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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 10

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 10: Another Tour Has Been Arranged for You

I hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink, unless you think St. Bevons Mineral Water is a drink.  I guess the idea was to make me easier to break down under questioning—though pretty soon I realized that the “questions” were just accusations that I would not be permitted to deny.  It all showed that I was getting off pretty easy with a nolo contendere.

So that was over, and things were looking up, because just when I realized that I was famished, a man in a white uniform unlocked the door of the room where they were keeping me and handed me some food.  It was a ham sandwich and a glass of mixed juice.  I wondered if these were products of Dominion Fields.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 09

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 9:  A Slight Change of Plans

While I was at breakfast—very early, very light–the hotel slaps came to my room and picked up my bags.  I didn’t need to do anything to get them from there to the back of the limo.  The only things I had to carry were the real estate leaflets I’d picked up from the concierge.  There were lots of glossy pictures of “elegant Wellingtons” and “baroque Bee hives,” each with “intimate facilities for family, grand space for entertainment, and bountiful St. Bevons gardens.  Barracks for 5-10 staff.”  The prices were not unreasonable, especially considering the current exchange rate.

When the airport slap opened the door of the limo, I had nothing to do except walk through security; the slappies would see that my bags got through.  It all happened so smoothly, I didn’t think about the backpack until I got to the boarding area.  I guess that’s where you usually remember stuff you forgot.  It would be ridiculous to go back to the hotel to turn the thing in—and who cared about it anyway?  Besides, I didn’t really know where it was.  Probably the hotel slappies had found it in the room and shipped it to the airport along with the other bags.  It was silly, but I had that uneasy feeling I got whenever I thought I’d lost something.  The item might not be important, but loss of control was always disturbing.  It was a tendency I’d been trying to conquer.  The only thing to do was just ignore the “problem.”  I sat near my gate, reading about St, Bevons properties and ignoring the stupid backpack.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 08

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 8: Nothing Is Perfect

At the hotel, a nice lunch in the King George Grill, a long nap, another good meal in the Oak Room, and many occasions to consider, while sloshing the liquids in my glass, what it might be like to live here.  And there were a couple of entertaining events.

Cedric, my busboy at dinner, was a slappie I didn’t remember seeing before.  His distinctive attire told me why.  Instead of the standard brown slappie cap, he wore a white, fez-like piece of headgear imprinted with SERVANT IN TRAINING in large black letters.  It was like one of those dunce caps you see in cartoons.  Which was appropriate.  The guy fumbled and bumbled and finally, rushing to clear my table for the dessert course, fell over his boots in a crash of plates and glasses.  Everyone looked up, shocked at the breach of discipline.  A waiter strode out of the kitchen, followed by two large slappies.  The slappies picked up the dishes; the waiter grabbed Servant in Training by the ear and pulled him out of the room.  The guests smiled appreciatively: the King George knew how to handle these things.  The slappie would get the lesson it needed.  After all, it was 40 years old!  Obviously, old enough to know better.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 07

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 7: Investing Is Easier Than You Think

The tea and scones were served on a table in the Major’s office, by a young white slappie who did his work deftly and silently.  I always hate it when waiters insist on talking with you.  Once they know what you want, they should bring it and go away.  But this slappie had been well trained.

The Major took some time to discuss the possibility of what he called “a business connection”—the investment idea again—and presented me with a colorful brochure entitled “The Profits of Penology.”  I complimented its appearance and said that I would welcome the opportunity to obtain more information.  He complemented my discernment and we exchanged cards.

That part was a bore, but on the whole it was a pleasant conversation.  The curtains were drawn back, revealing the pretty vines, hung with blossoms, that trailed around the bars outside the window.  Rays of sunlight warmed the room, awakening the incandescent blue of the Major’s uniform, turning the slappie’s necklace into a flash of silver and his short blond hair into a cap of gold.  It was good to see slappies in short sleeves again.  This one had the slightest, most delicate covering of hair on his arms . . . .   If this was life on St. Bevons, maybe it was worth an investment.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 06

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 6: An Environment Planned for Your Security

We walked back along the slab, and he pointed to something I hadn’t noticed on my quick walk to the loading area.

“Here,” he said, turning toward a strip of shade cast by one of the buildings, “is the pillory.”

That’s what it was, all right—a pillory, looking just like they do in pictures: a wooden upright and a wooden crosspiece, fitted with three round holes, one for your head and two for your hands.  You put them in, the top of the crosspiece is lowered onto them, and now you’re locked in the holes.  You have to stand there, maybe forever.

“Amazing!” I said.  “And after the first one, two more!”

“Yes, we have three pillories.  In the beginning, slappies have a great need for punishment.  And any serious problem usually arises out of a combination among them.  One of them gets an idea; then the others get it.  So before any trouble starts, we punish the troublemakers.”

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 05

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 5: You Must Take the Tour

A taxi took me to the headquarters of the State Labour Program.  It was a couple of miles from the hotel, and on St. Bevons, a couple of miles makes a lot of difference.  The street was wide but almost deserted.  A few old frame houses straggled along, but most of the frontage was warehouses or wholesale places—Stor-It-Here, Pure Products, Empress of India Auto Parts . . . .  Because it was St. Bevons, everything was wreathed with tropical foliage, even the razor wire fences around the parking lots.  But you could see why this part of town wasn’t on the tourist itinerary.

The cheerfulest place was actually the SLP building.  Nothing to brag about, but they did make an effort to fix it up in a “colonial” style, and the foliage facing the street was well maintained.  Even the little strip of grass in front looked like it was trimmed by hand, every day.  As soon as my shadow approached the glass doors, a slappie jumped out and held one wide for me, bowing.  A man at a desk—a real man, not a slappie—stood to welcome me, asked if I were Mr. Lansing, and said that Major Timmons was awaiting me.  Within a minute I was comfortably seated at a table in the Major’s spacious office, watching the morning light play across his ebony features.

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 04

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 4: Travelers Are Often Moody

I rose early and hit the breakfast room, a cream-and-gilt confection where the morning light shone softly on the cut flowers at my table, and slappies bowed and asked permission to butter my muffin.  After observing them all at my leisure I decided that the hottest one was a smiling young black with “Omar” on his shirt and shorts and one of those silver necklaces—which all of them seemed to be wearing — glinting from behind his collar, a nice adornment for a shapely neck.  When I was ready to leave I snapped my fingers in his direction, and in seconds he was at my table, bowing.

“I want a tour of the island,” I said.  And I want you to give it to me!  But I didn’t say that.  I knew they wouldn’t let a hotel servant out for that purpose, or pretense.  Although maybe, if I offered enough money . . . .    But no–I remembered Roger’s advice.  “And I want it now,” I said.

“Yess sirr,” he answered, in the island intonation.  “If you will please to relax here a moment, sir, I will convey your wishes sir.”

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Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 03

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By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 3: Exceeding the Ideal

The flight was beautiful — the turquoise sea studded with emerald islands, then the purple thrust of St. Bevons, relic of an extinct volcano, with a city relaxing on its flank.

The Wellington International Airport is small but friendly.  In an American airport, you have to fend for yourself.  At Wellington, a gang of attendants in brown uniforms lines up in the luggage department, waiting to take your bags and carry them to Ground Transportation.  The first one in line grabbed my belongings–one bag in the left hand, one in the right, the third tucked under his arm–and before I knew it he was stowing it all in the trunk of a cab.

The guy was young and fresh-faced and very cute, with a strand of yellow hair poking out from under his little brown cap.  Too bad our encounter was so rushed!  I reached in my pocket for an outsized tip when the cab driver, an elderly black man with a rum-thick accent, intervened.  “No wurries, sirr.  You doan tip thee slappie boys.”

Slappie boys!  So this little corn-fed Midwesterner with the brown shorts and the brown short-sleeved shirt and the glint of a silver necklace underneath his collar—he was a slappie!  Obviously, St. Bevons had several ranks of hierarchy, and they weren’t arranged in order of race.  But fuck!  How hot can this be!

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