Most skiers know the phenomenon called "whiteout" when snow and overcast diffuse the light and combine to eliminate all shadows, causing perspective and depth perception to disappear. The face of the man across the room is a "blackout", his skin so deeply black that his features disappear into an absence of light. Even the darkest African people have chocolate brown skin, but this man's skin is the truest black I have ever seen. Only the whites of his eyes, gleaming out of the darkness of his face as he navigates the room, indicate that features exist on his countenance. His face could be upside down and I would not know.
But he is unremarkable in the Pondo Lounge of the Port Moresby Travelodge in Papua New Guinea where I am on assignment for my Houston-based company. At any moment Han Solo will surely show up, Luke Skywalker in tow, searching for clues to the whereabouts of Princess Laia.
Meanwhile, a native man in an intricately patterned shirt, a brightly beaded bag over his shoulder takes the chair opposite me at the small cocktail table, a huge grin splitting his features as he looks around the room. A young Australian man in western jeans chats intimately with his chocolate-colored girlfriend. Her animated expressions in reaction to his stories suggest sophisticated intelligence while his indicate a kid half pissed.
Papua New Guinea is a frontier, an interface where the Stone Age meets the Oil Patch. Port Moresby, its capitol, sits on ragged slopes along an irregular coastline above a small but pretty harbor. Turquoise water covers coral reefs and laps upon small, sandy beaches. Unfortunately, the land fails to match the water's beauty. Dry, dusty slopes support scattered ragged palm and eucalyptus trees, with a few scraggly weeds interspersed. The underlying white caliche pokes through thin topsoil in places, like bones through the hide of some huge animal carcass.
If Port Moresby were described in one word, the word would be "rubble". Loose stones and debris from drab vegetation cover most slopes. Nowhere are there neat hedges or well kept landscaping. To be as fair as possible, a drought in the country devastates the nation in September, 1997. El Nino has shifted normal weather patterns so that rainfall in the countryside stopped months ago. Crops, meager subsistence type, have dried up. At higher elevations, temperatures far below tropical normal result in frost that has killed crops in the few places the drought may have spared. People are reported to be starving.
However, even if water is preserved in Port Moresby, no infrastructure exists to transport it to the drought stricken countryside. And drought doesn't explain the lack of effort to clear away dead leaves and branches. So life continues in the city. Alice, the cocktail waitress, seems overwhelmed by her job. Extremely shy, she patrols her tables with a self-conscious smile; her qualifications appear to be some small ability with English language. My request for a "Johnnie Walker black label" produces a glass of Coca-Cola. Perhaps it was the companion request for a glass of water that confused her.
The pianist plays a rambling, searching arrangement of Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" as a bearded Papuan man arrives dressed somehow proudly in stained jeans and Redwing work boots. His attitude proclaims "Look at me! I'm wearing clothes, not my traditional penis sheath. This is the way of westerners and this vast city."
An altercation begins suddenly, loudly. A woman tosses her drink at another, prompting the wetted woman's companion to grab the drink tosser in a headlock and drag her away. Hotel security people come quickly to aid one or the other, it is not clear which, and the whole group, like a rugby scrum, maneuvers its way out of the bar. At the door the man tries to throw the woman to the ground while security people watch. A white-haired patron of the lounge, a true British gentleman, shouts for security to stop the man from doing that to the woman. Sir Walter Raleigh would have been proud, but no one else in the bar seems to care. The young Australian man admonishes the old gentleman against becoming involved.
An elegantly coifed and impeccably dressed 60-ish western lady chats with a young man in a dark blue shirt and tie, a cell phone attached to his belt and a ball point pen peeking out of his trouser pocket. He listens attentively to the lady, his slick, dark hair accenting his pale skin, every expression casting shadows across his countenance.
In the restaurant, my kangaroo steak - thin slabs of mild, pleasant meat - are identical to what my mother served as Swiss steak when I was a boy. Could it have...? Nah. At a table nearby, a family entertains a visiting businessman. A girl of twelve listens attentively to the adult conversation, perhaps thinking of her future self. Her five-year-old brother is allowed to wear his Indiana Pacers cap, the Aussie accents around the table suggesting that he hasn't a clue the significance of the logo atop his brow.
A blonde baby in a pink dress with a white ribbon around her short curls makes loud, chatty noises. I watch the girl for signs of embarrassment or jealousy, but none appear. She ignores the baby seated next to her, absorbed in the adults' conversation, but not joining it.
The young, dark-haired mother also ignores the baby who seems to be content in her own world. Occasionally a long, piercing shout from the baby brings an admonishment from the father seated across the round table. The mother appears not to notice the shout or the scolding.
After almost an hour, father and son take the baby away, presumably to the potty, leaving daughter and pretty mommy to chat with the guest. Only as the boy passes close by do I realize that he is oriental, with deeply hooded eyes. When they return, the boy sits next to the baby and they huddle, foreheads together for a long, tender moment. Mother and older daughter continue to ignore the baby and the boy.
I retire to my room and listen to the wind howl at the sliding glass door to the balcony, which overlooks a rubble-strewn hillside across the road. It is too early to call my wife in Houston, twelve time zones away. Life in the Oil Patch carries me along.
Excerpted from "Oil Patch" by Gary Gentry www.authorhouse.com/bookstore
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