by C. McGee
• Capybaras: It’s dumb to have a rodent as a pet. It’s really dumb to have the biggest rodent in the world as a pet.
• Snakes: The Bible is spot on when it comes to these legless sons-a-bitches. Snakes are not to be trusted … or held … or acknowledged as anything other than slithering monsters.
• Hedgehogs: These spiky mammals are nocturnal. Humans aren’t. Also it hurts when you pet them. Who the fuck wants a pet that keeps them up and inflicts physical harm upon them? Idiots, that’s who.
• Kinkajous: I don’t know what these are, but their name sounds vaguely anti-Semitic. Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?
• Armadillos: They have leathery armor where they should have fur, plus they carry leprosy. If you have one, I hope you catch it. The world will be a better place if you have fewer fingers.
Although sugar gliders didn’t make my list they easily could have. I refrained from including them out of respect for Lana. She’s brilliant, but her taste in domesticated animals is moronic. Icarus is a horrible pet. He can’t greet you when you come home, he can’t play fetch or tug-of-war or chase the laser pointer, he can’t be trained to piss or shit in a specific area, you can’t take him on a walk; basically you can’t do anything with him. He’s useless—or nearly useless. I hesitate to write the tiny marsupial off completely as his presence at Lana’s house did lead me to a breakthrough.
In the time that had passed since the failed kayak endeavor, I had devoted a number of hours to coming up with alternative methods for sneaking mongooses onto the island. Unfortunately, none of those ideas had been good ones. All of them required time and/or resources and/or risks that were unacceptable, and, in some cases, completely unrealistic. Icarus changed all that. He made me realize that I didn’t have to do it alone, that there were other people interested in similar things. Indeed, it struck me as quite conceivable that the same person that snuck Lana’s sugar glider onto the island might have the inclination and the infrastructure to smuggle mongooses as well. Especially, I concluded, if they were given the financial incentive to do so. Although including another person in my plan slightly increased the risk of getting caught, it seemed worthwhile. Nearly getting eaten by a shark must have altered how I conceptualized danger.
That night after a couple bottles of wine I inquired as to how Icarus had been procured.
“I’m not positive, but I believe my father purchased him from a shady pet store down in Lihue,” Lana replied. “You know they’re illegal here so you can’t just walk in and purchase one. God knows why he wasted his time. Sugar gliders make horrible pets.”
I smiled, partly because the information I was seeking had just been given to me, but mainly because I learned that Lana wasn’t the idiot that purchased a sugar glider.
As it turned out, Lana was only partly correct. The pet store that she unknowingly directed me toward did sell illegally imported exotic animals, however, it was the farthest thing from shady that I can possibly imagine. Brightly decorated in a modern yet cozy fashion, the store looked more like an Ikea floor set than a venue for nefarious activities. It was a tad disorienting, walking into a place so divergent from my expectations. It made me rethink my entire perception of criminal enterprises.
“Well, hello there, Viking princess! I didn’t even hear you come in. What can I do for you?” These words were spoken by a thirty-something Asian man as he made his way out of a backroom carrying a box of feathery cat toys. He was tan, tone, and flamboyant. This further disrupted my preconceived notions. I was expecting some middle-age Italian guy with a belly, a gold chain, and a hairy chest.
“Oh, uh …” I responded lamely, thrown off by the unanticipated way in which things were playing out.
“Oh, uh’s. Sorry, sweetheart, I think we’re all out of those,” he sassed.
“No,” I replied, collecting myself, attempting to recall some of the lines that I had devised prior to entering the shop. “I was just wondering if you had any elevated dog beds.”
“We totally do, come on over here.”
I had decided to open by requesting something slightly out of the ordinary. It seemed like a good way to build up a rapport; ease into the whole smuggling business. Also, Biggie Smalls really did need an elevated bed. Her grotesque obesity results in her becoming overheated when she lies on traditional dog beds.
“So, which one would you recommend?” I inquired.
“Oh, definitely this one,” he said, indicating the priciest of the lot. “Partly because it’s the most expensive so we’ll make the most money if you buy it, and partly because it’s the most durable, and partly because it comes in the fanciest colors.”
Smiling, I said, “I like your candor.”
“Thanks, girl. I can pass on straight sex but not on straight talk,” he replied with a smile and a wink.
Seeing an opportunity, I decided to forego the gradual buildup that I had planned to utilize. “Well in that case, I’m going to be straight with you.”
He inclined his head, his curiosity peaked. “I’m listening.”
“I came in because my friend said that she got her sugar glider here, and I was wondering if you could get any other exotic animals.”
“Exotic animals, I think you mean illegal animals.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You a cop, Viking princess?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“If I find out you’re lying to me, I will rip that pretty blonde hair right out of that well-proportioned skull of yours.”
“You won’t … I mean … I’m telling the truth.”
“Okay, girl, what do you want?”
I looked around the shop, making certain of our seclusion. Having ensured the store’s emptiness, I leaned in and spoke.
“Mongooses,” I said in a quiet and uncharacteristically deep voice, the type of voice that is used by someone who is unfamiliar with criminal activity yet is attempting to engage in criminal activity.
Mirroring/mocking me, the storeowner leaned in and said in an even quieter and deeper voice, “I think you mean mongeese.”
Fifteen minutes later we had an agreement: two thousand dollars for four mongooses in a week’s time. Having negotiated my first illegal transaction, I exited the pet store in a nonchalant fashion. It was an attempt to hide the pride and excitement that was swelling in my chest and I pulled it off fairly well—at least for twenty seconds or so. Then I remembered Biggie Smalls’ elevated bed, the product that I had explicitly stated I was going out to get but had not gotten. Conquering my mortification, I turned around, went back inside the store, and made the purchase. I felt like a jackass, but I would have felt like even more of a jackass had I driven forty minutes out to the pet store in Kalaheo just to save face. Sometimes you have to embarrass yourself in order to not be embarrassed by yourself.
Chapter 29
A Week in Eight Bullets
The following week flew by. This surprised me. I figured that it would pass at a painfully slow pace; that the minutes would drag on as I keenly awaited the delivery of my furry little assassins, but they didn’t. Instead, each day passed with seemingly greater rapidity. If it weren’t for a handful of memorable events, my mind might not have registered a single thing.
The few events that I actually noticed in the week leading up to the mongooses’ arrival:
• The Hawaiian Liberation Front held two more protests, which resulted in two more traffic jams, which resulted in my spending ninety unnecessary minutes in the car.
• It came to my attention that Paul, the owner of Garden Isle River Guides and my new boss, has three PhD’s. Fortunately, he’s not a douche about it.
• A feral chicken got into my house. It tore my kitchen to pieces, shit all over the linoleum, and probably spread histoplasmosis, or some other horrible malady, all around the area in which I prepare food. I went through an entire canister of disinfectant wipes cleaning it up. Stupid fucking chicke
ns.
• I saw Yukio in the parking lot of the County Building. He and another well-dressed Asian man with a forearm tattoo were verbally reprimanding three chubby men in inferior suits. The two chubby white guys looked terrified, the chubby Hawaiian guy, dismayed. All three looked as though they would do what he wanted. The sight reinforced my negative impression of Lana’s father as well as my belief in the success of our joint venture.
• Biggie Smalls broke her new bed. I should have bought the larger one. She might be a Yorkie but she is a manatee at heart. Nothing that is designed for toy dogs can handle her morbid obesity.
• I saw Koa at the bar. He looked troubled but brightened when he saw me. He told me a story about selling freshly squeezed pineapple juice from a stand back when he was a kid. I told him about making lefse with my great-grandmother back when I was a kid.
• Piggybacking on Charlie’s initiative, Ethan did some actual research on the resort investment. I don’t think he made any substantial insights, but I was still pleased to see him do it. I love that Ethan is carefree and fun, but it’s nice to see him act responsible on occasion.
• A phone conversation with my mom went in a predictable fashion. She bemoaned the changes taking place around her while I offered a modest amount of opposition and swallowed back the harshest of my retorts.
Ten a.m., that’s what time I left to pick up the mongooses. I wanted to arrive at nine sharp, as soon as the pet store opened, but I forced myself to wait an hour. I didn’t want to seem over eager. Even with the self-imposed delay I still arrived far too early.
“Viking princess, you’re a crazy bitch. What are you doing here at the ass crack of dawn?”
“It’s ten thirty. That’s not the ass crack of dawn, that’s almost midday.”
During my first interaction with the fit, gay-sian, pet store owner/exotic animal smuggler, I had come across as an incompetent bimbo. Anxious and thrown by the situation, I had thoroughly embarrassed myself. Possessing a firmer grasp of what to expect this time around, I felt much more comfortable being my confident and assertive self.
“I don’t know how they tell time in Scandinavia land but ten thirty is not almost midday.”
“But it is. It objectively is. Sunrise was at six, so four and a half hours have passed since dawn, and it’s only a little over an hour until noon which means it is a hell of a lot closer to noon than it is to dawn, so it is almost midday. That’s a fact. An objective fact.”
“Well now, aren’t you a sassy bitch.”
“When I need to be.”
“Good. I love sassy bitches,” he smiled.
I smiled back.
“Listen,” he continued on in a friendly but more businesslike tone. “Midday or not, I can’t give you your furry little friends right now.”
“Wh—”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” he said, cutting off my interjection. “I have them here, I just don’t like doing my side business exchanges during my normal business hours.”
“Fair enough.”
“Come back after I close that way we won’t get interrupted by any trophy wives looking for Chihuahua clothes. Plus, it will be darker. Best to avoid making illegal exchanges during peak daylight hours. Especially when one of the parties involved has blonde hair you can see from a mile away.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll come back around seven.”
“Plan. Talk to you then, Viking princess.”
“Talk to you then.”
I didn’t talk to him then.
Chapter 30
Dicks Block Brains
He was in jail. Correction, he was on his way to jail. That’s why I didn’t talk to the gay-sian animal smuggler that night. Five minutes earlier and I might have been right there with him. At the time I had been furious with Ethan for making me late, but, as it turned out, he might have prevented me from going to prison. A red wine stain on my carpet is certainly better than jail time. Of course I won’t ever tell him that. I’m still holding out hope that if I give him enough shit he will pay for my new carpet.
I knew something was wrong the minute that I turned the corner. The sight of three cop cars with flashing lights immediately sent my butthole shooting up toward my stomach. Although I had known that I was about to engage in illegal activity, the potential ramifications of said activity had not struck me until that moment. It was a disconcerting but not entirely unpleasant feeling, like watching a scary movie after four shots of espresso.
Determined to remain composed in a situation that could easily induce panic, I gripped my steering wheel firmly and continued in the direction of the store. It struck me as the best course of action, as turning around might draw attention and imply guilt. Going five miles per hour under the speed limit, I drove toward the store, toward the flashing lights, toward the fate that I had narrowly escaped. As I got closer I slowed. I slowed in part because, legally speaking, that is what you are supposed to do when passing cop cars; and, in part, because that is what people do when given the opportunity to gawk; and, in part, because I wanted to observe as much as possible. There was a lot to take in.
Six cops in total were on the scene. The youngest of the bunch was creating a perimeter with yellow tape. Behind the tape, four middle-age policemen carried out boxes and crates filled with what I assume was a potpourri of illegal goods. Guns, drugs, fireworks, Freon, who the hell knows. Behind them an older cop, a sergeant by the looks of his uniform, interrogated the perp. (A word I learned from watching procedural crime dramas with my parents, but up until this point have never had the opportunity to use. Exciting! There’s the silver lining.) The perp, aka the gay-sian pet store owner/smuggler, aka my lone criminal contact, sat on a rickety stool with his hands cuffed behind his back and his body turned toward his interrogator. He seemed thoroughly unfazed by the situation, less like a man that had just been arrested and more like a man that had been guilted into attending his niece’s piano recital: annoyed and bored and ready to leave but obliged to stay.
Having seen the smuggler’s cavalier demeanor, my butthole descended back to its appropriate place. He did not look like a man that would crack or flip or rat or whatever the fuck the term is, but rather like a man that would stay composed and keep his mouth shut. Not completely shut, of course, he is too feisty to keep his mouth completely shut, but he would keep it shut enough. He would stay quiet regarding the stuff that mattered, the stuff that could incriminate himself or others. He wouldn’t turn me in, he couldn’t turn me in.
“We don’t even know each other’s names,” I said to myself in a reassuring tone as I drove by the far side of the yellow-taped perimeter. “Everything will be fine.”
At that moment my SUV popped over the curb and into a trashcan. Every police officer on the scene turned their head in my direction.
“Goddamn it, Ingrid. What the fuck were you thinking? ‘Oh, I have an idea why don’t you get into an accident right in front of the scene of a crime that you can be tied to.’ Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant. Seriously …”
I quietly berated myself from the moment I ran into the trashcan until the moment one of the cops knocked on my window. It took a surprisingly long time for him to make his way over. My self-reproaching insults got pretty creative by the end; “twat goblin” and “sack-tard” managed to sneak their way into the mix.
Responding to the sound of knuckles on my driver’s side glass, I stopped verbally abusing myself, rolled down the window, and turned my head toward the policeman. It was the youngest of the cops. The other officers had recommenced their work on the crime scene. Based on the general disinterest in my accident and the solo presence of the most junior officer, I concluded that the police didn’t suspect a thing. I was an airhead whose rubbernecking had led to a fender bender, nothing more. Comprehending the opportunity being afforded to me, I turned on the charm. Positioning my arms so that they amplified my cleavage, I looked up at the young policemen with my cutest embarrassed/how-did-that-happen
face.
“Oh my God, I am so mortified,” I said, acting like a coquettish ingénue.
His expression immediately softened. Idiot. After five minutes of flirting, I was on my way. The young cop didn’t even ask for my license or insurance. Evidently, a V-neck tee and perky breasts are a form of auto coverage. For a second I felt bad about shamelessly exploiting my status as a pretty blonde woman, but then I remembered that my alternative was jail time and my guilty conscience abated.
Thank god for cops with cognitive impairing dicks, I thought as I pulled away.
Before turning the corner, I adjusted my rearview mirror in order to observe the scene one last time. It looked the same as it did a few minutes prior, save the cage of mongooses resting on the trunk of the nearest cruiser. It pained me to drive away from them.
Chapter 31
Wow, Dicks Really Do Block Brains
“Jesus Christ, Mom, I’m fine.”
“Okay, honey, calm down. I just wanted to make sure, ya know.”
“I understand.”
“I mean you can’t blame me for worrying about my little girl, can ya? Not with your local paper describing such awful stuff.”
My mother’s concern was sincere. It was the first time in her entire life that she allowed me to employ the JC expletive without reprimand. Had she not been fearing the worst a few moments prior, there is no way she would have let that slide.
My mother’s concern was also understandable. If my daughter lived in a town of five hundred and I found out that three people in that town died, I would be worried as well; especially if she failed to call me, which is exactly what I failed to do.
Obviously, I feel guilty about not contacting her, but to be honest I didn’t think that she would ever find out. She is half an ocean and two thirds of a continent away; barring another Pearl Harbor, I figured that no news from my area would ever reach her. How was I supposed to know that she visited the website of The Garden Island Gazette on a daily basis?