The Ghost Apple

by Aaron Thier

  We have created our myth. The myth is a faith. It is passion. It is not necessary that it should be a reality. It is a reality by the fact that it is a hope, a faith—that it is courage. And to this myth, to this grandeur that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we subordinate all the rest. Thus I pledge myself to this cause.

  Signed,

  William Beckford

  Recommendation Letter for Bill Dean

  December 18, 2009

  Prof. Richard Carlyle

  212 Dropsy Place

  Tripoli, NH 03791

  To Whom It May Concern,

  I’m writing on behalf of Bill Dean, a student I’ve known for almost thirty years. He’d be a great addition to whatever program he’s applying for. Is it the Field Studies Program? He didn’t even bother to tell me! And did he mention that he’s actually the dean of students? His real name is William Brees. That’s just by way of saying that I have a personal relationship with him. I don’t mean that we have an improper relationship. I’ve never even been with a man! Not that I’m ruling it out. The first thing I tell my students each semester is NEVER RULE THAT OUT!

  If he’d been in my poetry class, I’m sure Bill would have done great work. But maybe he’s not the kind of guy who goes in for literary art! At least I can be sure he’d have been a great addition to our classroom discussions, since he always does manage to keep the conversation going and make you feel at ease. He’s a great guy—that is to say, student. More important, of course, is that he’s gotten me out of some big-time serious no-joke TIGHT SPOTS in the twenty-eight years I’ve known him. There was this one time when I was up on the roof of Longman Hall with a potato gun! Another time I was living in one of the period rooms at the museum. I slept under the bed during the day. They have those fancy bed skirts, so it was no trouble keeping out of sight, and anyway the guards knew I was in there and they didn’t mind.

  And a few years ago—this one will blow your hairpiece off—I sort of kidnapped a student!

  Dean Brees is a good kid, or man. And I wouldn’t say that about just anyone! If I could be as steady as that, my God, you wouldn’t believe the things I could do. All the good he’s done for me, bailing me out of jail, etc., etc. It gives me the screaming meemies just to think about it, and then I feel the old familiar feeling, the high singing craziness, and off I go for another spree in toon town. If you end up accepting his application, TELL HIM I’M SORRY!

  Best,

  Richard Carlyle

  First Proclamation of the Antillia Liberation Army / December 21, 2009

  To the people of St. Renard

  Brothers and Sisters:

  We are the product of five hundred years of pain and horror and humiliation. For five hundred years we have lived and died at the pleasure of men hardly fit to lick the dirt from our bare feet. For five hundred years we have shed our blood so that other people, white people, can have cheap sugar, cheap clothes, cheap bananas, cheap drugs. For five hundred years we have been the uncomfortable fact, the other side of sweetness, the dark surprise in the basement of world history. We have been the men and women outside the gates.

  And we are still here. We have lived at the crossroads of empire and in the slums of empire, and we have never moved from this spot. We came to these shores against our will, we came in misery, but we came, and after five hundred years this island is our only home. We mean to claim our rights as free citizens of the world.

  What has been happening all this time? What do these five hundred years have to teach us?

  We watched Columbus’s men rape and brutalize the indigenous population. And when the Indians were gone, when the Spaniards had moved west and south, compelled by their depraved passion for gold, we watched the British and the French tear each other to pieces for the right to these islands, the right to rape us and murder us and enslave our children.

  We have watched fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles die for the sake of sugarcane, for the sake of a giant tropical grass. They died so that a woman in London could sweeten her tea.

  Through the centuries we have watched the Europeans debarking from their filthy ships, setting up their houses and plantations, getting rich from the soil they fertilize with our blood. We have stumbled against them in the street and we have been beaten for it. We have seen them in the noonday heat, in their waistcoats and tails, arguing over the value of our flesh, buying us and selling us with the cattle and the hogs.

  A traveler to the island two hundred years ago tells of a white child, the son of a sugar baron, who demanded an egg. Told that there were no eggs, the child said: “Then I want two.”

  We have lived through abolition—that fragile hope—and the degrading years of apprenticeship, only to see slavery return in the guise of “Free Trade.”

  We have cried out in pain as Marville Guajiro, the first democratically elected president of the free and sovereign nation of St. Renard, was ignominiously deposed, hog-tied, hauled from his bed by mercenaries in the employ of the Big Anna corporation and the government of the United States of America.

  We have watched Big Anna creep like a rash over the skin of our island. We have watched our sisters and mothers work their hands to the bone in the factories of the St. Renard Free Zone. We have watched our fathers as they stumble up the road from the banana farms and the cane fields. We have seen the suppurating wounds on their arms. We have seen the yellow skin, the blue skin, the chemical burns. We have seen the hope go out of their eyes.

  It has been the same everywhere. Globalization began with the conquest of the Canary Islands. It continued with the Spaniards on Hispaniola, the Spaniards in Mexico, the Spaniards in Peru. Year by year the horror was renewed. The slave port of Whydah, the Portuguese East Indies, the Dutch East Indies, the British Raj, the plantation complex in Brazil and Cuba and the U.S. South, indentured “coolie” labor, Chinese peasants kidnapped and enslaved on the guano islands off South America, King Leopold in the Congo, the brutalization of Australia and the Pacific islands, the Amazonian rubber trade, the Germans terrorizing Namibia, the Germans terrorizing Europe, interned Japanese in the beet fields of the United States, apartheid, Ian Smith’s Rhodesia. Millions dead for gold, silver, sugar, cotton, rubber, ivory, oil. The same thing in all places at all times. The merciless exploitation of the multitude by those whom arbitrary circumstances have made strong.

  And now we say: Enough, enough, enough.

  We—men and women, whole and free—declare war on the United States, on Big Anna, on the forces of neoliberalism. We ask for your support in this plan to expel the murderers and the rapists from our island, to claim for our people all the rights that have been denied us for five centuries, the rights to education, health care, justice, food, land, peace.

  Our fathers were coachmen and cane cutters on St. Renard, but their fathers were kings in Africa. We have been slaves but we will be slaves no longer.

  Join the insurgent forces of the Antillia Liberation Army

  Commandant Kabaka, December 2009

  Winter Break

  Special Promotional Feature Sponsored by the St. Renard Ministry of Tourism (www.gosr.com)*

  Winter Getting You Down? Tired of the Cold and the Dark? Visit the Tropical Paradise of St. Renard!

  Imagine a place where fewer than 20 percent of visitors are mugged within three days. Imagine a place where hardly anyone reports yaws, piums, creeping eruption, white and black piedra, and chromomycosis. Imagine a place where the only tropical disease—besides typhoid, yellow fever, malaria, beriberi, filariasis, river blindness, and numerous unexplained fevers—is Relaxation. Imagine ST. RENARD. You won’t be able to look away.

  * This message has been approved by, or is distributed with the cynical approval of, Big Anna® Brands.

  About Us

  Silky white sand, crystal-clear water, sizzling entertainment, inconceivable fruits, misty rain forests, beautiful locals, and all the white rum you can drink. Sound good? St. Renard i
s the island paradise you’ve been looking for all your life, a place literally throbbing and pulsing with a diverse and rich mingling of cultures and influences—France, England, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and a shot of Africa for color.

  Originally home to a large native population of Carawak Indians, St. Renard was unknown to Europeans until the early sixteenth century, when it was discovered by Spanish conquistadors searching for El Dorado. Juan Hombre de Rosa claimed the island for Spain in 1511, and San Renard remained a Spanish possession until 1635, when it fell to a British expeditionary force under Captain Burroughs Hertfordshire, who rechristened the island St. Reynard. The British immediately traded the island to the Dutch, reportedly to settle a private debt, and the Dutch abandoned Sint Reinaert ten years later, when disease wiped out most of the early colonists. The island became a French colonial possession in the early eighteenth century and was sold shortly afterward to the Danes, who sold the island back to the Dutch, who resold the island to the French, who surrendered the island to the British after an afternoon of naval bombardment. St. Renard gained its independence from Great Britain in 1973, at which time—following an ill-starred attempt at self-government—the fledgling republic was obliged to sell itself to the United States (called, by Spanish-speaking Renardennes, “El Pulpo de Gran Maldad”), of which it is still an unincorporated insular possession.

  This almost unbelievably rich and diverse cultural history makes St. Renard one of the most historic, diverse, and culturally rich places in the Caribbean. There’s literally something for everyone. Whether you’re into relaxation, sex tourism, snorkeling, gambling, psychoanalgesic tropical vegetation, or just eating and drinking as much as your body can tolerate, we’ve got you covered. And if none of those things appeal to you, don’t worry about it! We’ll find something that does. After all, your satisfaction is what keeps us out of the cane fields!

  What to Do

  If this is your first time on St. Renard, your first stop should be Buzzard Point, a bawdy shantytown abutting colonial San Cristobal. There you’ll find authentic thatch-roofed bars and gambling houses, colorful street vendors, and beautiful women. Enjoy a half pint of Renardenne white rum and make friends with locals who really know their island. You’ll pick up the basics of Plantation Creole in no time, and by morning you’ll feel like a Renardenne yourself.

  If you’re a nature lover, you probably already know that St. Renard has one of the most unusual (and least diligently policed) national preserves in the Caribbean. Biddy Plimpton, a colorful local smuggler and biopirate, offers a new eco-adventure tour through Raginherdsted National Forest. All you need is a pair of boots, a handgun, great night vision, the ability to follow orders, and an appetite for tree frogs, orchids, and psychoanalgesic sap.

  There are tons of charters and equipment rentals available for water-sports fanatics, whether you’re into scuba diving, fishing, or just buzzing around the harbor on a Jet Ski. But whatever you do, don’t miss our Ghost Reef, which, as of 2008, was the only fully bleached coral reef in the Caribbean.

  History buffs will love the ruins of our sugar mills and boiling houses. In colonial times, there were about thirty sugar estates on the island. They’ve all been consolidated into one operation under the stewardship of Big Anna® Brands, but most of the old haciendas and mills are still standing, some of which provide temporary shelter for descendants of the very slaves who worked in them long ago. Let ignorance be your guide as you stroll through the countryside, carried away by thoughts of a simpler time.

  Finally, did somebody say beaches, beaches, beaches? St. Renard has more than twenty public beaches, and you’re guaranteed to find the special place that’s right for you. Whether you want a quiet spot where you can do some wading or a bustling cruising ground where you can pick up a fancy boy or a dusky mulatta mama, St. Renard has the beach for you. So get out the sunblock, fill your thermos with Big Anna® brand Coconut Wine™, and ease your plush, puckered body into the sand!

  Where to Stay

  Adventurous visitors may want to check out Colonia Tropical by Big Anna®, a resort unlike any other in the Caribbean. You’ll sign one-, two-, and three-week contracts promising to Work™ a few hours each day in Big Anna’s beautiful sugarcane fields and lush banana plantations. In exchange, your room and board (hearty meals of salt cod, breadfruit, and cornmeal) are absolutely free. If you agree to a long-term stay, you may even find Big Anna® willing to cover your travel expenses. The décor ranges from Renardenne traditional to minimalist chic, but we guarantee that the décor is the last thing you’ll be thinking about!

  For visitors who prefer to take their leisure straight up, there’s Hertfordshire’s Plantation Inn Resort and Spa. This peaceful all-inclusive offers a heavy swallow of relaxation and water-centric fun served up with just a dash of history. Period cottages, many of them original structures, are tucked away beneath the glorious palms and majestic silk-cotton trees, while the great house is the inn’s social hub. Activities include polo, trap and skeet shooting, lawn bowls, quoits, cribbage, croquet, and sundowners. But for innkeeper Maxwell Hertfordshire, a descendant of the plantation’s founder, the beauty is in the details: elegant four-poster canopy beds dripping with mosquito netting, antique furnishings, curios, and hardwood floors as dark as the hotel staff. Says Hertfordshire, “We don’t make sugar anymore, but literally nothing else has changed.” All the luxury of a bygone era, all the convenience of the present, all included in one fixed price. Try a “Colonial Martini,” a traditional cocktail made with pure cane juice and ether (sometimes called a “Postcolonial Martini”).

  If that doesn’t make your left arm tingle, we’ve got something that will: St. Renard’s most economical all-inclusive is definitely United States Offshore Detention Facility (USODF), a 1,750-cell property in sleepy Sin Orgullo. The facility boasts Danish “showers,” a huge dining room, and a fully appointed exercise yard. Except for a few folks who are advised to volunteer for voluntary scientific informational programs and optional discussions with staff, guests aren’t required to do anything but kick back and wait for mealtimes. The USODF is perfect for anyone who needs to get some thinking done.

  Where to Eat

  St. Renard has some of the best food in the Caribbean, and because of our rich colonial history, you can find cuisine from all around the world available at prices that even locals find competitive.

  Start at Pompey’s, where you can get traditional Renardenne slave food served up in American-size portions. Roasted breadfruit, plantains, salt cod, curry goat, and cornmeal porridge are just a few of the highlights, and everything is served on heavy platters, banana leaves, or wax paper. Wash it down with sea grape brandy, called “el consuelo de muerte” by the island’s Spanish speakers. This hearty fare is traditionally eaten with the hands, so leave your hang-ups at home and bring your big American appetite!

  For those visitors with continental tastes, the old Danish neighborhood of Mareridt Strand, just southwest of downtown San Cristobal, provides all kinds of great options. For breakfast, head to Cafe Danske Hjerteanfald for traditional Danish goodies like wienerbrød, horn, birkes, spanske, rundstykker, haandvaerker, and krydder. For lunch, track down a pølsevogn, and if you’re in the mood for a longer sit-down meal in the evening, head to Myokardieinfarkt for frikadeller, hakkebøf, and medisterpølse. American eating habits don’t always mix well with Danish cuisine, but there’s a great “sygehus” in Mareridt Strand for anyone who overdoes it!

  Finally, don’t leave St. Renard without sampling the delicacies of our bright blue sea. Head down to the wharf in Port Kingston, or visit some of the nearby alleyways, for fresh-caught seafood. Some species of fish are so endangered, you could be the last person who ever tastes them!

  Nightlife

  First, head to Tia Mamita’s in Buzzard Point, a repurposed waterfront brothel turned chic nighttime cruising ground for locals and yachties alike. Make sure to try all the signature cocktails. There’s the “Ostenfeld,” made wit
h Renardenne white rum, acacia powder, sweet prune juice, sodium picosulfate, and tons of ice. Next up, a “Pinker Shade of Pale”: Big Anna® brand Coconut Wine™, pink gin, and sunblock (SPF 50). Chase that with the house specialty, a delicious and addictive “Ghost Appletini,” made with St. Renard’s own miracle fruit, the Carawak or “Ghost” Apple. Prices are reasonable, and sometimes the staff will even accept a little food or a pair of kids’ shoes in lieu of payment.

  Once you’re good and liquored up, go watch the islanders dance for you at Circe and Spice, where local bands play all the soca standards, plus their own tropical versions of American pop hits. It’s a charming, floor-show parody of Caribbean culture!

  If you’ve got a morbid turn of mind, or even if you’re just lost in boozy dreams of violence and desolation, head out to the mass grave of the Carawak people. The Old World meets the New at this uniquely historic Renardenne attraction. Make sure to bring a heavy crucifix and a thermos full of manchineel juice, and don’t forget to bang on some pots and pans as you approach the central mound!

  March 7 through March 13 is Carnival week, when locals pay tribute to the island’s namesake, Saint Reynard of Antillia, whose feast day is March 13. This is a great time to let your hair down and blow off a little steam. There are parades, festival games, and plenty of authentic Renardenne friction dancing. In the riotous Port Kingston marketplace, there are even private stalls and enclosures for anyone with a taste for the rack and the screw, but don’t stay away too long: The festival culminates in a bloody reenactment of the saint’s life! Don’t be surprised if you see locals engaging in some ecstatic prophesy, a Renardenne tradition that dates back to the early days, when new arrivals on the island would enter mystical trances in order to beg the great kings of Africa to intercede on their behalf!