Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  When it doesn’t, the players call it stalking or tawdry sex or failed art. Which is skewed and wrong and most often laughable, though a man watching a friend leave in a busy terminal is grateful for clarity when least expected. Even as Richard shuffles off to Bakersfield or wherever, Ravid hits buttons on his cell.

  And he looks down from above at a waterman far from home, treading against the current of human traffic so thick he’s jostled like flotsam in the flow, waiting for his broker’s receptionist to pick up, then waiting to be forwarded to his broker’s secretary, and finally waiting for his broker to take the call. Ravid asks where he’s in the deepest.

  The broker enumerates the big holdings, confirming liquidity and return on investment, now projected to average between twelve and twenty points in the next six months, which isn’t too shabby, and I’m glad you called, because we got a...

  Ravid orders the sell on the biggest three hedge funds, based on nothing but a dream about a shark — well, not about a shark, really, but starring a shark, who didn’t say anything, because everyone knows that sharks don’t talk, not in words at any rate, but the message was real.

  Of course the shark part isn’t shared — only silence is shared, till the broker resists the sell order, asking Ravid what he’s on, because he sounds like he’s on something, not like himself. Then the broker discloses that he’s recording this call for the record, starting now, even as the tidy commission accrues.

  Yet it’s only hours before the fall. Freefall lasts five days before the safety nets come out. Billions are lost, except by a prescient few. Ravid avoids loss on his two million dollar asset sell-off, except for the commission, which hardly exceeds dinner and wine with a few close friends and a moderately spectacular view. And no loss in an earth-quaking market isn’t so bad, even if it took a year that was supposed to add twelve percent in value by virtue of being, or twenty percent for being better. Maybe he was better than that, considering that he could have lost one point six.

  In the following days he looks for Mano, but she remains hidden, to his relief and chagrin.

  And so again, a narrative weaves itself to a finished edge, a wisp or chafe here and there fitting in nicely to the perfectly imperfect artistry of the piece. Connecting to context, tying loose ends between now and what’s ahead via the ever loving moments, Ravid sees, feels and knows.

  The aging mother can return to the home of her birth and the place where her days will end, happy at the incredible success of her son, the world renowned marine photographer, don’t you know, happy with her two lovely grandchildren who love her right back and will indeed come for summer work on a kibbutz, not one that stamps forks out of sheet metal but one that grows pears in need of picking at sunrise, which pear orchard happens to be where God spends his sunrise hours as well. Basha Rivka has a special embrace for Minna, because she sees the younger woman’s skill and dedication in mothering, love and cooking. Who knew?

  The wife is equally pleased, evolved, as it were, from youthful, mindless and hurtful behaviors to sheer love and loving — and gratitude to the powers that be for granting prosperity, health and fun.

  The marine photography is consistently excellent, its perfection achieving new standards, new angles, new drama and communion on each outing. The outings are fewer, but then things slow in general as a body presses toward fifty. Sensory heightening and a beginner’s spirit renewed are enough to compensate for less frequency.

  The fan base has leveled in its rate of growth, but who could sustain the steep curve? It grows slowly, steadily, as book and peripheral sales grow too, worldwide. Ravid grants autographs at LAX and can turn a hefty fee at will on a college crowd or a highbrow conference or a liberal bunch gathering to bemoan reef death worldwide. Shelley, the booking agent, advises that they’ve reached the discretionary plateau, where they may choose only the most lucrative or influential groups. Or they can be selective on the odd event with significant spin-off or media, because it’s your secondary market where great performance goes stellar. “It’s all good, bubbela. Isn’t it?”

  No, it’s not all good. Among the worst of it is cliché and cultural stereotype bandied like normal language. What a dumb thing to say.

  And what a dumb thing to buy. Ravid Rockulz at forty-five, going on forty-six, sits on an overstuffed sofa he bought for eight grand new, though two dozen similar units at the 2nd Coming Furniture Outlet were available in the eight to twelve hundred range, slightly used. Yes, they all had a burn hole here or some cacka there, just like this one did halfway into its first week.

  And who needs ninety-dollar khaki slacks, pressed, dry cleaned and spotless, when the twenty-dollar knock-arounds hang in the closet, comfortably wrinkled and just as stylish.

  Slightly slouched, feet on the floor, he wonders why he’s wearing boat shoes. I haven’t had a deck under me in weeks, and the tick tock clock measures what’s left.

  He wonders what might amuse a man for the balance of a sunny day. Maybe it’s a mood, this unassailable funk. A little dope might change his perspective, but then he’d feel dumb and dazed, leading to a double latte to wake up and three ibuprofens for the headache and the old question: Why did I do that?

  So he sits and thinks, as a man in middle age will sometimes do, taking inventory on what matters. He has a talented and devoted wife, money in the millions, even if it’s only a few, two robust children who will take on reasonable personalities sooner or later, the best little dog in the world, a cat who is the love of his life, a satisfied mother, a terrific house with views to match and a...uh... What?

  Ah, yes, memory banks overflowing with that certain je ne sais quoi of picking wild tomatoes for dinner and snorkeling the point of Pu’u Olai and on across the grottos, pinnacles and ledges of Oneuli at dusk when the water is flat and sunbeams tango on the reef. He sees himself walking up the road on a blustery night in French Polynesia with a beautiful older woman and going over the rail of a perfectly buoyant boat into a current with a crowd of tourists to make ends meet. Hitching down the road with his dog and drifting the pass at Rangiroa a hundred feet down and pegging two-eighty on a rebreather for the first time on tri-mix. Maybe the biggest cost of success is the loss of uncertainty. What’s missing this afternoon is life as we knew it.

  It’s been missing for months now, maybe a few years; it fades so gradually, but who can complain with the wife, the kids, the stuff, the recognition and fan base indicating a legacy? Except that I am here, wild caught, observable in this, my captivity.

  Four volumes in five years and a fair run with the pocket guides, reference guides, posters, slogan shirts, photo shirts, photo caps, toys, memberships and calendars has been great — listen to me, talking like it’s over.

  Oybek took advantage for a few points. Forty points? Who knows how many dollars? Millions? Who cares with enough money on hand to retire anyway? Not that working was ever bad. Those were the days — sure, you forget the hardship, but still. More importantly, they may form up again.

  Trouble is, French Polynesia has quarantine laws, and Ravid will allow no government to subject Skinny or Little Dog to that torment any sooner than he’d let them lock up the kids, what are their names, Leihua and Dustin — no, no, not Dustin. Justin. My son’s name is Justin. The fuck is wrong with you?

  But pet bureaucracy is typical of government control. Ravid and Minna can prepare Little Dog and Skinny with three short-term rabies vaccinations and one long-term shot, and then the titer test Fedexed to the University of Kansas to document the antibodies. That and the vaccine against three respiratory diseases gives a six-month window into Hawaii with no quarantine.

  Then, piece o’ cake, they’ll hang for a week or two and head back down to Tahiti, where quarantine is waived on pets from Hawaii. It sounds like a push, but what can you do? Never mind. They want to play; we’ll play.

  Except for another small detour on the road home. Minna has no regrets and after five years away can still get a job at the hospital — on a shorte
r schedule now, with the kids. In fair play compensation for her career sacrifice comes the idea of staying — in Hawaii. Because her sacrifice is evident, along with her family begging her to come home, and bring that haole boy went all rich and famous.

  Tonight show! Jay Leno! Ho!

  Ravid says he can’t return to Hawaii because because. She touches him softly, assuring that he can. Well, it could be worse, and it surely won’t be permanent. How could it be, with so much development now you wouldn’t recognize the place from even ten years ago? Then again, compared to what? It’s actually quaint, compared to LA, and oh, the views.

  So Ravid flies to Maui on a homecoming of sorts, coming home as well to the old spirit and back to the old neighborhood, though he sees no familiar faces — and no neighborhood. At least he can still call on the old spirit. He reckons the spot his soulful shack once sat on. Now it’s a mid-range deluxe that came on the market at 8.9 ten months ago, before the mortgage market went huli and the stock market kapa kai. The agent sitting the open house thinks the owner would entertain 8, or even 7.9. “I bet he would,” Ravid says. “I bet he would wine and dine eight. Or six. I used to live here. Before.”

  “Fuck, yes,” the agent laughs, recognizing a former salt o’ the earth who’s made it — “Offer him...offer him five, man. Oh, I’d love to take him a five. Oh, boy! Can you imagine the look on his face?”

  “I bet you would. Tell me something. This house came on the market at eight point nine. Why wasn’t it eleven point thirteen, or twenty-one point zero?”

  “Good question. I can find out if you want me to.”

  “Nah. Take him this.” So Ravid feels the power of a lowball in the strike zone at 2.2 with twelve hours to accept. What the hell, that’s hardly a half mil down and eight grand a month, which he can make on one lecture. Monthly might be a bitch, but what the hell. It would be something to bring Minna and the kids back to the old place, sort of.

  As Minna packs to leave the glitterati coast of dazzling California, and Ravid puts his affairs in order, which is mostly a comprehensive equipment check including spare parts for backup, Oybek pays a call unannounced, though it is himself who is most surprised. “Wha? Moving? Wha?”

  Farewell, if not gratitude, forms up in Ravid’s mind, but it comes out wrong — unless it’s right: “You fucked me.”

  Master of the back quote in gaining a few more seconds to think and move, Oybek says, “I fuck you? No. I never fuck you.”

  “Seventy thirty? I think I’m walking bowlegged and don’t even know it.”

  “That! Is nothing — okay, I fuck you little bit, not too much. Hey, you are a wealthy man.”

  “I am not a wealthy man.”

  “You never have work again.”

  “You mean I won’t need to work again.”

  “Yes. Is what I say.”

  “Yes. Is what you say. Oybek. Is okay. Okay?”

  Oybek shifts for a new approach. “Okay. You are right. I fuck you. Little bit.” Oybek squints, or maybe he’s only relaxing. Then he laughs.

  Ravid asks, “You think this is funny?”

  “No. Is not funny. I laugh because we have saying — not saying but, you know, swear words: I fuck your sister. Or I fuck your mother. I think is better I fuck you. No? No, is not funny. You must know I am sorry. You are right. You know me from the time you see me. You are right all along. I am bad person.”

  “You’re not bad person. You’re greedy. Unfair. Dishonest. Okay. You are bad person. But I accept you. I accept what you’ve done. I can’t accept you as my manager any longer. But that’s okay. We’re leaving. Okay?”

  “Okay. But now we enter phase two. You know? Phase two is switcheroo. Thirty seventy. Okay?”

  “What other agent gets thirty percent?”

  “Why you care? I make you rich.”

  “Oybek. Is okay. Thirty seventy. Okay. Get the documents over to my attorney. You know Richard. Okay? We change the cut on all residuals, royalties, benefits and accruals. Okay?”

  Oybek hangs his head, not vying for time but to better grasp the approach he came with. “Please. My friend. Come.”

  “Come? No. We go now. We go home.”

  “Yes. Good. I am happy you go home. Yes. Is good for me too. But you think what I do for you. Now I want ten minutes. Okay, not ten minutes. Thirty minutes. No more. Okay?”

  Twenty minutes later, they pull into a nondescript building, meaning uniformly ugly among the light industrial installations crowding that section of town. With no signage, the building gives away nothing but dirty beige. A single door opens beside two sliding doors. Oybek leads with a spring in his step and a jaunty pride as he turns and says, “Voilà! My friend: phase two.”

  Dumbstruck as Lot’s wife, Ravid gazes on three thousand square feet of aquariums end-to-end and stacked on steel racks three and four tiers up around the perimeter and in from there. Most of the tanks swarm with movement. Some are conspicuously still. Puffers — segregated into eight species for quicker order filling — hover pectoral to pectoral, gazing out with a collective question: Why? Then comes recognition, and the collective plea to one they seem to know: Ravid!

  In one row the tanks are filled with eels — dragons, pencil eels, juvenile snowflakes and giant morays whose sheer size and unrest draw the waterman in as they once did, though this time it is for commiseration and mourning. Oybek prattles on about China and money and more money and so much money you can’t imagine how much, and tanks covering three walls that need big fish — can you imagine the entertainment value of a giant moray eel in your living room, overlooking the lights of Hong Kong! Oh, boy! Especially a big, mean motherfucker like this one!

  Ravid staggers, caught on the chin. Oybek rambles over the new package deal, a custom print suitable for framing with every fish. “Hey, sometimes a fish dies. You know what I’m trying to say? All people die, sooner or later. Fish too. Okay? So, maybe it won’t die for a long time. Or even a short time — like the fish you had for lunch. Hey! You keep the picture out of direct sunlight; then maybe you don’t feel so fucked in the asshole, you know? I mean, they still got the picture! Hey — we can frame it for them if they want. It’s another margin, and they pay the freight!”

  The entire top tier is yellow tangs.

  “Hey. Look this.” The second tier on two walls is fifty tanks, ten to twenty flame angels in each. “Look. Each one forty-five dollars. Each one! Okay, I got idea. Custom print from original fish guy, one hundred dollars, get fish for free! You like?”

  Ravid is speechless. Personal paralysis blocks a response to the crime before him. Out of a low-lit cubicle steps a young Chinese man with a practiced, non-committal smile. “Hello.” He gives no name, offers no handshake or business card.

  The young man has seen Ravid’s gaze before, so he turns to Oybek with annoyance, perhaps at bringing one of those people into this perfectly innocent warehouse — one of those who don’t understand but give in to ugly thoughts.

  Oybek nods. “Don’t worry, you. He will love. You wait.”

  Ravid turns and walks out. He looks inside Oybek’s car to see if the keys are in the ignition. No. And the curbstone is bolted to the asphalt. He can manage a fifty-gallon trash drum, however, and is amazed yet again at the strength a shot of adrenaline provides. Into the windshield and onto the hood, the drum speaks. Too spent to lift it again, he kicks the door panels to boost the body shop estimate. They’ll never total it on a few measly dings. It’s a fucking Bentley for Christ’s sake. Let ’em mask and paint.

  Then he walks home, or the first few miles anyway, till fatigue and a cab take over.

  Within the week Oybek lets a few close friends in on his heartfelt decision — via an exclusive interview in Variety — that he’s taking leave of the production end of the wonderful world of showbiz, because he misses the creative side. He plans to dive more and take up photography, because he thinks he’s seen the magic down there every bit as much as the next man and thinks he can capture it as eff
ectively too, with one dramatic difference, which is the point of view a seasoned producer brings to the creative process. “Can you imagine how much cleaner the work will be without the burden of translation? As an artist, I will be communicating directly with the medium. I have a few ideas I’m very excited about.” ...Can imagine you cleaner the work...

  So Oybek flies to Papeete and takes the ferry to Moorea and greets his old friends warmly, except for Hereata, who is cool — not hip but aloof and defensive. After all, he left her behind on a broken promise that he waves off, promising that he is here to make good. How good will he make it? Just you watch, he’ll make his magic in a little while, after a visit to what he loves best and what the world is waiting to see with new vision. He wants to try this amazing new equipment, which will produce the very best that anyone anywhere has ever seen, as you will be the first to see.

  Moeava grumbles, mustering the boat in late afternoon; it doesn’t matter for whom, or how many crumpled hundreds are in his pocket. Moeava has a trip tomorrow and two women to serve tonight, which service includes the trash, sweeping, laundry and general clean up. The two women save the fantasy stuff for themselves, unless he’s so tired and stoned he can’t keep his eyes open — that’s when they like him and want him to perform, which seems devious and unkind.

  Oybek plucks the bills — here, three hundred — and gears up on the dock where his baggage sits. Why not? Slipping into the water off the end into ten feet, he cruises out to the drop — what, fifty, seventy yards.

  Oybek carries his very first camera and housing — a deluxe rig with a nine and a quarter inch dome port, two strobes on double elbow arms, synch cords, remote switches and a load of what he calls “other crap” that will surely sort itself at depth. He’s aware that his four power switches, one on the camera, one on the focus light and one each on the strobes, must be turned on. Beyond that, they don’t call it automatic for nothing.