End of the Ocean Read online

  “It holiday.”

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  “It Galungan.”

  “Yeah, I get it, I heard you. You people and your holidays. Fucking fuck. How do you get anything done?”

  Ngyn held the phone away from him and stared at it, then slowly put it back against his ear.

  “It hol—

  “—Yeah, Jesus I know already,” Wayne interrupted. “It’s …Galangung or something very similar to that,” he tried to pronounce it. “I get it, I do, but …you fuckers …it’s always something with you guys, every time …someone has a ritual to go to or a ceremony to perform, it’s always something. Bloody hell, mate; I’m tryin’ to run a business here.”

  Ngyn had no idea what to say.

  “Now,” Wayne said. “Is everything lined up, Ngyn—are we good?”

  “Yes, it all good. Everything so fine. Meet day after tomorrow.”

  “No, like hell. We meet now,” Wayne said. “Today.”

  Ngyn did not say anything.

  “Well speak up, man.”

  “OK,” Ngyn said. “We meet today.”

  “That’s right,” Wayne said. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”

  “Where you meet?”

  “Karsa Spa.”

  “Where that?”

  “On Bangkiang Sidem—you know?”

  “Yeah yeah. Bangkiang Sidem. It past laundry.”

  “That’s right,” Wayne said. “Turn right past laundry. Ride until the road gets rough as hell then you’ll see it on the right. Nice place, two stories. You can’t miss it.”

  Ngyn said goodbye. He would see him soon.

  Wayne frowned and cursed Ngyn and hung up.

  After arranging transportation Wayne made a quick drink—coconut rum with a splash of Coke and three cubes of ice—and sat down in a bamboo chair and waited. Drank slowly and sucked on ice cubes and thought. Looked at his watch and finished his drink. Stood and made another.

  A horn honked twice and Wayne downed the rest of his drink and grabbed a plastic bag off his couch and left his house, walking down his steep concrete driveway to the taxi where Michael Jackson waited, greeting him with a genuine, oversized smile and opening the door.

  “It nice see you again, Mister John Wayne. Where I take you today?”

  “Karsa Spa,” he said. “At Bangkiang Sidem.”

  “Bangkiang Sidem, yeah yeah. I take you Bangkiang Sidem but not know Karsa Spa.”

  “That’s fine,” Wayne said. “I can show you.”

  Michael Jackson drove toward Karsa Spa and asked Wayne Tender who was his favorite star.

  “My what?”

  “You favorite star?” he said. “You know, from movie or TV.”

  “Jesus, Michael.”

  “I curious. I not see so many American. I want go to America one day but that will not happen. This close I will get.”

  “It’s not that great.”

  “It land where dream come true, like California. Michael Jackson live there.”

  “Holy fuck, not this again.”

  “He my favorite singer.”

  “You know he’s dead, right?”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “But his spirit live on.”

  Wayne rolled his eyes. “Oh don’t try’n gimme some kind of new age hippie-wanker business about Michael Jackson coming back as a box of tissues or a bar of soap.”

  Michael cocked his head to the side, clearly confused by Wayne’s sarcasm.

  “His music so good,” he said. “I still not buy new Michael Jackson cassette tape.”

  “Try the Internet.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “No problem can find but ship expensive.”

  “I gave you enough rupiah to cover shipping. Hell, you could send it first class.”

  “I spend money,” he said.

  “Ah, Michael, you’re killing me. What in God’s name did you spend the money on?”

  Michael did not say anything.

  “Well come on now get at it …how could you possibly be broke? I gave you a lot of money for arranging that whore like you did.” He sat forward then, whispering, “Thank you very much by the way, she was lovely. Suksma.”

  Michael said, “Mowali,” then he hit the brakes to avoid a dog and swore in Balinese. Wayne leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He felt a headache coming on. This stress. Putting a hold on business was bad for business, especially in this business.

  “I spend money for gamble,” Michael said finally.

  “That’s it,” Wayne chuckled, yawning, rubbing his eyes. “You’re a gambler, of course.”

  “Some time,” he said. “Not all time but some time.”

  “Let me guess,” Wayne said. “Bet you like the cockfights, don’t you, mate? You don’t exactly have a great poker face so I’m going to rule out cards.”

  “Like cockfight much,” Michael said. “Always make bet, always lose.”

  “That’s a shame. What do you know about roosters?”

  “Not’ing,” he said. “Know always make shit.”

  “That’s beautiful, Michael. You’re betting your last dollar on a cockfight and the only thing you know about cocks is that they make shit.”

  Michael looked at him in the mirror and said, “Much shit.”

  Wayne knew about cockfights. They were brutal. The men gambled and drank and fought amongst themselves while roosters butchered other roosters with knives strapped to their feet.

  “Michael, let me ask you something,” Wayne said. “If I ask you to deliver a package for me—a package,” he drew an invisible box in the air with his hands, “think you could do that? Deliver a package?”

  “Yes,” Michael said, without hesitation.

  “Good.”

  “What package you want me deliver?”

  “I don’t know that I want you to deliver a package at all, I just wanted to know if you could do it if I asked you.”

  He said he could.

  Wayne said that was good and that he knew he could trust Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson said Wayne Tender was his friend. “My good friend,” he reiterated.

  “That’s sweet, Michael, thank you, mate—and not just friend, but good friend—I appreciate the value you’ve attached to our relationship.”

  Michael drove and nodded slightly but his expression did not change. It was the face of the same enthusiastic go-getter Wayne had judged him to be. When they arrived at Karsa Spa Michael parked the cab and exited and walked to the back door and opened it.

  Wayne climbed out and told him to wait and Michael said he would. But first he would continue down Bangkiang Sidem and find a driveway and turn the car around and come back and park.

  After stepping up onto the deck, Wayne removed his sandals and walked to the counter. He declined a massage and picked up a menu. The Balinese woman at the counter smiled at him.

  Wayne smiled back and, pointing to the ceiling, said, “I’m going upstairs.”

  Nygn left his home and, driving slowly, rode his motorbike to the shed he rented on the Campuhan Ridge, close to Karsa Spa. He came to a stop and sat in traffic while children marched across the road and played instruments.

  Galungan was bagus. It was very good. Ngyn Suterma had a lot to be thankful for. Soon he would have a lot more. He would use some of the money to buy himself a motorbike. He would give his old one to his son. If his son took care of it, and Ngyn had no doubt that he would, perhaps next year they would buy him a motorbike of his own. Fourteen was a fine age for a motorbike.

  Once Ngyn had the methamphetamines in his backpack, he stepped out of the building, locked the door and set the lock at a queer angle like he always did. He walked to his motorbike and sat down and started the engine and rode down the blacktop road as an old woman pushed a motorbike on the shoulder.

  He wanted to stop and help her but he could
n’t. He rode without looking back or slowing down and then the road was gone and there was jagged rock and busted concrete and rocky rutted mud holes. He rode through it. Found gravel and bounced through gaps in the concrete until he parked at Karsa Spa and climbed off his motorbike. Stepping up onto the deck, he removed his sandals, kicking them into a pile with other sandals, and walked to the counter, refused a menu and said he was going upstairs.

  A woman answered him in Indonesian and said OK.

  Ngyn, walking toward the road, turned to the right and climbed the stairs to the upper level, which was empty besides Wayne, who, drinking and smiling, greeted him, saying, “Ngyn, there you are you handsome bastard.”

  “Hello, Mister Tender.”

  “What, no bodyguards today?”

  Ngyn swallowed. Wayne had caught him off guard.

  “Give them the day off, did ya?”

  Ngyn nodded but his nod was unconvincing.

  “You got something good for me, Ngyn?”

  “Yes, it very good, I think.”

  Wayne, taking the backpack, setting it on the table, opened it and reached in and found a towel rolled up into a ball with a gallon Zip Lock bag full of what he assumed was methamphetamine.

  Ngyn—nervous and uncomfortable even though they sat at the top of a two-story restaurant with a clear sweeping view of lush fields for a half-mile in all directions and there was no one on the second floor but them—wiped sweat from his forehead. This was the hard part: the handoff. Because Wayne made him anxious and he did not trust him. Not that he had ever given him a reason not to; there was just something about him. It was a thing Ngyn could not put his finger on. Wayne was reckless and it scared him.

  “You try it yet?” Wayne asked.

  Ngyn, looking over the railing at the people below, eating in small bamboo huts that floated in shallow pools with slowly swimming Koi fish surrounded by layer after layer of terraced rice paddies, said no way ever would he try that.

  Wayne cocked his head to the side. Behind him, flowers of variety and color swelled with bloom.

  “Well then how do you know it’s legit? How d’you know this isn’t soap powder?”

  Ngyn looked troubled and said he did not know.

  “Oh you cheeky bastard, I think you know exactly what I’m saying, don’t you? You’re no dummy, are you, Ngyn?”

  “I business man.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Wayne, holding the plastic bag, dumped money on the table and dropped the Zip Lock bag of methamphetamine inside the empty plastic bag which had previously held the cash.

  Ngyn, grabbing the money quickly, stuffed it in his backpack and zipped it shut and set it on the floor between his feet.

  “You carry amphetamine in plastic bag? Out in open?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Ngyn crossed his legs and uncrossed them. He was very nervous.

  Wayne said, “Relax.”

  “Ngyn want relax, but you crazy. Wayne Tender cowboy.”

  Wayne leaned back in his chair and pulled a joint from his pocket and lit it. Ngyn blinked. His eyes grew wide. He stood, backing away from the table.

  Wayne coughed. “Don’t run off now, mate, that’ll look funny.”

  Ngyn looked toward the open stairs that connected both levels. “You hurry, you smoke fast.”

  “Oh will you settle down over there, tough guy—you make me nervous.”

  Ngyn threw his hands up. “You crazy, fuck no—this bad idea. I go.”

  Wayne, taking a long slow drag as the cherry burned bright and red and hot, holding the smoke, jamming the end of the joint into the wooden tabletop with his finger, smashing the end until the fire was cold black ash, let his breath out and said, “Fine, you people have shitty weed anyway. I mean, you mix the weed with tobacco—why do you guys do that?”

  Ngyn said he didn’t know.

  “That’s just weird.”

  Ngyn, standing several feet from the table, did not want to come back but this was business and he had to.

  Wayne kicked Ngyn’s chair with his bare foot and it slid across the hardwood floor and stopped in front of him, leaning on two legs. It did not turn over but came to rest as a chair should, perfectly, as if Wayne had somehow practiced this move in advance and everything went accordingly.

  “Sit.”

  Ngyn sat.

  They talked. About a lot of things. Business was important, but right now there was a hold on business. “Everything’s hot,” he said. Ngyn agreed. Wayne told him the next run would be the most profitable run they would ever have and they could not pass it up. Ngyn agreed with that too.

  “It big run.”

  “That’s why we can’t fuck this up.”

  Ngyn nodded.

  “Here’s the thing,” Wayne said. “The man I talked to the other day, he’s an important man, see, and the people he works for are important men. Men like him make it possible for these things to happen, these little deals we do, these smuggling runs—they allow these runs to happen because they get paid, and they get paid well.” Wayne looked at Ngyn. “I know because I pay them, and right now they say we’ve gotta take a break because it’s hot. Because the airport’s hot—there’s police and military and the rest of it. All of this Bali 9 shit.”

  “We not do run?”

  “No, we’re gonna do the run all right,” Wayne said. “We just can’t fuck anything up.”

  Ngyn agreed.

  “This run is huge, mate, huge, and a run like this doesn’t come along everyday.”

  Ngyn understood.

  “What I’m sayin’ is that these blokes at the airport know when there’s a run happenin’ because I bloody tell them, that way I make sure our boy doesn’t get caught by mistake, see? But they don’t know about this one, and if they accidentally catch somebody they’ll jam us up plenty and it will not be pretty. You understand? But the good news is we don’t have to cut them in since they don’t know. See what I’m sayin’? That means more for you and me.”

  Ngyn liked the part about getting more and said he understood fine, but Wayne was not so sure. He could never tell with Ngyn. He asked Ngyn if he still had friends at the airport and he said yes.

  “Can we trust them?”

  Ngyn had to think about how much he trusted Wayne before he answered him.

  “I’m not tryin’ to be in your business here, mate, I don’t care what kinda deals you’re runnin’, I just need to know if we can trust these blokes.”

  Ngyn said he had two friends from childhood who worked each day, both would help, but there was no way to know who worked the x-ray until the week of the trip because the job assignments changed each week.

  “Fine,” Wayne said. “As long as they can meet our guy before he leaves so he’ll know who to look for when he comes back through, OK? Take care of your end, Ngyn. Make sure they’re on board.”

  Ngyn nodded slowly. “…on board?”

  “Make sure they’re gonna let us walk through the airport with contraband and not arrest us.”

  “Yes, contraband. OK.”

  Pointing, Wayne said, “Your guys gotta run the machine in case it shows up on x-ray—not that it will—but it could. It shouldn’t, but it depends who packs this shit.”

  Ngyn nodded and said that was his job. They worked in shifts.

  “That’s fine,” Wayne said. “Fine. Just beautiful. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. Make sure he understand he must work x-ray day flight come in. Make sure he let us walk through A-OK.”

  “That sounds about right,” Wayne said. “I think this will work.”

  Ngyn bowed, but said nothing. They parted company and Ngyn returned to his village. Wayne had Michael Jackson drive him back to his house in Ubud. He’d spend the next few days with Ogi. But when they arrived at his house she was gone, which was not altogether surprising.r />
  He sat for several hours in the dim moonlight and drank alone.

  ***

  Sage left on his motorbike and rode Bangkiang Sidem back to Ubud. Well-rested but hungry, he pulled onto the main road with confidence but it still felt strange to ride on the wrong side. There was little traffic, but the closer he got to Ubud the thicker it became.

  Passing several restaurants and cafés, he saw a small restaurant on his right called Devilicious and stopped and parked and walked inside.

  “Halo,” his waitress greeted him.

  “Hello.”

  “You like menu?”

  “Yes,” Sage nodded, surprised by her English, strong and well-practiced. He told her a menu would be great. She told him to sit where he wanted so he walked toward the back and sat at a booth against a half-wall that overlooked a terraced field with lush green grass. Then she brought him a menu and asked him what he wanted to drink.

  He was going to order a bottle of water but then he saw Coca-Cola, which surprised him, so he ordered that instead, saying, “I’ll also have this,” pointing to the red curry.

  She nodded.

  A man who sat at a table beside him asked him where he was from. “You American?”

  Sage said he was.

  “Nice,” the man said. His name was Raimundo, from Chile. They talked until Sage’s food arrived. Then he paid the waitress and said goodbye, wishing Sage a pleasant journey.

  “You too,” Sage said, looking down, admiring his food.

  There was brown rice in the shape of a heart and green beans that looked fresh and a few other things he wasn’t sure about but he ate them anyway and they were good.

  He finished eating and paid and left and rode his motorbike to Bintang, the place Kadek had pointed to and said was a good place to shop. He’d said they had good prices for bule.

  Sage went inside and looked around but had no idea what to buy. He searched every aisle and saw nothing that looked familiar to anything he had ever eaten or would know how to prepare. There were no frozen pizzas, not that it mattered since he had no oven to cook one with, but he did have a small hot plate that was useless for anything other than soup or rice so that’s what he would buy if he could find it.

  When he came to a section with something he recognized he was relieved: Peanuts. Something they had in abundance and he happened to enjoy. They came in hard plastic bags that were vacuum sealed. Sage bought five. He also bought a loaf of very dark wheat bread and some crackers and three candy bars and a big jug of water. Walked to the front and waited in line. It moved quickly. He watched people interact while he waited. Some drank beer. When it was his turn to pay, the cashier, bowing casually, rang him up and told him the amount: seventy-five thousand rupiah, which meant the pink one, the bill he paid for everything with because it was easier than counting and he knew whatever he bought would be less than one hundred thousand so he could give them the pink one secure in the knowledge it would cover the cost of whatever it was he was paying for.