Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

As little as Cooked’s family had, comparatively, they seemed more content than the resort’s guests. Or was that a Gauguinesque projection, wishful thinking by dissatisfied, exploiting colonists? The clichéd dream of the happy native? She’d given gladly when Cooked asked to borrow some cash before they left. In full view of everyone he gave all five twenties to his mama with a kiss. Wasn’t that kind of sharing, giving to those in need, what it was all about? Maybe her mother’s commune idyll had rubbed off on her?

Wende hummed “Road to Nowhere” (her favorite song from the retro ’80s music scene that she obviously liked — for example, her crush on Prospero — but which drove Dex crazy), and buried her face in Cooked’s warm shoulder on the ride back to town.

* * *

If Richard had told his friends back home that he was hanging out with Dex Cooper, he would have been envied, but the reality was something else.

Dex brought out a supersize spliff, which they smoked down to a nub; they started in on alcohol next.

“Maybe we should get some exercise?” Richard asked, realizing he sounded way too goody-two-shoes.

They proceeded to lazily lob the volleyball back and forth in the saunalike temperature. Titi came out and watched them, grinning, estimating they’d suffer from heatstroke within minutes, and went back inside. Soon they were stretched out under a palm.

“Ah, those look yummy,” Dex said, pointing at the cannonball coconuts right above their heads.

“Loren told me getting hit on the head with those is the leading cause of injury here.”

“Nah, I’m sure it’s more like getting eaten by a shark.”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s paradise here,” Dex said. He began grappling up the slick trunk of the tree. “Help me.”

“No way,” Richard said.

“Come on, bro. Let me stand on your shoulders to get a leg up.”

Richard knew it was stupid. One of them would probably end up getting hurt, but he did weigh a lot more than Dex, and after all, he was getting to be Dex Cooper’s buddy.

They scrambled for long minutes before Dex finally gained purchase on a ridge of bark and shimmied up to his goal. Richard limped away, afraid he’d dislocated a shoulder. His skin was abraded by Dex’s toenails digging in.

“View’s fine up here.”

“Shake them off and get down.”

Richard moved away as coconuts rained on top of him.

Titi came out, cross. “You come down.”

As Dex tried and failed to reverse his course, his former ease vanished. He was hugging the tree for dear life. “Easier said than done.”

He made the first rappelling move downward and came flying off the tree, landing with a thud. Titi and Richard ran to him.

“You okay?”

“I burned it.”

“He’s delirious,” Richard said. “Get Loren.”

“The song .”

“I don’t understand.”

“On the beach. It felt righteous, but now…”

Richard shrugged. “Write another one.”

“This was the big one.”

“Okay…” Richard was exhausted. This felt a few degrees beyond even Javi’s neediness. “Write it again.”

Dex opened his eyes. “Will you stay with me? You’re my good-luck charm. You saved my life yesterday, man. I can’t manage it alone.”

Midwifing the birth of a rock ’n’ roll song. What if this was the next “Satisfaction” or “Imagine”? Richard felt a tightening in his chest. They’d morphed from buddies to bromance. “I’d be honored.”

They locked themselves up in Dex’s fare , which Richard discovered was twice as big and much fancier than his and Ann’s, and ordered Titi to play bouncer, keeping everyone out and a steady supply of booze and food coming in.

At first Richard felt uncomfortable in his role as witness. “You sure you don’t want to be alone?”

“I need you here. You saved my life, man.”

The unkind thought passed through his mind that he wished Dex would stop mentioning the rescue. He didn’t want to be reminded of the disturbing mouth-to-mouth, or that maybe he was being befriended because of his CPR technique and not for himself. But what American male had not at one time or another fantasized that he was a rock star up on the stage — torn jeans, sweaty and grubby, pounding away, jabbing with the none-too-subtle phallic symbol of electric guitar at groin level? This was beyond a dream come true to watch the music being made. Richard took a slug of dark rum and passed the bottle over.

Dex’s creative process was deceptively unorganized. He wrote words on a notepad that Richard thought weren’t exactly literature:

The White Whale

Wanted it so bad and got it

Didn’t know what to do and burned it

Who knew it had such deep, deep, sharp teeth.

But as Dex started playing chords, the words grew meaning beyond themselves. Chords exploded, changed key. A melody in the beginning disappeared, then returned, transformed, deepened. It was about something unknown in the singer’s life — if Richard didn’t assume it was this afternoon’s disaster of burning the song and falling out of the tree — but also about more than that.

Went down that pole of darkness

Hit the earth and went on in

The words became beside the point. Richard thought about the music he had loved as a teenager — Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle”—realizing he had never questioned the meaning of those lyrics. The essence was inside the music, and it was clear that Dex had the magic, was able to weave lyric and melody with a genius utterly unexpected from the person he had observed during the previous week. It took four straight hours of playing before perfectionist Dex was satisfied, and an exhausted Richard could tell no difference between each version, but he could hear the difference after every tenth playing — a subtle refining process, an accentuation of improvisatory riffs. Even after a hundred repetitions, the final time Dex played the song brought tears to Richard’s eyes. He didn’t care if it made him a wuss: he had just witnessed a genuine birth. Something new and beautiful existed in the world.

“Did you get it back?” he said after waiting a respectful time till the last chord faded away.

Dex shook himself as if he had been in a trance. “It’s better than the first time.”

“Cool.”

The two men walked out victors into the roseate island sunset.

* * *

The women returned to the resort as the horizon faded to purple. The group toasted the end of the day with rum punches. With a sphinxlike smile, Ann showed a mystified Richard her half-shark tattoo, then swaggered to their fare to change for dinner. Wende’s lips were kiss bruised. Cooked jumped out of the boat and moored it to the dock. Dex felt sick to his stomach when he heard him humming an approximation of “Road to Nowhere” as he carried a small battered valise to one of the vacant fares . On his neck was a purpled love bite.

Titi stood at the kitchen threshold, scowling, waiting for Cooked to notice her. When he did, she turned her back to him and stomped inside.

* * *

“What have you guys been up to?” Ann asked. She was surprised at the sudden camaraderie of the two men after they had mostly ignored each other for the past week.

“You have no idea.” Richard grinned.

Titi moved around the table, banging down bowls and plates so they jumped. When Wende looked up at her, she saw her diamond WILD pendant suspended from Titi’s ear.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

Titi smiled. “I thought we were sharing everything, Polynesian style.”