Junk Island
by Danny De Maio
“Who’d have thought after all the boozin’, schmoozin’, and cut classes that we’d have gotten out of college without beer bellies, without some kind of vile STD, and actually be graduating?” Jordan whispered in Joby’s ear with a grin so wide it threatened to rip his face in two.
“I know I can attest to those things, but I’ve seen some of the girls you hook-up with and I’m not so sure you’ve out-maneuvered any number of STDs,” Joby said, with a smile matching Jordan’s.
“You son of a bitch! Now you can’t go!”
“Where to?” asked Joby. “To accompany you to get tested?”
“After. I’ll tell you after”
That night, with graduation behind them and sitting on patio of Jordan’s beach house, he informed Joby, Chelsea, Damon, Ashley, that he was planning on taking them on a vacation on his parents’ yacht, the Megalodon, that would begin in a week and finish just before the Fourth of July.
Chelsea, Jordan’s girlfriend, shrieked so abruptly with joy that Joby had practically jumped out of his chair. It made him happy though because Chelsea came from the same humble background as he had. Chelsea and Joby appreciated the little bits of pleasure to begin with, but a gesture of this magnitude was too amazing to try to downplay.
In turns, each of them hugged and thanked Jordan, but it was only Joby and Chelsea who had not experienced something as grand as their upcoming cruise. Damon toasted to their graduation and then to Jordan for his friendship. As the night went on, the same toast to Jordan was repeated every ten minutes until finally Damon, the functioning alcoholic in the group, was toasting to a passed-out Jordan and drinking tequila alone.
It was Sunday afternoon, the air thick and hot. Jordan had wanted to leave in the morning before the June gloom of morning had worn off, but it seemed to everyone that this was a naïve request from him. Each of them, especially Jordan had a reputation of consistent tardiness, but none of them were so far gone as to be labeled flakes. By mid-afternoon Joby, Chelsea, Ashley, Damon, and Jordan were aboard Megalodon and making their way out of the harbor. The seals that had followed the ship ceased at the end of the jetty as Jordan aimed the bow into the open Pacific Ocean.
“Aw, look how cute they are! When they bark it sounds like their way of saying ‘goodbye’ to us,” Ashley said.
“Yeah, it’s just like that,” Damon mocked.
“Quiet, ass,” Chelsea said, defending her friend. “She’s your girlfriend, you should always agree with her,” mocking Damon’s previous emphasis.
Before it could go any further, Damon finally questioned the destination of the vacation.
“We’re going a lot of places,” Jordan purposely being coy.
“Look, you know I’m not gonna beg, but I’ve been asking you for the pat week and you’ve given me nothing to do off of.”
After a few seconds of silence, Jordan intentionally building the tension as for a better payoff, he answered.
“Oh, why, only the major ports in Mexico. All of them party ports, but I didn’t set any kind of itinerary so we can do whatever we feel like doing day-to-day.”
“Did you know about this Chels?” Damon asked.
“Yes. Everyone did, except you. Jordan made us promise not to tell you because…“
“Because he knows I hate Mexico,” Damon said, cutting Chelsea off.
“Why do you hate Mexico?” exclaimed Ashley, speaking from a state of complete innocence.
“Because of the Ice Incident! He’s scarred for life,” shot Jordan, now with his back pressed up against the ship’s wheel.
“Laugh all you want, but Mexico sucks,” said Damon.
“Someone care to elaborate?” asked Ashley.
“Fine. Fine! The short version is that when I was a sophomore in college I went to Cancun for Spring Break and got sick from the water. I didn’t drink any of the water, but anyone that knows me knows that I love to chew crushed ice. I mean, the ice is probably the best part of any drink. Crushed ice soaked up with whatever you’re drinking? Are you kidding me? And anyone who knows anything knows that Mexico is home base for the margarita. I ordered margaritas all day, not thinking about the ice I was eating, and I spent the rest of my break over a toilet seat. So, yeah, I’m not a big proponent of Mexico at this point of my life”
Chelsea smirked. Ashley caught Chelsea’s expression, which prodded her into laughing aloud, and within seconds the whole deck was laughing at Damon’s issue with Mexico.
“Go on, jerks, go on,” Damon said, he himself on the verge of laughing with everyone else. “But I’m gonna go with an open-mind this time. I’m gonna give it one more chance. So make sure it’s absolutely amazing and I have a raging good time every day, got it?” he said, his finger playfully poking into Jordan’s chest.
“Okay, you got it, but don’t be a wanker about it. I don’t want to hear you picking apart every place we go just to be a bastard. Deal?”
“Deal, Tremolo,” Damon agreed, ending the debate with a handshake. “But there is one more thing?”
“Oh, God! The truce is already broken,” Chelsea spat.
“What is it, Damon,” said Jordan, secretly intrigued by some new aspect coming into play.
“It’s going to sound nerdy, but I am a biology major, so I may be cooler than all of you, but---“
“I love you, too,” Ashley mocked.
“Hey, shut up and let me finish, Ash,” Damon said in a tone that held no malevolence. “Jordan, on the way back, can we go out farther off the coast and try and find Junk Island?”
He had said it with such conviction and directness it caught everyone off-guard. This was his other condition?
“You’re serious? You are.” Jordan said in a manner that sounded like he was both answering Damon and talking to himself. Obviously flustered by such a question, Jordan told Damon that he would abide by his condition, but they’d only go a hundred miles off the western coast. Jordan was an able captain for a voyage as benign as hitting the ports of Mexico, but he himself was not so comfortable as to venture very far off into open water.
“We’re talking about the supposed Junk Island, right?” said Joby as he stood against the crow’s nest ladder nursing a beer.
“Dude, it’s real. There are pictures of it online. I’ll give you that none of them are of much quality, but it’s obviously real,” explained Damon.
Realizing that Joby had meant no harm in his question, but was rather genuinely intrigued, Damon continued.
“It’s like a floating Area 51. The United States government owns it, in essence, I suppose. The island is a floating trash dump. When the waste management crisis was such a big deal about ten years ago, congress passed some bill that allowed for a certain amount of waste to be pushed out into the ocean. The stipulation, I think, is that it all stays bound together, so we don’t have a ton of stray trash spread out all over the ocean. It’s just concentrated. So, like I said, in essence, the government owns it, but they don’t take responsibility over it really besides adding trash to it every year or so. It’s not buoyed to anything and just floating around in the same 500-mile radius between Hawaii and the mainland. That was the stipulation. My history teacher in my freshman year of high school made us debate the pros and cons of the bill. So, that’s why we can’t find any definite coordinates on it because it’s not a static island. It moves, but within limits. I don’t know. It’d be awesome to see it in person.”
Everyone had stopped sipping their beers and margaritas while Damon had been talking about the illusive island.
“I’m definitely in,” Joby was the first to say.
Without anyone else verbalizing, it was clear that all of them, Jordan included, were game to abide by Damon’s condition.
The sun was making the final movements of its descent, a pollution-drenched sphere of orange and red illumination, when the Megalodon docked itself in the port of Rosarito. It was the end of the third day, but everyone on board had intentionally avoided too much sun and alcohol during the day in anticipation of a long night ahead of them. The anticipation of the first land destination of the trip, as Jordan had kept them out to sea for the first two full days with the mind to show his friends some of the desolate coastal scenery that Baja California had to offer. Instead of relaxing the other four, it simply made them anxious for human contact.
As the yacht docked a fisherman unloaded his catches of the day, muttering to himself. As he stretched his arms out and then retracted them, pulling the net from the side of the boat, it became apparent that the man’s pace slowed down considerably. He yelled for his young shipmate, instructing him to help him pull the remainder of the net from the water. The boy grabbed the free side of the net and began struggling as well. In a sure-handed jolt, the net suddenly freed up, leaped aboard the deck, and coughed free a dead sea lion. Chelsea was the first to see it.
“Oh my god!” she screamed, catching the others in a daze.
Jordan, positioned on the other side of the deck and with irritation, asked her what she was screaming about.
“Uh! It’s disgusting. That poor seal. It looks like its been burned,” Chelsea blurted.
Coming up behind Chelsea and investigating the sigh for himself, Joby spoke to himself.
“That looks like oil on its skin.”
“Why would it have oil on its skin, Joby?” questioned Chelsea.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look like burnt flesh. It’s looks really thick and it smells like oil, too. That’s oil for sure.”
Disgusted with what the net had brought aboard, the man gave the sea lion three hard kicks, positioning it up against the wall of the ship’s deck. After much trouble and fumbling of the sea mammal, the mixture of oil and seawater being the reason, the man and boy heaved it into the shallow harbor.
By the time it was over, all five passengers of the Megalodon had gathered to see the scene. Jordan and Damon had been making jokes about the frustrated obscenities the fisherman was spitting out in Spanish rather than the oil-slick sea lion that splashed overboard.
“Shit, man, that’s certainly one way to start the evening,” Jordan said.
The sun was gone now and the five of them filed down the yacht’s steps, out of the harbor, and into the glowing city streets.
Shards of twisted neon ricocheted from building to building, joining in an orgy of illumination that no longer had specific origins. The heavy scent of cigarette smoke, sweat, and cooking lent themselves to nestling in anyone’s nostrils, but to the uninitiated, the smell was simultaneously intoxicating and repellant. Tobacco smoke and human sweat were sure signs of the invitingly lusty nature of the dance clubs that stretched up and down each main street, but the cooking pork’s aroma emanating from the shabbily constructed shacks that bordered the clubs acted as a distraction from the allure of the music.
“Oh, God! That smells amazing.”
“Hold on for a bit, Ash,” pleaded Jordan. “I’m dying to find a beer.”
“Goddamn, me too,” agreed Damon.
This was just like the boys Chelsea thought, and she was right. The truth was that there was rarely any middle ground when it came to Jordan and Damon drinking. Joby knew how to pace himself, which is why he was usually the one having to talk the other two out of a fight.
Realizing she was doomed to lose in an argument, Ashley relented with a meek “Okay, that’s fine,” before showing a playful frown at Chelsea.
Within a few minutes Damon had sniffed out one of the little shacks that sold both street tacos and beer.
“There, Ash,” said a proud Damon, “Now we both can get our way.”
Chelsea and Ashley ate their tacos while drinking a beer while Jordan, Damon, and Joby each ordered two beers apiece. Their beers were drained before the girls finished eating their two tacos.
Joby uncloaked a flask from his jeans’ pocket, took a swig, coughed from the contents’ strength, before passing it around to Jordan and Damon.
“What’s in there, Joby?” said.
Before Joby could answer, Damon slapped him on the back and declared “Only Mexico’s finest! Tequila! It’s no margarita, but most would argue this is the crown jewel of Mexico!”
“Ha-Ha! And not the beautiful beaches or Mayan temples?” Chelsea playfully jabbed.
The girls refused the tequila out of the flask when it was offered, but the boys continued to take large gulps of the sugar-based alcohol, each swallow drawing tears to their eyes.
“Christ, dude, is that moonshine?” said Damon. “I feel like someone took a blowtorch to my throat!”
“It settles warm though, right?” Joby asked rhetorically.
It became apparent that drinking so quickly and on an empty stomach had expedited the effect the beer and liquor took.
“Who’s ready to dance?” Damon hollered.
“D-A-N-C-E,” Joby spelled, hopping around in a mock dance.
“Since when do you like to dance at clubs?” Ashley stared at Joby.
Joby continued to dance and spell dance out-loud, oblivious to Ashley.
“Well, you know I’m always down to dance,” said Ashley, “I guess I’m just surprised that is the one thing you guys want to do.”
“Girl, I’m on vacation and I’m gonna dance,” Joby declared in a mock spoiled adolescence girl voice, suddenly snapping out of his chanting fit.
Pleased, Ashley looked at Chelsea who was positioned next to the three boys.
“Let’s do it.”
Four hours passed.
“You mother---ah! ---Son of a bitch!” spat Damon vehemently at the two bouncers muscling him outside into the humid Rosarito night.
A weak smacking on the sidewalk followed the bouncers’ release of him. The decision not to literally throw him out, but to instead let him flop helplessly, much the same way a jellyfish washes up on a beach would, was calculated. Damon sat on the sidewalk, wriggling around and hailing obscenities, but that was all. Belligerent, but harmless, he was in no condition to become violent. After a few more seconds of Damon’s grounded tantrum, the bouncers disappeared back into the club, never saying a word.
Ashley was the first to emerge to Damon’s aid, but the others quickly followed her, Joby the last in line and apologizing to one of the bouncers.
“Hey, Joby! Jo! Don’t apologize to that fat pig!” pleaded Damon, now positioned on his side. “And you…you better--- Jo, you better not be apologizing for me,” Damon now searching for the coherent sentence in his drunkenness. “I wanted that moron jock to toss me out!”
“You’re unbelievable, Damon,” Ashley said, disgustedly.
“You’re unbelievable, Ashley. Stop being a goody-bitch!”
“Don’t call me a bitch, ever”
“I call it like I see it.”
“And what do you call yourself then,” Chelsea interjected.
“Get off your goddamn high horse, you’re certainly one to talk.”
“Why don’t you tell Joby how you really feel about him? And tell Jordan how you feel about Jo. Let’s make it group therapy session,” before spitting on the ground.
“Shut up, Damon. I don’t have an idea what you’re talking about, but you better hope Jordan doesn’t hear you spewing shit out of your mouth.”
But Chelsea did know what Damon was referring to. Everyone did except Joby and Jordan. One night a few weeks before graduation while Chelsea was drinking with Ashley in their apartment she had confessed that she had fallen out of love with Jordan and had loved Joby for some time now. She had wanted to tell Joby, but wanted to avoid coming between best friends at all costs. Of course, this was told to Ashley in confidence, but Ashley’s tongue slipped a week later when she was talking to Damon. And now, this is where the situation was now.
Jordan jogged over to the group from a bathroom situated by one of the taco stands.
“Goddamn, I can’t take you anywhere,” a hysterical Jordan said. “Who raised you, wolves? Or is that just the Irish blood in you?”
“Your mother,” Damon answered, deadpan, before laughing, his nostrils and mouth erupting in mucus.
“Let’s get him back to the yacht,” said Ashley. “He’s done for the night.”
“Yeah, definitely. He’s toast,” Joby said. “Jordan, help me pick him up.”
They counted off and on three thrust Damon’s arms around each of their necks, carrying him off into the neon night in the direction of the harbor. Slightly irritated, but amused all the same, the girls followed. Upon reaching the deck of the ship, all were out of breath except for Damon, who was now passed out in the grips of Jordan and Joby.
“Just toss him on the sofa in the dining room,” explained Ashley.
After doing so, Jordan turned around to ask if anyone else wanted to go out again, but Ashley and Chelsea had made it to their beds already and Joby now lie on his back in the couch diagonal to Damon.
Jordan decided he wasn’t tired and trudged his way to the yacht’s navigation deck, plopping down in the captain’s chair. The urge to continue to drink was there and the mini-fridge within arm’s reach didn’t do anything to suppress it. A second later both his hands were working clumsily to pour into the shot glasses. His eyes were tiny slits now, but he caught sight of the keys in the ignition. We’re docked, I think, he thought. The idea to get out of the harbor swept over him in a fit of misplaced paranoia. What if someone comes aboard and robs us while we’re sleeping? Or kills us he thought. For the past year most Americans had been reminded on a regular basis about the Mexican border towns that were brimming with violent drug cartel activity. The murdering of police and the kidnapping of tourists. I have to get us out of here. Even if its just a few miles out. Then I’ll drop anchor ‘til morning he promised himself.
Jordan stumbled down the yacht’s stairs to where the rope was tied to the thick cement post that held the ship to land before untying it and throwing it back aboard. Back in the captain’s chair, Jordan twisted the key and gassed the boat into open water. Even in the barrage of city glow the stars could be clearly seen and Jordan liked the idea that he was awake by himself to just appreciate the scene. He was getting lost in the night’s tiny spotlights before his eyes glazed and then closed.
Jordan’s face was hot and his skin had the distinct sensation of being sunburned. It was too bright to simply open his eyes. He had fallen asleep and he knew it, but the groggy sensation and disorienting feeling of the sun’s intense rays made him feel lazy and immediately unresponsive to the metal-on-metal scraping that was sounding in intervals about every five seconds. His immediate thought was that the Damon was attempting to move the scuba tanks again so he could get to the bathroom on the main deck. It soon became apparent that this wasn’t the case as a screech of bending steel sounded and the boat abruptly stopped rolling with the sea.
“Christ!” said Jordan, jumping to his feet. His vision became spotted for some time before settling. The twisted wreckage, which his eyes eventually focused on, featured qualities comparable to a burning cathedral; massive, intimidating, and unsettling in its gaudiness.
What the yacht, Megalodon, had crashed into and become snagged on was a colossal mound of waste. Aluminum cans formed the base of the mass, beginning at the ocean’s surface and rising fifteen feet skyward. Running through the aluminum cans were thick, rusting steel bars, a simple, but ingenious design in which to hold the base together. Looking more closely it could be seen that the aluminum was sectioned off, a new conglomerate pieced together every fifteen feet in every direction, forming cubes. Each cube was then subdivided into a random array of different colors, each a signifier of a distinct company. Dr. Pepper, Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, and an infinite diversity of aluminum cans all came together to form a whole.
As the base came to an end, a thick layer of plastic trash began, most of which were bottled water and laminated paper. Yet another layer rose out of the plastic, which could only be described as the remnants of every other type of human garbage and waste, ranging from diapers to old car tires and everything in between. The stench of garbage baking under a blaring sun uninterrupted by clouds was heavy and had considerable range. Pouring out of the sides of each level of the island and resting atop it were scattered puddles, amalgamations of bodily waste, sugary drinks, and any other number of mystery liquids.
At the top of the cathedral of rubbish and rot stretched a gnarled, sickly tree. The stump jetted out of a pile of soda cans bordered at the brim by McDonalds wrappers and wrapped itself up in tangles that seemed intent on running in the opposite direction of one another. One part of the roots rose vertically, following the physics of a normal tree stump, but not six inches from that another root came out vertically two feet before violently jutting to the right and hanging in midair, void of a purposeful destination.
Jordan was frozen staring at the mountain of junk, ignoring the sharp headache instigated by the previous night’s drinking. Am I still asleep, he thought. But then his promise to Damon some days earlier jumped into his thoughts. The dots all started to connect in a rush. It made a bit of sense. The yacht drifted through the night in the open ocean and in everyone’s drunken stupor the Megalodon had crashed into and inadvertently docked to a floating heap of wreckage. Their destination was without an official name, but surely the Megalodon was now kissing Junk Island.
Awestruck, Jordan climbed down from the captain’s seat and down to deck-level. The height of the mass seemed to grow in even greater proportion when viewed from the deck and he shielded his eyes from the noon sun to once again look at the deathly tree perched atop the heap. A coughing fit erupted from behind Jordan in the dining room of the ship and before Jordan could turn around to see who is was Joby was beside him.
“What!” Joby burst in disbelief. “Holy shit, what the hell is that,” a distinct sense of giddy laughter in his voice.
Jordan was still silent for a few seconds before trying to answer him.
“I think it is that floating landfill that Damon was talking about,” knowing perfectly well that he did not need to use I think. How many buoyant landfill were out there he thought. He knew exactly what it was.
Joby, still collecting himself from short spurts of nervous laughter asked Jordan why he had gone looking for it so soon. They had all agreed that it would be one of the final things on the itinerary. Jordan thought about lying, but decided against it. Joby might laugh at it. Christ, he’s my best friend he thought. Before deciding how to explain the story, it came out in a rush.
“Well, last night when everyone passed out I decided to keep drinking and I…I did something kind of stupid. I got freaked out by all the kidnappings and drug cartel stuff we’ve been hearing about and I didn’t want anyone to break into the ship while everyone was asleep so I untied us from the dock. While I was driving out of the harbor I must have passed out with my hand still pushing down on the gas. I don’t know how far we drifted after I passed out.”
“And we just happened to crash into this thing?” Joby questioned.
“Yeah, man. Look, I don’t know where we are or how long we’ve been here, but I can fix it. I can radio in and get our coordinates and we can get back on track. But let’s do it before Damon and the girls wake up. He’ll need to explore it and the girls will be pissed.”
Joby stood still for a second, now completely cured from his laughing. A wry smile spread over his face and his eyes narrowed playfully.
“I’ll wake up Damon,” he said. “We won’t wake the girls up, but we’ll get Damon and look around. Twenty-minutes, tops.” Joby said, uncharacteristically firm in his declaration.
Before Jordan could answer a large splash sounded off to the right side of the Megalodon followed immediately by an abnormally deep voice that seemed to holler “Come on in, the water’s great!”
The voice came from neither Jordan or Joby and the two stood completely frozen, aware of this fact.
“Did you leave the TV on or something?” said Jordan, “Or the stereo?”
Joby shook his head. Another splash jolted them out of their stiffness.
“I’m waking up Damon, dude,” Joby quavered before disappearing into the living room.
After a bit of commotion, mostly Damon fighting off Joby’s attempts to lift him to his feet, all three stood on the deck on the yacht, staring at the heap, then at one another, and then back at the heap. The sigh snapped Damon out of his daze and now was overcome with bewilderment at the size of the gargantuan waste island. Joby and Jordan explained quickly the plan to Damon, being sure to repeat that they were not to wake Chelsea or Ashley, as this very well could be the most important part of the plan. There were two more weeks left aboard the yacht and being in the doghouse was not something that sounded attractive.
By the time Jordan and Joby had decided the plan, off-the-cuff to be sure, Damon was fully awake and ecstatic about exploring the island. But something did trouble Damon.
“I thought this island would be fenced off or at least have some sort of ‘no trespassing’ signs.”
“Because of a family cruise liner would just love to hop on this shitty thing,” Jordan said sarcastically. “The government just dumps here and then leaves, and that’s not even that often, like you said, right?”
“Yeah, I see your point. Absolutely,” worry still stirring in his voice, “but it still seems weird.”
The boys walked to the side of the yacht, which was jammed up against the island and tried to judge the distance they’d have to jump to make it to the bottom base level of the mess. Joby judged it was about a five-foot jump, but that they’d have to be careful when landing as to not cut themselves on the jagged aluminum that lay sticking out indiscriminately. As the ship rocked back and forth with the waves, each of the boys timed their jump as the ship rose to its highest point with the ocean’s rolling. Damon jumped last, and as he crashed down onto the metal, the splashing followed instantly. What the hell is that they all thought, the unanswered question sitting in the expressions of their eyes.
They began their ascent towards the peak of the mountain and the resting place of the tree, cautious to avoid the rebar wire, nails, and stray glass that projected out of every section of the island.
The splashing came to pass again, but this time the voice heard before followed promptly. It was a voice that carried the tone of warmth and civility, but being that the three were unable to see its origin gave it the weight of something slightly foreboding.
“Don’t go up there, come in here! The water is perfect,” the voice suggested. “Not up there, in here,” it repeated.
In a rush, Damon made it to the island’s edge, what might have been a shoreline had there been sand, but instead a ten-foot drop followed. Peering over the edge carefully, though is eyes darted frantically, he called out “Who said that? Who are you?”
The deep voice rose again from the water below and answered “Good day, gentlemen, my name is Wilford!” in a tone of great excitement.
Floating in the water below was a very large male sea lion, his eyes the size of baseballs. The sea lion floating in one place for a few seconds more before rolling in the direction of a passing wave, thus revealing his underbelly and flippers, which were covered in oil. The sea lion continued to stare up at Damon, Jordan, and Joby before breaking the silence, again.
“I said come on it boys, it’s a refreshing change from this blazing sun we’ve got today,” the warmth never leaving his voice. “My name’s Wilford. Don’t climb to the top; it’s all just rubbish, in more ways than once. Have a swim.”
“Please tell me that seal just talked,” Damon said, his voice on the verge of cracking. “Did that seal just speak fucking English?”
“Oh, you bet I can speak English! And five other languages, too” said Wilford. “Now, how about a swim?”
“I don’t think so, seal!” screamed Damon.
“Oh, please, dear boy, call me Wilford,” a British accent becoming for prominent.
“Wilford, or whatever it is, we’re not jumping in the water with a talking seal,” answered Jordan.
“As you wish, sir. I’ll come to you. Be right there, chaps!” said Wilford, spiritedly.
As Wilford dove beneath the waves, the boys ran along the perimeter of the island, following Wilford’s movement to the other side of the island. As the island wrapped around it became apparent that the other side of the island was substantially flatter and the trash was flattened more neatly. A long, slanting cement ramp ran from leveled-out garbage down to the water, and it was soon put into use by Wilford. The sea lion looked even larger out of the water and less able-bodied as he waddled himself up the embankment in the direction of the boys.
“Sorry about having you wait, ol’ chaps,” apologized Wilford. “How are you all today? What can I do for you? Are you new to the CDC or the DOD, or something else?”
Still stunned with the fact that a sea lion was sitting in front of them, none immediately answered.
“Uh, um, neither,” Joby said, finally. “We don’t work for the government.”
“Taking in the sights?” inquired Wilford in bewilderment.
“No. I mean, yes. Well, our ship crashed into your island and then we thought we’d have a look around.”
“Of, well that’s certainly a change from what I’m used to,” Wilford said with a laugh. “But jolly good to have you here all the same.”
“What the hell is this place?” said Jordan. “I mean, obviously, it’s a floating garbage can, but why are---why are you here?”
“You all are American, are you not?” guessed Wilford.
They all answered in the affirmative.
“And to think, I thought your people would have spilled the beans about this place long ago,” Wilford said. “This place has been inoperable for over a quarter-century, I just supposed they’d give tits and tats of information by this time.”
“Twenty-five years? This place has been out of operation for that long?” said a dumfounded Damon. “I thought this place was in operation only since the 1990s.”
“Oh, by George, no!” burst Wilford. “This island was first commissioned at the end of World War II as a secret science facility. The lab is still underneath all of this garbage in a bunker.”
The boys all stared, baffled, at Wilford, half because of the unbelievable information and half because it was coming out of a talking sea lion named Wilford.
“I guess it doesn’t matter in me telling you very much since this place is out of commission, but I’m simply shocked you chaps haven’t heard about any of this sooner. And not from a talking sea lion,” said Wilford, his whiskers contracting and his teeth showing in a smile. “Some of the finest scientists in the world came here during the duration of the Cold War. In fact, Einstein himself along with others from the Manhattan project visited to oversee some of the work that was being done here. I, myself, was fortunate enough to shake hands with the man, or rather, flippers,” Wilford said, purposely making the error to make light of the situation.
“Wilford,” said Joby, as in a tone that seemed to carry the idea of him questioning his own sanity, “what kind of testing were they doing here?”
“Well old boy, as you may have guessed, I myself am a product of these tests. After the Second World War, America began testing to see if animals could be trained to spy on the Soviets, and as it would come to pass, Cuba and the Vietnamese. During the initial testing, this island was man-made, but constructed out of cement and sand, not this heap of flaming, stinking trash that you see today. The trash was only piled on after the closing of the laboratory as a distraction to the abandoned lab, which is actually very easy to access if one can get past the stench of this place. Anyway, the scientists began training aquatic animals, mainly sea lions, dolphins, and sharks to swim with devices on their backs, which would pick up radio transmissions from Russia and Cuba. In those days it was hard to get clear signals from those countries since we weren’t allowed in their air space and they in ours, so a shark that would stake a claim off the Cuban coast would pick up clear radio signals from military bases without having to risk human spies on the mainland.”
“Okay,” said Jordan, “that makes some sense, seal, but ---“
“Seal? I am no seal! I’m a sea lion, my fair boy,” said Wilford, playfully bouncing around on his tail and flippers in a kind of mock dance.
“Terribly, sorry, Wilford,” Jordan retorted sarcastically. “But why do you talk? How is that even possible?”
“Fair question, chap, fair question,” the sea lion said. “I had a feeling you might have an itch to know. Well, after a bit of time the orders came from the mainland that they Department of Defense wanted to try out new tactics in how to manipulate the brain. Of course, I know all of this because what I have been told and read after I was able to speak English and the other languages I was inundated with. All of the animals’ minds were erased before and the scientists singled out certain aspects of the mind they wanted and discarded others. For instance, I am able to speak six human languages, but I am unable to communicate with sea lions that have not undergone the same treatment as myself. I’m not exactly sure of the precise process I went through to become the way I am today, but I was informed it was related to some sort of dreadful shock-therapy and a thick, oily substance poured into specific sections of the brain to get said effect. It’s the same stuff that is stuck to me on my underbelly, as you see here,” he demonstrated, rolling over on his side. “A nice scratch would be nice, all the same,” the sea lion joked, winking at Jordan.
“Anyway, after the Cold War ended the DOD decided the island didn’t serve a purpose anymore and decided to shut the laboratory down. In the 1990s the government passed a bill for dumping trash on here, but the process has begin well before that to cover up the previous going-ons here. Before they left, they took each of the animals ashore and did one last operation, which, in essence, rendered us nautically useless. The sharks, dolphins, nor my kind is able to navigate the ocean like we used to before we were tested on. The few who have tried to escape the confines of the island are either caught by fishing nets and killed because of the oily skin that makes them worthless at the market, or are killed by predators. And still, some are terrified to take their chances out in the great seas for fear of loneliness. Once one loses sight of the island, there is no way of being able to find your way back. The internal compass and instinct in gone, old boys,” Wilford said, the first time sadness entered his voice.
“Every now and again a government official comes ashore to make sure everything is how they left it and to make a head count of how many more of us are left on the island. They call us The Junkies. During its primes the island had no official name, and it still doesn’t, but I’ve heard some of the officials refer to it as Junk Island. We are useless to them now, like old toys thrown in a corner. Now the only ones left on or around the island are Pedro, Franklin, and myself. That’s why when I first saw you three boys I thought you were new additions to the department and might be here to do a count, or to finish us off.”
“Oh, no way!” Damon said joyously, “I can’t wait to tell our friends about this shit! Not that anyone would believe us.”
“Yeah, do you mind if I take a video of you on my iphone?” Jordan asked rhetorically, as he was already filming the sea lion talking.
“Absolutely not, have at it, boys!” Wilford permitted.
After taking a few minutes of footage, the boys followed the sea lion to where their yacht had crashed into the side of the island.
“Shouldn’t it be about here,” said Joby. “I remembered the tallest pile of used condoms being right about here.”
“Don’t be a smartass, Joby,” Jordan said in a tone bordering on panic. He knew the ship had been about here, too.
As they peered out to sea an array of debris floated in the water. A patio table, a flotation device, some books, and clothes all floating at the surface of the sea, bobbing up and down with the passing wake.
A tidal wave of terror engulfed each of the boys in the realization that the yacht, the Megalodon had sank while they were away with the sea lion fluent in six languages.
“Oh my God!” cried Damon, tears creeping into the corners of his eyes. “Oh, God! Ashley, baby!”
Without a moment’s notice Jordan charged in the direction of the sea.
“You may want to keep an eye out for Pedro, ol’ chap,” said Wilford. “I surely wouldn’t take the leap if I were you.”
But it was too late. Damon was already wading in the ocean trying to get his bearing about him. His arms flapped with desperation, unsure as to what his next move was to be. A fin perturbed from the Pacific’s surface and darted towards Damon, his back turned to the fin.
“Oh, there’s Pedro. Always on time, that one,” said Wilford cheerfully.
Before Jordan or Joby could holler a warning to Damon he had disappeared beneath the waves. A thick trail of the black, oily substance had followed the shark to the attack and as Damon’s blood rose from the depths of the ocean, it mixed in a pool of black and crimson.
“What the HELL was that?” Jordan screeched.
“I told you, that’s the ol’ chap Pedro,” explained Wilford, “the Great White from the Gulf of Mexico. He was one of the three still left on or around the island. I mentioned him not fifteen minutes ago. I am sorry about your ship. Seems when you kissed up against the island the rebar must have punctured a hole in the vessel. Truly, bad luck, mates, but there’s no need to offer yourself up like Thanksgiving like your mate just did.”
“Jesus. Oh God, we’re stuck. We’re stuck here on this island,” Jordan began to cry.
“God, I know, Jordan, I know,” Joby consoled him. “It’s going to be okay though. Wilford said that someone comes once in awhile to check things out. Next time they come, we’ll go home.”
“Ah, lest you chaps forget that the island is not static. This island has no definite coordinates,” explained Wilford. “But I suppose you’re right, someone will eventually come. I did say that people come. However, it would be dishonest to say that people left,” Wilford said, winking his eye and retracting his whiskers to show his surprisingly pearly-white teeth.
And with that Wilford turned and dove into the sea, leaving the two remaining boys surrounded by cathedral-sized mounds of junk and waste.
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