Makoona

by John Morano

  Al sat on an aluminum-framed lawn chair, oblivious to the thunder that rumbled in the distance. He rested his feet on an old lobster trap that had been repurposed as an ottoman, its life changing direction and purpose as much as Al’s had.

  The wind rose, and the rain began to fall. It covered Al quickly, wetting his dry clothes and body, and then soaking him, sustaining him, cleansing him, washing the salt from his skin and the sin from his soul. The clouds had come to Al, and in his mind, he believed the weather would heal him as only a woman can heal a man.

  While the wind and the rain refreshed Al, it put an end to the day’s cyanide fishing for Bao and Kemar. The two secured their catch and stored their gear, racing the storm to see who would arrive at the island first. At moments like this, Bao really appreciated Meela. Even though the boat was propelled by a borrowed engine, it was one of Meela’s children. One pull and he knew exactly why he tolerated the old mechanic’s eccentricities.

  The boat beached minutes before the storm struck. Bao and Kemar rushed to unload. Kemar put all the gear and fish away while Bao returned the outboard and its extra tank—a little light on gas—to the man he borrowed it from.

  Bao assured the fisherman, “If not for storm, tank be full. Better to have motor low on gas but not broken. Will fill two tanks for you tomorrow.”

  The man, who knew Bao all too well, mumbled an insincere, “Two. Sure, bahala na.”

  Although Bao’s motor was still with Meela, Kemar tugged his boss’s boat further up the beach and lashed it to a sturdy palm tree. When Bao returned, he checked the lines; slipped Kemar two more dollars, what remained of the Spam, and an orange; and said, “Good work. Tomorrow, see if old witch finish with motor. Then use last bottles of spray for fish.”

  Bao picked up two five-gallon buckets of fish, draped one on each end of an oar, laid it across his shoulders, and walked off. At home, he’d drop the valuable fish into plastic bags, add water and a little food, and pump air into them so the fish would be ready for his Filipino financier.

  The rain was falling in sheets as Kemar trotted to Bao’s side. “Can I wait out the storm at your home?” he asked.

  Bao smiled and laid his hand on Kemar’s arm. “No,” he said. “Still need deliver catch. Not much storm. Boat secure. Boy be fine. See in morning.” And with that, Bao trudged away.

  Kemar was disappointed with himself for asking Bao to help him. He wasn’t nearly as displeased in his employer’s uncaring response as he was with his own display of weakness. Kemar stuffed the money deep into his pocket and crawled under the overturned boat. Back in Cambodia, he’d survived much worse than this.

  He spread out a tattered tarp beneath him, wondering whether he was becoming weaker as his life became easier. The boy looked out at the sea. The water sliding off the boat made him feel like he was peering out from a cave whose entrance was guarded by a thin waterfall. Kemar ate his food and fell asleep.

  Unlike Al, Meela never enjoyed storms. They meant two things to her, danger and extra work. She didn’t see the beauty of heavy weather. To her, storms were about as useful as the flu. They only made life more difficult. This attitude went back to Meela’s flying days. She mumbled disapproval as she struggled to move tools, parts, and motors out of the storm’s way. Meela knew that if she didn’t do the work now, the potential clean-up could be twice as bad later on.

  The old mechanic didn’t expect the rain; it really wasn’t that time of year. But at her age, she knew that life was as much about the unexpected as it was about the expected. Certainly, she’d never expected to live this long and find herself alone, fixing outboard motors on a speck of an island in the south Pacific. Another thing she didn’t expect was how happy all this would make her. Now, chewing on a tattered cigar, covered in grease and grime, dragging a dolly across uncooperative sand, Meela had never been more contented.

  Whether the locals cared to believe it or not, her stories about dancing with presidents and dining with kings were true, every word. Well, almost every word, but the old mechanic wasn’t nearly as senile as the residents of Makoona assumed she was.

  Meela cursed herself for daydreaming rather than working, something she found herself doing more frequently as she aged. Returning to the task at hand, struggling with the black forty-horsepower Mercury outboard felt like she was pulling against forty actual horses who didn’t want to return to the barn. Suddenly, the load felt strangely lighter. Looking up, Meela saw Al. He was holding a small motor under one arm while lifting the disagreeable Merc with the other. Al carried the two motors into the leaky shed and placed them next to a shiny Evenrude.

  Meela, now gathering up tools, said, “I would have bet that you’d be sitting on that lawn chair, hoping to catch a cheap thrill from a stray lightning bolt.”

  “That’s exactly where I was, but how could I enjoy this wonderful weather knowing you had all this work to do? It’s kind of like being on the couch with your date while mom’s slaving in the kitchen. What fun is that?”

  “For your own sake, I hope you’re not suggesting that I’m like your mom,” she said, with her cigar bouncing up and down in the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s that or the date. Take your pick.”

  “No other choices?”

  “Nope.” Al reached out and plucked the stressed stogie from her lips, inserting in its place a slightly improved version.

  “Selling fish to the hotel again?”

  “They have good cigars. You know, my mom didn’t smoke too many of these, although I had a few dates who did.” Looking Meela over, Al continued, “And the only grease I remember seeing on Mother came from draining the frying pan.”

  Meela flashed her wonderful gap-toothed grin. “Well, my boy, we’re just two different women in two different places.”

  “Vive la difference,” Al added.

  The rain picked up, and the lightning cracked over the jungle behind them. The wind blew angrily. Meela and Al spread out tarps and lashed down loose ends before he said goodbye and loped back down the beach to his hut.

  Along the way, he glanced at the boats to see if any needed tending. Al wasn’t especially friendly with their owners; he was just the type of fisherman who recognized the value of reliable equipment. So every now and then, he’d stuff a loose bucket under a canvas, tie a line to a cooler, or tuck a net into a hold, hoping that someone might do the same for him one day.

  But the more the lightning boomed around him, the less Al stopped. When the thunder instantly followed the flash, Al knew he was standing in the heart of the storm. His own heart raced. His adrenaline flowed. He breathed deeper, then fast and shallow like the water invading the beach. He savored the rush, but any potential pleasure was undone by the thunder. The random blasts, the pounding boom, the blinding flash, carried him back to Vietnam. And that was a place he vowed he’d never return to.

  Although the thunder was unsettling, Al lingered in the downpour as he walked home. The crash-swish of the waves, the low whistle of the wind, and the grinding of the palms touched him deeply like a great orchestra moves its listeners. While the storm returned Al to the war, it also brought him home, back to Makoona.

  Al looked up the beach to a spot where the sand subsided and the mangrove began. He noticed the light blue fishing boat that he knew belonged to Bao, someone who usually didn’t go to such great pains to protect his equipment. Al wondered why Bao was suddenly so attentive to his gear.

  Looking closer, the American saw two shoeless brown feet, toes in the sand, heels to the sky, sticking out from under the curved bow. Al approached the boat. For a moment, he wondered whether the person attached to the feet was alive.

  Even though the storm was winding down, sleeping under a small fishing boat near a stand of tall palms wasn’t a good idea. The feet looked small. “Maybe there’s a woman or a kid under there,” Al thought. Most people who lived on Makoona would pay no attention to someone sleeping under a boat, storm or no storm. But Al wasn’t from Makoona. He kno
cked on the hull as if he were knocking on the door of a neighbor back in the states.

  “Anyone home?” he asked.

  There was no answer.

  Al knocked again, with a little more gusto this time. “I can see your damn feet. You okay?”

  Still, there was no reply.

  Al bent down carefully, slipped a strong hand under the boat, and lifted the bow over his head. The curious American twisted his neck to get a good view of who was underneath, his free hand sliding up his thigh, closer to where a fillet knife hung from his belt. Al always carried the knife. He was a big man and probably didn’t need to carry a weapon, but he reasoned that if a tiger with claws was more intimidating than one without, the same would be true for a man and a knife.

  Looking under the boat, Al saw a boy face down in the sand, apparently asleep. The skinny youngster was shivering and soaked to the bone. The American nudged Kemar several times with his foot until the boy woke.

  Kemar stared into the man’s eyes. The boy’s face was expressionless as he reached slowly under the sand where he’d buried his own fillet knife for just such an occasion.

  Shifting the boat to his other hand, Al said calmly, “I’m not here to mess with you, little man. I just wanted to see if you were okay. You understand me?”

  Strangers who mean to harm you don’t usually begin by announcing their nefarious intent. Oftentimes, the first thing they say is that they don’t mean you harm, so Kemar still didn’t speak. He also didn’t remove his hand from the sand.

  Al frowned. He knelt down closer to the boy and said, “It’s important to protect yourself, but don’t be a chump. Whatever you’re reaching in the sand for, you won’t need. If you like sleeping under Bao’s smelly boat during a storm like this, then go ahead. Suit yourself, bro. You know what I’m saying. I can see it in your eyes.” Al stood up, lowered the boat, and stepped back a few paces.

  The hull fell back onto the wet sand with a muddled thud. The boat didn’t roll or bounce. After a second or two, Kemar’s face peered out from the side of the craft. In the shadows, like a lizard in a hole, he clutched his knife. It was an interesting situation. The boy might or might not be able to protect himself, but he was absolutely willing to do so.

  Al, on the other hand, possessed certain skills of his own. His size and strength also presented a walking warning. The barracuda had stumbled into the moray’s lair. But this barracuda was well fed and meant no harm.

  Al looked down at the boy and asked, “You want to come stay at my place? You can dry off and have a good meal.”

  Kemar raised one hand slightly as if to say, “Thanks, but no.” And then he rolled back under the boat.

  The American returned the wave with a nod, a sign that he both understood and respected the boy’s decision. As he turned to continue his trek home in what was now drizzle, Al said, “Yeah, I live under a boat myself. I know just how special it can be. I’d offer you a rain check, kid, but it’s already raining.”

  Kemar peered out once more, watching Al stroll down the shore. The Cambodian had no idea what a “rain check” was and wondered if the American knew he’d prefer cash.

  Below the surface of the sea, the inhabitants of Makoona paid little attention to the storm. Surface water churned, sand swirled in the turbulent shallows, and clouds cast a thick haze over the sun, but the residents of the reef were relatively untouched.

  Binti decided to check on Ebb. One of the best things about having a damselfish as friend is that they’re always home. Ebb virtually never left the farm. Binti loved this. She could pop in on him at any time, and he was sure to be around. On extremely rare occasions, Ebb would ask Binti or Hootie to tend his algae while he rushed to the cleaning station for a quick gill-raking. The fussy farmer felt that his two friends were good choices to tend his crops for two reasons: Either of them was capable of defending the algae, and neither of them had any desire to eat it.

  At the cleaning station, Ebb waited in line in an advanced state of algae-tation. Only the absolute necessity of the cleaning could tear the aquaculturist from his fields.

  Binti liked to sneak up on her friends. It was a safer way of entering a new place, and sometimes, she saw or heard things that she might not otherwise see or hear. This did, however, pose a slight dilemma with respect to the ethical use of octopus cloaking skills, since this application of stealth really had nothing to do with defense or predation. It was more like spying, which wasn’t exactly why the spirit-fish gave her these abilities. Still, the octopus particularly enjoyed sneaking up on Ebb. It was a game they played.

  Because Ebb rarely left the farm, he knew every coral, crack, clam, and crevice that belonged on his homestead. Anywhere else on the sea, Binti’s abilities would be too much for him. But on aqua-firma, his home turf, Binti needed to be perfect to pass unnoticed. In fact, she’d never snuck up on Ebb successfully.

  The octopus was feeling lucky today. The storm had presented her with a unique opportunity. The wind-washed water had ripped loose several sizeable patches of dark green seaweed, which just happened to be floating over Ebb’s fields. It would be tricky, but Binti reasoned that if she could swim above the weed and match its color, with a little luck, she might be able to float the patch over Ebb and pounce before he knew what hit him.

  Binti blended into a grove of staghorn coral. She waited for the perfect patch to float by. Patience came as naturally to the octopus as cleaning to a goby. Binti was tan and brown. Several of her arms twisted upward and outward, mimicking the contours of the coral branches. She delicately puckered her skin to match its texture. A clownfish she knew, Gabbagoo, swam right through her arms and never raised a fin. Binti was invisible among the coral.

  A lobster scuttled across an arm that Binti used to anchor herself to the bottom. The crustacean froze as it suddenly touched soft coral where none should exist. It was so important to Binti that she surprise Ebb, she allowed one of her favorite meals to scurry off untouched. If she could pounce on Ebb in his own backyard just once, she would have bragging rights for a very long time. Ebb would finally be forced to eat something other than algae: He’d have to swallow his words. And Binti yearned to serve up the meal.

  It was drifting toward her, an oblong stretch of seaweed a few feet below the surface, undulating with the swells. In an instant, she became dark green and hovered above the meandering patch. But Binti needed to steer the seaweed, to position it directly above her target. And it would have to look natural.

  The octopus lowered herself into the patch, careful not to break through it. She grasped the slippery weed with several suckers and relied on her siphon to propel her toward Ebb. Intent on his chores, the farmer never even glanced up at what was approaching overhead. In fact, Binti was so close, she could hear her friend talking to himself.

  “How’s this stuff supposed to grow in this light?” he grumbled. “I need sun!”

  As if the sun heard Ebb, it steadily emerged from behind the storm clouds. A single bright ray cut through the ocean and landed on Ebb, marking him as Binti’s target. The octopus smiled, satisfied that today, she’d get the better of her friend. She nudged the seaweed a little closer.

  Ebb began his lunch break. He quietly grazed on some brown algae with no clue as to what lurked just above his relaxed dorsal fin.

  Poor Ebb, Binti thought. This algae-eating simpleton is no match for a superior cephalopod like me. It’s shame that I’ll have to burst his bubble, shatter his misplaced notion that a damselfish could ever escape the hunt of an octopus. The cephalopod giggled to herself.

  Binti pounced, bursting through the seaweed, spreading her arms wide so that she could envelop Ebb. It was essential to achieve maximum embarrassment, because Binti wasn’t sure when an opportunity like this would appear again.

  She slammed onto the rocks where the algae grew. Pinning her prey beneath her, she turned a proud, radiant red. Of course, she didn’t bite, paralyze, or poison her friend, but Ebb must understand just what Binti could
do if she wanted to. The octopus could feel the fish beneath her. Trapped like a killie in a clam, Ebb was at Binti’s mercy.

  It was such a satisfying moment, she held on a little longer. And just to add insult to injury, the octopus slapped a sucker on Ebb and dragged him toward her razor-sharp beak, which she twitched teasingly.

  Something didn’t feel right. The fish wasn’t moving. There was no struggle, no fight. And certainly, Ebb would resist. Yet her catch just laid there. Had she hurt her friend? Was he in shock? What if he had gill-stroke or fin-itus and couldn’t tend his fields anymore? All this just so the octopus could catch a cheap thrill? What had she done?

  Binti released her suckers and relaxed her grip. Her prey didn’t twitch. No heartbeat, no gill flutter, no finning, no electrical impulses—there was no life beneath her. The octopus turned a pale, lifeless gray, weeping, “Spirit-fish, what have I done?” She knew what death looked like and was afraid to gaze upon Ebb. “Please breathe life back into my friend.”

  The tears that oozed from Binti’s eyes reminded her of an old reef-belief which claimed that in the beginning, Makoona was covered with fresh water, but when the man-tide began fishing with nets and killing creatures on such a massive scale, so many tears were shed that the ocean became salty.

  Binti spotted Hootie swimming over an orange sponge-covered ridge. The blowfish swam over to his friend. “Look at you, you’re all gray. What’re you doing?”

  The octopus shook her mantle in shame. “I have just done a terrible thing.”

  “What could you do that would be so terrible? It’s not like you killed someone or something.”

  Binti couldn’t breathe. All she could do was lift up her arms, turn her mantle away from the corpse, and mutter, “Look, look what I have done.”

  Hootie peered under the octopus. He swam closer. The blowfish disappeared beneath Binti for a moment. When he emerged, he was chewing. “Hey, that’s pretty tasty. Did Ebb know about this?”