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¡Guam-O-Rama!
by Dave Slagle
Copyright 2014 Dave Slagle,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2297-8
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
¡Guam-O-Rama!
Guam: (/gwa:m/; Chamorro: Guåhån) an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean.
O-Rama: a wide view with ironic reference or exaggerated praise.
¡Guam-O-Rama! is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1. From the Island of Thieves to the Land of Fire
As I stand speechless and still, the sound of thunder rolls overhead. Pago Bay is usually calm.
That's what the locals told me. But today, the waves are crashing onto Taga’chang beach.
And somewhere out there—out where the Pacific Ocean meets the Philippine Sea—a typhoon is forming and may even be heading in this direction. The sound of distant thunder booms as the notorious fugitive, eL Capitan prepares to ride away from me. Away from Guam. Away, towards a waiting yacht. A yacht destined for a place far, far away from here.
"Salir de aquí! Deja de hoy, no hay nada para ti en Guam. The time has come to leave. Follow your heart, Agent Jones, go and find her. I am headed that way myself, to the place I told you about. Find that place, go there and order a couple of Beagle beers while you wait for me. It's beautiful and the bartender will be familiar to you!" eL Capitan yells, revving the supercharged motor of his Waverunner VXS and gazing beyond me. Time passes in slow motion, several minutes or so it seems, before he speaks. "Hafa Ennao. Kalan mon imbestin chagu na taotao. Ai adai, Agent Jones, my friend, Francoise is there waiting for you, go!" He says, shaking his head and smirking, as he again revs the motor and rides away from the beach.
Francoise? The land of fire? Where the hell is he going? Where do they serve Beagle beer? Was it Terra Del Fuego? I can't recall but the last two days are a blur of a faded memory that may not be traceable. The night before she left Françoise sang karaoke versions of old '70's hippie songs while we shared a few fresh coconut coolers. Perfectly cut coconuts spiked with rum. A square hole in the center of a round coconut. That delicious, refreshing tropical taste.
Guam is like that, the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Nothing fits. Nothing makes any sense.
Yet it feels as refreshing and pleasant as any magazine picture of paradise.
Turn the page and the image is gone.
So ironically symbolic of Guam.
None of that matters now. It's time to go.
Minutes are ticking off the clock.
The lyrics of a 70s hippie song from Françoise's last text message begin to play in my head.
"You don't know how much I want to run, run, run, run away.
You don't know how much I need to run, run, run, run away
You don't know how much I love to run, run, run, run away."
It's time to find a way off this island.
And find my way to Francoise.
Chapter 2. Hafa Adai—Welcome to Guam!
Along the shore the loud waves break
A post card view, too real to be fake
The sun sinks below a beach front cabaña
As shadows lengthen in Hagåtña
About eight weeks ago
"Hafa Adai, welcome to Guam, Agent Jones," says the stylish young woman greeting me as I walk out to the luggage claim at the AB Won Pat Guam International Airport. "My name is Mahina and I will be taking you to your hotel. Please follow me to the car." She leads me to a white Toyota Camry with blackout tint on all the windows including the windshield. The mood inside the car is tiring. My eyes are weary, but the darkness of the enclosed car is suddenly disrupted by flashing neon dash lights and the 1970's disco rhythm of KC and the Sunshine Band's 'Keep it Comin' Love. I feel like I am in a rolling nightclub yet I am too tired to do anything but fight to keep my eyes open.
"So quiet. You tired from the flight?" Mahina asks, her voice straining over the beat of the music.
I nod my head, hoping for a quiet ride, but the volume stays the same and she still feels the need to talk at me.
"Well, let me tell you about the island. The ethnic mix of Guam's population is mostly made up of the indigenous Chamorro people. The rest is a blend of Pacific Islanders, Asians, and Caucasians. You can see and taste the diversity in the island's culture and food.
Did you know that for more than 200 years, Guam was a Spanish colony? Well anyway, now Guam has an American style of local government. Did you know that Guam is also a prime vacation spot for both Japanese and Korean tourists? Vacationing in Guam is much more economical than going to Hawaii or the U.S. Mainland."
My brain is too tired to retain her words. Why Guam? I have been asking myself that for the last 18 hours. The intelligence report stated that drugs are being smuggled onto the island in record amounts. A huge amount of Government of Guam funds have been misappropriated. Corruption, it runs deep on this island. Somehow, someone on Guam hacked the OGLE mainframe. And the piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit is a man only known as 'eL Capitan' who may be the mastermind behind it all. All Mahina wants to do is talk at me. She is either trying to impress me with mundane facts about Guam that anyone could Ogle search or she is trying to keep from talking business. Either way, her description of Guam seems idealistically romanticized compared to my own research. There are many blogs, news stories, and historical books about Guam, but there is this one book. However, Gallivanting on Guam is more like a trashy tour guide of the corruption and pornographic emptiness that exists, that most locals don't want outsiders to see. But those stories and images are inescapable today. You can find them on your computer, tablet, or even stream them on your phone. And sometimes, on certain days when the truth does prevail, you can read those stories in Guam's newspaper, the Pacific Daily News. And you can hear about them on KUAM News. The nameless narrator of that Guam book and the other characters embody everything you could ever dream of or fear about the ethical, moral, and social values of Guam. At first, that book seems to be about the narrator, who is quite possibly the most vile, insipid, alpha male gym rat in history.
But he has a lot of insight as to what power does to human disposition; how humans can take the passenger seat in their own lives; and how global society has become immune to trashy, vile filth in the media and movies. That book has such an incredible and slowly developed sense of menace and spiraling insanity that the reader doesn't even realize it until they reach the end, which is exactly what happens to the narrator in the novel. I don't think I've ever had such a visceral reaction to a book before. And that trashy Guam book—that book took place in the time before smart phones. It was a time when the Internet was still fairly new. And my research proves that some of the characters in that book are real and all the government corruption was true. In real life, the characters from that book were nothing more than