End of the Ocean

by Matthew McBride

  Sage, setting the bottle down, lifting his shirt, wiped water and sweat from his face.

  “This thing is huge, mate,” Wayne went on. “That’s how these big shot politicians make their money around here. They’re crooked as fook! They let deals like this go through if one comes along, and a deal like this, with pure, uncut diamonds, this kinda deal only comes along once in a lifetime.”

  Wayne stopped talking, let his words sink in. After a minute he said, “So that’s it, you gotta do this. These considerate chaps will even throw you another ten grand as incentive. Ya see what I’m saying? Let’s just get this over with. Hell …even if you leave, and after this business who could blame you, give part of this money to the girl if you love her, mate. That’ll change her life.”

  Sage, finishing the bottle, nodded, and when he did Wayne relaxed, stood and spoke a few words Sage did not understand. Then, Sage, screwing on the plastic lid, heard a merger of relief and contentment come from somewhere behind him, where it was dark and the light could not reach.

  Everyone relaxed and Sage felt the energy shift in the room.

  Wayne left again, but within minutes returned with a Balinese woman who carried a wad of newspapers that held freshly smoked pork with white rice, smothered in honey, a bowl of fruit, and an ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola.

  Sage, famished and very grateful, stood, accepting the food, bowing his head, saying, “Terima kasih.”

  “Eat up, my friend,” Wayne said. “You’ll be on a plane on your way outta this paradise in less than eight hours.”

  The phone he’d been holding chirped and Wayne, unlocking the screen, looked at the picture he was sent, winced, then, exceedingly reluctant, handed the phone to Sage.

  It was an image of Ratri, lying on a Styrofoam mattress, covered in a thin sheet that clung to her; she looked very dirty and appeared to wear little, if she wore anything.

  Sage stared at her tearstained face until the screen went dark, and then handed the phone to Wayne. Saddened beyond comprehension at his current level of self-loathing, he lowered his head to his lap and held his face in his hands.

  ***

  Djoko Koplak woke early, as was his custom when he had not done cocaine. It had been several weeks since he had done any of that. Lately he’d been lying low. Being cautious. He had expected a message about Sage’s time at the prison but it had yet to come. Djoko wasn’t worried, though he had not talked to Ngyn. He was excited at the prospect of seeing Grady released, though he was still upset with Grady. He had been careless, reckless, flaunting millions in rupiah in warungs and cafés, buying prostitutes and methamphetamine, having drug orgies in rented villas. He was out of control.

  Now, being arrested, his face in the news, it changed everything. But Djoko was glad Sage had seen him. Grady was his friend. While he would not go to Kerobokan himself, at least Sage gave him a message. That today, his friend Djoko would meet his attorney and make an offer to the judge. It was just a matter of time, he’d told Wayne to tell Sage: Tell Grady sooner or later he will be free.

  Stretched out on his floor, he relaxed. For once he did not feel like surfing. He felt like riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle. After a hot cup of coffee and a joint, he sat on his back steps and watched the ocean. It was as beautiful that day as it ever was. A view he would never grow tired of.

  He showered outside and dried in the sun and left on his Harley Davidson, hair damp, no helmet, taking his time, racing toward Uluwatu, Djoko had to clear his head. He opened the throttle and the rear tire broke traction and screeched. It was hard not to smile like a child when that happened. Those moments felt good. The horsepower he was in control of. The way the machine responded to his touch.

  Leaning into a corner, jerking the throttle, the tire broke loose and slid to the left. He shifted gears, the engine thundered. He raced on. Passing cars and taxis and motorbikes. Then, slowing down at the traffic ahead, which had come to a standstill, he turned down a side street to avoid it. On this road a dump truck had stalled in his lane. Gravel pile dumped beside it. There was no way around the dump truck; there was nowhere to go. He stopped. Revving his engine as a van pulled beside him. Two men in back; a man in the driver’s seat.

  Djoko nodded as the driver looked him over. Asked him in Indonesian for a smoke.

  Waiting for the dump truck to start, talking to the man beside him, Djoko lit a cigarette for himself and offered one to the driver.

  “Terima Kasih,” the driver said, grinning, showing few teeth, leaning out the window, eager to accept an American cigarette, as a man, climbing from the van’s passenger side, walked behind Djoko and hit him the head with a sledgehammer.

  Djoko slumped on to the gas tank, his head crushed. The Harley, still running, lurched forward. Djoko fell to the ground and the motorcycle fell on top of him.

  The man climbed in the van, which turned around and disappeared.

  The dump truck started its engine and drove away.

  ***

  Sage barely slept, but when he did he dreamed. When he woke he remembered nothing of the dreams. Blinking his eyes, he let them adjust to the room. It was hot. Sunlight came through a massive hole in the roof. As he rolled to his side, damp with sweat, sitting up, looking down at the mattress, it looked like the same one he’d seen Ratri on and he wondered if it was.

  When he thought of her he was awake and very angry. He wanted to do this and be finished with this. He wanted to love Ratri. But first he had to save her from a situation he’d created.

  He heard two knocks on a battered wooden door, on the right side of the room. When the door opened, Wayne, stepping into the room, bowed, said, “Pagi,” and asked Sage if he was ready. It would soon be time to go.

  After dressing in the same clothes he had worn the day before, Sage, escorted by Wayne Tender, exited a rundown structure attached to the back of another rundown structure and squinted at the brightness of the sun.

  He was placed in the backseat of a black SUV, while Wayne, climbing in beside him, told him scoot over, closed the door, and spoke to the driver in Indonesian.

  Sage remained quiet, looking out the window, trying to gage his location. Not that it mattered; he could never find his way back, everything looked the same.

  Wayne, pulling a hefty joint from the pocket of his shirt, put it in his mouth, lit the end with a match, puffed a few times, and coughed. Once he saw it take fire, he shook out the flame, rolled down his window and flicked the burnt stick to the road, taking long, slow drags, holding smoke deep in his chest, pointing to the backpack beside Sage, he said, “There’s your bag, mate, best take stock of the inventory.” Wayne, coughing harshly, drew off the joint again then handed it to Sage, who refused it. Looking at Wayne instead, Sage told him he was fucking crazy.

  Wayne pretended to be offended, eyes wide and alert. Shrugging, holding the joint under his nose, sniffing wisps of smoke that burned from the lit end, he nodded his head as if to agree with Sage, that yes, he was fucking crazy. And, after ashing the end of the joint on the rubber floormat beneath his feet, he brought it back to his lips for a few quick puffs. Then, inhaling deeply, holding it as long as he could, the SUV’s suspension bouncing through potholes both deep and wide, he released his breath and filled the interior of the SUV in a blur of dense gray smoke.

  Sage coughed and waved his hand in front of his face. Lowered his window to air out the backseat and concentrated on the task at hand. He asked Wayne again what he was supposed to do.

  “Just walk me through it.”

  “No problem,” Wayne said. “Be happy to, mate. I want you to feel good about this.”

  Sage scowled, as Wayne, sensing his disconcert, said, backpedaling to an extent, “Well, I want you to feel as good about this as you can,” which, they both knew as soon as Wayne said it, was not good at all.

  After rehearsing the story and the multiple locations and the overall plan, which included Wayne gi
ving Sage a burner phone, they arrived at the airport and parked. The driver climbed out of the front seat and walked to the back, opened Sage’s door, and took the backpack from the seat beside him. Then Sage climbed out.

  Wayne opened his own door, stepped out, walked around the car, and, extending his hand, taking Sage’s in return, squeezing firmly, said, “They’re gonna let you walk right through the airport when you leave Thailand and right back through this airport when you get back.”

  “Right,” Sage said, nodding but unsure of himself.

  “Once you’re inside someone’s gonna ask if you need assistance. What d’you say?”

  “Tell them I do.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s a friend.”

  “That’s a friend, exactly. Just remember, whoever approaches you, though I have no idea who it will be, he works with us.” He looked Sage in the eyes. “Got it?”

  Sage said he did.

  Wayne, leaning toward Sage, throwing his arm around him, offered a brief hug, one that seemed genuine, as if to say he knew what Sage was going through.

  It was something Sage needed, whether he knew it or not.

  “Be safe,” he said.

  “OK. Don’t let them—”

  “She’ll be fine, mate. Just get to Krabi, to Banana House. And do what?”

  “Ask for a guy named Puii.”

  “That’s right. Just relax, they’re bloody gemstones, ain’t like its drugs. They’ll be well hidden. Dogs’ll never find ‘em, and, not to put too fine a point on it, but, just remember what I told ya, I can’t stress that enough, this is important: trust whatever bloke is working that x-ray machine when you get back; he’s going to be your friend. The same person you’ll see right now—Ngyn’s guy.”

  Sage said, “OK.”

  “I’ll call you in a day or two, once Puii sorts you out.”

  Sage, drawing a deep breath, said goodbye to Wayne Tender, turned and cautiously, uneasily, made his way to the airport.

  Ngurah Rai International Airport was a dangerous place for a smuggler. Sage remembered the sign he’d seen when he’d first stepped off the plane, and how it had been placed in such a way that anyone who entered the airport had no choice but see it:

  WELCOME TO INDONESIA DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICERS!

  It sent a powerful message, but Sage took comfort in the fact that the sign made no reference to anyone smuggling diamonds and the absence of that warning gave him the confidence he needed.

  His backpack was very light and he wondered if it had enough clothes. And, if so, where did they get them, and how would they know his size? Did they go back to his apartment and rummage his room?

  Feeling nervous, palms glossed with sweat, he looked for a restroom but saw no sign of one. He stopped, removing his phone from his pocket even though he had no reason to. Pretending to tend to important business, he scrolled through the options but the phone they had given him was cheap and had few options to scroll.

  Sage laughed at this, like he had begun to laugh at everything.

  “Excuse me,” someone from behind him said.

  Sage, turning abruptly, faced a large Indonesian man who stood before him, both tall and wide; he was solidly put together with broad shoulders and a thick chest, but a small head on top of it all, which appeared, inharmoniously, out of place.

  The man, an employee of the airport, did not look friendly or kind, but tough and suspicious, and he smirked in a way that offered Sage no confidence.

  “May I help you?” he said.

  Sage nodded.

  “How-may-I-help-you?” the man said, speaking slow, narrowing his eyes as Sage tried to determine if this was random.

  “I’m, uh …not sure. I mean … I guess … I guess I could use help. Right?”

  The man, lifting his thick arm, raising it before him, told Sage, “After you.” Then, pointing toward the ticket counter, told Sage he must first check in.

  “Then go to security,” he said, “there.” He pointed to an area with many security officers and several polisi, all of them with hard looks and distrustful eyes.

  “OK,” Sage said, feeling vulnerable, looking at the man for a sign he was a friend, not a random employee who had approached him by mistake, but there was none. “Terima kasih.”

  The man, departing for more pressing duties, something which pleased Sage greatly, disappeared into a crowd of travelers as Sage approached the counter and showed his passport. Sage walked through security and made it to his terminal, all in good time, with an hour until takeoff, and after finding a chair in the corner, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them it was time to board the plane. No one had approached him, except the large man, and no way could Sage trust that son of a bitch. He could see right through him. Sage let out a deep breath and closed his eyes again, wanted to fall asleep again, but the passengers around him stirred.

  The flight from Bali to Thailand was almost thirty hours shorter than the flight to Bali from the United States, but after an extended layover in Singapore, and bearing in mind his mental condition throughout the whole experience, Sage felt like it was just as long.

  When the plane landed in Krabi he was nervous, but he felt much safer once he saw the airport. After considering its modest size he felt more secure. Even if that sense of security was false, it was still something to cling to, and having anything to cling to was better than having nothing at all.

  He paid attention as he left the plane. Once inside, from behind the dark sunglasses he used as refuge, he made note that, the airport, though small, had no shortage of security. There were countless staff and personnel, but the faces he saw were friendly and seemed to lack the suspicion he had previously encountered. He was questioned briefly and given his stamp, then processed into one of two long lines whose many occupants had been herded like cattle to a gated area to have their carry-on bags run through x-ray.

  He felt fine. There was nothing to this. He knew his bag was clean so he relaxed and enjoyed that feeling, knowing it was the last time he would have it.

  Once his bag was successfully x-rayed and his passport rechecked, and after passing the last security checkpoint, Sage, feeling sure and unruffled, was besieged by an onslaught of drivers standing ground by the baggage claim, women he assumed to be prostitutes, and a variety of panhandlers.

  Remembering what Wayne had told him, he walked directly to the currency exchange, and after exchanging the five hundred American dollars Wayne had supplied him with for roughly seventeen thousand in Thai baht, Sage, feeling encouraged after negotiating his first foreign language transaction, sought the most honest taxi driver he could find. After dodging the advances of more than twenty, he came to a small, thin man who bore an odd resemblance to his high school gym coach. And after hearing his sales pitch and agreeing to a fee that was disproportionately high, Sage, with a strong sense of relief after having made it this far, climbed in the backseat of the taxi and closed his eyes. The driver climbed in front, and, turning toward Sage, said, “Halo, my name Ongard Sangwan. How you today?”

  Sage, opening his eyes, felt sudden jubilation at the sound of his native tongue. “I’m fine, thank you,” he said. “How are you?”

  Onward nodded and, smiling in the rearview mirror, told Sage he was very good. He asked Sage if he was American.

  “Yes.”

  Ongard nodded. “I always want go to America,” he said, shrugging. “But I have not made it yet.”

  “Well, maybe one of these days you will.”

  Ongard nodded hopefully, and Sage asked him if he saw many Americans.

  “No, some time but,” he paused, as if he had to consider the best way to arrange his words. “Some time I do, but not much. Australia yes, look like you but have accent. Some time Russia too.” He soured his face then, as if to suggest he did not like Russians.

&
nbsp; Looking out the window, Sage saw a new world even stranger than the one he’d left behind. Power lines that hung from wooden poles draped only ten feet above the street, and, at times, more wires than he could count were grouped together, dangling in a manner that would suggest extreme danger where he came from, but here it was as common as the sun rising in the morning to warm the air.

  The streets were busy; there were many people: walking and riding bicycles and riding motorbikes. Beside the taxi a man without legs dragged himself across the ground without benefit of any clothing at all save for dirty underwear, and, using the calloused nubs of his amputated stumps as legs, he appeared to make good time.

  “You here on bidness, boss?” Ongard asked, smiling with half of his mouth, the other half clinching firmly, a thin, brown cigarette.

  “No, not really. Just always wanted to go to Thailand.”

  “Ah,” Ongard said. “You go to Bangkok? See ping pong show?”

  “No, just here. I mean, here in Krabi. This is my first time in Thailand.”

  “Ah,” Ongard said, turning onto a much wider road and accelerating. “You never go to Bangkok, that unusual. Most American already go to Bangkok. Everyone love it there.”

  “Maybe I’ll check it out before I leave.”

  Ongard nodded, as if that was a fine idea. “There much pleasure there,” he added.

  “That’s good to know.”

  “But this Thailand, there pleasure everywhere for American.” He laughed and asked Sage if he was married or did he travel alone.

  “I’m divorced.”

  “Ah, I married forty-four year tomorrow,” Ongard said proudly.

  “Really? That’s pretty amazing.”

  He nodded, saying, “She my queen.”

  Sage smiled respectfully, and Ongard, seeing him in the mirror, returned his smile.

  “Congratulations,” Sage said. “That’s a long time. Mine barely made it ten years.”