Bed of Nails

by Michael Slade

  “Ignore him, Chandler. His time has passed. Bret’s not the ariki he thinks he is.”

  Wes Grimmer had entered the terminal through the opposite door. He and two white men Zinc didn’t recognize—wannabe writers who had survived the bad beer—were lugging baggage in from a truck parked outside. The name of a local guest house was painted in fading letters on the driver’s door.

  “Gone native, Wes?” the Mountie asked.

  “You’ve heard of method acting? Try method writing.”

  The Stanislavski method of acting says a performer must identify with the character he is to portray. Zinc had once heard a funny anecdote about Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier on the set of Marathon Man in 1976. To prepare himself to play the character of Babe and attain the necessary frazzled state for a scene, Hoffman hadn’t slept for days. When Olivier—the greatest actor of his generation—showed up for his role, the Old School thespian was unimpressed. “Good lord, old boy,” he said. “Why don’t you try acting?”

  It was hard to fathom what role Grimmer was trying to immerse himself in for his art, but whatever it was, his method was permanent. Not only had he shaved his head down to the scalp, but his bare biceps flaunted old tattoos in the repeated blue-black chevron pattern of Atiu cannibals from the time before Captain Cook. Seeing him now in a loose green muscle shirt and khaki safari shorts, Zinc grasped how powerfully built the younger lawyer-turned-writer was. If they shoved each other to the brink of throwing punches, the Mountie would bet his life’s savings on Wes, not Bret.

  “Hi,” Zinc said to the two unknowns. “I’m Zinc Chandler.”

  “Miles Yeager.”

  “Bill Pigeon.”

  The three men shook hands. Yeager and Pigeon, both lawyers in their forties, had the bearing of button-down paper-pushers suffering midlife crises. Zinc could picture them toiling in cubicles in any one of the firms that occupy ten floors of the phallic towers littering every city’s downtown core. Tied to computers that assess every billable hour against what the minions actually bank, the ones seen as underachievers would have their ears boxed by the board. Likely, this pair dreamed of writing that humongous best-seller so they could shove their ground-down misery up the butts of their corporate tormentors and listen each morning to the traffic report that applied to commuting grunts before getting down to writing a paragraph or two.

  “You look macho, Wes,” Bret said.

  “Mana, Bret. Mana.”

  “So you’re the new ariki?”

  “Taunga, fella.”

  “What’s up with you two?” Zinc said. “Are you going to go mano a mano for the entire trip?”

  “Mana a mana,” Petra corrected. A sketch pad in her lap, the goth queen had plunked herself down on a bench with her back in one corner of the hut. From how she kept eyeing him, Zinc suspected that he was being rendered for posterity.

  “Would you guys speak English?” Yeager bristled.

  “Yeah,” Pigeon agreed. “I didn’t pay all this money for a squabble that needs subtitles.”

  Yeager nodded. “What are you talking about?”

  “Good question,” Grimmer said. “And one that goes straight to the heart of why we’re here. Let’s get this gear on the baggage cart, then I’ll tell you a story.”

  The check-in area was kitty-corner to where they were now. The papa’as were in the far corner, beside the exit out to the road. As the men relayed the pile of gear across to the ground crew’s station for transport out to the plane, Yvette came out of the primitive toilet. Glancing in her direction put a smile on Zinc’s face. Some wag had posted a sign on the departure exit that read “Gate 2.” The matching sign for “Gate 1” was above the door into the toilet Yvette had used.

  “April 3, 1777,” Grimmer said, once the seven had gathered again in the back corner, “Captain Cook discovered Atiu.” He held aloft a map of the circular island. “We’re up here.” He pointed to the runway along the north coast. “Cook’s crew—but not Cook himself—went ashore at Orovaru beach, down here”—his finger arced around to the west coast—“to fetch feed for the animals on the Resolution and the Discovery. Three boats of white sailors landed, along with the Tahitian interpreter whom Cook had taken back to England on his previous voyage.”

  “Omai,” said Zinc.

  “Someone’s done his homework.”

  “I told you I came to write.”

  “Anyway,” the lawyer continued, “they were met on the beach by armed Atiuans, who escorted them into the jungle along a paved path to the Orongo marae. The marae was an open-air ritual grove where sacrifices—including human sacrifices—were made to pagan gods. Vestiges of that marae can still be seen.”

  “How come we missed them?” Pigeon asked.

  “Medical emergency, thanks to Bret’s bad beer. I’ll take you there when we return.”

  “What happened to Cook’s crew?”

  “The Atiuans sat them down to watch a day of dancing. They met the ariki—the high chief—while his people worked themselves up into a frenzy. You saw how Cook Islanders dance our first night in Rarotonga. All that sexual energy, with knee-knocking and hip thrusts, displayed by the men. As for the women, they shimmy their booties so fast that you can barely see them because the historical root of all dancing was to honor Tangaroa, the god of fertility and the sea. In the pantheon of Cook Islanders’ deities, he was one of the two cannibal gods that kept an oven for humans.”

  “Tangaroa?” Yeager said. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “The island named for him.”

  “Who was the other cannibal god?”

  “Rongo, the god of war and ruler of the invisible world.”

  True to Gothic form, Petra carried a black beach bag. Setting aside her sketch pad, the goth queen rummaged in the bag until she withdrew a miniature souvenir idol of Tangaroa. The squat, ugly, but well-endowed figure was the symbol of the Cooks, and as such was on the islands’ one-dollar coin. Petra’s tiny idol was as tacky as they come. Hung like a bull, so to speak, its spring-loaded pop-up penis jerked erect with a flip of her finger.

  “Show and tell,” she said.

  “A huge idol of Tangaroa stood in the center of the Orongo marae as Cook’s crew watched the dancers. When the Atiuans began to dig a big underground oven for a feast, Omai freaked out. So worried was he that they were about to become part of the menu that he asked the ariki flat out if they were going to be eaten. The chief expressed shock at such an outlandish thought, but that was enough for the papa’as, and they got the hell out of there. The crew safely aboard, Cook sailed away. It would be forty-odd years before the next whites came, and when they did, in 1823, what the Reverend John Williams of the London Missionary Society saw on Atiu and the nearby islands was an all-out bloodbath being waged by Rongomatane, a voracious cannibal chief.”

  Now back at her sketching, Petra stuck her thumb out toward Zinc and closed one eye.

  “Rongo?” said Yeager. “Any relation?”

  “Rongomatane, the cannibal chief, was Rongo, the cannibal god, incarnate on Atiu.”

  From the glowering scowl around Bret’s eyes, it was obvious to Zinc that he was the odd man out. Here, as at the horror convention, Lister’s star position had dulled in the glare of the center-stage limelight that Wes focused relentlessly on himself. Seeing how the Odyssey was Bret’s idea to start with, that in itself would have been galling enough. But added to that volatile mix was the sexual putdown, for it was certain from the way the goth queen exchanged conspiratorial glances with Wes that, having tried out both lawyers-turned-writers in bed, Petra had rejected Bret in favor of his virile young rival.

  “What Wes is trying to get across in his muddled way is this,” said Bret. “‘Write about what you know’ is the rule of thumb in the scribbler biz. To write, you must have something interesting to write about. What the Odyssey has done, is doing, and will do for you is lay out an overload of cannibalistic details that you can weave into a story. The technique used in wri
ting courses to allow the natural writers to shine is to give the class a smattering of unconnected details—say, a wedding ring, a dead crow, a bolt of lightning, and an old stove in an antique store—from which to pen a story in a set length of time. Well, on the Odyssey, you’re getting the goods without the time limit. What you create is up to you, but look at the possibilities. Not only have you escaped from the stress of your everyday traps to this paradise in the South Seas, but you also have the spare time, the perfect location, and the ideal inspiration to produce a thrilling story. Cannibalism is the last taboo. Not for nothing is Hannibal Lecter an icon for our age. Remember Robinson Crusoe? Swiss Family Robinson? Tom Hanks in Cast Away? Well, let those be your inspiration on Tangaroa. If you can’t concoct fiction out of this trip, don’t give up your day job.”

  “I’m going to write about Ann Butcher,” Yvette stated.

  “Who’s she?” Pigeon asked.

  “The first white woman eaten in the Cooks.”

  “Thank you, Brother Bret, for that clarification,” said Wes. “As I recall, you had the floor yesterday at the tumunu, until your deadly brew sent half of us to hospital. Now it’s time for someone else to have a say. But I do appreciate your giving us a good example of why Cook Islanders ate their neighbors.”

  “Get to the point,” said Bret.

  “Mana, folks. Mana. Focus on that word. Mana is the Polynesian concept of spiritual power or influence. Everyone has mana to a certain degree. But because the ancient islanders believed that the ariki—their high chief—was chosen by the gods, he wielded mana ariki through control of tapu. When Captain Cook first heard that word, he wrote it down as ‘taboo.’”

  “Same meaning?” Yeager asked.

  “Yes and no,” said Grimmer. “We use ‘taboo’ to mean that which is prohibited or banned. That which is bad. In the cannibal Cooks, it meant that which for supernatural reasons was sacred and forbidden for general use. Since the ariki—as the gods incarnate on earth—could determine on a day-to-day basis what was or wasn’t tapu, that—in combination with his inherent mana—gave him control over his people even though he lacked the physical means to enforce his will.”

  “Get to the point,” Bret goaded.

  “The point is that cannibalism may be the last taboo for those who control us in modern times, but to Cook Islanders back then, cannibalism was never tapu. Why? Because in the islands, unlike other parts of the world, humans weren’t eaten as a protein supplement. By consuming the flesh of an enemy killed in battle, not only did you add his mana to your own by supernatural acquisition, thereby increasing your power in this world, but you also exacted delicious revenge. What greater insult could there be than to devour him down to the bones and defecate him out as a pile of shit? Revenge was the fuel that fired vendetta raids for generations. Every insult had to be avenged by pillaging the mana of your enemy. If satisfaction couldn’t be attained right away, a tattoo mark was recorded on your throat. If a father died unavenged, the tattoo mark was transferred to his son. Such marks could descend for generations, as nothing would obliterate the original injury but the killing of someone in the family of the original insulter. Some Cook Islanders had two or three marks, and some had so many that their throats were entirely covered. Is it hard to imagine the level of carnage that might result from that sort of revenge?”

  The muse bit Yeager. He began scribbling notes.

  “That’s why Rongomatane was a voracious cannibal chief. Power and revenge required constant man-eating. Atiuan raids to supply the orgies of gluttony that Rongomatane offered his people on the island of Tangaroa all but wiped out the populace on the neighboring islands of Mauke and Mitiaro.”

  “What’s there now?” asked Zinc.

  “We’ll all see soon enough. But if mana could be gained, it could also be lost. In the same way that Bret set himself up as the mana ariki of this Odyssey”—Grimmer formed a fist, palm up, and pumped his arm once in the machismo way—“but then came crashing down by feeding his people bad beer, so Rongomatane lost his power by making a stupid mistake.”

  Wes waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Until someone blinked.

  Ever the lawyer, thought Zinc.

  “What mistake?” Yeager finally asked.

  “He didn’t feed someone poisoned sugarcane.”

  “Who?”

  “The Reverend John Williams,” Petra said.

  FALSE IDOLS

  Mano a mano, mana a mana—it must have been quite a battle. Fought not with weapons in the classic sense, but with the power of God or the gods behind each man.

  A clash of the titans.

  With Atiu up for grabs.

  As the rebellious daughter of a preacher with a church in the Bible Belt of British Columbia, Petra was the Odyssey expert on missionaries in the Cooks. That was evident from the way she described the arrival of the Reverend John Williams of the London Missionary Society off the coast of Atiu on July 19, 1823. Zinc had to give Wes and Petra credit for their preparation. Working in tandem, they painted a vivid picture in words of the fiction potential surrounding the wannabe writers. It was like having a time machine to travel back to the era of cannibals and converts. As he listened to Petra describing that collision of cultures out on the sea, Zinc could picture it clearly in his imagination, and that made even him contemplate taking a stab at writing a story.

  Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, weighing in at who knows how many pounds of ingested human fat, wearing the maro kura—the sacred scarlet loincloth of ariki chiefs—and the pare kura—the grand conical headdress of his rank, woven from sennit fibers and adorned with the red tail feathers of the tropic bird (that color being the color of the gods)—sat Rongomatane, the human shrine of the invisible and immortal gods on earth. His corner was actually the elevated seat on the royal canoe, which paddled out to meet the ship that waited off the coast. Accompanying him were eighty canoes of cannibal warriors. Eight or nine months earlier, an Atiuan prophet named Uia had foretold the arrival of a huge canoe with no outrigger, manned by people with their heads, bodies, and feet covered. Theirs would be a mighty god, and the gods of Atiu would burn with fire. So out came Rongomatane to show them who was boss.

  In the other corner, wearing black from head to foot, the Reverend John Williams stood waiting. Two years before, the zealous crusader had brought the word of God to nearby island Aitutaki, where, thanks to the Good Book he raised aloft in his hand, the missionary had triumphed over cannibalism, infanticide, idolatry, debauchery, and polygamy. So when Rongomatane climbed aboard to size up his next feast, he was surprised to find none other than his neighboring counterpart, the cannibal ariki of Aitutaki, under Williams’s control. That ariki took him down to see his marae idols stored in the ship’s hold, and he told him how Williams had burned other idols to build a big white house of burnt rock in which the islanders now worshipped the new God.

  A church, he called it.

  The new marae.

  “Williams preached a special sermon for the ariki of Atiu,” Petra said. “He read from the Bible, the Book of Isaiah 44:9: ‘They that make graven images are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know, that they may be ashamed.’”

  “What in hell does that mean?” Pigeon asked.

  Wes responded, “Those who fashion and worship idols will be put to shame.”

  “Williams told Rongomatane that his idols had no power because they were made out of wood, which has no life in it. Then he showed the cannibal the face of God,” said Petra.

  “You mean like Moses and the burning bush?” asked Yeager.

  “Exactly. Want to see?”

  “God?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “God hangs with you?”

  “Got him in my bag.”

  “A dollar says you don’t.”

  Petra put down her pad and got up from the bench. Rummaging in her bla
ck bag for the second time, she withdrew one of those old Bibles with the gilt-edged pages. The cover was new, Zinc assumed, because the cross embossed on it was upside down.

  Turning her back on the group, she walked outside into the glaring sun that beat down on the dusty road. With the Bible held at arm’s length from her body, she swiveled 180 degrees to face the others in the terminal, then ran her thumb across the pages so their gilt edges fluttered and flashed in the dazzling light.

  “There’s your burning bush,” the Mountie said to Yeager.

  “Blinded by the light,” Grimmer added.

  “It’s worth a buck,” the lawyer said. “I’m born again.”

  Returning to the shed, the goth queen collected her dollar. Both it and the Bible went into her black bag. “The cannibal chief was told that God himself was jumping around on the pages. The Cook Islands were still in the Stone Age. Both metal and books were unknown. Rongomatane was impressed, but he was also shrewd, so he challenged Reverend Williams to a test of his own. He dared the missionary to follow him to his marae and eat sugarcane from its tapu grove.”

  “Like the banana,” said Zinc.

  “You know about that?”

  “Yvette told me on Rarotonga.”

  “Actually, the incidents are linked. The same missionary, Papeiha, was involved in both. Williams was hunting for Rarotonga when his boat stopped at Atiu. Off they went to the chief’s marae to eat the sugarcane. ‘If you do not die,’ Rongomatane told Williams, ‘I will believe in your God and burn my idols. But if you die, that will be the end of both you and your God.’ Papeiha, Williams’s right-hand man, knew sugarcane from Tahiti, so he gobbled it up with relish, and that was that.”

  “It wasn’t poisoned?” said Pigeon.

  “No need. It was tapu.”

  “It would have been poisoned if Bret had been the ariki of Atiu,” joked Wes.

  “What a blaze it must have been,” Petra continued. “Rongomatane decreed that all the idols on this island be gathered together for burning. As Papeiha preached the gospel, questions were asked and answered. ‘Is the fire of the god of darkness below like this?’ ‘Tomorrow, this fire will die, but that one burns forever.’ ‘What kind of firewood burns forever?’ ‘Those who refuse to believe in Jesus are the firewood.’ ‘But what is the fire?’ ‘It’s the anger of God.’ ‘Will the fire never die?’ ‘When all of you believe in Jesus, then the fire will die.’”