The Last Island

by Joan J. K. Groves

  “You die easy, old man.”

  The Deacon was cold and murderous in his tone and choice of words.

  “Even you can’t stop the tide, Deacon, and old men don’t die,” Ol’ Joe shot back.

  “You can be alive and be dead.”

  Manta, John Henry, and I became transfixed at that remark from the Deacon.

  “The deep has all that you let it have and more,” The Deacon preached.

  “You know what they say, ‘Time and tide wait for no man.’ ” Ol’ Joe answered.

  The left side of Deacon’s face went into a grimace as the right side of his face went into a smile. He walked really slow to Ol’ Joe and placed his hand on his shoulder and put his face before Ol’ Joe’s face—right between Ol’ Joe’s eyes was his mouth. The four of us, Manta, Capt’n, John Henry, and myself, were coiled in fear, uncertainty, and anxiety but Ol’ Joe was calm and still. He was an old seaman—fear, uncertainty, and anxiety had long since been thrown overboard.

  The Deacon, without a blink, without a threat, without a single emotion, and in the most calm and droid voice said: “The black-heartedness of that beast, if it ever comes near me, will be put to rest.”

  Everybody, even Ol’ Joe, heard it and there we stood. As if he were standing in an empty room, the Deacon exited.

  We were silent.

  What did he mean?

  20

  The Capt’n and Ol’ Joe were the human equivalent of the ocean floor. They were ancient, enduring, and complete. Whatever had happened in the ocean was in their faces, in their hearts, and in their minds. Stories, facts, and fantasies were one and the same in a constructed truth. And, as the ocean had endured—they also had endured. Once they had tried to calculate the volume of sea water—not for any stupid square-headed academic calculation but rather to compare it percentage-wise to the volume of alcohol they had consumed. They had once decided on a percentage to consume and diligently set about to achieve their goal. but had to cease the quest due to the commercial fact that the world’s distilleries were incapable of producing the volume of alcohol needed at the rate that was needed.

  The Capt’n’s real name was Travis and his mama and Ol’ Joe were the only people privy to that fact.

  “You still have that old dive gear, Travis?” Joe asked.

  “Old dive gear, you ask. What old dive gear ‘cause I do not have any new dive gear or anything else new,” Travis answered.

  “That hard-hat stuff we used to use years and years ago, when we used to dive commercial,” Joe clarified.

  “Yeah,” Travis said. “Polished good as gold—you could use it today. That stuff is better than anything out there.” There was a touch of pride in his voice. Then he continued, “We sure did have a world of fun. Found a lot of stuff and lost a lot of money and women on the way, huh.”

  They both laughed as they remembered their unchurched youth.

  “Those were the times,” they said in unison and smiled together.

  “Seen a lot of things and done a lot of things and gonna see more and gonna do more. Right, Joe?”

  Joe heard but was not listening to his old friend for he was recalling not the lost treasures of his life, but the faces of the lost loves of his life.

  Joe was leaning back—relaxed. Travis leaned forward—unrelaxed. Joe had half-closed eyes that come with dreams. Capt’n had squinting eyes that come with calculating. Capt’n was full of life. Capt’n was hungry for life.

  “What did you say?” Joe finally replied.

  “Nothing really, but I am about to,” Travis said.

  “Well, what?” Joe asked.

  “You know, we could dive right now.”

  Joe sat up straight, listening with full attention.

  ”Yep. Could dive this second,” Travis replied. He turned and questioned Joe in a most serious manner, “Do you know how to operate the on-board equipment?”

  “Sure do. Was the best then and the best now. Have you ever seen anyone better?” Joe asked—and continued. “What, miss the old days, Trav?”

  “Not at all, those days are in the locker,” Travis said.

  “What, you wanna dive—again?” Joe inquired.

  “If that stuff is good to go and if you are good to go, that is exactly it—I’m good to go.”

  Travis spoke with the force and concentration of a harpooner casting his spear.

  Joe was again with a lost lover and did not hear Travis. So Travis continued but in effect was talking to himself.

  21

  The Capt’n and Ol’ Joe knew that the ocean was not vacant, but as they eyeballed the plane of the ocean’s surface there was no life evident. There was the vista of the seascape that slowly and with perfect grace diffused into vacant sky.

  The skin of the ocean was as seamless as glass crystal of incalculable proportion. They, Ol’Joe and the Capt’n, were simultaneously giants and dwarves. Neither, being sailors, was engaged in the math or the poetry of the moment’s situation as they went about in their honest sailors’ duties and obligations.

  There are days to sail and there are days not to sail, but only for those who are not sailors in their souls because for each sailor each day is a day to sail—for time and tide are the sea and the days of a sailor are of time and of tide. And the pulse of a sailor’s soul is in synchronization with the ripples of the sea-tide which marks the time of the sea and the working pulse of the sailor man.

  “You’ve done a right fine job keeping this gear in A1A shape,” Joe said to Travis.

  “This is good stuff,” Travis said. “It cannot wear out ‘cause it can’t wear out. It done did right by me so’s I just done right by it. It done pushed a lot of air to me and kept me breathing a long, long time. Yep, some people polish diamonds or cars but that stuff is just junk to me.”

  “You done got that right,” Joe said. “Fancy women in diamonds and sissy dude boys ain’t seen what we done seen and ain’t been where we done been. They lay there or flip-flop around and see their toes in the water and call that adventure.”

  Both sailors howled with glee.

  With nimble hands and nimble minds they assorted and assembled the equipment. The expanse of time had not diminished their intuitive understanding or their learned knowledge- for all proceeded as if their last hard-hat dive was an hour ago past.

  All the connections were seated and fit in square fashion. All the valves were secure and tight. All the hoses were flexible and without leakage. All the brass was polished and without corrosion. Finally, all the gauges were true and accurate. They checked and rechecked their work and then double-checked the recheck and did a redundant check of the recheck. Fingers manipulated, eyes examined, and brains concluded their check of each piece of gear looking for and anticipating a botch that might develop into a fiasco that would cause a system failure that would finalize in a catastrophe. There was no verbal communication and the ancient carapace of canvas and brass was about to regenerate an ancient life anew.

  “Been a while, boss” Joe smiled.

  Travis agreed.

  “Yeah. It has, champ. Done it once, done it a thousand times. The sea don’t change. We don’t change.”

  “Seems like yesterday that we were doin’ this for good and ill. Now, we are like this thing—old and not improved, but the best there ever was. Huh, boss?”

  “Yep, the best there ever was. We are like this contraption—we ain’t pretty no more but we ain’t worn out, neither. Not like stuff and people of today, once and done. That ain’t the way of the ocean. It ain’t fancy and it ain’t never been worn out, neither.”

  “When you are right, you are right, boss.” Joe was ready to assist.

  With Joe’s assistance Travis got into his old atmospheric diving suit and helmet. Everything was checked, double-checked, and rechecked.

  There is one thing about the sea and that is truth. If you are above the water, you are not on the water. If you are on the water, you are not in the water. The truth only comes with th
e immersion in the wet of baptism. The ocean’s truth is not the surface but the Deep.

  Onto the platform Travis strode. He balanced himself on the platform, grasped the attached chains. With Joe working the winch that lowered the platform, down into the Deep he went—the weight with dumbness falling slowly and silently. The whoosh of his breath and the hammering of his heart were the only living sounds. The mechanism with its well-oiled and machined regularity of noise was extracted from the circumstance.

  The light—clear, diffused, and with a glow—slowly evolved into a gray, then black syrup. The Deep chilled what had been his sun-warmed skin and slowly—standing on the platform—

  he fell deeper and deeper. He was getting ever smaller. The air was being pushed from his ears; the air was being pushed from his lungs and entrails; the air, it seemed to him, was being pushed from his bones. He fell silently ever deeper into the truth of the Deep, the increasing compression on his body making it ever harder to breathe.

  There was a time when he could have looked up and seen the truth of the ship’s bottom but that time and sight had passed. He was isolated and falling, the controlled drop taking him down in the dark of the isolated Deep. He knew that the weights would endure. He knew that the machine would endure. He knew that the ship would endure. He hoped that he would endure the Deep.

  Just keep breathing!

  This had always been the mantra that he chanted in the Deep, the mantra of all divers. In good times, in bad times, when calm, when excited—just keep breathing and think. Work the problem, never make the situation worse, find the answer, and never get scared—were what had allowed him to just keep breathing when the truth of many a situation was simply one breath from death.

  Just keep breathing!

  No, it is not the time to turn on the lights—have to manage the resources, he thought. The coral shelf where the U-Boat lies has to be near.

  On its chains the platform dropped lower down along the wall as Joe, far above, cranked the handle of the winch, paying out chain through the hollow leg-like extensions of the spider-gear. Down, down the platform went along the wall, then hit a coral shelf with a thud.

  The sound of the thud on his eardrums was confirmed by the stillness of fluid in his inner ears. There was no more motion. His body and his soul were with the body and the soul of the Deep.

  He flipped on the lights and saw into the Deep. He stepped from the platform, the long hose seated in a metal ring in his suit still bringing life-giving air from the pump above. He found himself co-mingled with the Deep and his truth was its truth.

  There it was, the sunken U-Boat on a shelf off the wall, just within the halo of the lights. He sent his “go” signal up from the Deep and continued on toward it.

  In the incompressible fluid universe, the dark was nearly impenetrable with foreign energy. The vibration of the thud raced uncontested to the surface ever faster and faster, pulling energy from the Deep and ascending to the surface through the chain attached to the spider-gear with a surplus of oomph. The last of the energy leaped with a pop through the spider-gear’s sprockets. The old spider-gear, not being able to maintain its integrity, fell into the Deep with an almost silent plop. The chains, pulled down, hung limp and there was only slackness in the Deep as Travis turned his back to the now-drowned contraption.

  What is true of water is true of contraptions, also. As water seeks the lowest level of inertial maintenance, the same is true for contraptions. The lowest level for a contraption is failure and that failure cannot be until there are causal events that can be neither checked, double-checked, nor rechecked for the consequence. So the magnificent rig of the contraption loomed ever-imposing but simply loomed over doom with no hope of intervention.

  The sun was upon Joe’s face as lost lovers warmed his heart. Ever faithful to his buddy, he had seen the ripples in the water where the leg-like extensions of the spider-gear fell and he went about in seaman-like fashion to bring good repair to the contraption.

  He and his buddy knew that failure—the state of all things on or in the sea—was not of the sea. The repair was one of mechanical replacement. He had done it many times before and he could think and reflect upon the warm faces of those that he had loved and the faces of the ones who had loved him—so long ago.

  It was stupid, he thought now. He had departed for the cold and relentless never-changing beast of the ocean. His cut, rough, grime-covered hands maneuvered and manipulated this part and that part into place. His dreams and thoughts manipulated and maneuvered his dreams and his thoughts into place.

  Then he looked into the Deep. He could see the slow trickle of air bubbles escaping to the surface, finding liberation in the atmosphere, and he saw the dreams of his loves vaporized into a mist of memories. He was a good sailor and he had long ago accepted the sacrifice of his life.

  Put this on and secure it with that and a job well-done is a well-done job, Joe thought.

  This fell into the water; that fell into the water—he fell into the water. A small plop, followed by a bigger plop, followed by the plop of a dead man were the sounds. His system had failed. Failure, death, is the inertial consequence of life above the Deep, on the Deep, and in the Deep.

  The automatic engine droned on. Down below on the shelf, Travis’s every weighted step into the muck and the mire of the Deep was a challenge to his most mature muscles. Each new step required another fresh drop of oxygen and each fresh drop of oxygen required another fresh drop of fuel. The automatic engine droned on until it gasped and sucked down the last drop of fuel and the vapors of the fuel. His blood gasped for the last drop of oxygen. His muscles gasped for the last drop of blood. The engine ran out of fuel and vapors. His blood ran out of oxygen. His muscles ran out of blood. Peacefully, in the Deep, a silent falling silhouette came to rest near his feet. The smiling face with open eyes was his buddy, Joe.

  He had come to truth in the dim light of the dark Deep before all went to black.

  The ripple of spider-gear and Joe’s falling body had passed into the sea. The automatic engine shut off. In moments, there were no more ripples from ascending air bubbles. The underwater current caused the bodies to drift. It, the slave ship, had grasped the U-Boat; it, the U-Boat, grasped and seized the lifeless forms.

  22

  “We live in a world that is defined by who, what, where, why, and how—and still that does not answer all the questions. The Deacon fills it in with some sort of razor-sharp steeliness and Manta fills in the spaces with vapor intuitions. That U-Boat, that old slaver, what the Deacon saw, what Manta photographed. Me, I don’t know—anything. It scares me.”

  John Henry looked at me.

  I did not reply.

  She walked to the window and looked out from my place in the LION Reserve onto the sea.

  She continued. “The Deacon can see into the ocean and fears nothing in it. Manta sees into the ocean and fears nothing in it. Not me. l see nothing but the water of the ocean and everything associated with the ocean scares me.”

  I did not reply.

  She continued. “I came here to be brave and I have always known that it was an act of forwardness. How can Deacon and Manta fear nothing?”

  “One is crazy and the other irrational. You can pick A and B or B and A. It does not matter,” I said.

  “But—”

  I cut her off in mid-sentence and told her the truth: “One sees the sea as black and white. The other sees the sea as colorless. Neither is correct. And you… sometimes you see the sea as black and white; other times you see the sea as grey; and sometimes you are blind to the sea.

  “Talk about scared! I am scared of everything that is not me and I am proud of it.

  “The sea is not what scares me. What is in the sea is not what scares me. Drowned ships and drowned men are not what scare me. Nah, that stuff is for the philosopher and the wise. That thing, that morphed life form—it don’t scare me—no sir, not a least little bit. But if it is, it has to be, and there lies the inquir
y.”

  “What the—,” she replied.

  “Look, Manta observes only. He never engages. The Deacon goes right to the conclusion. The earth has hot spots, places of volcanic action, true?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “The earth has frozen poles,” I said.

  “Yes,” she answered again.

  “Now reason, a Nazi U-Boat escapes and sinks twelve thousand miles directly on top of an old slaver that is scuttled off the trade routes to rest on top of an opening that leads into the ocean floor. The cargo of the slaver was misery. What was the cargo of the Nazis?”

  “Atomic material and plans for a bomb?” she said.

  “No. If that were the case, why stop in Ireland? Also, it would have been discovered,” I replied.

  “Something caused the Deacon’s friend to drown. Something caused the wunderkinder to drown, and something caused your friend to drown.”

  “Manta would not have taken pictures of a fog. The pictures had to get that way later and the Deacon is always in that miasma.”

  “No, it is a something. It is an it. The question is: it is what?” I was now talking to myself, muttering as I began to walk. “It is what? I know where, the others did, too, but not the Deacon. How could that be? The who are all dead. How and why seem tied together.”

  She followed as I muttered on.

  “Then it comes back to what. What is it?”

  The light from a gleaming knife blade blinded me.

  “The Deacon always dives in the black. That is the reason he survives. He has never seen it! He knows what it is but he has never seen it!”

  I stopped muttering.

  “What about that creature he saw?” she asked.

  “Genus and species,” I said.

  “Genus and species?”She replied.

  I was now in front of the Deacon’s tank.

  “Genus and species, John Henry, and fear—for it has a genus and species classification,” I said.

  The fish tank had always been a rock in the sand to my thinking and I had more than once stubbed my toe upon the unreasonableness of the design. The rigor was excessive and the size was nonsensical in all respects. I had often measured and kicked the tank, more to satisfy my disbelief than to satisfy my belief. The tank was real.