Oceania

Arrival at the Papeete airport is after ten, closer to eleven—way past ferry service, and a man shuffling into a hotel with two duffels gets a rack rate of a hundred and fifty dollars for the few hours of night remaining, for a crummy little bed and a toilet.

Or he can shuffle three blocks to a grassy area for more frugal digs on a bench at more popular prices. Arranging his nest, he walks off to squat and laugh again, this time at two dumps under the stars in short order—till the waves mount, and he topples against the tree alongside. He stays buoyant; never mind the uncouth character of getting by.

But Your Honor, a dog did that. Big dog. Woof.

Thanking his lucky stars for life’s continuing function, he sacrifices a handkerchief to the greater cause and is uplifted, a homeless man in a park in a foreign country farther from friends than a man would care to be. He feels irrationally happy, like Skinny, who pushes sand or dirt over her business, then chases in circles or jumps for a leaf. He picks a star and wishes Skinny upon it so they may beam up and down together. He is neither homeless nor friendless because of Skinny and years of aloha and old friends and other reasons best sorted tomorrow. So he nestles in, laughing one more time at the customs agent who asked the nature of this visit. He shrugged at the open camera case and shrugs again on a park bench. “I’m a professional photographer. You have beauty here in need of immortality.” French humor may be questionable, but esprit de corps is immutable. Et voilà, Monsieur: he’s in. He sleeps.

In the morning, he spends a fraction of the evening’s savings on French pastry and a double latte and is still a hundred forty-four clams ahead of the game. It’s a short walk to the ferry for the next island over, a few miles out, but the ferry should not go huli or have cousins for crew. It’ll be like the morning run, underway that very minute. French Poly is due south with a dash of east, in the same time zone but long ago, and Ravi Rockulz feels a brand-new day.

For starters, the southern hemisphere has a fraction the landmass of the northern. Human population is also fractional below the line, which shrinks the cockles on a misanthropic heart. He feels giddy at prospects for new friends of differing fins and feathers, so to beak—I mean speak. Ha! With so much ocean and so little land, a man can meet others of his ilk, instead of avoiding eye contact.

Moorea draws nigh on lush greenery, unlike Papeete, an urban center on a rock called Tahiti. At least it’s only the twenty-first century and not the twenty-second or twenty-fourth.

Never mind. Nine miles will be the moat to the tropical castle.

A spring tide lifts all hearts—but wait. What if?

The ferry plies into the channel between the breakers to either side, as life turns to the flip side. Arrival anxiety is a nice cup of tea compared to sea monsters, engorgement and…

“Fuck.” He shudders in the lessons learned, on fear and faith.

This is homecoming. Crosscurrent and undertow are everywhere. So what? It’s time to grow some moss under the tropical canopy, time for hot blood to cool down. Pushing forty is not pushing fifty or sixty and should be wiser than pushing twenty. So he tingles on the approach, as a million fronds wave in the breeze. Who knows?

He asks the bus driver at the ferry dock for a cheap hotel. “Monsieur, it is only cheap if you are rich. Are you rich?”

“No. I’m not rich. But I…”

“Taverua.”

“Okay, take me there, si’l vous plaît.”

The ride is good, hot and ponderous in a place that makes sense. Tired and sweaty by mid-morning, he feels landed in a dream of what happened to Ravi Rockulz back in the day when once upon a time a man arrived on a tropical island…

Regret and hope seek balance. Oceania in a dewy, green tint and heat-rippled haze feels receptive. Into a happily ever after, a child of misfortune and man of the world become one. Tropical beauty with very few human people is vaguely recalled in Hawaii. The home stretch feels off kilter, unhinged, and disconnected, heating up on re-entry. Soon this jungle and sea will feed the hunger and quench the thirst. The monkish might call this view a delusion of desire, as they obsess on itchy garments, celibacy, silence, saltines, and water in a lust of their own. Is this so different?

I, waterman, am here.

A man who makes his living underwater, who packs his worldly belongings in two bags and flies on short notice to an island below the equator on a vague ideal is not your average commuter. He knows that a blessed life is better than a stifled one. But what if it isn’t—but damn, this looks right. And a mid-life migration is liberation from attachment. What could go wrong, with nothing more to lose? Or is that a loser’s rationale? Or the sophistry of the spirited failure?

Ravi Rockulz may be one more salty dog seeking snug harbor, but he is by no means average. Farther afield than most, he seeks a tropical paradise not yet gone to seed. Most men choose the grind with a woman of mental, sexual and cooking competence, defaulting on a weak laugh to what we must put up with—as men.

A few keep horizons in view, curious to see beyond the compromise—but most settle for less because security rides a unicorn. Ravi Rockulz went nineteen years on a razzle-dazzle romp and steady work with no tomorrow. Women saw the fire in his eyes and wanted to camp beside it, to roast a few weenies and tell stories, to drink and dance and fuck till Sunday. Some of them loved it…

Then he fell onto the bamboo stakes…

Stop that—

He never had the money or inclination to pledge rent, groceries, clothing, medical, and a nest egg for the children. He avoided average life with stunning success—then failed on a snatch distraction because they’re not all the same, upside down.

A guy makes mistakes; it’s okay—even constructive if the guy comes out smarter. Am I up and out, or what?

This is not sophistry. Like they say in Vegas: If you don’t play, you can’t win. Life is a casino, and you can lose, too. But a betting man enjoys the roll because everyone craps in the end. A bachelor with no friends, no job, or home is not a loser. He’s down on his luck, is all, but this feels right—no more tropical props; this is real. Is that so hard to fathom? Palm trees should be more than commercial landscaping and reefs need fish more than aquarium hobbyists do. Hawaii excels in fantasy for sale and regret. Commerce trumps culture, and money rules. Decimation and growth are made to glisten in magazines and fetch top dollar. Or lower dollar in group sales. Scenic vistas and terrific cleavage prove value either way, and the money rolls in on jobs, affordability, and growth.

French Polynesia is merely hot, with so much less and so much more. Growth is green; vines creep amid species not going extinct, no landscaping required. Bird chatter and insect hum blend as the bus door shuts on a man delivered to the country road of his dreams. The smoke recedes, and so begins the now here. He listens in a meditation of minutes or years and walks up the drive. Gears shift and fade.

They call it Hawaii fifty years ago, though the road from the ferry dock was foul with excavation, heavy equipment, and reef destruction. A woman one seat up pointed at the clubhouse, restaurant, and golf course under construction, the first in French Poly after years of struggle, till the yen prevailed. Japanese engineers with clipboards checked for perfection, preserving their honor and nothing but, avoiding personal failure and self-destruction. Ah, well, fifty years might be time to get through this life of madness.

The house up the drive is asleep, though a child ambles out with a key, pointing to the bungalow at the top, advising that he come down later to sign and pay. “Après midi,” she says and runs back inside. The top bungalow is plywood nailed to studs with big screen windows, all slumped in stillness that seeps into senses. Thick air collects in droplets and rolls from forehead to chin. It drips or runs to the neck and on down the chest till the shirt sticks, and so do the pants. Fronds rub. Bugs pop knuckles. Birds chirp. Waves break across the road. A ceiling fan groans. He drifts for an hour and wakes up wet, not so tired.

He shuffles down to pay and takes comfort at sixty dollars a night. The beach house ran three bucks less, but that was with income. The bungalows across the road on the bay run a hundred sixty per night, but a room is only a place to sleep. So brief celebration is in order, in the rustic dining area across the road, over the water.

As a newcomer arrived from the future, he has bad news of what’s on the way. Aloha and ia orana settle like a lei, and he wants to shout it out, that a spirit dies when supply falls short of demand. Magic fades below the range of human perception, and then it’s too late. They don’t seem concerned, and the news feels urgent. This just in:

Humanity will overrun here too. The airwaves will promote jobs and God for the common good, as cells divide—as aberrant growth spawns gridlock, and silence goes extinct under the din of boosters making sure we do this right. Eye contact will be avoided, and nature will be for postcards. Security will trump freedom in the name of the children as other species go away.

“But they’re not my children,” mumbles the man at the rail near the pier. A couple one table over look away. Ravi turns his swim goggles like a rosary and wonders how fucked up he might be, feeling them for salvation. “I mean the children they’re always saying to do things for. They’re not mine.”

They eat their omelets with rectitude.

So he gazes over Cook’s Bay and below the surface for better company. The pier runs over the reef, out thirty yards to where the bottom falls away. The Taverua caretaker ambles out, tossing bread chunks to either side. Fish churn thick as humanity at rush hour but with simpler needs, with no cars and no rage. Who would not smile at such color and joy? A squall rushes in with a quick shower, as the caretaker rips two more baguettes, as his pets rise to brunch.

The squall passes just as fast. The rainbow is briefly incandescent then vanishes in the sheen, and the world is right. The husk cracks, germinating at last. Three hundred thousand residents and two hundred thousand tourists annually in French Polynesia seem far easier to take than Hawaii’s two million residents and seven million tourists. But anyplace can go away, especially a place like this, not yet discovered and exploited for maximum return on investment.

“I did love America.” Ravi mumbles. “But it changed.”

The honeymooners leave as the tide rises. Will Ravi Rockulz be happy here? It’s a question of process. Will Ravi Rockulz find success as a marine photographer? That’s desire again, and the bigger question goes to shelter from the storm. A tropical wilderness can take a body down to nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous, in the comfort of his own home—that’s it: phosphorous, the basis of bioluminescence, enhancing dissolution with the glimmer of lost souls. Now there’s a success.

Could I gasp my last with no sirens, no insurance caveats or regrets? I nearly did, didn’t I? I think I’ll get the pictures. I think these images may open eyes and hearts to the fishy world, which may not end with ours. Is the reef healthy? Is it dead, and the fish come in for bread? Does the drop go deep? Why do I see no snorkelers? Why are dive boats running to the outer reef if this reef is any good? Is the coral intact or broken by the common crowd? Is it tangled in monofilament or net remnants? Is it brown? Is it choked with algae with no herbivores—all gone to aquariums? Or silt?

Ravi remembers Henry Hollings’ mother lode on electrical contracting when Henry made more in a year than in the ten years combined, before the boom. Henry stopped diving—no time, too tired. He came out again when he won a bid on three hundred new homes—overbid by three times value with no other bids. But the homes were on his old wandering grounds, and Henry quit, walked away on a sad, twitchy grin.

But recollection of man’s inhumanity to himself stops on submersion. Questions resolve, and the prognosis is good. The reef is clean, no siltation or brown algae; fish numbers and species diversity seem extreme. Butterflyfish, damsels, and angels approach to see who in God’s blue ocean is here. Soon their tiny hearts warm, and they peer. Ravi? Is that you? We heard you were coming. So the new guy arrives again. He frames shots with his fingers and feels the love, clicking portraits for the gallery in his heart.

The ocean is my shepherd, I shall not want…

A smile leaks seawater and the taste of home. Free diving at the drop, he rises slowly among emperor and regal angels, blue damsels, turquoise chromis, all the little fins aflutter till—wait!

Flame angels!

Just there—a mated pair, peeking out and darting to other cover, demure as a deb, brazen as a beau, and more virtuous than either. Red-orange bodies and black bars are their glory and their doom. Flame angels were the heartthrob of Hawaii’s reefs but went to glass tanks in America and Asia.

Gone.

No more—but not here. I don’t think here. Could it be here, too, that another collective death occurs? Not with so many baby fish on hand. Hello, my friends. With healthy coral heads, no trash or damage or monofilament, our place feels secure. People won’t come if it’s not convenient, so we can live the life, naturally connected.

These shores are lined with human habitat—with cesspits long past their useful lives. But the numbers are low and growth is slow. A man should not take on the worries of the world, so he looks up with invocation. “Lovely. A beautiful day. The first of many.” The moment balances an interminable night.

French Polynesia was liberated for the Godly pursuits of food, fine wine, art, and sex. That’s different from the Super Bowl, We’re number one, March Madness, NASCAR, Halliburton, the religious right, obesity, Coke, box office returns, and war for oil. An outpost in the limitless sea may stay that way for a while, remote as the seventh moon of Uranus, culturally speaking.

So faith is bolstered on seeing friends. Hope is no longer a pipe dream but a reality forming up. Crossing the road to his cheap digs, he slows to wonder: How can he keep a roof over his head and buy groceries? At his bungalow, he finds a hose for a poor man’s shower. And the cold truth is that having no money on the one hand and wanting to make art on the other are a source of worry. Who can live on inner light? Inside he sits. He breathes with the rustling fronds. He isn’t the first man at a loss. His poor old gray-haired mother knows that he won’t be a lawyer or a doctor—or an accountant or movie star or anything to wear on her sleeve. Not that her sleeve is his goal, but she counts for something and doesn’t even know where to find him. She may be worrying this very minute. Why wouldn’t she?

His new French home will sting him for forty bucks on a call home. A cheese sandwich for nine dollars? The French tropics will require attention and diligence. Still, it’ll be forty bucks well spent, on a call wisely reserved for post-arrival, to report a safe flight and rich prospects. Things are working out for the best. If he’d called sooner, he’d only have to call again anyway. Near sundown, in the same time zone as Hawaii, he’s back at Taverua.

“Hello? Who could be calling at this hour?”

“It’s me.”

“Me? Me who?”

“Hello, Mother.”

“So tell me what is wrong?”

Why must something be wrong? Why must she energize the negative? Why can’t she assume good news? Why does she believe that nothing happens for the best? But this exchange wore itself out long ago. He won’t belabor and accepts the badinage as the lesser of two burdens because she is Mother.

“Nothing is wrong. Things are going right. I’ve been thinking about moving for a long time now…”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Tahiti.”

“Oy, Gott. Tahiti.”

“I love it.”

“You love it. You love Hawaii!”

“Yes, I do. Can I have only one love?”

“How did you get in? They won’t let you in because you wouldn’t get the visa like I begged you. I begged, but you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t ask.”

“You won’t listen. You’re a rolling stone…”

“Yes. No moss. But I still don’t want some. This place is so beautiful; it’s unbelievable. The corals and fishes—I saw flame angels right in front of the hotel.”

“Oh, you’re staying at a fancy hotel, making friends with little fishes. Tell me why I should worry?”

“You should worry because that’s what you do best. But try to worry about something else. I’ve never felt better about a decision.”

“And what did you decide to do in Tahiti? Make more with the bubbles business?”

The question of the bubbles business looms on the intrapersonal plane. The correct answer will take a while longer, but a response is required, and so it spurts: “Take pictures. It’s my calling.”

“It’s your calling. Who’s listening? You’re going to take pictures of fish and then what? Trade them for your dinner?”

“Yes. You do understand. And to think that, all this time, I thought you saw me as a failure. I was wrong.”

“Never a failure! A waste, maybe, but not a failure. Never a failure. I want you to come home and be a mensch.”

“Mommy, dearest. In case you haven’t noticed, I am a mensch. My pictures of fish are highly regarded. I’ll sell them in New York, just like I did last time. Maybe even to the same people…”

“Maybe, schmaybe. I remember what they said, those same people. Maybe parakeets will fly out my tuchas too.”

“Are you getting feathers down there?”

She laughs. Finally.

Tzim lachen; it should be to laugh because that and love will survive us. So the long distance shortens with the best they have to share, rendering all well on the immortal plane that will survive them. Things get better when he gives her the Taverua phone number, but please, she should call only for emergency since a call will cost him about a hundred dollars, besides the terrible expense at her end.

“A hundred dollars?”

“It’s a hotel on the water in Tahiti. They got overhead.”

“So what do you need with such a fancy hotel?”

“I don’t. I stay much cheaper across the street. They know me here and will come get me for emergency calls. That’s emergency. Okay?”

“Everything should be good. Are you making friends?”

“I just got here, but already if I have any more social demands I won’t be able to get to my work.”

“Oh, pardon me. Your work.”

He lets the silence congeal so disrespect can be recognized, so it can leave its damage at both ends of the line since she too factors money per minute. And for what, so Ma Bell can get rich on deficiencies they don’t deserve?

“When will you call me?”

“I’m calling you right now, as we speak. This is a call that we’re on. We’re in the moment, which is a great achievement, you know. I’ll call you again when I have more news. Okay? Now I have to go.”

“Okay, go to your next important moment. Be well.”

“Yes. And you.”

He feels better when the call is done and he’s back in his bungalow. He knew she couldn’t hear him a few nights ago, but she would have heard what became of her son and spent her days in those bleak hours prior to sinking. Still, he’d called her by name, so maybe she saved him, a psychokinetic force to reckon. She has the psycho part down and can drive strong men to irrational behavior. She can be a world-class pill, a neurotic of notable perseverance. Add her strident instincts for motherhood, and she might control things from afar. God knows she’s tried for years.

Then again, some mothers lose their cubs. Mothering skills range from casual to fierce. Maybe some can conjure against the odds, against reality… But the depth and darkness, the troughs and crests, the visions of imminent…

So the sweat rolls into rivulets that converge to streams and rivers flowing to a shallow estuary that rises on night squalls pushing inland from a troubled sea. Waves break over the rustling fronds, and the moon rises. A man hangs on, sinking into middle age in violent resolution. Which is only the force of nature displacing the foolishness of youth.

Who knows? Maybe the next part will be easy.