Paris – Dawn – Rue Ile St. Louie – 1984

Thinking about Sharon Mitchell
Tied to the wooden rafters
On Rue Ile St. Louis 1984—
Dawn creeping over the Paris rooftops
You__naked
You__legs apart
You__your back red from the belt
You__your thighs quivering with each strike
You__moaning
You___ panties in your mouth
You___ ass arching back begging for my cock
Me__Leather engineer boots
Leather Gloves
A long dark green German leather coat
I free thee
You—collapse onto your knees
Hands tied tight
Behind your back
A slave___
Licking my engineer boots
Pret a tout
With dawn Crawling over the Paris rooftops

The you is Sharon Mitchell

A fellow sexual adventurer.

We are cousins sort of.

Pre-Yom Kippur 2024

I am not Jewish, despite having been circumcised at birth at Boston Lying-In. The doctors were Yankees. My birth certificate even denotes my having been mutilated in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon upper class beleiving that boys masturbated less without a foreskin. Idiots. We were told that this barbaric custom was for hygiene. Poof! Religious fanatics ruin our heaven on earth, but this coming weekend is Yom Kippur. Presently I’m back working as a diamantaire in Montauk with Cousin Richie. Jews have their schlongs schnitted post-birth, since The Torah states that God made a covenant with Abraham, and that every male among the Jewish people should be circumcised as an outward sign of this covenant. Anthropologists state that for the Masaai, Polynesians, and First People around the globe circumcision was a rite of passage for young men as a test of bravery and endurance, a ritual mutilation, a sacrificial spilling of blood. In 2029 a Masaai warrior told me that at thirteen or the coming of puberty the tribal doctor had cut his manhood before the entire clan with friends taunting him, as they received the ‘button-hole’ technique pulls the glans of the penis through an incision in the foreskin, leaving a portion of foreskin hanging as a permanent appendage Thankfully I don’t remember my circumcision, but just imagine the horror of emerging into this cruel world and your first welcome is a man with a knife. No wonder we’re all fucked up.

Two weekends from now is the Jewish High Holiday is Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement, when Jews around the world seek forgiveness from their God after which their fate will be prescribed by the Holy One and in accordance with rites passed on throughout time worshippers off the following poem.

“A great shofar will be blown, and a small still voice will be heard. The angels will make haste, and be seized with fear and trembling, and will say: “Behold, the day of judgment!”… On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on the Yom Kippur fast it is sealed, how many will pass and how many will be created, who will live and who will die, who in his time and who not in his time… But repentance, prayer, and charity remove the evil of the decree… For You do not desire a person’s death, but rather that he repent and live. Until the day of his death You wait for him; if he repents, You accept him immediately.”

That horrible Day of Judgment is feared to be coming soon with the Israelis spreading war throughout the Levant in a merciless revenge for last year’s October 7 Attack on the Negev settlements. Gaza destroyed, the West bank attacked, leaders of the resistance huunted to ground, Missiles and artillery attacks on Lebanon. No one is spared the the wrath of the destroying IDF. The old, the young, children, women, everyone is a target. The fundamentalists of America are on their knees this Sunday, praying that Yawweh will bring Armageddon and Christ will come again. Oh, what joy, the world end. At least all the Christians will be gone.

And if not I ain’t atoning for anything.

Atheists have no venging Gods.

The Masaai warrior also said that at 19 he went out into the savannah armed with a spear and slew a lion.

“A single throw at 50 yards. Killed him instantly.”

John had the lion skin at home. He showed it to me. It had been on living flesh only five years earlier. Israel has struck Yemen broadening the war. The Zionists are massing tanks on Lebanon’s border. They have gone mad and the Chosen People are hellbent on war. Madness. Sheer madness.

Montauk # 27

An Autumn Afternoon
Sitting on a bench
A simple pleasure
Watching seagulls
Not gliding
No wind
Wings beating
Away from the Atlantic
Montauk Lake bound
Free
As am I
An old hippie hobo
Lost on the wind___

According to the Easthampton Star between the Shinnecock Inlet and Montauk Point, there’s a chance to see the Bonaparte’s gull, Iceland gull, glaucous gull, lesser black-backed gull, and even black-headed gull. I only spot the herring gull, which dine on fluke and sea bass, but also shellfish and smaller birds. When the whales are breaching in their fishing herds, the gulls peck at the whales, fearlessly snacking on the large sea mammals. They gather in groups, very protective of their space. I always approach them at an angle, yet they are aware of my presence. Clever are the gulls. Also monogamous.

“As I watched the seagulls, I thought, That’s the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.” – Nikos Kazantzakis

February 10, 1991 Biak – Indonesia – Journal

Larry Smith the famed diver, is not on Biak. I went down to his ship. It seems out of commission with only a Javanese mate on board. Andi explained that the engine had crapped out and Larry and his wife had flown to Surabaya for some parts.

“When are they back.”

And I shrugged and sucked on his Kretek cigarette, content to be alone. I left him thus, understanding the beauty of aloneness after working thirty days straight on West 47th Street selling jewelry for my boss, Manny.

Surabaya is a famed seaport on the eastern tip of Java. Last year I had thought about stopping there on my way from Mount Bromo to visit the harbor filled with Bugis prahus and the infamous Gang Dolly, reputed to be Southeast Asia’s largest red-light district, a 200 meter-long street offering wickedness with snake aphrodisiacs and magic sex workers from Madura, but decided to stay on the train to Yogjakarta.

I walked away from the boat and stopped at a small restaurant for nasi goreng, a popular Indonesian dish of stir-fried brown rice spiced with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), shallot, garlic, ground shrimp paste, tamarind and chili topped by a fried egg. Siting there I read my Rough Guide about trekking through Irian Jaya. I feel like flying to Jayapura, the province largest city, on the main island and heading up to the Baliem valley for a hike through the Highlands, inspired by the book FIRST CONTACT. Rough Guide suggests a flight up into the mountains, then hiring a guide to wander through the Stone Age culture. It’s dangerous since most villages don’t like the village nearest them. Land encroachments and women instigate deadly conflicts with them eating the dead without anyone ever telling the Javanese police. What happens in the Baliem Valley stays in the Baliem Valley. A flight to Jayapura is only $50 round trip. I hankered it to see them, since I’ve always been haunted the Michael C Rockefeller wing at the Metropolitan Museum featuring Asmat sculptures from this land of islands beyond the Modern Age. My only contact with the people here are seeing them walking by naked men with a gourd over their penis. They are completely comfortable in their skin. No shame about offending civilized foreigners; Javanese or missionaries. Like this is us. We cool with it.

They don’t even bother with flip flops are feet walking on the shoulder of the road rather than the sun-baked pavement. I can’t walk barefoot on stones.

After this late breakfast I returned to the hotel and walk down to the sea with my snorkel, fins, and diving mask. There is no real beach, but a shallow coral ledge leading out to an underwater cliff. I wear a teeshirt against the sun even though it’s cloudy. The sun is very strong here and I don’t like suntan lotion. I slip on my diving gear and stash my sneakers under a rock, so they don’t drift Away. I walk backwards and plunge over the cliff, and dive down twenty feet into an explosion of parrot fish nibbling at the coral, spitting out the rocks. Scores of other fish, small and large, which I can identify swarm the coral face. I swim against the drift current to maintain my place, suddenly realizing that if I get back on the the Reef I’ll have no idea where my shoes are. After a minute I break the surface. The sea is smooth. I can see the islands in the distance. It’s not a sunny day and the sea, the islands in the sky, and the clouds all seem to be varying shades of blue gray. I can’t even define the colors. Shoreward coconut trees lift over the land and buildings mark the main road leading to town. I I orient my position and be one with the sea. A half hour later, I find my sneakers. No one would steal them. My foot is too large for the Javanese and the locals don’t wear shoes.

This is the life.

I’m glad I asked John from Panda Express Travel a year ago when looking at the itinerary, “What’s Biak?”

Now I know.

Geadig back to the hotel nce again I ask myself, “Why did I ever go to Europe when this was waiting?”

SEA LEGS by Peter Nolan Smith

The oriental lore of processing roots, seeds, and bark into spice inspired ancient western travelers to seek various detours around the Arab middlemen profiting from the lucrative East-West trade route. Adventurous voyagers stood to reap fortunes from their success. Failures were many.

Adventurous voyagers stood to reap fortunes from their success. Failures were many.

In 1493 Christo Colon returned from the New World with tobacco and slaves, but the absence of spices disappointed the Spanish monarchs. Seven years later Vasco de Gama rounded the Horn of Good Hope for the King of Portugal, however the Arabs retained the monopoly on the Spice Trade. In 1521 Ferdinand Magellan and a fleet of five ships sailed west from Spain destined for the Spice Islands of the Moluccas. The voyage across the Pacific tested the sailers’ endurance, as scurvy, starvation, and murder ravaged their ranks.

Their commander was killed in a battle on the Philippines and only fifteen expedition members out of the original 237 crew survived the circumnavigation. The two returning caravels were wrecks, yet the cargo of spices enriched the survivors, because they had reached the famed spice isle of Tidore as well as Ambon in the Moluccas.

Over the next centuries the Dutch, French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish warred for control of these islands.

Manhattan was exchanged to the Netherlands for a small island in the archipelago and considering that the Dutch had acquired that foothold on North America for 60 guilders or the price of several thousand tankards of beer, the trade seemed like an even swap at the time.

In 1991 I sold a 5-carat diamond to a well-heeled couple from the Upper East Side. My commission bought my second round-the-world ticket from PanExpress on 39th Street for a one-way journey of JFK-LAX-HONOLULU-BIAK-AMBON-BALI-JAKARTA-SINGAPORE-BANGKOK-PARIS-LONDON-JFK. My friends and family were worried about this voyage.

During the Iran-Iraq War Kuwait had been slant-drilling into Iraq’s Rumaila oil field. Its rulrer Saddam demanded compensation for this theft and massed 300,000 troops on the border. The US ambassador had said, “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.”

Saddam considered that comment as a green light for invasion and his army overwhelmed Kuwait within days.

The Saudi rulers feared the invaders’ threat to its rule over Mecca and President Bush had amassed a coalition to oust the Iraqis.

I tried to explain to my friends and family the difference between Indonesia and Iraq, but their sense of geography had been ruined by the IT’S A SMALL WORLD ride in Disney World. Iraq, Iran, Israel, India, Italy, and Indonesia were all I-nations. None of my friends could finger Indonesia on a map. My father was more than familiar with the region.

“Your Aunt Bert sailed through those islands at the age of eight.” Her father had been a whaling captain in the 1870s.

“There wasn’t a war on the horizon.” My mother wanted nothing bad to happened to her second son.

“That war, which isn’t a war yet, has nothing to do with Indonesia.”

“It’s a Muslim country. They’re all connected same as the Irish.” My mother was a Catholic and even more so a devout Hibernian. We understood fights.

“Iraq is thousands of miles from Indonesia. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Kuwait was 8000 kilometers from Jakarta.

“Biak is my first stop.” I had free-dived its pristine reef the previous year.

“I was out there in World War II and fought off Biak in the Battle of the Sump. Japs wouldn’t surrender, so the marines burned them out of the caves. Nasty business,” my Uncle Dave said at a goodbye dinner at the North End restaurant. “There ain’t nothing there.”

“That’s what I like about it.”

“You be careful. Those people don’t value life the same way we do.”

Uncle Dave coughed hard. He was seeing doctors for a chronic cough. His choice of cigarettes was Pall Mall.

“I’m a lover not a fighter.” I had been a peacenik throughout the 60s. 70s, 80s, and 90s.

“I know different.” Uncle Dave had bailed me out of a Quincy jail after a fight with a gang from Southie. Boston in the late 60s belonged to the tribes.

“I’ve changed now. All peace and love.” I couldn’t remember that the last time I fought someone. “Plus those people are nice.”

“All headhunters and cannibals, if I remember correct.”

“”They don’t eat people anymore.”

“They’ll eat anything they can get their hands on, if they’re hungry, but have a good time.” Uncle Dave cuffed me $20. “Have a good drunk on me.”

The next day I returned to New York and packed my bags for my trip. I arrived at JFK three hours before the take-off and the Pan-Am 747 took off on time.

In LA and Hawaii my friends expressed their concern about traveling to the world’s most populous Islamic country. I told them, “Tidak apa-apa.”

It meant no problems in Bahasa Indonesia, which I had learned on my trip there in 1990. They were impressed with my knowledge of the local language, even if I spoke with a Boston accent. The next leg was from Honolulu to Biak.

In Biak no tourists offloaded the Garuda flight from LA. I booked a room in the Dutch hotel across from the airport. I was the only guest.

That night I listened to the news on the BBC World Service. My Sony World Radio received news of US troops and their coalition allies massing on the border of Kuwait. I was betting on the West. We had better tanks.

The next day I sat at the hotel and watched scarred Japanese veterans of the Pacific War wandered through the graveyards of their fallen dead. They stayed one day and flew back to Tokyo. None of them spoke English. I nodded with respect.

At night days I drank cold bottles of Bintang and smoked kretek cigarettes laced with cloves. The aroma lingered on my fingers. The cough lasted a little longer.

This was the tropics. The water was clear and warm. The coral cliffs began twenty feet beyond the shore. Sea turtles and parrotfish fed off the current. I snorkeled for two weeks. I tried calling my Uncle Dave twice. There was no answer at his house in Quincy.

Ambon, the capitol of the Moluccas, was my next stop. A diplomat attached to the Indonesian consulate in New York had suggested a lay-over with his uncle, a government official on the Christian Island. I gave the older man a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. No one in Asia drank Johnny Walker Red, unless there was no Black.

“You have wife?” James asked with an unsparing directness.

“No.” I was used to this line of questioning.

“You have baby?” Asians regarded bachelorhood as a cur

My mother agreed with their opinion and I replied no wishing my answer could have been yes, but then said,”Maybe one day.”

Indonesia was 95% Muslim. Ambon ran against the grain, but everyone on Ambon was a mixture of Malay and Papuan except for the Javanese deported from their overpopulated island. They worked as pedicab drivers. A few jeered at me. I was the only white person within a thousand miles. The Gulf War had killed tourism around the world.

“Saddam # 1. Bush no good.”

I agreed with their second sentiment and I considered myself in exile from the land of the GOP.

James lent me his car and driver for a tour of the island. We visited an old Dutch fort, giant eels eating eggs in a river, and a beach on the north coast of Ambon. The driver pointed to mountains across a broad channel.

“Seram. Have big magic. Men fly in sky. Bad magic.”

“Magic?”

“Bad magic. No tourist go Seram.”

“Tidak pagi. I not go.” Bahasa Indonesian was an easy language. No articles. No tenses. Bagus was good. Bagus-bagus was very good. “Pagi ke Tidore.”

“Tidore. No mistah go Tidore. Banyak Muslim. Go Bali. Hindu bagus.” The driver was dumbfounded by my choice. The young Ambonese wanted off this island. Jakarta was their dream. Not another island forgotten by time.

“Saya ke Tidore.” Dropping the verb to go was a common linguistic trait in Bahasa.

“Semoga berhasil.” Good luck could always trump magic.

We returned to the city to drink the Johnny Walker with James. He mixed it with honey and ice. It was their way.

Afterward James took me to the chicken farm. Young girls served older men beer. This scene was played out everywhere in Asia, Europe and the USA. We drank to Rambo. No one toasted Saddam or Bush. Religion and politics were off-limits in brothels.

I showed the girls pictures of Manhattan. None of them believed the pictures were real.

Around midnight I wqalked by the to my harbor hotel. The Bugis sailors prepared for a morning departure. Ropes creaked on the masts of their prahus. The design dated back centuries. Indonesia had thousands of islands. The prahus were the connection.

I was overcome with deja vu and blamed the honey and then the whiskey.

My Irish grandmother had come to America on a ship.

The sea was in our blood.

I entered the quiet lobby. The hotel staff was watching the TV. US and Coalition soldiers loaded bombs onto jets. Saddam had been our ally during the I-nation War between Iraq and Iran. The dictator hoped for a reprieve. He should have been packing his bags for exile in Switzerland. I tried to call my parents.

No one answered the phone on the South Shore. I thought about my parents. They had to be worried about me. I hung up the phone and returned to the hotel.

The next morning I took the morning flight to Ternate. James and the driver waved good-bye at the terminal.

“Kembali.” Return.

“Rambo.”

I was the only ‘mistah’ on the plane. The flight stopped briefly at Bata, the old prison island, continuing its flight over the Molucca Sea. Small boats cut wakes of white. The stewardesses served sandwiches and beer too.

I had two and showed photos of my family.

One attractive stewardess asked if I had a wife.

I was embarrassed to say no.

The pilot announced our approach. There were no delays in landing. Our plane was the day’s only arrival.

After deboarding in Ternate I picked up my bag from the carousel and walked outside the terminal. It was hot. The sun strong. Volcanoes dominated the horizon. The air was fragrant with spice. The island had once been the source of cloves, nutmeg, and mace in the world. The taxi drivers were surprised to see me. Their faces were Javanese. More deportees. Several hostile words were muttered under their breath.

“Angin.”

The word in Bahasa meant ‘dog’. I accpted the insult without comment. $10 from my wallet bought a smile from a driver.

He took me to the best hotel on the island.

“Here safe. No problem for mistah.”

“Tidak apa-apa.”

He was happy to hear a ‘orang asing’ speak his national language,a though none spoke Tidore, the Papuan tongue of the Moluccas.

I was the only westerner at the hotel. The manager said, “You can stay, but please do not leave the room.”

“Why not?” I had a good idea why.

“Ternate people like Saddam. He is Muslim. No one like Dutch people.” Mohammad had been on haj to Mecca. He had seen the world. His belief was for the good of man. “Everyone remember the rule of the Dutch. Bad people.”

My room was on the 2nd floor. I stood on the balcony. Minarets silhouetted the early evening sky. Moonlight bathed the volcanic cones. Magellan’s successor, Juan Sebastián Elcano, had admired the same vista in 1521. Joseph Conrad had written about these islands in VICTORY. Jack London haunted his books with blackbirders, pearlers, and beachcombers.
My uncle Dave might have smoked a cigarette on the deck of a destroyer off these two islands during the Pacific War. I turned on my Sony World Band radio. The BBC was broadcasting a quiz show. I was hungry. The manager was surprised to see me in the lobby.

“Mistah no go outside.”
“Makan-makan.” Eat was an easy word to remember in Bahasa.

“Okay, but go eat fast. Come back faster. Men angry about war. Not like Bush.”

“Same me.”

Mohammad waited outside. I was the only customer. He drove us to the harbor. The fat driver knew a good harbor side restaurant.

Warungs lined the beachfront. Men walked with men. Women walked with women. The driver stopped at a stall with stools. Pop mixed with traditional Indonesian music blared from tinny speakers. I sat down and the waiter spread dozens of plates across a table. A one-armed man in a salt-stained shirt drank a beer and pointed to a plate of black meat.

“Sekali bagus.” 

“Terima kasi.” I accepted his advice. The meat was a little tough, but delicious. I ordered seconds.
An friendly murmuring swelled at my back. People gathered behind me. The one-armed man hid his beer. This island was 100% Muslim. More men crowded around the stall. I finished the second plate with dispatch and ordered the bill. “Rekening.”
“Saddam # 1.” The chant of the crowd was loud on the first try and even louder on the second, as to be expected from nearly fifty men.
I figured the crowd numbered about forty. Their eyes were red. Amok or ‘rushing in a frenzy’ came from the Malay language. The man with one arm stood at my side. Someone called him Baab. Twenty more men joined the anti-western mantra. The waiter delivered my bill and moved aside with speed. I stood slowly, as if nothing was wrong and turned around to face the odds.
100 to one.
An old man stared at me. His clothes were in tatters. He had been waiting to hate a white man for decades and I was the target for his spittle. It was time to go. My hand went to my wallet and then I picked up the rekening to read the order. One word stuck out on the bill.
Angin.
I had seen the word before.

Hati-hati angin.

‘Beware of the dog.” I held up the bill to the old man. In Latin it was caveat canum.

“Saya makan angin?”

“Angin.” His eyes focused on the bill. He nodded and said, “Dua angin?”

“No, I did not eat ‘angin’.” Two plates, and I would have ordered a third, if the crowd had not interrupted my dinner.

“Mistah makan angin,” the old man announced to his followers and pointed to heads in the kitchen.

Smiling dogs.

“The crowd laughed with mirth. No mistahs ate dog. “Kamu makan angin.”

The mob’s blood was up. The temperature was in the high 80s. Only magic could save me and I cast a spell with my next word.

“Lezat.”

The crowd of men had not expected a compliment for the cuisine of the island. They laughed and the one-armed man pulled my hand.

“We go. Now.”

I exited through a gauntlet of hands clapping my back. They followed me back to the hotel singing the chorus, “Angin # 1.”

I said nothing about Rambo and the hotel manager asked the mob to disperse.

They chanted ‘angin, angin’ into the night.

Mohammad was happy nothing bad happened to me.

It had been a close call.

Back in my room I listened to the BBC. US fighter jets were hitting Iraq positions. Allied Air superiority was countered by missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The next morning I took my breakfast at the hotel.

Mohammad suggested a sightseeing tour for the late morning.

“Everyone away working the fields. Safe.”

I wrote a few more chapters of NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD in my room. My female protagonist was sculpted from old memories of my ex-girlfriend. I couldn’t remember her phone number, but the hotel managed to secure a connection to the USA.

My mother and father were relieved to hear my voice. Uncle Dave was in the hospital. His lungs were shot. I asked if I should come home.

“No, but Uncle Dave will be happy that you asked for him.”

“Tell him I’m staying out of trouble.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that.”

Over the next few days my forays from the hotel were few.

In the afternoon I ventured around the island and then took a ferry across to Tidore, whose hills were blanketed by clove trees. The people on that island seemed to be ignorant of the war. Only a few houses sported TV antennae.

I swam at a beach at the end of the road. The current was too strong to snorkel.

The Moluccas stretched north into terra incognita.

Across the sea beyond the horizon lay Manudo. Rough Guide said that the diving off the nearby atolls was exceptional. Tomorrow a ferry crossed the strait in two days. The next one was in five days. I booked passage. It was the end of January.

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The Battle of Khafji went badly for Saddam. His troops had been pushed back into Iraq. F-16s pounded their positions. The men in Ternate no longer chanted his name. No one likes a loser. Only the old man carried the flag for Saddam. I called him the anti-Rambo.

That night the one-armed man and I ate dog together. He drank beer with ice. Baab was the first mate of the ferry across the Molucca Straits and took me to his ship.

“Pagi ke Manado.” Baab reserved a sleeping berth of the ferry. It was in his cabin. The price of this luxury was $3. I bought beer for everyone. A big bottle of Bintang cost a half-dollar.

“You not same mistah.” Baab didn’t like the Dutch, but he hated the Javanese. Jakarta was far away like Amsterdam. Japan was closer. Distances still mattered on Ternate. His two wives lived on opposite sides of the island.

“You eat dog. Dog make strong. Same bull.”

“I like dog.”

“You have wife?”

I was tired of saying no and pulled out a photo of an old girlfriend. Candia had been the love of my life in 1985. Baab held her photo to the light with his one hand.

“Makali Indah.”

The French-Puerto Rican had been too beautiful for words. We lasted over a year. I wondered why I still carried the photo. Baab thought that I was human. Maybe I was. It wasn’t a lie.

We drank until midnight and I walked back to the hotel guided by fireflies. Magic was in the air accompanied by the drift of cloves. Sleep was a maze of dreams centered on me and my children.

I woke thinking of diapers. The manager knocked on the door.

“I have phone to America.”

I ran to the desk. It was my mother. She had bad news.

“Uncle Dave is dead.”

“Dead.” The cigarettes had killed him.

Dave would have loved to hear about this trip. This sea had been part of his youth. I thought about him on a destroyer off Biak. We shared that view. Mine had been in peace. His had been in war.

I expressed my condolences and told my mother that I was fine. I said nothing about tomorrow’s ferry. The newspapers in the USA frequently published reports of their sinking.

“130 dead in the Java Sea.”

Better she think I was flying to Bali. Planes made more sense to her western mind. Her mother had crossed the Atlantic in a cattle ship. Boats were bad luck to Nana. Her daughter thought the same.

I spent the day writing my novel about pornography in North Hollywood. My ex-girlfriend’s character was a virgin. I never fantasized her a whore.

I listened to the BBC. The outcome of the war was written by the West. The Iraqis were in retreat.

I gave gifts to the hotel staff; a baseball cap to the manager, postcards to the waitress staff, and a tee-shirt to the fat motorcycle driver.

He drove me to the harbor. The ferry was warming up its engine. Baab stood at the stern.

Kids jumped into the water.

A big ship was unloading cargo. Its destination was Jakarta.

I climbed up the gangplank to the Ternate Star. Baab hovered over the motor. He was the engineer. Our cabin was next to the wheelhouse. The room smelled of oil and unwashed sheets. It was better than the sleeping quarters below deck.

Some islanders shouted from the pier.

“Rambo, Rambo.”

“Tidak suka Rambo.” Baab grasped the railing with his one hand, as the ferry pulled away from the port on a calm sea under a clear evening sky. The volcanoes of Ternate and Tidore dominated the ocean. The 3rd-class passengers sought a comfortable position on the deck.

“I like Rocky better.” Baab excused himself. He had duties.
I walked forward to the prow. The ferry chopped a swift vee through the waves. A strong wind blew from the east.

I pulled off my baseball cap and stuck it in my jeans pocket.
Uncle Dave had steamed through these waters. His ship had been a destroyer. Mine was a ferry. Joseph Conrad wrote prose in my head.

The captain studied the clouds in the sky. He shouted orders to the crew. They battened down the cargo. The volcanoes were shrunk behind us and the waves swell in size. Several passengers got sick. The sun dropped in the furrows of the western sea. The sky turned black red. Baab and the captain stood by my side.

“Bad sea tonight,” he said these words in English and explained, “I work ships everywhere. Europe. America. Asia. All my life. I lose my arm in a storm. Most men stop the sea after accident. But I love the sea. She is my wife. My real wife. You must think much about your wife.”

“All the time.” My ex- had no idea where I was and we hadn’t spoken in two years, but what I told Baab was no lie. I thought about Candida from time to time.

“Good.” He looked over his shoulder at the passengers spewing rice over the railing. “Seasick. It like plague. Spread fast. Only two cures for seasick.”

“What?” I was feeling queasy. My Nana must have felt the same. Uncle Dave and Aunt Bert too.

“Land and death.”

The ferry buried its bow in a keel-shaking wave. Before us was a horizon of storm.

“I hope land come first.”

“Land come first.” Baab patted my shoulder. We were traveling friends. ROCKY was his favorite movie. His first wife’s name was Bellah. # 2 was Amina.

“Good.” I fought off seasickness.

Baab was pleased that I wasn’t like the other passengers.

He was a man of sea. We were people of the world. A war thousands of miles away was unimportant. The sea was all that mattered and more important than the sea was land.

But Sulawesi couldn’t come soon enough.

Death was for someone else like my Uncle Dave and he was not looking for me to join him for a long time.

Until then I was at peace.

Tidak apa apa.