from Missile Paradise



Nora and her four fellow Diversity Delegates know not to say aloud what they are thinking as the noon ferry chugs away from Echo pier on its way to Ebeye, two nautical miles north: they will smell Ebeye before they see it. Ebeye is so gross, it’s cool to go there, just so you can say you did. Because garbage is always smoldering from one end or the other of this little island and because it’s just half the size of American-occupied Kwajalein but has four times the people, it’s been called the Calcutta of the Pacific. Really, it’s like something from a PBS special. No place is more crowded or trashy. Old, fat, forever sweaty Mister Norman has an explanation for that, like he’s got explanations for everything. He’s the Advisor to their Diversity Delegates Club. Today he’s arranged for them to deliver discarded computers to Ebeye High. It’s 2004, a new millennium, and everybody all over the world is online except for the Marshallese!

“You see,” Mister Norman explains, “nobody owns land on Ebeye. In fact, all of the islands, every little sand speck of land, are owned by only a handful of families. Most of those families live on Majuro. How far is our capital island from here?” He pauses for an answer and wipes his sunburnt face with a sweat-soaked handkerchief. Until she met Mister Norman, Nora had never seen anyone use a handkerchief except to pretty up the breast pocket of a suit.

Todd Williams answers: “Approximately 300 miles due east.” Rumor has it that Todd is still a virgin and next year he’ll be going to Harvard.

Norman nods his satisfaction. “Everybody who isn’t a member of those land-owning families – that’s about 12,000 Marshallese on Ebeye – all of those people are just renting space. You get what I’m saying? There’s no motivation for the Marshallese to build nice houses or plant pretty gardens. As far as they’re concerned, they’re just passing through.”

Nora and Todd and Stef and Tabatha nod like they get it, but they don’t get it. If Nora was living here, God forbid, in some sun-blistered tin-roofed shack, she’d do something about it. She’d fix it up. She’d plant flowers.

The ferry lurches as the pilot gears down. The ferry is a decommissioned barge-like Army transport with a white tarp strung overtop to keep the sun off. Two new hydrofoil catamarans are being shipped from New Zealand soon to replace these old boats. The world is catching up to the Marshall Islands. Isn’t that exciting?

Ferry passengers sit on wooden benches that remind Nora of church pews. The Marshallese women and girls dress in the most colorful muumuus: big bright flowered prints that extend nearly to their ankles. To sit among them is to smell their coconut oil, which they use as hair dressing, perfume, and skin lotion all at once.

Mister Norman paces at the front of the boat, pausing now and then to peer ahead. Nora imagines he’s rehearsing his next lecture. The way he talks, you’d think he hated Americans and thought the Marshallese were gods. He married a Marshallese woman who got pregnant by another American twenty years ago when they were all in the Peace Corps. Or so the rumor goes. Rumor also says that his wife stands to make a lot of money if her family can win its suit against the American government for having suffered in the Eniwetak disaster, when the Americans’ nuclear fall-out drifted over in 1954. Some say maybe that’s why Mister Norman works so hard to make Americans look bad.

He and his wife and their many children live on Majuro, which isn’t much better than Ebeye, Nora has heard. Nora has been to Ebeye only once since she’s been dating Jeton and that was at Christmas and she and Jeton didn’t get a moment alone. Not that there’s any place to go on Ebeye. It has no trees to speak of. The "town" is an uneven grid of mostly paved streets; there is shack after shack, only the smallest yards, if any at all, dirt and sand at your feet and overhead a web of electrical wires and phone lines slung from low poles. Stray dogs, cats, and chickens dart past, and stray children, so many children, and idle men, so many idle men, the air smoky from burning garbage or other fire, and Japanese motorbikes speeding by dangerously close.

“In fifty years, all of these islands will be under water,” Mister Norman announces, sweeping one hammy, freckled arm towards the small brown mound that is Ebeye in the salt-spray-misty distance.

“Global warming!” Stef blurts, like she’s on Jeopardy. Correction, Ms. Galen: what is Global Warming?

“Maybe not,” Todd Williams says. “If we can reduce our carbon footprint and take measures to build up these islands, we could turn it around. I’m going to work on this in college.”

Mister Norman barks a laugh. His yellow teeth remind Nora of old dog teeth and ancient ivory she’s seen in a museum somewhere and time so deep she can’t even imagine how far back it goes, like Mister Norman himself, who looks too old to be teaching, almost too old to be alive.

He snorts: “You do that, Mister Williams, you save us all from oblivion, would you?”

Todd grimaces and kind of shrugs as he leans against the rail and stares at Ebeye. A small funnel of black smoke drifts from one end of the island.

Stef says, almost in protest, “Mister Norman, last week our club, the Environmental Advocates, sold 220 carbon footprint vouchers!”

This makes Mister Norman nearly choke with laughter. He’s heaving, his eyes red and tear-filled. “Oh god,” he gasps. “Oh, my little hopefuls!” He coughs. He swallows. He sighs: “Oh shit, the world is too much for me!” Then, wiping at his eyes, he sucks up a big breath and says, “Sorry, kids. I know you want to help. And you are helping, aren’t you. We’ve got these computers to deliver, don’t we?”

Todd and Stef and Tabatha and Nora sort of nod in agreement but nobody knows what to think. If it’s all a joke, if the world is already ruined the way Mister Norman says it is, then what’s the point?

Bringing gifts to Ebeye makes Nora feel good--like she’s putting herself on the line somehow. Most Americans wouldn’t dare come here, even though it’s only two miles away. The Marshallese people, really, are very nice, even if they don’t have a fraction of the cool stuff Americans have.

“We go for the wrong reasons,” Mister Norman says, still wiping at his eyes, “and we do the wrong things, but it’s better than not going at all.”

He’s hilarious when he talks like that, Nora has decided. He’s as close to a crazy person as she will ever meet.

Here’s the coolest thing about the trip: Nora’s parents have no idea she’s on Ebeye. They can’t keep up with her many co-curricular activities. She’s planning to surprise Jeton, who hasn’t been able to get near her since she got grounded after her parents caught them fucking on the patio last week.

God, did that freak them out!

As soon the DDs step off the boat, Todd and Stef wheeling the computers on a freight dolly, a crowd of children swarm after them.

Mister Norman has taught the DDs how to say the official greeting: "Iokwe!” Which sounds like “Yuck-way!”

“Don’t you surrender a penny!” he warns—because the children are always asking for money. Even a quarter is a big deal to them.

He calls the Republic of the Marshall Islands “a nation of children” because the average age of its citizens is, like, sixteen or eighteen: a fact that makes Nora and her classmates giddy with fantasies about how different the world would be if the teens ruled! Teens aren’t afraid the way adults are. There’s nothing teens couldn’t do, if only the grown-ups would let them.

“Sup?” the little kids are saying. Most don’t have shirts; none have shoes; and a couple of the smallest don’t even have undies. Playing in puddles, dragging sticks and palm fronds behind them, chasing dogs, they look happy enough. And nobody appears hungry.

“Who looks after the children?” Nora asks.

“Their parents are working or looking for work or fishing,” Mister Norman says. “There’s probably a cousin or aunt nearby.”

The causeway construction is the biggest employer now. It will connect Ebeye to the several islands just north of it, which will create more room for all these people. Mister Norman says that space is so precious out here in the Marshalls a California company has been trying to get the Republic to build landfill with American garbage. “If that’s not the most fucked-up proposal you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is,” he said. “But, hell, why not? We’ve already dumped all kinds of atomic fallout on these people, haven’t we?”

He went off for about an hour on that one. Nora calls his rants “the Norman Invasion.”

Mister Norman is leading the way right down the middle of the street, which has been paved recently. The shacks on either side are painted as varied and brightly colored as the women’s muumuus. And every fifth house seems to be a small church.

Mister Norman walks so fast, Todd and Stef can’t keep up, pushing that heavy cart.

“Mister Norman, slow down,” Nora calls.

He stops. Then a motorcyclist speeds by, nearly swiping him.

"Eâjâj wôt!" he shouts.

Nora assumes this is a curse, though it could mean anything, like “thanks a lot!”

“Sup? Got a quarter?” a little boy asks Nora.

She shrugs in response.

“Quarter?” he repeats.

Then Mister Norman shoos him away.

Suddenly the sky opens up, a pile of afternoon thunderheads having tumbled in. Nora and her companions are drenched within a minute. Leaving the cart of computers at the curb, they seek shelter under the corrugated tin overhang of the Independent Baptist Church, which at a glance looked like another shack.

“See that?” Mister Norman says, nodding like the know-it-all he is. “That’s why I had you secure the computers under a plastic tarp.”

Then, like a message from God, a Toyota pickup roars down the street in the torrent and slams full into the cart, computer parts spilling and spinning like shrapnel—and making such a loud smack! that Nora, Stef, and Tabatha scream “EEK!” in unison.

The truck screeches to a stop, sliding several yards, the rain still gushing like whitewater.

“Serves us right,” Mister Norman says in disgust, stepping into the torrent. “Serves us fucking right!”

The driver clambers out. “Very sorry,” he says. He looks Indian and he’s young, of course, but not a teenager. Like most Marshallese men, he’s wearing khaki trousers and a t-shirt. The Marshallese love American t-shirts! This one says “AC/DC” across the front.

Then the rain stops—just like that—and the sun comes out, rays glinting from the blue-oily puddles on the asphalt, and the children are playing again, dogs barking after them, and the air is smoky again with the smell of burning garbage and maybe barbecued pig.

The driver helps Mister Norman and the DDs pick up the wrecked computers, but many of the pieces disappear with the children, who dart in and out, grabbing what they can as if this were a game. The DDs load the junk into the back of the man’s pickup, then the man drives Mister Norman and the DDs to the high school. But no one at the high school seems to know that the computers were coming. A stout middle-aged Marshallese woman nods “yes’ to everything Mister Norman says but she can’t tell him anything he wants to know.

It’s so un-PC to say it, but all middle-aged Marshallese women look alike to Nora. They are short and stocky and have thick black and/or graying hair that’s been cut to the shoulders or tied back in a knot. And they wear long flowered dresses and no make-up and still have nice smiles but every last one of them seems to have let herself go. It must be all the children they’ve had. You can’t keep up with all those children. Nora has promised herself that she’ll have only one child. Well, maybe two. Or maybe none. But she won’t ever let herself go.

She and Stef and Todd and Tabatha help the driver unload the broken computers onto the sidewalk. The sun so hot, they are almost dry from the downpour already. Nora feels a trickle of sweat skid across her spine. She’d like to be fresh for Jeton but it looks like it’s not going to happen. She thought there’d be a ceremony or some gathering where she’d see him. He doesn’t even know she’s here! Still, it’s two hours before the next ferry. But she can forget trying to find his house because there are no street numbers, no directories, no maps that will show her where he lives. And Jeton doesn’t own a cell phone.

* * * *

"You're wasting your money," Jeton tells his cousin Mike.

Mike is on the video machine, playing Space Spiders. He says, "I got money to waste."

The machine goes Ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! as Mike muscles into it.

Jeton slugs down half the Tsing Toa Mike has just bought him, letting the foam burn his throat.

They are at the Lucky Star Bar and Restaurant, where Jeton hopes Mike will buy him a lunch of shrimp lo mein. The Lucky Star is dark, like all the drinking places, with only a single plastic window up front and a few light bulbs strung over the bar, which is a painted countertop made of chipboard from the Philippines. A few young men Jeton doesn't know sit at a table near the window; they are laughing and seem to have money. Maybe they are from Majuro. Two old men sit at the end of the bar watching the TV, which sits on a box behind the counter. The program--something in Spanish--comes by satellite from Manila.

Jeton should be in school and Mike should be at the causeway, but, "Fuck it," Jeton said when Mike met him this morning. Mike told him that they would take the “day off,” as the Americans put it.

Mike is two years older than Jeton and much lighter-skinned--wûdmouj--because one of his grandfathers was Japanese. Mike also has a fine black mustache that Jeton admires. And, unlike Jeton, who is short and has thick legs, Mike is tall and has an easy stride. Jeton thinks sometimes that Mike is the man he should be. But it is becoming clear to Jeton that he will not be like Mike, who has a high school diploma and has traveled as far as Japan and now drives a loader for the construction crew at the Causeway.

Mike’s plan is to sell electronics on Ebeye, ship them direct from China, he says, and make a "fuckin' fortune."

Jeton’s plan is—or was—to love Nora forever. Since their trouble with her parents last week and Nora’s surprising announcement about returning to the States, Jeton has felt jebwâbwe, like doing something crazy. Nora’s parents may ask the American police to ban Jeton from returning to Kwajalein. Americans can do that to the riMajel because the Americans have paid the Republic a lot of money to build their missiles on the island.

Soon Nora flies away.

Jeton met her for the first time when his high school soccer team played the American high school soccer team. Jeton was the riMajel goalie. Already he had lost one tooth up front from protecting the goal. Nora said the missing tooth made his smile look “cute.”

"You hungry?" he asks Mike.

Ka-blam! Mike is already at level twelve, alien spiders raining from the video sky: ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! blam!blam!blam! So much noise, Mike's handsome eyes expertly scanning the screen, his thumbs pummeling the joysticks.

"Sounds like one of us is hungry," Mike says at last.

Jeton wants Mike's money but, at the same time, he doesn't want to see Mike spend so much. If Mike keeps spending what he makes, he will never open his electronics shop. This is a frustrating thought because it is so American, worrying about what has not happened yet. Jeton suspects this comes from spending time with Nora.

He says, "Mike, what happened to your electronics business?"

"I'm saving for it right now," Mike answers.

"Right now?"

"Fuck you, Jeton. Least I got a job."

Ka-blam! Level 15. The game is over. Without glancing at Jeton, Mike feeds the machine more dollars and starts again.

Jeton looks with envy at the custom chopsticks Mike carries in a leather case from a loop at his belt. The chopsticks, carved from whale bone, he got from his Japanese grandfather before the old man died.

"Let me try," Jeton says.

Mike glances at him and smiles. "You don't got the reflexes."

Jeton sputters his indignation. "Best goalie on Ebeye--I got reflexes!"

Mike lets him have his seat. The blue-green alien spiders drift down from the yellow video sky like ash Jeton has seen raining over the Ebeye landfill. When the pretty spiders touch Jeton's fat little space ships, the ships explode.

"You got to blow them up,” Mike instructs. “Fire, man!"

Jeton thumbs the joysticks, jerking them as he fires with both barrels. Ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! so loud it hurts his ears, spiders splintering into shards like glass against rock, rockets streaking red lines across the screen, more and more spiders falling, his ships exploding until Jeton pushes himself away from the machine.

"Fuck it!" he says, his face burning. He wants to slam the video screen with his fist.

"You don't have to get angry, man. It's a game."

"Fuck it. I never liked these bwebwe machines."

"You're like a old man, Jeton. These machines gonna make me a million dollars."

"You don't got enough to buy a machine like this."

Mike sits again at his machine, then feeds it more dollars. "Not today."

"When?" There it is, Jeton thinks. They are talking like the ripâlle. "Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?"

"What do you care, Jeton?"

Ka-blam! Mike starts firing. He is steady, relentless, his eyes focused. Maybe he can do what he says. Maybe Jeton needs to be like Mike when he plays video. See the alien spiders and shoot, see them and shoot. Shoot shoot shoot. No letting up.

"I don't care," Jeton lies. "I'm gonna--"

His sudden assertion stops him because he is not sure what he is going to do or be. It seems everyone else has a plan.

"You gonna?" Mike goads.

"I'm gonna be goalie on the national team."

The national soccer team trains on Majuro. They fly to Manila, Tokyo, and Sidney to play other teams. The star goalie, Abbetar, wears no shoes and has lost five of his front teeth saving the ball. Who could be tougher than Abbetar?

Mike laughs once. "You replace Abbetar?"

What is it the Americans say? "Stranger things have happened."

"You come over to the causeway," Mike says, still firing, alien spiders splintered into purple bits. "Maybe I can get you work."

"The causeway's a mistake," Jeton says. He watches Mike's face to see what happens. "I heard all about it when I was on Kwajalein."

"What you hear?" Mike is up to level 10 already.

"It's gonna ruin the lagoon because it blocks the waves."

Ka-blam! "Nothing can ruin the lagoon," Mike says. Ka-blam!

Jeton finishes his beer. "It blocks the waves."

"It doesn't block the waves. I work on it. I see."

"Ibwijleplep. Storm waves. The American engineers say so."

"They say that because they aren't building it."

"Rimajel don't know how to build anything," Jeton says. "We're stupid."

"I'm not stupid," Mike says. "And I'm building the fucking causeway."

That's better, Jeton thinks. He's got Mike mad.

"Causeway's gonna ruin everything," Jeton continues. "You should quit."

The spiders are coming so fast, Mike can't stop them. Suddenly he loses the game, his ships disappearing in a black and blue video cloud.

"Fuck you," Mike says. "Fuck you!"

Jeton isn't sure if he's saying this to the machine or to him.

"Good reflexes," Jeton mocks.

Mike stands up slowly, wipes his hands on his blue jeans, then--without looking at Jeton--turns away and walks to the door. He has the kind of intent, closed-up look on his face that Jeton has seen on men who fight cocks.

"Your causeway ruins us!" Jeton calls after him.

As soon as Mike is gone and the door has shut out the bright sunlight again, Jeton feels terrible. Why has he treated his cousin so badly?

He hears the young men laughing from the front of the room. Maybe laughing at him. He hears the Spanish program speaking its trilling language from the TV set behind the bar. And somewhere at the back of his mind he hears the video game blowing up spiders and spaceships. None of it is worth hearing. None of it makes sense.

When he gets outside, to the rain-puddled street, the air thick with lunch-time aromas--bwiin-enno--of fried leeks and sausage, he does not see Mike. Small children who should be in school are playing tag, darting from and through the narrow paths between the hunched-up houses. Like shrimp in tide pools, Jeton thinks. Several young men and a few older men are sitting in the shade of a breadfruit tree nearby, sharing cigarettes. Men and women are walking away from him, each carrying a straw or plastic bag, on their way to catch the two o’clock ferry to Kwajalein.

Jeton knows that when he sees Mike again Mike will have forgotten that Jeton was so kajjôjô, hateful. That is how it is with the riMajel. Americans are different: they will not let you forget anything.

Jeton could jaba, hang-out, with the men by the tree but they are going to talk about women and Jeton doesn’t want to talk about his.

Maybe he will go to the pier, where there are a couple of bars and restaurants. Maybe someone will offer to buy him a bowl of fried egg and rice.

He could go home, but no one is there. His mother is a maid on Kwajalein, his sister a checker at the Americans’ supermarket there. His younger brother and sister are at school. Or maybe playing in the alleys. His older brother is on Majuro working with his father, who makes soap in the copra factory. They visit Ebeye every three months, bringing with them samples from the factory and smelling of coconut that seems to have gotten into their breath and become a part of their body sweat.

This is something else he never thought of until he met Nora. His smell. Nora says to him, “I love your smell. It’s so un-American.” This seems to be a good thing, though Jeton doesn’t know what it means. And he is afraid to ask. Where is Nora now? He was to fuck her bad. He wants to love her hard. He wants to be with her forever.

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