Dash in the Blue Pacific

by Cole Alpaugh

  The first sign of trouble beyond the stink of urine was a break in the usual ceremony. The clap-clap cup was filled and passed directly to Dash. He stared down at it, unsure.

  “Don’t just look at it,” said Manu, and the dozen other men mumbled drunken encouragement. “Smooth like silk. Comes from the best fruits, and my people’s special ingredient.”

  Dash nearly asked, then decided he didn’t want to know. He sniffed the awful mixture, readied himself for the taste of gasoline. When he tipped the cup to his lips, the man next to him grabbed his wrist and the back of his head, making the noxious liquid pour into his mouth. He choked down the entire cup, his vision going momentarily white as if he’d been punched in the nose. The circle of men hooted and laughed while as he coughed hard, trying to catch his breath, his lungs already raw. When the burning subsided, he realized the alcohol was already taking effect. The faces of the men seated across from him drifted out of focus. His cuts and bruises no longer ached.

  Remembering the tradition, he leaned forward and spit, even though the cup had been passed on. It brought more laughter and he clapped along with them, then had to concentrate on not falling over. The man who’d grabbed his wrist walloped his sunburned back and made a comment in his own language. It sounded a lot like mazel tov, which got Dash laughing and coughing more.

  “You are here for a reason.”

  Dash looked across at the chief, blinked hard to get the double-exposed image of the old man back into a single frame. His forehead felt wet and his mouth bone dry. He had a sudden epiphany regarding the importance of cold beer as a chaser. He thought of the crude old saying about giving your left nut for a cold brew, then laughed again at what a shitty deal it would be for anybody getting one of his testicles. Both nuts were as worthless as the rest of his gear down there.

  Then his giddiness drained away. He was like a drunk on a barstool when the lights come up at last call, a broken man whose only value was his death, spending his final days surrounded by people who looked upon him as a barely tolerable enemy. They’d been murdered by whites, and the missioners had condemned their beliefs. He was a eunuch with a death sentence. No son to toss the ball, or daughter to take on trips to the zoo. Overcome with melancholia, he tried turning to where the children were playing their game that was a lot like soccer. He fell over, and it took both his neighbors to set him upright.

  He thanked the men, patted one bony shoulder.

  “The Volcano God has spoken.” Manu’s voice was steady, and suddenly sober. Dash stared across the circle. “She says you will make a baby to satisfy the men who steal our children. She says the baby will be worth much treasure and will bring peace for our people. In exchange, we will pray to the Volcano God and ask her to take you home.”

  Manu paused, turning to look at the men nearest him, then signaled for one in particular to come close. The chief spoke low, and the young man in black warrior underwear cupped a hand to his ear. They exchanged words, and the old man finally nodded and turned back to Dash.

  “The woman will be fertile in four days, maybe five,” Manu said, and the men on either side of Dash jabbed elbows into him, one making a clucking sound. The clucker also made a circle with two fingers and tried sliding an index finger in and out, but he was too drunk and kept missing.

  Dash reached down and touched the front of his underpants. There’d been no miracle. “What if I can’t?”

  “You have no choice,” said Manu. “You will do it for my people.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Dash’s head was spinning from the harsh alcohol. He struggled to find the right words, tongue fumbling in his dry mouth. “What if it doesn’t work? What if it’s broken? What if I can’t do it?”

  The men flanking Manu cut him off with angry words in their sing-song language, spittle flying. The clap-clap cup was knocked to the center of the circle by flailing arms, where it spun twice and stopped with its open mouth facing Dash. The chief allowed the men to have their say, then held up both hands. The circle of warriors fell silent, their chests heaving, bloodshot eyes bulging all around.

  “If there is no baby, then the cracker goes into the Volcano,” said Manu, who reached for the clap-clap cup and gestured to one of the warriors, who filled it. “We feed her with a human sacrifice. She always likes that.”

  Chapter 12

  Dash barely remembered stumbling through the tunnel toward his soft airplane seats after the clap-clap was gone. The fresh candle he’d had—one of the fat ones made from a coconut shell—was now bobbing in the tide pool. The seat made the pounding in his head bearable, and the steady sea breeze kept him from being eaten alive. His eyes opened when the seat dipped to accept the weight of Willy’s bulk.

  “Never been in an airplane before.” Willy was shifting his great thighs and buttocks to fit.

  Dash coughed, rubbed his temples hard. “You’re not in one now.”

  “Pretty night.” Willy raised a hand toward the setting moon. The sky was already lightening in the east. “So there was a little window here to look out? With a shade to open and close?”

  “They’re going to throw me into the volcano.”

  “They believe human sacrifice will calm her down. And before you ask if it works, I have no clue. Except maybe if you factor in the power of suggestion. If they truly believe good things are coming, then maybe they will. None of that hocus-pocus on my island.”

  “You didn’t have a volcano.”

  “That’s true,” said Willy. “But they wouldn’t have done anything so barbaric unless the situation was pretty dire. No luck with your Penis God?”

  Dash sighed. “Same old nothing.”

  “Sorry. The village women are sprucing up your own special love hut. A sacrificial virgin all picked out. A real looker, too.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Maybe it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.”

  A little girl’s singing voice came from the jungle path.

  “She sounds like a bird,” said Willy.

  “The soldiers will take her away.”

  Willy put his hands on the armrest, looked ready to leave, but settled back when Tiki walked through his massive legs and plopped into the middle seat.

  The former god snapped his fingers, then waved a hand in front of her, but she didn’t flinch. “Just checking,” he said.

  “The moon is so pretty down here. The smoke in the village makes it fuzzy,” She said, tucking her legs to sit sideways. She leaned into Dash across the armrest and put a hand on his forearm. “Can you see it from your house?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Does it look the same?”

  “I guess,” said Dash. “But you should be sleeping.”

  “Do you think you can see it wherever you go? Even big cities?”

  “Everyone can see it. Sometimes it’s hard because of tall buildings, but it’s still there.”

  “Maybe it helps people from being homesick.”

  Dash couldn’t read minds, but knew she was talking about her and not him. What if he convinced Manu to fight back, to use two hundred village men armed with spears against a few armed thugs? The soldiers wouldn’t expect a rebellion, not after all this time. They’d have the element of surprise.

  “They did try.” Willy’s voice was soft, his bulb glowing dimly. “The second season the white men came.”

  “What happened?” Dash asked, and Tiki rubbed her fingers over a small lump on her arm.

  “A bitey bug, I guess. A dumb mosquito.” She began pulling at Dash’s arm hair, plucking out little blond strands. “There were swarms in the jungle. It’s better here.”

  Willy’s bulb moved side to side. “The white men opened fire. One of them was hit by a spear in the meaty part of his thigh. It bobbed up and down as he turned his gun where the women and children were hiding in the huts. I suppose they thought they were safe because they couldn’t be seen.”

  “How many dead?”

  “I don’t kill the
m. I swish them like this,” said Tiki, demonstrating. “I don’t like to squish them because they’re filled up with people’s blood.”

  “Manu was shot in the arm,” said Willy. “The same arm that had speared the bastard. It was an orange-haired man who limped across the compound where Manu was lying in the dirt bleeding, trying to get up. The soldier stood over him, pulled out the spear, and ordered Manu to summon his wife. The chief looked him in the face and told him no, that he would not. The soldier brandished the gun like he was going to strike him with the stock, but then had an idea. He looked around for a good target, saw a boy hiding next to the cistern, and pulled the trigger like it meant nothing.”

  “I had no idea,” said Dash.

  “The missioners said mosquitoes bring sickness, but never to our people. Makes us itchy,” said Tiki, scratching.

  “There were screams from the edge of the jungle, and the man fired at the sounds,” said Willy. “Then he stood waiting, tan pants turning dark from his wound. No other words were spoken. No pleading, no more orders. It was as though things happened as they were meant to, like a story that’s already been told and can’t be changed. Manu’s wife stood from a pocket of ferns, had to peel her daughter off like a scared little monkey. Handed her to a woman huddled with two babies of her own. This is the little monkey, by the way.” Willy used his thumb to point at Tiki. “This is Manu’s daughter, who was even more of a runt back when her mama walked out of the jungle, chin held high and proud. She knew what the orange hair man wanted, knew she was walking toward pure evil. She strode past the bastard and knelt down to her injured husband. The soldier fired when Manu reached for her, and the shape of her head changed in an awful way.”

  Tiki’s voice was soft. “Are you sleeping?”

  “Sorry, I was thinking.”

  “The soldiers torched the huts, some filled with people. They shot most of the pigs. More than half of the villagers were slaughtered by a few men with guns. When their boat was gone, it took an entire day to carry all the bodies to the sea. Even the gods mourned. The birds did not fly and the insects did not speak. The Volcano didn’t exhale her smoke, and the wind was still. The dead drifted away slowly, in silence.”

  Willy rose from the airplane seat and walked toward the spot where the moon had fallen into the dark ocean. The little girl leaning on Dash’s arm began to snore.

  Chapter 13

  Tiki arranged an armload of tapered candles she’d brought from the village, squeezing the bases into holes in Dash’s lava cave wall. He loved the idea of plugging the hiding spots after witnessing a spider the size of his hand crawl into one and not come out. He imagined all the cracks must be filled with awful things, and when he’d taken a candle to investigate with the flame held out for protection, he was certain something hissed.

  “Does orange hair feel different? Is it like the fever that made your face orange when you first came here?”

  “It’s called red hair, not orange,” said Dash. “And it’s just a different color that’s handed down from parents and grandparents. Doesn’t mean anything more. Like mine is brown and my fiancée’s is blonde, which is kind of like white. It’s nothing but color, like a bird’s feathers.”

  “The missioners had black hair. Big bushy eyebrows and hair in their noses. The soldiers all have hair like yours, except one.”

  He didn’t know what she remembered or had been told about her mother’s death. He made a mental note to ask Willy if the man who killed her mother was still among those returning for more children.

  “My favorite actress has red hair, or at least she did. It was a long time ago,” Dash said. He sat on his sleeping mat watching her finish with the candles. She’d also brought the makings for a broom—a length of bamboo and a vine cord to fasten long stiff leaves that had gone brown.

  “Actress?”

  “It’s a woman in a show that’s like your ceremonies. Only this actress was in a comedy, where they did funny things.”

  “What was the show about?”

  He tried remembering a storyline from one of the Gilligan’s Island episodes, but they blurred together, some black and white, some color. He’d grown up with only three lousy channels on their ancient television, his father too stingy for cable or a satellite dish. Dash had been teased for not knowing the important things other kids knew from Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Channel. He knew Mary Ann and Ginger, though, alternating crushes on women from thirty-year-old sitcom reruns. He’d once asked his mom to make a coconut cream pie like the ones they made on the show.

  “There was a bad storm that caused a boat full of people to run aground on an island,” he said. “They were supposed to be taking a short ride, but I guess the Storm God lost its temper. The boat ended up with a big hole in it on a beach.”

  “That doesn’t sound funny.”

  “Well, the people did silly things,” he said, but couldn’t recall a single example.

  “Were there people my color?”

  “No, no brown people. There was the boat crew, a teacher, a farm girl, and a rich old couple. All my color.”

  “And the actress you liked.”

  “Her name was Ginger, and she played a beautiful movie star. A movie is like a show, but much bigger. She always wore fancy long dresses.”

  “Did Ginger have a kitten at her house? Who would feed it if she got lost on an island?”

  “I think she had a roommate back in Hollywood, but she never mentioned a kitten.”

  “Is that close to Vermont?”

  “It’s all the way across the country. Most people ride in an airplane if they want to visit.”

  “Did Ginger make a baby on the island?”

  “Nobody made babies.”

  “If you make a Baby Jesus I won’t be able to leave the island,” she said, reaching for the broom parts he’d been playing around with but not assembling. “And I’ll never get a kitten.”

  “A Baby Jesus? I don’t understand. That’s something you know from the missioners?”

  She shrugged. “From the books that were mostly burned. There are pictures of the baby that Manu says will make the soldiers stop taking the beautiful girls. The missioners talked about Baby Jesus, said he was the Son of God.”

  “Everyone loves you here. They’re your family. Why do you want to leave so badly?”

  “I want a kitten more than anything. And I want to see new places.” She looked around the cave while looping the vine over the leaves. She tied a knot, tightening it with her front teeth, then handed him the broom. “The spiders won’t build nests if you fill the cracks with sand. Everybody knows that.”

  “Nests?” He held the new broom in front of his chest, ready for a fight.

  “A mama spider can have a hundred babies. Maybe more. They aren’t like people. Manu says they’re good because they eat bugs that bite.”

  “Manu is right, but they still scare me.”

  “Was Ginger scared of spiders, or was she a warrior?”

  The question hurt a little, but he went outside to scoop a handful of sand. She was dragging out his sleeping mat when he came back.

  “The sun kills eggs,” she said as they passed.

  He began filling in cracks, then used the broom to usher a trio of baby geckos across the ceiling, toward the mouth of the cave.

  “One more moon until your big date, right? How’s the plumbing?” Willy was sitting crammed in the spot where Dash had first regained consciousness. His mass made the chamber even smaller.

  “My plumbing is unchanged.”

  “I can’t get comfortable in here.” Willy flexed his jaw, twitching his fleshy light, which was drawing tiny moth-like insects.

  “You’ve seen all the rats and snakes outside? There are bats that look like they could carry a dog away.”

  “Don’t bats live in caves?”

  “You came to give me a hard time?” Dash asked.

  “I was just saying.”

  “And you’re welcome to read my mind
instead of asking about my broken plumbing.”

  “You’re too worried about the girl,” said Willy, who burped a fine puff of white moth wings. “Too much pressure isn’t going to help. Or is it that the natives aren’t your style?”

  “I don’t have a style. And I don’t want to think about Sarah or ten-year-old sex slaves.”

  Willy lifted a hand, rubbed under his jaw. “You won’t be able to live with yourself if she’s taken.”

  “Maybe they really are trained to be house girls, put to work cleaning. What the hell do we know?”

  “Right, friend, pre-teen girls with perfect skin and lustrous hair for wealthy couples wanting to skip the dirty diaper phase. That’s a good one. Maybe the buyers are the Howells on your pretend island. Thurston and Lovey collecting pretty young things to circulate cheese trays and deliver vodka martinis and Rob Roys.”

  “Stop.”

  “We’ll buy three, Lovey.” Willy’s voice turned into Thurston Howell’s, exactly as Dash remembered. “Or what say we make it four? Those splendid little darlings do divine work. Simply divine.”

  “Knock it off.”

  “They found easy pickings on islands out here, then figured out the most valuable specimens to grab. How much do you think one of these young beauty queens is worth to a rich pimp? No low-ball figures here. Think of all the years of service girls this age offer.”

  Dash felt like throwing up.

  “Kid thinks she’s getting a kitten,” said Willy. “Ain’t that the sweetest thing? She’s right about the fancy clothes. They’ll want her dolled up for the things she’ll be forced to do.”

  “We have to do something.” Dash dropped the broom, sat hard on the floor. “We have to convince Manu to try again. Anything’s better than letting them take the girls. Anything.”

  “You have a better chance getting your plumbing working,” Willy said, then faded away when Tiki came back with two handfuls of sand.

  She was singing a made-up song about a kitten named Ginger.

  Chapter 14