Woman on the Moon

By Alex Modzelewski

A “we owe you nothing” sign welcomes Doctor Paul Bronski as he sails into Moon City, an anarchistic community floating in the Pacific. Targeted by a misguided counterintelligence operation, Paul and a lovely harbormaster, Grace, must outsmart and evade the pursuers. The brute power is met with courage and unorthodox thinking—is that enough to keep the couple alive and “off the leash”?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Modzelewski
• Release date: Nov 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452402062

Alex Modzelewski

IIf you need someone to challenge your well-established ideas, I'll be happy to oblige. A surgeon by training, traveler and rebel by temperament, I practiced medicine in multiple countries of Europe, Africa and North America until I traded my scalpel for a pen in 2006. The exotic experiences and unorthodox worldview I gathered during my travels serve me now as the raw material for thrillers, adventure books and short stories.Return to Paradise (2011) and Woman on the Moon (2009) are parts of the novel series codenamed "Spun in Hawaii," soon to be complemented by Golden Dust. Although they share some characters, and all are staged in or around Hawaii, their plots stand on their own--each one can be read independently.Demon of Darien (2010) breaks out of the "Spun in Hawaii" setting, taking the action to Panama and introducing a new set of protagonists, but my taste for adventure and predilection for political heresy remain.I believe that many time-honored sentiments--might they concern maternal love and patriotism or drug dealing and prostitution— are nothing but superstitions without rigorous stress-testing. In my books, I try to see how much they can take and test results are sometimes surprising.But more than anything, I try to have fun with exciting plot becauseBoredom KillsI live in Hawaii now, writing, paddling the ocean and arguing my unorthodox ideas.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A dirty, plastic 10 cc syringe—its plunger half way in—bobbed slowly into my field of vision, a first completely lucid image after a few weeks of confusion. The scrambled recollections, filling my head like an overflowing dumpster, were finally settling down—a dense and obscure layer of muck decanted at the bottom, clear space above available for rational thinking. The useless piece of ocean-polluting junk had caused my heart to skip a beat, then race like a whitetail spooked by a stray dog. Anticipation of intense pleasure shot through my nervous system in milliseconds only to be halted a moment later in agonizing realization: the ecstatic jolt would not come. My body curled in a pitiful, aching ball until the shame, like a hearty face slap, brought me back into balance.

From Alphena’s deck the ocean appeared as flat as a dinner plate. She occupied the center of a perfectly round, dark blue dish—a red morsel of some exotic food served in an expensive restaurant. Nothing else, just the cobalt-colored plain decorated with delicate ripples of the same hue close by and a few small white breakers in the distance. A pretty view, in fact. The upsetting part was the complete silence: no waves slapping against the hull, no squeaks of the boat straining on waves, no banging of metal parts against the aluminum mast—nothing, complete stillness occasionally interrupted by Sarah’s swearing down below.

Sweating in the hot and stuffy cabin, she was cussing softly at my VHF. I had told her a thousand times: the very-high-frequency-radio can reach, at best, as far as the eye can see but it’s useless in the middle of the ocean. With our mast and antenna down—worthless. She was quite skillful with wires, boards and all other electronic shit, but despite all her cleverness, the laws of physics would not bend for her. Still, if that was giving her some comfort, why not let her tinker? Not that we suffered from a shortage of time. After she rigged a new antenna at the bow pulpit, the radio had actually come to life yesterday, whistling and screeching loudly. She had thrown a victorious grin in my direction, the first smile in days, but as I looked around, the horizon was clear. Not a mast, not a smoke stack, not a hull. There was no one within twenty miles to hear our call. Not here. No one has business hanging around the garbage patch of the North Pacific, as the environmentalists call it. Shipping lanes run hundreds of miles to the north or south and fish are scanty in the open ocean, so fishermen have no reason to poke around here either. Perhaps she needs this obsessive work to cope with days and weeks of boring, depressing inactivity, I thought. Anyway, where do real estate people learn electronics? I wondered. My mother, a member of the same profession, couldn’t program a TV remote.

My thinking was definitely getting clearer. Good time to start worrying again, I reprimanded myself. For starters, I could take better care of my crew. Sarah, come up, you’ll be sick again! Nothing. Her cursing went a notch lower, but there was no movement under the deck. A stubborn bulldog of a woman. I never fancied myself an expert on the female psyche but this one had me completely puzzled. Sweet, feminine and vulnerable when we had first met at the marina, she transformed into a stubborn argumentative bitch a few days later, as soon as she wiped vomit off her face. She had been seasick a lot during the first days of our travel, even when Alphena was still plowing confidently steadied by her wind-filled sails. Once we had lost our mast, the boat pitched and rolled on the waves willy-nilly; any old salt would get queasy.

Eventually, we'd gotten used to it—sensory habituation in medical lingo. The boat’s wallowing was perfectly tolerable out on the deck, especially as we drifted into the Horse Latitudes, a few degrees above the Trade Winds. Just as had happened to Spanish galleons before us, the winds turned weak, until we were completely becalmed. But, unlike the Spaniards, we didn’t have to worry about water for horses; we could relax on the deck in relative comfort, though down in the cabin, cold sweat would start pearling up on our foreheads within minutes. Sarah defied the warning signs with mulish obstinacy, with predictable results. I scooted back onto the bench, giving her space by the stairs. She would appear there very soon, rushing to the side, trying to hold her breakfast back until her head cleared the edge. There is not much privacy on a small sailboat, but allowing unencumbered access for throwing up is one of the small comforts a partner can provide.

It took the syringe almost half of a minute to move along Alphena’s side, from the bow to the stern, that’s thirty feet. A foot per second, that’s sixty feet a minute, 3600 feet an hour. We were not even making a mile per hour. In fact, until some junk came up close enough to become a reference point, we had the sensation of being anchored in the middle of the ocean. But, of course, we were moving slowly, floating with the current just like old glass buoys, invisible from a distance but still sending off sparks of reflected sunshine. Plastic bottles, turning opaque and brittle under the merciless ultraviolet bombardment and water-soaked sneakers kept coming silently, knocking gently on the hull, patiently bobbing along on their way, perhaps having started off the West Coast but just as likely near the shores of Japan. Our destinies were alike—bathed in a gentle breeze, we would circle around the North Pacific high-pressure system until sun, water and time digested the solids into trillions of molecules, dispersing them into the enormous cauldron of the ocean.

We could break off this merry-go-round, of course, if we could find a way to power the boat. The current carried us slowly in the general direction of Hawaii, but I could grow a waist-long beard before we touched any dry land, unless something propelled us out of our orbit. The stump of the mast was just too short for any useful jury-rigging and the boom was resting a few miles below. The limp piece of sail I draped on the jagged aluminum stab flopped impotently in the weak wind. Doesn’t do much good, I thought, still, it beats directionless drifting, which is bad for morale as well as on the stomach.

A blond head, with a generous amount of dark roots, emerged from the companionway as Sarah rushed by without a word. An initial splash, then some dry retching, just like any other day. I discreetly checked fishing lines at the stern.

You should run the motor, she muttered defiantly, as her greenish, pale face turned up. Even without any make-up, her sweat-soaked matted hair clinging to her skull, and her pale lips turned down from the nausea, she was still an attractive woman. Sarah's round, shapely rear, barely covered with a red bikini, rose triumphantly from her on-all-fours position above her tortured face, unwittingly proclaiming dominance of the female element over the inanimate world.

We’ve been over this many times, Sarah, I sighed. I haven’t got enough fuel to get us within sight of any land. Not even close. I'm going to run the motor an hour every day to keep the batteries charged and to make fresh water. These are our priorities. Do you understand? Probably not. She glared angrily into the empty ocean, scornfully disregarding my pathetic excuse for a sail. Not a word of recognition or confirmation.

I won’t charge across the Pacific just to get stranded in a different part of the ocean without power, I added, without much hope of her understanding. Not that the question was open for discussion. She did her best to persuade me—first with reasoning, then pleading, finally arguing like a pit bull, but I wouldn’t be swayed because I knew my thinking was sound. In addition, I had a huge, unresolved issue that she was not aware of: What the hell was I going to say when by some miracle we landed in Hawaii?

I cut myself some slack when I was sick: I can’t think clearly now, I thought; I’ll come up with something when I feel better. Now, I’d been better. I’d been as good as I could hope for—still, a solution to my predicament was not forthcoming. The unauthorized travel across the state line, made even worse by venturing into international waters, my work post abandoned—my rap sheet would just begin with these. An eager prosecutor could probably add to it quite a few crimes or misdemeanors punishable by incarceration. I would land in a Hawaiian lockup right after the first hello at the Harbormaster’s office. Back in Oregon, I could anticipate becoming the District Attorney’s showcase. The arrogant, unpatriotic intellectual who thought himself above the law, the papers would proclaim, splashing my pictures, front and profile, taken in a police precinct shortly after my arrest. I would be punished to the full extent as an example. The Johnson clan would throw a party.

Chapter 2

Sarah spat once more overboard, took a swig from her water bottle and moved to the foredeck without a word. She squeezed by me, brushing her T-shirt covered breasts against my bare chest—there isn't much room on a small boat—without acknowledging any sociable connection. That’s not the way I imagined her company. My initial sailing plan, before she stumbled into my life, was vague but simple; everything’s simple when you’re alone.

Jim gave me a ride to Alphena in his truck early in the morning. Of course, I’d paid him back with a five-gallon container of gasoline squirreled away over the past few months. The mountain of food, which I had saved, bought and traded, covered the V-berth at the bow as well as most of the cabin floor. I would have a lot of time later to put the stuff away properly. I was about to hightail it out, as fast as possible, destination unclear: Philippines, Thailand—wherever, as long as it was far from the Repose Center, Pharmacy Committee, the Bureau of Social Worth and sanctuaries.

Working in the cold driving rain, I was done by twelve o'clock: provisions loaded, last minute checks done, the boat cleared for a long trip. Alphena sat demurely in her slip, swinging her mast in unison with a few dozen other boats, patiently absorbing the unending drizzle falling from the gray skies with an air of submission, just like people. Wet and cold, I went to the marina’s store: a small cinder-block building under a flat roof, across the fractured asphalt pavement. One needed a lot of luck to get a parking spot here ten years ago, when I first visited Tillamook. Now the proud owner of four wheels had a wide-open field to choose from: next to the office, or by the water, or next to the store. Those who preferred privacy could camp among last year’s tall weeds at the far end; that would be a useful spot for making-out, except that teenagers had even less access to gas than their parents.

A small, three-table eating area huddled next to metal shelves burdened by dusty cardboard boxes with replacement parts, rows of jams and crates of pickles. The faint smell of mold hung in the stale air and the TV was blaring too loud, but at least the room was warm and dry. I went in. A bit of daylight forced itself through smudged windows but failed to properly illuminate samples of food displayed in a glass cabinet; fluorescent lamps were adding their hard bluish glow, making everything and everybody look dispirited and ugly.

A fat woman, wearing an ancient T-shirt with a predatory-looking motorboat image on front, was watching a show on a small TV set at the far end of the bar. She impatiently glimpsed at me as I closed the door then returned to her show. Jake Russell, an indomitable CIA agent, kicked a pugnacious saboteur in the head for the last time, then a camera panned out, showing the bleeding villain, his expensive gas-guzzling car and on the ground a book whose pages were slowly flipping, driven by the wind. In TV shows, the nation's enemies usually drove big gas-guzzling cars and frequently carried books. The fat woman turned away from the TV once the titles started rolling; she punched my food-coupon with a scornful frown while I was studying my choices. French fries with gravy, versus a cucumber sandwich, versus a chunk of tofu soaked in fake meat sauce. I knew that the sauce started as fungus, growing on some organic debris, then it was transformed by chemical wizardry into the thick brown liquid that imitated, quite realistically, the beef extract—down to small particles and fibers pretending to be meat fragments. The illusion, unfortunately, was lost when a delicious looking morsel came within sniffing distance; it still smelled like fungus. The fries were hot and had the substantial heavy aroma of hot oil; yellow and brown chunks glistened with fat, promising a pleasant fullness in my belly and the warmth radiating to my frigid hands and feet.

French fries, please. And I’ll have a double burger with it and a cold beer, I added with a straight face. The woman gave me a hard gaze, her body leaning forward against the bar, meaning: Don’t try it with me, asshole, I need no trouble here!

And then, we can have a ride on your fast boat, I added, indicating the image of the speedboat stretched across her bosom.

The round face cracked up, as she started chuckling and jiggling her boobs. Get outta here, you joker, she couldn't keep up her hostile façade. The last time anybody had gas to feed a guzzler like the one on her T-shirt was probably on the Fourth of July, 2010, ten years ago. You can have a beer, she benevolently decided to reward me for the moment of levity.

I swiped crumbs from the table with my hands before going to a small restroom at the end of the store. The soap container was empty and only cold water ran from a faucet, but to balance my luck, I’d found a few coarse brown towels to dry my face, neck and hands. I sat down to write a letter to Chris Curtis. The last thing I needed was Chris raising the alarm that Alphena had been stolen. We owned the boat together. Wind power was free; sailors still could enjoy the ocean, unlike their motorized brethren. In fact, sailing had grown in popularity as a way to escape a bleak existence. Common folks could enjoy activities that wouldn’t require fuel or expensive equipment; biking and hiking were, in fact, better than ever as the roads were empty. The authorities smiled on sailing and paddling as well; the need for a small but wasteful consumption of fuel on larger boats did not enter the official stream of consciousness—so far.

Movies were popular for indoor entertainment; subsidized by the state they were dirt-cheap. One might complain about title selection, but the guys who pay choose the play. The government plunked down the money to buy the movies; what we paid wouldn't cover bills for theater heating. Finally, a stop at a Respite Center was a major entertainment option. I, and a lot of other customers, enjoyed an hour or two of pure happiness in a clean and safe facility twice a week. Enjoyed? I was thrilled until I’d found out how fast and profoundly I got hooked. At least it was free, courtesy of the government. A little extra could be had for the price of a few paper bills discreetly slipped under the glass partition at the registration.

Despite being a dropout from the Senatorial family, I was in a privileged position compared to the average Joe. In consideration of my extensive education and a socially beneficial occupation, the Bureau of Social Worth provided me with the class 2 food-plan: two servings of meat, three eggs and half a gallon of milk per week as its highlights. I thought that was a fine act of grass-roots democracy. If Johnson, my ex-father-in-law, had his way, I would be digging for roots and grubs. In addition, I was getting a princely allocation of gas in order to be available for hospital calls and to make one roundtrip to Tillamook every week. My weekly moonlighting sessions at the Tillamook Hospital not only gave me a few extra bucks for the boat repairs, but also took me right to the marina’s gate. Sweet.

But Chris wanted out, had lost his nerve. He couldn’t cope with the black market any more. The wind was free, but we still needed a few gallons of diesel every month, just to get us in and out of the harbor. Then replacement parts: a pulley, light bulb, new halyard—the boat always needed something. All that meant cash purchases. Since those items were only rarely seen in regular stores, we had to buy them from guys who hung around the marina. Items of unknown origin, God forbid stolen. That could land us in hot water.

I worked with Chris one day last February; from the first moment, I knew something was not right. Curtis is a smooth operator. His cases usually go without a hitch; everyone in the O.R. is relaxed, light conversation flows, nurses giggle. That morning Chris was pale, unsmiling and tense. He muddled through his half-day block of operations and dragged me to the cafeteria for lunch. In the corridor, when we were alone, he whispered into my ear: Pawley’s been arrested.

Occasionally, we bought some boat supplies from Pawley; he got us a few cans of antifouling paint in the autumn. That was a major score; we painted the bottom at the end of the season. Chris had found out about the arrest because Pawley’s wife was his patient. We had never learned why or how he got into trouble, and no one came knocking on our doors, but that shook my partner to his core. An unlikely event: everybody bartered or bought under the table something unavailable otherwise, but the consequences of being caught might be most unpleasant. The offender’s social worth could change overnight if a police report concerning black market participation found its way to the Medical Board. The loss of a medical license, even a mere suspension, would trigger an immediate reclassification in the Bureau of Social Worth. From there, the path would be downhill, down a very steep and rocky hill. Since his son had been born, Chris didn’t want to take any more chances. I could imagine his long face breaking into a wide smile when he ripped open the envelope and saw my check.

Sarah walked into the dim restaurant when I was stuffing my letter into an envelope. With her light-blue tank top and white canvas pants stretched tightly over her well-proportioned butt, she burst through the gloom like a sudden flare of sunlight breaking through a cloudy window in the sky. She strutted toward me, straight as a Norfolk pine, her breasts bouncing slightly with every step in tempo with her thick, almost white ponytail. She flashed me a smile, her teeth white and even like on a toothbrush commercial, and asked if she could sit with me.

Hell, a woman like that doesn’t need to ask. I had seen her a few times in the marina and, though I’d never seen her on a boat, she could pick whomever she fancied to spend a day with. It wasn’t only that she was a fine specimen of a female; she had this discreetly provocative way of carrying herself. All unattached skippers in Tillamook felt a sudden desire to find themselves a mate when she was around, despite all their sad experiences, like three divorce settlements or a lifetime of dedicated bachelorhood.

She was rather athletic, had a narrow waist, and her slim arms were bare, displaying well-toned muscles despite the cold drizzle. She carried a blue windbreaker slung nonchalantly over her shoulder. Firm tits, I thought, seeing her nipples jutting against the fabric without any bra support. Even before she sat, I caught a whiff of perfume. I wouldn’t be able to name it, but that was expensive stuff, the kind that would blow a day of my work-earnings for a tiny bottle in an elegant boutique.

How’re you doing? Where are you sailing? Oh, I would love to go sailing with you! We really didn’t know each other, just a few brief accidental encounters, but she was a very friendly, extroverted person.

I was deliberately vague about my plans, but her enthusiasm was so contagious that I had let it slip out, Yeah, I might be gone for more than a few hours. She grabbed my forearm, slightly massaging it with her fingers, looking passionately into my eyes. I had been divorced for over a year by then and had no regular girlfriend, so my judgment was definitely cloudy at that moment. Her hands on my skin had an electrifying effect. I could hardly believe the impact I seemed to have on this very desirable woman.

I’ve just split with my boyfriend. I feel so depressed. Don’t know what to do with myself. She spoke softly, sounding desperate. Her fingers were inching up my arm, causing my chest and neck to tingle as my body hair was standing up. To make her situation worse, she was between jobs. That had blown up her food-plan, of course, and would impact her apartment subsidy.

Naturally, I thought. Once things start falling apart, the tumble just picks up momentum; one thing pulls down another. Her affairs were snowballing beyond the girl’s ability to cope. She admitted with embarrassment that she had some thoughts of a sanctuary as her final crash pad. I shuddered, looking into Sarah's soft, sky-blue, scared eyes. This attractive, intelligent woman needs a helping hand, I decided. A bit of time to allow her to get back on her feet; that’s all that she needs now, before she really starts slipping down the muddy slope. A sanctuary! What a waste. A woman so beautiful and spirited! If anyone should give her a helping hand, I might just as well be the one.

There was a silver lining, though. She had her work discharge papers. Also, in anticipation of a job search, she had in hand the permit to travel out-of-state—no small thing. She could take off anytime. I knew a thing or two about travel restrictions. Unfortunately, I helped to bring them about. Faced with rapidly deepening chaos, the government clamped down on citizens’ ability to travel. People lucky enough to have jobs had been ordered to stick with them. Nobody in his sound mind would try to cross the state line without a proper permit; an extended stopover in a labor camp could be the prize for unauthorized interstate tourism. Not that everybody obeyed, but people who took the risk needed some very good reasons for their trips and prepared carefully. Positions classified as socially indispensable, like mine, were particularly strictly controlled—no fooling around. Fortunately, it did not occur to the Coast Guard that going out ten miles into the ocean could be, in fact, interpreted as crossing the state line. My sailing trips were made at their pleasure, and I knew it.

Sad, passionate and hopeful at the same time, Sarah was irresistible. Before I knew it, she appointed herself my crew. I was impressed with myself; this mate could get the first prize at any swap meet. And I’ve got her, just like that! We agreed to meet at the F dock, where Alphena had her slip next to Solaris, a white forty-foot Hunter. I’d set our departure time at six, to catch the tide out. She had four hours to pick up her documents and a bag of