Peter Abrahams - Lights Out

A black dot appeared in the northwestern sky, grew, formed the shape of a plane, turned white. It flew overhead, lost its whiteness, lost its shape, became a black dot again and disappeared.

“Don’t trust no planes,” said JFK. “Boats for me.” He scanned the shoreline, taking in the six cottages, the thatched bar, the main building, the overgrown shuffleboard court.

“This place gonna make it, man?”

“It’s a nice spot,” Eddie said.

“Nice spot. These islands is not’ing but nice spots. Except no one be making it.” He took a penny from his pocket, flicked it in the air, caught it. “Takes luck, man,” he said. “Make a wish.”

“You make it.”

JFK shook his head. “You look lucky to me.”

Eddie thought. He knew there must be things he should wish for, but all he could think was: fun in the sun.

“Ready?” asked JFK.

Eddie nodded. He wished for fun in the sun.

JFK spun the penny off the dock. It made a coppery arc and a tiny splash, then vanished.

JFK smiled. He had a big smile, with gaps here and there. “Maybe I can make your wish come true,” he said.

“How?”

“Come. I show you.”

Eddie tightened the last screw, climbed onto the dock. JFK made a wobbly circle on his bike-he had a big suitcase, tied with twine, on the rear carrier-and pedaled away. Eddie followed.

JFK rode at a walking pace, up the conch-lined path, past the cottages and the main building, onto the dusty road linking Galleon Beach to Cotton Town. “Feel the heat,” he said. “We got nice spots. We got heat.”

Eddie felt the heat on his bare shoulders, felt how it made him conscious of every breath.

“We got the heat here, that’s for sure,” said JFK after a while. “You got heat like this where you come from?”

“No.”

“Where is that you come from?”

Eddie named the town.

“That be near L.A.?”

“No.”

“I want to go to L.A. That my number-one goal in this earthly life.”

“I’ll be there in the fall.”

The bike wobbled. “Whoa. You tellin’ me the trut’?”

“I’m starting college-USC,” Eddie said. He added: “That’s the plan.”

“Then what you be makin’ wishes for? You already got everyt’ing a heart desires.”

The road went past the fish camp, past a cracked, dried-out red-clay tennis court and its sun-bleached backboard, partly screened by scrub pines, then swung inland. The temperature rose at once; in seconds, a drop of sweat rolled off Eddie’s chin, landed on his dusty sneaker, making a damp star.

“Easy, man,” said JFK, pedaling more slowly; so slowly Eddie was surprised he could keep the bicycle steady. “You on island time now.”

They came to a flamboyant tree-Eddie knew the name now-by the side of the road. Not far ahead lay the turnoff to the airstrip. JFK leaned his bike against the tree, set off on a narrow path through the bush. Eddie followed. Something bit him on the ankle. He slapped at it, received bites on the other ankle, back, and face.

“No-see-ums,” said JFK. “Not’ing to be done.”

The path narrowed; vegetation brushed Eddie’s skin at every step. He began to itch all over. The sweat was dripping off him now. He thought of Muskets and Doubloons . Hadn’t there been a scene where One-Eye’s band of buccaneers chopped through the bush with cutlasses in search of buried treasure? The treasure chest had contained nothing but the severed head of Captain Something-or-other.

Ahead, JFK seemed to be moving faster. His thin calves knotted and lengthened in smooth motions, like water going back and forth in a tube. He began to sing.

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’

Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

A no-see-um bit Eddie on the nose.

They mounted a long rise, came down in a clearing. It was filled with head-high plants growing in rows. JFK stopped, laid a hand on Eddie’s arm. JFK wasn’t sweating at all, hardly seemed to be breathing, but his pulse beat fast and shallow, like faraway tom-toms.

“You understandin’ what you see?” he said.

“Marijuana,” Eddie replied.

“You got a smart brain. A college brain. Only here we say herb . That’s the friendly name.”

A slow, heavy breeze blew through the clearing. The herb leaves rustled and then were still. The sun was high overhead. It seemed to have lost its shape, expanding to fill the sky, the way stars were supposed to do, Eddie recalled, at some point in their evolution. There wasn’t a sound until JFK spoke again.

“I don’t like no planes,” he said. “Give me a boat every time.”

“You said that before. Give you a boat for what?”

“A boat like Fearless . Best name I ever heard for a boat. Except maybe Lot-O-Bucks , and she be sinking off Bimini last year.”

“Fearless belongs to Mr. Packer. Jack and I just have the use of it.”

“Perfecto,” said JFK. “If you want to be earnin’ a little extra bonus.”

“What do you mean?”

JFK smiled. He laid his hand on Eddie’s arm again and was about to answer when something brown burst out of the clearing and crashed by. Too big for a dog: Eddie had time to think that thought. Then there was a blast that knocked the top off the marijuana plant beside him. JFK yanked him to the ground.

Eddie looked up in time to see the tall green plants part and Brad Packer stumble out in front of them, a rifle in his hands. He saw them, saw, that is, living animals, and raised the gun.

“Boss!” said JFK.

Packer checked himself, lowered the gun. “Christ,” he said, “I thought you were a fucking pig. What the hell are you two doing here? You’re supposed to be working.”

JFK picked himself up. “Looking for guava, boss. I be plannin’ guava duff for dessert.”

Packer glanced around the clearing. “There’s probably some around. This island’s a goddamn greenhouse.”

“Plenty around boss, plenty,” said JFK. “Mrs. Packer, I know she like it.”

“She doesn’t need it, not with those thighs. Neither do I, for that matter.” Packer turned to Eddie. “Him I pay to look for guava. You I don’t.”

“He be helping me, boss,” said JFK.

“Yeah? Well, he can help me now. There’s a dead pig the other side of this clearing. They like it in here, fuck knows why. You can carry him back to the hotel while I go after the other one.” He started for the path, stopped, indicated Eddie with the muzzle of his gun. “And get a haircut.” Packer disappeared in the bush.

Eddie and JFK found the dead pig. It lay on its stomach in a circle of marijuana plants, legs splayed, bleeding from a hole in the side of its flattened snout.

“He be tense, man,” said JFK.

“Rigor mortis,” Eddie told him. “It’s normal.”

JFK laughed softly. “Too soon for rigor mortis. We know all about rigor mortis in these islands, my friend. But I be talkin’ about Mr. Packer. He the tense one.”

“Why?” asked Eddie. An ant crawled across the bared eyeball of the pig.

“The investor, man. Big investor coming from the giant to the north.”

“To buy the place?”

“To supply the cash, man. Some friend of Mrs. Packer’s daddy. Gonna make Mr. Packer’s dream come true. The hotel eight stories, the restaurants, the condos, the time shares. Golf, tennis, a waterfall. Maybe Shecky Greene.”

“Who’s Shecky Greene?”

“You never been to Vegas, man?”

“Have you?”

“Not the question. The question be is I hip to Shecky Greene? And I most surely be. I plugged into the happenings of the world, man.”

The ant stopped in the center of the eyeball, antennae trembling. JFK gazed down at the animal and sighed.