| the blog of human failure
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.
Because jelly bean stand work was seasonal, Henry was forced to pack up his things and move out west from Ohio to California, where his sister owned a vineyard. He had contacted her the night before and she related that she had a job available in grape stomping with his name all over it. Excited to find work, Scolnick booked the first flight he could to California and rushed to the airport. Once there, he was rewarded with a two week wait. As soon as they can and as soon as I can, thought Scolnick. How different these concepts can be. Finally on board, Scolnick looked around nervously, as this was his first time he had ever been on an airplane. Everything had gone relatively smoothly so far as he knew, but he had a bad feeling about the flight. His bad feelings originated when he was about to board the plane and heard the pilot muttering to himself “I’ve got a bad feeling about this flight,” as he passed Scolnick, shuffling towards the cockpit.
Scolnick tried to calm himself and focused his eyes on the man sitting in the aisle seat next to him. He was a tall angular Anglo-looking man with a solid jawbone and a dark blue suit. Probably some Madison Avenue executive type thought Scolnick working himself up. I bet he’s never had to pay for sex before, and if he has, I bet he didn’t have to use rolls of quarters. The suited man looked up from his Newsweek and saw Scolnick staring, scanning his eyes up and down his body.
“Are you one of these homosexuals I’ve heard so much about?” the man asked Scolnick.
“Um ah, no,” said Scolnick, gathering his dignity. “The name is Scolnick. Henry Scolnick. Jelly Bean Counters Union 4604. I’m going out to California to squeeze my sister’s grapes.” Scolnick held out his hand for the suited man to shake. The man looked down at the outstretched hand and then looked back up to Henry’s face.
“Hey, that’s great Scolnick,” the man said. “Do me a favor and don’t talk to me for the rest of the flight?”
Scolnick moved his hand back to the armrest and slouched down into his middle seat, dejected. He had had trouble making friends his entire life. As a boy he spent countless hours alone on the playground dressed as an Indian hoping one of the neighborhood boys would take pity on him, dress up like a cowboy, and force him onto a reservation. After hours sitting in the sandbox alone he wiped the dot off his forehead, bunched up his sari and went home. On his way back to his house he was almost accidentally married off to a 38-year-old man named Kunal, but it fell through at the last second when Scolnick’s parents decided they had no place to put 14 sheep.
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