Storymania - An Island Unto Himself, The Novel by Tony Mossor

An Island Unto Himself, The Novel (3)
Tony Mossor

But, Manny trotted past him, up the stairs, across the porch and straight to the door. He scratched at the entranceway and was immediately granted admission by an unseen gatekeeper who abruptly re - closed the door after him.

Stu sighed and walked the remaining few steps to the family car. He opened the driver’s door and climbed in, banging his knees on the steering wheel in the process, the result of Tiffy having left the seat and steering wheel adjusted for her small stature.

"Good grief!" Stu griped. "How many times do you have to tell somebody before they remember to put the seat back like they found it".

In a snit, Stu jammed the tilt steering wheel back up to a position more suitable for himself. He put Tiffy’s pipe back in his pocket for safe keeping and withdrew his car keys from the same pocket. He put the key in the ignition and started the engine. He was just about done re - adjusting the electronic seat and mirrors to his liking when a gentle chime sounded and the check gauges light glowed amber on the console. A quick scan of the instruments revealed that the gas gauge showed empty. Actually, it was beyond empty. Actually, Stu would be lucky if he made it to the nearest gas station without running out.

"Great", he grumbled.

Stu briefly considered his options and decided he wasn’t up for a nighttime stroll if he ran out of gas halfway to the Mini - Mart. He exited the car slamming the door behind him and went to the garage to see if he had any petrol in the gas can.

Upon entering the garage he clicked on the lights and found the gas can next to the lawn mower. He picked it up. Its lack of weight reminded him that he hadn’t refilled it since the last time he mowed the grass.

Ever the optimist, Stu shook the can just to be sure. At the most, there were only a couple of spoonfuls of gas left in the can. Stu looked up at Tiffy’s VW bus. It almost seemed to be glaring back at him, mocking him.

"Crap," said Stu as he reached into his pants pocket for the keys.

Instead, he pulled out the three coin keychain by mistake.

"Weird," he thought to himself.

He went to his workbench, set down the gas can and turned on his combination

lamp/magnifying glass. It was mounted to the workbench on an expanding arm and Stu pulled it close to examine the coins. At least he was finally putting the contraption to good use. Mary had given it to him two birthdays ago. She said it would come in handy for working on crafts. The only problem was that Stu never worked on crafts.

"Oh well," Stu said out loud, "it’s the thought that counts. At least she remembered my birthday that year".

He examined the three coins more closely.

"Weird," he said.

Stu picked up a rag and tried to clean one of them but, to no avail. Determined, he popped the top on the gas can and dabbed the rag with some of the meager portion of gasoline it contained. He rubbed and polished and rubbed some more but, try as he might the coin didn’t get any cleaner. But... it did seem to begin to... twinkle. Stu couldn’t believe his eyes. As a matter of fact he wasn’t so sure they weren’t playing tricks on him. It had been a long day and as Brad had implied his eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. He held the single coin at different angles under the magnifying glass as he continued to polish it, trying to verify what he thought he had seen.

"Stu!... Stu! haven’t you left yet? I need that milk!" Mary called out from the front door.

"Oh man, the milk," Stu said under his breath. "On my way dear!" he yelled to Mary as he tossed the rag aside and climbed into the Volkswagen.

He stuffed the three coins into his pants pocket. But, when he pulled his keys from the same pocket, both the coins and Tiffy’s pipe spilled out onto the floorboard. He hurriedly picked them up. Deciding his pockets were getting too crowded, Stu put Tiffy’s pipe back into the bus’s ashtray for the meantime, then put the car key in the ignition and started it up with his foot on the clutch.

Subconsciously, he resumed rubbing one of the old coins between his thumb and fingers. In the dimly lit garage, he saw his reflection staring back at him in the windshield and drifted off in thought.

"Well, Stu old buddy," he pondered, "as pissy days go, this one wizzed all over you. Your boss tore you out of the frame, your wife hardly knows you exist, your daughter is

smoking..."

The more Stu counted his woes, the more he subconsciously rubbed the single coin. He didn’t notice, but the more he rubbed the more it twinkled. The more it twinkled, it began to glow.

"...and to top it off," he continued, "you broke the heart of the only person in your life that even remembered your birthday. Why do you have to be such a loser?"

Stu continued to nervously knead the coin with his right hand while he turned on the headlights with his left, illuminating the centerfold of the tropical island pinned to his pegboard.

"I’m so tired of my life," Stu said. "I wish...I wish I could just be swept away to my own, island".

With that, the coin’s radiance grew brighter. It quickly changed hue and intensity from orange to red, to white. With the changes in color came a dramatic rise in temperature. It got hot in Stu’s hand. Instinctively, he dropped the coins to the floor.

"What the..." he began as he looked down to see what queer occurrence was taking place!

To his amazement the one coin he had been rubbing was glowing whiter and whiter until it attained a blue aurora.

Stu was shaken. Before he could rationalize in his own mind what was happening, a mysterious gust of wind whipped through the garage. Loose papers and debris scattered! The suddeng gale was powerful enough to rock the bus. His foot slipped off the clutch and the old bus lurched violently!

The last thing Stu remembered was the white shards of light flashing painfully through his brain as his head bounced off the steering wheel!

CHAPTER 7

When he came to, Stu was looking at the archaic coins lying on the bus floorboard through blurred vision. He was crumpled over with his face resting on the steering wheel. As his focus recuperated, he became cognizant of the abundance of bright light that flooded in through the windows on all sides. He raised his head from the steering wheel and the shards of white pain flashed through his brain once more racking his head with aching agony.

"Ow,... that felt good," he said sarcastically.

He sensed something wet on the bridge of his nose and felt to see what it was. Blood, it was trickling down his nose from a cut just above his left eyebrow. He wiped it away with his hand, smearing the thick, red fluid.

Stu reached down and picked up the keychain with the two remaining coins from the floorboard. He wondered what had become of the third. Another drop of blood trailed down his nose, hesitated at the tip gathering its full capacity and then dripped onto the floor.

Stu pocketed the coins and wiped the blood from his nose as he sat back upright, this time much more slowly than before. He would search for the missing coin later. He looked toward the rear view mirror to check his injury but his eyes where still not adjusted and the daylight blinded him. He squinted and groped for the rear view mirror.

"I can’t believe it’s morning," he thought. "How long have I been out?"

He held the mirror toward him with his right hand and partially covered his eyes with his left until they were recovered enough to try again. What he saw both astonished and bewildered him, not what was in the mirror, but rather what was beyond; sand. Through the windshied before him and squinting eyes, he saw white sand everywhere!

"This isn’t my garage!" he said out loud.

Flustered, Stu jumped to his feet sending piercing pangs through his brain once more. This time he was too preoccupied to pay the pain its due.

"Oh my God," he murmured.

He dropped back to his seat and slowly turned to his side window, fearful of what he might find. His now gaping eyes were met with more white sand. Stretching across the terrain about two hundred feet, the topography changed from sand to a lush, tropical tree line, green and dense.

"Oh my God," he repeated.

Ever so cautiously he turned to the passenger side window and looked out. No sand... just water. Water everywhere! Breathtakingly beautiful, crystal clear, blue water spreading as far as the eye could see. The water was so clear and blue it was hard to tell where the horizon was. Sea met sky without change.

In a panic, Stu lept from the passenger door, sloshing into the wet surf that lapped around the VW’s tires. Confused, he turned one direction and then the other. He looked up and down the expanse of white beach for signs of life. He looked from the ocean to the tree line. He was all alone!

"This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening," he told himself. "I’m dreaming. Of course, I’m dreaming."

No one had ever accused him of being Mr. Original so, hackneyed as it may sound, Stu pinched himself to check.

"Ouch! I’m not dreaming! I don’t get it."

Then Stu remembered what Brad had told him when he gave him his birthday present.

"The crazy old fart at the pawn shop said it has magic powers or something. You know, three wishes, that kind of thing."

"Oh my God," Stu said again as he climbed back into the bus, slumped down in the passenger seat and stared at the ocean, mesmerized.

He muttered to himself, "Three wishes, I don’t believe it".

He took the remaining two coins out of his pocket and considered them once more.

"I just don’t believe it."

Then, slowly, a faint smile crept into his frowning features.

"I don’t believe it."

The smile broadened. "I don’t believe it!"

Finally, Stu broke into a big grin. "This is the best birthday present ever!"

He looked out the passenger door. "My own private beach," he turned to look out the driver side window, "on my own private isl... YEOW!"

Stu was startled when he turned to the passenger window and his own gaze was met by the gawking gaze of a... well a... a giant ceremonial mask is what it looked like, a carved, wooden, ceremonial mask. It was as big as a coffee table. Stu blinked from fright and it was gone, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, that is if it was ever really there at all.

Instinctively, Stu dove for cover behind the driver’s seat. After a moment of still silence, except for the booming of his own pounding heart, he sat up a little and crouched with his back against the side wall under the windows. Finally, he mustered the courage to ease up and peek out the window. There was nothing on the beach. There was nothing in the trees. For an instant, Stu thought he detected a slight rustling in the dense vegetation, but the wind picked up and all the bushes and palms began to stir.

"I must have cracked my noggin harder than I thought," he reasoned out loud.

Remembering the two - coined trinket still in his hand, he held it up and let the old coins dangle at the end of their respective chains. Then, as if struck by inspiration, he stuffed them into his pocket and clambered back into the driver’s seat.

He started the bus saying, "Oh man, this is great! My own private island! Let’s take a little tour, shall we?"

Excited, Stu threw the bus into gear and stepped down hard on the gas. The tires spun and then spit up wet sand as they grabbed hold. Gulls and sandpipers scattered in his path as he lurched and jumped and laughed along the beach in the VW. He drove through the shallow surf sending up a rooster tail of saltwater behind him.

Stu reveled in the pristine splendor of his new found paradise; white sand, clear water, flocks of pink flamingos and formations of flying pelicans gliding overhead, as if leading him on a grand tour.

Looking to the tree line, Stu observed even more magnificence; small black and white monkeys played in the tall palms and other trees, brilliantly colored parrots, red, green, blue and yellow, roosted on and glided among the branches. The thick undergrowth was bright green and dotted with a multitude of blazing colors from what seemed to be every variety of exotic flower known to botany.

"Paradise, this place is paradise," Stu said.

Driving along, he spotted a school of dolphins jumping off shore. They looked slate gray, slick and graceful.

"That’s beautiful," Stu said... "and that reminds me".

Stu stopped the van and ran to the back, taking special care not to fall through the hole in the floor. He started rummaging through the vehicle as if on a scavenger hunt. He tossed aside junk after useless junk until he came to a big plastic box with a carry handle, Tiffy’s makeup carry-case. He opened the case and pillaged through cans of hairspray, bottles of base and an assortment of various, small containers of blush, lipsticks and eye liner pencils.

Finally, he came upon a box of safety pins in assorted sizes. He selected the biggest one.

"This oughta do," he said with satisfaction.

Further searching turned up a big, blue cooler with white top behind the rear seat. Stu opened it. Although it was nearly full, it contained only one thing... fireworks, lots and lots of fireworks; sky rockets, bottle rockets, smoke bombs, sparklers and firecrackers!

"Looks like somebody’s planning a big fourth," Stu said. "Maybe these will come in handy for something."

He closed the lid and moved on. He found a small, metal toolbox next to the cooler. Stu opened the toolbox to find an assortment of odds and ends; a knife, pliers, tin snips, bungi cords and a big roll of speaker wire.

"Perfect," Stu said as he grabbed up the pliers and wire.

Stu artfully used the pliers to bend the big safety pin into a makeshift fish hook. Then, he fastened it to one end of the speaker wire.

"Looks like I’m going fishing today after all," he said proudly.

Giddy, he lept from the bus and ran to the tree line unraveling the spool of wire behind him. He found a thicket of bamboo, carefully selected the perfect pole and snapped it off at the ground, using his foot for leverage.

He used the pliers to clip the wire and secure it to the end of his pole, then held his new fishing appliance at arms length for a quick inspection.

"I’m the man, just call me Mr. Survival," Stu claimed.

He hurried back to the water, threw off his shoes and splashed out into the breakers. But he stopped short.

"Bait, I need bait," he said as he headed back to the bus.

Once there, he stuck his head in the passenger door and spied the stale, half eaten order of McDonald’s French fries.

"Why not?" he thought.

He stuffed the container of fries into his shirt pocket, rolled up his pants legs and waded back out to knee deep water.

He talked to his hidden prey as he baited his homemade hook, "I sure hope you guys like Mickey D’s. I’ve heard of fly fishing, but never fry fishing. Hey, that’s pretty good, fry fishing!"

After several attempts at casting the stiff length of wire, Stu eventually managed to get the hang of it.

"Ah, this is the life," he said, "just wading in the surf and drowning fries. Yep, today’s the day I finally catch the big one." Stu waited patiently.

Behind him, back at the tree line, he didn’t know it, but he was being observed! Low lying palm branches parted and the giant, wooden, ceremonial mask filled the gap between them. Sinister eyes peered through the carved holes in the mask! Stu was being scrutinized by an island sentry!

Stu recast and the clandestine islander watched.

Stu rebaited... and the islander watched.

Stu waited patiently for a strike... and the islander watched.

Stu swatted flies... and the islander yawned.

Stu sampled one of the old fries and spat it out. The unknown islander just shook his masked head in apathy.

It seemed that Stu wasn’t making much progress but the sun was. With each errant cast the round luminary seemed to move further across the sky and grow larger as it started its descent toward the horizon. Conversely, Stu’s fry supply grew smaller.

Eventually, Stu was down to his last fry. He broke it in half, placing part of it back in his shirt pocket. He baited up with the other half, muttering out loud, "My last fry and not a nibble all day. Just like back home."

He cast once again.

"I just knew I was gonna catch a whopper today. Maybe I’m using the wrong bait... Yeah Stu, everybody knows that in taste tests, fish prefer Burger King to McDonald’s two to one. Of course, whopper - Burger King! Now that’s funny! Why is it that whenever I come up with a real gem, there’s never anyone around to hear it?"

He checked his hook. The morsel of deep fried potato was already gone.

"Man, I wish I would catch just one fish! I’m getting hungry," he lamented.

With that he retrieved his last portion of French fry and clumsily dropped it into the water. Immediately, a big fish snapped it up!

"Hey!" Stu exclaimed. "Oh, so all of a sudden you like fries. That’s just great! Stupid fish!"

Stu scurried back to the bus and searched high and low for more bait.

"At least now I know there are fish in this ocean," he reasoned. "I guess it just wasn’t feeding time. Come on, there’s got to be something else I can use for bait."

At last, he found a crumpled up, fast food bag under the driver’s seat. Excited, he snatched it up and opened it to find the remnants of a cheeseburger.

"Eureka!" he shouted. "This oughta catch a fish. Good old, one hundred percent, U.S.D.A., grade A, ground beef... or a reasonable facsimile thereof."

He rebaited, returned to the breakers and recast with all his might yelling, "Okay big boys, let’s see you resist this!"

It occurred to him that there was a song about this, Cheeseburger In Paradise by fellow island admirer, Jimmy Buffet. He half sang the tune and half hummed it as he patiently waited for a hit on his new, irresistible bait... Mostly he hummed it as he never could remember song lyrics.

WHAM! The hit on Stu’s line was so forceful that it literally jerked him off his feet! He landed face down in the shallow water. He came up spitting sand and wiping salty water from his eyes!

"All right! This is more like it!" he shouted.

A mighty tug of war ensued between Stu and his unseen catch. Stu would make a few steps of progress toward the bus only to be pulled a few steps deeper into the water. Back and forth the struggle wore on.

At last Stu felt the line go slack. Either the big fish was wearing down or he was swimming toward the shore, a change of strategy perhaps. Whatever the case, Stu wasted no time in taking advantage of his adversary’s mistake. He was able to get close enough to the waiting VW to wrap his line around the bumper. He secured it with several quick loops. Then, he jumped in the van and started the engine.

"Come to papa!" Stu exclaimed as her put the bus in reverse, released the clutch and stepped on the gas. He tried to back up, but the wheels just spun in the wet sand.

Obviously going nowhere fast, Stu shut down the engine and jumped back into the fray! He grabbed the taught line and followed it back into the salty surf until he was chest deep in water.

"I’ve waited all my life for a fish like you! You are not getting away!" Stu yelled to his adversary.

At that very moment the big fish broke the surface not ten feet in front of Stu. It was a great white shark! The strand of speaker wire dangling from between his jagged teeth whipped the air. The beast rose straight up, towering above the shocked fisherman. The monster from the deep seemed to defy gravity as it hovered above Stu with hang time that Michael Jordan would have envied and then crashed back below the surface showering him with spray. The angry shark began to slowly circle as evidenced by his tell tale fin protruding above the water.

Stu was frozen with fear. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t do anything. Somehow, as if on auto pilot, he got his legs moving and started backing up. He tried to utter a single word, but he just couldn’t get it out, "Sh---, sh---, sh---".

Only when he reached the safety of terra firma was he finally able to form the whole word, "Shit!"

Stu’s eyes were fixed on the spot where the shark had surfaced. There was no longer any visible sign of the creature but Stu was in shock. He couldn’t turn his eyes away.

At least not until something else got their attention. That something else was Tiffy’s VW bus. Stu saw it out of the corner of his eye. It was slowly, methodically being pulled past him inch by inch into the surf! He turned his attention toward it for a second and then resumed his glazed stare after the shark. He was confused, mesmerized, it didn’t even register that the shark was leaving and taking Stu’s only form of transportation and shelter with him. Or, did it? In a dream like vision, Stu imagined the shark in his underwater den, reclined in his easy chair, with little grandsharks sitting on his tail fin, telling them the story of how he caught the big one. Above him, attached to a plaque and mounted on the wall, was the orange VW bus!

Distressed by the terrible illusion, Stu shook his head to remove it from his thoughts. As if a light had switched on, he did a double take of the moving bus.

"Whoa, stop, halt!" he commanded as he regained his senses and frantically tried to untangle the line from the moving vehicle!

He retrieved the pliers, but before he had a chance to cut the sturdy wire, the bumper pulled loose from its mounts and was dragged through the sand and out to sea.

Stu scampered into the bus and instinctively locked the doors as if he thought the big shark might not be satisfied with just a bumper and come back for him as well. He slumped down in the driver’s seat and stared out at the ocean through the windshield.

Mist from the breakers on the rising tide blanketed the glass, so he started the engine and clicked the wipers on and then back off to clear his line of vision, lest the great white mount a sneak attack.

He was perplexed at how exhausted he was after the brief encounter. As his rapid breathing and heartbeat returned to normal, he realized that his legs and arms felt like heavy rubber. In fact, his whole body felt heavy and immobile. Stu didn’t want to move, not even to depress the clutch and put the transmission in gear, but he had to, the tide was coming in.

Reluctantly, Stu put the bus in reverse and looked in the rear view mirror to back up. He didn’t expect to see anything in the mirror but sand and trees, but there was something else, near the tree line. Normally it wouldn’t have stood out, it was just a stick or something stuck in the sand, but Stu didn’t remember it being there before. He turned the bus around and went to investigate.

As he got close, he realized that the stick in the sand was actually a sharpened pole with a sizable fish impaled on the end of it. Stu stopped the bus beside it, jumped out and plucked the pole from the sand.

"How did this get here?" he asked himself. "Oh no," he gasped, remembering the plea he had made earlier, "Man, I wish I would catch just one fish..."

"Don’t tell me I wasted one of my magic coins on a dumb old fish," he groaned.

He quickly dug into his pocket and produced the coined trinket! He was relieved to find that he still had two coins remaining.

"Whew, I didn’t waste one," he said. "But, I don’t get it, if I didn’t wish you here," he continued, talking directly to the fish, "where did you come from," then regarding the coins, "and how do these things work?"

Suddenly, Stu’s memory took him back to his garage. He flashed back to when he was cleaning one of the crusted coins. He remembered examining it through his lighted magnifying glass and he remembered how curious it was that rubbing the coin seemed to make it twinkle.

"That’s it!" he thought.

Excitedly, he rubbed one of the two old coins and it immediately started to twinkle, giving off shards of luminous chaff. He rubbed more vigorously and the coin began to glow!

"Whoa, that is it," Stu gasped. "Okay, what do I wish for? Wait a minute, only two wishes left. I’d better save these babies for something really important..." turning his attention back to the fish, "like a frying pan".

CHAPTER 8

Night had fallen, but not before Stu had collected enough driftwood to build a roaring campfire nearby the parked VW bus. Stu was seated quite comfortably on a large log in front of the flickering flames. He was using the sharpened pole as a skewer, broiling his fish over the open fire.

Stu talked to his supper as he cooked it, "Fish, I don’t know where you came from, maybe you felt so guilty after eating all my fries you just jumped out of the water and impaled yourself on this pole. No matter ‘cause, when next I meet ya, I’m gonna eat ya." He laughed at his clever quip as he pulled the fish from the fire to check it.

"Man, I’m hot today!" he said, upon which he touched the sizzling fish and burned his finger.

"Ouch!" he blurted out.

Stu didn’t realize it, but he was under surveillance once again. He was being watched by the same island sentry, clandestine behind the same, big, wooden mask as before and hidden by the trees and dark of night. The masked islander watched as the object of his reconnaissance enjoyed his meal.

When Stu was finished, he licked his fingers and wiped his hands on his shirt. His stomach satisfied, he placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a stick from the fire.

"Oh man, this is the life," Stu thought as he took a drag from his smoke.

He slid down onto the ground, leaned back against the log with his hands behind his head and gazed up at the starlit sky.

"Just look at those stars," he said as he exhaled.

"You don’t see stars like this in the suburbs, too many lights."

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