Helen and Dave found the first monkey in a thicket of weeds a kilometer from the Plantations. All day, they’d been following deserted roads past stretches of feral cane and the stone towers of abandoned sugar mills, sheltering in shade whenever possible and dreaming of sleep. In the afternoon, the hills leveled into a stretch of scrub dissected by fresh asphalt roads, stacks of sewer pipes, and fluorescent flags. They might have missed the monkey rotting in a newly excavated ditch if not for the flies swarming above its bloody fur. Its fingers had curled inward and stiffened. A milky film covering its eyes recalled the memory of clouds. They drew away from the ditch and continued down the road, only to find a heap of dead monkeys at the edge of a razed lot.
“Looks like they attacked each other,” Dave said.
Helen considered a tangle of shattered limbs and pressed her sleeve to her nose. “It looks like they’ve been shot. Just keep walking.”
In silence, they followed dusty tread marks multiplying in the impressionable asphalt. The marks led all the way to the Plantations.
They shuffled forward, indifferent at first to the rings of concertina wire crowning a massive wall, and the soldiers in blue surgical masks monitoring their approach. As they neared, a soldier cradling an automatic rifle stepped into the road. His sleeve bore a corporate logo, an abstraction of wings and rifles.
“No one had permission to leave the premises.”
Helen tried to place the man’s accent and read the expression suggested by the deep creases framing his eyes. “We were never on the premises.” She faltered, distracted by two soldiers dragging a dead monkey onto a tarp in the distance. “We missed the shuttle from the Ambassador. We walked.”
The man nodded at Dave. “What happened to your face?”
Dave touched his cheek. “Hit with a bottle. Two nights ago.”
The man pulled his mask from his mouth and spit on the ground. “You’ll find savages running riot all over. We should finish the job they started. Put things right.” He looked up into the hills. “They’re not fit to solve their problems. Same everywhere I’ve been.”
“Why are there so many dead monkeys?” Helen asked.
“We’re exterminating the ones that try to cross the perimeter. No more than rats with thumbs. You don’t want to nick them, or they shriek.” He nodded at the tarp. “Like that one. Nasty business cleaning them up.”
“But they’re everywhere. Almost a mile out.”
“If we see them out there, we get them before they come here. If they come here, we send them back where they belong. I’d do the same with every one of them rioting.” He pulled a plastic bottle from his pocket. “Report to the main house.”
He drew a line of sanitizing gel across his palm, rubbed his hands together, and turned his back on Helen, a distraction from his endless mission to pacify the planet, one privatized war at a time. We’d seen similar mercenaries in so many places, using so many variants of Roach Out! Had we been Helen and Dave, we might have sought alternative accommodations, but who can resist the siren call of comfort, or relief?
Beyond the gates, fountains and electric waterfalls feathered mist over birds of paradise, English tea roses, and the Kentucky grass carpeting an empty croquet pitch. Golf carts overran a sprawling course beyond a line of Italian cypress trees. What unholy shades of putting green and daiquiri pink! Oblivious to everything but the pain in their feet, Helen and Dave shed their plastic bags and limped toward a sprawling two-story house with broad shutters and shaded porches.
In the days of slavery, the estate house had been a termite-riddled mess illuminated by crystal chandeliers and littered with empty wine bottles, the castoffs of the aristocratic wastrels who gathered in its drawing room to laud each other’s excellent taste. It had since become a sanitized museum laid with polished marble and hung with sepia photographs of white men in jodhpurs and barefoot women carrying baskets on their heads. At the base of its winding staircase, Helen rested her arms on the desk of a concierge with heavily painted hazel eyes.
“We missed the shuttle from the Ambassador.”
The concierge regarded Dave’s face and turned to Helen. “Do you have a voucher? You should have been given one on the shuttle.”
“I just said we missed the shuttle. We walked.”
“I’ll summon the executive manager.” The concierge made two notations on a spreadsheet and spoke quietly into a phone.
When the executive manager arrived, we squeezed beneath a line of baseboards and cowered. In crisp beige linen and understated accessories, the executive manager rebuked eccentricity of any kind. In lieu of beauty, she possessed unshakeable poise. Her skin glowed without color. Her chameleon hair shifted from silver to blond, depending on the tilt of her sculpted chin. She was a terrifying specimen, responsible for every insecticidal campaign waged at the Plantations. She commanded an army of groundskeepers and had, at her polished fingertips, substances even deadlier than Roach Out!
“Ms. Mudge. Mr. Fowles. I have been in close communication with the CEO of Maiden Cruises, and he’s been very concerned for your well-being.” She turned to Dave and appraised St. Anne’s stained flag. “I understand you sustained injuries, and I’ve arranged for an examination by our resident physician. Our reservations associate can take you to him now.”
The concierge stepped from behind the desk and gestured to a hallway. Helen pushed a strand of hair from her face and watched Dave follow the woman from the lobby.
She turned back to the executive manager. “Concerned with our well-being?”
“He made it clear that you should receive any medical assistance you require.”
“Maiden Cruises didn’t seem too concerned when they kicked us off the ship.”
“From what I understand, there were questions about passenger safety, Maiden Cruises’ main consideration.”
“About liability. And what about liability now? What if we’re sick? I suppose it would be bad press to send us back into a riot.”
The executive manager folded her hands together at her waist. “The Plantations would take appropriate precautions if there were reason to believe you might compromise the health of other guests. We’re just relieved that you arrived safely.”
“We didn’t arrive safely.” Helen dug her nails into the concierge desk. “I don’t understand. You’re not worried about infections, but you’re shooting monkeys.”
The executive manager considered the desk’s marred surface. “We’re taking every precaution. Bringing in a professional security team is part of that.”
“Shooting monkeys is part of that?”
“We’re accounting for the very small possibility that certain species carry communicable human diseases. We understand vendors near the terminal released their monkeys rather than destroy them. It would be easy to exaggerate the threat of invasive wildlife, but some guests have expressed concerns.”
“Those men at the gate are supposed to prevent an outbreak?”
The executive manager’s face assumed the appearance of a plaster mask. “We’ve chosen to err on the side of caution. I trust you’ll report any symptoms, should they develop.”
Helen felt the chill of sweat evaporating from her skin. “Air conditioning.” She looked up at a ceiling fan churning cold air.
“Is there something wrong?”
“I saw the lights during the riot. You never lost power here.”
“Fortunately, our guests have been able to enjoy all of our amenities. Tonight, we’re hosting a football tailgate-themed party on the main patio. There will be a free buffet for guests. Including those from the Ambassador.”
Helen slipped her hand beneath her sleeve and rubbed her arm. “How do I get to my room?”
The executive manager considered the airbrushed spliff between the folds of Helen’s beach cover and drew an envelope from the desk. “Your keys. Our staff is reduced at the moment, but we’ll try to make your stay as comfortable as possible.” She started toward the staircase and then tur
ned around. “I understand you received thorough medical treatment aboard the Celeste, but our physician is available, should you want follow-up care. Of any kind.”
We barely relaxed when the executive manager disappeared. We never felt at ease in the estate house. As for the rest of the Plantations, it was hardly a comforting place, between its artificial streams, decorative footbridges to nowhere (how often we fell for them!), and impenetrable beige tiles so tightly sealed with grout that we felt trapped within its massive bathrooms. If not for the Plantations’ lavish kitchens (and the cocaine in Butts’ car), we might have opted for the worst dumpster in Portsmouth.
Room 612-C, like all of the Plantations’ guest rooms, was the sort that neither offends nor charms most humans. It had been swept of every crumb and immunized against complaints by cold cleanliness. An abundance of boring! We could understand Helen’s relief, though, as she settled into a massive tub to drain the weeping blisters on her heels. Mercifully for her, she had only two feet.
When Dave entered the room, she tensed, sensing, as we did, the agitation in his movements. By the time she stepped from the bathroom, he’d fallen asleep. His sheet was twisted around his legs and he was twitching violently. She studied the bandages taped to his face and recalled his expression on their first morning at the Ambassador. He’d been disgusted by her injuries; she’d been humiliated, and much angrier than she’d allowed herself to admit. She thought to leave him, but he’d become a liability, a mutilated man about to wake from nightmares in a room full of mirrors.
She stepped onto the balcony and watched two mercenaries crossing the grounds, leaving the imprints of heavy boots in wet grass. One of them lowered his surgical mask and lit a cigarette. They stood beneath a tree and passed the cigarette back and forth, talking quietly and pausing occasionally to look up at her. She listened to a coarse joke and fragments of clipped speech until they tossed the cigarette into a flowerbed, and then she backed into the room.
She found Dave sitting on the edge of his bed, turning a small plastic bottle over in his hands. He was wearing a green polo shirt with yellow golf clubs stitched across its pocket. A matching baseball cap rested in his lap.
“Was having nightmares,” he said.
“Where did you get those clothes?”
“The manager gave them to me. Decent of her.”
“She’s worried we’re bringing down property values.”
“Still, it’s a good thing.” He shook two pills onto his palm and nodded at a paper bag on the dresser. “The nurse gave me painkillers. Antibiotic ointment and bandages. Said they were for both of us.”
“What did she know?”
“Not much. Don’t think it matters.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He stiffened at the edge in her voice, and she turned away. “We should get something to eat,” she said. “There’s some free buffet.”
She looked outside. The sun had almost set. Sidewalk lamps had given form to a world of silhouetted trees and white glare.
“Don’t tell anyone we were on the ship.”
“You think I was going to announce it?”
“People don’t need to know.”
“I get it.” He pulled on his cap and swallowed another pill. “I got it already.”
We shuddered. On more than one occasion, we’d raided the Plantations’ dispensary after Butts’ cocaine had worn off, desperate for anything to numb our antennae. Mad with craving, we’d scoured the floor for spilled serum and the contents of broken capsules. We’d sampled every sort of existential analgesic, psychic expectorant, and nerve-numbing agent available. Dave, we knew, was about to cop the lowest sort of high.
For the Plantations’ guests, and for all the refugees honored with an invitation, the tailgate party provided a familiar forum for numbing every extremity with bizarre cocktails and sugary punch. We went in for the crumbs of hot dog buns, hoping to line our gastric sacs and get a grip after our latest misadventures. Helen and Dave ducked beneath crêpe-paper streamers and edged through the crowd to a table cluttered with crusted plates and plastic cups. Above the table, a bunch of blue and yellow balloons strained its tether. One of its deflated members had settled on the frosting of a half-eaten cupcake.
“Michigan,” Dave said, adjusting his cap. “Ain’t exactly home, but there’s room.”
They sat down beside a man and woman with the appearance of inveterate tailgaters. The woman took a sip of punch and smoothed a plume of silver hair rising above her duckbill visor. A ruddy testament to digestive derring-do, her husband had just cashed in his last potato chips for a pork sandwich.
“You should have worn a football shirt,” he shouted. “They’re giving free drinks to anyone wearing a team logo. Shirts. Hats. Hell, they’d probably accept football-themed underwear. There’s one in every crowd.”
Dave noted the heavy class ring cutting into the man’s finger. “Hopefully there’s more than one.”
“That’s the spirit. Take it you’re a Michigan man.”
“Born and bred. Hancock. Name’s Dave. This is Helen.”
“Bud Anderson. Michigan. Class of ’69. This is my wife, Gerry. Class of ’72. Retired from GM management after thirty years.”
“Still live in Michigan?” Dave asked.
“Michigan plates is about it. We spend winters in Phoenix and travel every fall. Can’t take Michigan weather. Hell, I can barely stand the weather here. This vacation’s run its course.”
“He’s being a sourpuss.” Gerry slapped Bud’s knee. “At least they gave us lots of coupons. I guess they feel bad everyone’s vacation’s ruined. It’s funny, but you wouldn’t even know all these terrible things were happening if it wasn’t for CNN.”
“Don’t say that too loud, or we’ll all be paying for our drinks,” Bud said.
A middle-aged man with gleaming teeth pushed up to the table. “Hey, Bud, let us shove in with you.”
Behind him, a woman in a University of Illinois shirt surveyed the crowd. A second woman, straining the seams of a strapless dress, gathered her hair in an alligator clip.
“These are some good friends we met last night,” Gerry said. “Jim’s a contractor, and his fiancée Sarah’s a pediatrician. And that’s Marianne from Lansing. She works for the fashion industry. She’s been helping build factories all over Asia.”
“Site scouting,” Marianne hooked her thumbs under the elastic tubing of her sundress and adjusted her breasts. “Not that anyone here needs to give a shit. I left work behind.”
Over the next few minutes, Dave eased into the familiar rhythms of drunken banter beneath a constellation of string lights. Helen settled back in her chair and watched two women at a nearby table comparing pedicures. She startled at a familiar name.
“This place is overrun by those people from the Ambassador.” Sarah wet her fingertip to taste her punch. “We paid four times what they did.”
“She’s been calling them welfare cases,” Jim said.
“I’m just saying, I didn’t come to an all-inclusive resort so everyone could be included.”
“The only one getting any service is that Buttskell,” Bud said.
Jim grabbed two cups of punch from a waiter’s tray. “Getting serviced, more like it. I hear he’s been here for days, getting blown by Australians.”
Gerry shuddered. “Throw a rock and you’ll hit someone, I heard.”
“Someone should throw a rock,” Bud said. “Part of me has to hand it to him. He probably doesn’t spend too many nights out in the cold.”
Marianne picked a cherry stem from her hair. “What’s up with his entourage? I’ve never seen so many black people on a golf course.”
“One of them couldn’t even clear the fairway this afternoon,” Bud said. “I teed off before he moved on just to send a message. Someone said he was the defense minister, but he couldn’t have turned tail faster. At least the private security is on the ball.”
“Bud was talking to some of them,” Gerry said. “They flew in f
rom South Carolina.”
“Tough as hell. Some of them were in Afghanistan. Making a hell of a lot more in private security than regular Army grunts humping it.”
“The one we talked to didn’t sound American,” Helen said.
“They’re from all over. Post-Soviet Stans. Africa. All trained by Americans.”
“We met one from South Africa,” Gerry said. “Really nice guy.”
“Deals mainly with third-world clusterfucks like this one.”
“The shooting’s a bit much, but I suppose they know what they’re doing.” Gerry rested her hand on Bud’s knee. “Someone told me monkeys carry human disease, or maybe it’s the other way around. Anyway, I can’t imagine shooting one. If I did, I’d be drinking like those boys.”
“Work hard, play hard. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Speaking of playing hard, you need a rum punch.” Jim pointed at Bud’s empty cup.
“I’ll give you a rum punch. What’s that you had last night? A Smoking Cherry Bomb? Goddamn girlie drink.”
“I’d squeeze into a skirt right now, but the bartender’s only got punch on tap.”
“That bar’s fully loaded,” Bud said. “He just doesn’t want to sink to your low.”
“Just need vodka, grenadine,” Dave said. “151. One or two other things. Used to bartend.”
“All last night, Jim was daring us to join his asshole antics.” Bud struggled from his chair. “It’s time to pay the bartender to stand down so Dave can show us how it shouldn’t be done. Anything to shut you up.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sarah said. “They only have plastic cups.”
“Most people blow them out,” Dave said. “Or use a straw.”
“Only way is to shoot it back and swallow,” Jim said. “Don’t think. Just sink the pink.”
Helen watched Dave adjust his cap. “Don’t you need to sleep?”
“I need to do something normal for a change.”
The Wonder That Was Ours Page 23
