by Cole Alpaugh
“How do you ask a volcano for help?”
Willy shrugged. “Human sacrifice gets her attention.”
“That’s a lousy option.”
“You’re better off praying to your Penis God to get the old wanker up and working. Or get a Computer God to deliver a new laptop. Those big boobies seemed to work like a charm.”
Dash shook his head. “They won’t stop taking the girls even if Manu gives them a white baby. And that’s besides the fact that the baby could turn out just as brown as the rest, even if some miracle occurred.”
“You’re missing the point.” Willy unfurled a limp eel that had been curled in one hand. He twirled it between two fingers, then held it over his head and lowered the tail into his mouth. He slurped it down like a spaghetti noodle, wiped his dangerous-looking mouth with the back of a hand and burped. “Manu is convinced they’ll be left alone in exchange for a white baby. There’s enormous power in belief.”
“I still don’t understand why I see you,” Dash said. “You look real.”
“I don’t know. You must be a special case. Or maybe I’m only a hallucination. Did you check your daily horoscope?”
“No.”
“Good, that shit’s all made up.” Willy smiled. “Some of the kids see me, too. I scared the bejesus out of two boys hunting sand crabs along the tide line. I can eat a whole bushel of those things.”
Dash frowned.
“Crabs, not boys, dumbass.” Willy rubbed his stomach, his light surging brighter. “I was relaxing in the shallow water and I might have said boo, or something. Had no idea they’d run screaming. I felt like a heel. Things like that will give a god a bad rep. I’ve seen it happen.”
“So you have no idea why I can see you? I’m probably crazy. It runs in my family.”
“You wanna go home, right?”
“Of course.”
“Back to where your girl cheated, and you just got shit-canned from a lousy job? Way too depressing. I’d say crazy is a safe bet. Look, I’m really not trying to read your thoughts.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Humans are filled with mostly monotonous stuff. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m horny. I worship you. I hate you.” Willy paused to rub his face. “I loved my people, but I never got any sleep.”
“I guess I understand,” said Dash. “If a village is big enough, there’s always someone hurting.”
“Sometimes you can’t even think.”
“What happened to your people?”
Willy’s head tilted to the side, eyes turning skyward. “I was idolized in so many ways. It was the best of times before my people were killed. I came to them during a drought, and brought gentle rains. I ushered schools of plump fish into their wide lagoon. And they knelt down before this humble god.”
Willy stopped talking and dropped his head into his hands, shoulders lurching. Dash watched him begin to fade as he sat less than two feet away on the same lava bench. The disappearing act lasted several minutes, until only a hint of light hovered where his forehead had been. Then it blinked out and left Dash sitting alone next to a small puddle.
He turned to watch the white breakers roll over the lava rocks. “God,” he finally muttered, “I am crazy.”
Chapter 9
Dash woke from a dreamless sleep, climbed stiff from his bedding—like a wild animal, he thought—and headed toward the light. A raw wind swept over the waves to the east, as though rushing to fill a void left by the rising sun. He dipped his toes, let the sideways running tide clean the filth, and began gathering flat stones with good round edges.
The first throw skipped across the breakers five times, nothing compared to what he could do on the tranquil ponds at home, where a dozen or even fifteen touches were possible. The uneven surface launched his best throws skyward, or pitched them down into the rolling troughs with disappointing plops.
He shook out his throwing arm and was stretching his shoulder muscles when a wave tumbled a bulky object he at first mistook for Willy. It rolled up the sloping shore and then threatened to head back out to sea on the retreating surf. He hobbled across the sharp footing to time the next big wave, the blow hole full of energy, showering him from behind. He’d angled his body with one foot forward when the wall of churning whitewater rushed past him, thigh high. He trudged toward the mostly submerged object that was hung up on the very last point of land.
The current pulled back at the moment his fingers wedged under its plastic rim. He planted his heels, locked his knees, and held on with all his might as the ocean changed direction, nearly sucking it from his grasp. His skinny arms were fully extended, butt low, with a river of water blasting against his back and shoulders. He was at the very tipping point of a tug-o-war: either his ankles and wrists would give out, or his body would be claimed by the ocean still clinging to its prize.
A new wave rolled up over the retracting froth and sent him hard to his ass, knocking the object free from the very end of his ragged fingernails. For one brief second he had a perfect view of the row of three connected airplane seats, cushions intact and belts reaching like tendrils. He was overwhelmed by the possibility of losing this artifact of civilization. Panic drove him to his feet and made him lunge chest first, arms wide open, tackling and pinning the seats as the new wave swept back out.
“Please,” he whimpered, and then sucked in a deep breath just in time as the next wave rolled and tumbled him over the jagged lava. Another wave slammed down directly over him, driving the seats into his body as if telling him to go ahead and take the damn things. He was upside down when bright stars exploded across his vision. The impact made him forget to hold his breath and he was suddenly choking, spinning in a ruthless washing machine filled with foam and sharp edges. He was rolling, elbows and knees bumping along, until another wave changed his position. He was face down, a slow vinyl record with a needle planted in the middle of his forehead, a great weight on his back keeping him from rising to his knees for air. He reached behind and felt the waterlogged seats that had him pinned, then found his waistband and tugged at the painful wedgie.
He’d been tricked by some rogue god, lured by an enchanting object to the same fate as the small fish attracted to Willy’s dangling light. His chest muscles clenched in a spasm, water in his lungs and air all but gone. Would the Sea God go to the effort of baiting the most dangerous spot on the island with something so irresistible as a soft place to sit? He supposed murder might be comparable to sacrifice for gods, a different brand of satisfaction to upset the monotony.
Perhaps it was the god who lurked among white clapboard churches back home, intent on finishing off the sinner, having decided that a paralyzed penis was insufficient punishment for his collective transgressions. Or retribution for violating unwitting female privates in frat house beds. There had been lust and gluttony that night, the remaining five deadly sins to be visited later in the semester. Although he was embarrassed by his mother, had sworn to never forgive his father, it might be worse that he never once believed god existed.
“We’ve sinned and the Good Lord is calling us home.”
Or maybe it was a different god.
Water pressed into his nose and ears, pried at his lips, as if it knew all the ways in.
He craned his neck away from the rocks slicing his face. Through foaming water he could see the blue sky with one eye, maybe even a silver glint of metal airplane miles above. Watch out for the Volcano God, he wanted to tell the innocent souls on board. If I can see you, then so can she.
Dash opened his mouth, let the salt water rush inside. His tongue floated against the back of his teeth as limp and useless as his arms and legs.
Chapter 10
There was no romance in the kiss. The embrace was all sandpaper and fish smells, rough touching and the racket from puking and dry heaves. There was a muffled voice through water-clogged ears—something about being all right and trying to relax and breathe. He felt sorry for the poor sap needing those words, had
been there plenty of times through college, where the anthem was a mix of Stone Temple Pilots, bubbling water bongs, and retching that echoed from tiled walls and floors.
Dash fell in love the night he dabbed vomit from Sarah’s lips in a frat house bed. Ironic how the first and last time they’d spoken was while she was sprawled on her back in a bed. Once covered in winter coats, and once covered in Tommy Chambers.
“I love you, too.”
The voice was Willy’s, and Dash opened his eyes under a shadow cast by the man’s peculiar head. It was comforting despite its fearsomeness. And Dash couldn’t risk being choosy about friendships, whether home in Vermont or marooned on an island. Friendships eluded him, and any he found turned out lousy. Sarah had been his best friend, along with being his lover.
Dash squinted and coughed, tried speaking and suffered a retching fit that burned deep in his ribcage. “You love me?” he finally managed.
“I was seeing your words. You gotta stop obsessing over that broad. And her Humpty Dumpty guy sounds like a total jerkwad. To tell the truth, I’d have parted his hair with a hammer.”
“Humpty Dumpty?”
“You know what I mean,” Willy said, pulling away and leaving the sun’s heat to press down hard.
Dash looked at the row of airplane seats that had caused him to drown. They were wonderful, man-made things, all plastic and metal. And fire retardant nylon, too, he guessed.
“I was dead.”
“You could say that. No gills.” Willy poked the side of Dash’s neck.
“Ouch!”
“Tender, huh?”
“Your nails, Willy.”
“Most people can bite them.” He held one hand out and wiggled beefy fingers.
Dash rubbed the part of his head that had been driven into the rocks. There’d been a flash of anger at God for letting this happen, blaming a deity he didn’t believe in for letting more shit rain down. There hadn’t even been a white light to walk toward when he died, only the goddamn blazing sun overhead that was ready to bloat his rotting carcass by supper time. And then he was being kissed by a fish and thinking about Sarah. Missing Sarah.
“I wasn’t kissing you, dumbass. It was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. You learned how to do it in high school, remember? You learned it, so I knew what to do.”
“I’m sorry.” Dash worked to smooth his breathing.
“Don’t call it kissing unless you wanna go headfirst back into the water.”
“You said you were going to stop reading my thoughts.”
Willy knelt back, allowed the sun to fall across the rest of Dash’s shivering body.
“Yeah, well, then don’t accuse me of kissing you.”
Dash pushed himself to his elbows and watched his scrawny chest rise and fall, hair so bleached it was nearly invisible. He was thirsty but feeling better. His breathing sounded less like air being forced backward through a wind instrument. A small crab walked sideways past his feet, one claw held out for self-defense, pincers tapping a warning. Or maybe it was scouting for food, and Dash was a disappointment.
“There wasn’t any white light. I think it all just goes black when you die. No Pearly Gates, for sure.”
“That’s about the gist of it.” Willy paused for a minute, watched a gull come in close overhead, tilt its head to scan for food. It eyed the crab on its second pass, circling back and hovering against the wind, but didn’t come in for the kill. “Keep it to yourself, though, if a miracle ever happens and you get off this cruddy rock.”
“So that’s it? You’re telling me you know there really isn’t a heaven? Not even a chance?”
“Relax,” said Willy. “You can still believe if you want.”
“That’s just great.” Dash shifted his weight, propped up on one elbow. “I didn’t believe, but at least I still had the option. Like flying saucers.”
“They aren’t real, either.”
“Stop!”
“And Santa Claus,” said Willy.
“I get it.”
“Bigfoot.”
Willy began picking through the scattering of shells surrounding them. “Humans get jazzed up over the whole eternity thing. But what kind of life would there be for a god who had to keep an eye on billions of dead people? Imagine the noise from a million symphonies of human complaints. You’d have the only suicidal god in the universe.”
Dash squinted. “So why pretend?”
“The world would be out of control without a promise of an afterlife. Remember when your grandma died?”
Dash had to think. “I was in fourth grade, Miss Tate’s class. My father took me out of school and drove us real fast to the hospital. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I was afraid to ask while he was turning the wheel back and forth like that. I thought we were going to crash.”
“Your folks told you it was all okay, that Granny was headed someplace better. She was off to finally see her husband who died before you were born,” Willy said. “Imagine not having those little nuggets to spread when trying to make death sound like a million dollars to a crying kid?”
“Maybe I wasn’t dead long enough,” said Dash. “And maybe you’re wrong, too. I always hoped I’d get a chance to see George again.”
Willy shifted, putting Dash back in his shadow. “Your dog when you were a kid?”
“Stop reading my mind.”
“No, I swear I wasn’t.” Willy shook his head. “Everyone wants to see their dog again.”
Chapter 11
Dash struggled with his lungs, hacking up froth and having to stop every few steps as he dragged the seats up the rocks. He wedged the row in front of the lava bench to face the ocean. He’d have a prime view in a comfortable seat, use the rim of the tide pool as a foot rest, and be able to cool his feet. The lower halves of the seats were out of the shade of the fat palm, the soft material baking in the sun. All parts were intact, including the bottom cushions that doubled as flotation devices and the trays behind, although the magazines and barf bags were long gone from their pouches.
He squatted before the seats, eyes following the curving lines of fabric pulled in place by hands in a distant factory. He imagined the sturdy shoe over a switch that began the machine-gun sounds of heavy thread lacing it tight. The stitches were geometric patterns, repeated and perfect, not like any jungle shapes, not like anything in the waves or the clouds. He brushed bits of sand, pulled away dead strands of seaweed, careful not to leave marks from his bloody fingers.
The cushion was still damp when he lowered into the blissful comfort of what he guessed was an aisle seat.
The sun was down, and he was dozing when Tiki flopped into the seat next to him, a candle made from a small coconut held to her stomach, the flame barely alive. She bent her knees and drew her feet back, then ran her hands over the material. “Manu wants you to come.”
Dash rolled his head away from her, the top third of a giant moon just now peeking over the horizon line. “I used to love the moon.”
“He said not to make him send warriors. But that’s not going to happen; all the men are too full of clap-clap to find the path. They would stumble into the jungle and be food for the night things.”
“They’re celebrating, huh?”
“The drinking circle formed this morning. Even the boys too young were invited. The cup passed until everybody fell asleep with the sun in the top of the sky. Then they woke up and began passing it again. Some made pee on themselves.”
“Sounds like quite a party.”
“I like your chairs. They’re like the ones in the missioners’ boats, but even bigger.”
“I found them this morning.”
She leaned forward over the tide pool, gazed at her bluish reflection, her head in a half-moon phase. She touched her cheek with the back of a hand. He couldn’t tell for sure, but thought he saw teardrops send ripples over the dark water. “When you make a white baby, no more girls will leave the island. It will keep me here forever, until I am old and the
n die, until I am put into the waves.”
Dash wanted to tell her it was a great thing, not just because the girls were taken from their families, but because of the horrific things she didn’t know about. But he wasn’t saving anyone. He’d stuck his penis in a broken fuselage and lost any chance at being a hero. He was doomed, and so was she. And the villagers were either naïve to what the soldiers did with the girls, or refused to believe. He was just as guilty for not telling her there’d be no kittens.
She turned to look at the sky, then back at him. “The moon is climbing. Manu will be angry.”
“All right, lead the way.” He groaned, getting up, muscles sore from the battering. A hundred tiny scabs had begun to form on his legs and hips. There was a golf ball-size knot on the back of his head.
He followed her into the living tunnel, the walls vibrating from the intense insect noise. The vegetation pulsated when you stopped and held still for a second. Stepping carefully over the sharp grass, he imagined tossing a raw chicken leg into this part of the jungle to watch the creatures come pick it clean like in a time-lapse movie. Vines would slither out of the rich earth to envelop the bones, pull them under. It was a relief to see someone had recently been through with a machete, had chopped back a layer of reaching hands. If he ever got away from this place and somehow bought a home, he’d pave every inch of lawn, uproot every stick of shrubbery.
They emerged from the outskirts into the smoky village, and Tiki led them across the compound by the light of a large cook fire and glow of the moon. She dropped her candle, turned, and ran to where kids had formed a circle to play keep-away with the ball.
“Sit down, Cracker,” Manu said, and two men inched apart to make room. Dash could see in the dim light how tired the old man was, the creases in his narrow face deeper than ever.