One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

  It came right back up his throat and exploded out of his mouth, spraying Sandy Beach. Lintoa’s eyes were watering and he was gasping for breath. His throat was on fire.

  Beach wiped his face with one hand and patted Lintoa on the back with the other. ‘Easy, baby, easy,’ he said. After Lintoa stopped coughing, Beach stopped patting but his hand remained between the she-boy’s shoulder blades, squatting there like a malevolent toad. ‘I can see you’re not used to bourbon, baby.’ There was a gleam in Beach’s eye as he said this.

  Lintoa didn’t pay any attention to the hand. He was too preoccupied with the bourbon. Anything that could have that effect must be good! He took a sip, cautious this time, careful to let it slide slowly down his throat. He wasn’t taking a chance on having what remained of his throat lining burned out.

  The bourbon slipped down easy as coconut milk now. Its effect wasn’t at all like that of beer which was cold and refreshing. He could feel its warmth spreading throughout his body. His fingers were tingling; his toes were too, and strangely the small of his back – an unexpected place when you thought about it – seemed warm as well. And then he realized why. Someone’s hand was massaging him there. He turned towards the American and found the American was already turned towards him. The American had a funny smile on his face, the sort of smile you only normally saw on the shitting beach after someone had had a particularly satisfying evacuation.

  Lintoa was not the only one who was puzzled by Sandy Beach’s behaviour. Neither of the two people sitting on the windblown tree was aware of the presence of a third person, someone who was, in a funny kind of way, appropriate to be the third corner of this love triangle. After all it was she whom Lintoa had first sought to attract by means of magic, even if he had later changed his mind. And so too had Sandy Beach, although he too had also lost interest in her because Purnu had tricked him into taking the wrong potion, if, that is, you believe in that kind of thing. As William had guessed, Kiroa was still crazy about Lintoa. Either Managua was a better magician than anyone on the island gave him credit for or the combination of Lintoa’s indifference and his filling of a pubic leaf was irresistible. Whatever, the passage of more than a year had not dimmed the tall girl’s affection for him. She spent most of her waking life mooning around after him and tonight had managed to track him when he went on one of his mysterious evening walks. She had suspected he would be meeting someone. She hadn’t imagined it would be this short American with hair the colour of orange fungi. What in the name of fug-a-fug was Lintoa doing with him?

  Well, right now, she could see from her hiding place behind an adula bush – the very same bush under which the two people she was observing had spent the previous night, as it happened – Lintoa was fending off Beach’s advances. In particular he was leaning his head back to avoid Beach’s tongue which was particularly large for such a little fellow. As for Lintoa, it seemed to him that Beach was trying to lick him. As licking played no part in native lovemaking, Lintoa was completely baffled by the American’s behaviour. Perhaps the man was trying to lick bourbon off him? Perhaps it was some kind of American drinking custom, like banging your beer cans together and saying ‘Cheers’ the way Miss Lucy said the British did?

  Custom or not, Lintoa had no intention of being licked and pushed Beach away.

  Or rather he tried to. He forgot that Beach already had one arm around him and his hand on his back. Beach was not muscular like Lintoa, but he was wiry. The sort of fellow who clings to you in a fight and saps all the strength out of you. It was what Beach did now. He got his other arm around Lintoa, linked it to the first and held on for dear life. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he said, ‘give me a kiss.’

  Lintoa was horrified. How many taboos would that be breaking? Well, there was making love with someone of the same sex, for a start, then there was the foreigner one, that made two, but that was all he could think of, which didn’t seem many when he thought how disgusting this little American and his huge tongue were. There ought to be a taboo against having a tongue like that. ‘No!’ screamed Lintoa and turned his head away.

  Beach was not to be denied. He couldn’t get at Lintoa’s mouth so he made do with nibbling his ear. Lintoa had no idea what this was about. All he could think of was that the man was trying to steal his earring. He had his big hooped pair on tonight. Could all this just be a ruse to take them?

  No such luck. Now Beach had dropped his face to Lintoa’s bosom and was ruttling around in the top of his dress like a koku-koku worrying at a green shoestring, his little head shaking from side to side as he tried to rip Lintoa’s bra off with his teeth. Well, it wasn’t that difficult. Not when you remember the bra was a very old one and had for some time now been held on by a strip of liana sewn across the back. Under the onslaught of Beach’s frenzied attack it snapped and Beach’s terrier head plunged into Lintoa’s uplift and came up with a mouth full of rags. He spat them out and grinned at Lintoa. ‘Never mind baby, I’ve never been a breast man and anyway, a girl can’t have everything!’

  Lintoa tried to push him away, but unaccustomed to bourbon as he was, his head was suddenly swimming and he had to close his eyes for a moment to avoid being sick. When he opened them again there appeared to be two of the little American. Or was that just because the damn fella was moving so fast?

  Beach pressed his lips against Lintoa’s. Lintoa put both hands on the American’s chest and shoved him off. Beach lifted one hand and flourished it before Lintoa’s eyes and then darted it up his skirt. Lintoa closed his legs instinctively and screamed. Hearing him, Kiroa leaped to her feet and cried out, ‘Lintoa, I is come!’

  Beach tried to prise Lintoa’s knees apart. ‘Stop!’ cried Lintoa.

  ‘Come on, don’t be such a tease,’ panted Beach. ‘You’re going to love this, I promise you.’

  With a superhuman effort, Lintoa pushed the little man off. ‘I is not be that kind of girl!’ he protested.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that, my dear,’ said Beach, renewing his assault on Lintoa’s knees. ‘Wait till you’ve tried it before you decide you don’t like it.’

  Again Lintoa managed to push him off. ‘You is not understand,’ he said, trying to straighten his clothes. ‘I is not be any kind of girl.’

  Beach stared at him for a moment, mystified. Lintoa took advantage of his stillness to pull himself to his feet. He tugged up the hem of his skirt. Beach’s eyes lit up like torches. Flecks of drool appeared on his lips.

  ‘Look!’ said Lintoa. ‘I is be boy!’

  Kiroa, who was halfway between the adula bush and the two struggling figures, was stopped dead in her tracks. Lintoa’s not inconsiderable pwili was dangling a couple of inches in front of the American’s eyes.

  Beach stared at it for a moment. Then he shrugged. ‘Nobody’s perfect!’ he said and made another lunge. Deftly sidestepping the attack, Lintoa swung his arm and fetched Beach a good one around the head with his handbag.

  Beach fell off the log and disappeared behind it. For a moment Lintoa thought he had killed him, but then the little red head popped up. Beach was grinning wildly. ‘Oh, you like to play rough, do you?’ he snarled. He worked his way round Lintoa, who moved round in the opposite direction, and they were like two wrestlers looking for an opening. Without warning, Beach sprang forward and hit Lintoa with all his weight. Lintoa fell backwards over the fallen tree. When Kiroa got to them they were a furious mass of flying fists and kicking feet. She didn’t know what to do. Then she spotted a thick branch that had broken from the tree. She picked it up and hefted it at the fungi-coloured hair. It didn’t help her aim that she shut her eyes as she struck the blow. When she opened them she saw Lintoa had stopped struggling. His eyes stared at her without recognition and then he collapsed.

  ‘Oh no!’ Kiroa gasped. Beach was still fighting on. He hadn’t noticed there was no resistance now. Then he heard Kiroa’s exclamation. He stopped moving and looked up at her. The poor girl didn’t know what to say. There was only one thing she
could think of to make amends for hitting Lintoa. She hit Beach too.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  KIROA WAS SURPRISED that when she told her father what had occurred he laughed. It did not seem in the least amusing to her that the American had attacked Lintoa, nor that she had knocked out the boy – or rather the she-boy – she loved. And she might have expected him to be concerned about her hurting the American. After all, if the Americans blew you up for no reason, what might not they do if you gave them cause, and surely striking one was cause enough?

  Purnu sent some young men to bring back the victims of his daughter’s solicitude for her loved one and someone else to fetch the other two Americans from the Captain Cook. By the time William and Dr Gold reached the centre of the village, all the natives were there. Lintoa was already awake. He had a black eye. Sandy Beach was still out cold. He had two black eyes.

  Managua was already conducting an investigation. ‘What is happen?’ he asked Lintoa.

  ‘American is go crazy. First he is try for lick me.’

  ‘Lick you!’ Managua’s exclamation was echoed by everyone within hearing distance. ‘What for is he want for lick you?’

  ‘I is not know. I is be plenty damn worry, I is can tell you.’

  Managua screwed up his eyes. ‘You is think he is go eat you?’

  Lintoa stared at him. ‘What for you is ask this? He is be cannibal? He is eat someone else?’

  ‘No, no. At least I is not think so.’ He turned to William. ‘This one with fungi colour hair. He is eat people?’

  William fought the urge to laugh. ‘I don’t think so. I think the tongue thing was more a mark of, well, affection.’

  ‘He is try for kiss Lintoa!’ interjected Kiroa. ‘I is see.’

  ‘He is bite my bra,’ said Lintoa.

  Managua shook his head. ‘First he is go eat people, then he is go eat clothes. This is be one crazy American.’

  ‘All Americans is be crazy,’ said Lintoa. Then he remembered William. ‘Sorry, gwanga, I is not mean you.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ said William.

  ‘Although I is think you is be little bit crazy. Is be eye thing.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed William. ‘The eye thing.’

  While all this was going on Dr Gold had been working on Sandy Beach with smelling salts. By the time Beach was conscious again, William and Managua had managed to piece together the details of his attempt on Lintoa’s virtue. Several of the islanders were reduced to hysterical laughter at the idea of a man attempting to make fug-a-fug with a she-boy. Things became even livelier when a groggy Beach looked at Lintoa and uttered his first word since regaining consciousness: ‘Darling!’

  William put a finger to his lips to quieten the natives. He whispered to Purnu, ‘Get them away, tell them to stop laughing. If we’re clever, we can use this.’

  Purnu had no idea what William had in mind but he did as he was asked anyway. He knew it was something to do with the dollars. William asked Tr’boa and a couple of his friends to help carry Beach back to the Captain Cook. ‘No joking,’ he said. ‘I want you all to look very serious.’

  Next day Beach woke with a thundering headache from all the bourbon he’d consumed and the blows he’d received from Lintoa and Kiroa. His body hurt in several places. He couldn’t remember what had happened but a vague idea that it involved sex was enough to get him started on a story for the doctor.

  ‘Boy, that big girl sure likes it rough,’ he said. ‘I feel like I did ten rounds with Mike Tyson.’

  He was surprised when Dr Gold didn’t take the bait. Gold was an old married man who lived on the sexual titbits Beach threw him.

  ‘Let me tell you, Gold, that girl may look like butter wouldn’t melt . . .’ Here Beach paused. Actually, when he thought about it, Lintoa didn’t look like butter wouldn’t melt. She was a great big bitch of a woman. ‘I mean . . . owww!’ He put a hand to his head as he realized too late that he’d gotten excited and moved it. Into his befuddled brain popped an image of himself rolling around on the ground fighting. The snapshot vanished and was immediately replaced by a picture of an enormous penis dangling in front of his eyes. A vague unease, more than he usually had from a drunken blackout, permeated his mind. Just what had happened last night?

  He swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the table. He heard a tapping noise and looked up to see William typing on a laptop at the far end of the table. William turned and stared at him for a moment or two, then went back to his typing. Gold was writing at his end of the table.

  ‘Shit, my head,’ said Beach. ‘Reckon some of that food these abos gave us must have been oxidized. Can you get botulism from prawns?’

  No-one laughed. The room was deadly silent except for the tap tap of William’s fingertips and the scratch of Gold’s pen. Both men kept their eyes resolutely on their work.

  ‘What?’ said Beach.

  No-one answered.

  ‘Did I embarrass myself last night?’

  Gold spoke without looking up. ‘Embarrass would be an understatement.’

  ‘Hey, come on, guys, stop joshing me . . .’

  William looked up and stared at him, his eyes cold and expressionless. ‘You attempted to sexually assault a teenage boy.’

  Beach made a weak try at a smile. ‘Hey, come on, what is this? A sexual assault on a boy? I didn’t go near any boy. I had a – a – tumble with the chick in the red dress, the big one.’

  ‘She’s not a chick,’ said Gold. ‘She’s a boy.’

  Beach stared at him. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind he remembered that huge penis. Had someone lifted a skirt to show it to him?

  ‘No, no, she’s a girl. Lintoa, right? That’s the one we’re talking about.’

  ‘Lintoa is a boy,’ said William. ‘You were caught last night in the middle of a violent sexual assault on a transvestite boy.’

  Beach stared at William for a moment. Unforgiving, unblinking eyes met his. He turned to the other end of the table. Gold nodded.

  ‘Holy shit!’ said Beach. ‘I knew there was something weird about her.’ He chuckled. ‘Jesus, thank God nothing happened. That could have been nasty.’

  ‘You don’t understand, my friend,’ said Gold. ‘It was nasty.’

  ‘It is nasty,’ said William. ‘Lintoa is considering bringing a lawsuit against you.’

  ‘B-but that’s preposterous. I – I was drunk. She – he – led me on, I – I—.’

  William got up and walked around the table. ‘Even if Lintoa doesn’t bring an action, think how it’s going to stack up when the compensation cases come to court. Think what will happen to your career.’

  ‘You can’t be serious—’

  ‘A sexual assault on a transvestite boy? How much more decadent can you get?’

  Beach buried his head in his hands. The other two men looked on and said nothing. All you could hear was the surf pounding the beach as the tide began to turn outside.

  Beach looked up. ‘William, we go back a long way. Remember how we used to play chess? Remember that?’

  ‘I remember you getting the whole school to call me Wanker.’

  ‘William, it was just a joke. A bit of fun—’

  ‘Funny how it’s you who turned out to be the pervert.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ wailed Beach. ‘If this gets out, I’m ruined. Totally fucking ruined.’

  William walked slowly around the table. He fingered the mahogany as though he were terribly interested in it, although how could anybody have been interested in this decades-old decrepit piece of furniture, unless of course it bore some imprint, some distant memory of the first time you made love on it with someone you had lost? He found himself feeling uncharacteristically vindictive towards Beach. Not on account of the childhood misery the other had inflicted upon him but because the hullabaloo last night had prevented his visiting Lucy’s house. He was irked that his own essential goodness, the fact that he wasn’t like Beach, was making him sacrifice any other chance of finding h
er too. What he had in mind would ensure the chopper would be called and have them out of here today. It would probably mean he never saw Lucy again. Still, William wasn’t Beach; it had to be done.

  ‘Of course, there is a way out,’ he said.

  Beach’s head sprang up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to come to trial. A trial would benefit no-one. It could take ten years or more before anyone sees any money. Ten years of these people hobbling around on ill-fitting artificial limbs.’

  ‘Wait a minute, what are you saying?’

  William stopped his perambulation right beside Beach. He thrust his face into his. ‘You could advise the government to settle out of court. If they did that no-one need ever know about last night.’

  ‘That’s blackmail.’

  William didn’t reply.

  Beach appealed to Gold. ‘He’s trying to blackmail me! Are you going to go along with that?’

  Gold shrugged. ‘Come on, these are people who live in abject poverty. Uncle Sam did them some real damage. They ought to be compensated. Why wouldn’t any reasonable human being want that? Why should you be allowed to delay and obstruct with a load of legal technicalities? What’s a few mil more or less to Uncle Sam?’

  FIVE YEARS

  LATER

  SIXTY-FIVE

  IT WAS A fine autumn day with not a single cloud in the blue Manhattan sky although William Hardt was too preoccupied with an elaborate pavement-crack-stepping ritual to notice. In the half-decade since he’d left the island William’s OCD symptoms had come to occupy an increasing role in his life. It was as though, after he’d glimpsed Eden and lost it, his old anxieties had bounced back stronger than ever. Never had William felt so alone. Carrying a torch for Lucy made new relationships difficult enough. The additional burden of his OCD meant they were doomed. With his vulnerable good looks he had no trouble getting girlfriends; keeping them once the blinking and grinding and picture straightening and idiosyncratic toast buttering kicked in was another matter. There were so many weirdos out there to be fearful of, people were looking for protection from them; they didn’t want to take one under their wing.