End of the Ocean Read online

  “Help,” Sage said. “Help, my …this thing, it won’t start …this piece of shit is broken.”

  “Check the kickstand.”

  “What kind of equipment have you given me to work with?”

  “Put up the bloody kickstand!”

  Sage raised the kickstand and hit the button and the quiet little motor started.

  He pulled forward.

  “Why’d you do this …I’m fucked, man!”

  “You need to toughen up, chap. Just enjoy the experience, mate. You can follow me back to my place.”

  Wayne left Jl. Goutama and drove straight, across Dewi Sita, riding through a narrow alley filled with people and chickens and motorbikes, as Sage, hollering to all who would listen, followed Wayne Tender very closely, scared he would get lost or crash.

  They rode Hanoman to Monkey Forest Road and when Wayne got to the bottom of the hill he stopped by Monkey Forest to wait for Sage.

  Sage saw Wayne stop so he stopped. His face was hot and his mouth was dry and he felt very anxious.

  “This is a short cut, mate,” Wayne said, pointing to a concrete trail that ran beside Monkey Forest. “Just follow me,” he instructed, “and don’t fucking crash.”

  Wayne took off and Sage followed him up a long narrow path of worn concrete that stretched over small creeks and curved around trees. There were people everywhere and Sage tried not to hit them.

  “Get outta the way, I’m fryin’,” Sage said, telling anyone within earshot he’d been poisoned, while still doing everything he could not to look at them since he did not want them to see him, because if they saw him they would know he was high, despite the fact he was freely telling them.

  “Have you seen my grandpa?” he asked sadly, plugging ahead, climbing the path, riding in complete paranoia until he noticed the higher they climbed the fewer people he saw. Then there was a monkey. Small and gray with a thin black Mohawk that split the middle of his head; he appeared out of nowhere and raised his hand and ordered Sage to halt.

  Sage stopped when he saw the monkey that stood before him, regal and authoritative. It stood in his path and did not move, even though Sage blew his horn and yelled obscenities.

  He held his hand on the brake as the monkey approached him.

  Sage said, “Look at you.”

  The monkey yelled for one of his buddies and a second monkey dropped from a tree and landed beside Sage. A third monkey climbed to the top of a nearby fence and yelled at the other two.

  Sage began a conversation with the monkey closest to him, even though part of him knew it was preposterous. Still, at that moment, the idea made more sense to him than anything ever had—Sage felt like he knew this monkey, as though he had established a rapport with him. Like, if Sage had been a monkey or this monkey had been a man they would probably have been good friends.

  Wayne realized Sage was not behind him but he could not turn around because the path was not wide enough. So he did all he could do, ride, and when he came to the end of the path he turned around in the circle lot and retraced his route, wondering what he’d find when he found Sage, curious as to what had happened.

  When he found Sage he was sitting in the grass, holding court, talking to an assemblage of monkeys.

  His motorbike had fallen on its side.

  Wayne stopped his motorbike and climbed off, but he was laughing so hard he could not stand. So he sat on the ground, beside his motorbike, in Monkey Forest, in the middle of the path, watching Sage yield to hallucinations. Then he crawled toward him, because he could not walk; he tried to focus his thoughts, but then he saw a monkey had Sage’s cell phone and it appeared that, Sage, clearly in no position to negotiate, endeavored to barter with the monkey in a futile attempt to regain it.

  “My God,” Wayne said. “You fool.”

  Sage looked at Wayne with both relief and disappointment. “He’s got my phone.”

  “I see that, mate. How the hell’d that happen?”

  “I gave it to him.”

  “Oh for fucks sake. Why?”

  “He had to make a call.”

  Wayne hooted and told Sage he was a fucking idiot. He stood, wobbly-legged, and walked back to his motorbike as Sage yelled after him, “This is beautiful, man. I feel like I know these guys.”

  Wayne could not talk; nor could he control his facial expressions.

  “Yeah,” Sage said quietly. “I do know these guys. These are my people.”

  Wayne, lifting his seat, rooted through his trunk, looking for something of value to trade with the monkeys. He found nothing. Then he saw a bottle of glue. When he returned, Sage had his wallet open with a wad of rupiah in his hand.

  He appeared to be facilitating a business transaction with the group.

  “That’s beautiful, mate,” Wayne said, hooting again. “Maybe he’ll sell it back to you. I’m sure he could use the cash.”

  “I know,” Sage said. “That’s what I told him.”

  “Here,” Wayne said. He sat beside Sage on the grass and shook the bottle of glue to get the monkey’s attention. Once he had it, Wayne opened the lid and smelled the glue and told the monkey it was good.

  “Bagus,” Sage corrected.

  “Well, go on,” Wayne said, ignoring Sage, reaching toward the monkey with the glue in his hand. “C’mere,” he said, “got somethin’ for ya.”

  “Ask ‘em his name,” Sage instructed.

  Wayne, laughing feverishly, said, “C’mere, you little shit,” to which the monkey turned to consult with his associates, as if to ask their opinions on this proposal.

  “That’s it,” Wayne said. “That’s it.”

  He wiggled his fingers at the monkey, who walked toward him, but instead of trading Wayne the phone for the glue, the monkey, utilizing both speed and agility, snatched the glue from Wayne’s hand and, jumping up and down, shrieked at his friends and associates, who jumped and raised their own hands and shrieked back with approval.

  “Well, that didn’t work.”

  The monkey held the glue bottle to his nose and took a deep smell and jumped up and down, his eyes wild with newfound joy.

  Sage said, “I think he likes it.”

  The monkey, still holding Sage’s phone with his hand, clutching it against his chest to protect it, took long, deep drags from the glue bottle and Sage saw his eyes roll around inside his head. They looked like small black marbles. Then he jumped up and down.

  “He’s high,” Wayne said.

  “He’s crazy like that.”

  The monkey’s friends crowded around him, each curious about the glue.

  “I think he’s higher than we are,” Wayne said.

  Sage now wanted the glue more than he wanted his cell phone. He struggled, unsuccessfully, to reach an agreement with the monkey. Then he finally tried to kick him.

  After failing to retrieve the phone they left Monkey Forest and Sage followed Wayne to his house. They parked their motorbikes. Wayne climbed off his and Sage did the same, though he struggled to walk the steep driveway without difficulty or complaint.

  Then he saw the lizards.

  “Look at you,” he said. Then, looking to Wayne, said, “They’re everywhere.”

  “Of course,” Wayne said. “This is fucking Asia, man. There’s lizards.”

  Sage panicked. Already feeling sick and weak, he now had lizards to contend with. They had him completely surrounded. He saw them on the ground, but he also saw them on the walls. One ran across the ceiling upside down and paused, looking down at Sage, flicking his small forked tongue very quickly and menacingly in a defiant act that let Sage know, in no uncertain terms, he had just received his warning.

  “That fucker,” Sage said. “How’s he do that? Walk on the ceiling like that?”

  Sage was mesmerized. But there was a pounding inside his head that would not subside, though Wayne assured him that, sooner or lat
er, it would. He said it had to.

  “Just give it time,” Wayne said.

  “What have you done to me?”

  “I like to call it The Full Tilt Boogie.”

  “I’m gonna puke.”

  “I did you a favor; I set you free.”

  Sage told Wayne he didn’t feel free.

  “Don’t you feel lucky?”

  He didn’t feel lucky either. Sage stopped and reached for something to steady himself on but found nothing.

  “You gonna be OK, mate?”

  Sage, taking a step to the left, stopped to regain his balance and vomited in the pool.

  “Oh not the pool, you jackass,” Wayne said. “Bloody fuck.”

  Sage, falling down on his back and landing in the grass, gave Wayne the finger.

  Wayne laughed and dropped to the grass as well. They lay by the pool. Drank and talked and laughed. And eventually Sage forgave Wayne for poisoning him with mushrooms.

  “I told you to trust me. And look, it was fun,” Wayne said, later, after they had come down, and after Sage had returned to normal, or at least, as far as Wayne knew about Sage, what he considered normal to be.

  “I didn’t think I was coming back,” Sage said.

  Wayne said he knew, and that that was the best part. The beauty of it. Not knowing.

  “You just have to ride it out.”

  Sage spent the rest of the evening at Wayne Tender’s house where he rode it out, and, after eating grilled duck and drinking San Miguel Light and smoking joints until the late hours of the night, when he, very drunk and incredibly stoned, passed out and slept soundly on a black leather couch without moving his body so much as an inch, for the next nine hours, in any direction.

  And he dreamed about her, someone new. Replacing someone he could not have with someone else he could not have. But in its own small way that was progress.

  ***

  For the next few days Ratri tried to reach him; she called Sage three times and sent numerous text messages, all of which went unanswered and ignored since a monkey had possession of his cell phone.

  “He not like me,” Ratri told Kadek.

  “Yes, he like,” Kadek said. “He tell me, Ratri.”

  She did not believe him, at least, part of her didn’t. But then, part of her did. Because part of her wanted to. Sage was a handsome American. He was funny and shy, and he did not try to kiss her, even once, not that she had expected him to. But then, part of her had. Part of her wanted him too. Though she did not actually want him to kiss her, she did want him to want to—just not actually do it.

  At least, she thought that’s what she wanted. It could not be more than want. It had been so long since she had wanted anything, yearned for anyone, and to feel that now, for an American stranger. She could not have foreseen this. It was more than she expected; not to mention it was out of the question. A relationship with a Westerner was not forbidden, but it was not encouraged. Eventually he would leave and she would stay.

  She thought about him more than she should have and knew this could not end well.

  By the end of the week she decided she would go. Not because she missed him, or because she wanted to see him, but because she had a responsibility. He was traveling alone, with no friends. What if he’d been injured? It happened to tourists all the time. The hospital in Denpasar was full of them. Going to check on the wellbeing on her new American friend was the least that she could do.

  That’s what she told herself.

  On his motorbike now, swerving in and out of traffic, Sage thought he saw Ratri on her motorbike and wondered if he should chase her down. Then he thought against it. What would he say, and even if it had been her, so what? He would look like an asshole. Or worse: a stalker. No, he decided, even if it had been her—highly unlikely considering the hours she worked at the jobs she worked and the distance she would have to travel—there was nothing to say, despite the fact he still thought about her.

  But Sage thought about a lot of things: his life; both present and past—his future.

  When he returned to where he lived, on Bangkiang Sidem, he walked down the thick rock steps built into the earth that circled the house and when he came to the bottom there was a flower; red and swollen with bloom, it lay on the ground, waiting to be discovered, in front of the tall battered door to his room.

  It stopped him where he stood and made him think. Made him feel something. But what: amusement or excitement or confusion or love? Something. He felt something. He knew that. But what did he feel, and what was it about this flower that had the power to change things?

  He stood for a long while in the dust. Was it a friendly act or a common gesture? Was it even from Ratri?

  Sage decided it was, that he would go to her, whether the flower was from her or not, and despite the fact it was a bad idea he rode back to Ubud. Then, stopping, using the GPS on the new phone he’d been forced to buy, he brought up directions to Denpasar, where he hoped to find Ratri. Then, nervously but enthusiastically, he set his phone in the pocket of his motorbike, attached his headphones to it and ran them up under his shirt and pushed the earbuds in his ears and put on his helmet then pulled onto the main street and rode toward Penestanan.

  The evening was good and fine. With the discovery of the flower it seemed to get better with each mile he rode. She had come to see him. What did that mean?

  With thoughts of her inside his head, he turned left and came to a stoplight and waited. It was very busy. Motorbikes scattered about. It was dangerous, but it was fun, and he was getting used to it. There were no rules. Just go, or someone else would. So when the light changed he went, and he felt good about going. About this whole experience. Riding a motorbike in that chaos to meet a woman who left him a flower was something new, and that was what he needed more than he needed anything else: a new experience.

  So far, Bali provided them in abundance.

  He thought about Wayne Tender. Sage was drawn to him in a way he could not explain. From what he had gathered on the long flight, and from hours of conversation, Wayne was a world-traveler and an authority on culture. He was a wine connoisseur, and he was wealthy, with homes on different continents; he had beautiful women in his life, of this Sage was convinced—not to mention a high tolerance for drugs.

  Not that such a trait was admirable, but on some level it seemed impressive. Wayne was fearless; he also had his pilot’s license. Something Sage had never considered yet suddenly longed for. Wayne had a certain way about him, a hard confidence that came easy. All of these things Sage envied. Because Sage was just Sage. He was no one. Just another sucker with a good job and mortgage, who thought he was living the American dream until he lost it. Now he was a survivor, by default, looking for some beauty in the world.

  It took some riding and cursing and several wrong turns were made, but an hour later he was in Denpasar. He went to the laundry, but they were closed. Sage was disappointed, but undeterred. He thought about where he was and where he had been and he was sure he could find his way to Kadek’s village. From what Sage could remember it would not be hard to find, but then, once he’d set out he did not remember as well as he thought he would and it was harder to find than he’d envisioned.

  He stopped and cursed and felt defeated. Then, remembering the warung Ratri worked at, he typed the name into his new phone and the address came up, suggesting a route.

  Sage rode to her work and parked and walked inside. He did not see her and he was not hungry but when the waitress greeted him he told her he would like a menu anyway. She gave him one and led him to a table. He sat down.

  Still looking for Ratri, he did not see her. Then he did. Standing by the kitchen. But she had seen him before he saw her; she’d watched him scan the room. Then, smiling, walking toward him, looking fine in her apron, when she finally approached him he stood and leaned forward and hugged her, released her, then, reaching into his pocket,
brought out the flower, smashed and crinkled, wet with sweat. He asked her if she’d dropped this.

  She frowned and said she had never seen it.

  Sage swallowed and cleared his throat and asked her if she’d left it.

  “Did you come to Ubud?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I not come to Ubud since I take you for phone card.”

  She shrugged.

  “The flower not from me. Maybe from gay neighbor. I see him look at you, American.”

  Sage had never been so mortified. His confidence crushed, he did not know what to say. He apologized then asked her where the nearest bridge was so he could jump off it.

  She smiled, shook her head. “Poor Sage,” She said. When she said that he knew.

  “You’re lying,” Sage said, feeling strong relief. “You did leave that? You little liar.”

  “Maybe some time.”

  “I think you missed me,” Sage said.

  She shook her head no. Smiling, looking down, she said he was a crazy bule.

  “Listen, this crazy bule is gonna take you out tonight,” Sage said. “Just for a little while. We’ll go to the beach and see the ocean.”

  She said nothing and returned to her work, but she smiled as she walked.

  Sage finished his meal, the warung closed and they rode their motorbikes to the beach, in Seminyak. It was late and it was dark. The wind was less gentle than he had expected, but the waves broke softly into sand.

  It was very quiet. The night was still. They walked together. They did not touch or hold hands. She talked about her life and he talked about his, though he was sparse with details. They came from two different worlds and had so much to say. So much to learn about each other. He wanted to know everything about her, and he would share anything with her he had to give. But only if he had to. And only if she asked.

  Ratri had grown up very poor, she said. Sometimes there was little food, and sometimes there was none. Sometimes they ate berries and things they found in the woods. When she was small, her mother would leave the country for a year at a time to clean other families’ houses. She would live as a pembantu and send money back home.