Left on Paradise

by Kirk Adams

  While Tiffany and Heather cooked, Linh watched the children play. Two northern boys with big teeth and skinny arms joined them; the boys carrying homemade bows strung with vines and quivers filled with bone-tipped arrows. Linh’s daughters joined the visitors as boy and girl alike practiced shooting into a chalk-marked palm tree. Theodore and Ted spied on them from behind a panandu bush. Occasionally, the girls waved at the twins, sending the little boys face-first into the dust, laughing like fools.

  Adults played volleyball. Sean retrieved a net from New Plymouth’s recreation tent and set it up (with Jose’s help) while teams were picked. Ryan, Maria, Jose, Linh, Tiffany, Viet, Olivia, and Ilyana played against Charles, Joan, Deidra, Sean, Brent, Hilary, Lisa, and Heather. John left after a quick dinner while Jason played only a single match before walking north. Ursula tallied score as she sipped tea from a lawn chair.

  The first game went to Ryan’s team by a six-point margin and the second game by eight points. But after two games on the hot sand, most players perspired and Charles removed his shirt. Sean and Brent did the same. Lisa soon declared their team the Skins and told her teammates to strip their shirts. Everyone did so except Heather—who held fast to her tee shirt and propriety alike even when Joan tugged at the former and declared her daughter had plenty to show. Ryan and Viet also wanted to play shirtless, but the Skins insisted the Shirts remain clothed. With the changed uniforms, momentum shifted toward the bare-chested team, their opponents worn down by the heat and distracted by the sight of so much flesh. Jose, in particular, played poorly, spending most of the game eyeing anything but the volleyball. The shirted team lost the next two games (by three and six points respectively) and were skunked in the game match.

  After volleyball was finished and the party broke into small groups, Linh and Tiffany—with their husbands and children—walked down the beach to enjoy the sunset. Ryan and Maria retired early (walking home just a couple minutes apart) and Charles and Joan joined a circle of pot smokers. Olivia told her Ilyana to insure the northern boys reached home before dark while Heather directed the western children to collect trash. It was just after the children disappeared into the forest to collect litter that Jose tapped Heather’s shoulder.

  “Enjoy the game?”

  “It was fun,” Heather said. “You?”

  “It was interesting, to say the least.”

  “Sorry I didn’t entertain you like the others.”

  Jose blushed. “You have your standards.”

  “So do they,” Heather said, “just not the same ones.”

  “To each his own, they say.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Either Cicero or Hugh Hefner: one of the great philosophers of human friendship.”

  Heather forced a smile as Jose dropped his eyes, glancing at her legs before staring into sand.

  “I was wondering,” the young man said, “if you’d like to take a walk.”

  Heather didn’t take too long to answer. “That’d be nice, I guess.”

  “Great.”

  “First let me finish here. Can we meet in a few minutes?”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Half an hour?” Heather asked.

  Jose didn’t object and the two soon parted—with Jose hurrying to the stream to wash and Heather marching four children single file toward the west village.

  Ilyana had more trouble with the northern boys—who left under protest and only then after stuffing their pockets with dried bread and sun-warmed fruit while complaining that they were being starved by their own village. Ilyana let them take as much as they could carry, then filled a bag with fresh citrus, found an unlit torch, and started north.

  An hour after she agreed to take a walk, Heather returned to the beach dressed in a sleeveless summer dress. Her hair was braided and her feet shod with leather sandals.

  Jose also wore clean clothes: a cotton shirt and tan shorts.

  Heather smiled at him.

  “I didn’t know,” Heather said, “we were going so formal.”

  “I’m in rags next to you.”

  “Where to?”

  “What’d you want to do?”

  “A movie sounds good. Do you have the listings?”

  Jose shook his head.

  “Well,” Heather continued, “a walk down the beach would be nice too.”

  “That I can do,” Jose said. “Panoramic vision and widescreen. 360-degree sound and 3-D vision.”

  Heather walked toward the shore as Jose moved beside her. He kept close enough occasionally to brush her hand, but not so close that he did so often. At the shore, they removed sandals in the shallows and let the tide lap their ankles. At first they talked of the day’s activities, but conversation abruptly ended when Jose made a joke about Heather’s shirtless teammates. Only after several minutes did they again converse. An hour into their date, they found themselves on a somewhat unfamiliar stretch of beach, well past the northern border.

  “I don’t remember this place,” Heather said.

  “I’ve been here before,” Jose answered, “but the rocks look different under the moon.”

  Heather sat on a weatherworn rock and Jose sat beside her. The rock wasn’t more than a yard wide and their hips were only a few inches apart, despite the fact they’d edged as far apart as possible. Both looked to sea for several minutes.

  Heather spoke first. “Sometimes,” she said, “I miss New York.”

  Jose said he was from Los Angeles.

  “New York,” Heather mused, “had so many different things to do.”

  “And,” Jose countered, “so many different types of crime and poverty and prejudice. The whole thing was predicated upon oppression and distinction and police brutality.”

  Heather shrugged. “Not Central Park.”

  “No?” Jose said. “I visited it in junior high. The crackheads sat in their waste and dealers sold drugs in the open. They even offered dope to me, even though I was only twelve.”

  “It’s worth another visit since Giuliani cleaned it up.”

  “Since he turned it into a prison ward.”

  “I don’t know about that. Even my mother felt safer the last few years.”

  “Thousands of convicts and jaywalkers might disagree.”

  “I suppose so,” Heather said, “but they chose which streets to walk and which corners to cut.”

  “Chose?”—Jose grew somewhat agitated—“Between poverty and prison? That’s a dilemma or a tragedy, not a choice.”

  Heather didn’t reply and several minutes passed without conversation.

  “Are you staying long?” Jose finally asked. “On the island, I mean.”

  “I haven’t decided,” Heather answered. “My parents claim they’re here for good, but I’d like to go to college.”

  “Where?”

  “Dad says I should consider Columbia, but I prefer Fordham if they make me stay in New York. To tell the truth, I’ve always dreamed of a Big Ten school. But I don’t know if we have the money any longer. They gave away everything when they came here—except for their retirement.”

  “Public schools are cheap. At least in-state tuition is.”

  “Except I’m not sure if I’m even a U.S. citizen or a resident of New York since my parents surrendered their citizenship when we moved.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I have,” Heather said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll stay here a while.”

  “No one would mind.”

  “You see,” Heather said with a smile, “the irony, don’t you?”

  Jose shook his head not.

  “The twist,” the young woman explained, “is the egalitarian ideals my parents preached in the university were cosmopolitan and urbane; but it’s here that we have real equality, though not always a progressive lifestyle. If I’d announced in New York I wanted to be a housewife, my mother would’ve sent me to a boarding school. Now I wonder if I even have another choice. I’m certainly not going to take up the fa
mily business of teaching college.”

  “You have quite the wit,” Jose said with a laugh. “Perhaps you can develop your writing skills. I hear the east village will be doing plays this winter.”

  “Maybe,” Heather said, “if we make it through the first winter like the pilgrims did at Plymouth. Of course, I’m still too young for them to take me all that seriously.”

  “You look old enough to me.”

  Heather dropped her eyes to her lap as Jose moved nearer and pulled her close. When she didn’t respond, he scooted closer yet and leaned forward, his face nearing hers until Heather gently stopped him—her fingertips pushing back his chest.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “It’s not wrong,” Jose said after a moment. “Especially on this island. You’re legal.”

  “There’s more than the law.”

  “It’s okay with your parents.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Why not? What are you saving yourself for?”

  “Love.”

  “You can share a little companionship while you wait.”

  “I’d rather wait alone.”

  “You’re not,” Jose said, “going to find romance in a convent. You have to make love to find love.”

  “Love,” Heather said in an almost inaudible voice, “isn’t what Ursula found in Sean’s bed.”

  Now Jose drew back. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Heather answered. “It’s only our first date.”

  Jose’s eyes brightened. “Do you want to go out again?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s not be in a hurry.”

  After a long pause, Jose said it was getting late and perhaps they needed to leave and Heather agreed. It didn’t take the unpaired couple long to reach the beach (where a log still smoldered in the main campfire) and then the trail to their own village. They moved quietly in the night, a flashlight in Jose’s hand to direct their feet past marijuana fields, cornfields, and an empty honeymoon tent. At Heather’s tent, they parted without a kiss.

  Ilyana escorted the two northern boys within sight of their own village before shouting through the dark for their parents. When a woman’s voice said she didn’t know the boys ever had left, Ilyana turned around and hurried south. Just a minute later she heard the sound of fast moving feet and looked back to see the shadow of a man jogging toward her. She asked who it was and breathed easy when she heard Jason’s voice. After Jason caught his breath, he pulled a thick joint and a thin lighter from his pocket, offering Ilyana the first toke.

  The two walked slow as they smoked the joint and stopped altogether for a second one. When they finally started home, their steps were unsteady and it took the better part of a laughter-filled hour before they reached the beach (after being lost twice). The fire pit was reduced to embers and already the tide neared it. Jason rummaged through scraps of food, but found only a single brown banana—which they split. When he cursed a bite of cold crab leg as inedible, Ilyana burst into laughter, thinking even her own ravenous hunger quite hilarious.

  Jason pointed to the moon. “What I wouldn’t give,” he declared, “for a block of good cheese. Even half a block. Or a quarter.”

  “We can’t reach it. It’s too high.”

  “We need to get even higher.”

  Ilyana smiled, her eyes bloodshot and glassy and told Jason to find her a cow to jump over the moon.

  “Or,” Jason said, “a dish to run off with the spoon.”

  “Sounds likes drugs,” Ilyana said with a giggle. “And munchies.”

  Jason found a second banana, divided it into equal portions, and ate. He threw its peel into the brush.

  “I’m still hungry.”

  “Let’s find food,” Ilyana said.

  Jason pulled a bag of dope from his pocket. “Man does not live by bread alone,” he observed.

  Ilyana shrugged and said she needed a bite to eat as she started down the trail.

  “One for the road?” Jason asked as he followed the girl.

  “Let’s hurry,” Ilyana said, “or the best food will be gone.”

  Ilyana walked down the trail and Jason moved beside her. He lit the joint anyway and Ilyana gave in. Not withstanding her hunger, she took several hits. As they finished it, they came to a clearing between the beach and village where a tent stood pitched near the trail.

  “It’s the honeymoonless suite,” Ilyana said. “Maybe there’s food.”

  Now the stoned teenager unzipped the front flap to the six-foot tent and stepped in. Jason followed and struck a match, lighting several candles already arranged on the floor. Using the flickering candlelight, Ilyana opened a basket in which she discovered crackers, jelly, and over-ripe fruit—and even a wide bar of Belgian chocolate.

  “Paydirt!” Ilyana announced.

  “Here we go,” Jason said as he unscrewed the cap from a half-full bottle of peach schnapps.

  Ilyana ate chocolate and Jason drank liquor; then they traded and Ilyana drank while Jason ate. Indeed, they ate until they licked the last taste of chocolate from their fingers and stuffed the last crumbs of cracker into their mouths. When the schnapps was gone, Ilyana fell to the grass-stuffed mattress.

  “I can’t walk me to home,” the girl said. “Tell me mother not worry.”

  As Ilyana folded her hands and closed her eyes, neither saying her prayers nor crossing herself that night, Jason stared through the flickering light of the burning candle at the narrow hips and slender legs of the teenager. After a few minutes, he snuffed the wick with a pinch of his fingers and told Ilyana her mother would just have to worry.

  Ilyana didn’t protest since she already was passed out.

  23

  Crime and Its Punishment

  A dozen villagers drank coffee and ate breakfast rolls as Olivia approached, still dressed in the oversized jersey she’d worn to bed. Her eyes were bloodshot and her voice concerned as she squinted into the early morning sun.

  “Anyone seen Ilyana?”

  Several neighbors shook their heads.

  “That girl,” Olivia said, “is always running off. Probably to the north camp this time.”

  Heather pointed north. “She was taking those boys home.”

  “When?”

  “Near dusk.”

  “Well,” Olivia said, “I need to go find her. I suppose she’s with those people.”

  Viet looked to Brent—who rose from his seat.

  “I could use a walk,” Brent said as he followed Olivia into the woods. While everyone else speculated about possible explanations, Hilary brewed another pot of coffee and Heather served a tray of rolls.

  Conversation continued until the sharp sound of a woman’s scream sounded from the forest, followed in a breath by a second scream—this one more girlish and more anguished than the first. Jose and Viet jumped to their feet and sprinted toward the commotion, though fleet-footed Lisa passed them before they’d reached the woods. Hilary also chased after them, lagging only a little behind. All four arrived within seconds of each other at the privacy tent—where Jason stood stark naked as Brent held his wrists fast and Olivia pulled someone from the tent. The other person resisted as Olivia slipped and was dragged inside. A few seconds later yet another scream sounded—this one quite clearly from pain—and a red-faced Olivia stumbled from the tent while pulling her half-dressed daughter by the hair.

  Ilyana cried for her mother to let go, but Olivia paid no heed.

  “Shut up, slut!” Olivia screamed, “We’re going home.”

  “Leave me alone!” Ilyana yelled back.

  When Olivia raised the back of her hand to strike, Jason grabbed her wrist until the enraged mother broke free and directed a well-aimed kick to his unprotected groin. Though Jason tried to evade, Brent’s grip had immobilized him and the kick struck square and hard. Jason screamed in pain and buckled at the knees, his wrist twisting from Brent’s grasp as he fell to the ground.

  Only then did Lisa interpose herself between Jason and
his attacker. “No more,” she shouted to Olivia, “let’s sort this out.”

  “That bastard,” Olivia pointed at Jason—who was clenching his groin with both hands while sobbing, “that bastard defiled my daughter.”

  Olivia pushed Lisa aside and aimed a second kick to Jason’s groin, but this time the latter was able to roll away and the kick caught only his thigh. Though he screamed again, his shout was not as loud as before. Brent jumped over him and grabbed Olivia—who struggled only briefly before relenting. Her fight was elsewhere.

  Now Olivia glared at her daughter, hunched in front of the tent, tears welling in the girl’s eyes—one hand pulling an undersized tee shirt past her bellybutton and the other covering a thin veil of pubic hair.

  “He’s twice your age,” Olivia said, her teeth clenched and voice low.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Ilyana cried, breaking into a childish sob. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Olivia shouted. “How could you give yourself to this creep?”

  “I swear ...”

  Lisa stepped between the young girl and the men, shielding the girl’s naked hips with her own body.

  “Not here,” Lisa told Olivia before turning to Ilyana. “Get yourself dressed so we can deal with this at home.”

  Ilyana went into the tent as Lisa followed. The flap fell shut and the others soon heard whispering and weeping. When Lisa emerged, her face was grimmer than before as she pointed straight at Jason—who’d finally stopped moaning and had sat up, though his cheeks remained tight from pain and eyes red from tears.

  “We have a problem,” Lisa said.

  Olivia clenched her teeth and asked what she meant.

  “Ilyana says,” Lisa explained, “she passed out. From drinking and dope. She didn’t wake up till you screamed at her—and she saw a naked man beside her. She remembers a bad dream about Jason and her having ... but she insists it was only a nightmare.”

  Olivia wept.

  Brent turned on Jason. “Did you do her?”

  “Yeah,“ Jason said as looked away. “We did it.”

  Olivia groaned.

  “Did you rape her?” Brent growled.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jason said. “She wanted it.”