by John Morano
Binti placed a heavy stone inside the net to help secure it to the bottom and then stuffed it under a huge rock. She wanted to ensure that no other creature might meander into the murderous mesh. Even without a human grasping it, the net could kill. Sadly, there was no need to release the entangled goby, but after a moment’s thought, Binti removed the carcass so as not to tempt any other creature to explore the lethal net. Then she used her beak to snip a few holes into the mesh.
There were many things that the octopus was aware of that other reef dwellers didn’t understand. Some creatures viewed great intelligence as a tool that enabled them to get what they wanted by fishipulating others, presumably less intelligent. Binti, however, saw her great mind, her awesome awareness, as a fishdate to do the right thing.
Anything less, she felt, disrespected the source of the gift, and she didn’t want to offend or anger the spirit-fish. That wouldn’t be the action of an intelligent creature. So Binti buried the dangerous net, which obviously wasn’t part of Makoona.
Tucked securely into an old green bucket that was toppled, half submerged in the sand, and encrusted with yellow sponge, Binti rested. At first, she liked the idea of sitting in the plastic bucket. It was smooth and clean inside, almost like having a spacious shell. The octopus was relaxed and quite comfortable until she heard a voice.
It had the same tenor as the voice she heard within herself. It was soft and so clear, it could easily have been mistaken for a thought. But this voice didn’t come from Binti. And since the bucket wasn’t really a product of the sea, it could never be a conduit to the spirit-fish. Still, Binti heard a voice.
She lifted her eyes above the rim of the container. She listened to her senses. Binti couldn’t locate the source of the sound, but a few seconds later, she knew exactly what produced the vocalization.
The speaker whispered, “Dressed myself in green, I went down to the sea. Try to see what’s going down, maybe read between the lines. Had a feeling I was falling, falling, falling.”
Binti heard the words yet couldn’t quite figure out what they meant. She detected a slight shuffle at the base of the bucket and looked down. That’s when she saw a large male octopus who, like the container, had dressed himself in seaweed green. Binti had never actually spoken to a male before. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to speak to this one, but since it was a unique opportunity, Binti grinned, turned a demure shade of violet, and introduced herself.
The male replied, “You’ve got an empty cup only love can fill, only love can fill.”
Confused, Binti pointed out, “This is not really a cup. Actually, it’s a man-shell. And why do you speak of filling it with love? How could one put love into this?”
“Let’s see with an honest heart these things our eyes have seen and know the truth will still lie somewhere in between,” the male responded. Then he slipped up and under the encrusting sponge, flashed bright red, and settled into dull yellow with streaks of green.
By now, Binti perceived him as no threat. She was amused by his playfully bizarre way of speaking. “Do all males talk like you? You’re not very easy to understand.”
He laughed, returned to red for another instant, flashed scarlet with a touch of gray, and then became yellow and green. He carefully extended one arm toward Binti, saying, “See how everything led up to this day? And it’s just like any other day that’s ever been. Sun goin’ up, and then the sun it goin’ down. Shine through, and my friends, they come around, come around, come around.” He waved several arms to accentuate the phrase “come around.”
Confused, Binti asked, “What are you talking about?”
The male touched her mantle softly. It was a very intimate gesture. Binti could feel a single sucker gently take hold of her flesh and then release. The male mollusk whispered, “Maybe you’ll find direction around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you . . . When push comes to shove, you’re afraid of love.” Deep, passionate purple and pink raced through Binti’s arms.
In an instant, he turned blue with a touch of gray and jetted off, giggling, “Run and see, hey, hey, run and see!”
Binti had no idea what he meant. She wondered whether he was inviting her to follow him. She also wondered whether he might be a few fish short of a school. Binti had heard of reef dwellers who spoke circumspectly because they knew things and tried to hint at deeper meanings, although she didn’t quite see this male fitting into that category. Perhaps he’d been in the reef when it exploded, she thought, which could scramble any octopus’s mantle. She decided not to chase him.
Binti left the bucket and crawled along the bottom, changing color as she touched upon gray rocks, tan sandy patches, colorful corals, and spectacular sponges. She arrived at her home and paused to look for intruders. Not far from her crevice lived an anemone. In and around the anemone lived a pair of clownfish named Agora and Ozob.
“Hey neighbor,” Ozob called. “What do you hear? What do you say?” Ozob never hovered more than a body length or two from his host anemone. His plantlike benefactor provided powerful protection. Only the clownfish could survive among its poisonous tentacles, so the anemone kept all predators at bay. In return, the clownfish cleaned their host, who wasn’t mobile enough to visit the cleaning station. It was a wonderful example of cooperation in Makoona.
Binti didn’t feel like recounting all the tribulations of the day, so she answered, “Nothing special. I did meet another octopus earlier.”
Agora popped her head out. She was even less adventurous than Ozob. “He was here before,” she said. “His name’s Molo.”
“You met him?”
“I know Molo,” Ozob declared. “He was poking around your lair. But don’t worry, I kept an eye on him.”
“Really?” Binti flashed bright green, her curious color. “How do you know he’s okay? Have you ever spoken with him?”
Ozob laughed. “He’s definitely weird, not exactly normal, but he’s okay . . . kinda like you.”
“What?” Binti wailed. “I’m weird? You live in an anemone, and you call me weird?”
“Are we discussing you or Molo?” Agora asked. Then she disappeared deep into the anemone.
When Ozob did the same, the octopus picked up on the signal, slid behind a rock, turned brown, and disappeared. Something was coming.
A brief bubble later, Hootie drifted in puffed with excitement. “Binti! Binti!”
“Over here,” a brown lump of rock replied.
“Binti, Ebb’s got something for you.”
Flushed with green, Binti asked, “What’s that farmer got that would interest me? I don’t particularly relish eating algae.”
“Oh, it’s not algae,” Hootie puffed.
“Then what is it?” Ozob said as he slid his head beyond the anemone’s tentacles.
Hootie looked to Ozob and then back to Binti. Satisfied that he commanded their rapt attention, he said, “I believe our friend has unearthed the shell that you’ve been looking for.”
Binti turned mother-of-pearl blue and trembled. She lowered her mantle until it almost touched Hootie’s snout. “Tell me about it.”
Ozob squealed skeptically, “Don’t let him get you excited again.”
Agora added, “How many times has he claimed to have found your magic shell?”
“It’s not magic,” Binti corrected him.
“Whatever. It’s a shell. And octopuses don’t have shells.”
“But mollusks do.”
“And so will you,” Hootie howled. He puffed himself up even further. “Allow me to escort you to your shell.”
Binti paused and asked, “What about the other shell, the one Ebb claimed you had found for me?”
“Oh, that didn’t clam out. I couldn’t convince the conch to leave it. Anyway, don’t worry about that. This is the one. I can fin it.”
With that, Hootie swam off slowly. Binti followed as though she were in a trance.
As they left, Ozob yelled, “Don’t be a sucker! I’d hate t
o see you get shell shocked again!”
On the way to their afternoon fishing site, Kemar began to think about his current situation. Where would he go? How would he fend for himself? The boy wondered if he could survive by fishing with Bao. Finally, he asked the man, “Are you going to pay me for my work today?”
Without looking at Kemar, Bao said, “Have not discussed already?” He quickly added, “After losing net and wasting explosives, boy should pay me.”
The motor’s distinctive sputter-putt-putt, sputter-putt-putt punctuated their discussion. Even though the water was calm, Bao’s boat always seemed to run rough.
The fisherman hissed, “Ah, must bring motor to old American witch. Fix anything, but Bao hate hearing her stories and stupid ideas about reef. Not even on Makoona can escape crazy Americans.”
“You know, neither of us is actually from Makoona either,” Kemar pointed out.
“Neither of us is old woman.”
The boy brightened. “Do you think she’ll have work for me?”
Bao bellowed, “Is no other work! Not see? Only fishing. If there other work, don’t think Bao be doing it? On Makoona, is only catching and selling fish.”
“This person you speak of has found something else to do. Will you introduce me to her?”
Bao considered the boy and his suggestion. The way Kemar pursed his lips, the way the sun shone on his face, for an instant, he looked like a sea bass. Bao smiled. His demeanor changed. He had an idea. Bao told the boy that he’d introduce him to Meela and that when they returned, he would introduce him to all his friends on the island.
Kemar also looked differently at Bao. He recognized that not only had this man saved his life, but he had also sustained him for the last twenty-four hours. All he asked in return was that Kemar fish with him. Is it possible that Bao is my friend? the boy wondered.
Kemar had not had many true friends. Life in Cambodia and on the boat didn’t produce situations where strangers—or, for that matter, even some family members—could be trusted. For the first time since he met Bao, Kemar began to trust that the fisherman would do right by him.
Although deep down, Kemar knew it might be foolish to believe in someone who fished with dynamite, the boy reasoned that he’d certainly seen others do much worse, not only to fish and coral, but also to friends and family. Bao had saved him. Bao was trying to make a living. With any luck, Kemar would do the same.
The ancient Evenrude outboard wheezed and sputtered, sounding like it was going to seize at any moment. Bao was frustrated because there were several solid hours of fishing left in the day, and he’d hoped to make good use of both the time and the boy.
Even without grenades, bait, or a decent net, he had another sure-fire method for catching the type of fish that the Filipino middleman would pay good money for. Indeed, the whole system of wasting money to keep fish in a tank that would never be eaten seemed absurd to Bao, but he never allowed absurdity to inhibit commerce.
The project, however, would have to wait one more day. At the moment, if the modest, leaky boat with the wheezing, pinging engine could make it, instead of fishing, Bao would be introducing the Cambodian boy to a somewhat senile seventy-something-year-old American woman who just happened to be the best—albeit the only—outboard motor mechanic within three hundred miles of Makoona.
The two fishermen drifted into the little lagoon where the American woman had set up shop. Her small hut was shaded by tall palms and lush mangrove trees. A dozen rusty oil drums, each filled with salt water, housing a mounted outboard of one type or another in various stages of disrepair, flanked the east side of the shack.
In one sense, the engines looked like a mechanic’s version of the Evolution of Man chart—if it featured Heidelberg Man, Piltdown, and Peking along with Lucy, Neanderthal, and Cro-Magnon. The outboard equivalent of Homo sapiens was conspicuously absent, as there was nothing quite so evolved in Meela’s shop. Her evolution line featured fossilized Hondas, Evenrudes, Johnsons, Yamahas, Mercuries, and several other motors whose pedigrees weren’t so clear.
There were two or three large tables made out of old doors mounted on empty barrels. A bench consisted of an abnormally long door laid across three weathered sawhorses. Tools were scattered over the tabletops like shells strewn along the shore by the surf. Four or five tidy little fishing boats were tied to a small dock. They all had fresh paint, floated high in the water, and appeared to have reliable outboards. These crafts, however, weren’t for the locals. They were rented to tourists or fishermen on those rare occasions when a paying customer visited the shop.
A thin elderly woman leaned over one of the barrels. An engine rocked the huge can, and water burst from the barrel when the mechanic tilted the prop down into the oil drum. Then she cut the power, kicked the cask, and threw a screwdriver at a toolbox.
Before Kemar stepped into the surf to pull both Bao and the boat onto the beach, the fisherman whispered to him, “Listen to Bao. Old lady as mixed up as tern in tornado. Out her mind . . . Boy say nothing. No telling what set her off. Bao need motor fix and know how to handle her. Boy just smile. Say nothing. Understand?”
Kemar answered, “I know how to say nothing.”
“Then do,” Bao hissed while stepping onto the soft sand.
Bao’s sour countenance changed quickly and drastically as he approached the woman. He smiled broadly, displaying an assortment of crooked yellow teeth.
“Meela, what fisherman lucky enough have you bent over his motor?” Bao began.
The old woman remained hunched over the prop, maintained her focus, and muttered, “Put it in storage, Bao. Don’t play me like some innocent reef fish. It’s insulting.”
“Really, Meela, no need hostility. Know each other too—”
“What’s wrong with your motor?” Meela asked. She ripped a soiled scarf from around her neck and wiped grease from her hands.
The woman struck Kemar as a plain-speaking, no-nonsense mechanic who had no time for insincere pleasantries, perhaps because she’d endured a lifetime of them, or possibly because she felt she didn’t have enough time left in her life to play such useless games. Whatever the reason, Kemar’s first impression was that he liked the honesty of the woman. To him, it suggested intelligence, and that was something the boy respected.
Kemar was also amused by Meela’s physical presence. She looked to be in her early seventies. She was definitely American. She reeked of it. Slightly hunched, her posture was still more upright than the old Cambodian women Kemar remembered hauling wood, water, fruit, rice, and laundry. Meela was taller than those women, but she was as skinny as a bamboo shoot, probably just as tough too.
She kept a ratty cigar stuffed in her breast pocket. A shorter version hung from the corner of her mouth, at the moment unlit. However, the thing Kemar liked most about Meela was the gaping space between her coral-white top front teeth. For some reason, her smile made him smile. Although all these thoughts were streaming through Kemar’s mind, he did as Bao instructed and said nothing.
Meela went straight to the engine, hopping into the boat and climbing to the stern. She pried the metallic blue cover off and examined the ancient, dirty motor, poking here and pulling there. Bao chased behind her, explaining the symptoms.
After a moment or two, the expert looked over her shoulder, rolled the stubby cigar in her mouth, and said, “Take it off and mount it in that can over there.”
Bao said, “Can’t fix?”
“Of course I can fix it.”
“Why must Bao remove?”
“That’s what you need to do so I can fix it.”
“Need motor now. Have to fish.”
Meela poked a boney finger at the man. “Listen to me, Bao. If you want it fixed, mount the motor in that can. You’re grounded. You got it? I’ll do what I can. You just better pray that I have all the parts.”
Bao didn’t like this at all. He suspected that Meela wasn’t being straight with him. Not that she would cheat him, but she didn�
��t approve of the way he fished or the way he treated the reef. Meela had rules: no anchors near coral, no excessive wakes, light sinkers, tie-ups, and other requirements she expected from her clientele. Bao was well aware of Meela’s rules, and because he followed none of them, he suspected she would take advantage of the situation to keep him from the fish.
Regardless, Bao softened his tone and asked humbly, “Could borrow motor while Meela work on mine?”
Meela flashed her gap-toothed grin. “Sure,” she said, “I’ll lend you a motor that’s better than this bag of screws.”
Bowing to her, Bao said, “Thank you.”
“No problem. But you gotta do one or two things just so I feel better about this.”
The fisherman cocked his head, squinted, and waited to hear the conditions.
“First, you still owe me for two spark plugs, a spool of wire, a connecting rod, and for the work I did the last time you had trouble. I haven’t even thought about rent for the motor you’re asking to borrow . . . I’d actually be willing to forget that stuff, but there’s one thing that’s just really started a fire in my fuselage.”
Meela bent down and casually plucked a grenade from the box in the boat. She bounced it recklessly in her hand as she continued, “You disgusting fool. You call yourself a fisherman, and this is how you fish? You’re a criminal. I will not be part of it, you lazy bucket of bilge.” Meela climbed out of the boat. “Let someone else fix your motor.”
“Is no one else. Bao swear, Meela, never again. Never use grenades for fish again. Must fix motor.”
The old woman turned back to Bao. She took a step toward him, pointed to the grenades, and said, “Take those out of the boat and leave them over there, away from my shop. Mount the motor in that can. Pay me every cent you owe me, and take care of this for me.” Meela held out the grenade in her hand, offering it to Bao.
When he wrapped his fingers around the explosive, Meela released her grip and pulled the pin. As long as Bao maintained his grip, the grenade wouldn’t explode, but if he let go . . .