The Sex Lives of Cannibals

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I admired the outer islanders. Though they had cloth, kerosene lanterns, and metal fish hooks, they survived on the atolls largely as their ancestors had, without any outside help at all. I was struck by how resistant to change these islands were. Inevitably, the handful of Western-style cinder-block buildings that were built on the islands for one grand purpose or another, stood derelict and forsaken, abandoned in favor of the customary wood and thatch homes and meeting places that were so perfectly suited to the equatorial climate. Traditional singing and dancing existed not for the benefit of package tourists, but as ways to amuse and engage the people themselves once dusk put a definitive end to the day’s work. The lagoons were clean, untampered with by clogging causeways and indestructible trash, and on the turquoise surface, men fished in skillfully crafted sailing canoes. It is no wonder that 85 percent of the thirty thousand people living on South Tarawa claim one of the outer islands as their “home island.” There remains a way of life on those islands that exists in very few places now. It is a way of life I greatly respect.

Even on the outer island though, the continental world intrudes in strange and inexplicable ways. Whoever unleashed Vanilla Ice on Butaritari ought to be severely punished. And no punishment would be too cruel for the miscreant who brought in “La Macarena.” But it is these glimmers of a world beyond the village that causes outer islanders to voice the lamentations of provincials everywhere—we’re bored—and many, too many, have chosen to depart their islands for the flickering lights of South Tarawa, where inevitably there is a relative or two whom they can bubuti. Every month, more people arrived on South Tarawa and more children were born. But the island did not get any bigger. The water did not become more abundant. And with too many people living on too little land, South Tarawa was becoming a filthy, noxious hellhole.

But it was our filthy, noxious hellhole. South Tarawa had become our home. We knew how to live here, on an island that had fallen off the map. Like the I-Kiribati, we had become fatalists. We no longer believed we could control our world. Each day was marvelously odd. One day I might be snorkeling with an enormous eagle ray, and the next I might be clutched over with stomach pain as the parasites that had made my intestines their home threw a party. A day might be wonderful or terrible, but it was never, ever boring. When I woke up in the morning, my first thought was always, What now? I am quite likely the world’s laziest adrenaline-junkie, and so living on Tarawa worked well for me. I didn’t have to do anything. Shit just happened on Tarawa.

And so when Sylvia’s contract ended, we weren’t sure what to do. Sylvia could have held on to the job until the end of time. She reported to no one except her donors. She had some good projects. The FSP staff were quite likely the most motivated people in Kiribati. She liked the job. As for me, well, the book wasn’t really working out. I learned that contrary to what they say, books do not write themselves. I thoroughly explored that avenue. Every day I said, All right, book, go write yourself. But the book wouldn’t budge. Instead, it asked me for a story. But I didn’t have a story, which, of course, is a problem when writing a novel.

This setback didn’t trouble me. Tarawa has a way of shattering professional ambitions. Of course, my professional ambitions could have been shattered by a hummingbird’s feather. Nevertheless, when your world is reduced to a sliver of land smack-dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, your aspirations tend to change. Once, I wanted to be a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Now, I aspired to open a coconut with the same panache as the I-Kiribati.

We could continue to live here, I thought. I could teach. I could suckle at the teat of the foreign aid industry. There was plenty to do. More important, there was still much to experience in Kiribati. I had plans to do some long-distance windsurfing. I was fairly certain I could reach Abaiang. Maiana would have been more difficult, but I’d already found someone to accompany me in a boat. I wanted to learn how to build an I- Kiribati sailing canoe. I wanted to explore more of the outer islands. Abemama’s distinction for quality oral sex, for instance, needed further investigating. Perhaps now and then, to escape island fever, we could travel, Air Nauru permitting, to a larger land, such as Samoa.

“If we stay any longer,” Sylvia cautioned, “we’ll never be able to go back.”

That was quite likely true. Any longer in Kiribati and the culture shock that was sure to inflict us upon our return would almost certainly prove to be fatal. When we first arrived on Tarawa, we laughed at the stories of the I-Kiribati who had traveled abroad, usually no farther than Fiji. One spent a week in a hotel room after she couldn’t figure out how the elevator worked. Another sustained severe injuries when he tried to navigate an escalator. One man who had traveled to Hawaii returned complaining bitterly of the cold. Now, as I contemplated going back to the distant shores of the United States I found myself a little more simpatico to the plight of islanders cast off in the great big world beyond the reef. Frankly, I was more than a little intimidated myself by the thought of having to weather the peculiarities of the continental world. On Tarawa, I understood life. Food came from the ocean; water from the sky. Coconuts were good for you; stand underneath a coconut tree for too long, however, and you would get conked. Tides determined the day’s activities. Taboo areas were to be avoided. There is always time. It had all become very manageable. I understood this world… well, most of it in any case. To leave the islands was to set forth for the unknown. We would be adrift in the continental world.

Of course that world had air-conditioning and restaurants and bookstores. There were doctors. There was ample electricity. Lots of water, too. And toilets. Lots of toilets. And there were family and friends. No one had come to visit us in Kiribati. Those who had the time lacked the money. And those who had the money lacked the time. There’s the conundrum of American life in a nutshell. During our absence, we missed innumerable weddings, a couple of funerals, and the births of our first nephews and nieces. I thought of the handful of long-term I-Matangs in Kiribati and realized that all of them had, either by choice or default, become severed from their old lives. The isolation in Kiribati is unforgiving.

It was the sudden appearance on Tarawa of one such long-term I-Matang that finally compelled us to make our decision. Half-Dead Fred had arrived. For twenty years he had eked out an existence on Tabiteuea North. I had heard of Half-Dead Fred, of course, just as I had heard of Banana Joe and a few of the other I-Matangs who resided on the outer islands much as the beachcombers who preceded them had. The government of Kiribati, however, had decided to expel the foreigners who had overstayed their visas. Half-Dead Fred had overstayed his by nineteen years. He had arrived those many years ago from the Marshall Islands, where he had been working for a defense contractor. One day, as an Australian might say, he went walkabout and ended up on what is quite likely the most traditional of islands in Kiribati, where he found himself marrying a procession of young brides, who provided him with land where he could cut copra. Life moved along in its usual helter-skelter fashion and suddenly two decades had passed. And after twenty years on the Island of Knives he was told that it was high time for him to return to the United States, which he had not seen since disco was king.

Half-Dead Fred was staying with Mike. Everybody stayed with Mike. If you ever happen to find yourself in the equatorial Pacific needing a place to stay, just head on over to Mike’s house. Bring him something to read, ideally a surfing magazine, and you can stay until you grow old. This seemed to be what Half-Dead Fred would have preferred. The government wanted to expel him to the Marshall Islands, but the Marshall Islands correctly pointed out that Half-Dead Fred was not Marshallese and that according to international law deportees could only be deported to their country of origin. The government of Kiribati, however, was not too keen to shell out the money for a plane ticket to the United States. And there matters remained until, miraculously, Half-Dead Fred’s father was found living in Florida, and he agreed to spring for the airfare.

Air Nauru, as usual, was not flying. It had been impounded in Australia—again—for declining to pay its bills. In the meantime, Half-Dead Fred lingered on at Mike’s house, which is where I found him one afternoon, enraptured by Mike’s computer. Mike, like everyone in Kiribati, was resourceful. One year he might get his hands on a hard drive. Three years later, he’d find a monitor. A year or two later, he’d get word that some westerner was soon to arrive on Tarawa and he’d fire off a telegram listing all the goods he desired that were unavailable on Tarawa, which is to say pretty much everything invented since the wheel. This is how Mike ended up with a video game called Doom, or was it Gloom, or possibly Boom. Anyway, as I walked in I saw Half-Dead Fred hunched in a chair spellbound by the imagery on the computer.

Half-Dead Fred had earned his moniker. He was so wasted in appearance that in comparison a cadaver would seem plump and rosy-cheeked. Tall and gangly with a long salt-and-pepper beard, Half-Dead Fred looked much as I imagined Robinson Crusoe would look had Robinson Crusoe been marooned for a few years longer. He wore a pair of shorts that anywhere else would have long been discarded or put to use as rags. He was shirtless and barefoot. Then again, I too was shirtless and barefoot. So was Mike.