Say Uncle

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Say Uncle Page 31

by Benjamin Laskin


  I learned too that Melody and Zeeva’s rivalry had never let up since Melody’s first spanking on the kibbutz so many years earlier. Everything was a contest and a bet between those two. I saw the same ratty $100 bill exchange hands a dozen times in three days. Johanna told me that it had been passing back and forth between them for years. It wasn’t just who stayed underwater the longest (Zeeva), or climbed a tree the fastest (Melody). They also bet on rock skipping (Zeeva), beer chugging (Melody), and my personal favorite—hot pepper munching.

  The competition had four rules. One, the girls had to chew the pepper seven times and show the other its masticated remains before swallowing. Two, no additional food or drink was allowed. Three, no wiping of the face was permitted. And four, each girl got to choose the other’s pepper.

  Six peppers into the contest—each pepper as lethal as the one that nuked Doreen back in Bangkok—the girls’ bloodshot eyes were locked in a battle of wills and stupidity. Sweating profusely, their diaphanous cotton shirts clung to their breasts like Saran Wrap. Bubbles of perspiration the size of raindrops dripped from their foreheads and upper lips, and their hair hung straight and sopping, plastered to the sides of their faces. They didn’t speak. They couldn’t if they tried.

  Melody’s quivering hand hovered over a small, wooden bowl of shiny green, red, and yellow Thai peppers of assorted shapes and sizes. Her face glistened with sweat and tears and snot. Melody smirked and dipped her hand into the bowl. She fished around and withdrew a small, plump, innocuous looking crimson-colored pepper. She held it up for all to see, eliciting a round of oohs and ahhs. Melody opened her mouth in an attempt to speak and a hush fell around the table. In a hoarse, pain-racked whisper, she said, “Open wide, bitch. Here comes Mr. Choo-choo…” Zeeva closed her eyes in dread and opened her mouth. Melody placed the pepper on Zeeva’s flaming tongue and with her index finger pushed shut Zeeva’s jaw. For a long moment Zeeva did nothing, then, slowly, she bit into the atomic pepper.

  We all counted together, “One! … Two! … Three!” Zeeva scrunched her face in agony as a new wave of sweat and tears cascaded down her cheeks. She grabbed the edge of the table and squeezed with all her might. Even her arms and the backs of her hands were sweating. “Four! … Five!” She opened her flooding eyes and looked for the bowl of white rice that beckoned to her. She reached for it, her hand open, ready to plunge into the sticky fire retardant.

  “Do it Zeeva!” Doreen cried. “It’s not worth it!” Her empathy was such that she too was sweating and her own eyes were red and teary.

  “Hold on, Zeeva,” Max said. “Just a moment longer. You can do it!”

  Zeeva clenched her hovering hand into a white knuckled fist and chomped two more times. She opened her mouth to show us the smoldering remains of the pepper, and swallowed. She squeezed her head between her hands as if she were about to scream. But she didn’t scream.

  “’Atta-girl!” Max said, as the rest of us cheered.

  “Oh shit,” Melody groaned.

  “You guys are insane,” Doreen said. “Noriko, make them stop.”

  “No way,” she said.

  “You think this is bad?” Johanna said. “You should have seen these two morons a couple of summers ago in Mexico. Jalapeños. They both puked and passed out.”

  “Now that was a show,” Noriko said.

  “Not to mention,” Johanna added, “we were in the restaurant of a five-star hotel.”

  “A couple of classy dames we’ve got here,” Max said. He gestured for all to behold the dripping, quivering, hiccuping, runny-nosed specimens before us.

  Melody and Zeeva were oblivious to our conversation. They had resumed their battle of wills and Zeeva was ferreting for the pepper that might bring Melody to her knees. She chose a torpedo-shaped pepper, long, red, and juicy-looking. A shudder of nausea belied Melody’s otherwise stoic indifference.

  Zeeva twirled the missile between her thumb and forefinger. “Mmm,” she cooed. Melody’s right eye twitched. Zeeva hiccuped and swallowed hard. She said in a scratchy whisper, “You’re going down, Mel.”

  Melody snarled and said through clenched teeth, “Dream on. Let’s go.” She opened her scorched mouth and Zeeva tossed in the pepper grenade.

  “One! … Two! … Three!”

  On four, sweat cascading down her face, Melody growled and leaped to her feet. She spat out the burning shrapnel and dove across the table at Zeeva, tackling her out of her chair. They crashed together to the sandy floor and went rolling and wrestling down the sloping beach—shrieking, laughing, and crying. When one tried to stand, the other tackled her back to the ground. Exhausted, they staggered to their feet, wobbling by the water’s edge. Sand caked them from head to toe, and they looked like they had been poured out of a cement truck.

  Max laughed. “Like I said, a couple of classy dames.”

  Zeeva reached into Melody’s shirt pocket and plucked out the $100 bill. She waved it victoriously over her head. Melody shoved her backwards into the surf.

  A Boy-Girl Thing

  Max and Aidos rose every morning with the first crows of chanticleer. Max told me he hadn’t missed the sun’s sermon in more than five years, and Aidos much longer than that. Aidos taught him he must do something rewarding every day, and quoted Aidos who said, “By greeting the first blushes of day before the sleeping world has had a chance to mar it, you have rescued it somewhat. In you, at least, its unblemished face lives on, free from the name calling of cynics, pessimists, and party poopers.”

  Figuring that the world was safe in Aidos and Max’s hands, I overslept my sentry the first two days. Otherwise, wanting to spend as much time as possible with Aidos, I rose early enough to accompany her on her island wanderings.

  Walking through the natural world with Aidos was, well, supernatural. I felt like I was strolling alongside Mother Nature herself. Aidos not only knew the name, genus, and species of every flower, bush, and tree we came across, she knew which were medicinal and which were edible. She recognized every insect, bird, and animal, and they seemed to recognize her in return. Butterflies landed on her nose, bees alighted on her fingertips, and shy and elusive monkeys swung out of nowhere to greet her with a tiny-pawed handshake.

  Noriko and Johanna never missed a chance to walk with Aidos. “Wherever she steps,” Noriko said, “life springs awake, like grasshoppers leaping before your way.” Johanna always took her camera with her on their walks, knowing that Aidos would point out things to her that she’d never have noticed. “I call her fly-eyes,” she said, “because she seems to be able to see in every direction at the same time.”

  The three girls liked to play a game where Aidos would quietly lead them to a spot and signal to them to stop. Then, using sign language, which they each understood, she would ask them to find various sights or happenings nearby. More often than not, the girls couldn’t locate the wonder and Aidos would have to point it out to them. Inevitably, the sight was right in front of their eyes.

  It was on these walks that I began to understand the girls’ awe and respect for Aidos. I doubted there was a gentler, more humble spirit than she. That said, Aidos was certainly no wimp. As rugged an outdoorswoman as Melody or the others, they knew she could keep up with them under any circumstance, and seemingly without effort.

  Noriko said that Aidos needed no weapon, because all of nature was her army and arsenal. I wasn’t sure what Noriko meant by that, only that she wasn’t grinning when she said it. Johanna added that Aidos was named after the Greek goddess of shame, and that like her namesake in the legend, Aidos was under the protection of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of righteous retribution, who watched over Aidos and destroyed anyone who tried to harm her.

  The more I learned about Aidos and Max, the more curious I became about what transpired some five years back in that little mountain town of Pinecrest. I thought of visiting there one day. I heard that her father sold their cabin home and moved to a quieter, more secluded part of the woods with her dog, Beowulf. Sur
ely a few of her friends must still be around. Yeah, I thought, what the heck, a trip to Pinecrest. There’s a story there and I want to know it.

  Doreen joined us on one of our nature walks, and although Aidos’ peculiar abilities astounded and impressed her, she preferred the beach and the sea, and spent most of her days sunning, snorkeling, reading, and wondering if she had a chance with Max Stormer.

  ···

  “You like him too, right?” Doreen asked me, lifting her snorkeling mask onto her forehead. We were standing waist deep in the calm, warm water. It was late afternoon and in the distance we could see Max and Melody strolling together along the beach away from us.

  “I told you I think he’s a good guy.”

  “Good for me?”

  “For any woman who has the soul wise enough to know it.”

  “So why not me?” she asked, a small whine in her voice.

  “Do you want me to ask him?”

  “No!”

  I snickered. “Too late.”

  “Guy, you didn’t!” She splashed me.

  “Sure I did.”

  “That’s so embarrassing!” She looked again at Max. He was now squatting by some rocks left bare by the low tide, waving Melody down to look at something. “…So what did he say?”

  “He said he thinks you’re great.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, look at Melody there. She’s great. I can’t compare to her. Or Zeeva…or Johanna…or Noriko. And certainly not to Aidos.” Doreen sighed and swatted at the water. “I suck.”

  “You’re every bit as pretty as they are, and just as cool.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yeah you are,” I insisted. “So you can’t toss knives or plug bullet holes. Big deal. It’s not about that, and a guy like Max knows it. Max isn’t shallow like the rest of us guys. He sees the pilgrim soul in you.”

  “I know he’s special that way, but… So what else did he say?”

  “I didn’t want to put him on the spot, so I didn’t press it. But I learned this much, there was a girl back in Pinecrest that he loved very much. Her name was Katie. And like you, she was very pretty, and like you, she couldn’t do any bitchin’ stuff like Aidos and Melody and the others.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. She’s in law school now, like you will be soon, and she’ll never see Max again.”

  “But why?”

  “Because he’s dead, remember?”

  “He never tried to contact her? Surely he could have gotten some message to her letting her know that he was alive.”

  “Too risky. Everyone knew she was closest to him. By staying dead to her, he could let her get on with living.”

  “But it’s so sad…”

  In the distance Max and Melody continued strolling. Melody gave him a playful shove and then hopped onto his back. He kept walking, carrying her piggyback.

  “He’s not dead to me,” Doreen said.

  “No, he’s not.”

  “So…?”

  “Forget it, Doreen. Even if he did have the hots for you, there’s nothing he can do about it. He lives in the shadows and alleyways of life, on the mountaintops and deserted beaches. He can’t just fly into any airport like you and me ‘cuz Interpol or someone else would be waiting for him. He has to be very careful.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Doreen said. “He doesn’t seem dangerous. What could he have possibly done that was so bad?”

  “I think it’s more what he could do, than what he’s done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A prophecy,” I said.

  “That’s ridiculous. What prophesy?”

  “Aidos’.”

  “Come on, Guy. She can do a lot of things, but she can’t see the future. That’s nonsense.”

  I shrugged.

  “Okay,” Doreen said, “so what did she say?”

  “She said that Max is a natural leader.”

  “Big deal. There are plenty of leaders around.”

  “Yeah, but he’s different, she said. He’s not like today’s media-made impostors whose claim to leadership is based on little more than a prestigious degree, celebrity, financial success, good looks, or platitudes. Aidos said that Max is that rare individual who inspires trust and loyalty by sheer force of personal integrity. A leader like those of bygone ages, the heroic ages.”

  “That’s all very flattering, I’m sure, but what evidence is there for it? He seems like a regular guy to me.”

  “A regular guy you can’t take your eyes off.”

  “That’s just, you know, a boy-girl thing.”

  “But why do you like him?”

  “I don’t know, I just do…”

  “Pinecrest,” I said. “Do you remember the commotion that little town caused? The whole country felt it.”

  “Sorta, but two weeks later it was old news. No one remembers it now.”

  “More people than you think. There are still pinebombs going off all over the place. That’s how you got rid of some of your stuff, remember? People still write graffiti about it on walls and all over social media. And groups like The Glitch sing songs about it. And get this, did you know that The Glitch’s Regina Brodie is from Pinecrest?”

  “Nooo. Really?”

  “Yeah. She was very close to Max Stormer. They grew up together. Max told me himself.”

  “Interesting,” Doreen said.

  “Yep. And that big bodyguard you saw toss those thugs from the stage? That’s Regina Brodie’s boyfriend. He was also Max’s best friend back in Pinecrest.”

  “The plot thickens,” Doreen said. “Do they know that Max and Aidos are still alive?”

  “No, and for the same reason that his old girlfriend doesn’t know. For their own safety.”

  “I don’t know, Guy. I understand it, I guess, but it still seems cruel to me. I mean, wouldn’t you want to know that I were still alive if something were to happen to me?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But that was Max’s decision, not theirs. Besides, Aidos told me that they do know he’s alive.”

  “Huh?”

  “Not because they were told so, but because they knew Max Stormer. They knew that neither he nor Aidos would ever commit suicide in some stupid love pact. Not in a hundred years.”

  “Well maybe they think that they died some other way. That they were killed or something, and it was just being covered up.”

  “I posed the same question to Aidos. She said that they would know.”

  “But how would she know what they might be thinking?”

  I shrugged. “She’s Aidos. She knows stuff. Something about how they would miss his presence like the number 10 would miss its zero. The point is, according to Aidos, Max had a powerful affect on people. That, Aidos told me, was Max Stormer the lad, a preview of Max Stormer the man.”

  “That’s just romantic bombast,” Doreen declared.

  “Yeah, probably. I’m just telling you what she told me.”

  “And when, might I ask, does the revolution begin?”

  “She said that when the time was right, he’d be leading the times.”

  Doreen groaned and rolled her eyes. “And what’s her role in all this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She didn’t say?”

  “She doesn’t talk about herself much, just like Max.”

  “And don’t you find that a little suspicious?”

  “Not coming from them I don’t.”

  “But why Max? Surely there are dozens if not hundreds of others in the big wide world like him.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. All Aidos said was that Max was fearless.”

  Doreen said, “Well, I don’t see that as a good thing. Only idiots aren’t afraid. Fear is necessary for survival.”

  “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

  “Well what did she mean?”

  “You’re asking the wrong guy,
Doreen. I can’t even spell the word courage. But Aidos said that if you’re afraid it’s because you believe you either have something to hide or something to lose. She said if you know who you are, and express yourself genuinely in every word and deed, you need never fear because there’s nothing to lose and nothing to hide.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure that’s all something I’ll never understand.” Doreen looked again at Max and Melody who were about to turn the bend and out of sight. She frowned and shook her head. “And as for destiny, I don’t believe in it. I believe in free will. I believe in choice. I create my own…Guy?”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Huh? Yeah. Destiny’s not for you. Cool. I gotta go…”

  I pulled my mask back over my face and inserted my snorkel. I saw Noriko and Johanna down the beach in snorkel gear wading into the water. Mermaids! I submerged and snorkeled menacingly towards my prey like a blood-sniffing shark.

  Poor Doreen, I thought. She finally finds a guy worthy of her affections and he turns out to be a deadman. What rotten luck. I wished that I knew what to tell her to ease the pain, but words, like a Band-Aid on your elbow, do little for a bruised heart.

  Part Five

  If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  Heart Smarts

  Our flight home out of Penang, Malaysia, lacked the magic and excitement of our flight to Bangkok. Doreen was lousy company. She spent nearly the entire trip with her head on my shoulder, her tears soaking my shirt. When she tried to talk about why she was so upset, her voice quivered and caught, and I feared that she was going to lose it completely and start bawling and make a scene.

  I had few details, but it didn’t take a Madame Blavatsky to figure it out. On our last night on the island, Max and Doreen took a midnight stroll together. When I woke up to catch the sunrise with Aidos, I saw that Doreen’s side of the bed was empty. “Naughty, naughty,” I said, and trotted out to the beach. Aidos was already there, sitting cross-legged on the sand in the pre-dawn darkness. I plopped down beside her.

 

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