| the blog of human failure
As good as things were with Scolnick, however, life was not going nearly as well for Mitch. In the time he was gone, his wife Mary, assuming he was dead, had met another man.
“He’s a Christian Scientist and very sweet,” Mary said to him without a hint of shame.
“A Christian Scientist?” said Mitch. “Like Pascal?”
“Um, I don’t think so, but he’s very good to me and we’re very deeply in love.”
“But what about our marriage? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Listen, Mitch I really don’t want to argue about this anymore. You’re giving me a headache and you know I’m not allowed to take aspirin.”
Dejected, McCulloch tried to go through his routine at work but kept falling off his schedule, distracted by his loss. He just couldn’t believe that his wife had left him.
“Maybe if it was one of those Nobel-Prize-winning Jew scientists I could live with myself,” he would mumble to himself at his desk, “but a Christian Scientist? What kind of world are we living in?”
Things went from bad to worse when he was called into the company president’s office. Apparently he hadn’t sold an insurance plan since he’d been back from the island and his fellow associates in the office were complaining about his constant mumbling.
“We’re going to have to let you go, Tom,” the president said.
“My name is Mitch, sir,” said Mitch, trying to hold back his tears.
“That attitude of yours is more than half your problem, son,” said the president slamming his feet up on his desk. “Doreen will validate you on the way out.”
“I don’t drive to work sir, and your secretary’s name is Hank,” Mitch sputtered.
“Say goodbye to that reference, Tom,” the president said, frowning.
Without a wife and without a job, McCulloch didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t know how he was going to pay his rent or how he was even going to survive. There were friends that he could ask for help but without his job they would all pity him and he would rather kill himself then have to rely on their self-righteous charity. There was only one person in the world he could possibly call. He picked up his cell phone.
“Honestly, Mary, a Christian Scientist. I don’t even think those people wear shoes. Why don’t you just marry a friggin’ Mormon or gopher and get it over with?”
“Please stop calling here Mitch,” said Mary and then she hung up the phone.
“Alright- I’ll call that goof Scolnick,” said McCulloch to the dial tone.
As luck would have it the two men were rescued the next day by a sightseeing tour helicopter that saw the smoke coming from the island. They were brought to a hospital in San Francisco to be treated for exposure and minor injuries but were released a few days later. Scolnick said good bye to his friend, making sure to get his information so that they could forever stay in touch.
“Anytime you need anything, Henry, don’t be afraid to call,” said Mitch during their last moments in the infirmary together. Scolnick was shocked to see as he walked out of the hospital that the parking lot was full of news reporters and they were all waiting for him.
“How did you survive?” barked one reporter.
“Were you able to resist the deliciously sinful temptation of homosexuality?” barked another reporter.
“How many jelly beans are in this jar?” barked another reporter, holding aloft a jar of jelly beans.
“Arf, arf, arf?” barked a seal.
Scolnick couldn’t believe it. He was surrounded by media attention for weeks after the event. Meaning had finally been attributed to his life and he was riding on a wave of pure pleasure. In the supermarket he ran into a woman holding a tuna steak who recognized him from TV.
“My name is Susan,” she said to him. “Aren’t you that guy from the plane crash who was stuck on the island?”
“That’s me,” he said completely incredulous.
“Why don’t you come home with me? I’m going to make you a very happy man for the rest of your life.” Scolnick was elated. He dropped his Lean Cuisine in his cart and threw his arms around the woman.
“You smell like you know what you’re talking about,” he said rubbing his nose up against her ear.
“Oh sorry, I think that might be the tuna,” she said. Susan grabbed his hand and they started moving towards the checkout line.
And Scolnick’s luck did not stop there. A public relations firm in San Francisco approached him to do a series of commercials for a diet program. The only problem was they didn’t have a product for him to promote. Henry suggested an island aerobic workout where willing customers were dropped on a deserted island to fend for themselves for a month.
“It’s like Survivor but without all the other assholes!,” he exclaimed.
Not only were they interested in having him promote the idea, they were so impressed with his vision that they decided to give him a position in the company. A new job and a new woman. I’ve got to go find some faces into which this will be thrown, thought Scolnick, proud that he had learned to stop ending his thoughts in prepositions.
Scolnick, without anyone to talk to or a book to read, started to doze in his seat. He awoke suddenly to a loud banging sound and a sharp jostle that violently threw him forward against his seatbelt. Trying to clear the fog from his head he looked around the cabin, hopelessly attempting to piece together what was happening. Many passengers were strewn out lying in the aisles unconscious and three seven-year-old boys were frantically attempting to have sex with the same stewardess. A nun two aisles over was tongue-kissing the woman sitting next to her and the rest of the assorted people around the plane were crying into their neighbor’s shoulder or searching around the back of the plane looking for the drink cart. According to the light up sign, one man was in the restroom. Boy is he in for a surprise, thought Scolnick. He looked over to his left and saw the man in the blue suit next to him praying intently into his hands.
“What the hell is going on here?” Scolnick screamed into the man’s ear over the hubbub.
“I thought I told you not to talk to me,” the man said quietly without looking up.
Scolnick leaned back and braced himself as he knew no matter what was about to happen, it wasn’t going to be pretty. The last thought that ran through his mind before it was eclipsed by blackness was: I just can’t get it through my head that today is Tuesday.
Scolnick woke up with up with seaweed in his mouth. Have I gorged myself to the point of collapse at the Japanese buffet again? he wondered. No, he was sandy also and quite wet. This wasn’t like any Japanese buffet he had ever been to. Suddenly he got his bearings and brought himself to his knees. “The plane!” he almost shouted. Where the hell am I? He got up and looked around. White sand surrounded him on either side for about half a mile. Dark blue water stretched out into the horizon. Scolnick turned and saw a thick impenetrable jungle brush. He couldn’t believe it; A deserted tropical island. This won’t be so bad, thought Scolnick. I can get some thinking done, plenty of fresh air and sunshine. I can even bring back Oliver. As a lonely child, Scolnick had created an imaginary friend whom he named Oliver. They had had countless tea parties and pillow fights until, after two weeks, Oliver couldn’t take it anymore and enlisted in the air force.
“I can’t be fucking around with tea parties, Henry. I’ve got an imaginary life to lead here,” Oliver said as he walked out the door and out of Scolnick’s life forever. Henry later read that Oliver’s plane had been shot down over Hanoi. There were no survivors. What a senseless war, Scolnick thought, trudging along. He glimpsed a dark patch in the sand about a hundred yards down the beach. Running towards it, he was elated to see it was another person. It was always a secret fantasy of Scolnick’s to be trapped on a deserted island with a beautiful woman. Not if was the last man on earth sounds high and mighty on the mainland, but let’s see you put your money where your mouth is. He got to the body and seeing it face down, flipped it over. It was the man in blue suit! Scolnick didn’t know what to do at this point. The man looked unconscious or more likely dead. Scolnick plopped down onto the sand and tried to decide what the proper amount of grieving time was before he started chewing on the guy. He had missed the snack cart during his nap on the plane and save for the possible pack of Chex Mix washing up on shore he wasn’t sure what he was going to be doing about dinner. Scolnick decided to wait until sundown out of respect and got up to go look for a vending machine, as the sun was getting quite strong in the late afternoon and he was having a powerful craving for a Fresca. After forging into the thick brush and finding nothing but a shallow lake in the center of the woods, Scolnick sighed and sipped heavily from his cupped hands. Suddenly he heard a rustling behind him. Scolnick snapped into a karate position and waited for the wild boar or sea creature that might be approaching. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was just the man in the blue suit wandering towards the water.
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