“God damn it!” Ian slammed a copy of Life on the Mississippi to the table, upsetting his tea cup. “These people have robbed us of all that is worthwhile in life!”
“Robbed us? They’ve smothered us under tons of everything we always thought we wanted.”
“That’s just it, Tom! By giving us everything, these bastards have taken from us every reason for doing anything. I’m a builder, a designer, an engineer. My role in God’s world is to make things to better myself and to better humanity, and you’re not much different! What’s to become of us now? Are we to lose ourselves in mindless carnal pleasure like the first-century Roman patricians? Or spend our only lives in stupid mind games like the decadent Russian aristocracy? We’d be better off in prison!”
“Well, it’s a very nice prison.”
“Too damned nice! Tom, what I can’t figure out is why they are doing what they are doing. What do they want of us?”
“Well, what ever it is, they’re willing to pay one hell of a price for it.”
“If they want something, why are they paying without bargaining first?” His face was red and tight.
“So maybe they’re as ignorant of us as we are of them.”
“They have pre-knowledge and Hasenpfeffer says they have high intelligence.”
“Well, intelligence and knowledge don’t necessarily make you smart. Look at your typical college professor. All I know is that whatever is happening, we’re not in the driver’s seat, but it’s a pleasant enough trip. Let’s ride with it for a while. Maybe it’s just a colossal joke we’re playing on ourselves. We’re smart. In time, we’ll figure it out. Until then, I say we should take the Chinaman’s advice, relax and enjoy it.”
“Tom, that’s a disgusting attitude!”
“So what’s so disgusting about a vacation on a tropical island? We’ve been busting balls for two years without a break, let alone a proper vacation. Let’s lay back for a few weeks. We can always leave if things get sticky.”
“Are you sure that we can leave?”
“Hell, they’ve done everything we’ve asked so far.”
“Except answer certain basic questions.”
“So if push comes to shove, we’re still American citizens. We can call in the Coast Guard, if we need them, or the Marines, for that matter. They owe us something for all the taxes we’ve paid.”
“And just how do you plan to contact them?”
“Well, I think I’d start by making a phone call.”
“Good luck. I tried that last night. There are no outside lines.”
“So, if we need to, we’ll think of something else. I could build us a radio transmitter out of a broken stereo, if I had to. Look, all that’s happened so far is that we’ve got a whole lot of people who say they’ll do anything we want. Fine. Let’s see what develops. I haven’t noticed anything like violence, but if it gets rough, I have this gut-level feeling that we’re a whole lot rougher than they are.”
“Tom, it isn’t violence I’m afraid of . . . it’s ennui!”
“Well, that can’t hit us for at least three weeks. Look, there’s got to be a good beach here, with palm trees and a grass hut. We could take a picnic lunch.”
“With McDonald’s hamburgers and Colonel Sanders’ chicken?”
“You’re on. Some Gallo Paisano for me and we’ll have Ming Po make some tea for you. We’ll take Barb along in case we need anything else.”
“What the hell, Tom. It beats just sitting here. One thing, though. I’m not going to do one damn thing for these people until such time as I have figured out what’s going on!”
“Seconded and be it so moved!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Uses of Time
We got to the beach in a converted VW dune buggy, with Ian driving and Ming Po respectfully apologizing while giving directions. Ian’s right foot being what it wasn’t, accelerator control was pretty haphazard. I wasn’t troubled. If Ian flipped us, these people would likely arrange it so that we fell safely into a few tons of marshmallows.
The sky was a clear blue, the palm trees grew in profusion, and the beach was glistening white and clean. I even saw a few rake marks; nature’s little unpleasantries had been removed. The grass hut was right where I expected it to be. Everything looked suitably primitive except for a line of buoys a half mile out. Barb told me that they supported shark screens.
The girls seemed to have never heard of a nudity taboo, and Ian and I had often taken saunas together, so we soon dispensed with bathing suits.
It was an idyllic afternoon, complete with friends, sun, wine, food, and sex. At one point, Barb and I went swimming, leaving the others on the beach. Afterward, we walked arm and waist back to the hut. Suddenly Barb stopped.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t intrude,” she said.
Through the doorless doorway, I caught flashes of rhythmically moving flesh.
“Well, I’ll be damned. That just might be his first time, assuming that he wasn’t really raped last night. Ming Po’s persona must really appeal to him.”
“Persona?”
“You know, the character she’s portraying. Hey, I know that this is all an act, some kind of game you people are playing.”
“An act?”
“Look, I’m just saying that if you want Ian on your side, have all his girls be like Ming Po.”
“We don’t have that many Orientals.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s the race that matters. Just tell them not to get pushy. Give him some space, and he’ll probably start chasing them.”
“I’ll do that, Tom. Do you really think that we’re just playing a game?”
“You’re all as phony as a pile of forty-cent pieces.”
“We’re not phony, you know. We’re really very deadly serious.”
“Fine. So tell me what you’re so deadly serious about.”
Barb didn’t answer, and I knew enough about her to know that she wasn’t going to answer until she was ready to. But circumstances were pleasant and I can be patient.
Hell, I can outstubborn a cat.
We wandered up the beach and then through a grove of palm trees. Just when the drying salt water was starting to make me itch, I saw it.
Coming out of the side of a curving Royal Palm tree was a golden shower nozzle, with a pair of gold faucets within easy reach.
I didn’t say anything. I just used it and Barb joined me. It was not only fresh water, but heated fresh water. Disregarding the technical problems of a water spigot in a tree—I mean the bark wasn’t damaged, and that tree trunk started out being horizontal and then bent a full ninety degrees to become vertical.
How did they drill a fifteen foot long curving hole to put the water pipe through?
But disregarding that, how did they know that I wanted a shower at just that time? If it was that they could read my mind, why were they going through this hugely expensive charade of trying to please me? Or was I going to say something about it in the future, my future, so that they would know what to do in the past?
By damn, I would not say anything about it! I never did, ever, to anyone. I had, in fact entirely forgotten the incident until I came to be writing this narrative, years later, and . . . No! Damn it, they got me again!
When we were through showering, Barb opened a concealed door in the side of a boulder and took out a few towels. I stared at her in surprise.
“Did you think that we were the first people ever to use this beach, Tom?”
But I was resolved on the strong, silent technique. I went over to the gold faucets and gave them a yank. They came loose in my hand. They weren’t connected to any water pipes. There were potentiometers on the back of the faucets and they were wired to this tape recorder still inside the tree trunk. Barb looked amused as I shimmied up the tree and tore out the shower spigot. There was nothing behind it. Absolutely nothing but a short hole drilled in the wood. And the end of the pipe was capped. There was no way for the water to get into the shower nozzle that I had just used!
“Barb, how the hell . . . ?”
“I’m not allowed to answer technical questions, Tom.”
“Grunt,” I said.
I went back down with the nozzle and turned the water on. I’d half expected the water to come out of the nozzle in my hand, but no, it came out of the hole in the tree. Still holding the nozzle, I went back up the tree. Looking in the hole, I could see the water appearing just inside, about at the level of the bark on the tree. It just appeared out of nowhere. I stared at this for a while, then tried to put the nozzle back into the tree. Barb started to shout something, but I ignored her. That was my big mistake.