Dash in the Blue Pacific (9 page)

To his right was the coral reef looming just
beneath the waves. It was a protective wall running north into the
distance on a parallel track to the island. The reef interrupted
waves born hundreds or thousands of miles away. He wondered how far
short the plane had come from reaching Fiji. The online maps showed
blue almost everywhere in this enormous section of the route. There
were more smudges on his laptop screen than specks of land. He was
now the proverbial needle in a haystack made of infinite pieces of
dried grass because they’d stopped looking. He looked down at the
sheltered calm spot where the women had taken him for his first
bath. He’d been awestruck by the mountain breathing smoke as though
it were a living thing, the exotic leaning trees and untended
beaches he’d seen only in pictures.

He stood at the end of the lava shelf, the edge
of a black table he supposed was some of the planet’s newest land.
It was a twenty to thirty yard tongue, depending on the tide. It
provided a view of a more hostile world, deep water where anything
could lurk, but was also the direction he imagined the ship would
come for his rescue. He watched the surging water tumble
cream-colored shells, fish chasing bubbles, and tiny skittering
creatures with countless legs. Bits of plastic garbage washed up
here from ships or other islands, maybe even Australia or somewhere
in Asia. He stood a few paces beyond what was currently an anemic
blowhole, emitting knee-high puffs twice a minute. The rounded
shelf was like the lower third of a surfboard. It cantilevered over
a bottom that sloped into the dark. He could only guess how far the
sea traveled underneath the island, and never in a million years
would he dive in for the answer.

“
Where am I?” he asked the tiny
creatures taking refuge between his toes, jealous they’d made it to
safe harbor. It seemed unfair. The giant over his shoulder who took
care of this island wanted to eat him alive rather than offer
asylum. Dash was tempted to step back, but didn’t. He let them be
for now.

The two places he’d experienced the ocean were
in New Hampshire and New Jersey. One the temperature of an
ice-filled Styrofoam beer cooler, and the other so crowded that
hungry sharks would have to eat their way through tons of pasty
tourists before posing any danger. The old
Jaws
movie had a
lasting effect on New Englanders, especially those in the mountains
who only occasionally wandered down to sea level. Dash knew all the
things that could slither into a lake. But oceans held monsters
beyond imagination, according to movies and his father’s collection
of
National
Geographic
magazines.

A flash of white against the black lava caught
his eye. He padded across the sharp edges, thinking it might be a
discarded toy, and pulled one side of a jawbone the waves had
wedged into a crack. He turned the bone over in his hands, felt its
smoothness and light weight. It held a single tooth at the shorter
curved end where the jaw was broken. The tooth wiggled and came
free. He cupped it in one hand, and reached to feel his own lower
front teeth. They were a close match. He carefully retreated with
his find, keeping an eye on the craggy black landscape for other
skeleton parts.

Up a short slope was a circular tide pool six
feet across, its water replenished only at the peak of high tide,
when the strongest waves rolled over the backs of others along a
narrow stone channel. On the far side was a perfect stone bench,
probably formed when the molten lava met the cool sea during a
battle of fire and water. It was a mostly shady spot because of a
single squat palm tree growing up behind the bench through a gash
in the lava. It leaned with the constant breeze, wide fronds
swaying. He sat facing the tide pool, which mirrored the ocean
beyond, providing a dual view of the spot where the fishermen
paddled their skiffs around the southern edge of the reef. It was
the first and last leg of their daily expeditions, return trips
sometimes weighed down by bows stacked with big, tuna-looking fish
from the deep water.

Behind Dash and the palm were puka trees he
recognized from vacation brochures. They were small and bent over,
probably stunted from the constant sea breeze that made them all
lean toward the leeward side of the island. Another skiff skimmed
across the tide pool and the real ocean beyond, as he fingered the
sleek bone. Dash looked up and waved, then lowered the jaw onto his
lap and jammed the tooth back in place. A fisherman shouted, but
the words were drowned out by the wind and hissing blowhole. Dash
nodded, held up his right thumb to wish them luck and watched as
they turned the corner around the reef to head back north. The
long, skinny boats looked no match for such a huge amount of water,
not to mention the hungry whales and giant squid. Manu’s young
warriors might be tough guys, but the fishermen were the truly
brave ones.

Dash raised the bone when they were gone,
measured it against his sunburned face. It was an adult for sure.
The tooth tumbled out again, bounced across the thin layer of black
sand. It was yellow, maybe from age or stained from coffee and
cigarettes. Could it have belonged to the lady in the flowered
dress with the bag of knitting? Perhaps whatever swarmed outside
the reef had picked her body clean, recycling the old gal in a way
she could never have imagined. He hoped she hadn’t suffered, even
though she’d been certain he was doomed to hell for violating the
irresistible crack in the wall. She’d at least had something to
hope for, had somewhere to go. Maybe she was there, or maybe she’d
been nothing but one day’s nourishment for scavengers.

His penis hurt from thinking about the noisy
hole, but touching the front of his briefs proved the pain was a
ghost. He was as numb as ever. He stroked the smooth surface of the
bone instead, tilting it to examine tiny holes in the harsh
sunlight.

The girl had told him the eating never stopped
until you were made of nothing. If so, then the woman could be at
peace, whether or not heaven was real. But he realized there was
still one piece of her left, or two, counting the tooth. He should
throw them back into the waves, let the Sea God finish the
job.

Perhaps the jaw’s appearance was her attempt to
communicate from the next life, to remind him of the inevitability
of death just as Hamlet had been reminded by his dear friend
Yorick’s colorless skull. But the all-powerful sea had intercepted
the messenger and smashed up her news, or her one last chance to
tell Dash he was a dirty, filthy man. Maybe it was the Wave God’s
work, or maybe the Bird God had filled its belly on her last
morsel. Perhaps the Sun God had broiled away every last
bit.

Being a godless heathen was easier.

He rubbed the bone as if summoning a genie,
held it against his thigh to contrast the color. He tapped it
against his numb parts, still feeling nothing. He arched his back
and lowered the waistband with his left hand to expose his pathetic
member. He thumped the bone directly on the pale knob. “God, smite
the sinner with a paralyzed pecker!” he imagined the lady’s message
was meant to say. He drummed the bone hard enough to bring tears,
but his penis was unconscious or dead. The bone became a blur as he
beat himself, and then chuckled with an awful thought. He might be
in bad straights, but what sin had the woman committed to be
reduced to a mere drumstick?

There was another flash of motion in the tide
pool, different from the spraying blowhole. He stopped whacking his
crotch and looked up in time to see a man lift himself out of the
water onto the edge of the shelf. He was immense, with bodybuilder
chest and arms, wide shoulders glistening bronze under the high
sun. There were no boats in sight. No crashed airplanes.

Dash tried to look away from the man’s
nakedness when he stood tall and stretched, striking heroic Greek
god poses. But the strange object perched atop his shoulders was
impossible not to watch. If the man’s mouth did not move and his
eyes did not turn and blink—and if the small bit of bone or
cartilage did not light and flicker over his forehead—Dash would
have been certain it was a Halloween mask.

The herculean man with the grotesque fish head
stalked up the jagged lava and swept around the tide pool. He sat
heavily next to Dash, who could only stare. The man’s lower jaw was
set in a drastic under-bite; narrow teeth were pointed barbs, made
more ominous by wide gaps displaying reddish gums. His jowls hung
from his jutting bottom lip down to a human Adam’s
apple.

The creature looked at Dash with blue eyes that
appeared startled from skin pulled taut and missing eyebrows. What
looked to be the front spine of a dorsal fin bobbed freely on a
hinge in front of his awful mouth. The tip of the spine was bulbous
and glowed. Dash was hypnotized by the creature’s dancing
light.

“
That’s kind of weird,” said the
giant in a clear voice, fish head tilted down to where Dash held
the bone frozen in mid-drum over his exposed member.

“
Sorry.” Dash shook his head, let
the elastic waistband snap closed.

“
My name is Weeleekonawahulahoopa.”
He extended a hand. “You can call me Willy.”

Dash dropped the bone, allowed the man’s
fingers to envelope his hand. It was like slipping into an
oversized baseball glove left out in a warm rain. “I’m Dash,” he
said, then to explain being caught drumming his privates he added,
“I was in a plane crash and can’t feel anything.”

“
Tough luck. She’s a real piece of
work.”

“
Who?”

“
The Volcano God.” Willy jerked a
thumb over his shoulder toward the smoking peak. “I’d lay good odds
she’s the cause of your current troubles. Doesn’t seem fair, I’ll
bet.”

“
So she’s real?”

“
You can’t see her?”

Dash couldn’t help but follow the bobbing
action of the mesmerizing light. It made it hard to maintain a
train of thought. “I’ve never seen a god before. Is that what you
are? Some kind of god of the fish?”

“
I’m not a god,” said Willy, and
Dash noticed the light go dim. “I used to be, but I’m done with all
that.”

“
You can stop being a
god?”

“
Gods are man-made things, my
friend. That means they have all sorts of built-in flaws. And gods
are usually born out of fear, with a little hope tossed in. Imagine
changing light bulbs for a living, but you’re scared of heights.
What kinda job you gonna do up on that ladder all day?” Willy
paused, looked out over the tide pool at the ocean. “Yep, that’s a
god for you. A big old mix of fear and hope. And throw in some
desperation, too. Afraid of what’s out there in all that green and
blue water? Then just pray to it. Make offerings and even
sacrifices to it. An entire ocean takes a lot of prayers to make a
god, but it happened. Same with that bitch?”

“
The Volcano God?”

“
Right.” Willy waved a giant hand in
front of his face to shoo tiny moths from his light.

“
Why did you quit? Was it all that
bad?”

Willy rubbed the sides of his strange forehead,
about where temples would be. “My people loved and trusted me. Kids
afraid of the dark, and old folks with their days winding down.
They believed I’d take care of their island. Bigger place than
this, maybe by double or triple. No volcano, though, which was just
fine. They offered their belongings, heirloom treasures, to
guarantee I’d always protect them, keep them safe from storms and
disease. To keep the fish biting. They gave me carvings that were
handed down, jewelry that had married great grandparents, all
things valuable enough to keep when they migrated across the seas.
Fourteen new babies were named Weeleekonawahulahoopa in one season
alone. Imagine that?”

Dash nodded that he could.

“
They didn’t have to give me their
things. I wasn’t the kind of god to hold out on a sick kid.” Willy
paused, shaking his head, the light waving back and forth. “But I
let them because it was part of the ceremony they loved. Humans are
big on ceremonies. Like having gods, they bring comfort, makes them
feel closer to whatever they’re praying to. And so I kept the worst
sickness away, let the rains fall in moderation. The wife beaters
fell out of their boats and drowned, and poison snakes were ready
to bite any man with an eye on hurting a child.”

“
Sounds like you were a sheriff,
too.”

Willy shrugged, and Dash thought he saw a
smile.

“
I listened to their needs because I
loved them, and they loved me back. Even the bad-minded ones were
treated with a fair hand if I saw their hearts could change. No one
ever questioned whether I was real because I was everywhere. Right
up until I let them all die.”

Willy’s swaying light dimmed again, but his
face didn’t change.

“
I’m sorry,” Dash mumbled, not sure
what else to say.

Willy got to his feet, enormous muscles flexing
and twitching, sweat rivulets trickling through the creases of hard
flesh. His thigh was as big as an old coconut palm trunk, skin the
reddish color of the last rays of the evening sun. Dash fought an
urge to touch the giant thigh, to reach out and knock on
it.

“
You oughtta know that I can hear
your thoughts,” Willy said. “They come through pretty loud and
clear.”