Death on a Rocky Little Island

Death on a Rocky Little Island

  By Lenny Everson

  rev 1

  Copyright Lenny Everson 2011

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Cover design by Lenny Everson

  ****

  Phil was a close friend, but now we sort of avoid each other. Maybe he can go screw himself, because I’ve done all I can. But it didn’t start that way.

  ***

  Of course I lied to Phil. The son-of-bitch deserved it, after all.

  Hey, a lie isn't always bad. Some lies are designed to help people through bad times. Some lies - like Santa Claus and the provincial lottery - are merely part of people's dreams.

  I've never figured out whether dreams are the best or the worst lies.

  So I made a special lie to Phil. Just enough to make his eyes light up and his heart skip a beat or two.

  But, I swear to you, I don't think anyone could have seen the crude line of fate that connected that elaborate and comic lie to a dead guy on a rocky little island, a couple of weeks later and a few hundred miles away.

  This is a book about lies, as you've probably figured out by now. At least partly, anyway.

  It's also about islands, so I have to explain about me and Phil and canoes and islands before I get too much further.

  This book took a lot of writing and remembering and thinking, so I thank you for reading it. But I suspect that, a year down the way all you’ll remember of it is that snapping turtles breathe through their anuses in winter, and you’ll not be able to remember where you got that information, or whether it’s true or not.

  Islands figure pretty big in this story, so I’ll start with them. Then I'll get on to my elaborate con job, and Phil, and how we ended up in a canoe in waters designed for ocean freighters.

  First thing to get straight is that islands weren't the death of Phil – that is, it wasn’t Phil who died – so I'm spared that thought in long nights. It was someone else who died a snake-sucking death on a rocky little island. Someone else took that heart-stopping leap into eternity, the leap that's always climbing the inside of our skulls like a little black gecko lizard.

  But the dead person comes later, too. You'll just have to wait for that.

  Okay. Islands.

  I like islands. When I was a little kid, we lived in the Muskokas for a year, where my parents taught in one-room schools.

  The Muskokas are a set of lakes that have been the playground of Ontario for a hundred years or more. Like any place else, they have a number of year-round residents, and kids that need to be taught. My father, in a bout of restlessness, found jobs for both himself and for my mother.

  My mother taught in a schoolroom in the village we lived in. The locals had converted a town meeting hall into two rooms; half became the elementary school, and the other half became our home for the year. It was post-war, the baby boom had caught the country by surprise, and there was a desperate shortage of classrooms and teachers.

  That summer, on the weekends, dad would pile the family into a fourteen-foot plywood boat he'd built in spring, and buzz out across Lake of Bays. The noise of the air-cooled three-horse outboard made conversation difficult, so we'd watch the cottages and seagulls and the other boats disappear into our wake.

  I'd watch every island as it came up, then turn to watch it go by.

  Sometimes that summer, or late into the fall, seeing the longing in my face, dad would stop at some uninhabited little island and let us out. After the first couple, I was the only one that wanted out. The family would wait in the boat while I "explored" the island.

  And sometimes all I did was go to the far side and sit in the shrubbery and pretend I was all alone. Like I’d anchored my sloop in the lagoon and the ruins of civilization were just behind some palms.

  Those islands were pretty small; any island in the Muskokas big enough to have a cottage on it usually did.

  I didn't know then, and I don't now, why I had such a fascination with islands. Maybe it was just that an isolated little boy needed an isolated little place to sit on. And watch the clouds drift by.

  Now I'm older. I stand on shores and watch islands in the sunset, riding the lake like worlds just out of reach.

  I still like to be alone a lot. It's the way I am. I dream of being alone as the sun goes down and the silences and darkness come sliding in among the trees like a mottled velvet anaconda, swallowing the day.

  It had been months since I'd watched the evening come down in solitude. I was getting antsy. That has to be taken into account.

  Win Szczedziwoj, rainy-day photographer (that's me), was real desperate. I hadn't developed a tic in my cheek yet, but it was getting close. That’s pronounced “Cheh - Gee - Voy”, although adding an “sh” at the front makes it more accurate. The “Win” is for “Winter”. Don’t ask.

  So I had a hunger for some isolated little island in the rain, swept by wind and pounded by the waves and home to an isolated little photographer pounded by his own winds and rains.

  And wondering if his little red tent will blow down at three in the morning. Stay tuned.

  Aisha, my wife, thinks I'm a nut case.

  But she says that hitting the singles bars at her age would only get her another nut case, and she'd hate to start training a man to rub her back properly all over again. So she figures she's stuck with some guy who periodically disappears into the wilderness with a camera and a canoe.

  Maybe Aisha should learn from Phil. About how to be demented, anyway. She's hopelessly sane. I've tried for years to set a bad example, but it hasn't taken.

  I told Aisha I wanted to go paddle out into Georgian Bay to take pictures on a little island during a storm.

  Now I want you to know that I’m giving this as straight as I can, but my first attempt to record it was just a list of things I did and Aisha read it through and said it was going to be dull because it was too short.

  So I’ve added in a lot of my thoughts and reconstructed the dialog as much as I could, checking it where I could. Some of it I’ve only half remembered. Actually a lot of it I’ve only half remembered, but I think I got the speech patterns of the various people involved more or less as they spoke, so it’s probably closer to reality than most people would credit, especially since I’ve gone back over it a couple of times.

  A couple of the people might deny some of it, but I remember better than they do. Or maybe it’s just that the guy writing the book can tell his own lies in his own way.

  Anyway, Aisha was tending a window box full of green growing things. "Georgian Bay's pretty big, isn't it?" she asked, picking fluff off her sweater.

  I allowed that it was a pretty big blob of water.

  "Bigger, say, than the state of Massachusetts?"

  "Maybe, but we're Canadians, eh?” I laughed. “What do we care about Massachusetts?" Can't say I didn't try.

  "So, bigger than the entire province of Prince Edward Island?"

  "Well, yes. I suppose. Maybe. But what isn't?" My nose suddenly got itchy and I rubbed it.

  "How many miles of wind out there?" She'd been in a canoe before. She knew that wind builds up over a flat expanse of water. The waves build up, too. After about three miles of wind, a small canoe should watch out. After seven miles of wind, even a large heavy and stable canoe will be surfing.

  "Don't know. Maybe sixty or seventy."

  "And how long is your canoe? Seventeen feet?" She knew I would take Gypsy, the larger canoe.

  "Yeh."

  "Doesn't look like a good ratio, to me." There was a pause. "How long
a stretch of water does it take to make waves that make you scared shitless?"

  "Two, maybe three." I've always been a wimp.

  "And what's so interesting about these islands?" Aisha had made her point on the first issue. She turned to watering the plants in the bay window.

  I explained that these islands were smooth rock with gnarly pines on them, and that people often saw this as genuinely picturesque.

  "Smooth rock?"

  "Photographically interesting rock."

  "Twisted, weathered pines?"

  I nodded.

  She made a point of contemplating the basil she was growing in the window box. Aisha had a pasta passion you had to experience to believe. "And just how do these rocks get smooth and these pines get all weathered?"

  I contemplated the basil, too. "Watch for slugs," I advised. I know nothing about growing anything green, but I wanted a break to think. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

  "You can go, if you really want to," she said, poking at a leaf that had the bravery to look pale. "But I'd prefer you had someone else along."

  "So they can tell you where to find my smooth, weathered bones?"

  "Something like that." She put down the watering can and folded her arms.

  I sighed, for effect. "Okay, I'll get someone to go with me. So we can drown together."

  She examined the marjoram. Now Aisha knew and I knew that two people in a canoe aren't any safer than one, in theory. And I'm a wimp and Aisha knows it. But I tend to get optimistic some times, and get myself in trouble, speaking in a canoe sense. If I have someone with me, however, I usually tend to be more cautious.

  So I agreed. I would pay a photographic visit to some islands, and take some pictures during a storm. I would paddle out to these islands from the mainland in a canoe.

  You seldom get perfect days for canoeing, so I reserved in my mind the option to cancel, depending on the canoeing Factors of Misery.

  There are four factors of misery in canoeing; wind, rain, bugs, and cold. Wind’s a factor because 99 9/9 of the time it’s against you when you’re canoeing. You can count on it. And if it’s blowing hard enough, you’d best stay home, unless you’re on one of those short-trip-into-the-bush-and-get-drunk expeditions. I don’t knock them – they’re quite worth while at times and I think the government should subsidize them.

  Rain is the second factor, simply because it makes you cold. Even on a hot day, you get cold. Sitting in your tent watching the rain drip off the trees – well, I’ve done it, but you have be really desperate to get away. And drinking in the rain just makes you morose.

  Bugs arrive in the spring with the first blooming of the choke-cherry bushes. The blackflies come out then. The mosquitoes follow in June. By August you’re down to the deer flies and the horse flies and a couple of unidentified species, but they’re a minor nuisance. In June the bugs can be a torment, so you plan trips that keep you in windy areas with short portages – something you can run down, carrying a canoe, if necessary.

  There are people who enjoy cold-weather canoeing, and it has its advantages, if you dress right. But cold weather means cold water beneath you, so you want to do your canoeing on a calm, sunny day.

  At my age, I can still put up with two of the four canoeing factors of misery, if they’re not too extreme.

  It was mid-September, and the bugs were mostly gone. And I’d like a day of rain, because that’s what I do, take pictures in the rain. So I was watching for wind and cold.

  And if the factors were in my favor, I would get someone to go with me, just like I promised Aisha.

  But who? Abe would go. He’d go, just to get away from the wife and kids, but his oldest son had a soccer tournament that weekend. I know that, because his kid has a soccer tournament every damn weekend. I don't think the kid plays any regular games any more, just goes to tournaments. And Abe's wife doesn't drive.

  Talk to Abe and all I'd get is a desperate look, a mumbled excuse, and an attempt to be cheerful about it. "Maybe later this summer." he'd say.

  The cheerfulness would be the worst part. It was the most painful cheerfulness you could find this side of the cancer ward at the local hospital.

  Now if you're talking real cheerfulness, you're talking Johnny G. Sure. Johnny might go. He can paddle, and he's always cheerful.

  But Johnny's not someone I'd like to canoe with. Johnny swims like a dolphin. Four hours in a pool are nothing to him. Which would be great, but he has no fear of water.

  He's liable to think a squall coming in from offshore is "interesting" and want to go out for a look. And if the canoe were to roll under mountainous waves of cold water? He'd chuckle and say, "Hey! Let's swim back." God knows, he might make it, surfing all the way to shore.

  And me walking along the bottom, hanging onto my photography stuff. Sure, Johnny.

  One thing I’ve learned; as you get older you get to divide your friends into two groups, those you do things with, and those you used to do things with.

  The ones you can do things with are slotted into their tiny little portions of life, with interlocking obligations to spouse, family, work, and a whole bunch of silly-ass things they've thought up themselves, like watching sports on television.

  To get any companions in adventure, a man has to put up with some curious friends, and half the time agree to reciprocate by pretending to be interested in whatever juvenile joys and toys those friends have.

  Toys are fine. But by the time a guy has got to what is quaintly called "middle age" most men have abandoned any dreams they had, in favor of family and work and mowing the lawn.

  The rest have cherished and protected their dreams and fantasies as they grow older. They've learned to hide them, but it gets them through a long day at work. And it's better then thinking about their arteries hardening.

  Not that any man at my age ever stops thinking about that for more than a millisecond. It makes every dream that much more vital.

  Toys, joys, and dreams. They come as a package deal with any man over forty. If I was going to have someone paddle me out to a barren island in a spring rainstorm, I would inevitably have to pay for it.

  “I’d prefer you didn’t go with anybody stupid or crazy,” Aisha said. When I raised a finger, she added, “but most of your friends fall into that category anyway. Besides, who else would go with you?”

  “I was thinking of Phil,” I said. Now my head was itchy and I scratched it.

  “Good choice. He fits both of the categories at once. Besides, you owe him one or two.”

  I owed Phil more than one or two. He was famous for his practical jokes. I’d tried to get him back but didn’t have quite the knack. One time for example, we’d agreed to meet for a fishing trip on Lake Scugog. He emailed me instructions that I was to “stop at the Master Bait shop on South Street and get some of their special 8-inch worms.” When I tried to ask for directions (there is no bait shop there) I came within a hair of ending up in the town jail for the night. Then, of course, there was the incident with the painted goat, which I won’t go into.

  “A good one, if only for the painted goat,” Aisha suggested.

  Now I like Phil, let's get that straight. Even when I can't stand him, I still like him.

  Like Aisha says, Phil's actually crazy in a lot of ways. He's also the sanest crazy person I know. Just ask him. He says that to be a male human animal in this corner of the galaxy, you've either got to drink seriously or be crazy.

  Certain other genders (no names mentioned) get the feeling that being a man is a piece of cake of the Sara Lee instant rising variety. I prefer Phil's vision of the male universe. In the Phil cosmos, a man retains his sanity by cultivating a garden with three varieties of mental flowers growing.

  The first flower is blue, Phil says. It’s for childish games and toys he refuses to put away. You can see these as immaturity. Or you can see them as continuity.

  The second, according to Phil, is white, for a hard edge of facts. Men lov
e facts, whether it be the truth about UFO abductions or the number of elephants it takes to tow a battleship.

  The last is red, for fictions carefully guarded as fact, treasured as true, as believed as baloney. But denied only to closest friends, with a big smile.

  Phil cultivated all these in his mind's garden; he said he they were essential to a definition of a man. They were certainly essential to any understanding of Phil.

  Okay, okay. I know you want to find out about the dead guy, and not ramble around forever in this shit about men. But what happens all happens in due course, and if you want the summary, go get a back issue of the Globe and Mail on microfiche and read all about it. If you want the whole story, read on, but you're going to have to take it as I tell it. I think it's more interesting that way, but what do I know.

  ---------------------------------------

  About them fictions. They're actually lies, but "fictions" sounds better

  Okay, they're lies.

  I lied to Phil because he needed a good lie. He knows that lies are essential to a man's manliness. So it was no problem lying to Phil. Besides Phil does enough of it himself. Lying to Phil, that is.

  If that isn’t making sense, someone’s lying to someone right now, and I thought I could get away with it.

  Anyway, that's why I like Phil; he's definitely demented. He abuses, molests, treasures, and fondles his lies. They charm him; they torment him. Especially lies about islands.

  Phil sees islands as places where somebody, somewhere, might have buried a pile of loot. Instant wealth. An island represents a very practical matter of getting very rich very quickly.

  I can see him in my mind, on the shore, his tall, knobby frame leaning forward towards the water, his eyes fixed on an island. Over his shoulder he's slung a metal detector, and on his head is a wide floppy hat.

  He's spent his fifty years dreaming of getting rich, and hasn't given up yet. So I conned him with an island.

  But first, I had to get Phil out in a canoe in Georgian Bay. I hadn’t a clue how.