A TRUE MAN

Grover awoke at 5 am, brushed, and gargled loudly like a tiger. He lifted weights. He lifted until his bones hurt, then he shouted at his wife because the eggs weren’t done yet, and he had to leave; did he have to do everything around here.

He worked as a carpenter at a workshop in a local university. He chopped and shaped wood with vigor while splinters, blood, and death roared through his veins. Why was he stuck here in this pansy job, simply to provide for his wife and child? He thought about the original men. Men with shapely and hard chests like gorillas, men with sand in their hair and teeth, men who had fire in their eyes.

He sincerely believed that the progress termed as civilization was the worst thing that happened to mankind. It was emasculating – working everyday jobs, buying food with that money, condoms, pets, dinners, taxes, banking, water, electricity, how perverse.

A man should work for himself, be the sole master, hunt for himself, tear apart little rabbits and monkeys and pigeons and eat them raw. It was a world of sissies, brainwashed to such an extent that they even took pride in being such washcloths.

“Yes, I work for ten hours a day! You know how hard it is, sitting in front of a screen all day long? My back and neck and knees hurt, but I still do it, I have a family, I have responsibilities.”

They had misattributed courage to hard soul-sucking slavery. Courage was to live like an animal, free, and with twinkling eyes that glow even in the darkness.

The day ended. Grover had carved many workpieces in his anger that day. He was tired when he got home.

Polly worried a lot about him. After all, he worked so hard for her and little Ollie, I hope he doesn’t strain himself. Polly liked weekday nights the best. Grover would be quieter and soft-spoken when he came back home. If he were in a good mood, he would even make love to her. Polly had never copulated with another man but couldn’t imagine the bedtime situation any better. Grover was made of steel and could be gentle and firm at the same time. At times it would be hard to keep her voice down, in case Ollie heard her in their small house. And little Ollie wasn’t so little anymore. Why, just the other day hadn’t he suddenly taken his hand out of his blanket when she had entered his room without knocking? His eyes were oddly large then.

Today wasn’t a good day though. Grover leaped into bed after supper and when Polly got into the bed, he was turned away and on the edge. Yes, she worried about him a lot these days…

***

“Mummy! Mummy! Papa’s not here!”

Who was this shouting in the morning? Polly slowly got up. Ollie was standing by her bed. She turned and saw the bed was empty.

“He’s not here, Ollie?”

“No, mum! He left. He left and he left a sticky on the fridge. He says he’s going away on a vacation but doesn’t have any money for it, and that it will be uncomfortable, so he isn’t taking us along.”

“What! Let me see that note.”

Polly sprang out of bed and Ollie trailed behind her as they reached the kitchen. Polly read the note in a second. There was a wad of money on the kitchen counter next to the fridge.

“Oh, no... oh, no…”

“What should we do, mum?”

“Oh, no… oh, no…”

***

There was only one way across the sea without money or power or gills. Grover asked a man on the shore to rent him the little skiff he was using for fishing.

“How much for the boat?” he growled at the man.

“What? The boat, you say? this boat?” the man looked frightened.  

“Yeah, goddammit, that boat! How much for renting the boat? I need it for two hours.” Grover lied.

“Sorry, the boat is not for rent, sir…”

“Come on, I only need it for a couple of hours, surely you can arrange that…” Grover stepped closer to the fisherman. The fisherman stepped back. He was emaciated and had desiccated cheeks and take a look at this man. His hands are big, and his belly looks corpulent but tight, and that hefty beard and slit eyes!

The fisherman agreed to rent his boat, but only for a couple hours sir. Oh, sure, sure.

***

Once on the ocean, Grover was hungry but happy. And look at all the water! A man – a true man with a strong belly like his – would never get thirsty with so much water. And they say that there is a water shortage in the world. Maybe if they tried drinking the damn ocean water their minds would be cleansed.

He rowed in big powerful strokes and charged ahead. He had only to find a piece of land with life. A simple taste of the beauty that is the independent man, would get his head right. Maybe then he could go back to his house and resume his dilly-dallying with reality.

The ocean was very dark in color. Grover stopped for a moment and looked around. The shore was long gone out of view. He looked at the water closely. Then he cupped his hands and took some water and drank it. It was salty but he didn’t want to admit it was, so he took two more gulps and resumed boating.

White colored birds he assumed were seagulls or pelicans flew overhead, but they were scarce. He rowed and rowed. The world seemed very far-off to him. Grover shouted into the sky and opened shirt buttons. No man was man enough in this world. He had raised a child, had a wife, completed his inane responsibilities. He had been born extremely poor, nothing but a rube, but he had not let his wife and child share the same fate. No, they lived in a decent house – it certainly was very decent – and had food three times a day, and Ollie could go to school. Now, Ollie was getting older, he could take care of Polly. He would never go back. He was almost delirious with happiness. If only that elusive island would show up! He would scramble onto it and never let go. He would be the king of Grover Island.

Two days later he felt very dirty and sticky, his eyes were hard to open and the salt water was killing him. He was vomiting here and there, and he excreted with the fishes. The lack of food was painful now. No sighting of boats or ships. How could this be? Were they so pathetically weak that they did not venture this far even on their fancy ships and machines, when he, one man, with one creaky boat, had come this far on a hollow stomach and harried body?

He thought of meat and vegetables cooked in copious amounts of oil and pulled his hair. He chewed without having food in his mouth and kept his hands on his temples feeling them pulsate with the bites. The floating sensation of the boat was driving him mad. He tried to stay resolute. He thought of the Holocaust, The Depression, he thought of men under flyovers dying without food even in his time. He would not become one of them. Somehow, he would survive.

At night, it would get very cold and he would curl up underneath a plastic tarp that was on the boat. His teeth chattered all the way till morning. He dreamed of sharks circling his boat and krakens squeezing him to death while he slept. There were squids and oceanic anomalies at the bottom of the ocean, just floating along as he slept. What a marvelous world.

By the third day he had a fever, and his eyes were watery. He could barely move inside the boat. Day and night, he hid under the tarp. Five days passed.

At dawn of the sixth day, he spotted a piece of land in the distance. Only by a stroke of godly luck he had woken up just as he was drifting by this island. He laughed. Luck was only a manifestation of a man’s determination. The energies of the world had oriented themselves to support him. They had given up trying to kill him. Now he would be rejuvenated and healthy again. A primal man, full of power.

He rowed frantically toward the island. He reached the shore. It was still very early in the morning and he shivered as he stepped out of the boat and took in the air. All at once he felt enriched. Ah, just a little fresh air is all a man needs!

He galloped back and forth along the shore. He screamed and danced and waved his hands. Grover Island, I’m here! Your king!

After a while he stopped running because his nerves had cooled down and his knees hurt terribly. He tried to drink some water. He spat most of it out because of the salt but managed to ingest enough to provide some wetness to his lips. Now for some food…

***

At the police station there was one policeman who seemed to be the chief, he had a shiny badge and a well ironed uniform with a dominant nose. He was speaking with Polly. There was another policeman who was sitting on a plastic chair. He was frail and lacked hair. He had a thin moustache and was smiling. Polly was crying.

“Sir, I don’t know what to do! My husband works so hard for me and my son – come here, Ollie! – this is my son – and now look, he’s gone. He did seem to be very tense these days, oh!”

Polly broke down completely. She was hugging Ollie tightly and he was very red. The chief looked quite grave and was leaning on his desk. The other policeman was enjoying the poor woman’s grief.

“Ma’am, do you have any idea where he could have gone? Do you have a vehicle?” said the chief.

“A vehicle? No, we don’t have one…”

“Any leads you can help us with, Ma’am? Has this happened before?”

“No, of course it hasn’t happened before! Grover cares a lot about me and Ollie, he is a family man.”

 The Chief didn’t know what to say. The man had no transport, no motive, and it had never happened before. Where could he have gone? He looked at the crying woman with fat folds dripping from her arms and stomach. He looked at the child whose eyes were very blank. Who could blame her husband for ditching them? And did he himself not think about leaving everything and running away sometimes? Then he regained his rationality and told Polly that they would do their best and asked her if she and Ollie wanted a ride home.

***

The island was very quiet. It was afternoon and the sun was strong. The sand on the beach burned Grover’s rump when he sat down on it. The waves were sloshing about. Since morning he had tried to make fire but had found no method to do so. When he banged stones together, he slipped and bruised his left hand which had become blue.

Around noon, as he was roaming through the island to scour for potentially dangerous wildlife and plants, he had seen a glorious white monkey with substance to its body and had wanted to rip the bastard up and devour it. But the monkey had simply laughed and swung out of his sight. There was nothing to eat. He cursed civilization for having made him a weak man who could not hunt for himself.  

Now, as he was sitting on the shore with the sun beaming down at him, the whole world seemed to be one place, and the island was another. His head seemed empty, there was just nothing there. He lay down on the beach.

This is it; I’m dying. The only courageous man, gone.

His body felt very warm on the sand. He waited for death. About an hour later when he realized he was alive, he smiled a bloody smile. There was sand on the backside of his clothes. He got up with shaky knees like wheat in the wind. He massaged his back and looked around, squinting.

The sun was lower in the sky now, it was almost evening. He thought of stepping back into the wilderness where he had seen the monkey. Perhaps he could capture one of those animals now. Then he looked towards the ocean. A crab sauntered sideways in front of him. He sat down on his haunches and observed the crab. There was a kinship there. Hey, little crab, do you bleed like me? Do you think how you were ten thousand years ago? You probably had wings and big teeth and were five times larger than you are now, sure you were. Look at us now, little crab. We die under the sun. We feed listlessly, walk without emotion, exist without gumption. Just shells of what our ancestors were. What a ruse.

But there was no option, he had failed, he was no powerful man. He was like the rest of them. He dragged his empty body across the sand, pissed at the shore of the island, then pathetically floundered back into the boat to go back home. He started rowing.