Calamari Codependency or Save the Squid - 1. Chapter 1

Calamari Codependency

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I read Matt's text while swinging in my bungalow hammock, butt-ass naked.

M: Cruise over for a rescue mission, MOFO. And bring the Elephant Juice!!!

Using only thumbs, I responded:

TC: Let's stick to Rooibos tea instead.

M: HELL NO AMIGO. We need the Spirit of Africa, right meow. Copy?

TC: Copy.

M: And wear your squid hat. Copy?

TC: Copy.

Soon as I wrestled on pants and undies, I went into the kitchen and got a heavy brown bottle of Amarula Cream from the pantry and then grabbed a pink hat from the hanging rack. It was a squid beanie from Seaworld, my single keepsake from home—equipped with ten tentacle dreadlocks and two eyes that when placed over the noggin, looked like someone gave my skull a boob job. Only in America would I be self-conscious go outside wearing such an atrocity, but this was the Cape of Good Hope. I was hopeful no one would judge me, I mean, have you seen the surfers here? Those bros wear patterned scarves and Uggs all year long. Ugh.

Out the door, it was clear and sunny and the ibises called through the hills.

It's good to be back in the country of my youth.

The native proteas bloomed, hanging heavy off long stems, in reds, blues, and pink ones true. I walked over to a bush and sniffed a big puffy blossom. Sometimes Matt and I found fat shrews burying their heads in the petals for nectar. Inspired, I fingered inside one of the plants, pulled out a thread of sweetness, and puckered my lips. Sugarbushes tasted like Shocktarts.

When I finished sampling, I jumped onto my black Vespa parked beneath an old banyan tree.

Where was I going? I asked myself this all the time, today was no different.

I couldn't let my thoughts take control of my actions—I just turned the engine over and let the put-put-putter drown my mind.

Matt wanted to meet at Jammer Island. That little cay was the one dead area in J. Bay the local surf-kooks didn't rowdy up.

No one came to our Spot. Not even baboons. So what's happening now? My pocket buzzed.

M: Hurry up, MOFO. Copy?

TC: On the road. Copy.

Matt was itching to booze; during a rescue mission of all times. How could he be so irresponsible? I looked down at the glass spout sticking from my pack: labeled DO NOT DRINK EVAH!!! in silver sharpie. He kept the bottle around as a way to defeat temptation in the face. We shouldn't cower from the things we fear.

Maybe Matt's using it for antiseptic? We were supposed to stay sober while we were doing our charity work for The Sponsors. Just help the animals. Do whatever you can and we'll ensure all expenses paid.

I was tempted to drink right then, fuck The Sponsors, but I wouldn't let go of my moped's handlebar. Think. Think. Think of something different.

Saan legend said alcohol was originally a gift the Ancient Elephants gave Adam and Eve after they walked up to a herd in a Marula grove. The pachyderms were feasting on fermenting fruit, fallen and wasting on the ground. Adam and Eve were very hungry and were just thrown out of Eden for eating a pomegranate. Pitying them, the elephants shared their funny fruit and taught the first couple how to drown their sorrows whenever God abandoned them. Nice of the elephants to take pity on A&E's poor souls and give the first humans something to console their heartache.

Wait. Was that the legend? Huh!

Stories have a way of warping when they're retold. Was it a Saan story? I could mean the Xhosa or Lesotho. Whatever.

My Vespa chugged, but I didn't pedal off. I heard laughing behind me, so I turned back and saw some black boys scaling the walls of my complex. They balanced on the top and clung to nearby banyan boughs.

The tallest boy waved. “Off to save the animals, Chinaman?”

“We'll see, Tembo. You guys be careful,” I ordered. “See you in class.”

“Drive safe, Chinaman.”

“Zoom zoom.”

“Bye bye, Chinaman!”

By now they should know I'm American with Japanese heritage, but there's a language barrier, a class barrier, several barriers to consider before I criticize their expressions. Tembo and his friends attended my ESL class down at the chapel by the well. They were good kids even if they considered my Asian ancestry a comedic quality. I threw them some Kit-Kats and they waved me off, tearing the wrappers with their teeth, which would never see a dentist. I hoped the snacks coaxed them to show up tomorrow.

I drove down the highway along the jagged coast. The Eastern Cape was poor, but the surfing brought tourism, paved roads and of course, the tollbooths installed during the 2010 World Cup. Shantytowns lined the road opposite the shore, and their inhabitants idled about, wearing faces of men buried alive.

Ahead, I saw the checkpoint. I slowed for the tollbooth attendant and signaled him with a V-sign.

“Sixty Rand,” he droned.

“It was fifty yesterday.”

He grunted. “Then you can't pass. You short.”

“And you're incredibly dull and I hate you,” I said. I flipped him the remaining ten and he scrambled onto the floor for it. All the service workers in this country had terrible manners. I paid my fare and sped off without a receipt.

Past the checkpoint, the foliage thickened into dense ironwood groves, and the shantytown rows vanished. Summer estates rested high in the hills above the treeline and supported only one family each. Not two-dozen people in an aluminum foil shack.

Sometimes ladies walked along the highway, balancing wicker-baskets on their heads. Sometimes they went out topless and their boobies jiggled. They had a long walk back home. But it's not like they'd hitchhike. Some people went their entire lives here without ever riding a vehicle.

Four miles down, I pulled into a dirt parking lot and locked my bike to a Dung Beetle Crossing sign. You never saw those buggers this close to the ocean. There weren't any megafauna roaming J. Bay like you'd find in Kruger or Addo, pooping up the land for the beetles to eat like kings.

I watched the water and a little inlet invited me for a swim. December waters were warm down here. Seasons switched in the Southern Hemisphere. It felt like San Diego, but the air was a wee fresher, with a Antarctic bite. Hornbills honked in the mangrove patches loitering ankledeep in the shallows. The amphibious trees monopolized the beachfront, except for the parcel Matt erected his wooden Lincoln cottage. His door swung open, banging at the hinges. He'd left a few books tee-peed face-down on his picnic table. Beyond the house, a flock of seagulls divebombed Jammer Island and so I ran over in their direction, wondering what they might be snacking on.

Hopefully not on whatever creature we were rescuing.

This better be worth it, Matt. The weight of his bottle dragged down my shoulders. I pulled it from my pack.

What was so special about a drink?

I heard someone approaching and I turned to see Matt, tanned and tall, wearing only his silver Champion basketball shorts, a backwards Angels cap, a backpack, and red high-tops. He crossed his arms, and furrowed his thick brows, sinews of his body tightening all over. He'd caught me holding the Amarula Cream bottle, gazing fixedly at its contents.

“You haven't opened it,” he said.

“Obviously.”

“Never crossed your mind?”

“We'll see,” I said. “Reporting for duty, Mr. Matt.”

I saluted him.

Crowfeet scratched his eyes as he laughed and walked off, expecting me to follow. The sun blinded me as he moved away, so I walked under his shadow.

“Glad you were brave enough to wear your hat.”

“Why'd you want me to wear it?”

“We'll see.”

He lead me on to Jammer Island, connected by a landbridge of dagger-rocks big enough to leapfrog. Matt helped me onto the first boulder, laughed as I scrambled to a second. One slip and the rip current would ship me to Great White territory.

Maybe the J. Bay surfers and seals would distract all the seamonsters. That's all they were good for. I could hear their barks around the bay.

“Getting the shakes?” Matt caught my arm as I dropped another landing. A rogue wave wet my bum. Nearby, I saw sunbathing macaroni penguins, the juveniles ones lined up to slide down a big rock to seek lunch, launching their streamlined bodies into the blue, with wild honks. We scared the seabirds away as we crossed our obstacle course, stone to stone and finally landed upon the white sandy beach.

Our Spot!

Lacewings crashed my face and I swatted them off. At the edge of the forest, were little indentations in the sand, where antlions ambushed ants. Betcha didn't know these tiny hook-jawed predators provided the inspiration for the Sarlacc Pit from Return of the Jedi.

While inspecting the holes along the beach, my shorts caught the protruding end of a cycad.

“Oh, bother.”

Carefully, I unhooked the spiked leaves from my thighs, then I wandered deeper into the dense trees and thought about the duckbilled dinosaurs who used to chew off the fronds like nobody's business 66 million years ago.

“C'mon, don't wander off,” said Matt.

We stepped outta the shade and rounded the island, following a bend in the river. A rocky estuary, where a stream mixed with the saltwater, roared and crashed. Beneath the falls, was a gigantic shadow. Our biggest rescue yet.

A golden hump, rose out the estuary. First I thought it was a sleeping hippo, heaving and breathing. But hippo's didn't have huge spheres attached to their sides, or a network of long tentacles pulled taut by the current. I touched myself (on my hat, silly). Felt fabric constricted my head, and my hands rested on the booby eyes only a fraction the size of the genuine thing staring at me.

“Jeepers creepers, check out those peepers.” I looked at Matt. “A giant squid?”

“Nope. Colossal,” said Matt. “Let's get to work.”

I'm not big on calamari ecology, but from the look the squid gave me with its baskeball-sized eyes, I knew she was unsettled. I saw one of her tentacles jammed in a crevice—she's stuck, although not quite beached. We'd save the poor girl. Then her eyes started to brim, but I don't believe they knew how to cry. They were just pooling moisture to keep the eyes well lubricated.

“Is it safe?”

“You tell me, MOFO.”

The squid looked my direction, maybe sizing me up for a snack.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'm just a man, not a mean sperm whale or shark.” I grinned because I said the word “sperm.”

Why was I talking to the squid? I didn't know its language. Waist deep, I had three feet clearance from the bulb of its head—bigger than my whole body; a mound of amorphous rubber flesh. Inside, a rubber soul.

The huge mass hadn't deflated because the water was deep enough to give it wiggle room, enough structural support.

“Maybe it's hungry?” I called to Matt, seeing him walk down a rock-formed terrace to stand over me with his shadow. I felt his force wherever he went, a gravity. He dominated me.

“The only squid chow around here's us,” he said. “No more talking about food, you're giving the gal ideas, let's just set her free.”

The squid looked at Matt and moved its head in a nod. It agreed to our help?

Sighing, I splashed it but got no reaction.

Then I touched the slimy skin of its big bell, containing the largest extant invertebrate brain, and a jet propulsion system. But it couldn't use its jet-stream to launch itself back into the sea.

It kept looking at me.

If humans had the same bodyplans as this gal, our eyes would rest on our hips and be big as grapefruits, and our limbs would stretch out three times the human proportions.

“If you help me rope it, we might be able to hoist her down from the rocks. The water ain't deep. You see where she's hitched?”

I saw where two shorter tentacles tangled in the rocks. Pulling with too much force, the way Matt intended, could snap an appendage. Was this a frail creature? It went toe-to-toe with giant toothed whales, the biggest predators on earth—sperm whales. The squid would make mincemeat out of my arms.

I lifted a tentacle and it felt like a thick waterlogged rope.

“Careful underneath,” said Matt. He pointed to hooked spines running in rows down all the tentacles. I scratched myself on one, drawing blood. These were thick fishing hooks for grabbing...anything.

Matt waded behind me. He had his cords and ropes encircled around his arm, all of varying thicknesses. He prepared the right gauge, and the first slipknot.

I tried slackening the squid's caught limbs.

We'd get her out. We could save others. Be our own gods. Serve life.

Then I cut myself again on a hook and the wound dribbled into the sea. A thin red line flowed from the shallows to the deeper water.

“You're sharkbait now, MOFO,” said Matt.

“Today wouldn't be the first time I attracted bloodthirsty brutes.”

Matt shook his head and grinned. He threw me the end of the nylon rope, about fifty millimeters thick.

Hope it holds.

Fastening the slack end around my waist, I dropped underwater without taking a breath, and pulled the line under the the squid's mantle. My back swept against the squid's smooth body and my tummy swam only inches from the stony bottom. The water was approximately seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. Beneath, I got up close and personal with the Colossus' bulk, which I reckoned twice the girth of a Giant species.

Boy. The tentacles were like God-sized spaghetti. As a Japanese man, I felt at ease in the presence of so many gigantic tentacles. They touched me.

Thin flaps spread from the Colossus' head and rippled in the current. Trails of red from my bleeding arm and calf swirled around us both—bloody beautiful.

Underwater plants massaged our undersides.

And I saw a pair of smaller tentacles pulling at the seaweed. Opaque white forms, like rice grains the size of my thumbs stuck to the ends.

Squid eggs!

I returned to the surface, with the rope safely wrapped around the squid.

“She's clutching,” I said, spitting seawater at Matt. Phooey.

He was used to being blasted in the eye by me, so didn't flinch. “You're gonna tell me we can't move her.”

“Not until she's done.” I searched the horizon of the sea, and my arm stung. “We might not be alone much longer.”

“Then tell her to hurry up.”

He helped me finish the Double-Barrel Windsor Keynes knot we'd learn from a BDSM expo back in Cali. The DBWK was good for wrangling cattle or resistant straight boys or in this case, colossal squid. The knot was so awesome, it wouldn't break even under seventeen thousand kilos of tension.

“We can't stay here,” said Matt. “I'm pulling her out. Do what you can.”

“But-”

If we moved the squid we could harm its reproductive life cycle. Sea creatures were complex. Each life stage was like a wholly different creature that demanded specific needs and habitats. Maybe Jammer Island and the waters in its estuary were critical for squidbaby development, something to do with the biochemistry we lacked any understanding of. If we disturbed the peace we'd jeopardize an entire generation of squid. I didn't want to be an accessory to squid abortion.

Just then, the Colossus looked at me.

We were trying to understand one another.

Matt heaved at the ropes, pulling a thousand pound load. “You just gonna watch me work?” he said. I shook my head, even though watching him perform manual labor was one of the reasons I loved him. So I took up my end of the rope, and heaved forward until the water reached my chest.

The squid kept laying its eggs, unaffected. Watching me with its eyes whenever I turned back to look. I tugged and tugged. The rope wouldn't give.

The Colossus' eyes were brown and human-like.

Then: we saw knifey fins pointing from the swell, narrowing into the inlet for a chowdown.

The sharks attacked.

We knifed five foot leopard sharks as they latched onto the squid with their jaws. One bit Matt and he splashed in panic. I grabbed the biter's fin, and punched my hand down its throat. As it threshed its tail, it skinned my hip. I cringed and ripped its tongue from it's throat and it floated lifelessly away.

His mates swam in, tagged him out.

Then I brained another through the skull, yelling, “This is a knife,” in my best Crocodile Dundee. The estuary turned deep red. I hope to god no great whites showed up.

The leopard sharks swam away but regrouped and swam around us in a circle.

I stared at the squid. “Hey girl, you almost done?” I tried channeling the spirit of my favorite My Little Pony, Fluttershy. Just give the squid The Look. Its eyes are giant windows into its soul, or whatever squid's have. Give it The Look and make it do what you want.

It did not work. The squid did not care fore my penetrating gazes or attempts at psionics. Its soul was rubber.

Pulling out was our only hope.

I grabbed up my rope and pulled the squid. Heave-ho heave-ho. I felt the rope tension release, and the squid budged. Screaming our lungs out, me and Matt pulled the Colossus out of the rocks and over the sand of a shallower end of the water. The immense weight strained my back, but I kept pulling.

A shark grabbed my leg and I dipped below the waves.

I struggled and pounded the shark's cartilaginous skin, scraping my knuckles bloody.

Then the water temperature dipped and turned inky and I couldn't see the shark. It's jaws let go. I felt the huge body of the squid writhe past me, jetting itself into the vast Southern Ocean for Freedom.

I got back to the surface and took in a big breath. “We did it Matt!”

He looked up in awe. The squid had grabbed hold of all the remaining leopard sharks. The terrorizing fish flew through the air, constricted by tentacles. The colossus flicked one twenty feet into the air and dashed another against rocks. The water flooded with red.

Not one leopard shark remained on Jammer Island when the squid calmed down.

“Rescue complete,” I said.

Then squid waved goodbye and it pulsed away on a jetstream of water. Its golden hump sailed away until it was gone.

Me and Matt watched the sun until it started sinking and the sky matched the water. We went and sat on the beach.

“Well, this'll be a day to remember,” I said.

“How about we celebrate?” Matt had taken out the Amarula Cream and shook the bottle.

“Maybe you could reconsider opening it. We've come so far”

“I know man, we didn't come halfway across the world just to open Pandora's box.”Matt looked thinner, his hair redder.

“Never again, man.”

“Did you know that this country was where the first humans evolved and spread to the rest of the world?”

“I know now,” I said. “Two men, together in Eden. What's the world coming to?”

Matt threw the bottle into the sea and it waved around in the swell. I was shocked.

“Someone else's problem now?”

“Yup.”

“Good.”

Behind the waterfall, the clutch of eggs glowed gold. We felt their light warm our bare chests.

We'd watch over the eggs. But there was no way we'd count them before they hatched because there were millions.

Today, my bud and I slayed some sharks, maybe jumped one too, and saved our squid.

In a few months, we'd have enough calamari to keep our tummies happy until the end of time.