End of the Ocean

by Matthew McBride

  Sage had to think, had to figure things out. What the hell was he doing?

  Wayne snapped his fingers at Sage, who looked bewildered.

  “What’s wrong, mate? You with me, boyo?”

  “It’s Ratri,” he said, though blurted out was more like it.

  “What about her?”

  “It’s just …” He trailed off. He did not know what to say.

  Wayne said, “Ratri, she Balinese?”

  “Javenese.”

  “She’s Javenese?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good. So what about her?”

  As Sage began to talk he realized he was telling Wayne his problems and he did not know why he was doing that. Could not believe he was doing that. But he kept telling. Because he felt like Wayne understood, that was the reason. He had become a friend, and that long plane ride from America seemed like years ago, though it had only been eight weeks.

  “You in love with her, mate?”

  “No,” Sage said, protesting, as if nothing could be more foolish.

  “Course you are.”

  Sage ran his hands through his hair and said it had happened fast.

  “It always does.”

  Sage said nothing. His feelings were real. He could not deny them anymore than he could deny his own existence. He loved her. How in the fuck did that happen? The pain he had allowed himself to feel that night on the beach was gone. Replaced with something beautiful he was unable to describe. Like meeting her had shown him he could live again, that life wasn’t over. There was something inside him worth loving and a future worth living for.

  He shook his head in disbelief at his own thoughts. It was unlike him to think this way. “I need a drink.”

  “Then you shall have one,” Wayne said, sitting up in his chair, leaning toward Sage. “Listen, it’s OK. It happens.”

  “What happens?”

  “Love happens. You come to Bali and you fall into it.”

  “Ever happen to you?”

  “It’s happening now.”

  “Ogi?”

  Wayne nodded.

  “You love her?”

  “How could I not?”

  “So take her with you, man.”

  Wayne, frowning, swallowing as he took a drink, shook his head.

  “She can’t leave.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s Balinese, and I’m a bloody Australian.”

  “So?”

  “So?” Wayne said. “So they’ll disown her if she leaves—her family.”

  “Then stay,” Sage said, not knowing what that meant. “I’m sure you can afford it.”

  Wayne, smiling now, nodding his head in agreement as if to say, I can afford anything I want, said, “It’s not about affording it, money’s not the issue…while money will buy almost anything here, it will not buy a wife, not if she’s Balinese it won’t—Javanese maybe, their caste system’s different. Hell, you could marry Ratri and live here, but if she’s Balinese you’re just fucked, mate. Her family will refuse to acknowledge her.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Shaking his head, Sage said, “None of this shit over here makes sense.”

  Wayne, raising his coffee cup to his mouth, puckering his lips, blowing gently into the dark black pool that warmed his hand, said, “It’s a different world over here, mate.”

  Together, sitting beneath a ceiling fan set in high gear that hung from a long stilted pole attached to an overhead support truss that swayed and clanked with the rhythm of four long wooden blades, they watched a skinny gray cat sun itself on the steps as a waft of hot air blew across the veranda.

  Sage said, “I’m running out of money.”

  Wayne stood and walked inside and returned with two San Miguel Lights. He sat down in his chair, but did not respond, letting the silence build until it was awkward. Then he said, “What’re you gonna do?”

  “I dunno.”

  “How much longer you gonna last?”

  “A week.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s it?”

  “About the time my visa expires.”

  “You tell her?”

  “She knows.”

  “What, you can leave, but you can’t come back?”

  “I’ll barely have enough money to get home.”

  Wayne handed Sage a bottle and looked him over. Sage drank a quarter of the bottle and set it down. Wayne took a long drink and set his bottle down and asked Sage again what he would do.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re in a tight spot.”

  Sage said he knew it, but he did not know how to change it.

  Wayne said he understood, even though he didn’t, but he had seen it before, and that’s what he said, that he knew the behavior. The pattern. Someone comes to Bali for the first time and they fall in love: with the culture or the food or the island itself. But sometimes they fall in love with a person who cannot leave.

  He knew that pain and it resonated.

  “Sounds like you better think of something quick.”

  “Got any suggestions?”

  “I do.”

  Sage, looking at Wayne, arched his eyebrows, curious for this news.

  “What do you know about smuggling?”

  Sage laughed.

  Wayne took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “You’re serious?”

  Wayne stared at him with eyes that were small and hard and precise.

  “Know that I am.”

  Sage knew that he was. Once he considered it, so much about Wayne made sense. Every question Sage had ever had about him had been answered in one word.

  “So,” Sage said, pointing, “You’re a,” but he stopped himself.

  “Surprise.”

  Though excited, Sage was also horrified.

  “What, like you didn’t wonder about me? What I really did. How I made my money.”

  “I thought you were a consultant.”

  Wayne said, “True enough, mate. There’s a lotta rich people here.”

  Sage did not know what to say. He watched the sun reflect off his bottle.

  “Well,” Wayne went on, “what d’ya know about it?”

  “Smuggling?” Sage said, looking around, very quiet. “Nothing.”

  “You wanna learn?”

  “Learn what?”

  “The business?”

  “Do I wanna learn to be a smuggler? What would I smuggle? Drugs? You crazy?”

  Wayne said no. “Not drugs—bad idea there, mate. Terrible idea, really. But smuggling itself, yeah, that’s easy.”

  “How easy?”

  “As easy as taking a plane ride to the airport then a taxi cab to the bank.”

  That sounded too easy. Sage took a big drink, finishing off his bottle. Wayne did the same. They set their bottles down at the same time as if they’d planned it.

  Wayne stood and walked inside and returned with two more bottles.

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

  “Nobody does.”

  “Yeah,” Sage said, “but I really can’t see me doing it.” He snorted. “Really,” he said. “There’s no way, I can’t see it.”

  “I can.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I ain’t exactly the bullshitting type.”

  What Sage noticed about Wayne Tender was that he was exactly the bullshitting type. He was a Bullshitting Champion. But there was also a magnetism that pulled Sage toward him and he trusted that. He trusted Wayne. Sage saw his lifestyle, which was extraordinary, and how could he not want that? He had never seen anyone live so freely.

  He thought about his life then. It felt like a dream, but every moment of that dream belonged to so
meone else. Like he was an observer. Or a tourist. Still so hard to believe he was there, in Bali. That any of this was real. That he was truly in Indonesia, considering an illegal venture of some sort—because he loved someone he could not have unless he did the thing he was considering—because he knew if he left without her he would lose her. That was the reality of this moment in his life.

  Wayne, turning his wrist over, removed his watch and handed it to Sage.

  “What d’you think?”

  “It’s heavy.”

  Wayne nodded. “It’s gotta nice weight to it.”

  “Looks like a great watch,” Sage said. “I had a nice one myself—nothing like this of course—but a nice watch. Until someone stole it off my arm while I slept on the beach.”

  “Of course they did,” Wayne said, deciding not to ask any questions. “Anyway,” he continued, nodding his head, moving his sales pitch forward, feeling confident he had just the right words to persuade him, “the watch,” he pointed, “a Phillippe Patek, twenty-thousand dollars.”

  “Oh shit, Wayne,” Sage said, cupping his other hand around the watch and handing it back before he dropped it. But he was impressed. He had never seen a twenty-thousand-dollar watch before; nor could he understand why anyone would buy one. Twenty thousand was a lot of money. In Bali, a man could pay rent for five years and buy three used cars and half-a-dozen motorbikes with that kind of cash.

  “And that’s just one run.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, you do a run for me that could be yours.”

  “You get a watch?”

  “You get twenty G’s”

  Fuck. That was more money than Sage had ever seen at one time and the gravity of that pulled his jaw toward the floor. He could ask Ratri to marry him. She would say yes, he knew she would. That would make him a citizen. And she was Javanese, not Balinese; they could live in Bali for years. According to Wayne, Sage could work and earn money, as long as he was a citizen. As long as Ratri was his wife.

  It was all too much to consider. Sage had not seen this coming.

  “No more money problems,” Wayne said. “You can live here in paradise with your girlfriend or you can take her with you—after all, she’s Javanese, not Balinese, so you can take her away from all this if you want—you’re lucky.”

  Sage felt his pulse beat in his neck. Not sure if what he felt was luck or something else, but it was something he had never felt before.

  “I would never smuggle drugs, there’s no way. That’s insane, right there.”

  “Of course you’re not, mate, I wouldn’t let you. Hell, I wouldn’t let myself.”

  Sage thought about it. “What then? What else do people smuggle, besides drugs?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I guess I would,” Sage said. “I think you’re fucking with me.”

  “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know, why would you?”

  Wayne looked at Sage but said nothing.

  “This is a lot to take in,” Sage said.

  “Think about it.”

  “It’s a lot to think about.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re truly serious? You’re not just fucking with me?”

  Wayne, standing now, buttoning his shirt, said, “If you have to ask me twice just forget it.” Turning, walking toward the front of his villa, abandoning their conversation, he told Sage he would see him later.

  “Wait,” Sage said, standing, stumbling over his chair. He followed Wayne to the house, and, turning to look at Sage, Wayne said yes he was serious. Then he asked Sage what about you?

  “I guess. I’m just trying to absorb this, you know? Guess I just figure I’d go back home, work for a bit, save some m—“

  “—save some money, yeah yeah, I know. You’ll stay in touch with Ratri, you’ll Facebook, you’ll Skype, tell her how much you love her, but how long’s that gonna last?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What, do you really think you’re gonna come back and get her? Really? When’s that supposed to happen? Let’s be real, Sage. It’ll take years to save up the money to come back here, and for what? You’d be in the same situation. By then she’ll have moved on. Think about that.”

  Sage had thought about that. He knew what Wayne said was true; those were things he had already told himself. And while he could not see himself actually committing the act of international smuggling, perhaps it was still worth looking into.

  Wayne stepped toward him. Said, “Listen, I hate to break this to you, but if you love this woman and you leave without her you will lose her. It’s that simple. That is the reality of this life, mate. When you travel the world and you fall in love, you can’t take them with you, and you can’t stay with them if you don’t have the bread.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t on plan this.”

  “No one does.”

  “I just wanted to get away, man. I didn’t plan anything, I didn’t care. I thought I’d come to Bali, drink until my money ran out. I never thought I’d meet someone like her.”

  “Yeah,” Wayne said. “But you did.”

  He looked at Sage, who did not speak. A lizard ran across the sidewalk and stopped. It did not move for a long time. Finally Wayne told Sage what he thought he should do.

  “What I’m sayin’ is this: You’ve got ta trust me, boyo. This is all about trust, mate, and I wouldn’t bring you into this if I didn’t trust myself, see, because I don’t want any bloody trouble my way. You get caught, I get caught, and I don’t plan on gettin’ caught, OK? You’ll do a visa run, be gone a few days. Come back, I pay you enough money to last a couple of years, you spend it right. Shit, you can start a business. Tourists, they come here with money, they’re loaded. You gotta trust me, it’s easy, Sage. It’s so fucking easy. Make a plan. Think about the money.”

  Sage thought about the money and how far that much would go—a lot of rent, a few years of living in Bali—taking it all in, trying to focus, Sage tried to put his thoughts to words, but his mind ran wildly from him; the only thing he saw was Ratri: in a short red dress, standing in thick verdant undergrowth beneath flourishing trees that bore dragon fruit in abundance.

  Then there was a cliff that overlooked the ocean and their home was beside it.

  In that moment it seemed easy.

  Sage, looking around, leaning close to Wayne, said, “What would I be smuggling if I’m not smuggling drugs?”

  Wayne, turning now, stepping up wide stone steps, told Sage to jump in the pool and clean himself off, they’d be leaving in half an hour.

  “I gotta meeting to attend’n you’re comin’ with me.”

  Standing in the sun, sweating, Sage could not believe he just had that conversation. Shaking his head, walking to his chair, he picked up his bottle, stubbing his toe on a short wooden table. Cursing, Sage took a drink and limped toward the pool.

  ***

  Grady spent his first few days of captivity packed inside a small cell in Denpasar with twenty-four strange men, from a variety of countries, before they moved him to Kerobokan Prison where he was crammed inside an even smaller cell with twenty-six; he being the twenty-sixth, which was twenty men too many and his new acquaintances were forthright to let him know.

  He was nervous and had not heard from anyone since his arrest. He’d been expecting a visit from his girlfriend, or Djoko, someone, but he had yet to receive one. He was worried. He’d been caught with thirteen grams of methamphetamine—what they found in his camera bag, which he had stashed in the trunk of his motorbike.

  It was enough to go to prison, but not enough to get the death penalty. At least, he didn’t think so. But he might get twenty years. Maybe less—but maybe more. You never knew, not in Bali, a place where everything was for sale. So he had money put back. Not a lot, but a little. Enough to get him out of trouble if he ever found himself in it. Like he did now.
The remainder of what money was required to make his bribe would be paid by Djoko. Because he was his partner, and his friend. And because Djoko wanted him out. Grady was an investment. Plus, he knew things. Enough to put Djoko in there with him if he chose to, which he wouldn’t. Something he knew, but Djoko didn’t. How could he? He had not even called.

  Grady worried. If he could not get out of prison he would die inside, one way or another, because a man who knew too much was a liability and Grady knew too much.

  But soon they would come. They had to. He was less valuable dead than alive.

  Closing his eyes, imagining he was somewhere else, anywhere else, lying on the hot dirt floor, blocking out the voices around him, he tried to sleep, the only thing there was to do. After not having much luck he thought about the beaches in the countries he’d flown over, time and time again, hot white sand beneath his feet, cold beer in his palm; the other, an outstretched hand of a beautiful companion as he walked those beaches in his mind, smelled cool air as it came off the ocean in bursts of saline froth he could taste, sweating on the floor of his cockroach infested cell, surrounded by a cluster of inmates: gambling and smoking and shitting.

  ***

  They arrived at a small warung and parked in a throng of motorbikes. Sage followed Wayne inside and they walked to the back room, bowing to a woman who stood before a long brown sheet that was a doorway. They passed through it, entering an even smaller room with an earth floor covered in loose rocks and dirt.

  Ngyn and Djoko were waiting; both looked surprised to see a stranger.

  “Gentlemen,” Wayne said.

  They each bowed their heads. Neither stood. They looked at Sage then Wayne.

  “Who he?” Ngyn asked.

  “That’s him,” Wayne said.

  Ngyn looked at Sage then at Wayne then back at Sage then to Djoko.

  “This is the guy,” Wayne said, turning, pointing to Sage. “This is him.”

  “Sage,” Sage said, introducing himself, bowing uncomfortably.

  Each man, standing now, returned his bow and shook his hand.

  “It very nice to meet you,” Ngyn said.

  “Yes,” Djoko followed. When they shook, each man’s grip was firm. “It is my pleasure,” Djoko said.

  “Suskema,” Sage said.

  Djoko, raising his eyebrows, surprised Sage knew that word even though he said it wrong, said, “Ah, he know suksma, yeah yeah—suksma mowali.”