Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  The hostess lays out fragrant jasmine rice dotted with roasted corn and small peas. She scoops some onto our plates. She selects succulent pieces of chicken from off the sizzling platter and sets these on our plates as well. Finally she takes a silver spoon and spoons up some of the dark sauce that smells of both burnt brown sugar and the hottest of spices, so hot my eyes begin to water, and ladles this generously over the chicken and rice. It washes down over the chicken like a coat of paint. Gorgeous crimson paint that promises a heat that might possibly be too much for the weak. But for a king… fire. When all is done she backs away from our presence as though she is not worthy to watch us demolish the dish.

  The chicken is lightly coated on the outside and fried. Inside it’s moist and juicy. Each bite is the perfect balance of both burnt sugar sweet and a flaming hot regret that you’d even taken a bite. In other words… it’s perfect. It puts my first perfect dish to shame. And I know I’d never again, even if I came back to this restaurant, get such a meal. Because I am not a sultan. Or a man who would one day be a sultan.

  There are whole worlds some of us will never even dare to imagine. This chicken is just a hint.

  I take a bite, chew, and lean back in the booth. Yeah… I might even moan a little.

  Rashid eats absently. Still staring out the window. Weighing what I said, I imagined, against what the generals have been telling him.

  Either way… I don’t care.

  I eat another bite.

  Again… heaven.

  Rashid looks up from a bite he’s been desultorily staring at. The dish doesn’t seem to impress him as much as it has me.

  “Okay… let’s see what you can do. Oh…” He puts down his fork and wipes his mouth. I can tell he’s not a big eater. I am. And thankfully my parents had my genes designed so my metabolism can handle two of the same dish in one sitting. Maybe he doesn’t have that. Maybe Calistan isn’t as advanced as the rest of the world. Even if you’re rich… maybe you can’t have everything. Even great parents.

  I think about Rashid’s old man making him and his brother fight for his love.

  Isn’t that what he’s really doing to them?

  I don’t know. Little people like me don’t have sultan problems. We’re just trying to get down the road and not get lost along the way.

  At least most of the time we are.

  “I have a surprise for you,” says Rashid.

  * * *

  We finish our meal and drive off to see my surprise. I’d be lying to you if I told you I’m not imagining getting whacked in some abandoned place because it’s somehow become clear by now that I’m working for the CIA. And who would really care if that happened? Well, ColaCorp, I guess. But Calistan has enough money to make even ColaCorp forget about me.

  I think about Kiwi and JollyBoy and even RangerSix. Even RiotGuurl. Wherever in deep space she is. I think about them all as we drive along the waterfront and across a bridge and onto a series of streets where oceanfront houses are being demolished. It’s the kind of place that says here’s where you get two in the heart and one in the head and then you end up part of the foundation of someone’s future dream home.

  “This is where Samira and I are building our dream home,” says Rashid over the growl of his prowling sports car. He looks at me and smiles bashfully.

  A brief thought occurs that I should probably tell him everything. Hell, I don’t even know Irv. I thought this was a legit gig. I could tell Rashid and he’d probably give me a home right next to his.

  We park at the end of the tiny private island. We get out of the sports car and I turn and look upon a sea of wreckage. Beach cottages and small houses have been bulldozed and left. It’s like a hurricane came and knocked them all down in neat piles.

  It’s post-apocalyptic.

  “We evicted all these losers,” says Rashid in the unreal silence. “We start construction in a few weeks on the cottage. It’s gonna be the biggest house in all of Calistan. Maybe even the world.” He gazes at the wreckage and sees a palace just for himself.

  I see quiet ruin. I wonder what became of all the people who called those places home.

  He turns back to the channel. Small beautiful sailboats play along the inner waters of old Newport Harbor. In the distance, to the south, I can see the open sea beyond an outer peninsula. Beautiful girls paddle on longboards. Musclebound men follow and splash them. But all of them keep clear of the island. It’s Rashid’s… so of course they do.

  Three giant-sized mega yachts are moored at the very tip of the island on a small dock. They’re gorgeous and sleek. White with dark windows. Three levels. One has a helicopter on the back deck. They scream luxury. The best that money can buy.

  Off to our left is an old sailboat with two masts. It sits low in the water. It seems old and faded.

  “You can stay in any one you want, my friend,” says Rashid, indicating the three mega yachts.

  I think about those. Think about the devices Irv placed on me. Think about how he told me someone here, some kind of Calistani secret police I guess, replaced my phone with an identical duplicate. And I couldn’t even tell. Those high-tech ships are probably wired to the max. They’d know what I’m doing.

  And what am I doing?

  I haven’t answered that question yet.

  “How about that one?” I say, pointing at the old sailboat.

  “That?” exclaims Rashid incredulously.

  I nod. Then… “Yeah… it’s cool.”

  Rashid shakes his head indicating that it isn’t.

  “Okay.” He sighs benevolently. “Whatever you want, my friend. It’s yours. It was my grandfather’s. We haven’t used it in years. Old Mario, the island’s caretaker, keeps it for us. I haven’t been on it in…”

  He stops as if remembering something.

  “So, yeah,” he says after a wistful pause. “I have your bag in the trunk.”

  He opens the trunk and gets my bag. He hands it to me.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “It’s pretty junky. Those other ones are really nice. State-of-the-art. Got everything. I keep a case of Veuve Clicquot chilling in each one.” He seems genuinely concerned. “The hoochies love to go out on those. We have some really wild times. One time we threw this girl off because she was a bitch. Sharks got her. It was crazy. They were like insane. And she just kept screaming and screaming until they dragged her under.”

  With a smile he says this. Like it’s…

  … perfectly normal.

  And suddenly a normal afternoon goes from I-can-deal-with-this to…

  Uh…

  He begins to imitate her in a low screaming whisper.

  “Help me! Help me!” he cries, cupping his hands together.

  Then he laughs. Like… like it was all a good time he and his friends once had.

  Because it was.

  I don’t know what happens next. Because I go into some kind of weird autopilot. I just listen and smile as he relates the end of the story, which involves the rest of the hoochie mamas, girls, women, somebody’s daughter, being a lot more willing to please Rashid and his bros after they watched the screaming girl get torn to pieces alongside one of the luxury yachts over there in the water.

  I smile. Like everything is fine.

  Then he says he’ll pick me up in the morning and that I’d better have a plan to fix things for Calistan. He drives away.

  He never noticed my leg shaking. I couldn’t control it. It was just shaking… from fear or rage… I don’t know which.

  It was just shaking.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I had no idea what kind of boat it was other than a sailboat. But from the moment I stepped on board I was instantly in love.

  I drop my bag next to the big wheel at the back. The wood is sun-bleached and faded to the point of being almost bone white. The brass is dirty and green. But there’s something about hearing the waves slapping gently against the hull… I know that’s the right word for the bottom part of the bo
at, ship, whatever… but hearing that is… it’s like a sound I’ve been waiting for all my life. And I never knew it.

  I go below, into a narrow passageway. There’s a tiny kitchen and a small place to eat. Little windows look out on the big boats and the water.

  It’s very cozy. Which is something I knew I needed and didn’t expect to find anywhere in Calistan.

  I put my messenger bag with my laptop on the table and explore the rest of the tiny vessel. Two small bedrooms with bunks, plus one large bedroom at the front. There are no sheets. No towels. Nothing. The boat has been reduced to a blank slate. Which is fine with me.

  When I come out and go topside—that word seems right too; I’ve probably heard it in a movie—an old bandy-legged Mexican is staring down at me. He has a knife in his hand.

  This is the aforementioned Old Mario.

  He nods as if he’s nodding only to himself. Taking my measure and clearly not liking what he’s seeing.

  “Hi there,” I say cheerily despite the fishing knife in his hand. I feel stupid because I’m smiling. The boat does that to me. It erases the past few days. It even erases the story Rashid just told me before he got in a high-performance sports car and drove off to his next debauchery. The story about the time he fed a woman to the sharks and he and his friends laughed.

  Old Mario doesn’t say a word. Just continues to stare at me.

  “Is there a store close by…?” I try.

  He doesn’t reply.

  “I’m probably going to need some water. And bread.” My mind is thinking of other things. Sheets. A blanket. A pillow. Food. Liquor. Ice. Glasses…

  But I’m on a boat… so who cares if I have any of those things? If needed, I could sail out of Calistan. Though I don’t know how to sail. It’s just… at this moment… I feel like I could do anything in this boat. Go anywhere and become no one all over again.

  Boats make you feel that way.

  I remember a poem my dad used to read me before bed. When he came home late from the hospital he worked at.

  I must go down to the seas again.

  I memorized it after he and Mom were killed.

  It was called “Sea-Fever.” By John Masefield.

  I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

  And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

  And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

  And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

  I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

  Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

  And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

  And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

  I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

  To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

  And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

  And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

  This.

  This is the promise of all that was ever in that poem. As if I could sail away. As if I could sail back and see them, my mom and my dad, one more time.

  As if there are such places on all the maps of the world… places we could start toward now, and make it home before dark.

  As if that were possible.

  Old Mario points off toward the bridge, past the rubble of those ruined homes other people once called home. The way Rashid and I came in. And then, just like that, he turns and leaves, slowly making his way up the dock and back onto the island that has been set aside for Rashid and Samira.

  I think about leaving my stuff, but anyone could just paddle by and steal it. So I take my messenger bag with me and walk back up onto the island and through the quiet ruin. I pass tiny streets where little cottages were once the summer homes of families from long ago.

  I know that because something catches my eye in the middle of a silent street filled with tiny ruins all neatly piled in the organized destruction that was required. It’s a shard of glass in an old picture that flares, sparkling in the sun. I step forward and pluck it out of the ruin.

  It’s sepia. Brown and white. A family of white people, notable only because I’ve seen so few white people in Calistan, all with sunburned faces and freckled noses. Lots of red hair. They’re wearing old beach clothes and ancient bathing suits, and are cuddling close to the camera. Beaming at it with wild smiles. There are so many of them it has to be two families gathered on some long-ago summer. Some are holding hot dogs. Others marshmallows on sticks. The men are holding brown bottles. Beer I guess. The women have cocktail glasses. They look both gay and glamorous. Gay as in the old meaning of the word. Happy. There’s even an old phonograph, a record player, on the sand. On an old Scotch plaid blanket.

  These people look like they don’t have a care in the world.

  In white pen someone has written in perfect cursive script: “You gotta have friendship.” And: “The McNultys and the Connors, Newport, 1936.”

  They’re all so… charactery. Like something out of a period piece movie. Except they’re real. Or at least they were once. On the day this was taken. In the moment when time and light captured them.

  I look at the tiny pile of rubble I’m standing in front of. Smashed wood and broken glass. Old plumbing and haywire piping.

  I think…

  … somehow they deserved better than what became of who they once were.

  Better than a pig like Rashid building a mega palace to hide the beautiful Samira in.

  Everyone deserves better than what Rashid will give them. Except Rashid.

  He definitely deserves… worse.

  I knock out the remaining shards of glass that cover the McNultys and the Connors. I place the frame and the brown-and-white picture in my bag. I don’t know why. I just do. I will take them with me and maybe I’ll find a better place, someday, for them to be remembered.

  I find a small market on the mainland.

  I buy cans of sardines and smoked oysters. Some crackers. They don’t have ham. I buy some waters. Some plastic cups and a bottle of bourbon. The shop owner doesn’t seem to like selling it to me. He seems to be more of the devout Muslim variety. But he sells it nonetheless with a scowl that indicates his contempt for anything I might get up to.

  They don’t have blankets and pillows.

  I walk back to the boat.

  I plan on pulling up Civ Craft and figuring out how to get the other clans off Calistan’s back. But when I get there Old Mario is waiting. He has a small scraping knife and some sandpaper.

  I put my stuff down below and come back up.

  He takes a piece of sandpaper and begins to sand the old bleached trim of the boat. He does this intently as I watch. Then he hands the paper to me and indicates, with a small grunt and an aggressive nod, that I should give it a try.

  I will soon find out “trying” means doing it for the rest of the afternoon.

  Because after a few passes, when I stop—stand and try to hand back the worn sandpaper—he shakes his head and points toward the rest of the boat. To the places that need attention specifically.

  For no reason I can think of, I shrug and start back to work. And I like it.

  I blame it on the boat.

  We work for the rest of the day and toward dark, then as the harbor begins to go quiet, Mario leaves without so much as a word. I work for a little while more on a difficult portion I want to finish up. It’s nice. Just listening to the soft scrape of the paper against the old wood. I think about those people in the picture. Wonder what became of them.

  In time Mario returns with a small stove and a cooler.

  “Finished for today,” he mutters in a low, gravelly voice. And then, “Clean yourself up.”

  “Where?” I asks.

  He shrugs nonchalantly and points toward the water in the harbor.
>
  I think of sharks. I think of Rashid’s story.

  “In there?” I say.

  He gives me a look that suggests he is in doubt as to whether I am a man or not.

  Then he turns to setting up his stove.

  I change into some cargo shorts I have in my bag and I go for a swim. I dive down into the dark water and look up to see the last light of day and the hull of the sailboat. I feel all the darkness of Calistan wash off me. All my months of travel and gaming slipping off my back and floating away in the gentle current of the harbor.

  I surface, treading water in the dark. I smell cooking meat in the smoke that drifts off the back of the ship. Sailboat. Whatever. Mario stands and holds out a brown bottle and laconically indicates I should come back on board.

  I dry myself with a shirt and sit near the wheel that steers the ship. Or at least I assume that’s what it does.

  He hands me an ice-cold beer.

  Mexican beer. Tecate. He squeezes a thin slice of lime into it and then holds up one finger. He grabs a salt shaker and dashes it across the top of the can. Little salt crystals, swimming in lime juice.

  I drink.

  I drink all of it in one go.

  I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I’ve been working in the hot sun all day, intent on the boat. And now…

  The sea.

  The lime.

  The mindlessly fascinating work.

  The hot sun.

  The things that seemed bad… well… they’re still bad. But I have a beer.

  And the next beer tastes pretty good too because of the carne asada that comes with it.

  Marinated flap meat that tastes of chilies and garlic and even soy sauce. It’s hot. But first Mario hands me a real flour tortilla. Fluffy and charred. He had it on a hot plate. It’s giant compared to other tortillas I’ve been served. Then he reaches down on the blazing grill and grabs some smoking meat with a pair of tongs. He places this in the tortilla and we eat.

  And drink beer.

  And listen to the water slap against the side of the hull.