The Big Bamboo (27 page)

“You’re a boob.” She laid her head back down.

Serge reached in the car and grabbed a handful of hair. “Up you go.”

“Ow! Okay, okay!”

Everyone marched down through the brush and out onto the beach, which wasn’t really a beach but a rocky sand spit littered with driftwood. Serge grabbed the shopping bag from Coleman and threw it at the men’s feet. “Put those on.”

They didn’t move.

“Now!” Serge aimed the pistol.

One of them slowly bent down and reached in the bag. “Wet suits?”

“Hope I got your size right. They’re supposed to be snug anyway.”

Ally lay down in the sand and used a smooth rock for a pillow. Serge handed Coleman the gun as the men reluctantly changed into scuba outfits. “Keep ’em covered. I won’t be long.”

Serge raced back to the village they had just passed. A light mist. He went in a fishing tackle store and came out with sealed buckets. Next: a rental shack at the end of the dock. Serge handed a stolen credit card to a man in an orange rain poncho.

The man ran the card through a manual carbon imprinter and handed it back. “You’re just one guy. Sure you need an eighteen-footer?”

“I like to spread out.”

Serge climbed down a wooden ladder with barnacles exposed at low tide. Soon a high-pitched, two-stroke whine erupted from the water. Puffs of smoke and carbon monoxide. An inflatable Zodiac boat raced away from the pier and out to sea.

Dawn approached, but the fog made it seem farther off.

Two potbellied Alabama boys stood on an isolated shoreline. The wet suits felt like girdles.

“But we just want to
see
the gun,” said one of the men. “We’ll give it right back.”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to,” said Coleman.

A thirty-five-horsepower drone came up the coast. The sound grew louder until an eighteen-foot Zodiac soared around the bend and ripped a hole in the fog. Serge idled the engine and nosed the boat ashore. “All aboard!”

The boat took off north. Two nervous men in wet suits sat up front, eyes on nothing but the gun in Serge’s right hand. Serge manned the tiller with his left, sealed buckets and a curled-up Ally at his feet. He nudged her with the gun. “You’re going to miss this.”

“Stop it,” said Ally. “I was almost asleep again.”

Serge shouted over the engine and waves. “Where you guys from?”

They didn’t answer.

“Come on,” yelled Serge. “This is going to be a long trip without conversation. What parts?”

“Opelika,” said one.

“Selma,” said the other.

“I’m actually very fond of Alabama,” said Serge. “
Where the skies are so blue!
That should be the state song instead of whatever they’ve got. Georgia uses Ray Charles, so Skynyrd should be eligible now that they’ve cleaned up. Did you know that was their rebuke to Neil Young trashing the state on the
Harvest
album? I remember thinking, yeah, Neil was out of line, but if blue skies are all you can come up with, it’s faint-praise damning. Until I got a whiff of the smog out here. That’s why Neil’s voice always sounds like he’s bringing up another hairball. So you have nothing to apologize for. Pay no mind to the jokes. ‘Alabama: We’re first alphabetically!’”

The hostages looked at each other from the corners of their eyes.

“Yes, sir. I love the sea!” Serge filled his lungs with salt air. “Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Florida movies,
The Day of the Dolphin
! Remember that? George C. Scott taught this dolphin rudimentary English. Its name was
Fa
, short for
Alpha
. And at the end, Scott had to run the dolphin off so evil forces couldn’t use him to plant a bomb under the president’s yacht. And the dolphin goes, ‘Fa love Pa,’ and Scott goes, ‘Pa doesn’t love Fa…’”

Serge couldn’t continue. He hugged Coleman and bawled on his shoulder. “How could he do that? It was just an innocent animal!…”

Coleman patted him on the back. “Easy, buddy…”

Serge sniffled and raised his head. The two men were creeping down the boat toward him. Serge aimed his gun. “That’s no way to build trust.”

Ten minutes later Serge recognized an outcropping on the coastline. He cut the engine three hundred yards from shore. The boat bobbed silently as the fog began to lift.

“This is what it’s all about,” said Serge. “I may be a fool for the city, but you gotta air out the ol’ melon from time to time or you’ll explode…” His ears perked up. “Listen…I think they’re on the way.”

“Who’s on the way?” asked Coleman.

“This is a seal watch.” Serge restarted the engine. “Did some online research with the Sierra Club to locate their colonies. They live right over there on those rocks.”

“I don’t see them,” said Coleman.

“Morning feeding time. It’s amazing how you can practically set your watch by nature.”

“Is that them over there?” said Coleman.

“Way to be alert.” Serge throttled over as quietly as he could, gauging a vector parallel to shore. He cut the engine again and stood up. “This is it, guys. End of the line.” He motioned with his gun. “Into the water.”

They looked over the side at the dark sea.

“Your call,” said Serge. “There’s the shore. I can shoot, or you can try to swim for it. You look pretty buoyant—”

Two big splashes before he could finish the sentence. But instead of swimming for land, the men faced the boat and treaded water, expecting maybe Serge would shoot them anyway.

Coleman pointed at the oncoming mass of seals. “What are they hunting for?”

“Little fish.”

The two men kept dog-paddling, focused on the disturbance in the waves coming toward them. One of them called up to Serge: “Do they ever hurt people?”

“Never,” said Serge. “Although they could. Some are over six feet and very agile underwater, while others prefer basketball and musical instruments.”

“Look at ’em go,” said Coleman. “They sure move fast when they’re hunting.”

“They’re not hunting anymore. They’re running.”

“Running?”

“The magnificent balance of the food chain. They go out for breakfast, and bigger stuff comes looking for them. That would be those tall fins over there.”

“Poor seals,” said Coleman.

“Don’t worry,” said Serge, peeling the lid off his pails and dumping bloody chum over the side. “They’re very fast and wily. Rarely get caught…” The two men suddenly began swimming as fast as they could for shore. “…Except once in a while, an injured seal falls behind the pack…”

Coleman popped a beer. “Or something mistaken for a seal?”

Terrible screams off the starboard side. The water boiled with thrashing.

Serge pull-started the engine. “That’s why you never, ever swim at dawn with the seals. And
definitely
not in a black wet suit.”

The screaming ended and the sea became still again. Serge began motoring south. Coleman lay back against the inflatable bow, admiring the sunrise. “I never realized nature was so beautiful.”

“But she can also be a cruel mistress.”

The phone was ringing when they came in the door.

Serge picked it up. “Hello?…Oh, hi, Tori…. We were just talking about you…”

Coleman turned on the television, surfing for porn. A local channel caught his eye.

“…Of course we’re in the room. Where else would we be?…Ally’s fine…”

Coleman pointed at the set. “Hey, Serge. There’s something about us on TV.”

Serge waved for him to be quiet. “…No, nothing unusual…”

Coleman turned up the volume. A reporter with a microphone stood on the Walk of Fame.
“…Ms. Street doesn’t yet have her own star on this famous boulevard, but you wouldn’t know it from the sidewalk vendors doing brisk business in Ally gear…Excuse me, sir…”
The reporter approached a kiosk next to the Roosevelt Hotel.
“What are your bestsellers?”

“The RUN! ALLY! RUN! shirts and keychains.”

“What does Ally mean to you personally?”

“She’s my role model.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of everything she represents.”

Serge paced with the phone. “…Well, I’m glad you’re checking to make sure we’re in the room. Just shows you’re responsible…”

Coleman tugged Serge’s arm and pointed at the set. The reporter stopped two tourists walking down the sidewalk in matching Ally shirts:
You Shop, Girl!

“And what do you think about the Ally Street case?”

“It’s so exciting knowing she’s out there. It’s like she’s doing this for all of us.”

“She’s such an inspiration,” added her friend.

Serge paced in front of the set. “…No, I didn’t take any offense. It’s your job to check…In fact, I’m getting to like this room. I don’t
want
to leave…You don’t have to apologize—I didn’t take it that way…Right…Right…Of course…”—Serge rolled his eyes—“…Yep…Right…You got it…Peace. Out…”

Coleman cracked a beer and changed channels with the remote.

Serge slammed the phone down. “All the women in my life! You try to be polite, but they still talk to you.”

“Hey, Serge. We’re on this other channel, too.”

“What do you mean ‘too’?”

“Our vacation movie.”

“I’ll be,” said Serge. “They picked up the pilot.”

“You were right after all.”

“Now we’re in a serious jam.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re going to want at least thirteen episodes.” Serge grabbed his video camera. “We have to get cracking.”

The door to the hall opened.

Serge pulled Ally back inside. “Don’t start again.”

“I quit.”

“What do you mean, you quit?”

“I’m not doing this anymore. Find someone else. I had no idea when Tori first asked me…”

Serge pursed his lips in distress and emitted a shrill whine. “I thought you’d decided to cooperate.”

“But there’s no end in sight. It just gets weirder and weirder. I’m out of here.” She reached for the knob again.

“Get away from that door.”

“You can’t make me stay.”

“Yes, I can.”

Two men and a woman walked down the main corridor of the props warehouse.

“I just talked to them,” said Tori. “You’ll feel much better.”

“What’d they say?” asked Ian.

“I’ll tell you when we get in the closet…”

Two workers sprinted past them.

“They sure were going fast,” said Tori.

“We keep them on their toes,” said Mel.

Several more employees went flying by. Tori watched them dart into the break room. “Is it always like this around here?”

Before the brothers could answer, they noticed more and more people dashing in from all directions, converging on the break room.

“Wonder what’s going on,” said Ian.

“Let’s find out.”

The trio headed over and joined the crowd spilling out the break room’s doorway.

“What going on?” Mel asked someone in back. The man pointed up at the wall-mounted TV on the other side of the room that everyone was watching.

Everywhere in metropolitan Los Angeles, the same scene: people surrounding TVs in bars, offices, the electronics sections of department stores, where walls of fifty sets were all on the same channel, playing the same tape over and over. CNN got the uplink and the nation began watching.

In a Fort Lauderdale retirement home, Coltrane grabbed Chi-Chi by the arm. “Come quick! They’re on TV!”

“Who’s on TV?”

The pair entered the dayroom. Twenty seniors were already crowded around an old Magnavox. A harried anchorwoman was talking offscreen.
“Are we ready with that again?…Okay…”
She turned to the camera.
“We have breaking news to report in the Ally Street abduction case. Within the last hour CNN has received shocking hostage video from our sister station in Los Angeles. A word of caution: The footage is being aired unedited and may upset certain viewers…”

The image switched to two men sitting with panty hose on their heads. The thin one held index cards. The fat one had a foam circle over his mouth, where he’d been drinking beer through the nylon mesh. The backdrop was a white bedsheet with big, black letters: CRAZY ABOUT MOVIES!

“Good evening,” said the thin one. “This is our first show and boy are we excited!
We’re crazy about movies!
”

The fat one raised his beer. “Movies.
Wooooo!
”

“Since this is our debut, I thought we’d start at the top.
Citizen Kane
. We rented it from Blockbuster last month, and it gets better every time. Welles said so much with so little, like the ironic emptiness of that dinner with his wife in the third act, not to mention those exquisite gradations of black-and-white cinematography that we’d see explored further in
The Third Man.
An absolute masterpiece. What did you think?”

“Great film,” said Coleman. “I was really fucked up. Started with Old English Eight-Hundred and switched to wine. Also got into these sticky buds from Gainesville with the furry orange fibers that tell you to get all your shit in one sack ’cause it’s going to blow your eyeballs out! Then the wine made me sick, and I got wedged between the toilet and the wall. Later, I woke up and freed myself and rejoined you on the couch just before the credits. All in all, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.”

“I give it five stars.”

“Four and a half,” said Coleman. “Almost a five, but what was the deal with the fuckin’ sled?”

“Next, the segment of our show called ‘Mr. Peabody’s WayBack Machine.’ The 1970s were an utter waste of ten years in virtually every respect: socially, musically, politically. Except for Hollywood, which gave us the Second Golden Age of Film:
Patton, The Godfather, The French Connection, Cabaret, The Sting, Rocky, Annie Hall, American Graffiti, The Exorcist
. I get dizzy just thinking about it…Your thoughts?”

“Couldn’t agree more,” said Coleman. “The seventies ruled! Mainly because there were no video stores. And each weekend all the heads would go to the midnight rock concert movie.
Gimme Shelter, Let It Be, The Song Remains the Same, Concert for Bangladesh, The Last Waltz
. Everyone in the whole theater was baked! Remember when you could get a four-finger bag for twenty bucks? The potency was lower, but at those prices! Then we’d kick back and watch Jagger jump around in that Uncle Sam hat. He was baked, too. It was a special time.”