End of the Ocean Read online

  Sage looked at Wayne, who took his glass from Ogi and raised it. “Cheers.”

  Sage, raising his glass, touched it against Wayne’s and arched his eyebrows curiously.

  “Just drink it,” Wayne said. “You’ll thank me later, in about an hour,” and, very quietly, almost under his breath, said, “Or not.”

  Sage studied his drink then studied Wayne, who set his now half-empty glass down on the table and, grabbing Ogi, brought her close and kissed her lips.

  Sage started drinking. It was a milkshake of some kind but he could not taste alcohol. It was good and it was cold and while it did not go well with beer, not in any way, it had been a long time since he’d drunk milk and a cold glass of milk on a hot day after a fine meal was always welcome.

  Finishing most of his shake, leaving some in the bottom, he set the glass on the bar.

  Ogi asked, “How you like?”

  “It was bagus,” Sage said. “But a little lumpy. Kinda chewy.”

  “Oh it chewy?”

  “Parts of it, I dunno. Was that banana?”

  He looked at Wayne, who was grinning.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Wayne didn’t answer him. He told Ogi to fetch two more San Miguel Lights, because they were going to need them, and she said she would, but another customer walked in so she went to help him first.

  It was late afternoon; the place had begun to get busy. Sage drained the rest of his bottle. Finally, Wayne asked the question Sage had been waiting for.

  “What brought you to Bali?”

  “Well,” Sage began, but did not know how to answer or what to say. Then, before he could say anything, Ogi walked by and set a beer bottle in front of him and gave a bottle to Wayne.

  “Terima kasih,” Sage said to Ogi, who bowed.

  “She’s actually Balinese,” Wayne said.

  Sage stood up. “Oh,” he said. “In that case … uh …suskema?”

  Ogi turned, and, walking backward, carrying a plate in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, said, “No it ‘suksma’—you say suksma, I say mowali.”

  Sage bowed and sat, feeling the beer inside him slow things down.

  “I see you’ve learnt a little Balinese.”

  “That’s the only word I know and half the time I forget it.”

  Wayne opened his beer and raised his bottle and Sage raised his bottle to Wayne’s. They touched them together and drank. The beer was cold, Sage near drunk.

  He set his bottle down and looked at Wayne, who shrugged, as if to say he was still waiting, that he meant to learn the answer to his question.

  “Yeah,” Sage said, feeling a buzz from the San Miguel Lights that was not altogether unpleasant, “I went through a divorce.”

  “Yep,” Wayne said. “That’s what I thought. Been there, mate.”

  He raised his bottle in the air again and Sage tapped it again. They drank and laughed and talked about their ex-wives. Wayne said they become monsters.

  “How’s that happen?”

  “I dunno.”

  Wayne told Sage he’d been married once but his wife left him for a shoe salesman.

  “Damn,” Sage said. “Well, don’t feel too bad. My wife left me for a prison guard.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “No,” Sage laughed. “I swear. Then he got fired. Now the guy makes pizza.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I know.”

  “Ain’t we a pair?”

  “Indeed.”

  Wayne, taking a big drink, made eye contact with Ogi and tilted his bottle, nodding with his head toward Sage.

  “Dua.”

  They continued to drink for a full hour and Sage noticed Wayne was smiling a lot. But then, so was he. He realized he felt very strange.

  “You ever meet him?” Wayne asked, eyes wide, pupils full and black.

  “Who?”

  “Your ex-wife’s husband? Ever meet him? I met mine’s once, he’s a real cock.”

  “Yeah, I met ‘em,” Sage said. “Would you believe she brought him with her to court? To court. I mean, who does that?”

  “What a shitbird. You kick his arse?”

  Sage shook his head.

  “Why the hell not, mate? He’s got a good arse beatin’ comin’ to ‘em.”

  “He can have her.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Wayne said, changing his tune completely. “Maybe she ain’t worth fightin’ for.”

  Sage shook his head no, as if to agree she was not worth the fight, and then he thought about her short fat husband and began to giggle; it was a giggle that laid the foundation for a powerful spurt of laughter which came out of nowhere and took him by surprise.

  “He’s …” Sage began, but then he laughed again. “He’s,” he tried. “He’s got a small penis.”

  Wayne threw his head back and hooted.

  Sage said they called him Needle-Dick Dave, that right before she’d met him he’d been kicked out of the Navy for gaining too much weight.

  “Got fat, did he?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “She told ya that?”

  “It was the only time she was being honest.”

  “Short and fat, with a little pud for a wanker. What’d she see in this bloke?’

  Sage said he didn’t know, but that his mother-in-law hadn’t liked him much and her inability to accept him had played a role in their relationship’s demise.

  “Sounds like an evil, vile woman.”

  Sage laughed as he drank and a burst of beer ran down his chin. He told Wayne she’d been a beast of a woman; a big woman: Loud and heavy with an acute case of irritable bowel syndrome, and that, hard as it was to believe, good Christian woman that she proclaimed to be—the whole family really, never missed a day of church—she’d been caught in a torrid affair with the prosecuting attorney of their small Midwestern town.

  Sage said it was big news for the area.

  Wayne, shaking his head, said, “Those cheating whores—but now, what about your father-in-law? Tell me he beat the tar outta this bloke? Please tell me somebody knows how ta fight where you come from.”

  Sage, doing all he could not to laugh and failing, told Wayne Tender he’d’ve liked to have seen that fight, but the prosecuting attorney was a woman.

  “You liar.”

  Sage swore it was true. “Another big woman,” he said. “She was huge, her name was Mary West, and I’ll never forget her. To this day, she’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Sage told Wayne she’d been his ex-wife’s lawyer during their divorce. That she was a hideous woman, with wide shoulders and thick hips. That she hated men, you could see it in her eyes. Probably spent her whole life suffering rejection.

  Wayne, laughing hysterically, told Sage there’s no way that was true.

  “Oh, it is,” he said. “The whole town knew—the whole county. They got caught trading kisses at a church picnic out behind the outhouse.”

  Wayne and Sage laughed about this now and Wayne asked Sage about that outhouse.

  “Small church out in the country. Actually, it’s the same one we got married in.”

  Wayne told Sage he’d been lucky to escape them. “And they hide behind religion, those are the worst kind,” Wayne said.

  He took a drink of beer and felt good about that statement, knowing how glad Sage had been to hear Wayne say words he could agree with so completely; words that felt raw and true and hit so close to the bone.

  Wayne asked Sage how he knew the size of this bloke’s wanker in the first place.

  “I don’t imagine your wife bragged to ya that her new man had a small one.”

  “Oh,” Sage said, excited, spilling beer from his glass. “That’s the best part. This idiot left his computer open one day and his wife—he was married, too—she starts posting pictures of hi
s dick on all his network pages, then she changed his passwords.”

  Wayne looked impressed, but incredulous.

  “She locked him out for two days.”

  “That’s gorgeous.”

  “For two whole days his friends and family saw pictures of his small cock. Even his parents and his kids.”

  Wayne was laughing uncontrollably now and so was Sage.

  “Bet you loved that,” Wayne said.

  Sage, between breaths, said he did, and now he could not stop laughing about it. Although he took great pleasure in the knowledge his ex-wife’s short husband also had a short penis, he found it especially funny at that moment; as hard as he tried, he could not stop laughing at the absurdity of it.

  Wayne laughed then Sage laughed. Neither could stop, and the more one would laugh, the more the other would laugh. Together they were very loud and everyone in the small warung was starring.

  “Well that’s … that’s gotta make ya feel pretty good then, mate,” Wayne said, “’specially if ya’ve got him beat in size.”

  “In length and girth.”

  Wayne slapped the top of the bar hard with a flat open hand and the sound it made was sharp and sudden and anyone within twenty-feet, in any direction, who was not already looking at Wayne, looked at him now. He could not stop laughing, and that made Sage laugh even harder, to the point he could not catch his breath, but then he did and when that happened he became instantly aware something was wrong.

  Sage, sitting up straight and attentive, clearing his throat, knew from that moment on that everything felt different. Where was he? Who was he? What the hell was wrong with him?

  He felt pressure in his head and warmth inside his body he had never known. It had slowly been building inside him, but now he felt it. This moment was real. He felt very aware of his senses, more so than at any point in his life. He felt different than he had ever felt before: scared and worried and anxious and completely unprepared for whatever it was that seemed to be happening to him.

  Ogi approached Wayne and whispered something to him and Sage thought that if he could just listen hard enough he could hear her words, even though she was five feet away; Sage watched her whisper, squinting his eyes, concentrating in on her small perfect lips, he watched them move slowly and eloquently. He focused on them.

  Two small perfect lips: opening and closing, making beautiful sounds.

  He felt compelled to stare at them. To study them. He believed if he concentrated on her lips long enough and hard enough he would see small birds fly out of her mouth. They would flutter about and peck the air and sing: green and blue and yellow birds—some would be pink, and even though he had never seen a pink bird he knew they’d once existed and was convinced someone still made them—that one guy: The Birdmaker, whoever it was that made them. What a good job he had. Sitting around, making birds all day.

  Sage smiled when he thought about the Birdmaker, puzzled as to how he went about his tasks.

  Wayne laughed at Ogi, who smiled and shook her head from side to side. She told Wayne, “No.”

  Wayne said, “It’s too late.”

  They looked at Sage, who, starring into the bottom of his glass, plumbed the depths of his milkshake, concentrating hard on what was left and looking very closely, bending down until his eye was just above the rim; close enough he could squint and determine there was a small community inside the slush—if he looked close enough he could see it; there was a large mountain that rose above an ancient village with houses made of candy built inside transparent bubbles that would, at any moment, break free and float away, but there were people who lived inside those houses, and the bubbles would float away and take the houses with them if he wasn’t careful, and Sage couldn’t have that.

  Sage looked at Wayne and told him he was scared. “Somethin’s not right.”

  “What d’you mean, mate?”

  “It’s …,” he began. “I dunno. Jesus,” he said. “I think I’m developing a super power.”

  Wayne went whoot! and looked away.

  “What about those people?” Sage asked, very sincerely. “All those people in the mud?”

  Wayne, putting his head down, covered his face with his hands. He listened, but he could not look at Sage. He could not see him, not like this, in this condition; he would laugh so hard he could not function.

  “What,” Wayne paused, “…people?” Face red and tight; he squeezed his neck muscles and sweated it out.

  “The people in the bubbles.”

  “Really? …” Wayne said. “What about them?”

  “They’re. Real. People.”

  Wayne held his face in his hands and his shoulders went up and down and up and down again. He could not stop laughing and he was very loud. Everyone inside the warung now watched them, all other conversations stopped.

  Ogi looked nervous.

  “They’re onto us,” Wayne howled.

  “What?” Sage said.

  Wayne howled again. “They’re onto us,” he said. “They all know, those pigs! Watch out! They’ll suck out your soul through the bottom of your feet—they’re like leeches.”

  Ogi was trying to quiet him. Sage was overwhelmed and about to lose it.

  “Who will?” Sage said. “What the fuck is happening? Somethin’ ain’t right.”

  Wayne tried to compose himself but couldn’t.

  “There’s pudding everywhere,” Sage went on. “Pudding,” he screamed. “There’s pudding on the floors and the walls—it’s everywhere.”

  “Oh my God, you be quiet, American! You crazy, you get me sacked.”

  “Look at you,” Sage rambled. “Right there.” Pointing at Wayne, leaning close to him, he saw Wayne’s face was very red and it looked rounder than it had before, because at first his face had been straight and lean, but the more Sage looked at it now the more it began to shift and when it did the thin skin stretched tight over his hard jaw began to slacken until it was loose and hung freely then swung back and forth off the bone.

  Then it began to run.

  Sage, standing quick enough his stool would have toppled over had it been tall enough, said, terrified and panic-voiced, “Your fucking face is melting.”

  “What?” Ogi said. “Wayne, you not tell him, you jackass.”

  “What?” Sage said. “Tell me what?”

  Wayne, looking at him, squinting bleached white eyes covered in red lines sprouting from dark black pupils that were impossibly wide, reaching for Sage, patting him softly on the leg like a gentle grandfather, said, “You’re the one.”

  “What?” Sage said. “I’m what?”

  “Like leeches.”

  “What the fuck is this about? What’s happening …I’m burning alive.”

  “You make scene,” Ogi said. “Wayne Tender get fuck out of here fore you get me sacked. Take cute friend with you. Wayne, you crazy. I tell you it bad idea.”

  Wayne whispered, “It was a great idea.”

  Sage, leaning forward, red-faced and sweating, asked Ogi what she’d just said.

  He could feel his pulse beat on the side of his neck. He thought it was his pulse, it looked like his pulse, or, at least, he thought it looked exactly like what he thought his pulse would look like if he could see it beating—and then he could see it; he was standing outside himself now and he could see himself ask her if he’d been poisoned.

  “No, you take mushroom shake,” she said. “Magic mushroom.”

  Sage looked at her desperately for advice of some kind but there was none.

  “I … I do what? What did I do—what did you say?”

  Leaning toward him, very close, looking into his eyes, she took his chin in both hands and whispered, “You do mushroom shake. Much mushroom. Wayne tell me make two shake, dua—to make strong. It legal here to have mushroom. Sorry you not know. I thought he tell you. Wayne Tender asshole like that.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, Jesus!” Sage said. “I’m frying!”

  He turned and saw everyone watching him.

  “I’ve been poisoned,” he wailed. “Don’t eat here whatever you do.” Sage rubbed his hands over his face vigorously and scratched his head with both hands. “They’ve tried to kill me.”

  Ogi grabbed him by the arm and told everyone not to worry.

  “Crazy American,” she said. “He have bad hallucination from jetlag.”

  “None of that is true,” Sage howled. “I’ve been poisoned …there’s …there’s ants in the pudding…”

  Outside, Wayne Tender, calling for Sage, straddling his motorbike, searched his pockets thoroughly for the key.

  “What have you bastards done to me?” Sage demanded.

  When Sage looked at Wayne he smiled, but when he did his teeth looked like the oversized plastic vampire fangs Sage used to get as a kid that were made of wax.

  “Here.” Ogi directed Sage to his motorbike and told him to follow Wayne.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “Hold handlebar, give gas. There brake. Be careful, no crash.”

  “I dunno.”

  “Yes, you know. You can do it, you do good.”

  “What?”

  “I say you do good.”

  “Bagus?”

  “Yeah yeah, bagus.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Follow Wayne.”

  “But I can’t,” Sage screamed. “He’s got wax teeth! Don’t you know that?”

  “Oh my God,” Ogi said. “His teeth no wax …Wayne, you watch Sage. He no good to ride.”

  “He’s fine.”

  Ogi looked at Sage and told him he was fine.

  “But you just said...”

  “You wreck, you die, it not so bad.”

  “What?”

  “You die is not so bad. You maybe come back as uncle or grandfather.”

  “What?”

  “You follow Wayne. You ride safe, be careful, but if wreck you die it not so bad—you come back but not as you. You could maybe be spirit of grandfather.”

  “C’mon,” Wayne said.

  Sage sat down and turned the key but nothing happened. When he looked for Ogi she was gone.

  “C’mon,” Wayne yelled.