SEA SLUG HOLIDAY
Ron Logan
Building Billy's Door
"Billy's been looking for you. He's anxious
about building that door."
Work referrals and prospective jobs often
materialize under quirky circumstances for the
Professor. He's turned a hand at an alarming hodge
podge of misfit handyman projects and Gypsy trades
from building turkey fences to repairing gutters.
Misguided clients believe, incorrectly I assure you,
that the patient Professor secretly enjoys tasks
piddling, slimy, and distasteful. They couldn't be
more wrong.
Billy's emissary has traced me to my
downtown office, the porch of Osburn's Grocery and
Deli. I consult with Ron Logan later. We agree to
travel to Billy's house on Saturday, accompanied by
Ms. Sally Lackaff, and will then attempt to construct a
cedar slab door for Billy's cabin. Trips to Billy’s are
a different pot of beans altogether. Projects and
lightheartedness get all muddled together in a
delightful stew of savory moments. I always return
home refreshed and uplifted, skylarking. As a general
rule, the perceived projects, and the urgency to
complete them, dwindle as a day at Billy's unfolds.
My secret doubt, kept close to the cuff, is that no saw
will touch Billy's hewn cedar door slabs this Saturday.
A few more month's seasoning will improve the
cedar's grain and texture. Late spring. Maybe even
summer.
Saturday finds us slashing east from the coast
under curtains of wind driven rain. Milk chocolate
streams and rivers chew off chunks of farmland and
head to sea. Tips of new spring growth pink out the
red alder thickets. We pass coastal farms with busted
and rusted D-8 Cats mouldering into yellow rust
melts. "Double wide" trailer houses squat on cut-over
timberland, paint peels from their walls. Glutter fills
their yards: garish, battered Tonka and Coleco Toy
gym sets and heeled over tricycles abused by children.
One farm settlement looks like a Laotian Hmong tribal
compound strafed and bombed by B-52's. Dozens of
car bodies litter a muddy field, ghastly testimony to
the failure of things.
My spirit relaxes as we leave the main highway
and turn down the county road toward Bill's. One
senses a change immediately. We drop back several
decades as the road spins behind us. The things of
people slough off as we snake down the winding road.
We park the car and begin the 25 minute hike to
Billy's log cabin.
"Billy loves company!," Ron assures us.
While boarding a plane in Los Angeles, I recall
joking with my traveling colleague, Matt, about
the prospect of finding a banana crate large
enough to ship his body back to the United
States. Matt is notorious for unintentional, self-
inflicted injury, so this concern was not entirely
unjustified on my part. His consideration of the
prospect was moot, for he and I were en route to
the mild and hospitable Cook Islands, a place
where risks are limited to sunburns, mosquito
bites, and hangovers. Matt was well accustomed
to all of these phenomena.
Matt is known to most friends as Sluggo. The
origins and meanings of this name are not clear
to me, but it has been an integral part of his
persona for as long as I have known him.
The island of Roratonga is surrounded by an
extensive coral reef which creates a giant,
encircling lagoon. Outer islands and exposed
reef skirt the lagoon. The waters of the lagoon
are filled with, among other things, giant purple
sea slugs. For Sluggo, the sea slugs were, at
first, a source of great intrigue. They appeared
to graviiate toward him whenever he entered the
lagoon, slowly turning their heads in his direction
and making slow, straight lines toward him. It
was as if the slugs had been waiting for him.
Sluggo referred to himself as the "king" of the
slugs and gloated in this self-proclaimed, regal
status. I became concerned as his infatuation
with the slugs perpetuated. He spent hours
rescuing them from the shallows, stroking them
with his toes, and preaching to groups of them
that would gather in his presence. Foreign beer
can have strange effects, I thought, and high
humidity can render a person all but
unconscious.
I believed that the sea slugs were a prophesy,
felt that they sensed an imminent danger, a
pending doom, and were attempting to express
these things to King Sluggo. These slugs, and
other occupants of the Cook Islands, once
fostered an admirable monarchial system that
was ruled by portly Polynesian queens.
Centuries ago, however, the societal and cultural
attributes of the Cook Islands, as with much of
Polynesia, were fragmented and destroyed by a
deluge of religious zealots and missionaries.
The Cook Islander's spirituality, once closely
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Bill's cabin hunkers down on a knob in the
foothills of our coast range. Remnants of the cedar
stands once common on the West Coast blend with
other conifers on his property . Billy greets us
warmly. A red rug temporarily covers his door
opening. The mountains lump away in green mounds
in all directions
Once inside, we chat briefly about the two-foot
wide slabs of cedar door boards. Our intentions were
good, but concentration on the project waned. Over
English beer, cheese, and water biscuits, I felt the
door drifting off. Brandon and his dog Bear showed
up. Billy pulled out his Shaman's stone. We discussed
the habits of shrews. A mysterious drowsiness and
languor prevailed. Wind soughed through cedar
branches outside, and the day just plain slipped away.
That's all I can tell you. Too many stories. Too
much laughter. Days at Billy's are like that.
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On Aututaki we meet the only American we
encountered on our trip. Sitting at a table in an
outdoor eatery near us was a very large, red
skinned man wearing bright blue shorts and a
flowered tee shirt. His stomach was bare where
it hung below his waist line. His table was
stacked high with empty Steinlager beer cans.
Seated next to him was a petite and timid
appearing woman, smartly dressed and
nervously reading a book. Later, the man got up
from his seat, snagging his shorts on the metal
table, and started toward us. "What the hell
does this oof want", I asked Sluggo. "I need to
get away from this viscous woman," the large
man bellowed, "would you guys like to go
snorkeling at Half Foot Island tomorrow?" We
would come to know this man as Bob. He was
indeed a man of great proportion and wore a
perpetual grin, even in times of intense debate
with his estranged girlfriend, Debbi. He was a
man who was prepared to snap at any given
moment, but likable non the least, and a
consummate drinker. We would come to learn
that Bob was retired. He had spent several
years transporting materials to and from exotic
places throughout the world. He was silent as to
any other details of his existence. We choose to
believe that he was a courier for the United
States government and had handled a variety of
highly sensitive documents.
For Sluggo, doom seeded itself the day we left
Aututaki. From this point on, his trip would be
fraught with imminent peril. It was the Saturday
before Easter Sunday, a monumental holiday for
the Cook Islanders. Our small twin engine Otter
was stuffed with Aututakians traveling to
celebrate on the main island, Roratonga. The
woman next to me cradled a strange melon,
others had baskets of bread and parts of dead
animals. The plane sat on the runway for some
time in direct 90 degree sunlight. I looked to the
back of the plane where Sluggo had been forced
to claw and inch his way to an open seat. He
appeared blank and clammy. A bumpy flight
would surely bring misery and mess, I recall
thinking.
We arrived in Roratonga with Bob and Debbi.
After the flight, Debbi was not speaking directly
to Bob. He had apparently upset her in some
way during the flight. She was glad to see
Sluggo and me when we disembarked and
expressly began interrogating Sluggo about a
rash which had developed on his neck. Sluggo
explained that it surfaced that morning and had
excruciating sting to it. Her apparent frustrations
with Bob, who had since entered the airport bar,
manifested themselves in the form of animosity
toward Sluggo's newly surfaced affliction. She
began reciting tropical disease horror stories, all
directed toward Sluggo. "Bob has made this
woman crazy" Sluggo told me as we escaped
into a taxi.
On Roratonga, Sluggo's rash condition continued
to progress. After being chased out of the
lagoon by a large, overly aggressive Parrot Fish,
Sluggo realized that his malady needed specific
attention. It was beginning to have adverse
effects beyond pain. Strangely, the sea slugs
were now sparse in the lagoon. Things were
becoming all too unusual, and I agreed that he
should go to the island hospital the next day to
for some comforting advise and remedy.
That evening, Sluggo reluctantly agreed to go
down to the bar to meet Bob and Debbi. Debbi
continued with her campaign of dread and doom.
She had cataloged dozens of tales of injury and
death in the tropics. "Yesterday, a woman was
severely bitten by a Moray Eel at Maurie Beach
and had to be flown to Aukland for treatment",
she lectured, "The hospital here is left over from
World War II". Sluggo rolled his eyes and gulped
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During our visit to an outer island, Aututaki, we
sensed that we had found a veritable paradise.
Young, slightly dressed and docile Polynesian
girls attended to our needs. A thatched
bungalow, complete with a high speed ceiling fan
and an unlimited supply of mosquito coils, made
an excellent shelter from the 80 degree nights.
The lagoon was ladened with the same purple
sea slugs and they continued to pay Sluggo
particular attention. Kiwi Lager beer was our
mainstay. We would pack our cooler with it each
morning before trekking out to pure white sand
beaches and outer islands. Everything was as it
should be, but I was haunted by the sea slug's
constant presence. I was not fearful for myself,
for I knew that any misfortune would first affix
itself to Sluggo, and I would have time to get
away clean.
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related to natural phenomena, was replaced by
what others thought better for them. Tributes to
the Cook Islander's favorite God, Tangarora,
were overshadowed by dozens of stucco
churches and western architecture.
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