| the blog of human failure
The worst problem the two men faced was the boredom. They had an entertaining game of tag going for about two weeks, but tired of it after a long drawn-out dispute over who was really “it”.
“It’s just not fun if you’re not going to play by the rules,” Mitch said to Henry with venom.
In order to further stave off the boredom the men would talk to each other for hours at a time. Mitch would relate stories to Henry about his wife and his job as an advertising executive in Los Angeles. Scolnick would tell stories about things he once found in his nose, which jelly beans tasted the worst, and the time he found a jelly bean in his nose. The men laughed and worked together, becoming close friends in the process.
About a month into their excursion on an early Funday evening the men were sitting on the beach throwing stones into the ocean.
“Alright,” said Scolnick. “If you were trapped on a desert island and could only bring one book, one CD, and one movie, which ones would you choose?”
“I don’t really think I want to play this game,” said McCulloch, skipping his rock against the waves. “I have to apologize to you, Henry. I wasn’t very nice to you on the plane all those weeks ago. I can’t say this is my dream to be trapped on an island with a complete stranger, but you’re a good man and I appreciate you not killing me in my sleep.”
“It was the least I could do after you made such a big deal about it,” said Scolnick smiling. “So we’re friends then, huh Mitch?”
“Until the day I die of this dysentery, island brother.”
The two men decided that night to make a final pact to seal their friendship. After a quick brainstorm, they settled on matching tattoos. While Scolnick was hoping for a racecar, Mitch convinced him that a palm tree would be more appropriate. They sharpened rocks and carved the design into each other’s left arm, blood trickling all the while. The bond between the two men had been cemented.
“Now do a racecar on my back,” said Scolnick enthusiastically.
“Whatever you say my friend,” said McCulloch with a smile.
“You’re alive,” said Scolnick. “I was about to eat you!”
“Well now no one is eating anyone.” The man, gulped water down from the lake. “We need to gather supplies together. We’ve got this lake here for water but we’re going to need to make a tent, scrape together some firewood and find something we can eat on this god-forsaken island.”
“I’m more of a jelly bean type of guy,” Scolnick said, staring down into his cuticles.
“Are you some kind of mental patient? We need to survive.”
“Well I don’t even know your name,” said Scolnick.
“The name is Mitch McCulloch. Now please try to hunt around and find some firewood. I’m going to put us together a shack.”
Without sarcasm, Scolnick snapped to attention like an army recruit with his hand tight to his brow.
“I won’t let you down Mitch.” Scolnick ran over to his new friend and threw his arms around the man. “You smell like you know what you know what you’re talking about.” He squeezed the larger man and then snapped around and with arms pumping ran into the forest.
“I’m giving search and rescue three days and then I’m disemboweling myself,” McCulloch mumbled to himself and wandered out towards the beach.
Over the next few days McCulloch and Scolnick worked together to get themselves situated on the island. Mitch made a hut out of reeds and tree branches and to show his appreciation Scolnick made them a dinette set out of bark and mud. Henry also thought to carve a calendar on the side of a large stone that he carved into with another stone. He decided however that, considering this was his calendar, he would call Monday “Funday”, Tuesday “Snoozeday, Wednesday “Friendsday” and then he got bored with the idea and called the other four days Thursday.
It turned out the island had many natural resources that the men could draw from, including a wild corn patch, goats roaming the eastern edge of the island, and trout surrounding them in the shallows along the sand. The island was not without problems however. The sun was ferocious and oppressed the men constantly. Scolnick tried to assuage the problem by slathering himself in his own feces but Mitch had a talk with him about it and in the end was able to convince him to use the lotion from the aloe plants instead. There were two wolves on the island that had to be dealt with as they were eating the goats and impolitely urinating very close to the drinking water. Scolnick, in perhaps the first brave action of his life, was able to reason with wolves, reminding them that in Robinson Crusoe the wolves did not appear until the men had escaped the island and were somewhere in the mountains of Spain. The wolves, so embarrassed at their faux pas, drowned themselves in the ocean that very night.
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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