Left on Paradise (36 page)

“Yes,” Karla said, “we’re processing coconut oil for soap and using salt water to rinse our teeth. Private mouthwash and toothpaste supplies—especially soap—can be conserved for special occasions. Everyone cares for his or her own ration.”

“The island capitalists,” the southerner said.

“Neo-socialists is how we think of ourselves: unplanned socialism and an unbureaucratic regulated economy. We divided into individual lots as soon as we settled and let every neighbor tend her own backyard first. One-half of harvested wood and food is brought to the communal barn and the other half is kept for personal use. Even meals are private. We try to avoid the mass produced food of the mess hall. Too much waste and insipid taste.”

“Do you need anything else?” Deidra asked.

“If it isn’t hoarding,” Karla said, “we’d like to pick up our share of the spare MREs and rice rations—so we can plan out next year’s planting.”

No one spoke a word and Karla didn’t press her request. Indeed, after a long pause, she said the matter could be discussed at a later date and asked what problems the others might have, particularly the westerners.

Deidra now looked at her own notes.

“As you see,” the west villager soon said, “we have enough food, and shelters are being built for the rainy season. I guess we’re also out of razors and toiletries, but that’s to be expected. The only problem I see is we’re a little behind schedule, but that’s because we have four children and two teenagers—and a pregnant girl who isn’t working very hard: my husband’s ex-girlfriend.”

“Any needs,” Cynthia Fallows raised her hand, “you consider particularly pressing?”

“Probably clothing. If there are ten untorn shirts in the entire village, it’s a miracle. We threw too many into the scrap heap for candle wicks and rags early on. Most of us thought needle and thread work was a bit too traditional.”

Everyone laughed and Karla asked if the westerners currently needed anything.

Deidra said they didn’t.

Only then was the meeting opened to discussion.

“It seems to me,” the Nurse Fallows began, “we’ll need to keep a central reserve of food and tools and medicine, as originally planned. But we now need to decide how to bring some equality and stability to local economies. Do we let one camp go hungry and another do without wood? Or should we allow for a more charitable flow of property from each according to her means and to each according to his need?”

The delegates nodded.

“I propose,” Nurse Fallow continued, “that we all contribute to a central warehouse from which each can take as he or she needs.”

“I disagree,” the southern delegate said. “We can’t afford to give any of our food to other villagers. We’ve just enough for ourselves.”

“So have we,” Deidra said.

The northerner raised his hand. “You all,” he declared, “were given lands with more fruit than we have. Most of our trees are nothing but wood; only a termite could find enough to eat on the north side of the island.”

“Do you fish?” Deidra asked.

“We can’t catch anything.”

“Have you planted crops?”

“Yeah,” the delegate said, “but the corn failed and the rains washed out our beans. Ours isn’t very good farmland.”

“You’ve managed to grow dope.”

“We threw a few seeds into the forest and they grew.”

“You must have magic beans,” Karla said with a dour face.

“If magic is a state of mind, then I guess we do.”

The discussion continued another hour until the council voted to redistribute all central supplies, except a three-week reserve (since its stores already were scheduled to be restocked with the planned resupply). The northern delegate thought the influx of food would alleviate tensions in the village, though he haggled with the southern delegate over the particulars of the agreement. It also was decided to arrange for cooperative trading between neighborhoods. An obvious imbalance of provisions was growing and needed to be redressed. Even the northerner admitted heavy forests that rendered his district less desirable could be traded for fruit from the southern glades or fish from the western lagoon (though he requested trading partners assume liability for delivery of any logs they acquired and vigorously refused to barter any razor blades). What to do about the obvious shortage of consumer goods—especially toilet paper and razors—was delayed for future consideration, as was a fuller consideration of private property. Everyone agreed that such a fundamental debate required the consensus of the entire island and shouldn’t be considered so soon after the changes in marital law.

Finally, there were brief debates regarding the establishment of a central market and the planting of tobacco. The council failed to achieve consensus on a proposal to establish a bazaar where goods and services might be exchanged—fearing that such a market, useful as it might be, smacked too much of capitalism. As for tobacco, while the majority clearly considered tobacco a contraband crop and vigorously opposed establishment of tobacco plantations, consensus was not achieved regarding the treatment of citizens who might surreptitiously harvest tobacco plants hidden in the forest (like California cannabis farmers). While few favored the outright legalization of smoking, no one wanted to criminalize possession of a cigarette. Eventually, it was decided to explore laws in which the tobacco industry would be eradicated while allowing private citizens the right to possess up to an ounce of tobacco without legal repercussion.

The meeting lasted long after supper had been served in New Plymouth and the final piece of new business was to name the recently
discovered atoll of natives (until such time as the aboriginal name for the island could be discovered). After suggestions based upon geographical or anthropological topography were rejected, Deidra relayed Sean’s quip about the natives being the lost inhabitants of Roanoke Island. Everyone was amused by the joke and the name itself was adopted. Delegates spent the night in New Plymouth to stay for a reception for Dr. Morales. Councilors scheduled to gather taxes made plans for Wednesday morning.

Karla throttled back and the launch slowed as she navigated along the perimeter of the coral reef—the morning light shimmering off the waves while she steered through the surf. Already she saw the tents and huts of the northern village through the indistinct backdrop of the forest as she throttled the engine one last time and angled toward shore, then cut power and tilted the motor forward to prevent the shearing of the propeller shaft pin against sand. After weighing anchor, all three councilors (Karla, Deidra, and the ponytailed northern delegate) jumped into knee-deep water and sloshed ashore. When they reached the beach, the ponytailed northern delegate shouted for his neighbors to come collect their supplies.

None stirred.

The northern village consisted of little more than three walled huts and a dozen tents, most of them sagging. There was a cord of firewood stacked near a fire pit situated just beyond the border of dried algae that demarcated high tide. What remained of a burned barn stood a stone’s throw away—its scorched timbers utterly collapsed—and a naked toddler with dried streaks of waste staining her buttocks and sand sticking to wet legs played in the sand. When Deidra talked to her, the girl just picked her nose. Every effort to inspire the child to talk failed and Deidra eventually concluded she had a speech impediment—then told the girl to stay away from the water as Deidra herself hurried to join the other two delegates deeper inland.

“Where are they?” Karla asked the northern councilor just as Deidra neared them.

“Morning siesta,” the northerner answered. “It’s too hot to work right now.”

Deidra and Karla glanced at each other, but said nothing as they followed the ponytailed man to a large tent.

“Here we are,” the northerner said, “the storage tent.”

The northerner unzipped a canvas tent (military surplus in origin) and led the two women inside. Scores of coconuts were piled in a corner of the tent.

“Take what you need.”

Karla picked up a coconut. “How fresh are they?”

“Don’t know.”

“When did you pick them?”

“We found a lot of these on the ground.”

“Get me a machete.”

“In the corner,” the man said.

Karla fetched the machete and struck the husk several times, then cracked the nut itself with a single blow. No milk spilled and the meat was dry and tough.

“These can’t be eaten,” Karla declared.

“I guess they are a little dry.”

Deidra groaned. “Would you eat them?”

“Suppose not,” the northerner said with a frown. “Unless I really had a severe case of the munchies.”

“Charity doesn’t give away its scraps,” Karla said with a scowl, “like a soup kitchen.”

“Guess not, though I’m not sure beggars should be choosers. Follow me.”

Now the man led Deidra and Karla down a half-cleared trail into the woods, passing an open sewage pit stinking with flies and maggots just before reaching a large tent in which four women and two men (none of them clothed) smoked weed from a water pipe. One of the men invited Deidra and Karla to join the party, but both women declined. The northern delegate passed on the dope, but told his neighbors he’d return as soon as he could.

Several minutes later, the northerner led Deidra and Karla down a narrow, vine-covered trail deeper into the forest—where they found a small pasture with five well-staked tents and a smoldering fire.

“The Cleavers manage the rest of our supplies,” the delegate said as he pointed to a fair-faced brunette, waved goodbye, and hurried toward camp.

As the delegate departed, the brown-haired woman—who wore a buttoned blouse and frayed shorts—put a finger to her lips to signal the two visitors, then pointed to the outskirts of camp.

“My daughter’s napping,” the woman whispered. “Over here, please.”

Karla and Deidra moved as told and the woman picked up three empty mugs and a pot of coffee as she led them across the small camp. All three women took seats on empty supply crates beneath palm trees.

“I’m Sally McNeal,” the brunette said, “what is it you need?”

“An explanation to begin with,” Karla said.

“He took you through camp?”

“If that’s what you call it.”

“I call it a ghetto.”

“I grew up on a reservation ghetto,” Deidra said, “and I never saw such things.”

“I grew up in Georgetown,” Sally said as she shook her head with a grimace, “and I never even imagined such a mess.”

“What’s going on?” Karla asked. “We came here to collect charity for the islanders and now we find the need for charity at home.”

“It’s not charity they need,” Sally said, nodding in the direction of the main northern camp. “Not one of them has done a full day’s work since we arrived. At first, it was beach parties and MREs. Then they began scouring the land for coconuts and bananas. They picked every green banana in reach—only to find they all got constipated and couldn’t eat any more of the things. The whole stack rotted. Then one of the fools cut down all of our grapefruit trees and left the fruit to rot. Now the heathens eat raw breadfruit most of the time, along with whatever nourishment they can get smoking dope. Your buddy Jason lives on marijuana brownies without the brownie. The one I feel sorry for is the girl. She lives like an animal. I guess those two boys are half-starved too—and poorly raised.”

“We saw the girl,” Deidra said. “Is she normal?”             

“There’s nothing wrong with her a good mother wouldn’t cure, if that’s what you mean. She talks when someone listens.”

Deidra nodded.

“A few of us had enough,” Sally continued, “and broke away.”

“Executive Council wasn’t told,” Karla noted.

“No,” Sally said, every word followed ever more quickly by another, “we didn’t want to make a scandal and we’ve not even left the neighborhood, not really. It’s just that we moved to this site so we could keep their stench at a distance”—the woman took a deep breath and began to talk a little more slowly—“We have a utility tent, a storage tent, and three residences. We’re going to build a barn soon.”

Deidra smiled. “And food stores?”

“We’ve got enough breadfruit and coconuts to last the rainy season. And the men have been salting fish for a couple days. We’ll be okay.”

“We were told you had no fish.”

“To tell the truth, we haven’t exactly announced the fish. We’re hiding them for winter provisions.”

“Do you have enough to share with the natives?”

“I heard about them,” the woman said, “and I’d really like to help, but my guess is our own neighbors will be begging handouts soon enough. When our trees stop producing, they’re going to be hungry.”

“What’re they thinking?” Karla said as she shook her head.

“They’re not thinking,” Sally said. “It’s the dope. Not only are they so busy smoking the stuff that they can’t think straight, but they’ve worked up some pipe dream to feed themselves. The idiots cleared three fields and planted marijuana in all of them. Of course, the fields were washed out with the rains and now their hopes are down to a few plants they bartered from Jason. They hope to trade dope for food and didn’t plant even one row of corn. I heard they salted the entire stock of seeds and roasted them as snacks.”