REKT - Chapter 29
Maui Three Times
Mornings are for sunrise on the beach. Whether I’ve slept the night before or not, I am on the beach in the morning when the sun comes up. I am here with the locals, the surfers, the dog walkers. I am here with the Canadian snowbirds, the Japanese who stay covered up, and the little kids from all over. My days are therapy and I start on the right note, even if I am exhausted from a haunted night before. I am here with my coffee. I am here in my pair of cheap rubber Locals. I am here with my polarized sunglasses, board shorts, and SPF 50. I am here and I am not going anywhere.
After I leave the beach, I head into Paia Town for breakfast. Sometimes I get a bagel. Sometimes I get pancakes with shaved macadamia flakes and slices of apple banana on them. Sometimes I have a spam roll. These are the three things that I eat for breakfast. I have three things I eat for lunch and three things that I eat for dinner. There are nine things that I eat. There are three things that I drink – coffee, water, and juice. I am cutting back, reducing my cognitive load, and getting into a routine. This is important to my recovery. I need to simplify, reduce stress on myself.
Those burnouts I made fun of last time? They are wonderful people. Loving, wonderful people who provide the scaffolding I need to put myself back together. There’s a yoga group. There’s the dog walkers. There’re the old guys who play golf, who smoke weed, who have jam sessions, drum circles, and barbecues. There are the energy healers, the masseuses, and the artists. There are the regression people too, but I’m scared of them. I don’t need to go back. I need to go forward. There are the attractive older women who look at me as a project, a fixer upper. I’m afraid of them too. I can’t do relationships. I can’t do emotion right now. I have nothing to offer other people. I need to be on me.
Most of all there is Dr. Mayasaki who is able to see me three times a week. He is re-introducing me to cognitive behavior therapy. I tried to practice it during the panic attacks and the concepts were useful when I tried to care for Andy. Triggers, the importance of routines, understanding dynamics in interpersonal relationships. Keeping a journal - paying attention to diet, sleep, to the little things because they all add up and have a big impact. I am at the beach, I am eating in threes, I am doing my yoga, golfing, dog walking thing as a part of this cognitive behavior therapy. I need to run my motor down. I need to keep my mind in the present. I need to eat up clock with constructive things while time does the harder work of healing me. All things I once knew but ignored. All things I tried to hold Andy accountable to, but not myself.
There’s more than just that. There’s the talking. We talk a lot and not in the way I thought we would. I thought therapy would be pointed, deep, introspective. I thought Dr. Mayasaki would be putting me into difficult positions, having me examining my actions, tearing apart the last year of my life. We don’t do that. Most of the talk is a way of creating space, creating a safe space. I spent an entire session talking about a round of golf. It felt good.
The past is still there. My present off the island is omnipresent. The bubble remains, but I am outside it now. I can watch it as a spectator. Niko has taken over managing the Serbians. She’s taken control of the Icarus wind down. I’ve checked in with many of our exchanges and they are getting paid. I’m honest with the people who ask me where I am. I tell them that I had something we used to call a nervous breakdown and that I’m working on my recovery.
As far as I know, Erskine is still out there threatening. Joe is still holding on to his principles. Bull God is still missing, and Andy is still up to a bunch of shit. Niko has taken over for me as Caretaker in Chief. She’s seeing firsthand the worries I carried around. She’s seeing the strain and stress of trying to manage a man who does whatever the fuck he pleases. She may hold the money, but Andy makes all the moves. Everything she does is a reaction, and it is draining her. That’s why I was alone in Miami. She was chasing after Andy, trying to keep a bad situation from turning worse. In a way, her abandoning me was the best thing that could have happened. Had I not melted down that day, I wouldn’t be here. I would still be in the bubble.
Bitcoin keeps blowing up. It is on a trajectory to break twenty thousand dollars. The bubble is in full force, but I’ve let it go. It has let me go. There’s been an understanding among all parties that I turned toxic and my continued presence in the bubble would only erode the walls in the tunnel. I’ve been expelled as a defense mechanism. I am keeping myself away as a defense mechanism. If I was still in the bubble, I wouldn’t be able to survive the POP!
***
December 21st is my seventeenth day on Maui. Christmas is around the corner, and I’ve told my parents that I am not coming home, that I cannot leave the island. I’d rather be alone on Christmas than risk having a panic attack by being in a public space as large and chaotic as LAX during the holiday rush. I’ve been mostly honest with them about my situation and told the story in very broad strokes. Losing control of Andy to the temptation of the bubble. The stresses of trying to navigate the failure of our company, the failure of my relationship, the rounds of betrayal. I told them I wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle, that things caught up to me, that I missed Thanksgiving because I was trying to escape my life for a few days. I did not tell them about the kidnapping, the stainless-steel room, all of the ugly unresolved loose ends. I did not share my suspicions about Andy. I did not tell them that the bubble may have just peaked, that the POP! is near and all hell could break loose.
They are coming to visit after New Year’s, when the holiday rush ends, and prices get a little more affordable. It will be good to see them again.
The last of the spam roll sticks to my hands. I lick bits of nori wrapper and pieces of rice from my fingers, take a swig of coffee and rinse the salty pork from my gums. There’s an hour to yoga and I don’t have enough time to get back to my new rental. The cottage on the volcano is too expensive during the holiday season. For all I know, I might be fake worth a hundred million dollars, but my real money situation is getting tight. I’ve moved into a converted garage on the far side of town. I’ve swapped my rental jeep for an old rusty bicycle.
I use a napkin to wipe my little section of the picnic table down, throw the wrapper from my breakfast away and walk across the street to a thick trunked tree whose branches hang over half of the park. If I am spending more time out here, I need to learn the names of things like trees, fish, and birds. I need a working knowledge of the island, a natural knowledge. I want to be able to look out into the ocean, see the rips, read the sets, and know when it’s safe to go in and when I should respect the sea.
As part of the routine, I allow myself three connected hours a day. I like to come to this tree after breakfast, before yoga, and turn my phone on. I place it in front of me and look out to the water while it boots up, while the apps make their requests back to the cloud, while the notifications trickle in and the mainland reaches me for the first time in the day. This is a ritual of connection. There are the check ins from my parents, from Niko, from Joe, sometimes Kelvin. Some people care about me, care to know if I am alive. They want to make sure I am still putting myself back together. There’s a comfort to this, to know that I am loved and cared for even if I cannot be around my past. I message back telling everyone that I am okay. Sometimes I share pictures of this gorgeous place. This ritual is a bridge building project. It is how I am building a bridge back home. One day, the messages and the concern will be enough, and I’ll return to the old world as a new man. Maybe I’ll even know what I want from life.
The phone vibrates, buzzes. It is electric this morning with a stream of notifications. Something has happened in my old world. Something has happened in the bubble. Maybe it popped while I walked on the beach. The phone is chirping too loud for it not to be the bubble. There’s a traffic jam on my lock screen. Alerts backed up, condensed into unreadable summaries. I feel a jolt of adrenaline for the first time in a week. I feel nervous, anxious, breathe the heavy air slowly to calm myself, then pick up my phone with an unsteady hand.
It’s Joe. Erskine has exposed him. I open my alerts, sliding up and down the stack of notifications looking for something from Joe, Andy or Niko. Joe has messaged me:
‘Ryan – Help create the world you want to live in. All the best.’ followed by a link to a law firm which I click and start to read.
Statement from Kim ‘Deacon Joe’ Haggerty, Founder of the Blockstar Foundation
Photographs were anonymously leaked today showing me in a compromising situation with an unidentified underage female. Some of these photos are in fact real and others are manipulated. I did not engage in any sexual act with the person shown in these photos. Those close to me know that I have been engaged in a three-year period of celibacy during my advocacy for the Blockstar Foundation.
The incident took place Sunday October 8th, 2017, at a large gathering in an undisclosed location in Colorado. I was attending this party at the request of a conference attendee and unaware of the host’s name or his past criminal conduct. Had either been known to me at the time, I would have never gone to this party. I certainly would not have taken a tour of the house and placed myself in a position for the unaltered photos to be taken.
As to the nature of the photos, the host intentionally lured me to a darkened area of the house and had the woman in question surprise me before I could see who she was, understand her intent, or ascertain her age. I believe this was done with the intent to get blackmail material on me. That material was released today because of my support for the Blockstar Gives initiative which would render the monetary value of our project’s coin, BSTR, meaningless while empowering the world to transact without gatekeepers.
I am in touch with pertinent law enforcement agencies and will be vigorously pursuing charges against the initiator of this smear campaign. Given the shocking nature of these photos, leniency in past sentencing against the perpetrator, the exclusive nature of the guest list, and the unregulated status of cryptocurrency projects in the United States, I have legitimate reasons to fear that my side of this story will not be believed by law enforcement. For this reason, I have left the United States of America until my attorneys’ trust that this matter will be afforded justice. I am also temporarily stepping down as head of the Blockstar Foundation so that I am not a distraction to all ongoing projects, including the Blockstar Gives proposal.
My only crime was associating with the wrong people. My greatest fear is that the power these people possess will allow this blackmail attempt to succeed and that the host will continue with his sick and criminal abuse of young women. If you have any information regarding the people involved in this scheme, please contact my attorneys listed below.
Sincerely,
Deacon Joe, Founder, Blockstar Foundation
***
I am at a loss for words. The bubble has come for Joe. Erskine came for Joe. Andy turned on Joe. Andy is behind this. I know this in my heart the same way I know that Andy kidnapped me and left me nowhere for a week. Both acts are connected. There never was a fifty-million-dollar ransom. Andy has that money, most of our pump and dump stack. He kidnapped me so he would not have to return all our client’s money, so he could make a bigger score trading in the bubble. Changing Joe’s mind was the key to an enormous payday. Only Joe held firm, and each day Andy had less money to work with. Kelvin called in thirty-seven million on top of the six million we were giving back a day. There’s only ten days left in the year, far less when you consider holiday bank schedules. Andy was running out of other people’s money to trade with. He needed to force the situation. He turned to Erskine.
Check the price of BSTR. It’s up forty percent on the day. Fucking jackals. Wolves of the bubble preying on Joe’s misfortune. The coin is up on speculation that Blockstar Gives will fail because Joe will resign. Andy turned an enemy into a partner in pursuit of profit. Not only does Erskine have blackmail, but he has money, lots of money. I bet Erskine went in on the trade with us.
Us. Complicit. Me.
I cannot escape this situation and it keeps getting worse. Even when I am out, when I am on an island far out in the Pacific, I am complicit. I cannot get away from Andy. That fucking piece of shit scumbag. He’s going to get Joe killed just like Ram said.
Pick up Niko. Pick up the fucking phone please. Stop trading and answer my call.
“Ryan.”
“How much BSTR are we holding?”
“What?”
“HOW MUCH BSTR?”
“Ryan, we don’t talk about this with you. This isn’t good for your mental health. You don’t want to know these things.”
There’s that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was right. Even worse, she’s in on it. Nikola is in on this too. I cannot believe it. If she is in on this, then she was in on my kidnapping. “You fucking bitch. You let him kidnap me. You have no idea what I went through. I nearly died in a fucking steel vat. I was drowning and dying, and I didn’t think I was going to make it. Now the two of you are going to kill Joe. You are going to fucking kill Joe. I won’t let it happen.”
I’m hyperventilating. I’m in tears. I’m approaching the brink of panic. All the work this month is undone by these two heartless monsters.
“Ryan, I didn’t kidnap you. We didn’t kidnap you. I worked all week to get that money together. I didn’t sleep. All I thought about was you out there on your own. How to get you back. Ryan, please,” she’s in tears now. The two of us are crying over the phone. I can hear her sucking in the snot, sniffling. What is happening? What is the bubble doing to us? Why can’t this ever be over?
I ask again, “How much BSTR do we have?”
“Our entire stack is in it. Whatever we had after the ransom, after putting what was left of the money back into Frankfurt. There’s not much, there’s twenty million.”
“That’s a lot of money Niko.”
“It’s a tenth of what we had.”
“Andy has that fifty million from the ransom in it. Erskine has money too. There’s more money in BSTR than you think.”
“Don’t say that, Ryan. That’s too fucked up to believe. You aren’t thinking straight. Let me come out there and look out for you.”
It is too fucked up to believe. That’s what Andy was counting on. He was piling layer on top of layer on top of layer. He’s baking a layer cake of bullshit so dense that no one will believe it. That anyone who even says it sounds like a crazy person. Andy’s taking full advantage of cryptomania. He may be the only person in the bubble completely in their element. Andy had to be in position in the field because the bubble is his home. He has the home field advantage, a stacked deck, in a world so ludicrous, so unreal sounding everything plays to his advantage.
Get a man to start thinking irrationally and there’s no end to where you can push him. Look at Niko. She thinks I’m the crazy one now because that’s how Andy set his con up.
“You want to look out for me? Tell me where Joe is. Stop Andy from getting him killed. Look into BSTR trades to see if you can find that money. It shouldn’t be hard. Who else is buying BSTR? No one. After that, find Bull God. You find him and I bet he’ll tell you Andy paid him to disappear. I’m thinking right Niko. You need to open your eyes here. You need to realize what we are caught up in. I’m not letting Joe get killed. He doesn’t deserve to die a disgraced pedophile in a fake money con.”
“Ryan, I can’t believe this. Please, let me come out and help you. I want to be with you, make sure you are thinking straight. You’re scaring me. I still love you.”
“Niko, I need to find Joe. I’m going to see Ram. You look into the things I talked about. You’ll see this is all Andy. It’s all fucking Andy. He’s been playing me. He’s playing you right now.”
“I don’t believe that. It’s too outrageous. Andy’s in danger too. Erskine is going to expose him next.” “It’s a con, a bluff. He’s raising the stakes. He’s pretending he is at risk, so we don’t suspect him.” “Ryan, you are scaring me. I don’t believe you. You sound crazy. Please let me help. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ve already been hurt. I’m past that Niko. You need to open your eyes. You’re smart. You can read the markets. Look into BSTR trades. You’ll find that money. You care for me? Do that.”
“If I do that, can you do something for me?”
“What?”
“Don’t leave Maui. Stay there until I look.”
“Thank you, Niko. I’ll stay here. I don’t know where I’d go anyway. Goodbye.”
“I love you Ryan.”
“Goodbye Niko.”
I’m not leaving Maui because I need to find Ram. He started all of this. He knows what’s going on.
***
There has been no routine today. No yoga, no dog walking, no golf. The only regular thing I did was my appointment with Dr. Mayasaki. I need to respect the time he is making for me. I’ll need him more than ever in the coming weeks and staying on his good side is of paramount importance. Other than that, this has been a wired day, a connected day, a day when the bubble is doing its damnedest to pull me back to the mainland, back into it. The bubble has a death wish. It is ready to POP! It is seeking my toxicity to be the catalyst for the collapse of the tunnel. The collapse of the tunnel will trigger the pop of the bubble. All of the filth and the garbage and the lies and the complicity will explode. It will all burst into the atmosphere and evaporate. I know this just as I know that Andy kidnapped me, that there was no ransom, that he is in bed with Erskine, and that Joe’s life is in danger. What I do not know is where the bubble wants me to go. I need to know where Joe is, so I’ve returned to where this all began. I am back on the beach. I am here for the sunset, but I am not here for the Canadians, the Japanese, the kids, the dogs, or the locals. I am not here for the surf. I am not here for the sun. I am here for Ram Dharwarjan. I left word all over town that I would be at the beach at sunset and that it was super fucking important that he meets me here.
Ram is already on the rocks. He is standing there, arms out, thin white cotton garb blowing in the wind. Thank fucking God he is here. Paia is not a big place. You could spend a couple nights at Charley’s and bump into half the town. Combine that with the places on my routine and I’ve crossed paths with just about everyone out here. Everyone but Ram. I was starting to wonder if he had left, or even worse never existed.
“Greetings Ryan Declan.”
“Ram.”
“It is good that you summoned me when you did. I was not sure if you would figure it out in time.”
“In time?”
“Ram is only here for a few more moments. This is the solstice. The shifting of the Earth’s tilt. The changing of the seasons. Darkness and winter are coming to this hemisphere. Ram’s time is over at the changing of the seasons. I’m becoming another.”
“What does that mean Ram? I need the straight dope today, none of this fortune cookie, Ouija Board talk. Do you know where Joe is? He’s going to die soon.”
Ram looks down from the rocks at me. His face is lit pink as the sun drops in the west on the other side of the island. It won’t last much longer before it passes beneath the far mountains by the other volcano on the island.
“The LARP ends with the solstice. I will take on a new character tomorrow.”
LARP, I know that term. Live action roleplaying-game. Jesus fucking Christ. This is a game. Ram is not a real person. Well, I know that. What I mean is she doesn’t think she’s a reincarnated guru or yogi or whatever. She’s been playing a fucking game for the last however many months. That prophecy of hers? It’s a part of the game. No wonder everything she’s said has come true. This is all a game. I’m the only person who doesn’t know that he’s in a game. Andy, Niko, and Joe are all playing with me. This is why everything is so far beyond crazy. This is why I’ve lost my shit. What kind of people do that? How could they keep it up for so long. Impossible. I’m going crazy. I’m going to crack again.
“You are LARPing?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Is Joe, Andy, Nikola? Am I playing some stupid fucking game, and no one bothered to tell me?”
“No.”
“What the fuck is going on Ram? I think the entire world is in on a joke and I’m the sick pathetic punchline. What the fuck is going on Ram? I’ve been kidnapped, betrayed, had a breakdown and I think I’m losing my grip on reality here. Help me.”
She gets down from the rocks, places her hand in mind. I want to pull it away, but she’s looking me in the eyes. She’s doing that trick again where she locks me in with her eyes and takes control of the conversation. This is creepy, so fucking creepy. I can’t stay in this staring contest. I look away, I look back at her. She’s grown her hair out, looks like a woman again. Whatever her next character is, she’s leaving the pilgrim aesthetic behind.
“Look, my name is Tess. I live in Hana. I live off the grid with a community. We do season long LARPs. It’s a different sort of lifestyle. When we are LARPing, we don’t mix with outsiders. Bringing our character into the real world is against the rules. I could get thrown out for doing this, but Joe asked me to as a favor. He’s my brother.”
I can see the resemblance a bit. The canine teeth, the pointy nose, the oversized head. How did I miss all that earlier? I was caught up with the story. I was hung up on the Ram character and not seeing what was in front of me.
“Joe is your brother? He’s in on this game? How come everything you said to me on the beach has come true?”
“Joe is my brother. He is not a part of our community. In October, I told you what he wanted me to tell you. I don’t know what’s going on. I just said what he told me too. You are not going crazy. Andy and Niko are not in on it, but Joe needs help. You know what trouble he’s in. That’s why you called me here. Joe needs you to open a bank account in Cyprus and load it up with money. He says you have someone who can do this.”
“What’s it for?”
“A police chief in the Bahamas. It’s how Joe is getting to Erskine. Erskine is there now at his compound. There’s going to be a traffic stop or a property search. The police are going to find something. Erskine is going to try to flee. He’s going to be killed by the police trying to escape. Joe said you would help him with this. He said that you’d have your own reasons for wanting him dead. He says Erskine is your Salome too. Andy is your Herod too. Help him and you help yourself.”
Holy fucking shit. I was right. I was fucking right. My knees go weak. I slump down on the beach. While I had been saying it, I didn’t completely believe it myself until now. My hand reaches out, scoops up a ball of wet sand, and throws it into the ocean. The ball breaks into a million pieces, scatters into the ocean, tiny ripples in the waves. I couldn’t figure out how Andy kidnapped me on short notice like that. He didn’t have the resources to pull that off. Erskine. He used Erskine. I nearly died because of that piece of shit child molester.
“This police chief in the Bahamas. He’s going to discover more than drugs?”
“Joe will be free after you do this. You’re helping to clear his name. This is the only way he can see to do it. Outside the country, in a place where there’s no one to clean up after Erskine. We just need to pay off the chief. He’s older, he won’t take crypto. He wants cash overseas. Tell me you have someone?”
“Niko. She’ll do it. Where’s the money?”
“Here’s a wallet and an email address. There’s eleven million in bitcoin there. The chief wants ten million US dollars. Joe wasn’t sure where the markets would be by the time you converted it. He says to be liberal with the payoff money for your helpers and keep the rest as a thanks.”
“What’s the email for?”
“When the account is set up and funded, send the credentials to the email address. Everything else will happen after that. Erskine will be removed from position in the field forever. Joe says to look for him in the New Year. Thank you, Ryan.”
Ram releases her stare hold on me and walks off down the beach. She drops the big chunky wooden beads from her wrists. She pulls the white cotton gown over her head, then holds it out towards the ocean. The wind pulls on it. She lets go and it drifts out to the pink and silver sea of the setting sun. Her back is turned to me. She’s topless, all bare shoulders, white ridges down her spine, a striped bikini bottom covering her backside.
“Goodbye Ram.”
I need to save Joe. Joe needs to kill Erskine, then I need to get Andy. This is what I owe Andy. I owe him vengeance. I owe him punishment. I owe him destruction. After that, I owe him nothing. Some brotherhood. Ryan and Andy, Cain and Abel. I am not my brother’s keeper. I am his killer.