “Just keep going.”
She began slowly, kneading my tight and tired muscles, pausing to push her thumbs into pressure points on the soles of my feet, sending small electric shocks to my brain. For such a small person she had amazing strength. I let my mind go blank. The chanting washed over me as her fingers carried me into a peaceful oblivion.
{ 4 }
Just Lucky
I awoke from dreams of dusky girls to the moldering opulence of my luxury suite. It seemed even seedier in the light of day, like waking up in Elvis Presley’s mausoleum. I decided to vacate as soon as possible.
It was ten past nine. I’d been unconscious for nearly fourteen hours. Wulan’s card lay on the nightstand. She’d massaged me to sleep, then departed without waking me to get paid, an admirable display of trust. I made a mental note to call her as soon as the dust settled. But first I needed to contact my consulate, before whoever had my passport could hijack a plane.
“United States Consulate, Madu. Assistant Secretary Jeruk speaking.”
I explained my situation.
“You’ll need to see Consul Fitch. Have you already been to the police?”
“No.”
“Do so. We will require a police report.”
It seemed that I would be forced to pay a call on the local constabulary. I’d never been a big fan of cops. All they had ever done for me was to spoil some perfectly enjoyable evenings. But it had to be done. I showered and went downstairs. The street was blinding and thick with motorcycles, a roiling river of two-stroke engines.
On Madu the motorbike was king. There were bikes rigged up as mobile noodle shops, ice-cream bikes blasting nursery rhymes, bikes with coolers full of fish or cages of live poultry. There seemed no limit to the load a Madunese motorcycle could bear: a family of five, a refrigerator, a trussed and squirming sow.
My only experience with motorcycles had been as a kid, riding on the back of Buster’s Indian. But I would be needing wheels of some kind. A few doors down from the hotel I saw a sign reading ‘Motorbike Rent’. It was time to take the plunge.
The rental procedure was swift and painless. I was not asked for a driver’s license or any other identification. I simply filled in a form, surrendered a small deposit, and was handed the keys to a 50cc Honda. This was a trusting town. Maybe they figured a thief couldn’t get far on such a small island.
After the rental guy went back inside I spent fifteen minutes weaving up and down the gang next to the hotel until I felt I had the hang of it. Finally, I took a deep breath and curled my fist around the accelerator. I was off, out into the seething streets of Jorokotor.
Even for a man of poor judgment, diving headlong into a Madunese rush hour with zero motorcycle experience marked a new low. The visceral thrill I had felt in the taxi from the airport was replaced with abject terror. It was all I could do to keep pace with the traffic and avoid getting killed.
Nothing on Madu was static. Here, streets and buildings—in other cities solid and permanent—appeared captured in the process of transformation. Roads were suggestions of what someday might become roads. Buildings were the skeletons of structures that once had been or would eventually come to be. The whole city seemed to be under construction or demolition. Birth barely kept pace with decay. All was on the cusp of rising from or reverting back to dust.
Finally I found the main cop shop, tucked away on a gang near the city center. Manning the front desk was a smug looking bastard with a shiny pompadour.
“Excuse me . . . officer?”
It was my standard policy to suck up to the police. They expected it.
Pompadour looked up from his newspaper.
“Maybe you can help me. I left my wallet in a taxi.”
“Yes?” he said, affecting a sympathetic smile.
“Has anyone turned in a wallet?”
“Name of taxi company?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t realize the wallet was missing until the cab was gone. I’ve been to Lucky, Black Bird, and Chung’s. Are there any others on Madu?”
“No.”
“Well, has anyone turned in a wallet here?”
He shouted something over his shoulder.
Someone answered from the back office.
“No,” he said.
“Could you check with the other police stations?”
“I’m quite busy.”
He smiled sadly and returned to his paper.
“Yeah, I can see.”
I’d heard of baksheesh and I figured I would encounter it sooner or later. Yet I had barely been on the island forty-eight hours. I found it especially repugnant that Pompadour was trying to profit from my loss. ‘Fuck it,’ I thought, ‘the taxi driver probably kept the money and sold the passport.’
“Do you think you could find a few minutes to write up a report?”
His face was a blank page.
“My consulate needs a police report in order to issue me a new passport.”
He rolled his eyes and slowly turned to a filing cabinet to find a form.
“Write name and signature here.”
I filled in my name, signed the form, and handed it back to him. He stamped it a couple of times, flicked it across the counter, and returned to his newspaper.
“Thank you so much for your help.”
I located the US Consulate on the tourist map I had grabbed at the airport. It was three miles away, in the former Dutch cantonment district. Getting there looked simple enough on paper. I started the bike, gritted my teeth, and leapt back into the tangle of traffic. But street signage was scarce, and soon I was lost.
Jorokotor was really just an overgrown village. Roads followed the jagged pattern of the paddy paths they had replaced. But the streets didn’t correlate to the lines on the map. Just when I felt I was heading in the right direction, I’d be thrown off
-course by a sudden right-angle bend. The Dutch had hacked out a few broad avenues from the thicket of gangs. But the Madunese had imposed a one-way system to ensure that traffic always passed to the left of a temple—and there were hundreds of these—thus confounding any order the avenues might have brought to the chaos. Order seemed anathema to the Madunese spirit.
Along the way I spotted more subsidiaries of the vast Lucky empire: Lucky Dentist, Lucky Restaurant, Lucky Travel Agent. It struck me that dentistry, the culinary arts, and air travel were professions in which luck should never be required.
I stopped several times to ask directions. Everyone seemed to sincerely want to help. But because pointing was a Madunese taboo, I was treated to a mystifying pantomime of vague hand gestures and ambiguous body language. Even when I felt that my query had been understood, as soon as the locals began flailing their arms around I was invariably more lost than before. After an hour and a half, completely by accident, I found myself outside the steely gates of US Consular Services, Madu.
The official diplomatic representative of the mighty United States of America was housed in a humble colonial bungalow—surprisingly understated digs for the outpost of a global superpower. I surrendered Buster’s jackknife at security and walked up the brick drive toward the cottage, past whitewashed walls strung with ivy and bougainvillea. The waiting room chairs faced a large government-issue portrait of George W. Bush. The president was trying very hard to appear presidential, but looked more like a deer caught in headlights.
“Mark O’Kane?”
A WASPy-looking fellow stood behind bullet-proof glass, perfectly dressed for the role of an Ivy League-educated minion of Uncle Sam: blue Oxford shirt, beige chinos, manicured nails, not a hair out of place. I couldn’t see his shoes, but I would have bet a round of beers that they were penny loafers. I looked around. I was the only person there.
“That’s me,” I said, jumping up.
“Consul Fitch. Lost passport?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Were you born in the United States, Mr O’Kane?”
“Leverett, Massachusetts.”
“Do you have proof of your identity?”
“Only this.”
I handed him a photocopy of my passport through a metal drawer. He looked it over, and after a few more questions, he seemed fairly satisfied that I was who I claimed to be.
“Fill these out, and ring the bell when you’re done.”
Fitch handed me some forms, turned crisply and walked away. Sure enough, penny loafers.
As I filled out the forms, I couldn’t help imagining the alternate life I might have enjoyed as Consul Jason Fitch. If only I had applied myself back at Brown instead of dropping acid and cutting lectures. If only I had networked instead of drinking myself incoherent and desperately trying to get laid. If only I didn’t hate golf. Maybe I too could have been a clean cut American civil servant dispatched to a cushy post in the tropics, with a healthy paycheck and a generous pension package. It might have been me on the other side of that glass, looking with out with mild disdain upon this disheveled character in black, another loser who had lost his way.
I signed the forms and returned to the window.
“Alright, Mr O’Kane,” Fitch said, leafing through my paperwork. “Everything seems in order. Check back with us in about three weeks.”
I climbed on my bike as the big metal gate clanged shut behind me.
I followed the sinking sun back toward the beach. A few landmarks began to stand out: the prison, the temples, the slums of Kang-Kang. At Frank’s place, a woman with a broom answered the bell. There was still no sign of Frank or Sanjaya. I gave the sweeper a business card from Lucky Guesthouse with my name and mobile number written on the back, in case Frank materialized.
My throat was parched from exhaust fumes and dust. I decided to walk down the beach to Cooney’s and wash the day away with Oh-Cha. I left my bike outside Frank’s place and took the shortcut through the jungle.
Bones were already visible in the dog carcass as I passed. Plant shoots poked through its ribcage, reaching toward the slender shafts of sunlight penetrating the gloom.
I found Tripod hunting crabs on the beach. Cooney was under the big flamboyant tree, cursing over the upturned boat, a sweat-soaked coolie hat on his head.
“Ahoy, Cowboy,” he said, as he saw me come up. “How goes the struggle?”
“Don’t ask,” I said. “I thought you said you and boats were quits.”
“Eh,” he said. “Just a little hobby. Keeps me out of trouble.”
“Looks like it’s seen some service.”
“She’s been around, but still sound enough. Twenty-four footer. Got her for a song. Actually for a bar tab. It was either that, or keep listening to a boatload of bloody excuses. Hey, Maday, bring us a couple of cold ones, will you?” he shouted. “Been bloody roasting out here all afternoon.”
“Maybe you’re not ready to give up the seaman’s life just yet.”
He wiped his brow. “I gotta admit it feels a bit odd to be putting down roots after all these years. Maybe I just feel better knowing I’ve got a ticket off this rock if the shit ever hits the fan.”
“What kind of shit, exactly?”
“This is the wild east, Cowboy. You never know what could go down—tsunamis, coups. Maybe the Madunese grow weary of us mayat and break out the machetes again. This baby is my little escape plan,” he said, patting the battered hull.
“If it comes down to that, save me a seat, will you?”
“Sure, but it might cost you.” He winked.
Maday came over with a big smile and two Oh-Cha’s. Somehow I couldn’t imagine him wielding a blood-soaked blade.
“Cheers,” I said to Cooney.
“Cheers, Big Ears.”
He began picking up scraps of wood from the ground and tossing them onto a small fire. Trying to be helpful, I grabbed a couple of dead palm leaves off the lawn and threw them on top.
“Are you barmy?” he shouted. “You want to burn down the whole fucking island?”
He pulled out the leaves and stomped on them until they were extinguished.
“Never, ever, do that. Burning palm leaves float for miles. Surest way to start a house fire. You see all the thatch roofs around here?”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Fresh off the boat, inya?” he said, irritably. Then, seeing my expression, he softened. “Ah, no harm done. Hey, looks like the boys are here. Come on over. I’ll introduce you.”
Three men lounged around one of the tables on the parched lawn: a portly mayat, a slender Madunese, and a diminutive Indian in a white suit and fedora.
“Gents,” he announced, “I’d like to introduce a recent arrival to our little slice of paradise. Say hello to Mark, from America.”
“Hello, Mark From America!” they sang out.
“New York City, actually,” I said. “Practically a separate country.”
“Indeed,” the stout man said. “A lawless island populated by savages.”
“Then he’ll feel right at home here, then, won’t he, boys?” Cooney said.
“Since Mr Cooney is too uncivilized to do so, I’ll introduce myself,” said the mayat, offering me a doughy hand. “J.M. Shirley. Call me Monty.”
“Raj Curry. Jakarta Journal, Madu Post,” said the Indian, shaking my hand in turn. “If my British friend seems solicitous, it’s because he is our resident solicitor.”
“That joke simply never grows old,” Monty said, wearily. “Ex-solicitor, please. And this is Kubu.”
The young Madunese extended his hand. “Enchanté.”
“Mark’s a journo as well, Curry,” Cooney said.
“Is he!”
“I write books.”
“Either way, pleasure to meet a fellow man of letters,” Raj said
. “Where are you putting up, Mark?”
“Lucky Luxury Guesthouse, for now.”
“With air conditioning, itself!”
“I hope you’ve brought the rains with you, Mark,” Monty said. “This heat is positively debilitating.”
“Positively,” Kubu said, flashing some shiny orthodontics that Monty was likely financing.
“Been sweating like a rapist for weeks,” Cooney said.
“So, what has shifted you to Madu, Mark?” Raj asked.
“A job,” I said. “But it seems I’m working for the Invisible Man.”
“Still haven’t managed to locate the bugger, eh?” Cooney said.
“Still no sign of him.”
“An absentee boss,” Monty mused. “Isn’t that the best kind?”
“As long as he signs the paychecks.”
That night at the Lagoon Saloon was the first of many. Despite my lifelong affection for alcohol, I’d never cared for bars. In New York they were fetid caves where aspiring actresses flogged overpriced drinks. Cooney’s place was different. Built of bamboo and thatch, it boasted million-dollar sunsets, and drew an eclectic mix of locals and ex-pats. The Chinese jukebox played punk rock, classic ska, and scratchy blues. The big Oh-Cha’s cost about a dollar. It was going to be tough giving up beer when my birthday rolled around.
“So you had your first experience with our local gendarmes,” Raj said.
I’d told the story of my lost wallet, omitting the fact that I’d been hammered when I got off the plane.
“They wouldn’t lift a finger without a bribe.”
“You can kiss that wallet goodbye,” Cooney said.
“I guess I already have.”
“Welcome to Madu, where corruption is king,” Monty said.
“Raj’s people invented baksheesh,” Cooney said. “But the Madunese have made it into a bloody art form.”
“Kindly keep your cultural disparagements to yourself,” Raj said. “You bloody colonialists are all the same.”
Raj probably wasn’t much older than me, but while I was staring at middle age in blunt denial, he appeared to be welcoming it with open arms.