Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

* * *

The commandeered trawler had huge freezers belowdecks filled with thousands of frozen-solid tuna awaiting their long voyage to the grocery stores of the world. The decks were brownish and slippery, and a smell permeated the boat — a mix of public bathroom, fertilizer, and freshly opened cans of cat food.

They were held in a kind of Soviet-style conference room, with dingy Formica tables nailed to the floor and bare lightbulbs in wire cages overhead. Within the closed room, the air heated and expanded the dead-fish smell to toxic levels. The police ignored Cooked and started questioning Dex and Ann.

Cooked was used to being snubbed in his own land, a second-class citizen in his place of birth. Even during civil protests, he didn’t count. Foreigners controlled them, and other foreigners, benevolent ones, championed them, but they themselves were treated like children or pets, incapable of participating in their own emancipation. Cooked turned his back on the whole proceedings, and stared at the blank scuffed wall instead.

After an hour of haranguing back and forth, Ann determined that there was no point in going farther on their trip. If they approached the off-limits zone, the police informed them, they could be legally arrested. If they resisted, their very nice borrowed yacht would be either impounded or sunk.

As the police conferred about what to do with them now, Ann noticed Cooked staring at the wall in a trance. Something had come over him — he was acting strangely.

A sailor came in from outside and whispered in the police chief’s ear. He frowned. “Mr. Cooper, it appears you have a visitor.”

Dex said nothing, thinking it was a trick. Sneaky police. He was thinking of various scenarios from Casablanca and Blade Runner .

“Where is the visitor?” Ann asked.

“In a boat below. We’re denying boarding.”

“Nice.”

Dex, Cooked, and Ann went back outside under escort and looked over the side of the ship.

“Robby?” Dex yelled.

Ann saw a blond, muscled version of Dex. Robby was the golden boy of the band, the heartthrob of the good girls while Dex appealed to the bad ones.

“Thought you needed some help,” Robby yelled up. “I’ve got our lawyers here.”

“I’ve got my lawyer here already. Go on to the island and wait for us.”

No denying it — Ann was proud.

Cooked felt a strong wind wash over him. This was what he had waited for in vain the night of his vision quest on the rock, his hoped-for, Laura Vann — inspired statement. The truth was nothing had happened that night other than his own determination. Now he was literally inspirited. The ancestors entered him in the form of a shark. Without another thought he sprang up on the railing and dived overboard in a perfect arc that the paparazzi captured for all time, and that would be used for the cause of independence and later as a promo poster for the resort, and even later for tourism to the islands, and that his and Titi’s children, and then their grandchildren, would hang proudly in their living rooms.

The police, shocked, stood paralyzed for a moment — did this qualify as an escape attempt? — before unholstering their guns and firing into the water.

Luckily they were poor shots.

Cooked bobbed up a few hundred yards away with only a nick on one ear. He was pretty sure he could swim all the way back to the island he felt so pumped. That lasted until he realized he was bleeding and then he began to flail as Robby’s boat raced to pick him up. The police, spooked and demoralized, released Dex and Ann with a warning, and they hitched a ride with the paparazzi back to the yacht.

“You guys missed lunch,” Shawn said, as if this was the most ordinary of days. “Hungry?”

Cooked, at peace after having done his bit for the ancestors, lay bandaged on the sofa, eating from a bag of potato chips while watching a ball game on the big screen.

Ann was the one who now trembled. “You could have been killed.”

Cooked shrugged. “Cheeseburgers.”

“You got it,” Shawn said. “Where we headed to?”

“Back to the island,” Dex said.

“Too bad the outrigger is gone,” Ann said.

“ No problemo ,” Shawn said. “I’m teleconferencing with a sweetheart named Wendy over at the resort. She said she’d order it up.”

Dex sized up yet another potential rival.

Hours later, as a Technicolor sunset plastered the sky in gaudy oranges, reds, and purples, a tired Dex, Ann, and Cooked were paddled to shore. Loren had relented and allowed the paparazzi to land, and they had been partying with the wedding guests. The story was over. The reporters had been thrilled when Robby showed up earlier, and he had already done dozens of interviews talking about the band’s evolving role in world humanitarian crises.

“Because we’re about more than the music, right? We’re about the people.”

Now, the paparazzi, drunk and stoned, full of roast pork and breadfruit, dutifully marched down to the water at Wende’s request (coupled with the threat of expulsion) to record the victors’ landing.

As the outrigger came closer to shore, Cooked stood in the boat, an undignified wad of cotton gauze on one side of his head, to wild cheering, drum beating, and flower throwing. Even Wende approved the spectacle. When Dex made a move to stand also, Ann reached out and held him back. This was Cooked’s day.

* * *

Earlier, when Robby had jumped out of the boat along with two of Prospero’s attorneys, Wende just gave a short nod hello. From the old days, she suspected, rightly, opportunism on his part. A call had come in from Shawn that the yacht was headed back, and she was on her way to tell Richard and Titi the good news. Yes, she was extremely relieved — she surely didn’t want them getting radiated, or whatever it was — but the impresario within her was the smallest bit disappointed in the loss of a climax for the story. As dramatic as the paparazzi’s live feed of the police trawler had been, basically Dex, Cooked, and Ann had gone on a daylong joyride in a yacht. Now that Robby had shown up, stealing the thunder so carefully built up, who knew how that would affect public sentiment?

The wedding guests, despite the language barriers, were enjoying the paparazzi and their infinite capacity for alcohol, which even by Polynesian standards was truly impressive. Preparations were under way for the nuptial ceremony the next day that would last three more.

Was her project over? Wende lamented, watching the women weaving wedding mats from banana leaves. She didn’t want to turn National Geographic and film that. There would be a feast of native foods, drumming and dancing. There would be … Why not a concert with Dex and Robby? A benefit concert that featured the new song, with the money it earned going to victims of the radiation poisoning and a legal defense fund seeking reparations from the government. Wende forgot all about Richard and Titi being reunited with their loved ones, and ran back to give Robby a lavish hug and make nice.

* * *

When Cooked readied himself to jump out of the canoe, the eight “cannibals” were there to greet him. They had converted tomorrow’s wedding throne into a king’s throne — decorated with palm fronds and a feathered headdress at the back. They carried him to shore because a hero’s feet should not touch water. He was disappointed that Titi wasn’t on shore to kiss him. The paparazzi, bloated with photographic riches, snapped a few pics for their personal photo albums, then went back to their carousing. For many of them, this was the best assignment they had ever been on, probably would ever be on, and they were making the most of it.

Forgotten, Dex and Ann helped each other off the boat and through the water. No one was there to greet them. A young boy was plunging tiki torches into the sand and lighting them. A young woman in a pareu walked by and offered them fruit juice. They sat in the sand and toasted.