110. 
    That night we dressed and went below. The crew was in tuxedos serving a feast. A band playing furiously behind us grew quiet as the captain made her entrance in a low-cut red gown. “It’s my birthday, boys! Play me a tune!” The band started up again and the captain began to sing. 

 

“I’m just another lounge lizard swimming with the sharks,
Another drink, another night, another man,
Who’s gonna judge me? Who’s gonna be a fan? 
Another tryst, another fling, I’ll walk away with ease, 
My life is mine and only mine, I’ll do as I please,
I’m just another bar fly buzzing in the dark!
I’m just another lounge lizard dancing with the boys, 
The wars I fight are serious,
My loves are mad and delirious,
Life’s doors are never open, always shut,
I’m a temptress with a plan, not a slut,
I’m just another bar fly making too much noise!
So screw up your face and call me a derelict,
I hold my head high, proud to be a heretic,
Turn up your nose and call me a tramp,
I’ll dance, I’ll sway my hips, I’m always the vamp, 

111.

   The party blasted into the night. We ate, we drank, we sang, we danced. Late, when all was drunk and foggy, the captain found our table and slammed herself down. “I couldn’t help overhear the Big Guy’s lecture today.”, she laughed. She had ascended that narrow stage of eloquence all of us negotiate when we are three sheets to the wind headed for a reef. Articulation can be brilliant just before the fall, with razor sharp wit and flashing metaphor. “Oliver, the world is and always will be a dark ocean where survival of the fittest is the only law scratched on the stone tablets. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. We’re really no different from ants. Two great armies that face each other on the battlefield are the same whether they be insects or men.” Then her heel caught on the stage curtain. The booze had got the upper hand. Her eyes blurred. Her words slurred. She suddenly clasped her hand over her mouth and hiccoughed. A thin string of vomit slipped through her fingers and into her glass. She lifted her glass trying to regain her composure completely unaware of the little packet of puke that wiggled and sparkled in the light like a jellyfish. “To us!”
   But the darkness had descended. She sagged in her chair. A scowl crossed her face. “I’m boring you.” Glares stabbed at us across the table. Then suddenly she was back and as all professional drunks do, she gathered her self-confidence around her shoulders like a moth eaten mink and crowned her face with a proud smile. She lurched to her feet and with a final “Fuck you all! Bottoms up!”, downed her drink and staggered off into the party.
   “That’s a good woman.”, said Conrad .

112.

   Conrad leaned across the table with a smile on his face. “I done ya wrong today.”
   “Story of my life.”, I muttered.
   “Things haven’t been so bad, kid.”, he shot back, looking away. 
   “Things haven’t been so bad.”, I smiled, looking away. 

   "I suppose I should be ashamed of myself.", he said to his glass.

   "Don't let it worry you.", I said to mine.
   “I could make it up to you.”, he said arching an eyebrow and lifting his ears. 
   “Blah, blah, blah.”, I answered with a searing sidelong glance.
   He grabbed my hand. “Blah, blah, blah?”
   I took an ear in each hand. “Blah, blah, blah.”
   Some time that night I awoke in our cabin. I got dressed and went out on deck to get some air. The El Telo was steaming past a jagged island. As I stared up at it, I heard lugubrious voices calling to me. “Oliver...Oliver.”, they incanted. “Come swim with us.” Leviathans circling in the night surged toward the ship as one. “We are your guardians.”, they moaned. “We are here to look out for you."
   “I already have a guardian.”, I answered noticing the glint of teeth in the murky water.
   “Do you really think you are going to get away with demeaning our great country by repeating all the lies you have been told?” They rolled up against the ship and opened their jaws. “You are on a fool’s errand, boy. Even if you survive this world, you will not long survive your own.”
   “But I will die a proud man.”, I said.
   The behemoths answered me with gurgled laughs and disappeared beneath the waves.

113.
     The next morning the crew was out of commission. Conrad, the dogs and I were recuperating with drinks on deck. We were cruising alongside a verdant coastline fringed with low-lying islands. The weather was steamy, and a haze dimmed the sunlight. I told my shipmates of my promenade on deck earlier that morning.

   Conrad smiled knowingly. “When threats don’t work, they will coax you. They will flatter you and they will be twice your enemy when you reject them.”
   “Hate wears an ugly smile.”, offered Nanette.
   Conrad put a hand on my shoulder and looked past me with a painful expression on his face. “You’ve got a hell of a job ahead of you, kid. You could be ignored into oblivion. You could be snuffed out. People might roll their eyes: ‘I know he’s a friend of yours but come on.’ Make no mistake about it, Oliver, a very large number of your fellow countrymen would just as soon see anyone who speaks the truth dead.”
   “We have company!”, barked Pat, pointing to a flotilla of approaching sail boats.
   “We should alert the crew!”, I warned.
   Conrad snorted. “Are you kidding? There’s nothing but a lanyard strapped to the wheel steering this ship.”
   Oh shit, I thought. Not again. “We should be armed!”
    Conrad dropped his drink. “Let’s see what we can find below!”
    Pat backed away from the railing with his tail between his legs. “It’s too late! They have
boarding ladders!”
   “Prepare yourself! Show confidence!”, ordered Conrad. 
   “Oh my God!”, gasped Nanette. “Catamites!”

114.

   The bobbing ships scraped against the steamer and ladders slammed against her. We were boarded by tall, long-legged stork like beasts. One of them strutted up to us and spoke. “Welcome to the Philippines! What’s with all the long faces?”
   “Your reputation proceeds you.”, murmured Nanette.
   “Our reputation of tearing our enemies to pieces and feasting on them? Lies, all lies. It’s amazing the things people get into their heads.”
   “Lies or no lies, don’t get any ideas.”, growled Pat.
    The Catamites strutted around the four of us sizing us up. “This is quite a menagerie.”,
one of them observed.
    “This is the threat to power and tyranny that the world waits for with bated breath?”,
laughed another.
    “Then so be it!”, announced the first. “Comrades, revolutionaries, inspiration of the
resistance, welcome!”
    “What do you want?”, Conrad asked.
    “Hawaii was an appetizer. We’re here to show you America’s next big leap to empire.
Come with us. You have nothing to fear.”
    Whether we had anything to fear or not, the Catamites made it clear we had no choice
but to board one of their sloops. They crowded around us. Their long, razor-sharp beaks brushed against us. Hot, wet breath puffed out of their nostrils. Their ogling eyes stared intensely at us. As we sailed toward the islands trembling in the haze, we looked longingly over our shoulders at the hulk of the El Telo. 
   One of the Catamites began to talk.

115.
   “When Admiral Dewey smashed the Spanish fleet in Manila harbor in 1898, the Philippine people had been fighting the Spanish for independence for years. Just before the Spanish American War, the Americans had promised the Philippines independence if they joined them against the Spanish. The Americans even brought back their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo from exile to lead the thirty-thousand man Philippine army. That army surrounded Manila as the American fleet sank the last Spanish battle-ship off the coast. Aguinaldo planned to join the Americans for the final battle in their war for independence, but he was stunned when the American forces marched up to the gates of Manila and the gates opened. The shock turned to rage when he discovered that America had paid Spain twenty million dollars at the Treaty of Paris for the entire Archipelago and President McKinley had announced the ‘Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation’. His country had been bought and paid for by the very country that had promised to liberate it.”

   “Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation.”, growled Pat “ What is it with Americans and euphemisms?”
   “Euphemisms, the tawdry cosmetic for power and greed in America or anywhere else.”, snapped Nanette.
   I let loose a weary sigh and prepared myself for the next painful history lesson. Conrad leaned against the railing across the deck and stared into the distance.

116.
   When we arrived on shore, we disembarked and followed the Catamites into an old city. Conrad was ill at ease. He felt we were being followed. The bristles on the back of his neck stood straight up. His ears moved up and down, back and forth.

   “What do you think of turn of the century Manila?”, one of the Catamites asked. “Imagine the Filipino patriots seething in their trenches outside the city walls. The Treaty of Paris needed to be expedited through congress so it was only a matter of time before the Americans started a skirmish with the Filipinos that would provide the excuse to start the second Philippine war for independence. The Philippine army didn’t last long against superior weapons and naval bombardment and the conventional war was replaced by a guerilla war with all the ensuing horrors of guerilla warfare. If American forces were surprised and killed, they responded with a scorched earth policy. In the village of Balangiga, forty-eight American soldiers were slaughtered in their barracks. The Americans retaliated with the ‘pacification’ of the entire state of Samar. One third of the population was massacred. Filipinos mutilated some American prisoners, and the Americans practiced the ‘Water Cure’, a torture that made water boarding seem like a walk in the park. Personally, I would rather drown than have a stick wedged in my mouth, a chute forced down my throat and water poured into my stomach until it burst. The Americans were eventually victorious and President Theodore Roosevelt declared the ‘insurrection’ over in 1902. Four thousand Americans and six hundred thousand Filipinos were dead.”
   Conrad's ears flattened. “Oliver, stop!”

117.
   We froze as dark ,machete wielding figures filled the streets. People and animals screamed in terror and scattered in every direction. We tried to take refuge in one of the shops but we were surrounded. They showed no mercy to the Catamites, beheading them in front of us and filling the air with fountains of blood. When they put their blades to our throats, we thought we were next.

   “Enemies of the family!”, one of them croaked as it grabbed my chin and slapped me across the face. “You are spared only because Vivian wants you!”
   The dogs were backed into a corner of a shop snarling and barking. “For God’s sake, get out of here!”, I yelled. “Get back to the ship and bring help!” They took to the air as Catamite blood splashed around them. They were safe at least, I thought. They’ll get help.
   Our arms were bound, our legs were shackled, our ears plugged, and our mouths gagged. The last thing I saw was a hood thrown over my head. It was suffocating. My senses swam. I was terrified. I was dragged and shoved for what seemed like hours. I was forced up stairs and thrown down. The roar of engines and lifting motion told me I was on a plane. I could barely catch a breath under the hood. I couldn’t tell if Conrad was with me or not. I lost all sense of time. Finally, the whine of the engine lowered, the plane jerked and the wheels screeched. I was dragged down the stairs and pulled and pushed through gravel and dirt.
   One of the creatures pulled loose an earplug. “We’re here, you filthy pervert. You’re Catamites. We know that. We’ll have our fun when Vivian is finished with you. We always get the leftovers. I wonder what part of you I’ll cut off first?”

118.

    The rocks gave way to floorboards. The creatures stopped their taunting and grew quiet. I felt something else was in the room with us. Suddenly a piercing voice rang out. “Oh, for God’s sake, cut them loose and take off those ghastly hoods!”

   I was flooded with relief when I saw Conrad next to me. We stood before a nine-foot green vision all arms and legs topped with a square block of a head sitting behind and elaborate baroque desk. “Girls, girls! I told you to be gentle and look what you’ve done! Now get out of here right this minute! Shoo! All of you right now!”
   Our captors hovered around us for a moment. They moaned and hissed. They traced our bodies with their machetes. “You disease carrying, sex addled pedophiles.”, one whispered. “We will be waiting for you.” And then they were gone.
   “Oh these damned senators!”, gasped the creature in exasperation. “You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. They do perform a function. They do their job with relish so I can’t complain too much. And they’re cheap! They’re always on sale at the mega store. I buy oodles of them there all the time.” The apparition rolled its eyes. “I’m so sorry about your little feathered friends, your little headless feathered friends. It’s just that my little helpers (I call them my little helpers) take everything so seriously, especially themselves. Poor little things. They aren’t very bright. They aren't very bright to begin with, you know, and I suppose when you're bought and paid for, you have to put on a show, especially for yourself. Well, I’m going to have to make everything all right, aren’t I?”
   It rose from the desk and sashayed toward us. “Don’t worry, girlfriends. I’ve got scads of goodies planned for us. We’re going to have a fabulous time together! But what is the matter with me? I haven’t introduced myself.”

119.

   The green thing looked down on us with a wry smile and ushered us through French doors onto a balcony overlooking a beautiful tropical waterway. “My name is Vivian. I’ve always adored the name. In fact, I told my mother to name me Vivian when I was still in the womb. When she named me Frank, I vowed never to forgive her. Frank! Can you imagine? But I do go on. Well, Miss Oliver and Miss Conrad, I’ve taken you from that tacky Philippines to fabulous Vietnam! Voila, Han Long Bay!”, It placed one hand on its hip and swept the other across the horizon. “This, darlings was where America drew a line in the sand against those Russian and Chinese commie bitches and that slut Ho Chi Minh. Don’t get me wrong. Ho was a useful tool against the Japanese during the War, the bitch of my bitch is my girl friend and all that, but after the War there was nothing out of her mouth but independence, independence, independence, and commie independence at that! We figured the French could take care of her and even that stuffy old bag Truman helped with fifty million bucks but, Dien Bien Phu put an end to that idea. Eisenhower put that little puppet Diem and his tramp wife Madam Nhu in power in the South, but that bitch Ho (pardon the pun) was madder than a drag queen in a cheap dress and when the Buddhists began to burn themselves alive in the streets, let me tell you, the hair pins started to fly.”
   All during this breathless soliloquy, Vivian, with its hands on our shoulders had led us out of the house, down a path to the shore of the bay where a majestic old junk was waiting for us. “You are my guests, and this is my fabulous yacht!”, it squealed “Welcome aboard!”
  We climbed aboard and the ship cast off into the bay.