End of the Ocean

by Matthew McBride

  “It’s a whole different world over here,” Andy said. “Your people back home, they have no idea.”

  “No, sir,” Sage said. “They do not.”

  After finishing his steak, dark pink, medium rare, the best Sage swore he had eaten, they negotiated a deal on the biggest motorbike Andy had. And after paying his fee up front, Sage shook Andy’s hand and climbed on the motorbike: taller, wider, and faster than Sage was used to. Confidently pulling off the footway, he rode down the street, toward the beach, wind in his face, cooler than it had been in Bali. Throngs of tourists cluttered both sidewalks he passed between: eating and drinking and taking pictures.

  He rode on. Doing what he could to push dark thoughts to the back of his mind, trying to forget he was riding this motorbike on the eve of a smuggling run he was forced to partake in so the woman he loved would not be murdered or raped or sold into slavery.

  By the time Sage parked his motorbike and walked toward the beach it was late and the sun had begun to set and everyone around him seemed to stop whatever conversations they’d been having, however big or small, and redirect their attention to the west, toward a bleached white sky with pink and orange stains. But as much as he enjoyed the view, seeing it without her was not the same as seeing it with her by his side, and the fact he was alone made it not worth seeing at all.

  He left. Turning, walking from the sand, he saw couple after couple holding hands, walking and talking and kissing and whispering. Seeing so much love almost broke him, and the more he saw the harder it was to breathe, until he was walking as fast as he could, searching for his motorbike. Then, once he found it, he climbed on, started the engine, and, pulling from the lot into the dimly lit night, sounds of tourists and horns behind him, slipping his earbuds in, he rode without destination or direction, riding and thinking and embracing his solitude. When he realized he was lost, he turned his motorbike around and, colossal moon above him, ocean to his right, rode back to Ao Nang in warm darkness as black as any night he had known.

  It was late when he got back to Banana House and Topp was not there. A woman who spoke little English was there instead.

  Sage explained he’d been there earlier, that Topp was his friend.

  “He said he’d give me a good deal.”

  She did not understand most of what he said, but some she did, and after opening a long wooden drawer under the bar, narrow but sturdy, she removed several keys, inspecting them closely and giving one to Sage that said 5. Pointing up, then pointing to the other room, she motioned him around the pool table, to the door against the wall, where, behind it, he thought she said, was a set of stairs.

  After thanking her with a head nod that became a bow, unsure if he should pay her or not and deciding against it since she did not seem to expect it, he walked around the pool table, opened the door, climbed two flights of stairs, and came to the top floor. He walked down a short hallway to a door that said 5, and after fumbling with the key, jetlagged, more tired than he had ever been, he entered the room and turned the fan on high, took off his shirt and shorts and fell to the bed, sleeping soundly.

  It was hot in the morning and Sage was damp with sweat. He left his room, making his way to a small bathroom that was shared by everyone, and, after finding it empty, he decided to shower.

  He returned to his room and went through his backpack but found no soap. No toothbrush either. Just a bottle of Stetson cologne that belonged to someone else, a pair of shorts that didn’t fit, and a can of Indonesian hairspray he’d never seen before and could, in no way, use.

  Frustrated, shaking his head in disbelief, but also laughing out of sheer frustration, he opened a second section and found a plastic comb that did not belong to him either but a Cardinal’s baseball hat that did. It was the hat he’d kept stuffed in the trunk of his motorbike; he hadn’t seen it since the night he was kidnapped.

  He thought about that then. Had he really been kidnapped? He guessed he had.

  Jesus. What the hell was happening? Whose stuff was this?

  He left the room and returned to the communal bathroom, tossed his shorts on the sink and climbed in the shower. It was small but clean, and the water was cold but he’d gotten used to cold showers by now and knew the first minute was the hardest.

  With clenched teeth he endured it as the door opened and a man walked in. Mumbling something in a language unlike any Sage had heard, he raised the toilet seat and pissed in the bowl. Then, after flushing the toilet and mumbling something else, all of which Sage failed to respond to, the man, leaving the bathroom with a fart, closed the door behind him and turned out the light.

  After rinsing off in near darkness, and feeling as clean as he could after a cold shower without soap, Sage put on the same dirty clothes for the third day, walked downstairs and paid for his room. He asked Topp again about Puii, and Topp told him come back tonight.

  “He be here then.”

  Sage bowed and walked outside, climbed on his motorbike and started it. He left, riding south because there was less traffic and less traffic was the thing he longed for. He could not sit in a bar all day and wait. He’d start drinking. It was all that he could do. The only thing that would take his mind off the fact he had lost her as soon as he’d found her.

  Riding this motorbike, more commanding than he was accustomed, he rode faster than he had before, leaning into curves, putting her out of his mind. By late afternoon he stopped at a 7-11 to buy a phone card. The Tourist Package Wayne said it would be called, but, according to the third employee Sage talked to—since the two who preceded him spoke no English at all and were unable to assist him—they no longer carried that card. In fact, if Sage were to believe them, it appeared they had never carried that card at all.

  Discouraged, Sage left and returned to Ao Nang, stopping to eat at a restaurant where he ordered fried chicken, which was good, a bottle of Coke, and some kind of bread that tasted like potato chips.

  He returned to Banana House, expecting to find Topp, but he was disappointed.

  “He at his other job,” the bartender said. “He work at travel agency. He also do tattoo.”

  “Right,” Sage said. “What about Puii? He around?”

  She shook her head and raised her shoulders.

  “Puii?” Sage said, aware that surely he was saying it wrong.

  With slight recognition across her face, she pointed to the pool table where two Thai men talked and a third man racked balls, implying, through body language, that one of the three of them, if not all three of them, could help Sage if he wanted.

  He tried to say thank you in Thai but failed, and she, correcting him, said, “Khob khun.”

  Standing by the bar, feeling foolish, unsure how he should approach them—if he should approach them—Sage watched them play. The tall one might be tough, he judged, but the other two looked weak.

  He ordered a beer and considered his options. He was not afraid of any of them. Not that he should have been. But he wasn’t. It was important to remember that.

  Taking out his phone, which had not worked since Bali, he thought about Wayne Tender. How he could not call him since his number was in the phone they took and the phone they gave him had no numbers. Sage was on his own.

  He sat alone and drank his beer. Waited for his moment. In the street a tuk-tuk passed with a load of people in the back: tourists, waving, taking pictures with their phones.

  Sage, feeling eyes upon him, twisted on his stool as a man advanced, the tall one he’d seen playing pool, and when he got to the bar and stopped beside him Sage knew he was the one.

  “Puii?”

  Bowing, smiling, he said, “Bartender say you ask for me.”

  “I was told to find you.”

  “Why?”

  Sage, still sitting, said, “Wayne sent me.”

  “Yeah yeah, Mister Wayne Tender. How he doing?”

  “He’s fine. But he’s also in a b
ig hurry.” Sage shook his head up and down. “You understand? Big hurry.”

  “Yeah, I understand. Mister Wayne serious man.”

  “Very serious.”

  “Yeah, you come with me tomorrow, we take ride.”

  “I think I’ll wait here.”

  “No no,” Puii said, now smiling, “No, it cool, man. We go for ride on motorbike. I show you Thailand, man.”

  “Wait,” Sage said. “You’re supposed to have something for me—”

  “Shh.” Puii, wrinkling his face, shook his head no, bringing his finger to his lips. “No talk bout that. What, you crazy, man?”

  “Sorry,” Sage said, feeling stupid, like the amateur he was. But then, also, wondering how they were supposed to talk about it if they were not supposed to talk about it?

  “Do not worry, everything cool, man. You will meet me tomorrow,” he said, “I see you in morning, front of bar.”

  Sage told Puii that was fine, reminding him, “Wayne’s in a hurry.”

  “Yeah yeah, you say that already two time.”

  “Wayne told me to remind you twice.”

  “Yeah yeah.”

  “You said it yourself: Wayne Tender is a serious man.”

  “What bout you, America. You serious man?”

  Sage swallowed, standing, leaning close, looking down, narrowing his eyes, relying on his size and his relationship with Wayne for confidence, he said, “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  Taking a step back, waving his arms, Puii said, “Yeah yeah, you serious man too. That good, I like serious man. Serious man do good bidness.”

  “I just need to get back.”

  “Yeah, I understand. Now I go. See you tomorrow, serious man.”

  Letting out a deep breath as soon as Puii left, Sage felt drained, yet also, somehow, rejuvenated. It had taken all his strength to stand his ground, but for the first time in his life he felt like an important man. Though he’d felt an immediate dislike for Puii, he’d remembered what Wayne had told him, to be confident, tough. And when he had been tough, Puii responded by backing down.

  To have earned that respect felt good, and it built his confidence.

  Sage drank the rest of his beer and thought about leaving but decided to stay. He had no where else to go, no one to talk to. He would have one more round. Just to show Puii he was the kind of man to do what he wanted and what he wanted to do was drink. And he did. For the next three hours. Long after the sun had set and Puii and his associates had left the building, Sage drank, until it was late. When Topp arrived Sage was drunk, with a glare on his face, barely standing, slant-eyed and wobbly-legged. And after being escorted outside by Topp to see his Harley Davidson, Sage, stumbling over his own sandals, climbed the stairs, falling up several and back down a few more, pulling himself back to his feet with the handrail. He made his way to the top floor, found his room, and, leaning against the wall as he fished the key from his pocket, unlocked the door. Opening it, losing his balance but catching himself, laughing drunkenly, he stumbled in, kicking the door closed behind him. Falling to the bed, he slept and did not wake until it was light and it was hot and sun came in the window and it was day.

  ***

  It was early morning when Sage walked to the bar and pulled out a chair and sat down. His head pounded and the last thing he wanted to drink was beer but when he saw Nam, the bartender whom he now remembered talking to the night before, she approached him, saying, “Sawatdee,” with a freshly drawn glass, dark color, modest foam. Sage, unwilling to be disrespectful, took the drink from her hand. Smiling, he said, “Khob khun,” which made her smile in return, her eyes lighting up, like after many failed attempts to pronounce it he had finally said it right.

  Sage took a quick breath and raised the glass. That first drink was the hardest but the second went down smooth. An hour later, as Sage finished his third beer, just as he had become frustrated, an aged scooter pulled up and Puii honked his horn. Sage, standing, pushing in his stool, said goodbye to Nam. Then, walking into the sun, he stood beside Puii, who, bowing, said, “You ready for ride, Mister Serious Man?”

  Sage said he was.

  “OK, we go now.”

  “Where to?”

  Puii turned his head to the side like he did not understand him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Relax,” Puii said. “We go for mountain ride. C’mon boss, try to keep up.”

  Grinning, Puii kick-started his scooter and revved its sad engine, as Sage, straddling his much nicer motorbike, sat down and turned the key and followed Puii to the street.

  Riding toward the outskirt of Ao Nang, Puii was jovial and content, smiling, humming, sometimes singing, while Sage rode in silence.

  The road they traveled was long with countless curves and bends, in some places narrow but in others wide, and after an hour of riding Sage pulled alongside Puii and, yelling over wind, asked him how much longer he thought it would be.

  Shaking his head, Puii said, “We almost there,” as Sage, pointing to his tank, told Puii he was out of gas.

  “OK,” Puii yelled, “We get petrol.”

  Sage, backing off his throttle, followed Puii for several kilometers until they came to a small stand on the side of the road where an old man, selling fish, stood beside a tall metal box, painted yellow. Puii, after pulling over, told Sage he could fill his tank.

  “Machine take baht,” he said, pointing. “Just put in.”

  Sage, off his motorbike now, lifted the seat and unscrewed the gas cap then opened his wallet and withdrew the smallest bill he had since the machine did not give change. Opening the glass door of the box, he inserted his money then slipped the nozzle into the tank.

  While the tank filled, Puii, smoking a cigarette, talked on the phone. The old man, toothless and crooked-backed, limped toward Sage, mumbling and hunched over. Holding a box in his hand, he asked Sage if he’d like squid.

  “No thanks,” Sage said politely.

  The man, acknowledging him with a slight wave, set the box of squid on the ground and, pulling a cigarette from his pocket, told Sage, “Sawatdee.”

  Sage, nodding, filled his tank and returned the nozzle to its cradle and closed the door.

  Waiting for Puii to get off the phone, Sage, standing beside the old man, looking across the road and over the trees, saw the mountains for what they were: wide at the bottom and tall on the sides, rounding nicely at the top without coming to much of a point. They’d looked soft and smooth from a distance but the closer he got the more he could see that was an illusion, that the mountain was rigid, and it was very rough; it looked impossible to climb unless mountain climbing was your specialty and, according to Topp, for many of the men in those parts, climbing mountains was what they did.

  “People actually climb those?”

  The old man, nodding as if he had understood, rambled sentence after sentence in Thai, all of it lost on Sage. Then, after he had finished, looked at Sage for a reply. Puii, slipping his phone in his front pocket, walking toward them, said, “They climb with rope made of many thick vine, climb to top, take bird nest, sell to Chinese for thousand dollar. They use it make soup.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? I just tell you, man. For thousand dollar. That make you rich here.”

  “How much farther?”

  “We almost there.”

  Sage, removing his own worthless phone from his pocket, saw the time was almost four, and, looking directly at Puii, said, “All I know’s this time tomorrow I’ll be on a plane, so I hope this comes together soon.”

  “Oh my God, you must trust me. Now c’mon, man, we must go.”

  They pulled back onto the road as the old man dropped his cigarette on the ground and snubbed it out with his bare heel, picked up the box of squid and, returning to his truck, watched them go.

  With Puii in the lead they rode several kilometers, then, swi
tching streets, rode slowly over broken concrete. Sage, gagged, holding his breath at the smell of raw sewage, though it did not seem to bother Puii. He watched with caution as they came to a small bar with several motorbikes parked in front and a black SUV. Puii, parking beside them, told Sage it was time to have a drink.

  “Listen,” Sage said, parking his motorbike. “I’m not thirsty. I thought we had to meet someone.”

  “We do like I tell you. Relax, man, this place we meet, OK? You need have beer or something, man.”

  Sage, shaking his head, spit on the ground. “That smell, how can you stand it?”

  “It nothing. Thailand have bad sewer some time but make up with beautiful ocean.”

  Sage said nothing and Puii, again, said for him to relax. “You want weed? I find you marijuana, yeah, you like?”

  “No weed,” Sage said. That was the last thing he wanted. He’d smoked more pot in the last month with Wayne than he had in all his college years and if he never saw it again that was fine with him. Looking back on the past month—the traveling, hotels, drinking everyday—his time spent with Ratri and Wayne felt like a vacation. But this was different.

  Everything was different now that he was there.

  Puii walked inside and Sage followed him. It was bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside and what few patrons he saw were too busy drinking to notice they had company.

  Sitting at a large round table with short legs, an Asian man, solid-framed, wide through the gut, made eye contact with Puii. Puii, walking toward him, said something Sage could not understand. Following closely behind Puii, making fists with his hands then unmaking them, feeling them moisten with worry, Sage tried to hide his anxiousness but knew he probably didn’t.

  After a brief exchange in Thai, Puii sat down, as Sage, not waiting for an invitation, sat beside him.

  “This Benz,” he said to Sage, “and this,” Puii said to Benz, pointing at Sage, “is Mister Serious Man from America.”

  Benz did not smile but he did bow to Sage, who returned his bow.

  A woman came with three bottles of beer and Sage, refusing the beer, asked for a bottle of water instead, which she did not understand. Puii, forced to translate, told her what Sage wanted, but whatever he said after that made her laugh, which made Sage dislike him even more than he already had, believing whatever Puii told her had been something negative about him.