Headhunters on My Doorstep

by J. Maarten Troost

  I’d flown to Papeete, the administrative capital of French Polynesia, because it was the only place I’d find a boat to the Marquesas. And it was there that I found the Aranui III, a 360-foot cargo ship and the only vessel to carry passengers to the more remote islands among France’s far-flung possessions in the Pacific. The Aranui, as I soon learned from a guesthouse owner, was scheduled to depart the following day, and as I rushed to the harbor to book passage, it didn’t take long until I felt strangely elevated at the prospect of leaving Papeete so soon. This puts me in good company, of course. Stevenson despised Papeete; Gauguin fled from it, and writers ever since have been tripping over themselves to figure out new ways to describe the many ways in which Papeete disappoints. This always struck me as unfair. It wasn’t as if the Tahitians themselves had decided to one day abandon a charming seaside village of wood and thatch and replace it with chintzy office towers, traffic circles, oven-like churches, filthy sidewalks, and, near the port, cylindrical fuel storage depots that looked like unhatched eggs shading French naval vessels that exuded nothing but malice, and a megacruise ship that merely looked ridiculous, like a Viennese wedding cake melting in the jungle. This was a town built by my kind, travelers who had arrived with hearts full of romance or bile, often both, and found that what they really wanted was a place that offered a decent baguette, a café that served a cup of coffee, a dozen taverns and discos, a brothel, an ATM, a store where you can buy those snowflake thingys, perhaps with a maiden in a coconut bra wiggling the hula, and a few ornate administrative buildings to make it all seem classy.

  I’d be back, I knew, and I’d traveled enough to know that first impressions often belie something far stranger or wondrous, but I felt that no journey following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson should begin here. I’d wanted to experience the splendor that he’d felt upon reaching his first landfall in Nuku Hiva after a forty-five-day sail, and so I’d picked up my pace as I wandered through the incessant cacophony of traffic, passing offices, cafés, at least two McDonalds franchises, a Peugeot dealership, and shops selling crap to herds of cruise ship passengers, stopping only to have a gander at the war memorials that the French sprinkle among their possessions like a dog marking its territory. AUX ENFANTS DE LA POLYNÉSIE FRANÇAISE—MORTS AUX CHAMPS D’HONNEUR read one placard listing those lost in Korea, Indochina, Madagascar, and North Africa. Another memorialized all the Polynesians killed in World War I—MORTS POUR LA FRANCE. Throw in a harbor slick with pollution, add copious amounts of spray paint, soak it all in shirt-drenching humidity, and the result, aesthetically speaking, is the very sort of urban hellhole that one flees for the islands. Were it not for the serrated peaks of Moorea, a bewitching sight, looming in the near distance, you’d think you were still a long distance yet from the mythical South Pacific. And so it was with undisguised glee that I’d learned that it was still possible to find a berth on board the Aranui, which reared above a wharf in the industrial harbor, its crane steadily loading cargo into its hold.

  “Bon,” I said to the Tahitian clerk inside the ship’s HQ, a squat office building surrounded by warehouses, after he’d assured me there was ample room on board. “Et c’est combien?” I was feeling a jet-lagged giddiness, the kind of euphoria that occurs when a plan starts to come together. I’d arrived in the Marquesas by ship, just as Robert Louis Stevenson had, and while it wouldn’t be in a ninety-foot schooner with a velvet and brass stateroom, it would do. The clerk tapped at a calculator. When he was done, he flipped it around so I could see. I had only a passing acquaintance with the Polynesian franc and the number displayed meant nothing to me. It was, however, immense, the sort of sum astronomers bandy about when describing earth’s distance to faraway galaxies, and for a brief moment I felt a pang of worry. I asked if he happened to have the day’s exchange rates handy and when he finished with his arithmetic, converting the sum into US dollars, he again thrust the calculator toward me.

  “Are you shitting me?” I said after a long, considered pause.

  “Pardon, monsieur?”

  The number was hideous to behold. I’d turned to look out the window, where a crane was loading bags of cement into the Aranui’s cavernous hold. It’s a freighter, I thought, not the Queen Mary. There was, as far as I could see, no casino on board. Nor an Olympic-size swimming pool. Or a spa. Or shops that sell Thomas Kinkade prints. Or anything else that I imagined would be standard on a ship with such a lofty price tag. I’ve owned cars that cost less than what they were asking. Now that I think about it, the birth of my children cost less than a voyage on the Aranui. Forgo this trip, and I could have two more, three if they’re delivered in Fiji.

  “C’est trop cher pour moi,” I finally said and asked, if it wasn’t too much trouble, if could I just sleep outdoors, under the stars like the Polynesians of yore, and in exchange I’d swab decks and peel pommes de terres and otherwise strive to make myself useful.

  The clerk looked upon me sadly, pursed his lips, and suggested that perhaps monsieur would prefer a berth in the ship’s dormitory. It was, he noted, a third of the price of a regular cabin and probably more suitable for someone of my disposition. Actually, my disposition was inclined to inquire whether he was aware that there was a global recession going on, and did he not think that these prices were a trifle high? And didn’t he think it ridiculous that the croissant I’d had that morning cost ten bucks? And come to think of it, didn’t he think it weird that we were speaking French, and even stranger that we were at this very moment actually in France? Was he not aware that nearly every colony in the world achieved independence, I don’t know, sixty years ago, and yet Tahiti remained as French as Bordeaux? Did he listen to Johnny Hallyday? Did he think Jerry Lewis was funny? But I let it go. “The great affair is to move,” Stevenson wrote. Exactly so. I was on the move, and if it meant enduring snoring, sleepwalking, and seeing strangers in their underpants, so be it.

  And so it came to be that I found myself steaming toward the Marquesas in the company of six strangers, which was fine, except perhaps on that first day, given the prodigious amount of vomiting. Humanity, I believe, is divided between those who get seasick and those who don’t. I am, evidently, not particularly blessed genetically, but this I know: I don’t puke at sea. Alas, the same could not be said of my new roommates, a young female air force officer from Nantes and a family of cheerful gnomes from Lyon.

  “Ça va bien, Maarten?” Edgar had said after we made introductions, as he would every time we encountered each other, whether in the dining hall or outside the shower stall. He was seventy-five years old, the patriarch, and his hair tumbled below his neck, Dungeons and Dragons style. I suspected 1974 was a very fine year for Edgar, and he had seen no need to move on. He spoke with a raspy, phlegmatic voice that suggested a pretty serious nicotine habit back in the day. In clogs, he stood approximately four foot ten.

  “Oui. Ça va très bien. Et vous?”

  “Merveilleux,” he said, and then as the ship rolled in the swell he lurched toward a sink and hurled the remnants of lunch. When he was done, he wiped the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief and explained that it had long been his dream to sail to the Marquesas. Dreams, he said, while pale and smelling of regurgitated chicken, do sometimes come true and this, he concluded, was how we endure the tragedy, the comedy, of life, and for a moment I was reminded of why I love the French—not even blowing chunks will ruin la grande romance of it all.

  Our doorless room had a stench that would make even a hungry hyena whimper and so I left Edgar and his elven kinfolk and stepped outside, leaned against the railing, and took in the splendor of the ocean. We had sailed early that morning, leaving the sheltered lagoon of Tahiti and the hillside sprawl of Papeete and, under a blazing sun, made our way to the northeast, near the equator, beginning a fourteen-day roundtrip journey to the Marquesas, where we would unload the ship of its cargo of food, water, beer, and building materials and carry back fruit, copra, cars r
epossessed by the banks, and a whole lot of seawater to fill the ballast. I nodded my greetings to the extravagantly tattooed Marquesan crew—their quarters were next to ours on the lowest deck—and spent a long while gazing out to sea. Most of the ship was off limits and I spent a few minutes trying to ascertain where, precisely, the other passengers were standing. Many, I suspected, were inside their cabins, suffering and moaning as the ship pitched and rolled in a heavy swell, but a few braved the upper decks. I know this because from time to time I could hear someone above me retch and for the briefest moment a blob of vomit would cascade over the side until it exploded like a cluster bomb in the wind. I empathized with their suffering, but frankly, nothing could diminish the bliss I felt as the lofty, verdant peaks of Tahiti and Moorea disappeared over the horizon. I have never tired of the sensation of seeing land recede from my vision. Something elemental takes over, a kind of universal awareness of the beauty and fragility of life. It induced no fear in me. As we crested a large roller, I felt as if I could feel the pulse—the thump, thump—of earth’s rhythm. This, I thought, gazing around my world, my eyes attuned to the waves, searching for those really big ones, the ones that come pitching and howling, those huge bastards that elicit awestruck wonder, and as they pass leave you with a really stupid grin plastered to your face, was perfect.

  And yet, something felt wrong. I detected a disturbance in the Force. It was as if, despite the gasp-inducing beauty, there remained some dark undercurrent, a malevolent, unseen predator hovering just below the surface, seeking a victim. My senses were suddenly in overdrive. I could feel a clammy sweat on my hands. This sweeping panorama, the endless blue seascape, dissipated, replaced by the narrowest tunnel vision. My heart thumped and my mind churned, considering possibilities. I felt an overwhelming need, my entire being thrummed with desire. What I wanted, more than anything, more than life itself, was a fucking drink.

  This happened from time to time. One moment I’m a happy, healthy, productive member of society, paying bills, cooking tasty and nutritious meals for my family, playing catch with my boys, watching The Daily Show with my wife, and then, all of a sudden, my brain sends a message that says, Hey, might be a good idea to tuck a pint of vodka into your sock and head out to an alley and drink yourself into oblivion. It’s the oddest thing. And it never ceased to surprise me. I’d always thought quitting drinking would be a fairly straightforward endeavor. There comes a day when you just can’t take it anymore—feeling constantly miserable, the habitual seeking of relief through drink, discovering, again, that it doesn’t work anymore, drinking more just to make sure, rinse, repeat, the beginning of consequences, followed by capital-C Consequences, vows to never drink again, drinking, feeling miserable and so on and so forth—until that moment arrives when you just give up, when you step out of the boxing ring, because that’s what it feels like at this point, going toe to toe with a bottle, determined to emerge as some kind of victor, bruised yet triumphant, and every night of course, it is your own personal ass that is whupped, and finally you say No mas. This, I had thought, would be followed by a few weeks of unpleasantness, and then, Boom, you’re done and you move on with life. And then, again and again, you discover why they call alcoholism cunning, baffling, and powerful. Your brain, it turns out, is your mortal enemy.

  This, for me, was unsettling. Up to this point, I’d had a long, fruitful relationship with my brain and felt no reason to question its dictates. Eat this, my neurotransmitters would say when confronted with a heaping platter of barbecued frog in Shanghai. Good idea, I’d say, and smack my lips in delight. Why don’t you . . . go to college? Gee willikers, that sounded like a great idea. My skull was full of helpful tips: Scratch your knee. Duck, or you’ll be hit in the head with a baseball. Write a love letter to your wife. Move to the end of the world. We had heaps of fun, my brain and I, and so when it started to tell me to go ahead, open up that third bottle of wine, I blithely followed along. When objections were raised about this sudden spike in my alcohol consumption, my noggin had a ready solution: Hide some vodka in the office closet. Excellent idea, I’d thought.

  Standing on the deck, I tried to let the moment pass, to step back and let the desire dissipate like froth on a wave. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Intellect over emotion. I’m an alcoholic, therefore I can’t drink. Play the tape forward. If I drink—best-case scenario—I emerge ten years later, a decade-long blackout. Where? I don’t know. Thailand? Nairobi? A trailer in East Texas? Folsom State Prison? Certainly not at home. I’d pull out of it with a throbbing cranium and think, briefly, What the fuck just happened? and then catch sight of myself in the mirror and note with some surprise that somewhere along the way I acquired gray hair and a Mike Tyson tribal face tattoo. And then it would be off to some boot-camp rehab, followed by a lengthy stay in an ass-kicking halfway house, and years of unreturned phone calls: This time will be different. I promise. Worst-case scenario? I have a beer and a few hours later tumble over the banister, my last words a slurry Vive la France, as I end my days as shark chum.

  But my brain was unrelenting:

  You’ve been doing this sobriety thing for eleven months. Good for you. Why don’t you take a little break. You deserve it. You can be sober again tomorrow.

  Think of how good it would be. A frothy beer or two on the deck as the sun goes down in tropical grandeur. Wine with dinner. Perhaps a nice red from the Médoc. Good company. Easy conversation. You know your French is better after you’ve had a few. Drinks at the bar. Johnnie Walker with a few perfect ice cubes. You know you want to.

  It wasn’t so bad. Think of all the good times you had while drinking. These spirit-sucking fun-haters are trying to take it away from you. You’re a bon vivant!

  No one will ever know.

  On and on it went. It’s tiresome doing battle with your head. You’d like to just walk away, but of course you can’t. There’s no hiding. I tried staring off into the distance, forcing my eyes to search for a last glimpse of Moorea, but I saw nothing but the beads of condensation dripping down a bottle of Hinano, the Tahitian brew. It’s probably shit beer, I thought, but still I imagined taking a long pull.

  It suddenly occurred to me that this might be a mistake. It had been months since I had felt a craving of such intensity. Perhaps I wasn’t ready for this. Should I have waited longer before setting off to traipse around the South Pacific? They—the proverbial they—tell alkies not to do anything at all for at least a year or two once the last bottle has been emptied. Don’t move. Don’t change jobs. Don’t divorce, the assumption being you have some kind of choice in the matter. Needless to say, hooking up with the really hot heroin addict from Wednesday’s step meeting is also a no-no. Two sickees don’t make a wellee, they say. They are full of such pithy aphorisms. Take it one day at a time. Let go and let God. Do the next right thing. Live life on life’s terms. Easy does it. My brain was turning into a bumper sticker and every time I thought, no, this is not my life, I’d think of the moment when I first started to fill empty water bottles with vodka and I’d go to another meeting. I picked up chips—thirty days, sixty days, six months, nine months—and reclaimed my life as a husband and father. “If you ever drink again,” my wife had said, “I’ll turn you into a eunuch.”

  This snapped me awake. There was much to lose. My eyes regained their focus as I saw my friend the albatross swoop low for another pass. I took a deep breath and tried not to think of the bar three decks above. What exactly was transpiring here? A craving, sure. A bad one, no doubt. But why now? Was it the impending approach of five o’clock, a rooster’s crow for lushes everywhere? Not likely, I thought. Happy hour had long ago lost its frisson. Christopher Hitchens once said that he drinks “because it makes other people less boring.” I’d read a lot of Hitchens when I was trying to justify my drinking. If he could write like that, I reckoned, while getting blotto every day, well then, everything must be just peachy with me. Of course, when I finally did stop drinking
I discovered the other side of that equation: When you’re sober, drinkers are curiously boring. For a long while I could only walk by a bar at dusk with finger-gnawing longing. I’d hear the laughter and the clink of glasses—or even catch a waft of stale beer and Lysol—and I’d have to quicken my pace. I’ll never have fun again, I’d think, as I hurried home to my steaming cup of herbal tea. But after a few months, when I finally felt confident that I was unlikely to start pounding shots of Jägermeister, I’d occasionally meet friends at a pub. As I sipped a club soda, I’d immediately scope out those who belonged to my tribe—the solitary drinkers hunched over their phones, the anxious woman with the shaky hands waiting for her pinot grigio, the two college students on their third pitcher, the bartender sneaking shots—and I’d feel a special camaraderie. It’s like gaydar for alcoholics. And then, as the alcohol started to take its toll and people began repeating the same stories and their eyes got glassy and their coordination started to wither, and there in the corner, the woman who just slipped off her barstool, I’d think, no, I don’t really miss this and I’d think of myself as cured. Done. Finished. No worries.

  But still the cravings came. Not often, but enough to scare the shit out of me. On the one hand, I could be a great father, a loving husband, a successful something, or, on the other, I could have a drink, and there’d be moments when the choice was paralyzing. Think logically, I told myself as I gripped the handrail. What’s causing this? Was it the prospect of spending a couple of weeks confined on a ship full of French people? Not likely, I thought. I like the French. They live life as if every moment was consequential. Spend enough time with them, and you’ll eat tastier food, you’ll dress better, and your conversation will be elevated, although you’ll acquire this strange tic wherein you start using your face as a punctuation mark. The French do, however, drink like every alcoholic wishes he could drink—moderately, daily, with great ceremony, which is irritating. If they could just drink like Russians, that would be fine. There’s nothing like seeing others get shitfaced to help keep you sober.