END OF THE OCEAN
Matthew McBride
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Matthew McBride
Cover and jacket design by Mimi Bark
ISBN 978-1-947993-55-6
eISBN: 978-1-947993-77-8
Library of Congress Control Number: tk
First trade paperback edition June 2019 by Polis Books, LLC
221 River St., 9th Fl., #9070
Hoboken, NJ 07030
www.PolisBooks.com
For her
The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.
—Ernest Hemingway
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
—Hunter S. Thompson
Rainy Season
Galungan Days
Amed
Kerobokan
Thailand
Rainy Season
Rings of thick white froth carried on salt water waves blew through the air and became mist that sprayed his shirtless back, as he, sitting in a low-slung chair, took in all he saw and heard: the people and the sand and the ocean and the waves, and as he sat there, content for the first time in as long as he could remember, he recognized the beauty of that moment, that never in his life would he know such splendor in a sunset as he saw that first night in Bali; alone, watching and thinking beside a small wooden hut on a white sand beach by a green-blue sea that would soon become his home.
Waves smashed sand banks and birds of various shape and size walked the beach beside him and flew above him, floating in gusts of wind that lifted from the swells in great bursts of sea-salt foam.
Sage had a lot of work to do. Figuring out his life and adjusting to the decision he’d made that brought him there. A decision he still, even now, could not believe he had made: moving to Indonesia—to find himself—or to lose himself. Whichever came first.
To leave everything he had ever known for a world he could not have imagined.
It was very warm in the evening shade, well veiled by a burnt orange umbrella attached to a bamboo stick driven into pallid sand that was twice the size of the umbrella they once owned, still in the backyard of their former house, which she now owned, free and clear, which she shared with her new husband and his three kids and their two dogs—his and Bailey’s—the dogs she had also kept, along with the umbrella and the table it was attached to, from the marriage which ended six months ago when Sage was still her legal husband.
Before she cheated on him and left him for a man she’d just met and barely knew.
He opened a bottle of Bintang and took the first drink and swallowed hard. He’d expected the beer to be bad, but it was worse than he’d expected. He set the bottle on the wooden table. It was a table hand-cut from sandalwood, lacquered with oil and covered in a glistening sheen.
It had been a long trip from the States. Sixteen hours sitting in an upright position next to a man who, the entire flight, farted and drank beer and ate peanuts. His name was Wayne Tender. He was tall and bony with a sharp nose and a dimpled chin, with black hair slicked back in thin strips until it disappeared behind his head. He was a consultant from Australia and Sage hated him for the first ten hours but those last four or five had been okay. Because Sage started drinking after that, and even that late in the game Sage made a valiant effort to put as much distance as he could between his first drink and his last.
It would be a strange journey, of this Sage was convinced. Turned out Wayne Tender had been a professional boxer when he was a younger man. That’s what he’d said. His record: 16—1. Four by draw and eleven by knockout; except he told Sage they’d been knocked the fuck out, driving one bony-knuckled fist into the palm of his other hand to better demonstrate the effectiveness of his punch.
“Even broke a man’s orbital once,” he said, pointing to his cheekbone. “Ever do that, mate?”
Sage said he hadn’t. He’d been in a fight or two in his time. Given a black eye or two in his day—and he’d taken a few as well—but he’d never broken anyone’s orbital.
“Eye goes black soon as it happens.”
Wayne snapped his fingers and nodded then took a drink. Going on to regale Sage with further stories of badassery and brutality, all of which had captivated Sage and forced him to pay attention. Wayne was a strange one. But he was also Australian, though, according to him he’d actually grown up in England, which could explain it. Sage had never met an Englishman. Or an Australian. Maybe they all drank beer and told stories and farted freely amongst strangers?
Sage had a lot to learn about people.
“…I had ta stab this bloke in the back, I did,” Wayne said.
He’d gone on to tell Sage it was a matter of self-defense. “He was comin’ at me,” Wayne said, though, hours after their plane had landed, Sage still wondered how Wayne could have stabbed a bloke in the back who’d been comin’ at him.
Remembering the flight, Sage leaned back in his chair on the beach and got comfortable. Took another drink of beer. Still as bad as it was the first time, but he’d been assured by others, Wayne Tender among them, Bali beer gets better with each drink and by the end of the bottle he’d be used to the taste. By the end of a six-pack he’d be in love with it.
That’s what they said.
Sage set his beer down and cringed. He could never get used to this, much less love it. To his right, the sun melted into the water: orange and blonde and perfect. Like the ocean was on fire and he was the only one who could see it.
He thought about Wayne Tender. How he’d parted ways with him in Denpasar.
“Ya better come see me over there’n Ubud, mate,” he’d said.
Sage agreed he would, but did not plan to. As far as he was concerned, Wayne Tender was soon to be a distant memory; a passing moment shared between two strangers on a sixteen-hour plane ride filled with reconditioned air and habitual flatulence.
If he never saw Wayne Tender again that was fine. In fact, it was better that he didn’t. There was something about him Sage deemed untrustworthy. Something about the way he presented himself he’d found suspect. Or maybe it was just him. Sage had a habit of being suspicious. At least that’s what his wife had said, that Sage didn’t trust her. But she said a lot of things. Like: I love you. I need you. I promise not to fuck anyone else because we’re married.
Sage, raising his Bintang, drinking the last half of that terrible beer in one gulp and, standing quickly, rammed his head into a metal support rod for the umbrella. He cursed and dropped his empty in the sand. Bent to pick it up and stood again in the same spot as before and drove the same metal support bar into his head.
He winced and cursed and walked from his place beneath the umbrella to the small shop at the edge of the beach for a second beer. It had been a long three days—it had been a long year—perhaps Sage had a six-pack in him after all.
Surely by the third or fourth bottle the taste of its contents would improve.
He walked to the shop and grabbed a metal bucket and filled it with ice and Bintang, and after paying with much more rupiah than was required, of that he was sure, returned to his spot beneath the umbrella. He sat in the chair and set the bucket in the sand, removed a bottle, held it toward the sun, and watched long thin drops roll down the side and cling to the bottom then fall to the sand.
Opening the bottle and leaning back, he dropped the lid in the bucket and listened to the sounds of paradise.
His jetlag was brutal. It overwhelmed him. He finished his beer and dropped the bottle to the bucket; he drifted toward a deep siesta, ten thousand miles from home, in a world of untainted bliss.
* * *
Wayne Tender, slightly annoyed, all business, sitting at a wooden table in a small cramped room behind a restaurant that served Padang food with a man named Ngyn Suterma and his Balinese bodyguards, talked about psilocybin mushrooms and cocaine.
Wayne asked Ngyn if he had ever done mushrooms.
“This very dangerous conversation Mister Tender,” Ngyn said.
Wayne agreed.
“Indonesian government no play game with drug.” Ngyn drew a short finger across his neck. “Death penalty we get catch.”
“Caught,” Wayne said. “Yes, I know. But we won’t.”
“How you know?”
“Because we’re not going to get caught, that’s why. I’m going to pay them off.”
Ngyn nodded his head and relaxed.
“Very good idea.”
Wayne turned his palms up. “Well, you have no choice. You have to.”
“Better safe or sorry.”
“Better safe than sorry, that’s right,” Wayne said. “We gotta pay to play the game.”
Ngyn looked confused by this aphorism but nodded anyway.
The drug trade in Indonesia was delicate and complicated. But it was also thriving. People, especially Westerners, mainly tourists, wanted drugs, and while hallucinogens were popular, most vacationers wanted marijuana and cocaine. But the laws in Indonesia were draconian, with the harshest penalties in existence. You did not want to get caught, and if you did get caught your life was over if you did not have enough cash to buy your way out, and most people didn’t.
Kerobokan Prison was full of them. They called it Hotel K and it was filled with people who got caught smuggling drugs for Westerners. The Balinese made more money on one drug deal then they made in five years doing anything else, which was the appeal, why a man like Ngyn Suterma got involved. Money and security for his family. Who were now provided for. They would buy what they needed and hide the rest in a place hard to find. This was the Balinese way. Poor people in a poor country finding ways to get by. Because one deal was all it took to give your family a better life.
And then one deal becomes two.
After concluding their business, Ngyn Suterma left the restaurant through the back door and stepped into the back alley and stood in the dust. Withdrawing his wallet, he paid each bodyguard 100,000 rupiah, which they gladly accepted, nodded and thanked Ngyn for.
They said they’d see him at work the next day.
He returned their nods and climbed on his motorbike. 200,000 rupiah: A lot of money. Almost eight USD a piece. Almost half a week’s wage for a half-hour meeting. But Ngyn had to do it. He had to put on airs to look legit. And hiring, not one, but two of the biggest men he knew to play bodyguards was legit. Even though they were guys he worked with.
This was what it took to get the part and play the role, the willingness to take risks. To appear larger and more important than you were, and Ngyn was a master as this character. He’d been performing him all his life.
Ngyn Suterma was Balinese: a short, pot-bellied man with a round face void of expressive features that drooped slightly and always looked confused but seldom was. He knew people; it was insight that served him well. Sometimes he pretended he was less than he was to gain people’s trust.
He’d grown up very poor. At times, impoverished to the point of starvation. His father was a fisherman and his mother cleaned houses. She tended Ngyn and his two brothers and two sisters. Life was hard. A sister died. A brother disappeared. The youngest sibling was a guest at Hotel K and it was hard to say when he’d get out, though one thing was certain: not until his family came up with the ransom money, which Ngyn was still working on—because in Bali everything was for sale, even freedom, and sometimes you were held prisoner until you could afford to be released.
Only his sister, Shatar, remained, and the two of them were not close. They never had been. As far as Ngyn was concerned she did not even like him.
“I know what you do,” she once told him.
“I work,” he’d said. “At factory.”
But his sister knew better.
“I don’t speak it out loud, Ngyn, what you do ...I dare not breathe word of it. But I know. And I pray for you.”
That was the last time they’d spoken. She said she would pray for him, but he had not known what that meant. Would she pray for his success? For his safety? He still did not know, after all this time, what I pray for you had meant. Even though it had been a decade since she had said those words, he always hoped it meant, I pray you don’t get caught, and not, I pray that you get shot.
With Shatar you could never tell, and Ngyn did not know how much his sister knew or where her loyalties lay, but in the ten years since that conversation, at their father’s funeral, he had yet to be arrested. He had not been gunned down, which was the penalty for drug trafficking in Indonesia: they would blindfold you and tie your hands behind your back and shoot you in the heart.
Getting caught was to be avoided at all costs. This was why you greased the wheels.
***
Wayne Tender sat uncomfortably in the back of the taxi and listened to the driver talk about Michael Jackson. In fact, that was how he had introduced himself. He said his name was Michael Jackson. He stuck his hand out. He wore one glove.
“You like Thriller?”
Wayne frowned. He could not believe his luck. Of all the cabs in Indonesia he’d picked this one.
“Come on mister, Thriller classic.”
Wayne shrugged.
“What ‘bout Jay Z? From America? Do you like the Jay Z?”
“Who the fuck is that?”
Michael Jackson switched lanes carelessly and talked about rap music.
“Sean Carter, that Jay Z real name. From New York,” Michael said. “In America.”
Wayne shook his head. “I know where it’s at, you wanker.”
“You like Johnny Carson,” Michael asked. “John Wayne?”
He eyed Wayne Tender in the rearview mirror. “Ah, yes, you like’a John Wayne, yeah?”
“Take me to hotel Nikko.”
Michael nodded. “Yessir mister, you look tired. Need relax, eh? You want Michael Jackson find you girlfriend? You get massage? Make sex?”
Wayne perked up. A massage would be nice. Some sex would be nice.
Michael Jackson, steering with his left hand, opened a plastic container filled with a collection of trinkets and hair clips and odd assortments of jewelry and, removing a cassette tape, pushed the tape in the radio on his dashboard.
After snapping the lid shut on the container he turned up the volume.
“We hear Michael Jackson now,” said Michael Jackson. “You like Beatle? Beatle sing with Michael Jackson. Paul McCartney Beatle.”
Looking in the mirror, he adjusted his udeng, pleased with an opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge of music history.
Wayne said, “Just take me to Nikko.”
“What about find you girl for sexy time? Make boom boom?”
“Awe bloody hell, Michael… I’m tired for fuck’s sake.”
“Michael Jackson know that why he get girl. You relax. Have sexy time.”
Wayne leaned back in the seat. It was no use. The Balinese were hustlers, this one in particular. But Wayne also knew a good employee when he saw one, and he could tell a guy like Michael Jackson had potential. He was resourceful. A man like that might come in handy.
Halfway through The Girl Is Mine the tape stopped, to Michaels’s chagrin, but Wayne felt immediate relief, until Michael started yelling then swerved from lane to lane. He tried to eject the cassette, but failed. It had been eaten, the tape now strewn about. A thin line of black crinkled ribbon hung from the deck and Michael struggled to remove it.
Cursing in Balinese as Wayne laughed, Michael Jackson looked at him in the rearview mirror, as if his lack of sensitivity had offended him.
“Sorry, can’t help it, mate,” Wayne said insincerely, overcome with more laughter.
“Tell ya what, sport,” he said, “be back in a half-hour with a girl no older than twenty. We make sex, go boom boom. I pay you two million rupiah for your trouble, OK? Buy you some new Michael Jackson, OK?”
What Michael Jackson paid the girl was between the two of them.
“You bring young girl.”
His new employee grinned appreciatively, though still devastated by his loss. He told Wayne Tender he’d be back in half-hour. He thanked him. Said John Wayne would not be sorry.
“No,” Wayne said. “No, no. Not John Wayne—Wayne. It’s Wayne.”
“You make good decision,” he said. “Trust Michael Jackson.”
“Right. Now go find me a whore.”
“Yes, Michael Jackson come back with girl. You make sex. Boom boom.”
Wayne, walking toward the hotel, dragging his plastic-wheeled suitcase behind him, yelled for Michael Jackson to hurry up and get going.
“Just beat it,” he yelled, entering the building, impressed with his own quick wit and inspired by his craftiness, even if it did go over the cab driver’s head.
***
At some point in the night Sage opened his eyes to nothing but cool darkness with shimmering pinholes of light above him and sounds of ocean to his right. He had been dreaming, and for once it had not been about his w̶i̶f̶e̶ …ex wife. He would have to get used to that. Even in his dreams he still thought of her that way—as his wife: The one he married at the same small church out in the woods where her parents and grandparents had both been wed. So long ago. When life had been perfect and they had been young and the future in front of them waited patiently.
If only they had not rushed so quickly to see it. If only he had known then what he knew now—but then, he asked himself, what could he have done any different? And, in the end, would whatever he changed have even mattered?
“A ring don’t plug a hole.”
That’s what his dad had said. The one time Sage broke down and asked his advice—and from a man divorced three times he barely knew—but that’s what he got, and in a way it did not make sense. But in a way it did.
Sage turned to move and realized he was on a beach beside the ocean in a foreign country with his feet in the sand. It was unfathomable to consider, and still so hard to believe he was there.
Standing now, carefully avoiding the umbrella, feeling stiff after what must have been a six-hour nap in that chair, he remembered the dream he had. He was back on the plane, with Wayne Tender. Now Wayne was bragging about the size of his penis.
“It runs the length of me elbow to me hand.”
Sage had a good laugh. Out loud. Alone. Standing in the sand beside the ocean. Even though it was so late he could not begin to wager a guess at the time, he laughed heartily and joyfully. Here he was, so very far from home, and he’d spent his first night passed out on the beach, dreaming of a stranger’s cock.
If she could see him now, laughing, in the dark, by himself, at the thought of another man’s penis. He wondered if she missed him but he knew she didn’t. Then he wondered how that was even possible, to become that way. To say you want someone, when you don’t. To say I love you when you love someone else.
Walking to his chair, he ducked, laughing punch-drunk and avoiding the metal support bar at all costs, and sat down. Because he knew what was coming. Something he could not hold back. There was no way to fight this. And even if there was, he couldn’t. He had to let it go. Let it all go. He had to let her go. Before she killed him. Before he walked into the ocean and drowned himself in her memories—though his lifelong fear of sharks would prevent that from happening.
“WHY?” he yelled to the darkness. And he sat there, cold and alone. Drenched in a sheen of sea-salt mist. He asked the stars how she could do it. He asked the ocean and the sand. He asked God: How could she do this to me? He had loved her so much. She was the best part of his life. His best friend. And he was hers—that Sage was sure of. The only real friend she’d had. Together he felt complete. Apart he felt destroyed.
Like something inside him was broken in half that could never be repaired.
Tears ran down his face. He licked salt from his lips. Took a deep breath. Thought about beer, then decided against it because of the taste, but now, after second—even third—thoughts, he reached for a one anyway, still slightly chilled, hard as that was to believe. He pulled off the cap with the bottle opener they gave him and, hoisting it to his lips, he downed a quarter of the bottle in a gulp of frustration.
It was as bad as it ever was, but he choked it down anyway and took another drink. Thought about his failures and his successes and his accomplishments. Thought about where he was today, and where he saw himself tomorrow. Deep, penetrating thoughts. Positive thoughts. The kind of things he’d read about in books.
Positive thinking: That’s what’s required if you want to be a success.
And that’s what he wanted. To be successful. He’d studied success story after success story and he’d listened to Abraham Hicks. He would turn this thing around. He would find himself, and perhaps his mojo, somehow, somewhere, in this new country. He would dance like no one’s watching—as ridiculous as that sounded—and he would teach himself to dance if he had to, but he would try new things. Learn their language and their money; perhaps, one day, he may even develop an appreciation for their beer, though that seemed unlikely.
Sage, lying low enough to be comfortable but high enough to drink from the bottle without drowning, watching stars above him, decided he would reinvent himself: He could be whoever he wanted, and Sage wanted to be the man he had always been afraid to be. The man he never knew he could be.
But first he had to find him.
***
Looking out beyond the break, in the early morning light, the ocean was straight cerulean glass that stretched as far as he could see: blue and green with small white caps of foam that rose to the surface and came toward him, spreading out like long pallid fingers that became waves and crashed the shoreline with a thunderous echo.
Sitting on his covered back porch, Djoko Koplak rolled a small thin joint as the sun came up. It was his favorite time of day; a time of reflection. He would smoke and think and drink coffee. Then, stretching his lean body in all manners of angle, he would meditate and prepare for the day to come.
It was a special time, an important time, though lately he’d gotten so carried away with his cocaine-fueled lifestyle he seldom got to bed before the sun came up, and once that happened his day was shot; he could not sleep, not with light coming in. He never had been able to, regardless of how tired and worn down he was. Even if he darkened his windows, it did not help, not in the slightest, because in his head he knew it was daylight. Knew what time it was. Rise and shine. Wake and bake. Grab his surfboard and walk his path, the same path he walked most days, to his favorite spot on the beach to toss his board on the water and lie down and paddle out into the sea.
Djoko Koplak loved to surf. He lived for it. Had saltwater in his veins. It was the thing that brought him to Bali in the first place. With waves that were astonishing, Bali was the Mecca and it pulled surfers toward it as if by some intimate, unspoken gravity, and every day he could ride those waves was a blessing. He did his best to remember that, that his whole life was a blessing, and all because of cocaine, and the fact he was connected. The Australians loved blow and would pay good money for it. It was the availability of the coke, not the quality, that set the market, but his coke happened to be the best quality anywhere and it was always in abundance, though lately he’d branched into other things.
Djoko kept it simple. He kept others’ involvement to a minimum. The more hands that were involved, the greater the risk of getting caught, and the greater the likelihood the product would get stepped on. Because everyone had heavy feet, and everyone involved took a slice of the pie. It was a natural process. It was the cost of doing business.
Djoko was thirty-two years old and he had lived in Bali five years. He was a very handsome surfer who sold a lot of cocaine. The path to his destiny had come to be completely by accident, because he was a nice guy, and because he was in the right place at the right time, because he helped an old man change a tire once; a tire change that launched a friendship that became a partnership. One that made him rich.
But for him to support his lifestyle he had to take risks. Sometimes he had to risk his life, but he usually paid someone else to risk theirs. Either way, he was just the middle man. Tranquil and assured, he spoke four languages and would look custom agents in the eye and smile. He dared them to search him. That was the kind of poise he had.
Fluid. Like water. In and out with impenetrable confidence, even when they searched his bags. When they handled his backpack or his surfboard, he grinned. He enjoyed the excitement and the rush, he believed in his own destiny. That he was young and rich and would live forever, to be the greatest surfer or the biggest coke vendor in Bali, perhaps both, but he would not be a fisherman or a cab driver or a factory worker, he would be rich and well-known. Respected. He would live lavishly with his jewelry and his women, cocaine parties and sex orgies every night.
It was his fate to become that man, a man other men would envy. And they did. Every man he met seethed with envy and that was a feeling Djoko liked. It drove him. Even though that was a dangerous feeling to have. Every day could be his last. And if he were caught, which was always a possibility, the idea of spending life in Kerobokan was worse than the thought of death, assuming he did not get a death sentence to begin with, which he could. It had been known to happen, which was always where his confidence came in. His bravado. The thing that made him good at what he did.
He never believed he’d get caught in the first place.
Confidence is everything.
That’s what the old man told him once he’d decided to bring him in. The reason he approached Djoko to mule in the first place. Except they didn’t call him a mule.
“We call it horse.”
“What’s the difference between mule and horse?” Djoko said.
“A mule is just a stupid animal. A mule is broke, desperate. A mule is just a number to cartels. But a horse, a horse is big, a powerful animal with a big heart and big balls. And you, my friend, you are a stud horse. Just look at the balls on you.”
No one said mule anymore, the man told him. “Everyone knows what that word means.”
The man who introduced him to the smuggling lifestyle was seventy-six years old, his age being the very reason Djoko stopped in the first place. To ignore an old man on the side of the road would have distressed his conscience.
“I’m Sukram,” he said. They shook hands.
A week later Djoko was in Aukland, New Zealand, with two pounds of blow packed inside the metal framework of his hang glider.
“I don’t how to use this thing,” Djoko’d protested. He had never seen a hang glider in his life; nor could he imagine flying one, and he certainly could not imagine it would hold two pounds of very pure cocaine. But it did.
The old man laughed. “It does not matter,” he said. “They don’t know that you can or cannot.”
Djoko trembled as he passed through Immigration at Auckland Airport, but no one knew. He hid it well. He was young and in shape and believed, in his heart, this was the profession he was meant for, that it was kismet. His destiny. To become rich and powerful. To own mansions and cars and motorcycles.
He made ten thousand dollars in one day and did not look back. Djoko Koplak had found his calling. The first thing he did after completing his run was spend eight of his ten thousand on a Rolex and another fifteen hundred on gold chains.
“Is this real?” he’d asked his employer. “This money? Or is all of this a dream?”
The old man, smiling, said this was just the beginning, that women would follow, and more money and big parties—if only he was careful: he reinforced being careful.
“This is a dangerous business,” he said. “One thing go wrong, you go to prison, you die.”
Djoko believed that. But not as much as he believed it could not happen to him.
***
Ngyn Suterma woke up sweating. It was hot on his side of the bed. Bright morning sun came through the open window and warmed his face. He rolled to the side his wife slept on, which was cool and vacant. She’d left at six a.m. to clean the home of a wealthy Australian couple from Celuk.
Ngyn had a big day today. It would also be a long day, and he’d barely slept the night before. He had meetings to attend and people to see. He was always nervous when it came to his second life; the job where he made his real money.
Looking around their home, he smiled. It was very nice. They had paintings and wooden carvings and sculptures, with a full kitchen and concrete steps and a tile floor. It was a fine home, but not too fine. Because too fine a home would provoke questions and that was something he didn’t need. Ngyn was a hard worker; his friends would be the first to tell you. His criminal proclivities were a well-kept secret, even from his wife, and if she did suspect anything she would not say.
“He work at factory,” was the answer she always gave. The same answer he gave. Ngyn knew the less she knew the better. She was a good wife and he loved her. He did not want her to work as hard as she did. But she had to. For now. But maybe one day that would change, and maybe this new job would be the catalyst for that opportunity.
“Papa,” Ngyn’s son said, walking into the bedroom. He asked for his mother.
“Ibu,” he said. There were tears in his tiny brown eyes.
“Hush, hush.”
“Ibu,” the child said.
“Ah,” Ngyn said. “Ibu at work, my son. She come home soon.”
They spoke English to all of their children, so they would know the language of the world. The child, the youngest of four, dropped his blanket and began to cry.
“Come, come,” Ngy said, sitting up, yawning, stretching. He turned and, placing his feet on the cool floor, reaching down, arms outstretched, motioned for his son, who ignored him.
“Ibu.”
“Come,” Ngyn said. He smiled at the boy, who picked up his blanket and walked toward him.
“Come,” Ngyn said, wiggling his fingers at the boy, who finally smiled and reached up for him.
It was his wife and his children who inspired him to live and to work hard, even if he had to break the law. He did not want his children to work at a factory. Get an education, he would say. Go to Europe or America, he would say. Those were the words he said to inspire them. He loved his country and his people, but opportunities were limited.
He knew that, and he wanted his kids to have more.
That’s what he told himself. The reason why he did what he did. But somewhere inside himself he knew better, because there was another reason, hard as it was to admit. He liked what he did. It was a great rush to be part of something illegal, and the rewards these opportunities had given him. He thought of the stacks of rupiah hidden beneath the floor and the stacks buried under a small building behind his own Ibu’s house. Money for his family
“Papa.”
Looking down into the small face of his son, tickling his cheek, Ngyn winked. Then he blew gently on the boy’s eyelids. He blinked and smiled.
“Hush, hush,” Ngyn said, holding the boy tight against his chest.
The boy, still crying, looked up at his father and told him he was hungry.
Ngyn smiled. “You hungry? OK, we eat.”
He stood and, holding the boy on his side, walked to their kitchen and called for his other children. Setting him down on a chair, Ngyn walked to the refrigerator and opened the door and removed some eggs.
“Want egg?” he asked.
The boy nodded as the other children entered the room.
“Hi papa,” his oldest daughter said.
“Pagi,” his younger daughter said.
“Where Asus?” Ngyn asked.
“Working,” they said.
Ngyn concealed his smile. It pleased him to see his son work hard. At thirteen years old he had a job and he gave the money he made to his father, who saved it for the day his son was old enough for a motorbike. Though Asus did not know that. He was content with his bicycle, but he had, on more than one occasion, made statements to his mother, who relayed them to his father, about his longing for a real machine.
“When I get motorbike, Ibu?” But his mother would shrug and say, “When you old enough to have beard,” and she would rub his bare chin with her hand.
Nygn’s children sat around the table and talked and watched their father cook. Ngyn poured coconut oil in a cast iron skillet and rubbed it in good with his finger to coat the bottom. He turned the gas burner on, and the hot flame brought the smell of coconut to life and it filled the room.
“Can we have gravy, papa?” his youngest daughter asked.
Ngyn threw his hands up dramatically.
“You want egg? You want gravy? What else you want? Crazy children of mine.”
They laughed at their father as he danced around the kitchen.
“Why not toast as well,” he suggested.
“Yes, toast!” they all said together. “Toast and gravy, papa.”
“Toast and gravy,” Ngyn said, exasperated. “My goodness, these hungry children will eat all the food in our house.”
***
When Sage opened his eyes it was morning. He heard birds squawking. It was bright. Blinking, struggling to acquire his bearing, looking up into the sun, he saw a small child above him, standing with his head cocked to one side.
“Oh, hello,” Sage said. Waking up. Sitting up. Attempting to make adjustments.
“Pagi.”
“Huh?”
The boy—Sage decided the child was a boy—nodded.
“Hello,” Sage said again.
“Pagi.”
Sage nodded, and the boy, friendly and curious, began a fast conversation Sage could not understand. Then the boy touched his arm with his small brown fingers and opened his hand.
“Oh,” Sage said, standing with caution, ducking, remembering the umbrella, reaching in his pocket. Sage removed his wallet, and, after opening it, studied the wad of bills.
They were pink and blue and green.
The boy, still smiling, stood on one foot and used his other foot to scratch his leg.
Sage, removing a few bills, handed them to the child and saw his eyes grow wide.
Very excited, putting both feet in the sand, bowing his head, sprinting from the beach, the boy jumped over a stack of logs and trash that had accumulated and disappeared into lush greenery that bordered sand.
How did he end up sleeping on the beach when his hotel was five hundred feet away?
He bent at the waist and stretched. Went to pick up his bucket of empties but they were gone. Which may have explained the boy. Perhaps he had returned them. Which explained his smile and outstretched hand.
Sage, feeling good considering he’d gotten drunk and slept on a wooden chair, reached to his head for his sunglasses but they were also gone.
Shit. He walked across the sand, to a dirt parking lot, crossed it and walked to his hotel, except they called it a villa. He was staying at a villa. It was nice, but expensive. He would find something cheaper. He was, after all, on a budget. He would only be there for a few weeks, he had to make his money last. He knew what little money he had left after the divorce would only stretch so far and he could not work in Indonesia to earn money—it was forbidden. Or illegal. Something. He wasn’t sure which. But that didn’t matter, because he didn’t plan on working. He planned on drinking. He wanted to forget who he was, but he could not forget the suggestions he’d received before he left. Like the best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody. That was the second piece of unsolicited advice his father had given him, immediately following the first piece—both seeming worthless in the state he had found himself in but now, months later, somehow, it had all began to sink in.
It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.
How long? But he changed the subject in his mind before he could answer. And with a lie, most likely. Because Sage liked to lie to himself. All men do, his mom had said. Which he believed, especially now, as he stood there admiring his expensive villa in Nusa Dua. And though he had not sought advice from either parent in as long as he could remember, there was something about divorce that bought out the psychiatrist in people. Not that he didn’t appreciate it. He did. He appreciated it greatly. But all the advice in the world could not bring her back. Not that he wanted her back. Not after what she’d done.
Sage started walking again. Because he’d started lying to himself again. He was afraid he would take her back. Hard as that was to admit. Ten years was a long time to love someone and you could not wash away those memories with beer. Or advice. Or other women, though he would try. But he knew time was the only thing that cleansed wounds. And space. The distance now between them.
Last week she’d lived only two towns away. Now the remoteness felt immeasurable. Ten thousand miles. If that did not heal his scabs, nothing could.
Either way Sage wasn’t ready, though he did appreciate the console.
An older Balinese man who was very short with a smooth round face, save for wrinkles around his eyes, wearing dirty shorts and no shirt, holding a scrap of cardboard that read TAXI in magic marker, called to Sage: “You need taxi?”
Sage stopped, pointing to his chest with his finger: Me?
Looking around, he saw no one else behind him; nor did he see a taxi.
“Taxi?”
Sage shook his head.
“Motorbike,” he asked. “You need motorbike?” Shaking his head up and down as he asked, nodding yes, as if to persuade or convince Sage he did.
“No,” Sage shook his head. “No …no motorbike for me, thanks.”
“Yes,” the man said. “You need motorbike.”
That time it was a statement, not a question.
“No, really,” Sage said. “I …I don’t need motorbike.”
“Yes,” the man countered. “You need motorbike. How you get round if no taxi no motorbike?”
Sage shrugged and realized he did not have an answer to that question. He had not really thought of that. How would he get around? Walk? Unlikely. He’d just assumed everything would be close.
The man saw an opportunity once he realized he’d broken through and he took it. “Yes,” he repeated. “You need motorbike. Ride motorbike. Ride round city or walk, no?”
Sage had never ridden a motorbike before, or a motorcycle, or even a dirt bike; he had driven a golf cart, once, but he was drunk and he’d wrecked it. Really, that had not been his fault, it was his partner, Roy’s: always an asshole and usually drunk, Roy had urged Sage to go as fast as he could around the sand trap, assuring him the cart would not tip over, but when Sage cut the wheel it did tip over, turning on its side, smashing the roof and breaking Roy’s hand in the process, and Roy had the nerve to blame him, as if Sage doing what Roy demanded had made him responsible. But then, maybe it had made him responsible, maybe it was all his fault, he just hadn’t seen it, not at the time, which got him thinking—something he did not need to do at this moment, but it was too late. He accepted these thoughts and tried to learn from them, because that’s what Abraham Hicks would say, that every experience he should try to learn from, so maybe everything that had ever gone wrong in his life could be his fault, even his divorce, maybe that was his fault, too; his fault she had left him after she graduated nursing school and got her first real job, at the state prison, of all places, and perhaps it was his fault, when he found out later she’d slept with a bartender she’d met the night he took her out for her birthday, back when she was twenty-six, because if he had never taken her to the fucking bar in the first place they might still be together, and if he had just put his foot down against the prison job maybe they would still be married, except she’d wanted the prison job and he wanted to make her happy, so he’d said OK and wished her luck, because he trusted her, and he was proud of her, she’d worked hard and graduated at the top of her class; he’d believed in her as much as she believed in herself and when she walked on that stage with those other nurses to get her diploma he fought tears of pride.
“Motorbike? I get you motorbike,” the man went on.
Sage realized he’d been standing on the edge of the curb, which, in its own way, felt like the edge of a cliff.
“Yes, yes. Petute get you motorbike.”
“Yeah, well …well I don’t know. Pe …Petute?”
“Yes,” Petute said. “Petute get you motorbike.”
Sage looked down at his watch but it was gone. Sonofabitch. He felt for his cell phone, still in his back pocket. He could not remember why he’d put it in there, but he was glad he did.
Petute, watching him, nodding his head up and down, said, “You wait, I bring motorbike.”
Sage cleared his throat. “Now just, now hang on here, Petut—
“Petuuute,” Petute said impatiently.
“Right,” Sage said. “Now hang on here, Petute. How much for a motorbike?”
“I give you good deal.”
“What’s a good deal?”
“How long you want?”
Sage didn’t know.
“Rent day, week, month. How long you want?”
Sage decided he would rent a motorbike for a week and Petute said three-hundred thousand rupiah.
“Sounds fair.”
Petute assured him it was fair, that he had made him a good deal.
“Wait for Petute,” he said, pointing at Sage with his finger, as if Sage should plant himself in that exact spot like a cactus and not move.
Petute withdrew a phone from his pocket and started texting. He looked up at Sage.
“Motorbike on way.”
Sage laughed, awkwardly, completely out of his element. He said okay and talked to Petute while they waited. Petute owned a warung and a laundry and a small house in Nusa Dua. He would have his employees bring the motorbike, he said. Then he would see him tomorrow, at his laundry, where Sage could fill out paperwork.
When they arrived with his motorbike Sage tried not to notice her but how could he not. She was small and caramel-skinned, with long dark hair pulled into a loose mess beneath her helmet.
“This you motorbike,” Petute said.
“OK, thank you,” Sage stifled a laugh under his breath. Still surprised he had actually done it. Something so spontaneous. Something so unlike him. The old Sage would have scrutinized this prospect from every angle and weighed his options carefully.
But not anymore, that’s not what this trip was about.
Petute patted Sage on the back and said, “Motorbike, you take.”
Sage thanked him and looked down at the motorbike then up at the girl who had brought it.
Petute said something quickly and sharply and the woman walked toward a second motorbike with a young Balinese kid riding it and climbed on the back.
Sage watched them ride off, as Petute, snapping his fingers, pointed toward the bike. “This you start. This you gas—go fast.” Petute made a quick throttling motion with his right hand, then, pointing to the left handbrake, “That you brake. OK? You have it? You understand?”
Sage felt foolish regardless of whether he had it or not, so he said he had it and hoped he did, deciding he would figure out this machine on his own time, in his own way, without any audience or assistance.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Terima kasih.”
“OK, right. Thank you—hey wait a minute,” he said, making a signature gesture in the air. “Do I sign anything?”
“Yes. You come laundry to morrow. Sign name. Give receipt.”
“OK,” Sage said. “But where?”
Petute pointed to a sticker on the side of the motorbike. “That address.”
“OK,” Sage said, relieved. He would figure out a way to find it.
“See you tomorrow.”
Petute nodded and turned and walked from the parking lot and stood by the beach.
Sage, sitting on the motorbike, held in the brake and turned the key. It started quickly and the engine was running just as quickly with restrained force that wanted to go.
Sage let off the brake and the bike took off. Lifting up both feet, setting them on the in front of him, he said oh shit as he shot across the parking lot.
He squeezed the brake hard and the front tire locked tight in the sandy lot and the bike slid away from him, but he planted his left foot on the pavement at the last second and prevented it from falling.
When he did, he pulled a muscle high in his thigh and he knew it right away.
Hopping back up into position, sitting down, letting off the brake slowly, he rode to the front of his villa and parked beside other motorbikes along a short wooden fence, wincing as he climbed off, the muscle he pulled already throbbing. He took small steps toward the villa, as a woman wearing a sarong of many colors bowed and greeted him and asked him how he was.
“I’m fine,” he said, and returned her bow. “It’s very beautiful here.”
“Terima kasih,” she said.
“OK,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Where you stay at?”
“Out back,” he pointed.
“I see I see. So, hey, you are American?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, America I can tell by accent. Yes, I would love to go to America.”
Looking at the beauty around them he could not understand why anyone would leave.
“Yeah yeah, America.” She rubbed her fingers together. “Make big money in America.”
“Make big bills. It’s expensive.”
“It expensive. How much it expensive?”
“Everything is expensive. Rent—rent is like a thousand dollars a month, eight hundred if you’re lucky.”
“A ten-million rupiah a month?”
“It depends where you live,” he said. “San Francisco or New York, it’s two or three thousand.” Sage wasn’t sure how much ten million rupiah was but it sounded like a lot.
“What do you do?” she said.
That was a good question. One he’d been asking himself for a while. What did he do? What would he say? That he was a painter or a novelist? How could he tell her he was a former military man, turned salesman, who was now unemployed?
“I write science fiction.” It was the first thing that came to mind.
“Oh,” she said. She was impressed, he could tell, but he could not believe he had said it: I write science fiction. In all the time he’d had to practice his story that was the best he’d come up with. Writing. And of all things science fiction. Something he knew nothing about in a genre he was unfamiliar with.
She pointed toward a room with large wooden tables and tall wooden chairs and asked him if he was hungry. “You like breakfast?”
He nodded. He would love breakfast. Whatever it was he smelled cooking he would take it.
She took him by the elbow and guided him to the tables.
“You work here?”
“Yeah yeah, at villa. I hostess.”
“OK then, I’m Sage. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I Dina.” She took his hand and shook it and bowed.
“Well, thanks for breakfast. This is a great idea.”
“You look hungry. Like you sleep on beach.”
Dina smiled at Sage and he smiled back. “I got drunk last night,” he said. He shrugged and hoped she had not seen him pull his thigh muscle on the motorbike.
“Oh yes, get drunk is good. You drink arak?”
“Uh,” he said. “I don’t think so. Should I?”
“No no, it no good. Well, maybe some time it good but,” she held her hand in the air and shook it from side to side, frowning. “Some time it good but most time no good.”
“Oh,” Sage said. “OK then.”
“It not make right. Make sick, very very sick, yeah. Sometime make you go blind.”
“What? This drink makes you sick—makes you go blind?”
“Yeah yeah,” she said. “Some time.”
“Why would anyone drink it?’
“Because it cheap, it good.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Same same.”
“Well, thanks for the …warning, I guess. Anyway, yeah, I’ll stay away from that.”
Laughing, she shook her head like she understood. Saying again it was very bad.
Sitting at the table he ran his fingers over the menu, thankful it was in English. The hostess returned to her duties and left him to his breakfast. In a way he was grateful. He did not know what lie he would tell her next. I write science fiction. How could he have been so foolish? What if she had been a fan and called him on it. He laughed about it then. The chance she would know any science fiction writers was as funny as the lie itself. But that was the allure of Bali. He could be whoever he wanted. Maybe he was a science fiction writer. Who would know? And if he had not been a science fiction writer before today, maybe he was now—since he could be anything he wanted here. He might just pick up a pen and start today. He could say what he wanted and no one would know.
In some strange way it felt good to have that freedom.
He decided he’d have eggs and chili sauce and bacon. And then maybe he’d ride his motorbike. Or take a nap. In this new life he could do whatever he wanted.
Looking around the room at the Balinese artwork, he waited for his server to come. The air was hot already, even at an early hour. A fan hung above the table, oscillating from left to right. It looked like it was fifty years old.
His waitress brought his food and a small plate of fruit and a glass of water and a cup of coffee.
“Bagus?” she asked.
Sage thought about what that word could mean and began to nod slowly.
“Yeah, I, uh, sorry, I can’t speak Balinese. Only English.”
“Yeah, yeah. Bagus.” She nodded slowly. “Bah goose. Mean ‘good.’”
She pointed to his food.
“OK, bagus means good?”
“Yeah, it mean good. Bagus.”
“Bagus,” he said. They both looked down at his plate and she smiled at him.
“Oh,” Sage said. “Yes, yes. Bagus. This,” he pointed to the arrangement on his plate, “this looks good—very good. Bagus. Thank you.”
She bowed and said, “Suksma,” and turned and walked away.
Sage ate his food slowly and watched two people who entered the room. They were an older couple, he assumed American, but when they asked for a menu he heard they were Russian. The man, large and loud, talking fast and walking hastily, clearly agitated; the woman, his companion, was small and fragile and inattentive.
They found a table and sat down and looked over the menu.
Sage devoured his breakfast. The bacon tasted different from the bacon he was used to but it was still fine bacon. The eggs were soft and scrambled gently with a nice puff to them. His toast was neither soft nor hard but perfect in texture and brown with a crispness when you bit into it. He drank his water and it was very cold. He drained the glass and set it down as his waitress approached with a fresh glass and removed his empty one and asked him how he liked his breakfast.
“Very much,” he said. “It’s great—er, uh, I mean, bagus. It’s bagus.”
“Ah, bagus yeah yeah.”
She left him with his empty plate and his fresh glass of water, which he drank slowly as he watched people in the room. All of them good natured and very friendly. Sage knew it was a life he could get used to. Somehow, already, as strange as this place was to him, he already felt at home.
***
Wayne Tender met a Balinese man named Tuk in an alley in Kuta in front of a clinic called Rejuve. They parked beside each other’s motorbikes and talked.
“Been long time Mister Wayne Tender. How you do?”
“Fine, Tuk, and how are you this lovely day?”
“Tuk worry.”
“Awe bloody hell, don’t say that.”
“It truth. Another foreigner get caught at airport try bring in crystal methamphetamine!”
“I heard about that.”
“Stupid, way she get caught. Lazy. No good hiding spot.”
Wayne agreed she was lazy, and that a good hiding spot was essential.
“Now she caught,” he went on, “now Bali 9 go to get shot all of sudden, everything hot for now …can no do nothing for while.”
“No, no Tuk, you fucker, I need this. Everything’s still good. We’re good, Tuk.”
“No no, you crazy. Nobody move nothing, not now. That is order.”
“An order?”
Tuk nodded. “You know how it work,” he said. “Let thing die down then we go back do good business.”
Wayne said, “I don’t have time for this horseshit.”
Tuk, starting his motorbike, bowing, gave Wayne a nod and rode off.
Wayne pulled forward on his motorbike as it started to rain. Bloody piss. This was not the news he’d been expecting. He was counting on this deal. People had already been contacted and plans were in motion. Shit. Wayne was getting soaked. He turned right and goosed the throttle and ran a stop sign. He could call another meeting, but what good would that do? It was too late to turn back. There was a shipment coming in today and money to make and people to pay. Many people. Especially polisi. He could not wait.
Wayne, pulling over, parking beneath a metal-roofed building, turning off his motorbike, listened to it rain. Water pounded the roof and the streets. It flowed down Jl. Pantai Kuta in a rush, washing small cardboard squares with incense on them down the gutter. He saw them everywhere. Incense was heavy in the air all around him.
The deal he was involved with must still go through but now he would have no help, and there was no guarantee whoever manned the x-ray station would be a friend on the payroll. He would have to speak with Ngyn about this, he knew people he could trust. Wayne was on his own if he got caught, but he knew they needed him.
A corrupt police force needed a middleman they could trust to facilitate transactions.
Wayne, sitting on his motorbike, shaking water from his head, wiped mist from his face as a motorbike passed him. It carried two passengers stuffed beneath one oversized raincoat, both of their heads crammed through the neck hole, followed by a flatbed truck, chugging, slowly, in low gear, with a load of dirt in back and a crew of workers sitting on top of it, getting soaked.
Two wet workers waved at Wayne and Wayne returned their wave. The Indonesians were a pleasant bunch. The Balinese and the Javanese; the ones he befriended and did business with. Even the strangers would stop to help you. That was why he loved Bali, and once he’d made the right connections he became the man to know. Knowing was what he did best: people and dates and locations; more important, he knew discreet ways to disburse cash. As far as the world of drug trafficking was concerned, Wayne Tender was important. At least in Asia. He kept the wheels greased and everything ran smoothly. A package got through and everyone got paid that had to be paid.
His phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and said, “Hello.”
“Halo.”
“Who’s this?”
She told him her name. She worked for Grand Nikko Bali. A package had arrived.
“Message from manager say call you at once if package arrive, Mister Tender.”
“That’s fine,” Wayne said. “I’m on my way.”
He hung up and put the phone in his pocket. He was going to have to stall people and they were not going to like it. A stalled deal would make people nervous and cost someone money. But what choice did he have, and how long could he stall? Couple of days maybe, he’d see what he could do. He could stall the deal or risk everything, but at that moment he did not know if everything was worth the risk.
Wayne walked to the edge of the overhang and stuck his head out and studied the sky. This was the rainy season, it was hard to say how long it would rain. It might last an hour or it might rain five.
He walked back to the motorbike and, lifting the seat, removed a raincoat from the compartment underneath it and left the overhang, riding in hot rain, steam coming off the pavement in front of him once the sun returned. He spun his head around to make sure no one followed him but it was hard to say; the streets were crowded with people who wore raincoats and everyone looked the same.
Wayne sat at a stop sign with a small group of motorbikes, waiting as a large bus passed in front of them, slowly, shooting jets of hot smoke in the steamed air. Then, after riding with the small crowd for a mile or two, he turned right and followed that road to the hotel, parked his motorbike and went inside, stopping to collect his package from the front desk. He went to his room and locked the door, removing a Bintang from the fridge, walking to the balcony that overlooked the dirt brown alley, opening his beer. He wondered why he didn’t rent a room somewhere else with a much better view.
He picked up his phone and sent a text. Looked at his watch and waited. Saw no one watching from above him and no one watching from below. There was nothing around him but concrete and dust and the ocean in the distance. It did not look blue but gray, like hammered gunmetal. Soft and cool and not without beauty, but there was a lot of ugliness that stood between them.
***
Djoko Koplak, sitting at Fly Café, smoking, drinking coffee, used their wifi to send messages from the throwaway sim card in his phone. Before a shipment arrived he was rarely nervous, though a man who believed in his own destiny should still be cautious. He did not smuggle anything himself, those days were behind him. He liked to use horses, when he could find them, but in his business they were hard to find. Sometimes people got caught, and sometimes, despite the best precautions, things went wrong. He’d seen it happen. He’d watched a horse named Paul Stucky Ashley go down right in front of him at Ngurah Rai Airport. Paul was a surfer from Australia who he’d met on holiday and he was caught on his first attempt.
Djoko went to pick him up but Paul never made it through immigration.
A few hours later, Ngurah Rai security took him out in handcuffs. He had been at Kerobokan ever since, and like so many other prisoners, it was only a matter of time until they killed him.
Djoko sat tall and stretched his back and finished his coffee. It poured rain outside and the longer he sat inside the less he wanted to go out in it. He nodded for the waiter and ordered another coffee, told him to throw in a few of those donuts.
He checked his phone again. The plane was on time, and the next hour was crucial. Would his horse make it through the airport? There was a lot of money riding on that flight.
Djoko sent a message to Ngyn. They had a meeting and Djoko wanted to remind him. Not that he’d forget; Djoko just wanted to be thorough. When it came to business he always was.
His waiter brought him a coffee and three small donuts on a warm saucer.
“Terima kasih.”
The waiter nodded.
Djoko worried about his horse. He worried about all of them. He had three horses in his stable. He used different horses for different jobs and all had proven themselves trustworthy. Today they’d be bringing in a kilo of methamphetamine hidden in a surfboard. The horse he was using was particularly skilled, but Djoko was still concerned. The last thing Djoko wanted to do was replace Grady, especially when he needed him for the upcoming job with the Australian—who Djoko had found through Ngyn.
Wayne Tender smart, Ngyn told him. This guy know everyone.
A month later they horsed in a kilo and a half of marijuana, and while it was successful, it was not worth the risk they took, not when the penalties were the same compared to the money they could make if they horsed in methamphetamine.
More profit/same risk: life in prison or death by firing squad, and most men would tell you they did not know which was worse, but some men did not have it much better either way. Sometimes prison or death was better than what they already had. Ten years of stomping through rice paddies or one walk through an airport. Some chose the airport, but Djoko knew it took a special breed of people and most people did not have what it took even if they thought they did. He’d seen horses change their mind the day after they agreed to do the job and he’d seen them change their minds the day before they were set to leave. Once, a horse changed his mind at the airport and Djoko had to run himself, but that was the only time that happened. After that, he was cautious; he always used men he could trust.
What he did not do was use women; this was a rule the old man instilled in him. Women do not trust, he’d say. Get you caught. From what he’d seen it was true. Women did get caught, not that men didn’t, but they seemed to carry themselves with more confidence, or perhaps it was arrogance. Either way, you needed some of whatever it was they had, but not too much, just enough self-assurance to get the job done.
It was not a life for everyone, but for some it was an easy choice.
Nygn Suterma left his village in the rain and rode toward Ubud. He’d had a wonderful morning with his children. His wife would be home soon. She would work in the garden and start on dinner after that. It would be a nice night with his family and he looked forward to it. Evenings were his favorite time. A meal. A drink. Perhaps a book while the children played and his wife watched TV.
He took Jl. Hanoman to the short cut by the soccer park and turned right on Monkey Forrest Road. After taking that to the main road, he turned left and rode for several kilometers, passing warungs and spas and nice restaurants. Then he passed an IndoMart and the Bintang before he came to Fly Café, where he parked his motorbike and went inside.
Djoko sat at a tall square table to the right and nodded when Ngyn approached.
Sitting together, they drank coffee and were friendly to each other. They talked about the package—specifically, its arrival. When Grady made it through the airport he would send a text message; then he’d take a taxi to Sanur.
If he did not send a text there was a problem.
Djoko sipped coffee. He was confident, like always. And even if he wasn’t, Ngyn would never know because Djoko hid his insecurities well.
They would meet at the Tandjung Sari Hotel for the exchange. That was how they’d always done it, though sometimes they switched hotels. Last time it was the Legian Beach Hotel, and The Amala in Seminyak the time before that.
His phone lay on the table and they watched it. Ngyn looked at his watch again and asked Djoko what time the plane would land and he told him it already had.
Because he would not eat for two days before a run, Grady had cramps in his stomach as he walked off the plane, something that always happened, but he ignored them and thought about the dinner he would have at Naughty Nuri’s Warung. He would drink ten cold beers and eat a rack of ribs. They were the best ribs in Indonesia, and he’d eaten enough to make a fair comparison.
It was hot inside Ngurah Rai International Airport and Grady was sweating. Breathe, he thought. Breathe. So he did. One, deep, controlled breath after another. He walked at a quick pace like a man in a hurry, the same way he would have walked through the airport if he had not been horsing. He had stone-hard confidence. He’d never had a problem before and he would not have one now. Everything would run smoothly. Nothing would come between him and the ribs and those ten cold beers. This was an easy ten thousand dollars and it was more money than he could make doing anything else.
He made four or five runs a year and lived very well.
Grady, standing in one of many long lines with his passport in hand, waited to talk to a Customs official. The lines moved slowly. It was always like this. Everyone hurried to make it through. When it was his turn, he gave the man his passport, answered two questions and collected it without admiring the stamp.
“Next please,” the official said, pointing to the woman who’d been in line behind him.
Grady, picking up his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder, walked toward the x-ray machine to scan his bag, then onto the baggage claim to collect his surfboard.
Djoko, on his third cup of coffee, drinking slowly, watched his phone on the table vibrate. They both looked at it. Djoko, picking it up, unlocked the phone and smiled.
Grady was in the back of a taxi, on his way to Sanur.
Both men shook hands and finished their coffee, and although they were content, they were not out of the woods. They still had a lot of work to do. Djoko would meet Grady, pay him, and pick up the methamphetamine. He would then take the methamphetamine back to Ngyn, who would meet Wayne Tender and exchange it for cash.
Ngyn would then take the cash he got from Wayne back to Djoko, after first removing his agreed-upon percentage, and Djoko would send it through Fed Ex to an undisclosed locale.
Ngyn, standing, pushing in his tall chair, bowed to Djoko, who returned his bow. He told Ngyn he would text him soon. After he met Grady. They could meet tonight or tomorrow. They would figure something out.
Ngyn left the café and rode to the factory where he worked and parked his motorbike and went inside. It would be a long day, but at least he would make some money. Perhaps he would tell his wife not to cook and take his family to Pizza Bagus. That was their favorite restaurant but they did not eat there often, only on special occasions. To Ngyn, a big paycheck from a business transaction was always something special.
As Djoko waved at the waitress to bring his check, his phone rang. It was Tui: a woman he would sometimes see, though lately he’d begun to realize she might be crazy. In truth, perhaps he had always known, which meant he knew better than to answer her call, but he did anyway.
“Halo.”
“Halo,” she said.
“How you been, Tui?”
“Fine. Where you at?”
Djoko winced. She was getting nosey and he didn’t like it. He did not want to lie but he did not want to tell the truth either so he changed the subject.
“Gotta meet a friend. You in Ubud?”
“Yes, you?”
He lied and said he was in Canggu, that he had to go, but then she asked him why he was in Canggu.
“Lunch,” he said, getting frustrated. “With a friend.”
He knew it was coming.
“Who friend?”
“A friend,” he said. “Don’t ask again, just friend. No worry, Tui.”
She didn’t like that and he didn’t care, the relationship was over and they both knew it—at least he did, and if she didn’t she should have. There was no one to blame but her; she’d done all of this herself. By being bitchy and controlling and by asking too many questions.
After paying his bill and tipping his waitress fifty thousand rupiah, a generous amount, he listened to Tui go on and on about a movie she had watched about a woman who was psycho.
“Her husband cheat on her so she fake her own death,” Tui said. “She blame him for her murder to send him prison but then she change her mind.”
“Sounds like the bitch was crazy.”
Tui laughed and said, “She smart, that for sure. That also what I would do.”
She asked him again what he was doing in Canggu and he hung up the phone. That was the last time he would talk to Tui, and that was one more reason to end it. She watched movies about women who were crazy but she didn’t think they were.
When she called him back he ignored her; he’d wasted enough time on her already.
Walking to his bike he got a text message, and even though he was sure it was from Tui, he checked it anyway. It was Grady. He’d sent a picture of his hotel room with a surfboard on the bed.
Slipping his phone in one pocket, removing his key from the other, he sat on his motorcycle with great relief. He left Fly Café on his Harley Davidson and rode toward the Tandjung Sari Hotel. It was late afternoon and there were thousands of motorbikes on the road beside him but he did not see another hog. He had not seen one in five days. Most Indonesians could not afford a fine Harley Davidson motorcycle but Djoko owned two. He owned a sport bike and two four wheelers as well. He kept an old Jeep that he drove to the beach and a new BMW in his garage.
But he preferred his Harley.
It told the world who he was.
Djoko Koplak big man, it said. Live in nice house, drive nice car.
Riding hard in third gear, engine screaming up and down hills, shirtless and lean muscled and tan from the sun, his long hair blew freely as he crested a knoll, letting off the gas, forcing hot air through the side pipes. Then, leaning into a corner, jamming the throttle, pulling out of the turn, his back tire broke loose and caught traction.
He came to a dump truck full of hot workers and blasted by them on a straight stretch. Some were yelling with their fists up, but every man wished they’d been him.
Djoko let off the throttle and squeezed the clutch and shifted gears. His bike was screaming and he felt alive when he went that fast. He wished he had an airplane; he’d thought about buying one. He could buy a rice field and level it flat and use it as a runway. He could use his plane on flights to Java. Learn to fly himself. But that would draw attention. Even though he could afford it, he could not let anyone know he could. Not that they didn’t know already. But know was too strong a word, most just suspected, and there was a big difference between the two. Buying an airplane was too big a risk. They catch you he told himself, because he had to talk himself out of it, though he wanted one badly. He’d convinced himself of all the reasons.
Djoko came to the end of the road and merged with a wider road that had more traffic. Ubud was in the foothills of the Gianyar regency, amongst the precipitous ravines and the rice fields. It was the arts and culture center of Bali with a population of thirty-thousand. It was always crowded; it was a great place for a meeting like the one he had with Ngyn.
He pinned the throttle on the straight stretches when they came and let off so the pipes would echo through the sharp hills. He enjoyed his ride to Sanur. When he got to the hotel he found Grady waiting, sitting at a restaurant with two plates of food.
“Grady, how you doing, man? You always one hungry son of a bitch.”
Grady, chewing, agreeing, lifting his finger to give pause, swallowing, taking a drink of beer to wash it all down, said, “Fucking perfect is how I’m doing.”
Djoko said. “You have good trip, yeah?”
Grady, shaking his head, grunted affirmatively and took a bite of soft shell crab. After he finished gnawing, he said it was bagus.
“Yeah, bagus bagus. You have no problem?”
He shook his head. “No problems.”
“Bagus.” Djoko pointed to Grady’s plate. “What you eat? Crab, yes?”
Grady said it was and took a bite of spring roll. This was just a warm up. Another couple of hours he’d be eating Nauri’s ribs.
Djoko, holding a rolled newspaper in his hand, set it on the table and let it unroll.
There were ten thousand dollars inside its pages: US money.
“You do good job,” Djoko said. “Do not spend it all at once.”
Grady said he wouldn’t as he picked up the plate that held his mango papaya salad. When he did, Djoko set his hand on a flat plastic key card that had been under the plate. He slid his hand back and pulled the card discreetly off the table.
“See you soon,” Grady said, and, opening his phone, removing his sim card, handed it to Djoko so he could destroy it.
“Very soon, yeah,” Djoko said. “Get new sim card and call tomorrow.”
Grady said he would.
Djoko, bowing casually, leaving the table, walked to the hallway and took the elevator to Grady’s room. Once inside, he removed the surfboard and left the key on the bed. He carried the board down the hall, stepped into the elevator and rode to the ground floor, walked to his motorcycle and attached the surfboard to the custom-made holder on the side.
He was comfortable and relaxed and saw few people around him, but those he did see looked untroubled and carefree. He sent a message to Ngyn that said they would meet tomorrow. Then he started his Harley Davidson and left. Dropping the sim card Grady gave him on the ground once he got deep into traffic, he rode toward home.
***
Wayne was standing on his balcony, watching the ocean beyond the buildings, as birds fluttered above him and horns honked on the street below. He looked at his phone when it chirped, read a text message and walked inside and picked up the package, walked to the front door and listened.
After hearing nothing he stepped into the hallway and walked across it and entered a room that was registered to a young Balinese woman with a small lean body and long dark hair.
She was paid to hold any packages he received. She was paid for more than that.
Wayne felt like he was being watched, whether he was or not, and in the event he was being watched she had been his back-up plan. In his line of work he had to have one; in Bali, everyone watched everyone so a good back-up plan was essential.
He stood against the door and watched his back-up plan climb on the bed and lie on her stomach and return to her open laptop.
“Well hello to you, too, my love.”
Without looking, she held up her arm and gave him the finger.
“Now, is that any way to talk to your employer?”
“You two day late, Wayne. You not call back, not return call. What the fuck, Wayne?”
Walking toward the bed, looking down, he saw his reflection on her computer screen. He turned his palms up. “Sorry, love.”
“How long you already here in Bali?”
Wayne, shrugging again, knelt down on the bed on one knee.
“Wayne Tender is biggest asshole.”
He reached for her foot and touched it softly. Rubbing his finger along the inside arch, he lifted it off the bed and massaged it.
“Don’t be upset with me, dear, I’m a busy man.”
“Ah, you busy get pussy from other girl.”
Wayne held one of her small feet in both hands and put her toes in his mouth.
“Oh, Wayne, what hell you doing?”
“Relax, love, gonna work my way up to your snapper.”
She giggled and tried to pull her foot away, but she did not try hard. Wayne bit her and gave her slow quick kisses which became long obscene licks until she was pushing her panties down under his chin and pulling his head up by the hair.
Wayne loved her and pleased her the best way he could for the better part of fifteen minutes. He used every technique in his repertoire. Then he collapsed beside her and asked for a sandwich.
“God, that so good,” she said, ignoring his request.
“Thank you. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Yes, Wayne Tender is cowboy, his tongue like lasso.”
“That’s right, baby girl, don’t you forget it.”
He slapped her on the ass, hard, which left a nice hot palm print against her brown skin, but she did not jump or scream. She bit her lip instead.
“You like that, did you?”
She said she liked it and told him to do it again so he did it. Both ass cheeks red. She bit her lip and said nothing after that, squeezing the sheets into small white wads of fabric under each tight fist; she let Wayne Tender do whatever he wanted.
When he woke, it was dark and she was gone. That much he knew. But he was too tired to think about it. He had to piss, and he wondered what time it was but knew if he looked he’d be awake for good. Closing his eyes tightly, wrapping his arm around a pillow without waking to piss or check his phone or look for the girl, he slept for several more hours until there was a knock out in the hall that woke him for good.
When he finally got out of bed he knew it was either very early or very late. The girl still gone, package where he had left it, he walked to the door and leaned against the peep hole and saw a man knock on the door across the hall, to the room that belonged to him.
Wayne, stepping back, blinked, rubbed his eyes then leaned against the peep hole and watched the back of the broad-shouldered man in front of him. He had an old head that looked bald and tough. He turned and walked away.
Wayne turned away from the door and sat on the bed. He wondered where Ogi had gone. Checked his phone and saw six messages. Reading them with slight hesitation, he was pleased at the news. He now had a meeting to attend.
He tossed his phone on the bed and walked to the bathroom, where he stood in a hot shower and wondered who that man had been. Wayne assumed Tuk had sent someone to see him and he was glad to have missed him.
He soaped and rinsed and toweled and dressed and walked into the bedroom, unwrapped the package and removed a flat cardboard box. Using a pocket knife he opened the box and removed a stack of hundred dollar bills. He filled his backpack with money, walked to the door and opened it, left the room, closed the door, and walked down the long hall to the elevator, nervous yet relaxed.
He pressed down and scratched his ear, wondering if the man who knocked on his door would be waiting for him on the elevator. The door opened and Wayne stepped back, but there was no one inside. Wayne entered, pressed 1, and the doors closed. He rode down until it came to the 6th floor and stopped. Wayne was as ready as he could be, but for what he did not know. He stood and waited and knew he must be prepared for anything. Just in case. But nothing happened. The door opened and closed and there’d been no one waiting on the other side.
Wayne was nervous now. He hit the button and closed the doors and the elevator moved smoothly until he came to the 2nd floor and stopped.
The doors opened and two men stepped inside the elevator and stood in front of him. Both Indonesian, one was too poorly dressed to afford the hotel and the other didn’t fare much better. Wayne stepped back. He was still much bigger than they were. He was older but more seasoned and he was ready if they came at him.
No one did.
He popped his knuckles as the door opened and both men stepped out. Wayne stepped out behind them and left through a side exit. Walking to the back of the building, making sure no one followed, he circled around to the parking lot and found his motorbike and left the property. He had the room rented for a week but he also had a house in Ubud where he could go and wait, and that’s where he would find Ogi. She had a way of turning up. Sometimes she did that. Turned up. Other times he would not see her for months. She worked at a café on Goutama. He’d met her there the summer before last. She was small, like other Balinese women, but she had a smile that made him want to kiss her face. She was very pretty and he liked the way she said his name. He liked many things about her.
But mostly, he could trust her. One of the few women in his life he could.
***
Despite the pain he felt from the leg muscle he pulled, Sage taught himself to ride a motorbike. Though it had not been hard, it felt good to learn a new skill. Now he could get around.
He left the villa on his motorbike and rode to an empty lot. Pulling over and withdrawing his map, he saw he was a few kilometers from the shop but headed in the right direction. Another block and he’d be riding in full traffic. Three rights then left then straight for two traffic lights then another left.
After folding his map and sliding it in his pocket, he pulled onto an old road of patched concrete and dust, controlling his speed with the easy turn of a wrist. There, about to merge with traffic, Sage slowed to a full stop and took it in. No one appeared to be stopping or slowing down. Everyone was going as fast as they could and no one used turn signals. Everyone, everywhere, honked their horns, whether they needed to or not, and when someone on a motorbike saw an opportunity they took it. Kids as young as twelve buzzed by him on their motorbikes. Some of them smoking.
Sage took a deep breath and held it and pulled into the mess of traffic, turning his wrist all the way back as other riders passed him. When he looked down he was going 80 kilometers per hour, a speed faster than he had thought his motorbike capable of achieving.
Relaxing his grip on the grips, he let his breath out. This was exciting. Just a few months ago who would have seen this.
A motorbike that looked twenty-years older than the one Sage was currently riding passed him carrying three Indonesian men in sarongs. They were holding a ladder above their heads and each man had his head inside a rung.
Beautiful. Sage smiled at that. To his right, a motorbike passed him with three young Balinese girls dressed in school uniforms and raincoats. If he had not seen it himself he would not have believed it.
They came to a stoplight and the other motorbikes around him stopped so he stopped. Traffic was thick, but friendly. People revved their motorbike engines. The light changed colors and the motorbikes around him took off so he took off. It began to rain. It came from nowhere and fell hard and before he knew it he was in it. The sky came gray behind the rain and there was thunder and the rain fell harder now and showed no sign of lessening its pace.
Sage, letting off the gas, slowed down as people passed him and pulled to the shoulder. Stopping beneath a tree, he removed his map but his shorts were soaked so the map was soaked too.
As he sat there, being passed by motorbikes and trucks and vans and busses, it all felt so unreal. He could not believe this was happening, that he was in Indonesia. That for the next few weeks he would call this place his home.
When he pulled back into the rain it pounded his skin and helmet. He stayed to the left and rode slowly. Took a beating. Rode for half a mile and turned where he thought he was supposed to.
He was there. He’d been lucky to find it as easily as he had. He parked and climbed off his motorbike, wincing in pain, thoroughly saturated; he took his time and walked inside.
“Halo,” a voice said. Sage saw the kid who had come with the woman who had dropped off his motorbike.
“Hello,” Sage said.
“How you today, you wet?”
“I’m completely soaked.”
“Yeah yeah,” the kid said, pointing to the motorbike, “there raincoat under seat.”
“There is?” Sage threw his hands up. “Wish I’d’ve known.”
The kid smiled at him. “Every body know this rainy season.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Cocking his head he said, “You from Aussie?”
“No, America.”
He opened his mouth in surprise and nodded.
“Oh yes, America, USA. Nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“You like motorbike?”
“Yes,” Sage said. “It’s,” he paused and tried to remember the word. “Bagus.”
The kid said, “Bagus, yeah yeah.”
Inside Petute’s laundry business it was hot.
“Where’s Petute?”
“He not here.”
“OK, well,” he paused. “I need to pay for the motorbike.”
“Yeah, you pay me. You know how much?”
Sage had to think. This new currency was difficult to remember and it was hard to keep the math straight.
“That no worry,” the kid said, picking up his phone to text him. “I ask Petute.”
Sage looked at the washers and dryers and piles of clothes on the floor. Everyone’s clothes were thrown together and, looking closely, he saw a different colored piece of string attached to each item to keep them separate.
He looked at the kid.
“So not lose.”
“Oh,” Sage nodded. “Pretty clever.”
“You laundry?” he asked. “Dirty clothes.”
Sage said not yet, but when he did he would bring them.
“We do good job. Give you good deal.”
“Bagus?”
“Yeah, bagus bagus,” the kid smiled.
Sage told him his name and the kid said he was Kadek.
Sage removed his wallet and asked Kadek what Petute had said and Kadek said Petute said three-hundred thousand rupiah.
“OK,” Sage said, spreading his wallet open, removing three crisp pieces of smooth pink paper. He set them on the worn rattan counter.
Kadek said, “Where you stay?”
“I’m in Nusa Dua,” Sage said. “I’m staying at a villa.”
“How long you here? Just for holiday?”
Sage, running his hand through his hair, said he didn’t know.
“You stay there whole time, at villa?”
“Actually no, I need to find something cheaper. Too expensive.”
Kadek said if he wanted a room to rent he could find him one cheap-cheap.
“You could?”
“Yeah yeah,” Kadek said. “Course it easy like snap you finger.” He snapped his fingers.
“How much?” Sage said. “How many rupiah?”
“Maybe two million,” he shrugged. “That is good deal, yeah?”
“A month?” Sage took out his phone and used the currency converter.
“It like one-hundred fitty dollar maybe two-hundred dollar, yeah?” Kadek said.
It translated to one hundred and fifty-five dollars a month and Sage said he would take it.
Kadek looked surprised, his eyes widened. “You take, huh? Without look? What if you no like?”
“OK,” Sage said. “Can you show it to me today? Or I can come back tomorrow if it quits raining.”
“Yes, OK, that sound good, boss. But it rain every day. This rainy season.”
“Of course,” Sage said.
“I kind of busy right now. But you come back tomorrow I show you room.”
“Great. Sounds good—I mean, bagus.”
“Yes, bagus.”
“OK, thank you, Kadek.”
“No,” Kadek said. “It terima kasih.”
“It’s what?”
Kadek said, “Terima kasih,” and bowed. “It mean thank you.”
“Right,” Sage said, repeating it to himself time and time again. “Terima kasih.”
He left the building and stood beneath the edge of the roof and watched it rain. It came as hard as it had before and water flowed across the road. People drove by on motorbikes and continued their day as if this torrential downpour was little more than an inconvenience.
Sage had to think about which way to go. His map was useless. He considered where he had come from, which way he had to go. He watched it rain and made a plan.
Walking from under the edge of the building, toward his motorbike, Sage heard a long powerful rumble of thunder. He was very wet by the time he arrived; still, he sought his raincoat, bending down to look at the seat.
He looked for a way to lift the seat and saw that it was locked. Reaching in his pocket, he found the key and pulled it out and put the key in the ignition, but when he turned the key nothing happened.
As Sage pulled on the seat, rain slamming his back, someone in a rain poncho called him, and, holding his hand above his eyes to shield them from the rain, turning his head, squinting, he saw a woman in a green slicker walking toward him.
“Here,” she said, reaching for the key. “Turn this way.” She spun the key to the left.
When she did, she pressed a button and there was a pop. The seat unlatched and she lifted it, nodding to Sage.
“Thank you,” Sage nodded at her. “I mean tuh—rima cu—see.”
It was the same woman who had brought his motorbike the day before and she stood in the rain and let him look at her for a long slow minute before she said it was terima kasih.
“It is K sound in your alphabet not C sound,” she said, and drew a backward K in the air with her finger.
Sage thanked her and she smiled at him and nothing mattered in that moment. Not the rain or the inconvenience or the wetness. Not the coolness in the air. There was an immediate connection between them and he felt it.
“Next time you turn key back other way for seat.”
Turning quickly, she walked back toward the laundry.
Reaching into the shallow trunk beneath the seat he removed a rain poncho like the one she wore, and, watching her run away, seeing two brown legs sprout from a pair of red Chuck Taylor Converse, he hoped he would see her again.
Sage opened the stiff poncho and, after pulling it over his head, dry material sticking to him, sat down on the wet seat and removed his helmet that hung upside down, by the strap, from the handlebars. It was filled with water.
Turning his helmet over and dumping the water out and putting his wet helmet on his wet head, he started his motorbike and pulled onto the shoulder. The plan he’d decided on already forgotten. He was sodden, but he felt good.
Waiting for a break in traffic, the air very thick, he rode back the way he thought he’d come and tried not to think about the woman who was so appealing and so friendly and so completely beyond his reach.
He rode for a long while in the rain.
Galungan Days
Ngyn Suterma woke early and left his village and rode to a warung in Ubud to meet Djoko. He would pick up the methamphetamine and take it to Wayne Tender. After that they were free, but not until then. Until then they risked their lives.
Ngyn arrived at the warung and Djoko was already waiting. He was always early. Many times Ngyn had tried to beat him but he never could so he stopped trying. Djoko was very much the professional, but Ngyn knew he had a flamboyant lifestyle; a glorious life that many men would envy.
But not Ngyn. He believed in family. It was his honor to be a father and a son. To be a brother and a husband. He believed a man should make money for his family. That he should provide at all costs.
He approached Djoko and sat at his table and asked him how things went.
“They go good, everything good.” He nodded, and Ngyn saw a hint of a smile on Djoko’s face.
“That good,” Ngyn said. They would speak in English when they were in public; it was good to practice their English, and it kept important conversations private from curious Balinese.
Djoko agreed. “That very good. Now you take to Australian crazy man, get our money, yes?”
Ngyn agreed he would, then, nodding to a waiter who walked by, he ordered curry from the menu and a cup of black coffee.
The waiter asked Djoko if he wanted anything and he said no. When he left, Djoko looked down on the floor at the backpack beside his foot.
Ngyn saw it and said OK and asked Djoko about his horse.
“How Grady?”
“Hungry,” Djoko said. Both men laughed. “He always hungry.”
“A good horse always eat,” Ngyn said.
Djoko leaned forward and asked Ngyn about the operation they had coming up.
“What you want know?”
“Not amphetamine, no?”
“No, it diamond,” Ngyn said. “From Myanmar.”
Djoko, stretching his back, lit a cigarette. “I have Grady for job. He is best horse. I tell him to rest for rest of this month, that in three week I have big job for him.”
“That good,” Ngyn said. The waiter returned with his curry and his coffee and he thanked him. “Terima kasih.”
Djoko stood and told Ngyn to enjoy his meal.
“I see you tomorrow, no?”
“I send text message,” Ngyn said.
“Let me know when he pay you.”
Ngyn said he would, but this was Galungan. No one worked on Galungan.
“It depend on Wayne Tender, how soon I see him.”
Djoko left the warung and Ngyn sipped his coffee. It was hot and strong. He finished his curry and sent a message to Wayne Tender, stood and walked to the front. After paying for his meal and his coffee, he left the warung. The sky was soft blue and it looked very close to the tops of the trees. He saw no clouds and felt no breeze. Only heat.
Strapping the backpack over his shoulders, starting his motorbike, he rode to a small storage building he rented behind a house on the Campuhan Ridge, one he used to store antiques for a shop he hoped to one day own. There was a hole in the floor where he hid money, where he would hide the methamphetamine now.
He parked his motorbike and checked his phone for a message from Wayne Tender. There was none. Inside the building, he took the methamphetamine from the bag and stashed it in the hole in the floor. When he left the building he locked the door with a padlock, but when he locked it he turned the lock a certain way, at a particular angle, so he would know if it was adjusted.
Ngyn, stopping beside his motorbike, turning his back to the street, lifted his sarong and pissed in the grass as motorbikes passed behind him with no concern by either party. He finished pissing and started his motorbike and pulled onto the road. It was nine a.m. and the hot air was sweet with incense. It was everywhere. This was Galungan, a holiday when the spirits of the ancestors were celebrated and the streets were lined with penjor—tall bamboo poles, intricately constructed, with offerings that dangled above the road.
Ngyn would work for a few hours; then his factory would shut down so the workers could go home and prepare for the ceremonies. They would clean their homes and prepare offerings and burn incense. They would bake cakes in their stone ovens and slaughter pigs and butcher turtles. Children would play instruments and march down the street.
For the next ten days it would be good to be Balinese. Galungan was special. Ngyn and his family would remember their ancestors. Ngyn would pray at the many temples his family would visit. Tomorrow was a big day. The family would make their prayers and offerings at their homes then travel to the temples of their ancestors. After a day spent walking and praying and climbing up and down steep temple stairs they would come together and eat.
Ngyn weaved through traffic on the streets of Ubud and honked his horn. Not that he was frustrated; he was a tolerant man with a lot on his mind. He was involved in a big transaction and worked to hide his nervousness, not that it mattered. One way or the other, the consequences were the same. They would be found guilty if they were caught. The trial would be short and it would not be fair and every bit of rupiah he had ever earned that was not well hid would be taken.
Honking his horn he worked the shoulder, passing other motorbikes on the cracked, broken sidewalk, passing a silver bus full of curious tourists looking out windows and taking pictures and talking to the person beside them, saying: look at those flowers and those streets and those people and all of those fucking motorbikes.
Ngyn, cutting between two cars, passed a woman on a motorbike riding with her right hand on the throttle while her left hand held a red plastic jug she balanced on her head, filled with water. It splashed about, running down her back, as she bounced down the potholed road that lay before her. It was very rough, and he could see her in his mirror; she rode as steady as she could but as steady as she rode water still splashed from the pot and drenched her.
He dropped into a deep hole and the bottom of his motorbike crashed against the pavement. He rode through it. Straightened his handlebars and held them tight and worked the gas.
The penjors festooned the cluttered roadsides. They towered above them and the tops drooped over the pavement like primordial street lamps. Toward the base of the pole was a bamboo cage that held offerings from the families. The Balinese would carry flowers and produce and stock the baskets and offer thanks to God for the fruits of the Earth.
Ngyn turned into the parking lot of the factory where he worked, parked his motorbike, stood, and, lifting the seat, reached into the trunk and grabbed three bananas, enough to tide him over until he got home from work. Then he would have an early dinner and retire.
He had to pray and prepare for Galungan. It was going to be a long couple of days.
***
Sage watched the sky from the patio of his villa. It did not look like rain but it was hard to judge. They said it rained every day. Some days it rained for minutes and some days for hours and some days it rained all day and into the night and into the next day.
There was no sign of rain at that moment so now was as good a time to go to the laundry as he could hope for. He walked into his villa and brushed his teeth. Looking in the mirror, he thought about shaving but decided not to. He had to go. His map was destroyed but he thought he could find his way back to the laundry without it. He stopped in the lobby to look for a new map and saw the restaurant and smelled the food and thought about some breakfast. When he walked inside it was much busier than before; he was surprised to see a crowd of people.
He stopped to take them in, and while he took them in they stopped talking to each other and took him in. Everything was quiet and Sage felt his face redden. His waitress from the day before said, “Hey, it American writer, everyone! He publish book!”
Sage stood slack-jawed; he could not believe she had said that. He could not believe he had told that lie to begin with and that it had come back on him the way it had. The hostess had told the waitress and who knows who else. Lowering his face, turning redder still, he put his head down and waited for someone else to speak.
His waitress said, “Sit down, sit there,” pointing to a table against the wall. It was beside another table with two Japanese men and a woman.
Sage was mortified. He sat down: nervous and red-faced. Everyone looked at him inquisitively. When his waitress approached him she asked how he was and what he wanted and he told her he was fine and that he wanted the same thing he had the day before.
“I not remember.”
“You remembered I was a writer.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Science fiction. You famous writer, you big shot round here.”
Sage sucked in a deep breath and grunted and hid the shock in his face as well as he could hide it but he knew could not hide it well.
“What you want? You want menu?”
“I’ll have bacon.”
“OK you want bacon yeah, how much?”
“Just about four pieces, I guess.”
“You want four piece of bacon?” She said. Empat? She held up four fingers. “Is anything else you want?”
He said he’d take a bottle of water and a bottle of orange juice and two pieces of burnt toast.
“You what?” She said. “You want toast burn?”
“Just a little.”
She wrote down his order and, turning to leave, the Japanese man at the table beside him touched her arm and asked her a question and she answered his question by pointing to Sage. “He write book about Bali.”
The man’s eyebrows arched up. He leaned forward and spoke to Sage. “You’re writing a book about Bali?”
Sage looked down at his hands on the table. He did not know what to say. He cleared his throat and told the truth. “Not really, no.”
The man looked relieved somehow, as if the thought of a science fiction novel set in Bali would have been a bad idea.
“You from New York?” the Japanese man said.
Sage shook his head no. “What about you?”
“We’re from Tennessee.”
“Really?”
“Shit yes, we live in Memphis. What are you doing in Bali?”
“Just vacation, I guess. I dunno, really.” Sage, looking down at his hands on the table again, knew he did not want any more questions about science fiction. He looked up. “What about you guys?”
“Oh we’re on holiday, too. Here for three weeks. What about you, how long you staying?”
“I might stay a week or two. A month. Who knows?”
He knew a month would be stretching it because his money would run out by then but a month sounded like a good thing to say.
“Oh yeah, if you stay more than one month you must do visa run. You know that, right?”
Sage shook his head. “Not really, what’s that?”
“You serious?” he said. “You don’t know about the visa run?”
“Something about you’ve gotta leave the country every month, I think, but then you can come back—right?”
“Yes,” he nodded, “you can come back the same day, but then you only can stay for thirty days, then must leave again.”
“Right,” Sage said.
“Yes, that is why we stay only three weeks.”
Sage knew about visa runs but he had not paid much attention because he did not expect to stay that long. How long he stayed would depend on his budget and how far it stretched. Moving out of the villa would help. He had a month or two before his unemployment ran out, and thanks to their internet reporting system he could take care of his pretend job searches from anywhere. Something he almost felt bad about, but after years of working and paying in but never drawing, part of him thought he had that money coming.
“In fact,” the man went on, “now they’re supposed to ask at the airport when your return flight date is before they let you in the country. That way you don’t overstay.”
Sage began to nod. That he did understand, after what he’d experienced himself when he left San Francisco. He’d bought a one-way ticket to Indonesia but they would not let him on the plane, not without a return date. So, after much arguing, all of it unsuccessful, he’d been forced to buy a return ticket from his phone, while he was standing in line. Then, once the airline sent him his confirmation email, he showed his phone to the woman at the booth, who nodded and printed out his boarding pass then let Sage on the plane.
As soon as he was seated he cancelled the ticket and they refunded his money.
“Well OK,” Sage said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem,” he said. “Thank you for the good conversation. It’s nice to meet a writer.”
Sage removed his phone from his pocket he unlocked it and started scrolling through his messages. He had not bought a sim card and had no signal of any kind, but he could use the hotel wifi to check his messages. His phone had gotten wet in the monsoon he rode through and he’d dried it out as well as he could but the damage had been done, and while it did seem to work, there were a dozen water spots behind the screen that rendered it ineffective.
His waitress returned with a bottle of water and a bottle of orange juice and four pieces of bacon and two pieces of dark black toast that looked like they had been used as charcoal.
“Hope everything fine for you,” she said. “I have him burn toast like you say.”
“Wonderful,” he said. “The toast looks great.”
“Maybe toast too burn?”
“I’ll eat the crust.”
“OK,” she said.
She bowed and returned to the kitchen. Sage chewed his bacon. It was tough.
Today was a holiday from what he gathered, from what he overheard the American man beside him tell the Australian man beside him, something about spirits and ancestors and praying at temples.
Sage did his best to listen while doing everything he could to appear uninterested.
He finished his bacon and his orange juice and took the bottle of water with him as he stood from the table and walked to the front. A woman he had not seen before, sitting in a chair behind the counter, stood, and, smiling pleasantly, asked him would he like his bill.
“Yes.”
She bowed and walked to the kitchen and talked to someone, then walked out and smiled at Sage and handed him his bill.
He took it and saw the small amount and handed her fifty-thousand rupiah, which was more than the bill, and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “Terima kasih.”
“Sama-sama.”
Sage, leaving the restaurant, mumbled the words she’d said over and over again. He wanted to learn their language. When he stepped outside it was still bright and hot and the sky was still as blue as it had been when he went in. He walked to his motorbike and, sitting down, put on his helmet and removed his key from his pocket.
He left the restaurant without getting a map. He would do his best to remember the way but it seemed like it was one long straight stretch and three rights and a left. Or two rights and three lefts. Maybe it was one left.
He came to the end of the road and gritted his teeth and merged with traffic. It was very hectic. Sage rode by the curbs and the gutters, dodging people and penjors and other motorbikes, trying not to get lost or killed. The horns were maddening. They blared by him at various speeds and proximities of closeness.
They came to a traffic light and the other motorbikes slowed to brake so he slowed to brake but the light changed and everyone goosed their throttles and opened up their machines so Sage goosed his throttle and opened up his. The longer he rode the more comfortable he got and the more comfortable he got the more he felt the need to go faster. This seemed too slow, and despite the fact he had only ridden the motorbike three times in two days he felt he had it mastered.
He switched lanes and came to a stop and turned. Rode to the laundry and found it without trouble. Parked and, removing his helmet, hung it on the handlebars, pulling the key from the ignition before he walked inside.
Kadek held a pile of clothes in his arms and a cigarette between his teeth and told Sage, “Hang on wait one second, boss.”
Two women and a teenaged boy carried baskets of clothes from the dryers to the folding tables. It was searing in the laundry and the air felt like steamed mist when he breathed it. There was a wooden board to his left with five hooks on it and each hook held a key for a different motorbike. There was one key left. It hung from the hook by a pink string.
Kadek walked to the counter and bowed at Sage and asked him how he was.
“You ready see room?”
Sage said he was.
“OK one minute first, please.”
Sage told him to take his time, to take as much time as he needed.
Kadek thanked him for his patience and walked to the back of the laundry.
Sage, walked to the doorway and looked at the motorbikes and the road and the green terraced rice fields behind them as a man passed by riding an antique motorbike. Holding a large birdcage in his left hand, he weaved through traffic one-handed while honking his horn and smoking.
It was preposterous in the world Sage came from, but in Bali it was common.
“Halo,” Kadek said. “Sorry you wait.”
“That’s fine,” Sage said. “I was just watching traffic.”
“Yeah,” Kadek said. “Bad traffic some time but very bad today, this Galungan.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Gal-en-gung, is that how you say it? What’s that about?”
Kadek stopped walking and turned to Sage. “Galungan? It holiday, two time this year,” he held up two fingers. “Dua,” he said. “That mean two in Indonesian.”
Kadek started walking again and Sage followed him. They walked to their motorbikes and Sage asked Kadek how far away it was to the room he’d be renting and Kadek told him it was far.
“It is?”
“It not close. Like forty-five minute.”
Sage was stunned. “Oh, I didn’t realize that.”
“Ah, sorry,” he said. “I thought you know. Is that too far way? That only place I know where cheap-cheap.”
It sounded far away but what difference did it make? And far away from where? From who? It was a small island and he had no one to answer to. Either way it would be a nice ride.
“That’s OK; I’d still like to see it.”
“Good,” Kadek said. “It nice, you will like.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“It clean.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sage said. “Where we goin’?”
Kadek, pulling up to the edge of traffic, turned and said, “Ubud.”
***
Wayne Tender, relaxing in a handmade Balinese chair, rested his feet on a teakwood table made from an old fishing boat. His home, outside the bustling heart of Ubud, was tastefully decorated with modern and traditional furnishings. The art on the walls and sculptures that adorned his abode were done by local artists.
His was a splendid villa, with a deep reflecting pool set in stone-laden concrete beside a chrome outdoor grill and a bar made of sun-bleached bamboo.
Wayne checked his phone and saw a message from Ngyn that said he had met who he was supposed to meet, and he had obtained what he was supposed to obtain.
That was good to know. So far, so good. They had to get this run out of the way and prepare for the next one. The big one.
He put his phone on silent and got comfortable in his chair and took a drink. Ogi called to him from the kitchen and he closed his eyes at the sound of her sweet, broken English.
Wearing a two-piece bikini that was white and small, she emerged with a tray and set it on the table, looking displeased. She sat in the chair beside him, an assortment of fruit before them: pitaya and mangosteen and banana and watermelon.
Holding something bright pink in her hand, very ripe, she took a bite and juice ran over her bottom lip in a long pink line that followed the curve of her chin, to her neck, down the inside of her left breast.
“Look at you,” Wayne said. “So brilliantly sexy, my love.”
“Oh you think?”
He could not take his eyes off her. “Just look at you—my God. What a hot mess.”
“Dragon fruit,” she said, wiping juice from her perfectly round chin with the inside of her wrist. She looked at Wayne from behind white oversized sunglasses that swallowed her small face.
Licking her pink lips she said, “What you want, Wayne Tender?”
“You know what I want.”
“No way, I not give you blow job. It my period.”
“Perfect. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do when it’s your period.”
“No it not. You pervert. You always want blow job or hand job.”
“Of course. Look at those tiny hands, you can use them both.”
Ogi laughed. “I not think so. You crazy.”
“Please,” Wayne said. “I love it when you use both hands.”
“Why you like?”
“When you use two hands it makes my rod look bigger.”
“Oh Wayne, you crazy. Wayne Tender have biggest rod already.”
He turned and leaned toward her. “Say that again, babe.”
“No I not get this started. I no have sex with you, Wayne. We have sex last night, much sex.”
“I know we did, and you weren’t on your period then.”
“Yes I know. I lie about period. I just not want have sex with you. Wayne Tender, you have sex addiction.”
Wayne stood and looked down at her. To him she was on fire.
She lowered her sunglasses and for a long moment that solitary act performed effortlessly by her made him think he loved her, made him know he had never loved or wanted anyone more than he now wanted her.
Ogi tried to stand but Wayne was fast, stepping toward her, pressing himself against her, and when she pushed him away, he, using the soft touch of his finger against her bare thigh, rubbed her lightly until she could take no more.
She laughed and tried to escape but couldn’t.
“Wayne, you cheat.”
He whispered, “I must have you—you’re everything.”
Ogi let him kiss her and she reached into his shorts and grabbed him. They laughed together and enjoyed the game. He knew she could not resist him; he knew how to treat her even when he was being bad.
“OK I let you make sex one time only but this time in swimming pool.”
He kissed her and bit her lip and pulled away.
“No,” she whispered. “Come back; kiss me again like you just do, Wayne.”
He put small kisses on her shoulder and her head while she worked her hand back and forth, squeezing his cock with a moderate grip. When he was hard, he pulled her out of her chair and walked backward with her to the pool.
“I love way you kiss me, Wayne.”
“Your lips taste like a thousand flowers.”
“You are poet,” she said. “And you so hard,” she whispered, squeezing him.
“Hard for you.”
“You such a freak.”
Dragging his bottom lip up her cheek until he found her ear, biting it then, holding her ear between his teeth, he whispered, “Freak for love, baby.”
Stepping down into the pool he pulled her toward him and the water felt very cool against her warm skin. Her bikini top floated away.
***
As they rode, the traffic was not as thick but it was still congested. They passed motorbike after motorbike and they were passed by other motorbikes. At times they rode much faster than Sage was used to, but he kept up with Kadek.
Arriving in Penestanan, they slowed when the straight crowded roads became sheer and corkscrewed. The pavement in some places was good but in others it was cracked and chuckholed and prone to decay. They met very sharp curve after very sharp curve; then the road jagged hard to the left, taking them down a long bendy hill that bled into the main road in a wide swath of smoked black asphalt just above the Antonio Blanco Gallery and the old stone bridge.
They turned left. A few kilometers to go. As they passed Bintang, Kadek slowed until Sage was beside him, and, pointing to the Bintang, said, “That Bintang, that you store. Buy everything you need there. It good price for bule.”
That was something else Sage had not given much thought to. Where to buy his food. He’d just assumed he’d eat in restaurants. He took in everything and his mind coasted. They turned right off the main road and followed a new road around sharp corners, down deep ravines.
“Not much longer,” Kadek yelled to Sage.
The road was long and it twisted and turned and ended at another road where they turned right, following pavement for a quarter mile. Then it was gone and there was a tight corner to the left with big chunks of hard white rock for a road and that was Bangkiang Sidem. It was jagged and coarse and sharp-rocked. There was a large deep hole filled with brown water as wide as the road and deep in the middle so Kadek rode by the edge and Sage followed the path he made.
Climbing out of the hole, the road smoothed and became a dull gray patch of concrete that was cracked and weak at the broken places but driving on it was a blessing compared to the road they had traveled to get to it.
The concrete became gravel again but it was not as rough as before. They passed a large home and a small art gallery and came to a large house. Kadek stopped and parked and Sage parked behind him.
He looked at Sage and said, “This it, what you think?”
Sage did not know what to think. It was very tall, the roof highpeaked. Made of mortar and rock and wood. Everywhere he looked were lush green fields of florescent grass surrounded by level upon level of terraced rice paddies.
Behind the house the ground was steep and hard with smoothbarked coconut trees that stood sixty feet tall.
“We’re in the jungle.”
“Yeah, jungle,” Kadek said. “Look round, tree everywhere.”
“What about monkeys?” Sage said. “Are there monkeys?”
“Ah,” Kadek frowned. “Yeah, maybe no monkey here but maybe they have monkey down road.” He pointed. “Go to Monkey Forrest. Many monkeys.”
Sage climbed off his motorbike and said, “Long ride.”
“Yes, ride very long. What you think, huh?”
“Lotta traffic.”
“Yeah, yeah. Much traffic always but especial today. Everyone busy.”
“Big holiday you said.”
“Galungan, we Hindu. Today Penampahan, tomorrow Galungan, we pray at temple.”
“Your families, do they get together and celebrate?”
“Yes, we eat big meal and celebrate family and spirit of past.”
Kadek walked up to the big house and stopped in the yard. “Your room downstairs,” he said. “We go around.”
He told Sage the woman who lived upstairs wasn’t home or he would introduce them.
They walked around the side of the house. It was tall and it was built into a very steep mountain. There was a circular path made of wide hand-cut stones that were uneven and covered in moss. Kadek followed it and Sage followed him. They walked down the steps and came to a small square patch of flat sandstone rock with two coconut trees in the middle attached to a partial wall made of sticks and rope and bamboo. There was an outdoor shower behind the fence that drained onto a slick chunk of fossilized stone. Water rolled into the cracks and soaked into the dirt and became mud. There was a small pool beside the shower and a fence around the pool made of wood and bamboo and there was jungle behind the shower and the pool.
It was very private.
There was a wooden door that was scratched and scarred, tall but narrow, with a padlock mounted above a stationary handle you had to lift and push to open.
“This you door,” Kadek said, producing a long slender key with several notches and slipping it in the padlock. He turned it and the lock opened and, removing the key, he lifted the handle and the door opened.
Sage walked inside. The room was small but it was big enough for him. There was a bed to the right and a round table to the left with a chair beside it. There was no closet or TV but a long simple shelf where Kadek said Sage could keep his things.
Sage stepped into the room and looked around and walked into another small room that had a tall metal stand with a sink built into it and a shelf below it that held supplies. There were shelves to the right that held some pots and pans and food. To the left there was a wall with a narrow countertop that held a stack of clean dishes and a hot plate stove at the end.
“This you kitchen,” he said. “Refrigerator,” he said, pointing to it. “This your toilet,” he said, pointing to the small room across from the refrigerator.
Sage walked to the door of the bathroom and stopped. He stuck his head in and looked and turned around and said he’d take it.
“My friend be happy,” Kadek said. “How long you take it for? How long you rent?”
Sage said a month. He asked Kadek what he knew about visa runs and Kadek told him he knew nothing.
“Maybe ask neighbor,” he said, pointing up. “She always travel.”
“Is she good looking?”
Kadek was confused.
“OK,” Sage said. “Is she nice? She pretty?” Sage pointed to his face. He held both hands over his chest. “She have big boobs?”
“Ah, yeah, yeah,” Kadek laughed hard and said, “She crazy but her boob very big. I think you may like.”
Sage said he’d had enough crazy women in his life and he did not need one more.
“You no marry? You no wife?”
It was a question Sage had not expected, if he’d understood him right. If he’d had a wife he would not be renting a room in Bali by himself, and he would not have asked about his future neighbor.
He had truly loved Bailey, and he tried not to think about her but he did. When he saw something he thought she would find beautiful he thought about her. He would stand outside his villa and, looking out beyond the pointy-edged bluff, beyond the ocean and the sand, he would think of her, and he would tell himself how much she would love a place like this.
“No,” he said. “No wife, no girlfriend. It’s just me.”
“You single like me, smart man.” Kadek nodded with approval.
Sage was not going to ask about the Indonesian woman but then he did.
“Hey, Kadek.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s that woman from before?”
“What woman?”
“You know,” Sage said. “She brought my motorbike the other day—she came out in the rain and opened my trunk.”
“Oh, that Ratri.”
“Who?”
“Ratri. She my cousin.”
“Really?”
Kadek did not say anything else.
“Is she single?”
“Why?” He said. “You like Ratri?”
Sage said she was pretty, and that was the problem. She was too pretty; she was out of his league and he knew it. “I wouldn’t have a chance.”
“You like her, tell her you want take her on date, she go.”
Sage laughed, “I doubt it—I doubt she’d go on a date with me.”
Kadek said he didn’t know; Sage would have to ask her.
Sage said maybe he would if he had the chance, but he knew he probably wouldn’t.
“I’ll never see her again.”
Kadek thought about that. “What you do tomorrow?”
Sage shrugged and said he didn’t know.
“Want go to Galungan?”
Sage did not answer him. He was not sure how to answer or what to say.
“You come with me tomorrow for Galungan. We eat food, pray at temple.”
“I don’t know.” Sage was reluctant.
“Ratri be there.”
Sage said he would go.
“Good,” Kadek said. “You have sarong?”
Sage told him of course not. What was a sarong?
“That OK, I come early in morning, before temple, get you sarong.”
Sage laughed so Kadek laughed. “What you think is funny? You not want to come?”
“I’d love to come,” Sage said, “but I’m not sure what to do.”
“I come meet you in morning at hotel so you not get lost, OK?” Kadek pointed at Sage. “You follow me to village for Galungan.”