Marc Ruvolo
Cargo Cult
The
dust on the beetle’s backside
Iridescent,
gold-flecked
(beneath
the worn, ornate saddle)
Tickles
your nose
And
you, ah, you
Sneeze.
It
can hardly be called a road –
Rutted
dirt; fragrant weeds
And
a trickling ditch.
Man-faced
manatees swim
To
the sand spars, shells shining
Giddy
flippers
Calling
out, “Johnfrum!
Johnfrum!”
As
you pass
And
you wave embarrassedly.
This
time around
They
have built an aeroplane
For
you
Palm
frond and coconut husk
Built
a dirt landing strip,
That
old Manai,
With
her sagging, dark dugs,
Her
eyes like gunmetal rivets
Will
be made to sweep
Three
times a day.
The
villagers bunch up,
Like
always,
Whisper
laughing
Pink
tongues touching teeth
Elders
to the rear
Children
to the front.
And
goggle, wide-eyed at
The
cargo you’ve brought:
Teaspoons
Rubber
Novelty Vomit
Moon
Pies
Leggings
Socket
Sets
Oven
Mitts
Cherry
Schnapps.
The
villagers fall
Completely
undone
Into
a splendid, giggling,
Boneless
Heap
Amongst
the treasures,
And
spill sticky
Kava-Kava
from coconut cups
All
over themselves
Overcome
by the
Heady
scent
Of
diesel oil and spearmint gum,
Scented
toilet water and rainbow
Suspenders,
FDR Masks
And
jackalope antlers.
A
party begins, and FDR dances
Once
more. A soft miracle.
And
now you, their erstwhile
Godling,
Or
jester, or trickster,
Momentarily
forgotten,
Remounts
the giant, patient, beetle
Friend,
your slouch cap olive drab,
Marlboro
as yet unlit in your mouth,
Together
wade
Into
the gentle, lapping surf,
Red-faced,
but yeah? very happy,
Content they would say
back
Home.
And
you daydream of streetlights,
Train
horns mournful, TV static
At
breathless midnight
As
white-tipped wavelets hum
“Johnfrum”
“Johnfrum”
the wavelets hum.
Marc Ruvolo is a queer writer/musician from Austin TX. His stories and essays have appeared in Bewildering Stories, The Minnesota Journal of Science Fiction, and courtesy of Left of the Dial Books. A fixture of the DIY punk scene for over thirty-five years, he has toured extensively, with fifty-five physical releases, and two more on the way in 2020. SFF hooked him early; a home, an avocation, and he has never dared to look back since.
Editor’s Notes: I will forgo my initial instinct to include the surreally colored beetle (which you can see on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/420101471462220425/) and instead concentrate on “cargo cult” and on John Frum, a figure associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, who is often depicted as an American World War II serviceman who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum). A cargo cult is a belief system in a relatively undeveloped society in which adherents practice superstitious rituals hoping to bring modern goods supplied by a more technologically advanced society. These cults, millenarian in nature, were first described in Melanesia* in the wake of contact with more technologically advanced Western cultures. The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that various ritualistic acts such as the building of an airplane runway will result in the appearance of material wealth, particularly highly desirable Western goods (cargo), via Western airplanes, which dropped supplies on them during WWII. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult). This interview article sheds more light on this semi-religious cult: https://www.vice.com/sv/article/a3bk84/foton-paa-unga-venezuelaner-som-protesterar-i-caracas).
The photograph of the plane constructed in Vanuatu is through the courtesy of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Library’s Melanesian Archives in association with Island Culture Archival Support (ICAS) (https://islandculturearchivalsupport.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/that-curious-cult-in-vanuatu/)
* Melanesia includes the countries of Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea
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