End of the Ocean Read online

  It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.

  How long? But he changed the subject in his mind before he could answer. And with a lie, most likely. Because Sage liked to lie to himself. All men do, his mom had said. Which he believed, especially now, as he stood there admiring his expensive villa in Nusa Dua. And though he had not sought advice from either parent in as long as he could remember, there was something about divorce that bought out the psychiatrist in people. Not that he didn’t appreciate it. He did. He appreciated it greatly. But all the advice in the world could not bring her back. Not that he wanted her back. Not after what she’d done.

  Sage started walking again. Because he’d started lying to himself again. He was afraid he would take her back. Hard as that was to admit. Ten years was a long time to love someone and you could not wash away those memories with beer. Or advice. Or other women, though he would try. But he knew time was the only thing that cleansed wounds. And space. The distance now between them.

  Last week she’d lived only two towns away. Now the remoteness felt immeasurable. Ten thousand miles. If that did not heal his scabs, nothing could.

  Either way Sage wasn’t ready, though he did appreciate the console.

  An older Balinese man who was very short with a smooth round face, save for wrinkles around his eyes, wearing dirty shorts and no shirt, holding a scrap of cardboard that read TAXI in magic marker, called to Sage: “You need taxi?”

  Sage stopped, pointing to his chest with his finger: Me?

  Looking around, he saw no one else behind him; nor did he see a taxi.

  “Taxi?”

  Sage shook his head.

  “Motorbike,” he asked. “You need motorbike?” Shaking his head up and down as he asked, nodding yes, as if to persuade or convince Sage he did.

  “No,” Sage shook his head. “No …no motorbike for me, thanks.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “You need motorbike.”

  That time it was a statement, not a question.

  “No, really,” Sage said. “I …I don’t need motorbike.”

  “Yes,” the man countered. “You need motorbike. How you get round if no taxi no motorbike?”

  Sage shrugged and realized he did not have an answer to that question. He had not really thought of that. How would he get around? Walk? Unlikely. He’d just assumed everything would be close.

  The man saw an opportunity once he realized he’d broken through and he took it. “Yes,” he repeated. “You need motorbike. Ride motorbike. Ride round city or walk, no?”

  Sage had never ridden a motorbike before, or a motorcycle, or even a dirt bike; he had driven a golf cart, once, but he was drunk and he’d wrecked it. Really, that had not been his fault, it was his partner, Roy’s: always an asshole and usually drunk, Roy had urged Sage to go as fast as he could around the sand trap, assuring him the cart would not tip over, but when Sage cut the wheel it did tip over, turning on its side, smashing the roof and breaking Roy’s hand in the process, and Roy had the nerve to blame him, as if Sage doing what Roy demanded had made him responsible. But then, maybe it had made him responsible, maybe it was all his fault, he just hadn’t seen it, not at the time, which got him thinking—something he did not need to do at this moment, but it was too late. He accepted these thoughts and tried to learn from them, because that’s what Abraham Hicks would say, that every experience he should try to learn from, so maybe everything that had ever gone wrong in his life could be his fault, even his divorce, maybe that was his fault, too; his fault she had left him after she graduated nursing school and got her first real job, at the state prison, of all places, and perhaps it was his fault, when he found out later she’d slept with a bartender she’d met the night he took her out for her birthday, back when she was twenty-six, because if he had never taken her to the fucking bar in the first place they might still be together, and if he had just put his foot down against the prison job maybe they would still be married, except she’d wanted the prison job and he wanted to make her happy, so he’d said OK and wished her luck, because he trusted her, and he was proud of her, she’d worked hard and graduated at the top of her class; he’d believed in her as much as she believed in herself and when she walked on that stage with those other nurses to get her diploma he fought tears of pride.

  “Motorbike? I get you motorbike,” the man went on.

  Sage realized he’d been standing on the edge of the curb, which, in its own way, felt like the edge of a cliff.

  “Yes, yes. Petute get you motorbike.”

  “Yeah, well …well I don’t know. Pe …Petute?”

  “Yes,” Petute said. “Petute get you motorbike.”

  Sage looked down at his watch but it was gone. Sonofabitch. He felt for his cell phone, still in his back pocket. He could not remember why he’d put it in there, but he was glad he did.

  Petute, watching him, nodding his head up and down, said, “You wait, I bring motorbike.”

  Sage cleared his throat. “Now just, now hang on here, Petut—

  “Petuuute,” Petute said impatiently.

  “Right,” Sage said. “Now hang on here, Petute. How much for a motorbike?”

  “I give you good deal.”

  “What’s a good deal?”

  “How long you want?”

  Sage didn’t know.

  “Rent day, week, month. How long you want?”

  Sage decided he would rent a motorbike for a week and Petute said three-hundred thousand rupiah.

  “Sounds fair.”

  Petute assured him it was fair, that he had made him a good deal.

  “Wait for Petute,” he said, pointing at Sage with his finger, as if Sage should plant himself in that exact spot like a cactus and not move.

  Petute withdrew a phone from his pocket and started texting. He looked up at Sage.

  “Motorbike on way.”

  Sage laughed, awkwardly, completely out of his element. He said okay and talked to Petute while they waited. Petute owned a warung and a laundry and a small house in Nusa Dua. He would have his employees bring the motorbike, he said. Then he would see him tomorrow, at his laundry, where Sage could fill out paperwork.

  When they arrived with his motorbike Sage tried not to notice her but how could he not. She was small and caramel-skinned, with long dark hair pulled into a loose mess beneath her helmet.

  “This you motorbike,” Petute said.

  “OK, thank you,” Sage stifled a laugh under his breath. Still surprised he had actually done it. Something so spontaneous. Something so unlike him. The old Sage would have scrutinized this prospect from every angle and weighed his options carefully.

  But not anymore, that’s not what this trip was about.

  Petute patted Sage on the back and said, “Motorbike, you take.”

  Sage thanked him and looked down at the motorbike then up at the girl who had brought it.

  Petute said something quickly and sharply and the woman walked toward a second motorbike with a young Balinese kid riding it and climbed on the back.

  Sage watched them ride off, as Petute, snapping his fingers, pointed toward the bike. “This you start. This you gas—go fast.” Petute made a quick throttling motion with his right hand, then, pointing to the left handbrake, “That you brake. OK? You have it? You understand?”

  Sage felt foolish regardless of whether he had it or not, so he said he had it and hoped he did, deciding he would figure out this machine on his own time, in his own way, without any audience or assistance.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Terima kasih.”

  “OK, right. Thank you—hey wait a minute,” he said, making a signature gesture in the air. “Do I sign anything?”

  “Yes. You come laundry to morrow. Sign name. Give receipt.”

  “OK,” Sage said. “But where?”

  Petute pointed to a sticker on the side of the
motorbike. “That address.”

  “OK,” Sage said, relieved. He would figure out a way to find it.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Petute nodded and turned and walked from the parking lot and stood by the beach.

  Sage, sitting on the motorbike, held in the brake and turned the key. It started quickly and the engine was running just as quickly with restrained force that wanted to go.

  Sage let off the brake and the bike took off. Lifting up both feet, setting them on the in front of him, he said oh shit as he shot across the parking lot.

  He squeezed the brake hard and the front tire locked tight in the sandy lot and the bike slid away from him, but he planted his left foot on the pavement at the last second and prevented it from falling.

  When he did, he pulled a muscle high in his thigh and he knew it right away.

  Hopping back up into position, sitting down, letting off the brake slowly, he rode to the front of his villa and parked beside other motorbikes along a short wooden fence, wincing as he climbed off, the muscle he pulled already throbbing. He took small steps toward the villa, as a woman wearing a sarong of many colors bowed and greeted him and asked him how he was.

  “I’m fine,” he said, and returned her bow. “It’s very beautiful here.”

  “Terima kasih,” she said.

  “OK,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Where you stay at?”

  “Out back,” he pointed.

  “I see I see. So, hey, you are American?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, America I can tell by accent. Yes, I would love to go to America.”

  Looking at the beauty around them he could not understand why anyone would leave.

  “Yeah yeah, America.” She rubbed her fingers together. “Make big money in America.”

  “Make big bills. It’s expensive.”

  “It expensive. How much it expensive?”

  “Everything is expensive. Rent—rent is like a thousand dollars a month, eight hundred if you’re lucky.”

  “A ten-million rupiah a month?”

  “It depends where you live,” he said. “San Francisco or New York, it’s two or three thousand.” Sage wasn’t sure how much ten million rupiah was but it sounded like a lot.

  “What do you do?” she said.

  That was a good question. One he’d been asking himself for a while. What did he do? What would he say? That he was a painter or a novelist? How could he tell her he was a former military man, turned salesman, who was now unemployed?

  “I write science fiction.” It was the first thing that came to mind.

  “Oh,” she said. She was impressed, he could tell, but he could not believe he had said it: I write science fiction. In all the time he’d had to practice his story that was the best he’d come up with. Writing. And of all things science fiction. Something he knew nothing about in a genre he was unfamiliar with.

  She pointed toward a room with large wooden tables and tall wooden chairs and asked him if he was hungry. “You like breakfast?”

  He nodded. He would love breakfast. Whatever it was he smelled cooking he would take it.

  She took him by the elbow and guided him to the tables.

  “You work here?”

  “Yeah yeah, at villa. I hostess.”

  “OK then, I’m Sage. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “I Dina.” She took his hand and shook it and bowed.

  “Well, thanks for breakfast. This is a great idea.”

  “You look hungry. Like you sleep on beach.”

  Dina smiled at Sage and he smiled back. “I got drunk last night,” he said. He shrugged and hoped she had not seen him pull his thigh muscle on the motorbike.

  “Oh yes, get drunk is good. You drink arak?”

  “Uh,” he said. “I don’t think so. Should I?”

  “No no, it no good. Well, maybe some time it good but,” she held her hand in the air and shook it from side to side, frowning. “Some time it good but most time no good.”

  “Oh,” Sage said. “OK then.”

  “It not make right. Make sick, very very sick, yeah. Sometime make you go blind.”

  “What? This drink makes you sick—makes you go blind?”

  “Yeah yeah,” she said. “Some time.”

  “Why would anyone drink it?’

  “Because it cheap, it good.”

  “Oh. Really?”

  “Same same.”

  “Well, thanks for the …warning, I guess. Anyway, yeah, I’ll stay away from that.”

  Laughing, she shook her head like she understood. Saying again it was very bad.

  Sitting at the table he ran his fingers over the menu, thankful it was in English. The hostess returned to her duties and left him to his breakfast. In a way he was grateful. He did not know what lie he would tell her next. I write science fiction. How could he have been so foolish? What if she had been a fan and called him on it. He laughed about it then. The chance she would know any science fiction writers was as funny as the lie itself. But that was the allure of Bali. He could be whoever he wanted. Maybe he was a science fiction writer. Who would know? And if he had not been a science fiction writer before today, maybe he was now—since he could be anything he wanted here. He might just pick up a pen and start today. He could say what he wanted and no one would know.

  In some strange way it felt good to have that freedom.

  He decided he’d have eggs and chili sauce and bacon. And then maybe he’d ride his motorbike. Or take a nap. In this new life he could do whatever he wanted.

  Looking around the room at the Balinese artwork, he waited for his server to come. The air was hot already, even at an early hour. A fan hung above the table, oscillating from left to right. It looked like it was fifty years old.

  His waitress brought his food and a small plate of fruit and a glass of water and a cup of coffee.

  “Bagus?” she asked.

  Sage thought about what that word could mean and began to nod slowly.

  “Yeah, I, uh, sorry, I can’t speak Balinese. Only English.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Bagus.” She nodded slowly. “Bah goose. Mean ‘good.’”

  She pointed to his food.

  “OK, bagus means good?”

  “Yeah, it mean good. Bagus.”

  “Bagus,” he said. They both looked down at his plate and she smiled at him.

  “Oh,” Sage said. “Yes, yes. Bagus. This,” he pointed to the arrangement on his plate, “this looks good—very good. Bagus. Thank you.”

  She bowed and said, “Suksma,” and turned and walked away.

  Sage ate his food slowly and watched two people who entered the room. They were an older couple, he assumed American, but when they asked for a menu he heard they were Russian. The man, large and loud, talking fast and walking hastily, clearly agitated; the woman, his companion, was small and fragile and inattentive.

  They found a table and sat down and looked over the menu.

  Sage devoured his breakfast. The bacon tasted different from the bacon he was used to but it was still fine bacon. The eggs were soft and scrambled gently with a nice puff to them. His toast was neither soft nor hard but perfect in texture and brown with a crispness when you bit into it. He drank his water and it was very cold. He drained the glass and set it down as his waitress approached with a fresh glass and removed his empty one and asked him how he liked his breakfast.

  “Very much,” he said. “It’s great—er, uh, I mean, bagus. It’s bagus.”

  “Ah, bagus yeah yeah.”

  She left him with his empty plate and his fresh glass of water, which he drank slowly as he watched people in the room. All of them good natured and very friendly. Sage knew it was a life he could get used to. Somehow, already, as strange as this place was to him, he already felt at home.

  ***

  Wayne Te
nder met a Balinese man named Tuk in an alley in Kuta in front of a clinic called Rejuve. They parked beside each other’s motorbikes and talked.

  “Been long time Mister Wayne Tender. How you do?”

  “Fine, Tuk, and how are you this lovely day?”

  “Tuk worry.”

  “Awe bloody hell, don’t say that.”

  “It truth. Another foreigner get caught at airport try bring in crystal methamphetamine!”

  “I heard about that.”

  “Stupid, way she get caught. Lazy. No good hiding spot.”

  Wayne agreed she was lazy, and that a good hiding spot was essential.

  “Now she caught,” he went on, “now Bali 9 go to get shot all of sudden, everything hot for now …can no do nothing for while.”

  “No, no Tuk, you fucker, I need this. Everything’s still good. We’re good, Tuk.”

  “No no, you crazy. Nobody move nothing, not now. That is order.”

  “An order?”

  Tuk nodded. “You know how it work,” he said. “Let thing die down then we go back do good business.”

  Wayne said, “I don’t have time for this horseshit.”

  Tuk, starting his motorbike, bowing, gave Wayne a nod and rode off.

  Wayne pulled forward on his motorbike as it started to rain. Bloody piss. This was not the news he’d been expecting. He was counting on this deal. People had already been contacted and plans were in motion. Shit. Wayne was getting soaked. He turned right and goosed the throttle and ran a stop sign. He could call another meeting, but what good would that do? It was too late to turn back. There was a shipment coming in today and money to make and people to pay. Many people. Especially polisi. He could not wait.

  Wayne, pulling over, parking beneath a metal-roofed building, turning off his motorbike, listened to it rain. Water pounded the roof and the streets. It flowed down Jl. Pantai Kuta in a rush, washing small cardboard squares with incense on them down the gutter. He saw them everywhere. Incense was heavy in the air all around him.