After
eyeing the Cabela's sale flyers for weeks, the Prodigy PRC200A reel / Fish Eagle XML casting rod combo Adrian McAllister had been drooling over had shown up at last, and at over 20%
off. He hopped into his
pickup at dawn that Saturday and fought the early-season tourist traffic for
the two hour round-trip downstate and back to the outdoor megamart. By lunchtime he was 45 minutes
from civilization at his favorite fishing spot, all by himself, trying it
out. It was nearly the biggest mistake
of his life.
Adrian’s line drifted lazily in the placid waters of remote Number
5 Pond. After the early trip to
Scarborough and back, as well as the rough ATV ride through miles of woods,
Adrian was feeling pretty lazy himself. It
was a warm June day, not a cloud in the sky, and aside from the ubiquitous
blackflies and mosquitoes, a perfect one for fishing. Adrian’s wife was hosting a Pampered Chef
party at their house that afternoon, and she was frankly quite relieved that he
was not going to be underfoot. Adrian
was equally relieved that he was not going to be present for the cackling
hen-fest. Now he had the whole day to
try out his new rod and reel, drink beer, and maybe even catch a nap. It was shaping up to be a great day to get
away from it all.
The new rod
and reel was proving a wise investment, as Adrian caught several good-sized bass
within the first two hours. And that was
using mere earthworms as bait too. He
celebrated his fourth catch of the afternoon by opening his fourth beer of the
afternoon. Just as he tipped back his
head to take his first swig from the fresh can, a crushing thud landed on the top
of his skull. There was an instant of
sharp pain, a flash of white light, and then it all went dark. Adrian McAllister had been knocked out cold
and was being dragged away.
About an hour
later, Adrian groaned and slowly opened his eyes. It was difficult to focus, and he was unsure
of where he was. He felt wet, and at first
thought he had blacked out and fallen into the pond. The top of his head was throbbing in pain,
but when he went to rub it, he discovered his hands were tied to his sides. His feet were bound too. He soon realized that he was secured hand and
foot and sitting in a large cauldron half-filled with water. Though it was hard to see clearly yet, he
swore he could see a middle-aged black man in some kind of wild, colorful
costume just beyond the edge of the cauldron, hunched over something and
swearing vociferously. The frequent flick
of a cigarette lighter could be heard.
“Umm…excuse
me?” Adrian said. Mild-mannered by
nature, he was polite even in these circumstances.
“What is it?”
the irritated man snapped in English with a thick accent that Adrian couldn’t
place.
“Well, I was
wondering what was going on, actually.”
“I am getting
ready to cook you! You cannot see that?”
the man said, as though this kind of thing was an everyday occurrence in 21st
century Maine. The flick of the lighter continued,
more rapidly and with increased intensity.
“At least I am hoping to cook
you, provided I can ever get this damned fire started!”
“Wait…what?! Stop for a second!” This was not at all what
Adrian was expecting to hear. “Cook me?!
Why? And who are you?”
The man stood
up to his full height and gave Adrian an impatient look. He was tall and rail thin, probably around 50
years old, with a lined face and salt-and-pepper whiskers on his pointed chin. His rough skin was the deep color of mahogany,
with the complexion of someone who had spent many days exposed to the elements. And his clothing was something straight out
of a community theater production of South
Pacific. Bright feathers, shark
teeth on a string around his neck, elaborate headpiece, golden baubles…the
whole deal. The only thing that seemed
out of place was the pair of rectangular-framed reading glasses perched on the
tip of his nose.
“On my home
island, I am called ‘Larmustamitua’, but here in this land of pine trees and
mosquitoes, they call me ‘Larry’,” the man told him.
“Okay, um, ‘Larry’, my name is Adrian
McAllister,” he said. “Why are you going to cook me?”
With a sigh, Larry
tossed the useless cigarette lighter to the ground. He picked up two sticks from the ground and
started rubbing them together as rapidly as he could.
“I do not
suppose you were ever a member of the Boy Scouts, were you Adrian McAllister?”
“No, sorry.”
Larry hunched
down to the ground again and continued to rub the sticks together in hopes of
obtaining fire. He spoke as he rubbed.
“My wife
Thalia and I are from a remote island in the South Pacific known as Kimbango,”
he began. “This kind of thing is
somewhat common there.” He rested his
head in his right hand and gave another sigh. “At least it was years ago.”
“’This kind
of thing’? You mean eating people? You mean
cannibalism?” Adrian asked with no small amount of growing concern.
“One might
call it that,” Larry the cannibal replied in that heavy accent. “Thalia always thought it was a barbaric
practice and had nothing to do with it.
She went to boarding school in England as a young girl, and came back to
the island full of all kinds of fancy ideas for our island, like vaccines,
getting wired for electricity, and not eating human flesh. Her father was our chief, and she had his
ear. He made changes in a great number
of things, thanks to my Thalia. ‘Progressive
thinking’ she calls it. ‘Moving into the
modern world’. Humph!” He tossed his
head in disgust. “She and I had a quiet
life on Kimbango. It was nice. She was working in the local school and doing
some freelance writing while I was a fisherman and working part-time at Orange
Julius.”
“Orange
Julius?” Adrian asked incredulously.
“Yes, Orange
Julius! It is the only fast-food
franchise we have on Kimbango, and our people highly esteem their delicious fruit
smoothies as nectar of the gods. There is a problem with that?” The irritated cannibal started rubbing the
sticks together more furiously.
“No, no…not
at all! Just seemed unusual is all. But
please go on.” Adrian decided that if he
could keep this guy talking, he might have time to come up with an escape plan.
“Then in the late-1990s,
change came to our lives. Some of my Thalia’s
writing caught the attention of a big publisher here in America, and she received
a contract for seven books. She tried
telecommuting over the Internet for a year or two, but it was not working out. The plane trips halfway around the Earth
almost every month were very tiresome. It
was terribly difficult on both of us, so about ten years ago we moved
here. I was not in favor of the move
away from our home, but I was a tremendously bad fisherman and the Orange
Julius had recently ‘downsized’ me, as they put it. Since my Thalia was the one putting pandanus
on the table, it was her career we followed.”
Adrian shook
his head, wondering if he was hearing correctly, or maybe that bump on his head
had done more damage than originally thought.
“So let me see if I understand.
You are a practicing cannibal from the South Pacific, living in the
woods of Maine, and you are planning to make me your dinner?” His voice was rising several octaves as the
reality of it all began to sink in.
“That sums it
up nicely. Yes. Though I am not at all practicing. I am quite good
at it, though I have not done it in years.”
He pushed his glasses up his nose.
“But what
about your wife? Didn’t you just say she
was against it?”
“I will
simply tell Thalia that it is chicken she is eating. That is what you will taste like anyway.”
“Look, you really
don’t want to cook me!” Adrian started to babble. “I’m sure that I’d be
pretty stringy anyway. And I’m just
getting over a cold. You might get sick. You know, we really ought to talk more abou-…”
His frantic pleading was interrupted by the tinny sounds of the 1989 pop hit She Drives Me Crazy emanating from
somewhere in the cannibal’s pelvic region.
“Pardon me, I
need to take this. I am expecting a call,”
Larry said, holding up a finger. He
turned his back to Adrian and pulled a silver cell phone from a pocket in his
feathery garb, speaking into it heatedly.
The conversation was intense but brief, only about a minute. Larry the cannibal then snapped the phone
shut. “Accursed corporate bastard sons
of a one-winged buzzard,” he muttered.
The tall Kimbangoan then turned
back to Adrian and the sticks he had been rubbing together in hopes of making
fire. “Now, you were saying?”
During the
phone call, Adrian’s plan had become clearer.
If he could manage to occupy Larry long enough, Thalia would arrive home
and stop this madness. Yes, she was a
writer, but despite that she sounded like a reasonable woman who did not eat
human beings. Surely she would let him
go free. Adrian commenced stalling.
“Is, uh,
everything okay, Larry? You sounded kind
of upset on the phone just now.”
“Oh
that? Our Internet has been down for
three days. I am not very knowledgeable
about computers at all, nor is my Thalia, and those jackals at Passable Point
Communications cannot send someone here to check it out for another three
weeks! Can you believe that? How am I going to keep up with my episodes of The Bachelor? There is no cable, and antenna reception out
here is terrible! It was better in Kimbango!”
Just then,
the cannibal at last got a spark from the sticks he had been rubbing together,
and ignited some tufts of dried grass.
He chuckled in a satisfied way as he set them among the kindling at the
base of the cauldron. Wisps of gray smoke
began to rise. Adrian’s already
heightened sense of urgency kicked up several more notches as he soon began to
feel growing warmth from the cauldron bottom.
“Well, I know
a thing or two about computers,” Adrian replied. “Why not let me take a look?”
Larry
considered this for a moment. “Well, it is going to take a while for this water
to reach a boil.” He rubbed some gray
whiskers on his chin as he tossed a pinch of salt and a few peeled onions in
with Adrian. “Okay, but then it is back
into the pot you go! You need to simmer
for at least a couple of hours, or you will be as tough as the soles of my Talia’s
feet.” His need for a reality television
fix had outweighed his desire to eat human flesh for the time being. Adrian’s hand and feet were untied, and Larry
helped him out of the water in the cauldron.
“Thanks,”
Adrian said, rubbing his wrists and the knot on his head. He finally got to
scratch at some of the numerous blackfly and mosquito bites he had acquired
while tied up too. “Now let’s go take a
look.”
Adrian had no
intention of running from the cannibal. They
were miles from the nearest town, in thick and overgrown pine forest. Larry appeared to be in excellent physical
shape. Adrian knew he’d be tracked down
in no time flat if he attempted to make a break for it.
From the
entrance to the hut that Larry and Thalia called home, Adrian was surprised to
see that it was larger inside that it looked from the exterior, and was nicely
appointed with a mix of items from their native Kimbango, as well as more than
a few from the L.L. Bean catalogue. A
chubby orange tabby cat stared at them enigmatically from the back of an
overstuffed sofa, and a spectacular painting of what had to be a sunset in Kimbango
hung on the wall.
“Over here.” Larry
gestured toward a desk in the corner, where an open laptop sat. “And do not drip all over the carpet or my Thalia
will kill me!”
Adrian left
his soggy socks and shoes at the door, and padded over to the computer. The problem was evident as soon as he took a
look at the router nearby. One of the
connections between the router and phone line out had come undone. A few tufts of orange fur amongst the wires
led Adrian to believe that the cat had knocked it out while nosing around. He could easily have plugged it back in and
instantly restored Larry‘s Internet connection, but that would likely mean
quick trip back into the pot. So, Larry
began to putter around instead.
“I think we
ought to do what’s called a “defrag”, Larry,” Adrian said, knowing full well
that such an operation would take quite a bit of time.
“Do what you
must,” Larry replied as he sat down in a comfy-looking leather recliner. He pulled out a newspaper and began
reading. Adrian was amused at the site
of a South Seas cannibal in traditional garb lounging in his Laz-E-Boy with
reading glasses on the end of his nose, checking out the baseball box scores. He turned his attention back to the screen on
the laptop, as little colored rectangles flicked on and off, showing the
progress of the defrag.
Larry looked
over at what Adrian was doing every few minutes, but it was far from
interesting to him, and after about 45 minutes, he began to snore. Adrian took this opportunity to restart the
defragmenting program, so as to prolong the lengthy process even longer. He began to explore the hut while his captor
slept, checking out the numerous pieces of Kimbangoan art on the walls and flat
surfaces. He almost wished he could
visit there someday, in spite of the island’s man-eating past.
His reverie
was broken by the growing whine of an ATV coming closer to the hut. Larry woke from his nap and sprung to his
feet. “My Thalia! She is home!”
The cannibal looked more than a little concerned.
A beautiful
middle-aged woman with smooth, coffee-colored skin and wearing a flowered-print
wrap entered the hut. To Adrian, Larry
now looked less like a fierce South Seas cannibal and more like a kid with his
hand caught in the cookie jar.
“My Thalia!” Larry
said, opening his arms to greet her.
They kissed, and then Thalia asked the inevitable question in an accent
as thick as her husband’s.
“And who is
this?” she asked, gesturing toward Adrian.
“This? Well this
is Adrian, of course.”
“Of course,”
the woman said with a puzzled smile. “Hello, Adrian. That must be your blue ATV I saw just around
the corner from here?”
“Yes, it must
be. It’s a pleasure to meet you Thalia.” Adrian now realized that his means of escape
was closer than he thought.
All three of
them stood silently with smiles frozen on their faces for nearly 30 seconds,
until Thalia finally spoke up.
“So what is
Adrian doing here in our home, my husband?”
“You are not
going to believe this my love, but I met Adrian fishing on the pond today, and
it turns out he is most knowledgeable about computers!” Larry said. “He is here to restore our lost Internet!” Thalia
arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“You just ‘met
him’, you say?”
“Yes, my
Thalia, and he is close to restoring our much-beloved program The Bachelor to us again, are you not
Adrian?”
“As a matter
of fact,” Adrian said, “your Internet connection is fixed!” He a button and their homepage appeared. Adrian had stopped the defrag and plugged the
router back in while the two of them had been speaking.
“Delightful,
Adrian!” Thalia exclaimed. “We are so
grateful! Here, have some pandanus!” She thrust a basket of the odd-looking tropical
fruit at Adrian. “And you simply must
stay for dinner!”
“Well, er, thank you so much ma’am. But I really must be going,” he said,
reaching for his shoes and socks and pulling them on. “It will be dark soon.”
“Of course, of course!” Thalia said. A look that was a mixture of relief and
disappointment crossed over Larry’s craggy face.
“Thank you so much, my friend,” Larry said. And with a wink, he added: “And consider it
an open invitation. We’d love to have
you for dinner some evening.”
“I just bet you would,” Adrian said through clenched
teeth. “Goodbye now!” He waved, turned, and made a beeline for the
door. His own ATV and escape were only a
few yards away now.
Once outside, Adrian broke into a full run and did not stop
until he reached his ATV, which he started in an instant. He gave no thought at all to his new rod and
reel, now lying abandoned alongside the pond, and within seconds all that could
be seen of him was a cloud of dust.
The Kimbangoan
couple watched from the doorway to their hut.
“Such a nice man,” Thalia commented. “In an awful hurry though, isn’t he?”
“Indeed he is,” Larry answered.
“My husband?” Thalia asked coyly.
“Yes, my love?”
“What’s for dinner?”
Larry sighed deeply.
“Pandanus again,” he said without enthusiasm. Then he perked up a
little. “Though I do have four fine bass
from the pond to fry if you wish!”
“Wonderful!” Thalia exclaimed. “And while we are preparing the meal, you can
tell me all about why your grandfather’s huge cooking pot is at a boil in the
back yard.”
