Worst. Person. Ever. (19 page)
“Say, driver, there’s a local word I’m wondering the meaning of. Maybe you can help me.”
“My English be shit.”
“Not to worry. The word is
vakubati. Vakubati.
Does that ring a bell?”
He slammed on the brakes and began screaming. Plum-faced, he lunged out of the driver’s seat and pointed at me, screaming, “
Vakubati! Get out of car, vakubati!
”
“Fuck you, Tonto. I have a hotel to get to.”
I scootched over, put the still-running car in gear and peeled off, chickens and all. How dare he try to leave me marooned on some needle-thin chicken path when I, Raymond Gunt, had a job to get to. My mission—well, escaping
LACEY
, for one. And then my actual job as a cameraman: to document twenty-four soul-dead Americans fucking each other’s brains out before they descended
into cannibalism, all for some tiny sliver of crap money they’d only piss away within a few weeks of winning. The saving grace was that this absurd contest would be happening on an island semi-distant from
LACEY
with absolutely no police, no military and no legal oversight. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime gifts bestowed upon us by the gods to whom I recently wrote a thank-you letter.
DDT
(dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is one of the best-known synthetic insecticides. It was used with great success in the second half of World War II to control malaria and typhus among civilians and troops in tropical zones. The Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1948 “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods.” Its production and use skyrocketed in the fifties and sixties. However, it was banned in the U.S. in 1972 because once it is in an ecosystem, anything larger than a mosquito is totally fucked. If one thing can be said to rape an ecosystem, DDT would be it, and yet for decades people were crazy for the stuff. We are a wacky species, we humans.
The Pacific Proving Grounds
is the name of a number of sites in the Pacific Ocean used by the United States to conduct nuclear testing between 1946 and 1962. In July 1947, after the first atomic weapons testing at the Bikini Atoll—yes, that’s where the word “bikini” comes from—the U.S. entered into an agreement with the United Nations to govern the “Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands as a strategic trusteeship territory.”
Right.
Let’s remember that the United Nations at one point existed largely to serve the needs of the U.S. and the West,
whereas now it’s a free-for-all of pork and smokescreens. That’s several metaphors in one sentence. Fun fact: The United Nations building in New York City is the only place in all of North America where smoking is still permitted indoors.
Anyway, the Trust Territory is composed of two thousand islands spread over 3 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.
One hundred and five above-ground nuclear tests were conducted there, many of which were of extremely high yield. The largest was the 15-megaton Castle Bravo shot of 1954.
Turns out the Hotel Deet was a mere half-mile off. A sign pointing away from the chicken path read, THE DEET WELCOMES YOU.
Fucking brilliant.
I turned off and drove along a thin strip of coral dust up to a two-storey cinder-block building that looked like a Soviet gulag from the 1960s, except this one was covered in dead air conditioners and drying laundry, with yet another crazed and snorting tethered pig in the front yard.
As I got out of the car, I heard a familiar voice. “Ray! There you are! How did your epic fuckfest with
LACEY
go?”
Christ
, did everyone and his dog know about
LACEY
? I turned around and saw Neal, nut brown, in another of Arnaud du Puis’s Paul Smith linen suits. His pant legs were rolled up, he was carrying a pair of five-hundred-quid loafers and he looked, for all the world, like a blue chip film star who didn’t do drugs and who had invested wisely in real estate, and who now was taking a bit of time out to do a series of prestige ad campaigns for American Express
cards, Tissot-Omega watches and a fundraiser for some ghastly disease mercifully confined to Africa.
“So, why aren’t you on the yacht?”
“I was, Ray, but then I got sleepy and a Zodiac kindly ferried me back. Forget about me, though. Tell me more about
LACEY!
Everyone’s dying to know how it went. It was Fi’s idea to give you two a sex holiday.”
Aneurysm II: Return of the First Aneurysm.
“Neal, to be honest, I don’t remember anything about the past eight hours. Last thing I remember is reading Spam labels with you in the supermarket. Has anyone blown up New York or London yet?”
“I don’t think so. But Atlanta is being evacuated. A lot of the satellites have gone down, and most of the major optical cables have been chopped.”
“Fucking hell.”
Southern Cross Cables to NZ, Hawaii, Fiji and U.S. Mainland Australia-Japan Cable
Indonesian Sea-Me-We 3 and Jasaurus links
Papua New Guinea APNG-2 link
PPC-1 and Sanchar Nigam links into Guam
Hawaiian Telstra links
Gondwana link from New Caledonia to Australia
Intelsat
Inmarsat
SingTel Optus Earth stations
Zodiac Marine & Pool
is a French company known for their widely used small inflatable boats. The word “ZODIAC” is a registered trademark for rigid-hulled inflatable boats.
We found a patch of shade. “Is this our hotel, then?”
“Best the island has to offer. Not really any worse than a few of the cardboard boxes I’ve lived in.”
“Neal, how can anybody possibly have standards lower than yours?”
“Don’t be so quick to judge, Ray. I happen to know that
Monocle
magazine rated the food in the Deet’s restaurant as among the world’s best Polynesian cuisine.”
“Since when the fuck do
you
read
Monocle
, Neal? When you were in Brussels attending a Eurocurrency crisis meeting?”
“
Monocle
is a taste-making forum for global elites. No harm in a common man like me dreaming of one day living inside a stainless steel meat locker furnished with classic Eames chairs. And instead of being fussy and negative, Ray, why don’t we go inside and give the food a try?”
We started towards the gulag tower. A thick brown hand inserted a piece of cardboard into a window on the lowest level, reading:
RESTAURANT BE OPEN
.
“Din-din is served!” Neil announced.
As we headed towards the door, I threw a stick at yet another menacing, feral, tethered pig that, no doubt, considering my sunburned skin, saw me as a walking block of Spam. Something about the Pacific always turns one’s thinking to cannibalism in the end.
“Neal,” I said as I opened the door, “people here have been calling me
vakubati
and then promptly flipping out and screaming and fleeing my presence. Any idea what that’s all about?”
Neal said, “Raymond,
you’re
the
vakubati.
”
“Please explain.”
“
Vakubati
is the Kiribati word for fuckbuddy.”
“Since when do
you
know the Kiribati language?”
“Everyone in South Tarawa knows about the
vakubati
, locals and visitors alike. News spread like wildfire.”
“How the fuck did I become the fuckbuddy-slash-
vakubati
, or whatever the hell it is?”
“When we were tripping out in the Spam store, Sarah told everyone in the store that you and I were fuckbuddies—cheeky sense of humour that bird’s got.”
“Go on.”
“So the thing is, Neal, the Kiribati blame the world’s potential nuclear war on you.”
“So then, what—I’m the boogeyman to these people? Why not you, too?”
“Well, Ray, look at the facts: you’re bright red, you’re a bit on the thin side, you haven’t had a shave in a while and, at the moment, you’re wearing no shirt and a Gumby hat. It doesn’t take too many brains to connect those dots, it doesn’t.”
“They think
I
started the nuclear fucking war.”
“It’s human nature to blame someone.”
By now we were entering the Deet’s dining area: folding aluminum tables and white plastic stacking chairs supplied courtesy of the trash vortex. As there was no staff in view, we sat down and looked at our menus, printed out in Comic Sans font and, to judge by the stains and wrinkles and scuffing, laminated some time back in the Thatcher years.
Tuna Schnitzel
Tuna steak kissed by breadcrumbs,
served with Australian-made potato chips
and cucumber slice.
Tuna Salad
Raw tuna fish with onions in a spicy sauce,
served with crusty bread.
Tuna Tartar
Raw tuna fish minced
with hot spices,
spread onto an inviting garlic bread.
As seen in
Monocle
magazine.
“Globalization is glamorous and good.”
When no one showed up to take our order, we poked around. The kitchen consisted of a dozen plastic buckets, a small gas stove and shelves holding boxed and tinned items: cocktail sausages, Weetabix, irradiated milk from New Zealand.
“Pass me that opener, Neal. Fancy a few cocktail sausages?”
“Indeed.”
We began emptying tins. “Best we wash it down with this canned milk.”
“I don’t know about milk that’s been irradiated, Ray. Doesn’t seem right.”
“But selling milk in a tin
does
seem right?”
“Good point.”
We guzzled the milk supply. Finally I was feeling lucid and in good spirits. “Nothing like having your elevenses at sundown.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more, Ray.”
I touched my head. “Christ, I’m still wearing this fucking Gumby hat.”
“I didn’t want to editorialize on your style, Ray, but yes, you are.”
I removed the Gumby hat and shook it back into the T-shirt it was. Neal stared at it, his eyes goggling as would those of a kitten shown dangling yarn for the first time.
“Ray! That’s a Cure T-shirt!”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Where did you get it?”
“It was in the fuck hut.”
“I must have that shirt.”
Ahhhhh
, how interesting to have something Neal really wanted. “No, Neal, no. You can’t have this shirt, because it is
mine.
” I slipped it on for emphasis, and also to cover my sunburned abdomen.
“The Cure changed my life. I remember that shirt. I almost bought one at their July 1993 outdoor concert in Finsbury Park. It’s been one of the great regrets of my life that I didn’t buy it. And now, decades later, fate has given me another chance.”
“Fate has done no such thing. This is my Cure T-shirt, and you can’t have it.”
“I remember the complete song list that day: ‘Shiver and Shake’; ‘Shake Dog Shake’; ‘One Hundred Years’; ‘Just Like Heaven’; ‘Push’; ‘Fascination Street’; ‘Open’; ‘High’; ‘From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea’; ‘Disintegration’; and ‘End.’ ”
“Fascinating.”
“The encore was ‘Friday I’m in Love’; ‘Three Imaginary Boys’; ‘It’s Not You’; ‘Boys Don’t Cry’; ‘Fire in Cairo’; and ‘A Forest.’ ”
“Neal, your nostalgia is not going to get you this shirt.”
“What
will
get me the shirt?”
Hmmm …
brainwave.
“Neal, I want you to shag
LACEY.
That way I can take the moral high road and dump her for cheating on me.”
“I don’t know, Ray.
LACEY
’s technically shaggable, but it’s just hard to see pictures of her and me together in my head. And I mean, she’s also just emerged from an epic fuckfest with you. She’s likely worn out.”
I reached down and rubbed my stomach. “My, this shirt is in amazing condition considering it’s two decades old. It’s vintage, not a reproduction. It was probably left here by some Kiwi missionary with retro musical taste and a hankering for life’s finer things.”
Neal’s lips quivered. “Okay, Ray, I’ll shag her.”
“Good. I’m glad you’ve come to your senses.”
“Now give me the shirt, please.”
“Not until the deed is done. And there’s one more thing.”
Neal’s eyes became cold slits. “Yes?”
“I want that piece of red plastic that was hanging from the outdoor eaves back at the grocery store.”
“You fucking
bastard!
”
“So I’m a fucking bastard. Big fucking deal.”
Suddenly Neal had me face-mushed-down on the kitchen’s rattan mat, twisting my arms behind my back.
“You fucking pig!” I yelled. “Let go of me now or I’ll bleed all over your precious shirt. I’ve been known to trigger nosebleeds by willpower alone.”
“I agreed to shag
LACEY
, but no, Raymond Gunt got
greedy.
”
“Fuck off and die, Neal. My price is my price.”
There was a noise in a back hallway, and when Neal turned to see what it was, he gave me enough room to wiggle free and grab a white plastic trash vortex chair.
I whacked him in the face, making his nose fountain with blood.
“I’ll fucking
kill
you, Gunt.”
“No, you won’t, Neal, because if you get blood on this garment, it’s officially not collectible anymore, and neither you nor nobody else will ever want it.”
Checkmate.
I stepped back. “Now hand me that piece of red plastic and I will hand you your T-shirt. I won’t even make you fuck
LACEY
first.”
“You are a cruel bargainer, Raymond Gunt.”
“Just piss off and give me the plastic.”
I removed the shirt while gazing into a salt-crusted old mirror that sat beside the room’s principal decoration: an orange and black NO SMOKING sign. I was as red all over as a Halloween devil.
That was when we heard shrieks coming from outside. Neal and I forgot our trade transaction and went to look. A collection of villagers had circled the hotel, armed with baseball bats, car antennas, coconuts and coral chunks. A woman wailed, “
Vakubati! Vakubati!
”
