Rejoice Fellow Christian Soldiers!
Princess Jasmine says, “I’m NOT eating THAT!” Princess Jasmine is neither a princess nor named Jasmine, not even female. And he is not referring to a something odd and bizarrely inedible, like a deep-fried scorpion, but rather an open bag of potato chips. And the comment isn’t directed at me. He’s talking to his lover. Jasmine’s real name, I decide, is Jeffy, the supremely effeminate Asian window dresser who toils in the display cases at Tangs on Orchard Road. The boyfriend goes by Thomas. Not Tom. Thomas. He’ll correct you if you don’t make the distinction.
Jeffy flips his aviator glasses onto the top of his head. If he was wearing a sari, I could call him Princess Jasmine out right, but he’s not, so I don’t. He’s at the front of the boat, I’m at the back, and I can’t hear him, so I’m making all this up. But he’s surveying the Indonesian landscape and is not impressed. He had other plans this weekend. Project Runway has started this weekend in Singapore and going to a resort without television is not a good way to begin the season.
Matthew and I are on a boat that has just departed Batam, Indonesia. We’re headed to the rustic Telunas Beach Resort. The rustic part makes me uneasy. The boat seats thirty and is typical of wooden long boats you see in Asia these days. New, but meant to look old, designed for tourists. It has 3 powerful outboard motors and we quickly pick up speed.
One row closer is Meatball. Though I don’t know her as Meatball yet. She’s in her early thirties, fine ginger hair, glasses, chubby, with pale freckled skin. She’s drooling on a pillow she’s brought along for the trip. Her glasses fall into the slop in the bottom of the boat and she awakes with a start.
I say to Matthew, “the face of an angel.”
She’s wearing a t-shirt that says, “Blame it on the Spaghetti!” Blame what? So many things. Why spaghetti? The shirt is purple with wiggly lines within a circle, representing a plate of spaghetti. This is when she’s christened: Meatball.
While wiping the dried spittle from the corner of her mouth, Meatball starts staring at me. I think because she’s never see a gay man before. Matthew suggests that it’s something sexual. That Meatball, while escaping with her fellow Christian Warriors for a weekend retreat, has awoken sexually. And she, under a spell, has zeroed in on me to bequeath her virginity. But on the boat, we don’t know we are surrounded by 23 Christian Soldiers. We find that out when the praying starts.
We arrive at Telunas and lunch is ready. We climb a steep bamboo ladder from the boat to a landing connected to a common room where we are encouraged to eat. This is where all meals are to be served and this is when the praying starts. Everyone is clasping their hands together and thanking the ceiling for Fajitas and taco chips.
An American family of four isn’t praying and are experienced at the art of attacking a buffet. Skills I never thought necessary. I find out later that they’re from Michigan. Circling the buffet like sharks and loading plates to capacity and then come back for dessert, even though they haven’t eaten a single taco chip. The mother says to her husband and two girls, “get everything you need before those wackos are done praying.”
Rather than thanking the ceiling fan for lunch, or worrying about the praying wackos, Matthew and I leisurely hit the Fajita buffet. Jeffy and Thomas sashay down the wooden walkway to the beach. Eating is for Christians and families from Michigan. Maybe they know something we don’t, because we never see them again. Maybe some gay circuit party is happening on the Riau Islands that Matthew and I don’t know about. A fashion show in the jungle? Whatever gay men do these days on remote Indonesian Islands.
Matthew and I engage what’s left of our communal dining collective by sitting on stools overlooking the beach. Turning our backs on everyone isn’t intentional, the beach is that beautiful. But really, the praying Christians would be more entertaining if they got down on their knees or were throwing holy water at each other, the kind that sizzles and burns the secretly unholy. I silently hope for a demonic possession and exorcism. That would be fun!
After our Indonesian Mexican fiesta, we go to our hut, perched on stilts above the water, which is wonderful. The boards don’t meet and you can see the South China Sea beneath your feet. Matthew worries that if someone were to loose a diamond earring it would be lost forever. Neither of us wear jewellery, except our wedding rings, but I assure him that if an heiress, dripping in jewels (I wish!) were to make an appearance, I’d be the first to warn her of the dangers.
At exactly six pm someone bangs on a wooden tube to signify that dinner is served. The Christians had warned, during orientation, that dinner time was to be observed with great revere. “You snooze, you loose,” one said. And I didn’t know what to think.
Matthew and I trudge down the wooden planks for dinner, which is a pleasant affair, if we were sixteen and at summer camp. Befriending the cook upon arrival, our beer is the fridge. We eat and then take our supplies to our hut for a more sensible evening of alcohol consumption. Skipping the Christian marshmallow roast on the beach, though Matthew and I do venture for a walk on the beach, which results in a mosquito attack on me of biblical proportions.
“Get off the gay beach!” Matthew screams to the bible study group. This is the next morning. The morning after the Christians would drop their bibles if they knew the sexual activities of the night before in our hut. They can’t hear.
“Can’t they see the rainbow flags?” he says. I look, but don’t see them either. “Well not really,” he says. Matthew gently tolerates my literal view of the world but at times it proves exasperating.
We know they’re talking about God because we stumbled upon them setting up logs, like pews. Church on the beach. It’s Sunday. We’re scouting for a place to have sex, perhaps in the jungle, or on a deserted stretch of beach. Christians setting up an impromptu church with driftwood doesn’t do much too sexually electrify the mood.
“Sweet Christ in Heaven,” I say, as I slip crashing my shin into a crustacean festooned rock. Blood seeps down my leg and I immediately envision gange green and the loss of my leg below the knee.
I can’t help but wonder what the Christians think as I hobble by their prayer meeting, my leg gushing blood. I hear something about God always watching. Then they look at me and silently think, sinner. If you were praying with us, you wouldn’t have slipped on that rock and cut your leg. That’ll leave a permanent scar, they say. If you hadn’t been scouting the beach for a secluded location to have sex, and were studying the teachings of Jesus with us now, you’d be a lot better off. And their scowls say, we’re not even touching judgement day.
But I’ve still one good leg, so Matthew and I hop into a sea kayak and head to the deserted Telunas Island across the straight. Deserted islands fascinate me and fill me with thoughts of living in tree houses with monkey servants. The erotic and exotic appeal, Tarzan in a loincloth, sex starved castaways. But sex on the beach, to me, after 41 years, is still nothing more than a fancy cocktail. But this part of it is quashed when Matthew barfs in the Mangrove Swamp because of the stench. Some fantasies are best confined to the mind. Plus the sand worries me. Sand were sand should never be.
But conquering the South China Sea in a kayak is enough accomplishment for one day. Matthew and I set up on the beach loungers and wonder were the attendants are and why they don’t have a pool? What the place really needs is a cocktail server. The owner brings down a cooler of beer, which is good enough.
Meatball strolls by in an elaborate bathing costume, with layers and scarves tied around her. Prayers must be over. She’s clearly enjoying the billowing effect of her outfit. She pauses and stares out to the South China Sea. She holds her hand above her eyebrows and squints at the horizon. I know she’s thinking about spaghetti. Rolling in a tub of it and sprinkling herself with parmesan cheese. Enough beers I think.
The rest of the Christian Soldiers are playing baseball on the beach, with a stick and tennis ball and a diamond drawn out in the sand. It’s genuine family togetherness. Something neither Matthew nor I ever experienced. We laugh at being left at fishing lodges and golf courses as our fathers enjoyed some family time with their buddies. Vacations being a destination of their choice were the ‘family’ was marooned while they enjoyed their own sporting pursuits.
“You kids stay out of trouble,” my father would say abandoning my brother and I in the practice sand trap of a golf course near a putting green. This was to occupy us for the five hours it took him to play eighteen holes. For extra fun, sometimes he’d toss us each a golf ball.
“The banana crepes are to die for,” one the Christian mothers says to me. Then announces to her son that she’s the beverage police and he better not be ordering a soft drink on her patrol. “Was it hard paddling all the way over to that island?” she says, turning back to me, “and goodness gracious your leg. How’d you do that? Looks painful. You really should have that looked at. This your first visit to Telunas? This is our sixth. We just love it. You live in Singapore?”
Her rapid fire questions leave me stunned. The Michigan Four are attacking the buffet with stealth and before I can open my mouth she says, “Oh deary, excuse me. We must chat later.” Then she turns and joins her crew to thank the thatched roof for dinner.
The experienced leaves me rattled so Matthew and I eat quickly and retreat to our hut with the beer cooler. Tonight’s dinner was tacos. I’m beginning think I’m in Puerto Vallarta and not Indonesia. But they are fish tacos, which leaves the Michigan Four puzzled.
“Doesn’t taste like ground beef,” the mother says. “But eat all you can.”
“Coming to the weenie roast?” It’s one of the Christians, a father, after dinner. Night has fallen and I’m in the common room for supplies: coke for the vodka and cold beer. I can’t quite believe that a group of people can be this happy all the time. I’m surrounded by them all with happy grins, like roasting wieners is the most wonderful thing in the world. If the resort were to burst into flames, I’d imagine they’d use the occasion for a hand holding group sing-a-long.
“Um, pardon?” I say not understanding what a weenie roast would have to do with anything.
“On the beach,” he continues, like I’m from space.
“No, thank you.”
“You’re missing all the fun,” he says. They say methadone is fun, but I choose not participate in that activity either.
After the attack of the misquotes the evening before, Matthew and I decided to avoid the beach altogether. But what to do? This is where the rustic part comes into play. Matthew and I are accustomed to lounges, bars and restaurants, socializing, mingling and checking out other patrons. Sitting in a hut watching the tide come in is something new. The sunset is beautiful. The stars are beautiful. We’re both bored. Where’s a demonic possessed heiress dripping in jewels when you need one? We get drunk.
Breakfast is salsa infused scrambled eggs. All we need is a mariachi band and a piñata and we’d be at Chilis.
