Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  “Pardon me,” Minna intervened. “We want a non-denominational ceremony.” She looked at Ravid. “Is it okay if he mentions a higher spirit?”

  “Sure. A high spirit is okay.” Ravid nearly asked if she was alcoholic but held off, fearing she might be.

  Never mind. With intuitive sense she informed the magistrate that she was Buddhist, and surely he understood that.

  “A higher spirit is okay,” the magistrate replied, “but the son of God is not okay?”

  “I don’t want that,” Ravid interjected, stepping up, drawing the line. “I can’t have that. Will you go along, or not?”

  The magistrate looked at Minna. Minna touched his forearm, “I’m Hawaiian. We might do this again with a kahuna. We won’t have Jesus there, either.” Then she smiled at Ravid, indicating their like minds in this and all things. “Jesus would want us happy.”

  So the magistrate went against his ingrained inclination by disclaiming responsibility if the ceremony did not stand as a result of substituting a higher power for Jesus.

  Ravid squinted and said, “Look, no Jesus. Okay?”

  “Jesus is God,” said the magistrate.

  Ravid glared, no longer wondering if the magistrate might be mental but whether this signal was casual. Maybe it indicated something wrong in allowing this strange man to make the legal bond. He could get the dive boat and a licensed captain and go three miles out, which would be cake, unless the captain’s license needed greater tonnage to make it heavy enough for marriage, or if it was twelve miles instead of three, which would put them out in the channel and make everyone pukey, especially Skinny — he laughed again.

  Let it go.

  So too the magistrate sensed something or other in Ravid’s glare and shrugged, “Okay. It’s your funeral — I mean, wedding.”

  “What a jerk,” Ravid said. The magistrate also laughed, so Ravid told him, “Your humor is offensive and not funny. You’re willing to insult people because they don’t believe exactly as you do.” The magistrate raised both eyebrows and shrugged again, as if confirming what a good Christian must do.

  Ravid wanted to grasp him by the neck with both hands and shake him up a little bit to show him how the Israelis would handle it... Not really, only kidding, though this would definitely affect the tip. Fuckinay, I know about tips and what a smartass gets for his pocket at the end of a trip. Fucking asshole.

  “Shall we?”

  “Okay.”

  And in mere minutes it was done, cast in stone and written on paper. Minna served musubi but with pork, not Spam. Ravid let it slide — she didn’t know, and actually he didn’t care; he only felt the pangs of an evil presence and many other presences in the ether, including his mother and many forebears who would not have anticipated pork at a wedding of their own.

  Let it go.

  He poured champagne.

  He tried a summer roll, or was it a spring roll? He could never remember which was fried and which was soft. These were soft, with raw vegetables rolled up in rice paper wrappers, which wasn’t gratifying like the fried stuff but refreshing in its way, till Minna said, “Oh, no. Sperm.”

  Crusty glanced over from the opposite side as Ravid asked, “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She tinged slightly.

  “What?”

  “Look. See. It’s alfalfa sprouts inside. Eww.”

  “You said...‘sperm.’”

  “That’s what it tastes like.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Now fully blushing, she attempted to clarify concisely so they could forget her poorly timed comment and move on, because it was nothing, and it slipped out carelessly. “Oh, you know, when a woman performs, you know, on a man, and eats the sperm, it tastes like alfalfa sprouts.”

  Crusty’s eyebrows rose to that swell. Ravid looked down. “No. I didn’t know that.” How did she know it? He looked at the exposed cross section of his unfried and unrefreshing spring roll, not exactly checking for sperm, but then he tossed it into the perimeter hedge as if it was tainted — with sperm, or at least with the taste of sperm. The taste of sperm? Who ever tasted sperm? Well, I mean, except for my sperm. But she never complained about that, not the taste or the amount. In fact, she... Hey, they all taste it sooner or later and know about the alfalfa sprouts too. It’s like two aspirin and vagina juice for the guys. Never mind. Let it go. A mongoose would find the spring roll and surely celebrate the joyous day as well.

  So maybe it was time to move on — with life and whatnot.

  Skinny got a shrimp, a scallop and a squid stacked vertically like the fa fa restaurants that charge ninety dollars for the exact same cat snax. Crusty finished his bubbly and then one more, thank you, taking the edge off one thing and another, easing into the lovely, beautiful afternoon. The magistrate took a sip and his leave. Crusty finished the bottle and cried; he was so happy for the lovebirds and so taken by this gesture of friendship for all time. Then he fell asleep on the lanai, on a chaise in the shade.

  So the scene eased into wedded bliss, beginning in that first hour with a contentment that transcended hunger, thirst and desire. Propping the pillows on the headboard, Ravid lay back with his beloved in his arms. In silence they watched the minutes slide by. They dozed, sharing a dream of love, as if such profound peace was tantamount to consummation.

  They woke near nightfall, with Crusty clearing his throat at the foot of the bed. With fond farewells they wished each other long futures and a safe drive home. Crusty shuffled out to his car, far from the fluidity of his professional element, high and dry, not yet aground but still an apparently old man.

  Resuming their place in bed, they stared at something other than minutes sliding by — or maybe it was the minutes passing far more deliberately, as if challenging the newlyweds to know what would come next. A lovely, casual fuck filled with love seemed most obvious, and with an entire lifetime dead ahead, they could hardly begin tapering so soon, especially on their wedding night. Ravid vowed with confidence that he would make no concession to mortality or waning vigor for many years. He knew that the flesh would fade long before the hearts and minds, and when that time came he would be prepared to accept it. Till then he would live life to the fullest, fending off the inevitable for as long as he could.

  Skinny leapt from the dresser to the chair to the nightstand and onto her place at the end of the pillow, complaining, maybe demanding another entrée. Or maybe she was jealous of the new level of frenzy on the bed; it was so focused on another. Her strained “Meow!” translated lucidly to the tough question, “What’s got into you?” Ravid laughed it off like a man removed from reason and rolled to where she perched, gazing up with the answer: This woman was what had got into him. He tickled her chin — the cat’s — and she purred, so the world wasn’t too far askew.

  Until a week into matrimony when Minna said she had to be away for a few days, not to worry. Here too he thought the better part of honor and obedience was to let it be, to forego the explanation. But a husband should know. So she explained that everything had happened so suddenly that she needed to go stay with her family and ease them into what had taken place. He looked puzzled. “You didn’t tell them?” She shook her head — but he knew that, or would have, had he thought for a minute about her family and its absence. But he didn’t, because, frankly, it felt like a full house already.

  “We eloped, you know. You can’t tell your family you’re going to elope. Once you tell them, you have to invite them. Boy, you don’t know anything, silly.”

  Well, she had a point there, and he’d been spared the mishpocha, or rather the ‘ohana, for who knew how long. Maybe they liked to hang out; maybe they’d still be there, sucking down the Coors Light and chopping up a few chickens and rabbits for another round of hekka in the carport, had they known. For that matter, who knew what the hell a Jewboy from Haifa had walked right into?

  Okay, so go. Then come back.

  Okay, and just that quickly she vanished. Relief and
depression rotated. Well, it was relief from unmitigated happiness round the clock with mind- and member-numbing love. Depression came naturally too, because he did love her. He recalled savoring his old life for so many years, which was good and bad. And now it was better or worse, as the saying went.

  It was a joke on board when Ravid forgot to latch the safety cable closing the gangway when the last passenger came aboard. Harmless comments drifted down the deck, about Ravid needing to lighten his load, or wanting to lose a few overboard. Nobody laughed or said boo when he left a tank valve closed, putting the diver in the water with an empty buoyancy compensator, so she sank, sucking on a dead reg. He snatched her back up from four feet down — okay, six feet, no big deal. Did she really, honestly think that kicking and screaming under water would improve her chances for survival? Did she honestly believe for one, single heartbeat that he would let her drown? What was that? I’ll tell you what: Not the first shred of faith, is what.

  Is that the same as faithless? No. It’s not.

  Did she not have a certification card legally allowing her to dive with compressed air? Did the card not indicate the successful completion of training? Did the training not begin, proceed and end with, Think and act. Don’t react? Was she not familiar with three quick releases that would have removed her buoyancy compensator and its lead weights in two seconds flat? Short of thinking and applying her training, did she not have the power in her legs and adrenaline in her heart to kick back up to the surface? Of course she did, and he could hardly be blamed if the power and adrenaline were displaced by the mush between her ears to the point where she flat fucking forgot the simple design, meaning and benefit of quick release. Come on, three clicks and out. And up...

  Well, he could be partly blamed, but not wholly. How could anyone suppose that buying passage on a dive boat would relieve them of fundamental responsibilities in safeguarding their own lives? She hadn’t even checked to see if her air was turned on.

  Fortunately, Ravid’s mutterings were minimized by more pressing demands. His group descended, in need of leadership. Other mutterings occurred when Ravid was under water with the rest, but damage was minimal. It was a rare day of no tips. Who cared? Tomorrow would be good for another boatload — plenty more tourists where these came from, enough for a few more days, weeks, months and years as necessary. Tomorrow would bring more tourists with valid training and maybe this time the wits to use it. Tomorrow would absolve a dive leader of his moment of inattention by virtue of letting it sink to the depths.

  Solitude at home should have allowed a love-bent man to regenerate and relax. But the old routine closed in as it had for some time, even with all wants so recently fulfilled: food, drink, sex, love. Things seemed worse than ever with her absence. I need a few days to explain things to my family. What? That she’d married a haole? Worse yet, she’d married one of those pale-complexioned people who eat Christian babies for Passover. Well, maybe that would be a recommendation as Minna’s family saw it. Who knew? Ravid laughed out loud, tossing a bow line, imagining Minna’s ‘ohana muttering pidgin approval over a husband who ate Christian babies. Still, she’d shown no sensitivity to his needs, no deference to his position. She’d left, and that was wrong. Then he realized that he, Ravid Rockulz, waterman of the world, was married and, better yet, in love.

  Well, you can’t avoid the judgment of others, and he knew he would face a gauntlet of others with his explanation of marriage to a shiksa — and worse, a...whadayacallit, Charlie Chan, Genghis Khan, what’s-his-name Odd-Job shiksa. That would be the gauntlet of one, swinging her weapons from all directions, beginning with the children not yet born to Ravid and what’s-her-name — and what would they be? And how would they know, and so on, to emotional fatigue, to set the stage for the most pressing question, in spite of the challenging logistics: So when, tell me, do I get my grandchildren?

  The next day wasn’t so bad, till Ravid stared at the unknown as if for meaning or knowing as the boat came up from the water askew on the trailer. Somebody yelled, so he yelled back, snapping out of his stupor, to back it down for straightening.

  Well, these and other anxieties were easily assuaged by a single image, which was Minna. Minna smiling. Minna sleeping. Minna happily chatting. Minna listening. Minna riding on top. Minna whimpering, oh, oh, oh.

  Ravid smiled again, hoisting empty tanks.

  Still haunted by his wife’s initial scolding on men and their overbearing needs, still cringing at the taste of alfalfa sprouts, he stifled the obvious questions, knowing many more questions would surface in the months and years ahead, in which he would get to know his wife. Two weeks already felt like long ago. Minna smiled in his recollection, touching a finger to her lips and then to his. She could do that; ease a pang with a fingertip in the softest touch imaginable.

  Hardly an hour later, alone in his cottage with his second beer in hand and four more in the fridge, he faced an afternoon and sundown of chronic assessment. It wasn’t natural for one being to so thoroughly occupy the thoughts of another, and he would surely think of something else, by and by.

  “Meow.”

  “Yes, I’ll think about you. I always do, but you know it’s not like that with you and me. I mean, you’re Skinny. I mean...” I mean, this is nuts. That one, what’s-her-name, was right — actually reasoning with a cat; it’s bonkers. But it isn’t, really, with a cat as reasonable as you, Skinny. But still.

  Slowly rotating each image of the wanton fornication of recent days and nights, his mind’s eye moved in a full-circle pan to catch every angle and ramification like they do in the movies that are mostly about nothing but star the two young people everyone wants to fuck. Or maybe everyone wants only to watch them fuck. Anyway, savoring his recent repast and foreseeable future, he viewed Minna as a gift that kept on giving, as youthful fantasy applied to the highest and best use. Scenes from the last two weeks replayed with gifted directing, and he wondered where they might take the action hence.

  His heart warmed on reward and promise, on a future looking good for love. So he pondered new approaches to new perversions doused in love. Reviewing the archives of sexual adventure, he knew he’d been blessed, living high among the rock stars, pro athletes and politicians, in easy access to excellent women. Dive instructors were as forgotten far inland as the sea itself, but dive leaders alone could showcase their wares as a matter of course, letting the women shop wantonly, as women like to do. The other big difference between watermen and rock stars, athletes or politicians was the caliber of women — women on vacation weren’t groupies collecting notorious names to their crotch notches, nor were they sickly, pale, raggedy females with stapled nipples and tattooed cootch clawing their way backstage — women who looked tolerable after a rock concert, a few beers and some drugs, in the dark.

  No, these were regular, everyday women of all ages, women who took care of themselves, running the offices of the world, building careers and, yes, taking care of children — good-looking women who hid nothing. How could they? And here they were in the tropics, looking 100 percent great in the light of day, with a fanciful yen for something sinful but harmless. Where better to shit far from your own backyard than three thousand miles from home, or six? Who better to fix in your crosshairs than the bronze man up front with the rippled stomach and bulging Speedos? Was he not easy to gaze upon, the focus of everybody’s attention as he casually explained the rules for not dying on the dive ahead? How fluidly he moved among so many people and so much equipment, his orders, guidance and leadership as fat-free as his sinewy body.

  More than one lovely thought bubble had asked if that was a facecloth rolled up in those Speedos, or was he happy to be here? And wouldn’t it be a lovely view, up and over the ripples on that stomach to those gray-green eyes? Oh, and those eyebrows, so dramatic over that nose. You wouldn’t really call it hooked, though it does have a bit of a bend in it, but really, you’d honestly have to call it cute, especially framed by those sandy, sun-bleached curls.


  Many women had observed Ravid. Some had offered themselves subtly, and others abruptly, point blank, though rarely without courtesy and etiquette. A woman might flirt, letting her eyes do the talking or leaning in to accentuate her cleavage, which was easily dismissed. Or she might be a career woman, pressed to him by the ambient urgencies around them, murmuring, “Are you free later?”

  To which he would smile, less friendly than sternly, and say no, he was not free later. In the beginning he assured them, “I am not a womaner.” That disclaimer ceased when a woman laughed and gently corrected him.

  “That’s ‘womanizer.’”

  “Womanizer?”

  “Yes. You mean you’re not a ‘womanizer.’ I love that. I love that you turned me down. Let me tell you what I had in mind...”

  And so from time to time in moments of need and natural remedy to the pressures of life, Ravid had succumbed to temptation, had given in to guidance with a beginner’s mind — had learned the ways of lust. But never more than once a week, except for rare occasions, like early departure followed by mid-week arrival, the knockouts going and coming, back-to-back, as it were, which was hardly desirable in emotional terms, but who could stand the loss without pondering compensation? Ravid had endless coaching from the cruder crew who stood no chance and envied his position. But he easily dismissed their bad advice, because necessity was one thing and disrespect was quite another.

  Yet in simple response to nature’s bounty, he came away from those anonymous, sultry encounters depleted and, worse, depressed at the shortfall of a tourism career. Many dive instructors worked it like a hot buffet, snatching a fresh dish every few days from the lunch carousel, happy to pass the years with no emotional encumbrance or sexual boredom. Would that qualify for a routine Basha Rivka would call “regular,” allowing the moss to grow? Maybe, but who could know?

  Well, an abundance of women hadn’t worked so well for Ravid, who fell in love too often and regretted most departures for the loss of company, companionship and sex. He could avoid tourist women and minimize his losses for a while, till he’d have to bag one or let himself be bagged — either way, he’d feel the loss again with small consolation that the right woman would come along in time.