You, dog—you, Goodnight, who no longer reside on the twenty-first parallel north. Where are you now?
You were riding in a double canoe. Taking part in a glorious adventure, heading for Tahiti using ancient maritime navigation techniques. If this magnificent project, part of the Hawaiian Renaissance, was a success, you had been told, you would be awarded a third medal to add to the Purple Heart and the Silver Star you received during your days as a military dog. Your master was the one who told you this. The former lieutenant who had taken you into his family when you retired from the military, then let you go when the family beagle had children—not your master, then, strictly speaking, but your former master. Well, you would never get that third medal. A month after the canoe set out, on November 11, 1975, you were starving. The canoe was adrift. Swept this way and that on the vast sea. Once, earlier, the humans had tried to kill you, to turn you into food. Canine cuisine. Fortunately, however, you had no master now. No new master had appeared. As far as you could see, the boat was populated with idiots.
DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN SACRIFICE ME? ARE YOU FOOLS CRAZY? That was your answer to them. And so you revolted. You sank your teeth deep into one man’s biceps, tore off the hands of two others at the wrists, and that was that—you had beaten them back. All your years as a military dog came back to you, erupted within you. You ate the body parts you had taken. Then you sucked the bones. You had been starving since the second week of the voyage. The Polynesian navigator had revealed himself as a useless, run-of-the-mill fraud. Unable to read the stars in unfamiliar seas. The Hawaiian Islands and the Cook Islands were part of the same Polynesian cultural sphere, it was true, but they were just too far apart. The navigator was from Rarotonga Island, and the ocean here was nothing like the ocean there. This was too far north. To make matters worse, he couldn’t see what was happening with the waves. He wasn’t sensitive to his surroundings. By the third day, the canoe had started moving off course. You heard the humans quarreling.
“Secret techniques my ass!” the wealthy researcher shouted. “Where’s this fucking ‘wisdom of the ancients’ you were talking about, you fucking bluffer!” As it happened, the researcher’s insults were right on target: the navigator had been bluffing his way through life for years. And he didn’t stop now. “I swear to you, sir, that I will carry us onward to Tahiti using the traditional techniques I have inherited. I would be grateful if you would address me more politely. That’s the problem with these academics…” His voice trailed off into muttering. The researcher was so incensed at this that he took out the precision watch, sextant, and radio he had brought in case of emergency and threw them all overboard. “All right, then, great! We didn’t need those, right? That’s what you’re telling me? Ha ha ha!” He howled. From then on, the trip no longer felt like an adventure. The canoe was heavy with despair. The direness of the situation became apparent when they entered the doldrums. They had reached the equator, at least, but now they weren’t going anywhere: not east, not west, not north, and not south. The humans tried desperately to catch fish, to capture seabirds. Then one morning, two of them were dead. Starved to death. That was the day the others attacked you, right around noon.
At the hour when the sun beat down most ferociously, fourteen members of the crew held a meeting—you were part of the crew too, but they didn’t invite you to participate—in which it was decided that if they couldn’t get any fish or any birds, they had no choice but to eat the dog. They chased you to the prow of the canoe. And then you attacked. You owed them no loyalty. Isn’t that right, Goodnight? You… you were merely exercising your basic rights. You had as much right to live as those humans did. So you made it clear that if you couldn’t get any fish or any birds, you had no choice but to eat the humans. You demonstrated this beyond any doubt by devouring the hands of the two crew members you had beaten back. And you didn’t just devour them, you relished them. They could see that. You showed them, too, that there was no point in holding meetings. That evening and later that night, one, two, then three died. The two men whose hands you had torn off and the one whose biceps you had bitten. They had lost too much blood, and they were already on the edge of death anyway. The survivors didn’t dump the bodies overboard. They converted them into “food.” You observed them from your position at the prow. One of the haole crew members was so unnerved by the steely glitter in your eyes that he tossed you his companions’ livers. Also their penises and testicles, which the survivors found somehow unappetizing. You devoured it all. It was tasty.
Morning came. You were still sitting at the prow. Naturally, the humans ended up clustered at the stern. There were eleven left, but they had split up into three factions. There was no point trying to reach a universal consensus: it went without saying that the haole, the pure Hawaiians, and the Rarotongan would each form their own groups. No one attacked you anymore. The secret fighting techniques you had acquired during your time in the military protected you. There was a ritual now, starting that morning. When one of the fatigued crew members finally died, only the humans in his faction would share the “food.” Cut it up, divvy it up. They always tossed the dead man’s raw liver, as well as his penis and testicles, up to the prow. To you. As an offering, so to speak. This had become the custom. As long as they did this, they believed, that terrifying dog wouldn’t attack them in their sleep. They didn’t need to fear being attacked, that is to say, by you.
The most dangerous thing they could do, they decided, was let you starve.
The humans had come to regard you as a ferocious, wild beast.
Soon the three factions became two. The Polynesian navigator died, and the others fought over his body. They battled for the “food.” The haole faction gave you the penis and testicles as an offering; the pure Hawaiians gave you the liver as theirs. The death of the single member of the Rarotongan faction meant that they had lost the only person with any experience navigating the open ocean, even if he had wildly exaggerated his abilities, but the other two factions didn’t mind. The wealthy researcher died the next day, as if he couldn’t stand to have been beaten by the navigator. You took your time gnawing on the usual parts. Now the canoe had no leader.
Still you remained at the prow, and the humans at the stern.
Two factions became one. Only three humans remained, all pure Hawaiians.
You had passed through the doldrums. But where were you? No one manned the rudder. You had drifted off course, yes, but in which direction? East? West? North? South?
Who knew?
November 11. You were starving.
The double canoe was still adrift.
Still being swept this way and that on the endless sea.
You sat at the prow, gazing, not up at the sky, but at the level horizon.
The Hawaiians caught a few fish every day. They gave you the innards. Tossed the offering to you at the prow.
You didn’t attack the humans. Why would you? You weren’t a wild, ferocious beast—you never had been. You would never have gone for them the way you did if they hadn’t tried to kill you, to turn you into food. So you sat there at the prow, starving.
Starving.
You were still starving on November 12, and on the thirteenth, and on the fourteenth. Your body felt oddly light. You couldn’t feel your weight. You were becoming invisible, you thought.
I’M INVISIBLE.
I’M AN INVISIBLE BITCH.
The fifteenth. You were almost dead. Dehydrated. You faded in and out of consciousness. But your eyes were open. The horizon. More horizon. More horizon. Finally, you became delirious. You thought of your family on Oahu. Back on that island on the twenty-first parallel north, the beagles. Four puppies. SO ADORABLE! SO CUTE! You hadn’t given birth to them yourself, true. But at that moment, in that muddled mental state, you floundered in the fantasy of being their mother. You were suckling them. Giving your teats to those four tiny pups to suck. MY DARLING CHILDREN! you shouted. FRUIT OF MY WOMB! You were growling. Uuuuurrr. And the mistaken memory was burning itself into your mind.