A Place for Sinners

by Aaron Dries

  Caleb chewed his lip. Had something happened earlier? He replayed the morning in his head. Nikom had piloted them out of the bay, passing fishing trawlers docking at a wooden jetty where children had been waving palm leaves. Pointing. Laughing. Amity had taken a quick photograph on her iPhone and tried to upload the image to Instagram. Caleb had shaken his head; of course there was no Wi-Fi reception out here. Christ, that girl’s married to her bloody phone.

  Uh-oh, I’m starting to sound like Ma.

  Nikom spoke to them while steering the wheel with his toes and rolling a cigarette with his hands. The ocean opened up around them. Caleb hadn’t realized just how quiet the group had become until there was a sudden roar of noise, like the stomach-churning roar of a passing subway train.

  Then there had been a splash of water as the oncoming boat, which they had missed by inches, zoomed past.

  One by one, the passengers had glared at their sheep-faced guide, who removed his foot from the wheel—nice and slow—and waved his hands through the air. “Welcome to Thailand!” he called, hoping against hope that his enthusiastic flourish would wipe away the memory of their brush with death. “Lots of adventure, ev-ah-rie daiiiii!”

  Amity and Caleb had gripped each other’s knees, understanding and yet not understanding at the same time, that they had all just come within a hand-span’s distance of being ripped to pieces. Had the driver of the other boat not been paying attention either, their bodies would be chum for the coral sharks, assuming the boat hadn’t exploded on impact, as they always seemed to do in the movies.

  Caleb wondered if it was this event that had upset… his boyfriend. Because that was what he was now. So he touched his boyfriend’s shoulder, and Tobias didn’t flinch. That made him feel better. Tobias’s cold shudder had felt like a betrayal, spitting in the face of everything they had shared, which, at least to him, had been a hell of a lot.

  “You’re sure it isn’t me?”

  “Ya. I’m sure,” he said, rubbing his shoulder against Caleb’s. “I am sorry. I am just weird. I just don’t know why.”

  5

  “What is in the boxes?” Aban’s father asked, jiggling his son on his knee. The little boy was not quite awake, yet not quite asleep either. They had been in the boat for going on an hour.

  “Very good question, sir. Very good.” Nikom flicked his blackened cigarette into the ocean. “These boxes, they are called eski. That is what Australians say, right, Aussies, huh? Or a cooler, like in the Americas, right?”

  “You got that right, Nikom,” Robert said. “I’ve got a couple in my apartment. Not that I use them, mind you.”

  “Ah-ha. Very good. Cooler.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Aban’s father continued. There was an edge to his voice, a sharp reveal to the harshness of his character. “But what’s inside them?”

  “Open them up; it is okay.”

  Aban stepped forward, his sandals squeaking against the swaying deck. A glossy layer of saltwater swished back and forth across the wood, an echo of the boat’s sway. He kneeled before the first cooler, gripped the lid and pushed it open on a greasy hinge.

  There was no ice inside, just clusters of bananas—some ripe, some rotten—and piled six-packs of Coke. The glass bottles were covered in beads of condensation.

  Aban yelped, clapping his hands together. “Ce que je peux avoir un, Papa?”

  “Yessir, it is Coke,” Nikom said. “You will be thanking me for this, because it’s their favorite. You will share the drink and food with them. Sharing is very good, yes? Just like sharing tips!”

  “Whose favorite?” Sycamore asked. Her voice was rough and waspy and dragged under the weight of her accent—as though every word spoken cost her comfort. In that voice, one heard the inner workings of industrial machines and the final gasps of the vermin crushed between their cogs.

  “The monkeys, of course!” Nikom said. “I brought apples and Fanta with me on a tour one time, and boy-oh-boy, they weren’t happy. Boy-oh-boy, very American expression, yes? I love America. Hi-ho, Silver, away!”

  “Yeah, you and your brother do that very well,” Robert said, crossing his legs. His fingers were buried in the soft pad of his forearm. He glanced down and noticed what he was doing—there were crescent moons of sunscreen under his fingernails. Though the itch had subsided, the scratch marks lingered. Lines. They followed him everywhere. The hard line; the bottom line; the economic line gouged through the bloody tissue of his home country. Robert wondered how the company was faring with him gone, if he and his talent were missed. The whole department could be in ruin for all he knew, the dust coming back to claim him for making it out of the building alive the first time.

  But Robert just couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not for the time being, anyway. For now, there was only Thailand.

  “There it is,” Nikom said, standing up and pointing over the peak of the bow. The tarpaulin strung across the roof continued to flap in the wind—a crunching herald to the sight. “Everyone stand up and look now. Koh Mai Phaaw.”

  Chapter Ten

  Koh Mai Phaaw

  1

  Amity saw the island and her tongue cottoned enough to make swallowing difficult. For a moment she was tempted to reach down and snatch up one of Nikom’s Cokes, but didn’t. No; she kept temptation in check. There was some unspoken, hard-to-identify kinship between those clinking bottles in the cooler and the unease the island, despite its diminutive girth, evoked in her.

  It looked as though Koh Mai Phaaw was little more than the piled bodies of giants buried alive with pleas in their mouths, reaching for the sky. The tiers of rock interwoven at its center were jagged fingers crashing in prayer. There were serrated boulders, worn down by erosion. The beach was an ivory grimace; the island’s victory against those suspected giants was a constant amusement.

  The boat drew nearer, waves breaking around them. Nikom lifted the outboard motor and spun them 180 degrees, the stern aligning with half-uprooted vegetation, trees caught in the act of trying to escape. Koh Mai Phaaw grew before Amity’s eyes, absorbing her into its landscape.

  Come home to me.

  She backed away, a hopeless gesture. Her backside pushed against the railing. Damp ocean decay filled her lungs, and yet she couldn’t help being allured by it all. Scared, but seduced, as she had been when the door had opened to the run-down building, revealing the man from the Internet whom she’d agreed to meet.

  The branches of those trees were extended in greeting, revealing glimpses of darkness beyond. Amity’s heart sped. It was there, in that seedy blackness, that she wanted to go. It wasn’t a new feeling, that was for sure. On more than one occasion she’d answered adventure’s beck and call.

  Nikom dropped anchor and lit up another cigarette. He stepped toward Amity and grabbed her by the shoulders, his face smiling into a network of interconnecting lines. Up close, she could see the cracks and blisters in his lips.

  We’re here, she read him say. Let’s go.

  Caleb dropped into the crystalline, knee-high water, a school of fish buzzing around his ankles. Ripples sent white shadows over his chest. “Ah! Little Nemos!”

  “Can you help me down, please?” asked the female Swede—flagged by her telltale blond hair and lilting accent—whose face was lightly burned from their hour-long journey. Caleb had read somewhere, maybe in the Lonely Planet forums, that overcast days were just as bad for your skin, if not worse, than an hour in summer’s hottest rays. His own was accustomed to the sting of Australian sunshine, at least. These guys, however, didn’t stand a chance.

  Caleb offered her his hand and helped her down. The Swede gave a delightful squeal as cold water splashed up over her swimming trunks. “Oh, it’s so cold. Ha! Look at all the fishes.”

  “Yeah, cool, huh?”

  “Thanks for the help. Nice tattoo by the way! The one on your arm. What’s it say?”

  “It says ‘Family Love’. And it’s no problem.” Caleb gestured to the man behind her, who
was climbing down over the side of the boat—a feat that was impossible to conduct with grace. “Is this your boyfriend?”

  “My husband.”

  “Great. Would you like me to get a photo of you two in front of the beach?”

  “That would be great! Rolf, kan jag ha kameran?”

  “Here we go.”

  “Okay, so you two stand here. Oh, guys, that’s just awesome. Smile!”

  “Thank you so much,” Rolf said, checking the shot. “It’s very good. Some people they do not do nice photo, but yours are—” He gave him the thumbs up. “I’ll get one of you and your friends, yes?”

  Caleb pulled his sister and Tobias into a group hug. He could smell his boyfriend’s savory underarms as he nestled; brilliant. It was a manly smell, arousing. Amity pulled away as soon as the photo was taken. The cold shoulder: an angry sister’s best defense.

  “I’m sorry,” Caleb signed. “I do want to be here. It’s beautiful.”

  Amity knew as well as anyone else that sometimes it felt good to hold on to your annoyance, to own your anger. But in the end, it just wasn’t worth it. The day was too beautiful, even with the threatening clouds, to fight someone she cared so much for.

  “It’s okay.”

  Caleb embraced his sister and kissed her on the cheek. They stared into each other’s eyes, nodding away the tension. Makeup hugs, as far as Caleb and Amity were concerned, were the bomb.

  2

  Sycamore watched them come, a current of bristling brown fur and wagging tails. The monkeys dropped from the braches of trees that looked as though blackened by lightning, scuttled out from between the boughs of great palms. Their emancipated faces flushed pink with excitement.

  “Hello, little things,” Sycamore said, deadpan.

  Only many of the animals weren’t quite so little. When the males stood on their hind legs, revealing their flea-ravaged stomachs and testes, they reached above Sycamore’s hips. Infants swarmed among them; they were coming thick and fast from the jungle shadows, kicking up tufts of sand as they ran.

  Pebbled with puckered scars, their idiot glares—it made Sycamore cringe.

  Evolution left you behind, you fucks. Walking fossils. That’s why you come to me for food.

  Nikom thumped the bananas and Coke bottles into the hands of the nine tourists and watched them scatter across the beach. Raps of thunder sent a flock of birds into flight. That sky’s got some curry in it, he thought and took another drag.

  It would be another long day. Carting around tourists who had little qualms about showing off their wealth was monotonous and draining work. He was bored.

  Crabs ran sideways across the sand and scurried into their conch shells. The light had dwindled. He noticed that the monkeys cast no shadows today.

  “Holy shit, look at all you guys,” Caleb said, offering a peeled banana to the animal waiting at his bare feet; he’d left his flip-flops in the boat. He glanced around for his sister and saw her standing at the jagged nimbus where beach and trees clashed together. A sting of longing.

  All right, wander off then.

  Wait, where’s Tobias?

  He wanted to share this moment with someone; the experience was richer that way. The monkey, impatient now, leaped up to snatch the banana from his hand.

  “Whoa! You cheeky bugger!”

  It was only then that Caleb really looked at the animal in front of him. His stomach tensed. This thing was a far cry from the cuddly creature he’d been expecting. Come to think of it, he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected to interact with here on the beach—knowing only that this certainly wasn’t it. He watched the monkey gobble the fruit down with fingers of articulate dexterity. But it was its misshapen face that chilled him. Its maw was made of scars welding its lips to its left eye socket, a constant sneer. Maggots squirmed in the hole where its nose should have been. He saw the flash of a pink tongue, the hint of a rotten snaggleteeth. Finished, it rubbed its hands together and scanned his body for more food.

  It was humid, despite the temperature drop, but sweat still hammered down Tobias’s cheeks. Phantom tears. He gripped the Coke bottle, a nervous shade crossing his face. “You’ve got a case of the jitters,” as Mother used to say. “Just like your papa.”

  A niggling expectation—formless yet so very tangible—was undoing him. But the expectation of what, Tobias couldn’t tell. Not then as a child, and not there on the beach.

  When he was young, back when his view of the world was limited to what could be seen from his yard, his parents took him to a mobile carnival show. There had been the giant Ferris wheel, lit in golden bulbs and piloted by a man in a beaten-up top hat; clowns with manic smiles who twisted balloons into screeching, deformed animals; food vendors who gave out paper plates of brathering mit bratkartoffein—fried and pickled herring with crispy potato slices and onion rings; frosty plumes of breath caught and burning in writhing carnival light, fluttering like the ghosts of startled quail before vanishing.

  But above all this, gigantic and imposing, was the roller coaster.

  It was rare for Tobias’s parents to take him to carnivals, but he’d been a good boy of late.

  “Your brother is lucky to have someone like you by his side,” she would say. His mother was a fragile woman with black fairy-floss hair, and plagued by melancholy. It was there in every desperate hug, in every tear. And Tobias knew it all could be traced back to his brother, who had aged her.

  Tobias refused to see Jörg as any of the things the kids at school called him.

  Jörg wasn’t “slow” or “retarded”. No; he just had Down Syndrome. Wasn’t that enough? Tobias didn’t get it.

  And for some reason he was being rewarded for this confusion. As he saw it, he was just doing what had to be done. The things his brother dropped on the floor weren’t going to pick themselves up; when Jörg pooped his nappy, his mother had to be told. What was the big deal?

  But deserved or not, the carnival worked its charm. He was thankful. And scared.

  It was the kind of roller coaster held together by rust and luck. Tobias somehow knew that it would be his turn—not the thousands of rides that had come before—that would rocket the carriage off the rails. He’d shatter against the ground.

  Would it hurt, dying?

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer to that one. When his mother asked him what was wrong, he remained silent. Seized by dread. But no, he’d survived, as had the fear.

  A blast of cold wind shot through the carnival. Dust plastered his clammy skin.

  A crest in the tracks. The eventual plummet. His stomach lifting into his throat and the tingle in his toes.

  Tobias could still feel it now, surrounded by the hundreds of monkeys that were clamoring for his attention, snapping and snarling for the bottle of Coke he held in his hand, for the bright yellow banana in his back pocket. Their eyes were rabid pits of black and red.

  They seemed to grow around him, rising up, rearing as a roller coaster crests. Their tiny yet strong hands ran over pronounced rib cages, making muffled rat-a-tat sounds.

  The clatter of the carriage as it began to descend; screaming children all around him. Something was plunging him toward a dark place. A dark place where he was no longer alone. The distant plucking of ukulele strings.

  The Coke bottle slipped from his hand.

  Caleb went back to Nikom for another bunch of bananas, brimming with excitement. His toes squished in the damp sand; it felt nice. We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, he said to himself. Or Evans Head. He thought about his mother. Was she pining for them, or had she settled back into her labyrinth of trash? And trash was what it was—the sooner their mother realized that, the better. When the time came for them to return, things would have to change. Caleb would move, for starters, but he wouldn’t leave without making a difference in his mother’s life first. The bric-a-brac, the musty newspapers—it all had to go.

  “Yeah, easy to say. Good luck, mate.”

  He appro
ached Nikom, who was resting on one of the three coolers he’d dumped on the shore. He was rolling another cigarette. Caleb saw his gray tongue, speckled with tobacco rinds, running the length of the paper and wondered what Nikom’s home was like, what treasures he kept and how they differed from his own or his mother’s. What was important to him? What did he covet?

  Every person has their pearls. Hell, maybe myself included.

  His weakness was old letters.

  Scrawled notes that had been passed around at school and pocketed later on. Love letters and empty valentines from boys and girls, all written by unconfident, shaking hands.

  Caleb wanna be my BF?

  If you think I’m hot tick either YES or NO. Please respond.

  And then there were those other letters. The not-so-nice ones. Yes, he even kept these.

  Caleb you’re a fugly faggot. Poofter!

  He had no idea how many hours he’d spent going through the shoeboxes he used to keep them in, bundled up with twine and rubber bands he’d stolen over the years. It wasn’t unusual for him to empty them all out onto his bed, where he would then lie on his back with his ankles crossed and relive those years. The good, the bad, and yeah, even the fugly.

  “Nikom, can I grab some more fruit?” Caleb asked, hoping the question would shake away the bullshit thoughts chain-lettering through his brain. They didn’t. Not completely.

  “Yes, sure. I will get it.” He lit his cigarette with a Zippo; it was in the shape of a naked woman.

  Caleb sighed. Their guide was alive with enthusiasm when addressing the group but acted as though every request were a backbreaking effort when caught on his own. Caleb gave him an awkward nod. Working hard for your tips, I see. Nikom’s sweaty shirt lifted as he bent to the cooler, revealing his lower back, which was covered in furrowed scars.