Splattered-Out, Ch. 2, pt. 1

Blazzy Gavins had his own island. And on his island he had a cabana, a simple round cabana built out of bamboo. From far away it looked like a very large coconut, partly submerged in the white sand, with a drink-umbrella roof and a toothpick chimney. On this particularly easy afternoon, Mr. Gavins sat with his best friend, William Dreams, on the patio of his cabana to watch his faithful palms sway in the moist sea breeze, and smell the salty foam of the ocean waves as they broke on his island's long shelves of sand. In one hand Mr. Gavins held his drink, a Staccano Sling, and in the other the cleft ass of one of the numerous busty women who lay about his island like so many cats.

Mr. Gavins' eyes squinted up toward the brilliant turquoise sky. "I don't know what I was thinking," he said. "Why did I have to ruin a perfectly good bamboo-framed futon just so the ladies and I could have a puppy pile in a gallon of lubricating jelly?"

"Sex?" William replied.

"No, not right now dude, I'm still recovering," said Mr. Gavins. "I haven't had this much booze or sex in a one evening since I was in the priesthood."

Mr. Gavins had gotten drunk again last night. Blasted gin and tonics, and mojitos, and subcutaneous shots of Petron, blast them all. But William wasn't surprised by this behavior, not a bit.

"I can't think of anything worse than a hangover," Mr. Gavins said, the woman beside him nuzzling him with her cleavage. "Well, okay, it might not be as bad as getting hung by your dork from a ceiling fan — but it's still bad."

As Mr. Gavins pontificated, William eyed the orgiastic concubines. "Dude," William said, "one of your pirate hookers just ran off with my bag of Mongolian Chicken Crispies."

"You and your damn Mongolian Chicken Crispies," Mr. Gavins replied. "I don't know how you can eat as much of that stuff as you do and still remain so trim."

"Yeah, lucky me," said William. "I'm sorry to say I'm hopelessly addicted to them. The things pretty much control my life. I'd rather snap off my left arm than have to give up a bag of those salty-ass rinds."

"But look at you," said Mr. Gavins, "you still have a perfect Grecian physique. You make me sick with envy. So your blood pressure might be a little askew, so you've probably pickled your organs with all that sodium, but your abs — they look like they've been sculpted by Michelangelo. And you know you have an ass like a seventeen year-old girl. In fact, if you asked to spoon me naked —"

"Uh, thanks, I get it."

"— I would consider it. In a straight way, of course."

"Come on," William said. "You, a man with his own island, and a harem of untamed prostitute slaves, are envious of me?"

"You'd better believe it," Mr. Gavins said. "Sure, my friend, by some accounts it might look like I've got a pretty good thing here, but I'll be honest with you, my life is a little mundane."

"What?! Hah! Listen, you may think that a life of whoremongering in your personal tropical paradise isn't exactly thrilling, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret: this Grecian physique you envy so much used to suck dick every night for heroin. How's that for mundane?"

The conversation came to a sudden halt. Once again, for a few moments, there was nothing to be heard but the undulating noise of the ocean waves, the commotion of the palms against the air current, the cawing of a dozen seagulls in concentric circular orbits above, as if tracing the inner surface of an invisible dome. Mr. Gavins, stunned, amazed, looked carefully at William's face like a man shopping for a new television.

"Really!" Mr. Gavins gasped. "What grade of heroin?"

"Uh, the eighteen thousand dollar grade," bristled William.

"Hmm," said Mr. Gavins, grinning. "Well, in my book that makes you one lucky bastard."

In this way William and Mr. Gavins wore down the remainder of the afternoon, just as they had wore down so many afternoons before. They reminisced; they spewed scurrilous jabber; they laughed long and hard over their absurd misbegotten lives; but mostly, they drank themselves into the bucket. Before long the sun began to set, and the sky along the horizon swirled with orange and caramel hues, darkening upward. Beneath the last rays of sunlight the shoreline glinted and sparkled, like lost pirate treasure had broken away from a sunken ship and floated ashore. The seagulls continued to complain.

"All these girls," William said, "they always seem pretty happy to be here. I mean, how is it they don't feel, you know, a little exploited?"

"Heh, you sound as though this place is a salt mine or something," Mr. Gavins said. "Listen — these babes, they like me, you know? They want to fuck my brains out. They want to party. They're here because they love it here. They love this perfect weather, they love my crib, they love not having a care in the world. It's not exploitation, it's more... symbiotic." Mr. Gavins affected a sagacious manner. "Should it make a difference that they have no means of escape?"

William, though he tried, couldn't find a reason to argue. Perhaps it was the magic of Mr. Gavins' moss green leather jacket, smelling of his supreme wealth, that made everything he said seem just a little more compelling. Or perhaps it was his Siamese crocodile boots; or his disposable medical exam shorts made from recycled paper, which had a small wet spot on the crotch; these were the only articles of clothing Mr. Gavins had on at the moment.

But the likeliest reason was that William was completely blasted on Staccano Slings.

And then Mr. Gavins, pallid and unshaven, rose from his patio chair and stumbled ataxically into the cabana. On to the central room, where he was surrounded by hundreds of large monitors, all broadcasting various channels of news, pornography, cockfights, and knife-throwing events. A large scrolling display, which wrapped continuously around the walls, spewed forth a steady diet of wagering odds — for this was how Mr. Gavins made much of his sickening fortune.

He poured another pair of iced cocktails — an even mixture of transparent carbonated fluid and painfully cold, transparent, triple-distilled fluid — and he watched as thick rivulets of condensation began to cling to each crystal highball. The budding droplets, now creeping downward, passed and distorted hundreds of upwardly darting bubbles within. Mr. Gavins, desperate not to notice the room spinning around him like an unbalanced carousel, decided that the subtle force of this crystic, alcoholic en passant would hold him upright for long enough to get back to his patio chair.

But when he returned, William's chair was empty.

Mr. Gavins, a little nonplussed, but mostly ready to lie down and pass out, slung himself onto the nearest sturdy object and took a glance of his immediate surroundings. He couldn't see William anywhere. He looked down at his cedar wood patio; it was still affixed to his feet. No longer a patio though, but a wooden raft, tossing about at sea — an angry, tumultuous sea of top-shelf vodka. He looked up; the soaring flock of seagulls had transformed into soaring twinkles of starlight. He tried to survey the island again, which now appeared to be in a gyrating freefall, and suddenly he caught sight of the most marvelous spectacle of the evening: the drinks, still in his hands, and he hadn't yet spilled a single drop.