Savage Glen

A Story by Ron Sanders

Welcome to the Underbelly.

A first-person guy’s read--one of those Steinbeckian tales featuring characters who probably had no business meeting in the first place. But there’s a hero (kind of), a villain (most certainly), and a made-to-order damsel in distress. There’s murder, revenge, and street-level comeuppance, and it all takes place out of sight, out of mind, and right under your nose.

Savage Glen

On that lovely day Fate dumped me in the Glen I certainly had it coming, but, given my state of mind at the time, probably wouldn’t have sidestepped even if I’d been tipped off to the ironic and grisly outcome.

I was a homeless, penniless, self-absorbed drifter. My shirt and trousers were grimy and riddled with holes, my hair tangled and unshorn. My toes, nine funky creatures that were bleeding and gnarled, poked numbly from their torn canvas homes. To top it off I smelled like a cesspool, and knew it. But I was way beyond stares and whispers. I tell you, I was deaf to the clack of quickly locked latches, and absolutely unmoved by the sight of understandably glaring mothers. Man, I was so far gone the gulls laughed as they pelted my hair and shoulders.

I’d been working my way back down the Monterey coastline, having not seen a job or a Jackson since San Diego, maybe a year ago. My worldly possessions consisted of an old transistor radio with a dead battery, a broken hairbrush, and a pair of binoculars I’d picked up beachcombing; all kept rolled in a ratty, malodorous sleeping bag. Physically, even at this advanced stage of moral deterioration, I could have taken the necessary steps to redeem myself, but lately a particularly vile bile had come to roost in my soul. Ambition, wonder, compassion--these things were all but strangers to me. And as for the cozy, gaily motoring Beautiful People, they could go straight to Hell for all I cared. Nothing mattered any more.

Sometimes I’d hitchhike, sometimes I’d walk up or down the coast highway making camp wherever my fancy dictated. Recently I’d taken to wandering along the sand in Monterey’s quaint beach communities, back and forth, day after day, until some bored lifeguard or other chased me off. I never gave anybody a hard time; I’d simply nod and split. Anywhere was as good as anywhere else.

But today, as I sat on a jumble of rocks off the promenade watching the fat sun set, I was in no mood to be pushed. My stomach was rumbling and writhing, my joints ready to seize, my hands and feet freezing. All I needed was some tightwad freak to wish me a nice day.

To my right, the endless beach was quickly succumbing to twilight, and to my left a commercial pier stood over the waves like a tentative centipede, its underbelly secured from the public by a sturdy chain link fence. Behind this fence bunched a solid green jungle of lady fern, so densely packed it must have grown unchecked for years. On the boardwalk above were a small parking lot, an amusement arcade, a bait and tackle shop, a diner, and, just at the boardwalk’s entrance, a little market which also did business in funshine souvenirs. The market’s outer walls sported a continuous mural of long shapely ferns and p***y willows under a washed azure sky. Peeking from this idyllic dreamscape were leggy fawns, reddish-brown monarchs, smiling squirrels and carefree jays. A sign above the mural, bearing script as fanciful as the painting, read gentle glen. Only a few people were patronizing the place, but I knew it was where I’d be bumming my dinner. As I sat scoping it out, a curly blonde in cutoffs and frilly white blouse approached an exiting customer and began gesticulating and touching. The man--a very burly, swarthy character in Bermudas, windbreaker, and fedora--smiled and ran an arm around her waist. After a few more words they began sauntering across the parking lot. A minute later another man appeared at the door, wearing a white apron and a sour expression. He watched them leaning on the rail for a bit, looking as though he would spit, then reached to the inner wall and switched on the market’s corner floodlights. I shook my head and creaked to my feet. When it comes to making a buck some people are born with a distinct advantage.

Once the aproned man was back inside I picked my way over the rocks, ambled up to the market and leaned against the front wall out of the floods’ glare. No one going in or out felt compelled to offer me anything other than a hard look. I was just reaching the point where hunger makes panhandling aggressive when my radar warned of an approaching cold front. That man in the white apron came back out and fixed me with a very tough stare. “No offense--” he began.

“But take a hike. Right?”

“Right.”

“Just going.” I bent to lift my sleeping bag, my knees and back protesting, my head swimming. I was hurting for protein. The man in the apron disappeared. Before I could leave he reappeared with a squashed cold sandwich. “Maybe this’ll tide you over.”

“But don’t come back. Right?”

“Right.”

I thanked him and slunk around the market to a wall facing the parking lot, peeling off the cellophane with my teeth. We both knew I’d be back. It was growing dark, so I sat against the market’s west wall under an epileptic floodlight. I was just getting comfortable when that same curly blonde came hurrying across the parking lot, looking scared. Spotting me, she rushed right up.

“’Scuse me,” she burst out, “but if it’s okay could I, like, just stand here with you? Just for a little while? There’s some guy back there who’s really giving me a hard time. He’ll back off if he sees I’m not alone.”

I shrugged and tore into my sandwich.

Bologna.

It figured.

Now I could see that she was closer to forty than thirty, and that makeup couldn’t hide the wear and tear on her psyche. But she must have been really pretty in her day, before the crows’ feet and stress lines redefined her face. She kept looking back at the row of cars, where a dark figure was leaning on the rail overlooking the beach.

“Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere soon,” I remarked, finishing off my sandwich.

Half a minute passed.

She was starting to bug me.

“Why,” I tried, “why don’t you just go ask the guy in the market to call you a cop or something?”

“He don’t specially like me,” she said, sitting way too close. “I’m not real popular around the Glen.”

I crushed the cellophane into a ball and looked away.

“My name’s Cici,” she breathed. “My friends call me Peaches.” She squinted at the cars.

The dark figure was getting bolder, moving our way a yard at a time.

“Oh c’mon,” Cici said urgently. “Walk with me a ways, willya?”

And suddenly I picked up on an old vibe. This whole deal stank of a setup. “Walk where?”

“Just to where we can get away from this guy, okay? I’ve got a place he don’t know about--nobody knows about it! We can ditch him. Look, I’m hip to this dude, okay? He’s real dangerous.” She took my arm.

“What’s all this ‘we’ stuff? Since when did we become partners?”

“Would you just come on, already!” The dark figure was ambling our way.

I pushed, shoved, and groaned to my feet, intending to separate myself from the proceedings gruffly and with finality. But Cici, a no-nonsense grip on my arm, surprised me by dragging me around the market toward the pier’s arched entrance.

The dark figure began to follow in earnest.

“Look,” I said, attempting to withdraw my arm, “just get out of your own jams, okay? I got problems of my own.” Everything was happening way too fast.

“Shut up! Get…down…here!” She pulled me around the railing onto the sand. It was fully dark now, and my heart was pounding. What was I going to do, use a transistor radio to fight off some horny pissed goon? Cici hurried me alongside the fence to a spot maybe twenty feet from the waterline. There the fence continued at a right angle, leaving beachgoers plenty of room to walk below. Glancing over my shoulder as we ducked underneath, I saw a black form jumping onto the sand.

“Jesus!” I tried yanking out my arm, but Cici wasn’t buying. At that I realized it wasn’t some kind of setup after all. She was just as scared.

“Quick!” she whispered. “In here!”

Now I’ll have to be absolutely clear in my description, because I still get confused when I recall how we worked our way into that place. Cici led me around a soggy wooden pillar and behind a clump of tall, sour-smelling plants. We stepped up on a tiny wood platform, scooted around another pillar and squeezed behind a row of heavy standing planks, took a few paces toward the water on a sagging beam. She parted another clump of those plants to reveal a cut section of chain link fence. The section swung inward at her push, and I followed her in. The fence swung shut behind me. We were up to our ankles in chilly sand, completely engulfed by those plants.

Cici put a finger to my lips. “Shhh!”

It wasn’t at all dark, for long white slats from the pier’s security floodlights shone through the boardwalk’s interstices. In a moment we could hear somebody run past, pause, and continue running.

Cici took my hand and led me down a snaking path hacked through the foliage. Its density amazed me. The place was a weird, groping jungle; a hidden world.

We came to a clearing where three men as grungy as I sat around a gallon jug of cheap red wine. Considerable work had gone into making the place a home. Sodden pillars bore slats nailed horizontally to serve as shelves for found bric-a-brac, walkways had been laid using large stones and cinder blocks, crude walls were fashioned of hung plywood scraps. Tacked to these walls were a few posters, a wall clock without hands, a three-years-old calendar. Strategically placed chairs and mattresses showed half in shadow.

The man to my right rose as soon as we came into the open.

Not only did he have the look of an obnoxious and felonious bully, there were aspects of his expression which gave an impression of real viciousness, perhaps even psychosis. He was physically big, and broad, and of a pasty complexion that vaguely came off as diseased. But more striking by far was the fact that he was absolutely hairless--and not merely shaven. There wasn’t a trace of hair on his face, upper chest, or arms--not an eyelash or brow hair. And all this was evident from ten yards away. Several indigo tattoos showed loudly against the whiteness of his flesh, one in particular--the realistically depicted, and strategically placed, scars of a hangman’s noose--plainly intended to shock and intimidate.

The first words out of his mouth were, “Who the hell’s that?”

“That,” Cici retorted, half-whispering, “is a friend of mine. We was being chased by Otto.” I was to learn that almost all verbal exchanges were served up sotto voce in this place. She marched us right up to the little group, pulled a twenty from her bra, and held it triumphantly under the hairless man’s nose. “You know how he acts when he don’t get his way. We had to ditch him.”

The big guy tore the bill out of Cici’s hand and stuck a forefinger in her face. “How many times I got to tell you nobody comes in the Glen without my okay?” He gave me a really bad news look, meant to scare the hell out of me. I ignored him and continued looking around. Maybe he wasn’t used to people beyond caring.

“Funky-assed hooker,” he muttered.

The guy sitting to my left was filthy and heavyset, wearing gray sweatpants, tennis shoes, an enormous overcoat, and a black beret. Horn-rimmed spectacles with exceedingly thick lenses caused his eyes to appear offset. He winked and said genially, “Now as you’re native, comfort your bones and draw with us one.”

“What?” I snapped, certain I was being put on.

“Siddown,” Cici interpreted, “and have a drink.”

“And another thing,” the big guy rasped. “You quit turning tricks out front, okay? I told you once already you’re gonna blow it for us. Keep your butt up on the pier.”

“And, Ci’,” the genial man piped, “may I be first to express our gratitude concerning the wherewithal for this night’s repast.”

The big guy grabbed the fellow in the middle and yanked him to his feet. “Elf, you go upstairs and get some grub. Bread, cuts, and cheese. And another jug of grape.” Elf, who looked like his moniker, took the bill sheepishly.

The heavyset man groaned. “Puh-leeease. Not port; not again.” He rubbed a pudgy hand on his ample belly. “Mine ulcer, she sings.”

The big guy glared. “Grape!”

Elf nodded and made his way out, looking haunted.

I sat and accepted the jug, half-tempted to follow Elf out. But there was something about the big man’s manner that made me do the one thing that would really gore him. Casually sipping wine, I made a show of getting cozy.

“You ain’t wanted here!” he said, reading my mind. He strode through the foliage and disappeared behind a ramshackle partition.

Cici, sitting right beside me, said, “Best you don’t challenge him too much. He’s not just rowdy, he’s really off his nut. Once he told me he’s been like, you know, confined. For hurting somebody bad. And I seen him turn weird, if you know what I mean. He gets this look in his eyes like…pow! And he carries this great big hunting knife he likes to flash around, which he says he can’t wait to use on some big mouth. But most of the time he just gets his way with his fists.” She pulled back a handful of curls, revealing an ear that was swollen and discolored. “That’s what he done to me yesterday. And no reason, neither. Just out of the blue.”

I glanced at her ear and looked away. I’d seen worse. “Looks like it’s about time you elected yourselves a new big cheese.”

The bespectacled man sighed. “No Constitution down here, amigo. It’s jungle law, both figuratively and literally. And sweet old Animal’s no more guilty of being human than the rest of us.”

I grunted. “Animal. I would’ve guessed something more like Monster.” The ferns all seemed to lean to the clearing, eavesdropping. I found myself whispering. “Groovy little setup you got yourselves here. Kinda reminds be of a place I once saw in a picture book. Borneo, I think it was called.”

The man sighed again. “Athyrium filix-foemina,” he moaned. “Californicum Butters. Likes it shady and moist.” He glanced around meaningfully. “Obviously.”

“Crap grass,” Cici translated.

My eyes were adjusting to the contrasts of light and shadow. “What’s this Animal guy’s hold around here, anyway? Never before met a man I disliked so much so fast.”

“Rule by terror,” the bespectacled man said. “Gets his way with a gesture or a grimace.” He tossed his head. “Alopecia, along with a heavy dose of incarceration, may have played telling roles in his present behavior. But he’s too hung up to realize it’s not necessary. Here he bides, cohabiting with three of the gentlest folk you’d ever hope to meet, and still he swaggers around like there’s a mutiny threatening his little fiefdom. Well, it’s all a lark to me. I’m easy.” He smiled and offered his dry old hand. “Name’s Ollen. Ollen Keats Farthingsworth III. That seems a little prolix in present company, so I just go by ‘the Poet’.”

I nodded curtly. I’d always seen a handshake as an empty ritual; in more cases than not an invitation to a double-cross.

The Poet smiled again. “Like I said, I’m easy.”

After a while there came a whisper of brushed fronds. Elf slithered in, a bulky shopping bag in the crook of his arm. He extracted a gallon jug of port, a loaf of French bread, a package of cheese slices, and some cold cuts wrapped in white butcher’s paper.

Animal must have been listening for him, for he reappeared and strode right up, tore the food and wine out of Elf’s hands, and sat cross-legged with it all tucked between his knees. He stuffed the change in his shirt’s pocket, ripped the loaf sideways, and crammed in the cheese and cold cuts. Without a word he began wolfing down the enormous sandwich, starting in the middle and working toward both ends. The bully was reestablishing his turf.

Animal made a point of hogging the meal solely to get to me. Suddenly, mid-swallow, his eyes rose and burned directly into mine. The man was so loathsome I couldn’t help but return the stare with venom, and as our eyes locked everything around us seemed to freeze. Only as those ugly eyes grew progressively viler did I realize I’d been trapped into staring down a psychopath. Without averting his gaze, Animal completed the swallow and slowly and pointedly rubbed the uneaten portion in the sand between his knees. At the corners of my vision I saw Elf’s and the Poet’s faces fall.

Still holding my eyes, Animal made a show of reaching under his shirt. He drew out his hunting knife and slowly brandished it at eye level. I could tell how big the thing was without having to look at it directly, and while our little contest went on and on he twirled the blade in his fingers, catching and passing the radiance from the floods above. The whole point of this gambit wasn’t to frighten me, but to break my stare with reflected light.

“A-hem,” said the Poet.

No one moved.

I realized I didn’t have a thing to gain by beating Animal at his game, but I was already in too far. The more menacing his stare became, the more stolid I made mine. Crazy as it sounds, this must have gone on for the better part of an hour. Cici, Elf, and the Poet fidgeted constantly, even as I willed myself to stone. At length sweat began to creep over Animal’s forehead. His eyelids twitched. I saw him blink twice, almost imperceptibly. The man’s mouth twisted into a bitter snarl, and his eyelids fluttered. His face began to quake. He grunted. With his eyes still married to mine, he took a vicious swipe at my face with the blade. The tip just brushed my cheek, not quite breaking the skin.

The Poet was first to react. “Under the circumstances,” he breathed, “mayhaps mine ulcer wouldst not complain all that vociferously.” He gingerly plucked the jug from between Animal’s legs, unscrewed the cap and drank his fill. Elf and Cici responded like children under a Christmas tree, fidgeting and giggling. They nervously passed the jug.

Animal ignored them. Our eyes remained locked, his expression even meaner than before.

“Look!” Cici squealed. “Look at the lights! Somebody’s turned on the arcade!”

Someone above, the electrician apparently, had indeed lit the amusement arcade’s parti-colored neon façade, and now ghostly primary and secondary spots were dancing about us, vanishing and reappearing between the pillars and ferns. The effect was extremely surreal.

“Like being in a snow bubble,” Elf tittered. “You know, one of those little glass things you turn upside-down and shake.”

Just as suddenly the effect passed, leaving only the stark, humorless spears from the floodlights.

“Shoot!” Cici pouted. “Somebody had to go and turn us rightside-up again!”

The Poet chuckled. “Never in a day,” spake he, “hast one’s going wit so trod the moment made.”

“Shut up,” said Animal.

The Poet looked at him quizzically, a patient smile on his face. “Meaning what? Meaning let the bearing quiet run the clockwork of our lives? Meaning fault the Muse for sorrow’s sake, that our--”

“Meaning shut your stupid face,” Animal said menacingly. “I’m sick of listening to your crap, you got me? So either you clam up or I’m gonna clam you up. Is that clear enough for you?”

“We need not evoke bivalves,” the Poet responded in all seriousness, “nor the product of our bowels. If perchance mine song should ring askance--”

“I said,” Animal screamed, “shut up!”

The Poet stared for a long minute, blinking. Wine had made him careless, and a bit slow on the uptake. He looked at us uncertainly, wondering if his speech was garbled. The faces returning his stare were white as death. The Poet turned back to Animal. “Believe me,” he began, “lest I seem remiss in endeavoring to--”

What happened next happened so fast and so unexpectedly we were all struck dumb. Animal grabbed the Poet by the hair, yanked his head forward, and slit his throat in one clean swipe. The Poet gawked at the blood spurting on his overcoat. His hand started for his throat, but before it could make it he pitched forward. I sat quietly, bespattered, watching the spurts taper until the Poet was no more. Cici was in a strange posture, her hands raised, her eyes wide, her mouth all agape. I kind of expected a cinematic, piercing scream, but what came out was more like a tea kettle’s piping. And, like a kettle’s song, the sound just went on and on, finally descending in pitch until it blew away as a sigh.

“Jeez, Animal,” Elf whispered. “Jeez, man!”

Animal glared maniacally, waiting for me to move. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or snarling, but I wasn’t about to stare him down this time.

“Dump him,” Animal told Elf, his eyes pursuing mine. “In the back.”

Elf wobbled to his feet. “I--I can’t lift him. He’s too heavy.” He sounded like he was about to break into tears. “What’d you have to go and do that for, Animal?” He turned to me with a look of supplication.

“In the back,” Animal repeated.

Elf turned to Cici, whose eyes were rolling round and round in her head, then back to me. “Help me out,” he whined, “huh, guy?” But I knew enough to sit tight. Animal’s stare was searing.

Elf dragged the Poet’s body through the foliage, making an awful lot of noise. In a few minutes we heard him whimpering maybe thirty feet away, and eventually the sounds of digging.

Animal hefted the near-full jug and tilted back his head, his eyes never leaving mine. He swallowed and swallowed, his face contorting. I knew this wasn’t for show, he really needed that drink. Finally he lowered the jug and secured it between his thighs. There was a long silence, broken only by Elf’s distant whining and by Animal’s heavy breathing. Cici’s eyes avoided us both, and mine were fixed on Animal’s knife. In my heart I knew he was waiting for an excuse--any excuse--to use it on me, and that he was only beginning to consider the enormity of his crime. Animal belched, feigning calm. It didn’t take a psychoanalyst to figure out what he was up to. He was using the alcohol to steel himself, realizing he now had three witnesses to deal with.

The pier creaked and trembled with the tide as the tension wound down. Animal played out his scene with the jug, his eyes glazing, his mouth hanging open for successively longer intervals. I saw a ray of hope. If the big man managed to drink himself silly I could walk.

At last he set down the jug, having killed well over half. He stared dully at Cici and slowly moved his hand to stroke her hair. At his touch her eyes came to life, darting side to side, lighting on me imploringly. Animal wasn’t too drunk to not pick up on her look. His attention rolled back and forth between us--it was obvious he saw her less as a sexual opportunity than as a means to provoke me. He raised the knife until it was positioned before her face.

“C’mere.”

Cici didn’t budge, but her eyes were all over the place. Animal grinned, casually brought the blade around to her back and used the tip to snip off her blouse’s buttons one by one. He did it dispassionately, methodically, like a man removing grapefruit seeds with a butter knife.

Cici’s blouse fell open. Animal used the knife’s tip to draw it away from her body. Amid the spears of light and shadow the whiteness of her bra served more to accentuate than conceal her breasts. Animal rested the flat of his blade against her throat. Watching me all the while, he slid it in a long caress around her neck and down her back, finally hooking it under the bra’s strap. His eyes gleamed. With the gentlest flick he severed the strap. Cici shuddered as Animal used the blade to fling off her brassiere. Topless, caught in that wholly vulnerable posture amid the shadowy ferns, Cici possessed a sensuality that evoked every healthy male’s wildest fantasies.

The big man’s strategy was definitely working. Certain primitive urges, as protective as they were erotic, made me want to wrest that blade from him, cut out his filthy heart, and cart off my prize.

Animal smiled. “Where’s your manners, boy? You mind your own business.”

Cici watched only me as Animal pulled her face onto his lap. The knife glinted against her throat.

“I said,” he hissed, “turn…a…round.” I carefully turned away and stared coldly at the ferns. Animal wasn’t content to make a pig of himself and be done with it; he had to rub my face over and over in his gathering show of excess. It was all a greasy blur of gulps and grunts and squeals of disgust. And all I could do was just sit there, listening helplessly while the morning light drew dreamy patterns on the plants and piling. Never had a night passed so quickly. Finally Cici gave a little sob of defeat. I heard Animal’s voice say, “All right, get up.”

Unbidden, I turned back around. Animal was hitting the jug again, looking glum, and Cici was on her feet, naked, staring at a point equidistant between us. Animal scooted back and forth, almost losing his balance as he pulled up his pants. Cici turned to face me directly, caught in the classic pose of feminine abashment: right forearm covering the breasts, left hand concealing the crotch, right knee turned in. Then a really strange thing happened. She let her arms drop to her sides and looked me straight in the eye. My pulse shimmied at the mixed signals.

Animal took another long swallow, looking anything but triumphant. His drunken gaze languished on Cici’s stance. He blearily studied the way she was watching me, filled his mouth with wine, leaned forward and spat the mouthful right in my face. I let the wine roll into my eyelashes and off my chin, refusing to react. He ticked the knife side to side, very slowly, like a metronome’s pendulum set to largo. “I got eyes,” he said, and his face shook a bit. “Okay, tough guy. You do her, then.”

I forced myself to not tense up, still waiting for that subtle drift of countenance that would show he’d overextended himself with the wine. But his size seemed to be working in his favor. Drunk as he was, he didn’t appear anywhere near losing it. “Up!” he said. “Get…up!”

I rose almost nonchalantly, preparing to make my break. Again Animal seemed to read my mind. He grabbed Cici’s calf and tenderly stuck the blade’s tip in her navel. “Uh-uh,” he said. “You get your duds off, buddy. And you do it now!”

I kicked away my shoes, peeled off my shirt, dropped my pants and shorts. Cici and I stood face to face, our bodies inches apart. Only then did she begin to weep. The sound was soft as a whisper. I looked past her.

Animal swallowed and swallowed, set the jug down hard. He began tapping the blade against the glass, enjoying himself. The jug was almost empty.

“And,” I said quietly, not really sure what made me take a stand, “so help me God, pigman, when I’m done I’m gonna take that bottle and stuff it right down your big fat ugly bleached face.”

The pinging stopped. Animal was gaping up at me, his expression an odd blend of exultation and amazement. His eyes danced. “Elf!” he crowed. “Make room for another!”

“Just a little man,” I went on numbly, sensing his pride, and knowing I’d already gone too far. “Just a scared little man with a big, bad knife.” Animal’s eyes narrowed. His face assumed that same cruel expression that had so vexed me when I came into this place. With a grunt he plunged the blade into the sand, pushed himself to his feet, and rammed Cici aside. Before I could respond he had his hands on my throat and was choking me for all he was worth.

I can’t remember too much of the ensuing minute or so. I still see the shadows swirling about me as unconsciousness approached, and I still feel Animal’s thumbs pressing against my windpipe, harder and harder, and I still smell his foul alcoholic breath taking away what little air I could manage. But most of all I vividly see his face up against mine. And I remember how the savageness of that expression intensified, and how it became ecstatic, only to slowly lose its flame, waning almost to a look of sadness. A fuzzy spark of just maybe hit me--the dying man’s last gasp of hope he’ll be spared by a trace of humanity. Animal’s sad look declined in sync with my flagging awareness; the expression becoming regret, becoming weariness, becoming stupor as we collapsed. Through the coalescing shades of gray I caught a glimpse of Animal’s hunting knife protruding between his shoulder blades, saw Cici’s worried face looking into mine, and finally had a blurry impression of little Elf peering over her shoulder.

There wasn’t a whole lot to be done in a constructive vein. Elf wordlessly dragged Animal’s body to join the Poet’s while Cici and I stood silently, finishing off what was left of the wine. In a few minutes Elf was back, Animal’s hunting knife in his trembling hand.

“Only one thing to do, man,” he said. “Throw this sucker in the water and hightail it out of here. No weapon, no case.” He wiped the blade at his feet, encrusting it with sand. “You can just leave those guys in the back and let this stuff grow over ’em. Nobody’ll ever know.” He stashed the knife under his ratty old coat and looked around, searching for words. At last he said, “Man…I’m outta here!” and darted through the greenery.

Cici and I avoided eye contact, staring at the fronds long after the entrance had rustled shut. My eyes, reacting to daybreak, fell on the scant piles of our clothes. It was very quiet; only the murmuring of breakers and the creaking footfalls of stoic fishermen.

“Look at us,” Cici said, embarrassed. “Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.” Her fingers brushed my thigh.

We faced each other, and I found myself staring frankly at her naked body. I swallowed. “Now I can see,” I whispered, “why they call you Peaches.” Long shafts of morning sun began to play over the foliage, bringing to life a lush and primitive arena.

“Tell you what,” I said, letting my hand ride down her spine, “I’ll be Adam.”

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