The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka

by Cole Alpaugh

  A thin line of black smoke rose from the baby, weaving upward in the dead air like a charmed cobra. Sweat poured from the warriors as they gyrated in the steaming jungle. Ten men in full paint spoke to the gods through dance and grunts, preparing to accept the infant’s life energy. They kept rhythm to a steady drumbeat, circling the crackling driftwood fire, their motion creating a vortex to channel ancient spirits. Carved skulls wearing vicious grins topped a dozen giant totems that rose from the white sand.

  Albino Paul’s charcoal black feet kicked at the sand. His wooden spear jabbed invisible enemies, his nose crinkled from the smell of the singed infant, the stench of burning plastic mixing with fruity cologne and sour body odor. Two more loops around the smoldering feast and the procession in ragged loincloths and feather headpieces halted. They continued dancing in place, pulsating veins crisscrossing shiny, tight muscles. Albino Paul was the most ferocious looking member of the hunting party because he’d filed an incisor and one eyetooth to sharp points. More filing would be done once the toothpaste for extra sensitive teeth started working.

  “Accept this blood,” Albino Paul cried out in his ancestral language, scooping up a small bowl with his free hand and raising it toward the opening in the jungle canopy above. “And allow us the flesh so we may be stronger.”

  Just as the tinny music coming from cheap speakers stashed among the palm fronds cut out, someone sneezed, which was met with a “Bless you,” from beyond the sacrificial altar. Albino Paul was distracted by the flourish of a bright yellow handkerchief against the dark green vegetation. A spectator blew his nose, sounding like a broken tuba.

  “I hate white people,” Albino Paul hissed in his forefather’s language, wishing he’d remembered to slip a few Tums into his crotch pocket; his stomach was sour from an over-cooked hamburger lunch. Oh, what he’d give to break from the troupe, scream his throat raw with a death call, and see how these fat tourists would react to something a little more authentic.

  “Shut up and finish,” the tribe elder snapped, his face paint running together into a pattern that looked more like a hockey mask than a death’s head.

  They began the finale, turning to face the fire, but were suddenly pitched to their knees when the sand jolted beneath their bare feet. Albino Paul caught himself with both hands, spilling the fake blood to avoid splaying face first into the fire.

  “What the hell?” one of the newer guys said. A flock of gulls took flight in a gray and white flourish, causing them all to cover their heads. From above the ring of tourists, the dozens of fox bats that dangled upside down and mostly yawned and slept through the spectacle beneath them let loose long streams of milky guano.

  The next jolt freed large batches of coconuts, finally sending the tourists into a panic. A middle-aged trio in matching Bermuda shorts and guano-coated Hawaiian shirts bolted toward the warriors, shouting in what might have been German, perhaps demanding an immediate refund. The quaking ground took their feet from under them, and they fell into a moaning pile, six flip-flops surrounding their writhing bodies like dead fish. Another couple screamed about grandchildren and how horrible things like this never happened in Florida. An elderly woman in a floral print bikini top and Speedo bottoms bounded into the jungle, flailing hands tearing at hanging vines, flabby rear end quaking more than the ground. The group’s lone tour guide followed right on her heels, attempting to reassure her as the duo was engulfed by swaying thick greenery.

  From the speakers came the recorded message required by an insurance company to be played weekly, normally late at night when nobody was around to hear. “Please move to the nearest exit in an orderly manner. This is a test of the emergency management system. This is only a test.”

  Albino Paul slipped away from the mayhem to check on his boat. The Cannibal Culture Spree had taken a hit since the first big shake had opened a zigzag crater in the airport runway in Norsup. For two weeks they’d sat around swatting bugs, supposedly being kept busy on clean-up detail. If tourists didn’t want to see wads of gum and cigarette butts in the sand, then maybe they shouldn’t be such pigs in the first place. Today would be the third evacuation since the first big shake. It was bad for business, but a good sign that the gods were still watching.

  Another small tremor made the rickety dock sway, as Albino Paul stepped down onto the sleek fiberglass hull. He grabbed a soft rag and polished out a few smudges in the chrome, but everything was safe and sound. The cell phone on the steering console lit up and a Gloria Estefan ring tone played from miniature speakers.

  “Hello? Hello?” The cannibal shouted into the phone. Reception was lousy in these back lagoons. Albino Paul climbed onto the seat of his six-hundred horsepower Fountain 42 Lightning speed boat, getting as close to the satellite orbiting above as possible, straining to catch as much of the crackling assignment as he could.

  “Pirates? Did you say two pirates?” Albino Paul tossed the rag over his shoulder. “Okay … Julius Caesar and it’s a fishing charter? How many kilos? And it’s the standard deal, right?”

  Albino Paul flipped his phone closed. He stepped carefully down from the seat to scribble the encoded number of the GPS tracking signal he’d use to locate the two pirate scumbags who’d ripped off the shipment. He’d be able to link through the drug lord’s command center, which was in Bogota, Columbia, or maybe La Paz, Bolivia. The drug lords never missed a trick, installing tracking devices in a few bricks of every cocaine shipment as insurance against this exact sort of thing. Still humming the Estefan ring tone, Albino Paul hunted for a pencil, his ceremonial human finger bone necklace clicking and clacking all the while.

  Albino Paul loved the Miami Sound Machine, whose lead singer was an absolute Goddess. He’d read in Tiger Beat magazine that she was born in Cuba, which was also an island. He imagined Cubans tasted peppery, hot and spicy. On those rainy, blue Mondays spent lounging in his cramped hut, he would fantasize about coming across a lost Gloria Estefan stumbling through the Malakula forest—having made a wrong turn from the beach.

  “Hello, Miss Estefan, I’m your biggest fan!”

  Albino Paul would devour her slowly and with love, ruminating over every last morsel. He would honor the spirit of the peppery Cuban Goddess to the tune of “Can’t Stay Away From You” and “Bad Boy.” Albino Paul dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the rag on his shoulder.

  The thirty-year-old Malakulan was named after Pope John Paul I, who was born Albino Luciano, serving just thirty-three days as Pontiff. The nursemaid who tended Albino Paul’s mother had handed the squirming baby to his mother wrapped in newspaper whose front page featured a photo of the recently deceased Holy Father, lovingly nicknamed The Smiling Pope. Albino Paul’s mother had wanted her son to be as blessed and kind as the man in the picture.

  “He will grow to become a great man,” the brand new mother had told the nursemaid, stroking the infant boy’s crusty cheek and thick mat of coarse black hair. “He will be the bravest of the brave and do things few men have ever had the courage to do.” The teary-eyed mother kissed the world’s newest bloodthirsty cannibal on his chocolate forehead.

  That her son turned out a bloodthirsty cannibal was perfectly fine in her book. Just as long as he enjoyed what he did in life, which was performing the traditional ceremonies for tourists when not tracking down and eating drug thieves for videos he posted online. The videos, which had tens of thousands of views, were the brainchild of his bosses. They were graphic warnings to anyone stupid enough to try ripping them off.

  Albino Paul’s mood had greatly improved following the aftershocks and a lousy morning dealing with the Vanuatu tourism flunky—Malakula being one of eighty-two islands forming the Republic of Vanuatu—who threatened to fire his ass for not wearing his namba during the tribal dances. The penis gourd gave him a nasty rash in the worst places. Albino Paul would love to have stepped it up and given the tourists on the Cannibal Culture Spree a rare treat. Maybe tie the flunky to the preparation tree and tenderize the little pr
ick. Maintaining authenticity, he’d fillet the meaty parts to dip in laplap batter.

  Talk about giving them their money’s worth! Just one loud-mouthed office lackey would easily feed ten hungry Australian insurance brokers.

  Albino Paul tolerated his steady day job, in which he and nine other Malakulans performed tribal dances then led guided snorkeling tours of the polluted and mostly dead Lana Loo Reef. One minute the village men were posing as human flesh eating demons, the next they were measuring and fitting snorkel masks and swim fins.

  Albino Paul accepted the bad with the good. He refused to feel degraded at having to wear a smiley face nametag while struggling to fit tight rubber flippers onto bloated pink feet. He was simply buying time until he’d finished raising the cash to complete the master plan that would change the course of his people’s history.

  His calling came deep within in the form of the long dead voices of his forefathers, the true bloodthirsty cannibals. And although nobody on Malakula had been eating people on any of the nearby islands since before World War Two—except, of course, when they double-crossed the drug traffickers—Albino Paul refused to give up hope.

  An embarrassment to recent generations, the rich history of Malakula—the former People-Eating Capital of the World—was a source of great pride to Albino Paul. If tradition was preserved, he believed, Malakula would rise again. And when it did, his people would surely change the name of their homeland, which translated to “Pain in the Ass” in French. A slap in the face moniker that mocked the fierce cannibal culture the outsiders had initially encountered on these shores. Imagine if a Vanuatu explorer had landed on the northern coast of New Zealand and christened it Saggy White Breasts?

  Albino Paul punched the coordinates he’d received from the drug kingpins into his GPS device, making a mental note to tell his old tribal leader he’d be indisposed for a few days. His leader was more than okay with the occasional absences, since Albino Paul always brought him back a few fingers. Albino Paul was, after all, a very thoughtful bloodthirsty cannibal.

  Chapter 20

  The little savage Captain Jesus Dobby had snagged with the grappling hook had not woken any cannibalistic instincts. His ancestors were best known for drinking beer and brewing a blinding grain alcohol bootlegged from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City. There were a few cases of incest, a half-dozen murders, the usual number of arsonists, but nobody had ever been known to eat human flesh. Dobby would definitely have stewed up the damn turtle half of the girl if it hadn’t sunk so quickly—separate from the girl, it would have been worthless anyway. He absolutely loved Chinese turtle soup.

  In the days after pulling the sickly turtle-girl on board, Dobby had been sulking, despite the bounty of tsunami trash he’d harvested while navigating his tugboat in the remote waters southeast of the Cook Islands. A Scooby Doo lunch box in mint-condition, an infant car seat, and a matching set of brand-name wheeled luggage just weren’t compensation enough for failing to land a bona fide turtle-girl.

  “You speak any English?” Dobby had caught her watching him from the bedroll she’d converted into a nest. She’d folded it over and gathered some old sail material and the mosquito net to lie on. He was seated across the main deck, sifting through the day’s catch. Every muscle and bone in the captain’s body was sore from trying to sleep on a vinyl beach chair meant for someone with a much smaller bum. And speaking of bums, he’d carefully adjusted one of his old handkerchiefs over the little native girl’s brown one, since she seemed only to sleep on her belly with her knees drawn up. The girl was only a youngster, but allowing any sort of bare ass to smile up at the clouds wasn’t right.

  “I can speak. And I’ve read books Mama’s in charge of.”

  “Books? What, you people got some kinda library?”

  “What’s a library?”

  “I dunno, it’s just a place for books. Like a store, but you ain’t gotta pay for nothin’.” Dobby pushed his belly forward to stretch his aching back in the flimsy chair.

  The girl was silent for a moment, considering. “Yes, my mama is a library. She’s a very big one with fifteen books.”

  “What sorta books did your people have?”

  “Fat ones,” said the little girl. “Great big fat ones from the flying soldier. They were written by Thomas Wolfe, Adolph Hitler, and Aldous Huxley. And there was one by Franklin Roosevelt, too. He’s our best tree climber.”

  “I heard of Hitler.”

  The little girl’s eyes filled with tears. “They’re all dead now, aren’t they?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Dobby snapped, but felt a little bad when the kid flinched, cringing back into her nest. “I been out on the water a long time. You got a name?”

  “Butter.”

  “You look hungrier than a stray dog. I suppose we oughta get something real in that belly besides water.”

  Butter lifted up to her elbows, testing her muscles. She rubbed at the bite. The swelling had gone down since she’d been pulled onto the rusty boat. A few times the captain had put alcohol from an old medical kit on it, trying to keep any new infections from setting in. Butter was shivering out here on the open water, goose bumps everywhere except under the dirty handkerchief covering her rear end. It was breezy and the sun was hidden behind the boat’s pilot house.

  Dobby let out a mighty groan as he rose from his chair to fetch grub. He saw her eyeing the one-armed baby doll mixed in with the pile of colorful trash he’d been examining at his feet. She seemed to be checking the broken pink infant for any sign of movement, probably deciding if it was dead or some type of carving. Dobby had a dog that did the same thing, back when he was a kid. Damn thing got spooked by Teddy bears and GI Joes. Queer how his dog was smart enough to recognize they were supposed to represent living creatures, but too stupid to know they were made out of plastic and pillow stuffing.

  When Dobby returned from the galley with three bananas and a chunk of white coconut meat, the little girl was on her side, facing away from the captain, rocking the doll in her arms. The way her body shook, he figured she was cryin’ about something.

  Dobby mustered his softest voice. “I’ll leave ’em right here for ya.” Crying females were something Dobby never understood and did his best to avoid. His mother had spent most of his boyhood crying, often with bruised-up eyes and a split lip. A crying woman was never a good thing. It meant an evil storm wasn’t far off. In his ma’s case, the storm had been his boozed-up old man, turned all black from rage. Dobby had experienced the power of that rage, the flash of yellow from his daddy’s wedding ring as the open hand came upside his face real hard. Goddamn if that ring didn’t smart. It was like a streak of lightning, sometimes coming out of nowhere. And most of the time he hadn’t done shit to deserve it. Dobby figured he was just the closest target for a wallop. There was perfect quiet and then a sudden whoosh, followed by the thunderous crack of leathery hand on a little boy’s soft skin. Dobby would fall asleep to fantasies of sneaking one of his daddy’s shotguns, loading it with the big red shells, and then waking the son of a bitch up with his own blast of thunder. Kaboom, kaboom, both barrels, you mean old bastard!

  “I ain’t gonna hurt you, girl.” Dobby wanted very much to go crack open another bottle of rum but was unsure about leaving the whimpering kid. He’d feel like dirt if she up and jumped overboard. Did kids this age do things like that when they were upset? “You can keep that there doll, honey. It ain’t your color, but it needs someone to look after it just the same.”

  “Can you really do magic?” Butter asked, the tears and snot making awful gurgling sounds. She was still facing away.

  Shifting from foot to foot, Dobby looked down at the pile of junk, half expecting to see a box of magic tricks or something. He was, in fact, pretty handy with magic, having spent so many hours perched on bar stools, whiling away long days making quarters disappear and torn dollar bills whole again. If a couple of new suckers walked in and grabbed a stool, Dobby could manage to get most of his drinks
paid for. And sometimes his ass beaten and tossed in the back alley.

  “Well, yeah, I suppose I can.” Dobby was relieved the tears had tapered off. “I can do pretty good magic. But you eat a little first while I batten things down for the night, okay?”

  While Dobby tried remembering where he’d left the rum bottle that would get him through another night, Butter split the skin of a red banana and offered her new baby the first bite.

  * * * *

  “Don’t cry, little pink baby.” Butter cooed to her doll, who was the same shade as the coral at the north end of her island, then crammed the entire banana into her own mouth. It was ripe and sweet, and she sat up and quickly tore open the other two. The doll lay across Butter’s lap, watching her with strange blue eyes. Despite spending her entire life on a tiny, isolated island in a remote corner of the South Pacific, Butter had always been able to see land. Dozens of times she’d gone along on fishing trips in the outrigger-canoes, including the big one with a sail. But superstition prevented even the bravest fishermen from exploring beyond sight of the tall palms and thick puka trees. The villagers believed a person’s vision worked as a tether. Losing sight of the island would sever the tether, and a reckless fishing party would be swept off into the horizon, lost forever. They repeated this warning to children who snuck off to swim far out into the calm, deep waters on the leeward side. Wander too far and the sea gods would pull you under and give your carcass to the bottom feeders.

  Rocking the baby, Butter understood how scary this must be, even for a child not made out of real skin. The world was so big and it made you feel so very small, like you didn’t matter one bit. The ocean seemed to go on forever and ever, in all directions.

  “Jesus has magic powers to make everything better.” Butter lifted the doll to her shoulder and gently patted its back. “He’s going to fix my home and make everything the way it was before the big wave. You’ll get to meet Mama and all the animals in the hospital I built. And I’ll introduce you to my turtle.”