Going Native (34 page)

"But I thought the
belian
--"

"I want to eat something that doesn't taste or smell of fish, I want to sit on a cold toilet seat, I want to talk on the telephone for three uninterrupted hours."

As she spoke, Drake's expression underwent a minute tightening. "Well, I'm afraid we can't depart just yet."

"Why not?"

"I've put in for permission to go out on a tribal pig hunt."

The argument continued, over dinner, and well into the night. The Pekit, sensing private difficulty, left the visitors to themselves. At last, long after the rest of the village had fallen asleep, Drake admitted to his wife, as they sat in their room glaring at one another over a sputtering lamp of tree resin, that he simply wanted to kill something in the Stone Age manner before he left forever the Stone Age life. How about this relationship? answered Amanda. Of course, Drake couldn't explain such a compulsion, it was silly, it was disgusting, it was a demand of the irrational, but when craziness was feasible and didn't hurt anyone (except the pig, Amanda pointed out), why shouldn't said demands be acted upon? Besides, the experience could also be reasonably chalked up in the research column, plus they'd spent a hell of a lot of money and a lot of sweat to reach this potentially lucrative ground (so why not take full advantage?), and furthermore, Jack had gone on a pig hunt, too. His need eventually wore her down, and when Amanda finally relented they celebrated by sharing the last Fig Newton, passing it back and forth like a joint, and he vowed that once the village council approved his request, the morning after the hunt they could pack their bags and go.

Negotiations with tribal elders turned out to be as delicate and convoluted as bargaining with production executives, and for remarkably similar reasons. The Pekit were a people whose cultural life was centered upon the nuances of the wind, their ability to read accurately the whispers of the prevailing mood. Mood was their compass, their guide, the barometer of their existence and of the elliptical shadow where the here and now overlapped with the over there of the spirit world. An inability to gauge the correct mood left one in ignorance of primal matters, exiled from the truth, and stranded on the trail to loneliness, lunacy, and hunger. Since mood consisted of a collective sense of attendant presences, seen and unseen, the ideal tactic in a tribal society was to maintain a mutually agreeable level of harmony, a genial atmosphere among all members, or a psychic debt could be incurred. And the more that was owed to you, spiritually and emotionally, the richer you were. Drake's presence on a hunt and his offer of financial reimbursement for the privilege had to be considered in this complex uncertain light. Also, since a successful hunt depended on a successful interpretation of jungle signs, the fear was that Drake, a virtual repository of Western nervousness, inelegance (of mind and body), and general insensitivity, would shatter the mood, scatter the prey. That, after all, was what the West was all about: charging in, clearing out -- by gun, by bulldozer, by unritualized anxiety. So Drake's case was not a simple affair; the decision would require time, deliberation, and favorable augury. Drake was sympathetic to these concerns, he understood he was on trial, so he would wait without complaint, prove himself a capable guy by hanging out, doing whatever was asked of him for as long as it took to get an affirmative reply -- the virtue of patience winning over Pekit doubts.

Six days.

Amanda's mood growing more dour with every sunset. In the morning, awakened by the encompassing sounds of communal contentment, she'd lie there on the threshold of yet another radiant day and think, I am in paradise, yes, so why am I so blue? But, try as she might, the pressure of her perceptions couldn't be long resisted: amid the extravagant unreal splendor of the land, the versatile beauty of the people, life, the mingy getting and spending of it, remained terribly obdurate (a dismaying reminder of her own hopeless enthrallment to the principle that the allure of comfort draws us on); the demands of tribal society upon the concept of individualism were of a rigor sufficient to submerge the burgeoning ego in a welter of social and spiritual necessities, there was no secret self in the commonly understood Western sense of the term, private space equaled public space and vice versa; and, over and above all these concerns, hovered the brute monotony of the Edenic condition, the same duties, the same food, the same jokes, the same sky, a mindless routine so psychically enervating no wonder the Pekit were so involved in the various dramas of the spirit world -- it was their theater, their soap opera, and no wonder all visitors were compelled to perform before the assembled village -- the need for novelty, for entertainment, of even the crudest brand, was universal and inextinguishable.

One night, lying patiently on the floor mat beside her husband, waiting for sleep to claim her, she experienced a vision, she saw herself from faraway, from a remarkable vantage out in deep space, from God's veranda, and she saw the world on which she lived, saw it whole for the first time, a transit stop on eternity's commuter line, the flux of fresh souls arriving, and in unbroken unnumbered succession the freed souls of the dead streaming off the planet like pollen from the head of a flower. She caught herself with a start as she began to fall helplessly through herself. Her heart going like mad. So far from home. She reached out in the dark to touch Drake's chest, its reassuring rise and fall. The world still functioned as it should, by the standard terms, all normal in the engine room, on this predestined course to what unvarying end? And outside, through the cracks between the splayed planks of the moldering wall, she could see the blackened ham of night studded with star cloves.

A discussion one evening after dinner (rice and rice with rice on it) did little to improve Amanda's humor. She discovered the chief was more depressed than she was.

A tree, he explained, is a picture of the cosmos. The cosmos exists in the shape of a tree, as does God, as does man. The flights of birds are the thoughts of God. That is why man wears feathers on his head.

The forest is man's life, but those who go away from the forest forget that this is so. When they return, the trees are always in their way and they become angry. This is when the cutting begins. They think to make life easy, but they do not understand there is no extinction. The trees and the plants and the birds and the animals that disappear from our shadow world go to take up residence in the spirit world but horribly transformed into demons, angry and vengeful. So as the great trees fall before the blades of the bulldozer, they sprout again in the night of the soul that grows darker and darker, more impenetrable, more mysterious, more evil.

Because once all the trees are gone, there will be no way to get back to God. Then there will be no God.

Drake gave the chief his Dodgers cap and a pack of clove cigarettes. He seemed immeasurably cheered.

The days passed like stones down a bottomless well.

One afternoon, as Henry was instructing Drake in the preparation of blowgun-dart poison from the boiled bark of the upas tree, Drake casually asked him if he had a
palang.

Henry was shocked. "Where did you hear of such things?"

"In a book."

"Books are filled with much nonsense. Ancient practices to thrill tourists. Like the heads we're all supposed to have strung up like party decorations."

Drake kept looking at him, his face as serious as he could make it. "Only reason I asked, I been thinking of getting one for myself."

Henry's eyes were cool and brown, the shape of his thought flirting through like afternoon shadows on a glassy pond. When he spoke again, it was with a different voice from the one he normally used with Drake. "I don't have such a device myself, but many of the men of this village do. Many men along these rivers. Jalong wears one. But I believe this, too, is a dying practice among our people. Why would a rich American like you want a
palang
?
Do your women demand them, too?"

Drake was amused. "No, no," he said, "at least not yet. To be frank, I have no idea why I am so fascinated. I'd never even heard of a
palang
until I read about them in a guidebook and from that moment I've never been able to get the notion out of my head. I suppose it's like a kid hearing about hang gliding or fire eating for the first time and knowing instantly, intuitively, that that's something he's one day gonna have to try regardless of what anyone thinks. You're helpless, you're out of control, you might as well go ahead and get it over with before your nerves give out and plunge you down into something worse."

Henry listened respectfully. "I think maybe you were born into wrong tribe. Come," he said, rising to his feet, "I take you to
palang
man."

His name was Pak Mofung and Drake thought he recognized that mischievous moon-faced grin from the first-night welcoming party. A small energetic man, he was tremendously excited by this unexpected guest. That an esteemed Westerner should voluntarily choose to visit his apartment (the neatest in the village, Drake couldn't help observing) was an extraordinary compliment. He reminded Drake of the manager of a fast food restaurant. And when he heard the reason for the call, he seized both of Drake's hands together and began pumping them vigorously. It would be an honor to perform this special operation upon Mr. Copeland, the first American he had ever so attended. And certainly for such a noble subject he would be glad to work for free, but did Mr. Copeland happen to have anything for him? Drake handed over his sunglasses on the spot and sent Henry back to the room for the last carton of Marlboros. Pak Mofung was thrilled. And when would his good friend like to have this procedure done? Now? He clapped his hands in delight.

He motioned Drake to a well-worn stool. "Please, please, sit, sit." He disappeared behind an aqua shower curtain into a back room and returned a moment later with a first aid tin filled with strangely configured shapes of wood and metal. He measured the length of the first joint of Drake's right thumb with a broken piece of a child's ruler. "Good," he pronounced. He rooted around in the parts box, muttering to himself like a lonely tinker. Fists clenched, he came around to stand before Drake. "Now, Mr. Copeland, now is the time when I am so sorry to ask you to please undress yourself."

"Sure," said Drake, "don't know how we could do this otherwise." He slid off the stool, tugged once at his loincloth, and he was naked.

"Please," said Pak Mofung, indicating the table where he had arranged a folded towel for Drake to sit on. In one hand he clutched a stubby section of bamboo, in the other a thin, highly polished nail. He seated himself on the stool between Drake's open legs. "Excuse me, please." He leaned forward, reaching for Drake's penis, and as he did so, the limp organ shrank visibly in size, recoiling from his touch, retreating up into Drake's body like the wrinkled head of a frightened turtle. Pak Mofung giggled. "Look, he want to get away from me so bad!" He giggled again. A rare man who truly enjoyed his work. After much tugging and twisting, he finally got the bamboo piece over the penis with the guide holes on the end accurately aligned. He held up the shiny nail. "Are you ready, Mr. Copeland?"

"I guess," said Drake, the feathery edges of a creeping panic beginning to envelop his body. Do I really want to do this? Do I? DO I?

"Is there a bird or animal you like in a special way?"

"I guess," said Drake, the image of a shaggy black-maned buffalo flashing into consciousness; why, he did not know.

"Do you see your friend?" Pak Mofung had positioned the sharpened tip of the nail at one of the guide-hole openings.

"Do it," urged Drake. He took a breath and gripped the edge of the table. A bolt of rawest lightning leaped across the crackling flesh of his glans and out to the rim of the knowable. He went up into the air, he came back down again.

"Done!" cried the glad
palang
man. "Look, no blood!"

The inflexible ends of the penetrating nail extended in glittering absurdity from either side of the bamboo tubing like a sword plunged through a locked box into a magician's willing assistant. Except that this was no trick. From the shyly protruding tip of Drake's penis blood began to well thickly and fall in starburst drops upon the immaculate floor.

"Okay," Pak Mofung admitted. "Maybe a little blood. But no pain, eh?" He seized one of Drake's knees, shook it like a dice cup. "How you like?"

Drake wasn't sure. He felt dazed, as if he'd been involved in a terrible accident and managed to crawl from the wreckage relatively unscathed. He looked down at himself.

"I like it," he said at last. "I like how it looks."

Pak Mofung nodded happily. "Now wife love you much."

Drake smiled. "My wife already loves me."

"Never too much, Mr. Copeland, never too much." Then his laughter abruptly ceased and he resumed his serious mask. "Now, Mr. Copeland, I'm afraid I have confession to make to you."

"Yes?" Drake braced himself.

"All out of best
palangs,
no more bone or brass wire or outboard motor cotter pin. But I make something very special for you, Mr. Copeland, very special."

From the clattering odds and ends in his first aid tin he plucked a tarnished ballpoint-pen refill. He tested it on the palm of his hand. It was empty. With a pair of pliers he twisted off about an inch and a half's worth of metal barrel which he then coated with a yellowish goo scooped out of an antique shoe-polish container. Working quickly, dexterously, he removed the nail, the bamboo sheath, and slipped the ready-made pen
palang
through the weeping hole in Drake's penis. He finished off the job by slathering the entire organ with slimy gobs of the same medicinal goo, "to keep your spear from getting sick and falling off, ha ha ha." In America, Pak Mofung advised, Drake should replace his fine ballpoint with high-quality U.S.
palang
of gold and diamond, like the one the president wears. President's wife must be one happy lady. Yes, Drake agreed, she certainly was. And Drake promised to do what he could to spread
palang
pleasure throughout the fifty states. Before he would shake hands goodbye, Pak Mofung had to try on his new sunglasses. Did he look like a movie star? Yes, said Drake, he did, and he took a picture to prove it.