Dash in the Blue Pacific (11 page)

“
You were a god, for crying out
loud. They’re just humans with guns. Mortals.”

Willy turned to him with an oversized index
finger pointed to his own chest. “Exactly what do you think I could
do?”

“
Sink their boat,” Dash nearly
shouted. “I don’t know. Send them over the rainbow in a water
spout. Do some god thing. Release the kraken on their sorry
asses!”

Willy shook his head. “Not
possible.”

“
You told me you changed the
weather, made it rain. You cured diseases.”

“
I don’t exist here,” he said
quietly. “Not for these people. They don’t have a Fish God, never
heard of Weeleekonawahulahoopa.”

“
This is crazy. How does a Volcano
God knock an airplane out of sky, but you can’t stop a few armed
assholes from kidnapping children? You have to. It’s what gods are
for.”

Dash’s words hung in the air for more than a
minute. Willy stared down at the puddle he’d made.

“
I’m nothing but a ghost. You want
protection, go see her.” Willy bobbed his chin toward the volcano.
“She’s the almighty one on this turf, but there’s a catch. A
volcano is like an octopus, tentacles weaving up through the ground
and poking holes to feel around. The rest of its body lives far
away, with a little brain that’s made up of next to nothing.
Sometimes she does good things, and sometimes she destroys entire
villages for no reason. The Sea God acts that way, too. All the big
gods are real sketchy, can be
buku
dangerous. The Bird God
is a whole different case. Not many people die from bird shit in
their hair.”

“
How do you ask a volcano for
help?”

Willy shrugged. “Human sacrifice gets her
attention.”

“
That’s a lousy option.”

“
You’re better off praying to your
Penis God to get the old wanker up and working. Or get a Computer
God to deliver a new laptop. Those big boobies seemed to work like
a charm.”

Dash shook his head. “They won’t stop taking
the girls even if Manu gives them a white baby. And that’s besides
the fact that the baby could turn out just as brown as the rest,
even if some miracle occurred.”

“
You’re missing the point.” Willy
unfurled a limp eel that had been curled in one hand. He twirled it
between two fingers, then held it over his head and lowered the
tail into his mouth. He slurped it down like a spaghetti noodle,
wiped his dangerous-looking mouth with the back of a hand and
burped. “Manu is convinced they’ll be left alone in exchange for a
white baby. There’s enormous power in belief.”

“
I still don’t understand why I see
you,” Dash said. “You look real.”

“
I don’t know. You must be a special
case. Or maybe I’m only a hallucination. Did you check your daily
horoscope?”

“
No.”

“
Good, that shit’s all made up.”
Willy smiled. “Some of the kids see me, too. I scared the bejesus
out of two boys hunting sand crabs along the tide line. I can eat a
whole bushel of those things.”

Dash frowned.

“
Crabs, not boys, dumbass.” Willy
rubbed his stomach, his light surging brighter. “I was relaxing in
the shallow water and I might have said boo, or something. Had no
idea they’d run screaming. I felt like a heel. Things like that
will give a god a bad rep. I’ve seen it happen.”

“
So you have no idea why I can see
you? I’m probably crazy. It runs in my family.”

“
You wanna go home,
right?”

“
Of course.”

“
Back to where your girl cheated,
and you just got shit-canned from a lousy job? Way too depressing.
I’d say crazy is a safe bet. Look, I’m really not trying to read
your thoughts.”

“
I appreciate that.”

“
Humans are filled with mostly
monotonous stuff. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m horny. I worship you.
I hate you.” Willy paused to rub his face. “I loved my people, but
I never got any sleep.”

“
I guess I understand,” said Dash.
“If a village is big enough, there’s always someone
hurting.”

“
Sometimes you can’t even
think.”

“
What happened to your
people?”

Willy’s head tilted to the side, eyes turning
skyward. “I was idolized in so many ways. It was the best of times
before my people were killed. I came to them during a drought, and
brought gentle rains. I ushered schools of plump fish into their
wide lagoon. And they knelt down before this humble
god.”

Willy stopped talking and dropped his head into
his hands, shoulders lurching. Dash watched him begin to fade as he
sat less than two feet away on the same lava bench. The
disappearing act lasted several minutes, until only a hint of light
hovered where his forehead had been. Then it blinked out and left
Dash sitting alone next to a small puddle.

He turned to watch the white breakers roll over
the lava rocks. “God,” he finally muttered, “I am
crazy.”

D
ash woke from a dreamless
sleep, climbed stiff from his bedding—like a wild animal, he
thought—and headed toward the light. A raw wind swept over the
waves to the east, as though rushing to fill a void left by the
rising sun. He dipped his toes, let the sideways running tide clean
the filth, and began gathering flat stones with good round
edges.

The first throw skipped across the breakers
five times, nothing compared to what he could do on the tranquil
ponds at home, where a dozen or even fifteen touches were possible.
The uneven surface launched his best throws skyward, or pitched
them down into the rolling troughs with disappointing
plops.

He shook out his throwing arm and was
stretching his shoulder muscles when a wave tumbled a bulky object
he at first mistook for Willy. It rolled up the sloping shore and
then threatened to head back out to sea on the retreating surf. He
hobbled across the sharp footing to time the next big wave, the
blow hole full of energy, showering him from behind. He’d angled
his body with one foot forward when the wall of churning whitewater
rushed past him, thigh high. He trudged toward the mostly submerged
object that was hung up on the very last point of land.

The current pulled back at the moment his
fingers wedged under its plastic rim. He planted his heels, locked
his knees, and held on with all his might as the ocean changed
direction, nearly sucking it from his grasp. His skinny arms were
fully extended, butt low, with a river of water blasting against
his back and shoulders. He was at the very tipping point of a
tug-o-war: either his ankles and wrists would give out, or his body
would be claimed by the ocean still clinging to its
prize.

A new wave rolled up over the retracting froth
and sent him hard to his ass, knocking the object free from the
very end of his ragged fingernails. For one brief second he had a
perfect view of the row of three connected airplane seats, cushions
intact and belts reaching like tendrils. He was overwhelmed by the
possibility of losing this artifact of civilization. Panic drove
him to his feet and made him lunge chest first, arms wide open,
tackling and pinning the seats as the new wave swept back
out.

“
Please,” he whimpered, and then
sucked in a deep breath just in time as the next wave rolled and
tumbled him over the jagged lava. Another wave slammed down
directly over him, driving the seats into his body as if telling
him to go ahead and take the damn things. He was upside down when
bright stars exploded across his vision. The impact made him forget
to hold his breath and he was suddenly choking, spinning in a
ruthless washing machine filled with foam and sharp edges. He was
rolling, elbows and knees bumping along, until another wave changed
his position. He was face down, a slow vinyl record with a needle
planted in the middle of his forehead, a great weight on his back
keeping him from rising to his knees for air. He reached behind and
felt the waterlogged seats that had him pinned, then found his
waistband and tugged at the painful wedgie.

He’d been tricked by some rogue god, lured by
an enchanting object to the same fate as the small fish attracted
to Willy’s dangling light. His chest muscles clenched in a spasm,
water in his lungs and air all but gone. Would the Sea God go to
the effort of baiting the most dangerous spot on the island with
something so irresistible as a soft place to sit? He supposed
murder might be comparable to sacrifice for gods, a different brand
of satisfaction to upset the monotony.

Perhaps it was the god who lurked among white
clapboard churches back home, intent on finishing off the sinner,
having decided that a paralyzed penis was insufficient punishment
for his collective transgressions. Or retribution for violating
unwitting female privates in frat house beds. There had been lust
and gluttony that night, the remaining five deadly sins to be
visited later in the semester. Although he was embarrassed by his
mother, had sworn to never forgive his father, it might be worse
that he never once believed god existed.

“
We’ve sinned and the Good Lord is
calling us home.”

Or maybe it was a different god.

Water pressed into his nose and ears, pried at
his lips, as if it knew all the ways in.

He craned his neck away from the rocks slicing
his face. Through foaming water he could see the blue sky with one
eye, maybe even a silver glint of metal airplane miles above.
Watch out for the Volcano God
, he wanted to tell the
innocent souls on board.
If I can see you, then so can
she
.

Dash opened his mouth, let the salt water rush
inside. His tongue floated against the back of his teeth as limp
and useless as his arms and legs.

T
here was no romance in the
kiss. The embrace was all sandpaper and fish smells, rough touching
and the racket from puking and dry heaves. There was a muffled
voice through water-clogged ears—something about being all right
and trying to relax and breathe. He felt sorry for the poor sap
needing those words, had been there plenty of times through
college, where the anthem was a mix of Stone Temple Pilots,
bubbling water bongs, and retching that echoed from tiled walls and
floors.

Dash fell in love the night he dabbed vomit
from Sarah’s lips in a frat house bed. Ironic how the first and
last time they’d spoken was while she was sprawled on her back in a
bed. Once covered in winter coats, and once covered in Tommy
Chambers.

“
I love you, too.”

The voice was Willy’s, and Dash opened his eyes
under a shadow cast by the man’s peculiar head. It was comforting
despite its fearsomeness. And Dash couldn’t risk being choosy about
friendships, whether home in Vermont or marooned on an island.
Friendships eluded him, and any he found turned out lousy. Sarah
had been his best friend, along with being his lover.

Dash squinted and coughed, tried speaking and
suffered a retching fit that burned deep in his ribcage. “You love
me?” he finally managed.

“
I was seeing your words. You gotta
stop obsessing over that broad. And her Humpty Dumpty guy sounds
like a total jerkwad. To tell the truth, I’d have parted his hair
with a hammer.”

“
Humpty Dumpty?”

“
You know what I mean,” Willy said,
pulling away and leaving the sun’s heat to press down
hard.

Dash looked at the row of airplane seats that
had caused him to drown. They were wonderful, man-made things, all
plastic and metal. And fire retardant nylon, too, he
guessed.

“
I was dead.”

“
You could say that. No gills.”
Willy poked the side of Dash’s neck.

“
Ouch!”

“
Tender, huh?”

“
Your nails, Willy.”

“
Most people can bite them.” He held
one hand out and wiggled beefy fingers.

Dash rubbed the part of his head that had been
driven into the rocks. There’d been a flash of anger at God for
letting this happen, blaming a deity he didn’t believe in for
letting more shit rain down. There hadn’t even been a white light
to walk toward when he died, only the goddamn blazing sun overhead
that was ready to bloat his rotting carcass by supper time. And
then he was being kissed by a fish and thinking about Sarah.
Missing Sarah.

“
I wasn’t kissing you, dumbass. It
was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. You learned how to do it in high
school, remember? You learned it, so I knew what to do.”

“
I’m sorry.” Dash worked to smooth
his breathing.

“
Don’t call it kissing unless you
wanna go headfirst back into the water.”

“
You said you were going to stop
reading my thoughts.”

Willy knelt back, allowed the sun to fall
across the rest of Dash’s shivering body.

“
Yeah, well, then don’t accuse me of
kissing you.”

Dash pushed himself to his elbows and watched
his scrawny chest rise and fall, hair so bleached it was nearly
invisible. He was thirsty but feeling better. His breathing sounded
less like air being forced backward through a wind instrument. A
small crab walked sideways past his feet, one claw held out for
self-defense, pincers tapping a warning. Or maybe it was scouting
for food, and Dash was a disappointment.