Dash in the Blue Pacific

by Cole Alpaugh

  “Used to be called Moku Siga, which means No Hurry. Now it is called Valelailai,” the chief said, holding the cup while another man poured it full. He took a sip, swallowed, and spit. “Men of white cracker god called it that and the name stuck. No big deal. One name is good as any.”

  “It’s a pretty name.” Dash’s legs were cramped from sitting pretzel style, what his ancient kindergarten teacher had called ‘criss-cross applesauce.’ “What does it mean?”

  The chief took a much longer drink, then spit another phlegmy gob. “Means toilet. That’s what white people called our home. We need to talk about the fish you killed.”

  Dash watched the warrior force the teen back to his knees, then reach out to untie the cord. The big man stayed close, made growling sounds into the boy’s face and began jabbing his finger at the top of one stump. The boy looked down, unmoving for a few seconds, and then obeyed. He lifted his right hand and placed it flat on the stump’s surface.

  The warrior reached for a stone twice the size of the soccer ball.

  “I’m sorry about the fish,” said Dash.

  The men on either side of Manu leaned forward and spoke in their native tongue—angry, rapid-fire words, their hands flailing and nearly hitting the chief. They were the largest and youngest of the group, broad shoulders, and matching black underpants, the same as the man terrorizing the boy on the field. Dash’s stomach rolled over when they turned and pointed at him. Their eyes were wide and accusing, lips pursed in the same manner as the old lady in the aisle seat.

  “They think we should sacrifice white man to the Volcano,” Manu told Dash. “Only way to make fish come back.”

  It suddenly dawned on Dash how often those movies where the villagers greeted explorers with open arms had turned tragic. Brave adventurers burned at the stake or chopped into bait for crimes far pettier than decimating the fish population.

  Out by the soccer field, the warrior lifted the stone above his head, sweat cascading from brawny shoulders and raining down on his cowering charge. The boy made no sound when the stone fell.

  An elbow stabbed Dash’s ribs. The man on his left held out the cup as the teenage boy slid to the dirt. Dash could feel his heart pounding, could see the boy’s blood pouring from a flattened hand that seemed to be missing fingers.

  Unimaginable beauty, he’d thought. A tropical paradise.

  The chief spoke slowly in his sing-song language, and even the men who could barely sit upright nodded their heads. Dash was certain he was telling them how they’d lash the cracker to a bamboo cross, march him up the volcano’s brown slope, snap Roman-style whips across his body for encouragement, and finally boot his pale ass down into the molten lava. The old chief paused and the faces turned to Dash.

  “My legs are getting too old for climbing her back.” Manu used his leathery chin to indicate the volcano. “Dreams will show me what is best. We won’t feed you to the Volcano yet.”

  Chapter 5

  Smoke amassed in a hazy dome over the village, trapping and mixing peculiar food smells with the sickly sweetness of decomposing flowers. The sun was somewhere low over the treetops when a woman came to kneel behind the chief and speak into his gnarled ear. Manu nodded and she reached under his armpits to hoist him to his feet. The other men also rose, although two stumbled forward, pitching onto their foreheads and flopping to their backs. There was laughter, and nobody came to their aid. Both resembled upside down turtles, were left behind drunk and helpless, pushing dirt into a dusty cloud.

  The drinking circle formed an uneven line that weaved across the mashed up shells. They reconvened on a long strip of woven mats near the fires, where a dozen women were busy with food. Manu’s bony fingers jabbed Dash’s shoulder, pointed for him to sit among the scrum of children at the far end. But then the old man put his weathered face close, noxious breath whistling in and out, chest so frail and malnourished that he reminded Dash of the neglected animals in fundraising commercials.

  “Better you eat away from the warriors,” Manu said. “I don’t want you killed before the Volcano speaks to me.”

  Dash began forming a protest, or some kind of apology that would make a difference, but his tongue was too clumsy from the alcohol, and the woman who’d lifted the chief was now settling the old man between two warriors. Better to take his chances with the boy who kicked him than draw further ire from hand-smashing lunatics who considered him a fish killer.

  Dash headed toward the shrieks and youthful bickering, as they took their places facing what appeared to be a stage and a gigantic palm frond curtain suspended from a bamboo frame. They sat with their backs to the jungle’s low hum, men speaking in slurred but hushed voices, sipping from coconut shell cups. The children around Dash fiddled and played hand slapping games under the stern gaze of one old woman who kept the noise down with slaps of her own.

  The dirt stage was about a third the length of the mat, black lava rocks delineating the rectangular area in front of the curtain. Smoldering metal pots were at both front corners, either for effect or maybe to ward off mosquitoes.

  The women in charge of the food filed back and forth from the hut nearest the cooking fires. All had round bellies, in some phase of pregnancy, hefting enormous turtle shells piled with steaming fare. The shells were deposited up and down the mat and set off a flurry of bare hands that filled wooden plates in a mad rush. The boy who’d assaulted Dash wrestled a whole fish from another, clumps of rice and other bits of food flying. There were platters of what appeared to be barbecued bats and long-legged frogs, and plates stacked high with charred rodent-shaped creatures. It was hard to be sure what things were because the pieces were burned to a crisp, but the food smells were good and the clap-clap had left him prepared to devour anything.

  Squeals and pig snorts came from a bamboo corral on the far side of what were probably outhouses, where an alcove had been hacked into the thick jungle.

  Tiki squeezed next him and sat. “Boys and pigs are the same,” she said, and scooped colorful fruit onto his plate. Banana slices were the only items he recognized for sure. She added a handful of thick fish stew from another bowl, meaty gray chunks that bristled with hair-like bones.

  “Tastes better than it looks,” she said.

  “It all looks good.” Dash arranged his food, keeping the fruit separate from the stew as the jostling continued on his other side. He took a bite of fish, and fine bones immediately caught in his throat. He gagged and forced a hard cough, tears streaming, much to the amusement of the boys. He tried massaging his throat with one hand and fumbled for a cup with the other.

  “Here.” Tiki scooped fingers into a bowl heaped with something like mashed potatoes, then grabbed a handful of his hair to steady him. “Makes the bones go down easy.”

  He allowed her to scrape the bitter paste on the back of his lower teeth, then managed to hold his gorge and swallow. The bones seemed to dissolve, the paste leaving an odd tingling sensation behind his Adam’s apple.

  She patted his head and began stacking food on her own plate. “Maybe just eat the fruit.”

  The sky was nearly dark when the clap-clap jugs were fetched. Manu took the first drink and passed the cup. He gave a command that sent three young men to their places behind wood drums and a fifty gallon metal container lying on its side. A boy hopped to his feet, darting to each of the smoldering stage pots to deposit palm-sized leafy bundles that sizzled and caught fire. They caused a loud hiss and eruptions of smoky white plumes. The drummers went to work.

  Dash leaned toward Tiki. “What is this?”

  “A story,” she said, shifting onto her knees. “The pageant of beauty.”

  “Nice.” His head was heavy from the booze and food. “It’s like dinner theater.”

  She frowned and put a finger to her lips.

  “Those are the white soldiers from a faraway land. They come to our island once a year, unless the Storm God steers them away.” She pointed to a line of six villagers coated in what looked
like gray ash from head to toe. They held paddles and stroked imaginary water, taking short, shuffling steps along the stage perimeter. They stopped with their backs to the audience, a bamboo rifle hanging from thin vines over each man’s right shoulder. The smoke from the pots lifted into the overhead haze.

  “Those are guns,” said Tiki. “White men use guns and crosses for weapons.” She held her index fingers in the sign of a cross in front of her nose, and turned to show him.

  “I don’t,” he said, and she put one of her fingers back to her lips.

  “Those are the first contestants.” She nodded toward five of the fattest village men who had stepped through the curtain. Wild grass wigs were perched cockeyed on each head, lips painted bright red, diva-like. Their sports bras were comically stuffed, and grass skirts that came to their feet dragged along the dirt stage, pudgy knees exposed. Those still eating began to heckle in their sing-song language. A few blew raspberries and booed.

  The line of white men lifted the rifles from their shoulders to brandish at the men in drag, the drummers doubling their efforts. The soldier farthest from Dash disappeared behind the curtain then returned with a cowering herd of little boys he ordered to sit between the ridiculous contestants and armed men. The drums cut off and the middle soldier turned to face Manu, who had just taken a drink and was spitting into the cup. The chief raised an arm and wiggled his fingers for them to continue.

  “This is the punishment for offering girls not pretty enough,” said Tiki. “Boys are killed.”

  The soldiers opened fire on the boys, who jerked from the gunshots, flopping on the ground and groaning from pretend mortal wounds. Some died five or six times, coming to a final rest in chalky piles. The drummers resumed their beat when the last victim was still.

  “That’s not how boys really die when they are shot,” she added, and Dash wondered how she knew.

  Hysterical women scampered on stage with flailing arms and hands. They cried to the heavens before kneeling to scoop up a murdered child to show the audience the depth of their loss. Giggling faces were smothered in kisses before the women retreated behind the curtain.

  “Those are the mamas.”

  The men in drag slunk backward into the curtain and also disappeared. The drums slowed to a steady pace.

  “Now come the pretty girls.” She pointed to the parting curtain as five girls, all younger looking than Tiki, took the places of the fat men in wigs. They touched their own faces, preened their hair, and struck poses for the soldiers, who shouldered their weapons. The men in the audience cheered the girls, whistled between fingers. Boys jumped up and down, clapping and stumbling across the remaining dirty plates.

  “Now they take the winners away,” Tiki said, as the girls stepped forward into the imaginary boat. The soldiers paddled to the drum beat, made a slow lap in the opposite direction from which they’d come, and then disappeared behind the curtain with their new cargo.

  “Where do they go?” Dash felt a sudden need to know, but Tiki only shrugged and pushed her plate to the center of the mat. “What happens to them?”

  “It’s the pageant of beauty,” she said, as women began clearing the mess and the male actors returned for more clap-clap. “Girls who are ten years old are taken from our island by the soldiers. But only if they are pretty enough to be chosen.”

  He looked at the girl, examining her more closely. Her skin was flawless—no scars or marks. Her eyes were as bright as any, but her lashes were long and curled. Something about her was different from the other children, the other girls. Her hair was full and gleaming even under the cruddy haze, as if it had been combed longer, readied for some place other than an island jungle. He wasn’t much of a beauty pageant judge, but she was surely the prettiest girl he’d seen.

  He knew the answer before asking. “How old are you?”

  “I’m ten.” She smiled, again showing her perfect teeth. “I’m the next to go.”

  Chapter 6

  Tiki led them back toward the ocean by the light of a honey-colored candle. Dash was banished to his cave until the old chief sorted out his dreams. He hoped it wouldn’t take long, and he also hoped it would take forever.

  “Manu says you’re safer away from the village,” she said, body tilted from a bucket of fresh water she shifted from hand to hand every few yards. “The young warriors don’t listen when they drink. They hate your skin.”

  Dash was trying to balance his load while slapping at cobwebs and floating booby-traps of mosquito clouds.

  He understood the fear of outsiders, had grown up with bigotry aplenty. Change was something to hate in his corner of New England. Entrepreneurs considering shops catering to tourists faced insurmountable town meeting battles, stone-faced selectmen convinced of the type of people a fancy bookshop would draw. Candles and maple syrup were barely acceptable, but crafts and pottery would bring the hippies and pedophiles, heathens from the Internets who were thieves of souls and worse. The town hall regularly erupted into shouting matches.

  “Photography? Them rag-head bahstads will be makin’ phony IDs. They’ll have cousins of cousins showin’ up at all our gawdamn front doors with cah-sized bombs ’fore ya know it. Why bring ’em here? Plenty utha places in the world for them ta be. ”

  The middle-aged woman who wanted to renovate her garage and take baby pictures was a Boston transplant from some thirty years earlier. She was still an outsider to most.

  Dash’s father—who sat at the fringe of these meetings, bringing his son along for civic lessons—never spoke up. Dash was glad to be near an exit, one foot in the aisle, ready to run, not trusting his father’s silence. His father was a man who would emerge from a closet with an obscure nineteenth-century hand tool, challenging his son’s friends to identify the item. And the object would invariably have some bizarre purpose, engineered to remove chicken beaks—“slices like warm cheese”—or it might be monstrous tongs for castrating hogs, “comes off clean as a whistle.” His father would hold up a set of imaginary pig testicles then work the medieval-looking contraption with lusty exuberance. The stories circulated, but the antique shop wasn’t meant for locals anyway. No dairy farmer or auto mechanic ever stepped inside his father’s shop. These people had their own antiques, which were mostly still being used. Dash’s father’s crime was to put a ridiculous price tag on junk. Twenty dollar canning jars? Being an outcast suited his father just fine because the customers rolled into town in freshly waxed foreign ‘cahs.’

  “They want to kill me,” Dash said to the back of Tiki’s head, thinking about the guffaws his father had inspired over an antique dung scraper, followed the next day by the not so hilarious ribbing Dash had received at school.

  “They worry because the Volcano is shaking the ground. The village will die if she spills her blood. Feeding you to her will make her calm, stop the shivers.”

  “Lava,” he said, trying to step as lightly as possible on the dead foliage carpeting the tunnel. “Her blood is lava, right?” Some of the chopped vines stood up in spikes. He hefted supplies bundled in a woven mat one of the warriors had shoved into his arms. It was stuffed with wood and rock items, along with candles and a magnesium fire starter in its original package.

  “The missioners called it ‘lava,’ but it comes from her heart, is her blood.”

  “Her blood, then. Tell me about the ceremony. Who were the men with guns?”

  “White men like you.”

  “Where do they take the girls?” Anxiety rose at the idea of losing his sole ally, the only person not interested in throwing him in the volcano or smashing him with heavy stones. He hoped he’d misunderstood the ceremony, that it was a reenactment of something from a hundred years ago—Washington crossing the Delaware in lousy weather, for instance—and she was just another kid wanting to be on board to wave the stars and stripes.

  She ignored the question, kept walking, water sloshing. “It will be safe down here. The warriors are only brave when they are drunk, and all of them a
re afraid of what lives outside the light.”

  He searched the living walls by the dancing light of the tapered candle, noticed all the dark hiding spots and noise-filled divots. Their progress was slower despite the downhill pitch. Bats had twice swooped down and nearly touched the flame. Didn’t some bats drink blood? He wondered what the tunnel would be like without the candle or bright daylight at each far end, the walls closing in to swallow them whole. The droning was energy filled, an electric pulse from countless insects. The intensity was near maddening, even though it wasn’t particularly loud. It was a power plant with a breached core making his fingertips ache, his toes itch.

  He would sleep with a nightlight and can of the deadliest bug spray for the rest of his life once rescuers took him away.

  “Is the noise always like this?”

  She spoke over her shoulder. “The jungle knows when the gods are upset. It talks all night and doesn’t sleep good in the day.”

  She lifted the candle higher, the flame parting another floating black swarm. The formation regrouped behind them and faded into the darkness.

  “The jungle was curious when you came. It would have eaten anyone else left on its edges. The jungle even reaches into the sea for scraps. But it let you live. That is why Manu knows you have a special use.”

  “All this eating,” he said. “The ocean, the volcano. And people are scraps?”

  “We all ate tonight.” She stopped and turned, the candle under her chin casting terrible shadows. “The eating never stops, whether you are a shitter bug or village chief. It never stops until you are made of nothing, until the fish pick you clean and the Sea God swallows the bones.”

  The moon at the end of the tunnel was high and nearly full. They arranged the supplies at his cave’s yawning mouth, a lava tube exit hole somehow attached to the active volcano. Dash inspected the rolled sleeping mat, which would provide immeasurable comfort. He’d also been issued a three-foot-long bamboo spear, and flat round stones with razor sharp sides, perhaps to gut fish he’d be required to hunt on his own. Tiki quickly gathered brown leaves and pieces of dead vine.