not on phones, anyway. And Jeton doesn’t own a cell phone.
“You’re wasting your money,” Jeton tells his cousin Mike.
Mike is on the video machine, playing Space Spiders. He says, “I got money to waste.”
The machine goes Ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! as Mike muscles into it.
Jeton slugs down half the Tsing Tsoa Mike has just bought him, letting the foam burn his throat.
They are at the Lucky Star Bar and Restaurant, where Jeton hopes Mike will buy him a lunch of shrimp lo mein. The Lucky Star is dark, like all the drinking places, with only a single plastic window up front and a few light bulbs strung over the bar, which is a painted countertop made of chipboard from the Philippines. A few young men Jeton does not know sit at a table near the window. They are laughing and seem to have money. Maybe they are from Majuro. Two old men sit at the end of the bar watching the TV, which sits on a box behind the counter. The program—something in Spanish—comes by satellite from Manila.
Jeton should be in school and Mike should be at the causeway, but, “Fuck it,” Jeton said when Mike met him this morning. Mike told him that they would take the “day off,” as the Americans put it.
Mike is two years older than Jeton and much lighter-skinned—wūdmouj—because one of his grandfathers was Japanese. Mike also has a fine black mustache that Jeton admires. And, unlike Jeton, who is short and has thick legs, Mike is tall and has an easy stride. Jeton thinks sometimes that Mike is the man he should be. But it is becoming clear to Jeton that he will not be like Mike, who has a high school diploma and has traveled as far as Japan and now drives a loader for the construction crew at the causeway.
Mike’s plan is to sell electronics on Ebeye, ship them direct from China, he says, and make a fuckin’ fortune!
Jeton’s plan is—or was—to love Nora forever. Since their trouble with her parents last week and Nora’s surprising announcement about returning to the States, Jeton has felt jebwābwe, like doing something crazy. Nora’s parents may ask the American police to ban Jeton from returning to Kwajalein. Americans can do that to the ri-je because the Americans have paid the je Republic a lot of money to build their missiles on the island.
In two weeks Nora flies away.
Jeton met her for the first time when his high school soccer team played the American high school soccer team. Jeton was the ri-je goalie. Already he had lost one tooth up front from protecting the goal. Nora said the missing tooth made his smile look “cute.”
“You hungry?” he asks Mike.
Ka-blam! Mike is already at level twelve, alien spiders raining from the video sky: ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! blam!blam!blam! So much noise! Mike’s handsome eyes expertly scan the screen, his thumbs pummeling the joysticks.
“Sounds like one of us is hungry,” Mike says at last.
Jeton wants Mike’s money but, at the same time, he does not want to see Mike spend so much. If Mike keeps spending what he makes, he will never open his electronics shop. This is a frustrating thought because it is so American, worrying about what has not happened yet. Jeton suspects this comes from spending time with Nora.
He says, “Mike, what happened to your electronics business?”
“Man, I’m saving for it,” says Mike.
“Right now?”
“Fuck you, Jeton. Least I got a job.”
Ka-blam! Level 15. The game is over. Without glancing at Jeton, Mike feeds the machine more dollars and starts again.
Jeton looks with envy at the custom chopsticks Mike carries in a leather case from a loop at his belt. The chopsticks, carved from whale bone, he got from his Japanese grandfather before the old man died.
“Let me try,” Jeton says.
Mike glances at him and smirks. “You don’t got the reflexes.”
Jeton sputters his indignation. “Best goalie on Ebeye—I got reflexes!”
Mike lets him have his seat. The blue-green alien spiders drift down from the yellow video sky like ash Jeton has seen raining over the Ebeye landfill. When the pretty spiders touch Jeton’s fat little space ships, the ships explode.
“You got to blow them spiders up,” Mike says. “Fire, man!”
Jeton thumbs the joysticks, jerking them as he fires with both barrels. Ka-blam! ka-blam! ka-blam! so loud it hurts his ears, spiders splintering into shards like glass against rock, rockets streaking red lines across the screen, more and more spiders falling, his ships exploding until Jeton pushes himself away from the machine in frustration.
“Fuck it!” he says, his face burning. He wants to slam the video screen with his fist.
“You don’t have to get angry, man. It’s a game.”
“Fuck it. I never liked these bwebwe machines.”
“You’re like a old man, Jeton. These machines gonna make me a million dollars.”
“You don’t got enough to buy a machine like this.”
Mike sits again at his machine, then feeds it more dollars. “Not today.”
“When?” There it is, Jeton thinks. They are talking like the ri-pālle. Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?”
“What do you care, Jeton?”
Ka-blam! Mike starts firing. He is steady, relentless, his eyes focused. Maybe he can do what he says. Maybe Jeton needs to be like Mike. See the alien spiders and shoot, see them and shoot. Shoot shoot shoot. No letting up.
“I don’t care,” Jeton lies. “I’m gonna—”
His sudden assertion stops him because he is not sure what he is going to do or be. It seems everyone else has a plan.
“You gonna what?” Mike says.
“I’m gonna be goalie on the national team.”
The national soccer team trains on Majuro. They fly to Manila, Tokyo, and Sidney to play other teams. The star goalie, Abbetar, wears no shoes and has lost five of his front teeth saving the ball. Who could be tougher than Abbetar?
Mike laughs. “You replace Abbetar?”
What is it the Americans say? “Stranger things have happened.”
“You come over to the causeway,” Mike says, still firing, alien spiders splintered into purple bits. “Maybe I can get you work.”
“The causeway is a mistake,” Jeton says. He watches Mike’s face to see what happens. “I heard all about it when I was on Kwajalein.”
“What you hear?” Mike is up to level 10 already.
“It’s gonna ruin the lagoon because it blocks the waves.”
Ka-blam! “Nothing can ruin the lagoon,” Mike says. Ka-blam!
Jeton finishes his beer. “It blocks the waves, man!”
“It doesn’t block the waves. I work on it. I see.”
“Ibwijleplep. Storm waves. The American engineers say so.”
“They say so because they are jealous—because they aren’t building it.”
“We ri-je don’t know how to build anything,” Jeton says. “We’re stupid.”
“I’m not stupid,” Mike says. “And I’m building the fucking causeway.”
That’s better: he wants to see Mike mad.