No Man Is Not an Island

Geikken never saw anyone he knew. But then, he didn’t know anyone, not anymore. Still, they were out there all right, the ones he once knew, and he kept his eyes sharp for familiar bone structures. It was all in the bones, and old bones would haunt you if you weren’t careful. “Geikken!” they’d say—“What are you doing these days?” Fuck that. Thank God or whoever that it hadn’t happened. It could, though, anytime, and Geikken regularly reviewed his strategy for a sudden encounter. He would fake a smile, act surprised, and, if they asked their fucking nosy “What are you doing?” (which they sure as fuck would), say in a mysterious voice (maybe more of a whisper), “I’m working on some ventures.” “Ventures” sounded good; anybody could swallow that. Then he would nod and walk away.

He was watching television one summer day when his mother came in and said, right out of the blue, “Can’t you find something to do?” It felt like a slap. What did she mean? He was watching TV, that’s was what he was “doing.” What else was he supposed to do? He was fourteen, he didn’t feel like doing anything else. Remembering this later (and he remembered it often), he couldn’t remember his response, but he did remember that neither of his parents ever bothered to actually educate him about work or help him find a summer job. Was he supposed to just get it, this work thing? Well, he didn’t get it. Tough shit. Only years later, hearing about schoolmates getting jobs and professions and being “successful,” did he start to get it. But starting is not finishing, and Geikken never found a job worth a shit, or least of all a profession. So then, the shit was on him.

Not anymore. Anymore, Geikken did not have to work shit jobs or take any other kind of shit. Now, he could be what he wanted and do what he wanted. And what he wanted to do was wear his rig and look at things and look for things. Some things were nice just to look at: houses and cars, trees and birds, the sky and the sea. There were other things out there that were damn well worth looking for: things in the sand, things by the road, lost things, things maybe valuable, maybe historical, maybe just weird but anyway waiting out there to be found. Being lost forever was fucked.

Even in summer, Geikken wore the rig almost every day: sweat pants, hoodie, black rubber boots or Pumas, and black parka. He didn’t care what other people thought, he didn’t have to. In school kids gave him shit about his boots. “Why do you always have to be different?” said Lawrence. Fucking stick-ass straight-A Lawrence. Another slap. Geikken shrugged and said nothing and began to embrace the concept of himself as being “different.” It seemed like most of the other guys eventually got girlfriends, but he never did, so fine, he would be a lone wolf. If some chick wanted him, okay, but no one ever did. People mostly just left him alone and that was fine, because even chicks who said they liked you could still be a hassle and come out of the blue and nail you with their stupid comments and judgments and expectations about what they think you should be like. Fuck that. Expectations are death.

No one nailed Geikken. Only, sometimes, walking around or lying in bed or sitting in the Grebe coffee house, he would find himself wondering: Is this really my life? He had enough money—not a lot, but enough—to live the way he wanted, and realized that most people would call that success. Love was missing, but love was just more expectation. The price of love was way too damn high—just look at all the miserable “relationships” out there. Would women accept him as he was? They sure in hell would not, they would try to change him, immediately. He once heard a saying, “Born alone, die alone.” It would make a good motto; he wondered what it was in Latin.

Geikken picked up his backpack by the front door and began placing his gear: the spade, so it wouldn’t jab his back, then the metal detector battery pack, then the wand and water bottle. In the side pouch he put a banana and a stale muffin from the day before. He pulled his hood up and determined that today he would cover his primary route and then maybe go by the Grebe coffee house. There was a girl there and she played cool music. He closed the door behind him.

Late morning was sunny, cool, and breezy. Perfect. He put his sunglasses on and headed toward the edge of town. The side roads were quiet, the carports mostly vacant, people were at work, in offices and schools, sloughing off little pieces of themselves worrying about what the boss or the other kids were thinking, worrying about deadlines, worrying about money, worrying, worrying, worrying. God, how stupid.

He reached the street end and headed down the dirt road into the dunes. A strange place, the dunes, you never knew who would be in there, or what they would be doing. Once, he came upon a man holding his dick in his hand. It was sticking out of his pants—Geikken had never seen another man’s dick, sticking out of his pants like that—and the man was holding it. The man didn’t turn away or put his dick in his pants or run, or anything. He just stood there, staring at him. Geikken felt a strange oscillation: why was the guy doing that? Was he crazy? Would he suddenly attack him? He looked away from the man and walked quickly on. He never told anyone (not that there was anyone to tell), and he still thought about the man, and thought about how what he was doing was actually kind of interesting. Sometimes, he thought: Okay, Mom, how about I do that?

Mostly, Geikken did not think about anything much in particular. He loved the dunes, the undulation, the smell of the grass and the changing horizon, appearing and disappearing. He walked slowly, enjoying the sensations and smells and being free of expectations. The dune grass waved, things skittered deep in the brush, the land rose and fell in gentle warm valleys. Earth was like a woman, it had so many secrets, it was soft, and its softness was open to all kinds of penetration. Earth was all sex, and Geikken could appreciate why the dick-guy had come here. Sex meant being your own man, and that man had been his own man and not afraid. That’s what sex should be: expectation-free. Otherwise, it would be fake. Limp-dick.

He came to the place where he saw the dick-man. Geikken halfway expected to see him again, but he never did. He thought about hanging out there for a while, kind of like in honor of the guy, but he decided it would be weird, like copying. Geikken didn’t want to copy anybody. He walked on, feeling the rise and fall of the land and the steady tightening up of his body as he moved with the land in the wind and sun. He emerged from the dunes and gazed out on the sandy beach that stretched far away to the south. The tide was out and the great, gleaming sea lay in the west like an eternal promise.

He sat down on the verge between dunes and beach and thought about the Grebe girl and about his old friend, Levin, who was all right but went away, and Lawrence, stick-ass, and about why none of the kids in school ever called him “Gherkin,” which seemed fucking obvious. It was kind of sad, when kids won’t even throw a lame fake name at you. Maybe they just didn’t give a shit about him one way or the other. In school they read Great Expectations; Geikken liked it, but thought that a better way to live was no expectations. After his mom’s little snit about watching TV, his parents pretty much left him alone, like they also didn’t give a shit. After school ended he stayed living at home and working shit jobs as he parents slowly fell into old age and dementia and death. They left him the house and money, and he could have a decent life. A natural life. What else could you do? He was glad not to have to wear a goddamn suit and tie and work in some stupid office on other people’s terms.

Sea birds shrieked into the hole of afternoon. Down the beach, in the opposite direction from his, people picked across a long rock jetty. Some were children carrying buckets and poking into the cracks and crevices looking for things. Like him, kind of. A great gray scrim spread out on the far horizon, and Geikken thought of it going all the way to Japan, but knew it probably petered out somewhere far short. Everything petered out and fell short, but then probably started over again in another form. Life was both circular and linear, one form to another, Geikken believed this, instinctively; he felt he was instinctively returning to a place he had once lived. The idea felt very natural. With his rig and all, he felt that very possibly he was once—what did they call it? Like, a crab. A crustacean. A creepy crustacean! The thought made him laugh, and sometimes he sang as he walked, I’m a creepy crustacean… He wondered if the Grebe girl would laugh.

Setting his pack down on the sand, he extracted the metal detector, attached the wand to the battery pack, and slung the pack over his shoulders. Gripping the long wand (which was sort of dick-like, really) and moving it slowly from side to side, he walked south. As a kid, Geikken walked here and felt like he was walking toward something good: love, a girl, a happy life. It didn’t quite happen that way, and as time went on he stopped caring. Love equals expectation, one cancels the other out, and now, he just walked. No expectations.

He rounded the near point, shutting away the kids and parents, and headed onto a scrubby stretch of grass and sand. Few people came out this far; as a kid he thought this stretch was bleak, but later he began to find its lonely desolation appealing. And out toward the surf was the best part: a lone rock, rearing from the sand stark and black and crooked. Like a warning finger, a finger flipping off the rest of the world. The rock symbolized all the mysteries of the world: What had made it, and why was it here, all alone? It looked basaltic, but he could not say for sure. He only knew that it stood alone and silent. He loved the rock, his dark brother.

The thin, late winter light made the rock look flat and unreal. Was his life unreal? It was better to avoid the question, but still he asked it. Okay, well: unreal, compared to what—being a businessman in a suit and an office? Bullshit. Geikken was a seeker on the edge, that’s who he was. Manning the outpost and scouting the fringe was important work. Society could deny it and put down all its stupid expectations, but it still needed watchers and searchers and people who saw things hidden from the dull eyes and minds of “real” people who had no time to be themselves. The hidden world was the real world, a world of lone, individual molecules protecting their own welfare against intrusion and obliteration, a world of crabs and starfish in cracks and crevices, doing what they had to do, searching for sustenance and defending their right to life. Anyway, it was good walking in the wind and sun away from people (I’m a creepy crustacean!), looking for things, things lost and buried and forgotten. Sometimes, he found them: worthless coins…an old army surplus locker with moldy personal things inside…a rusted revolver…a thing so thickly coated with verdigris as to be beyond recognition. There was more cool stuff out there, much more. He could feel it.

The sun sank lower, the retreating tide left wet spots on the sand. Far out, the sea thumped and beat and rolled, a bass mantra running from way out on the ocean floor directly to him. The sea rolled, the real world breathed, the hidden world waited for him. Geikken’s wand probed, his spade was ready to thrust. His eyes ranged far down the beach toward the farther point, a place too far even for him. He saw no one, no familiar faces, no bone structures. He was alone. School days were gone, Lawrence was gone, the folks were gone, everybody was gone. He turned a slow circle, gazing at the horizon, the sky, the land, the hills, the sea, the finger-rock. Water-world, land-world, sky-world: Geikken stood at the great intersection like a lightning rod. He was the intersection: flesh-spirit-world. The fourth dimension. Repeating the mantra, probing, ready, probing, ready, he walked toward the rock. The rock seemed to hover, as if taunting him, then suddenly it was close, hard and black against the sun. Geikken fell into the orbit of the rock and the dark shadow gathered him in.

The thing was so immense and deep and tall and solid. How could men ever amount to anything against this? He sat down and leaned back against his dark brother. He may have fallen asleep, but he wasn’t sure, and anyway it didn’t matter.

Geikken picked up his things, stepped out of the shadow, and began walking toward the far point. A moment later the metal detector went wild. He slipped the spade from the pack and began tossing sand. Two or three feet down, he hit something hard. He shoveled more sand away and saw a gnarled wedge of rusty metal. He jabbed it with the spade and it went thunk. It was hard, full of sand, probably, and probably big. A piece of machinery, maybe, or maybe part of a ship, like the front part, the folksill or whatever the hell they called it. Maybe it was even a whole ship down there!

Geikken stopped and looked to the water. Going to sea might have been good. They left you alone out there, that’s why so many nut jobs (maybe some like him) and weird unsociable types became sailors. What if there were dead sailors down there? That wouldn’t be so fucking romantic. Anyway, he was fine doing what he was doing and living where he was living. He looked toward the sun, setting way away to the west and casting a long finger-shadow from the rock. Geikken felt like he was standing on the edge of infinity.

He resumed digging and peeling back the sand from the ancient-looking thing streaked with red rust and going down into the sand. He widened the hole and thought, What if it was treasure? He did not expect it—did not expect anything—but still, it might be nice to find something really valuable and maybe have more money. Geikken thought about having more money, and about the Grebe girl, and dug faster. The sand fell away and the object kept fanning out into the earth. He wasn’t sure about it being a ship, now, it didn’t look quite right. It was starting to look more like the top of a building, a steeple or something like. A church—some little chapel by the sea, way out here? The land probably used to come out here, once, maybe there was some weird, isolated cult. Well, they’d said their prayers, what more could they have done?

Another foot and Geikken uncovered something shiny. He moved more sand and saw faint writing of some kind, like it was some kind of plaque. He ran his fingers over it, and it felt warm, almost tingly. Then he realized that the detector was not registering. No clang, nothing. He adjusted the range, still nothing. Was this even metal? That silver: it had a weird shine, and the writing…The shadows had grown blurry, no people were in sight, Geikken was alone with his discovery. What would people do if they found it? Dig it out, unbury it, open it. Fuck, why did everything have to be open, anyway? Open, so they can nail you. He could tell the newspaper, but then what? They would make a big fucking stink, Local beachcomber, blah-blah-blah-blah. Yeah, they’d call him a “beachcomber” and want to interview him, and even though they had already called him a fucking “beachcomber,” they’d ask him anyway, “What do you do?”

Fuck them and fuck that. If anybody wrote about it, it would be him. He would write about his discovery and leave the writing in his things for someone to find. Another searcher. Maybe leave it at the bank “to be opened after my death.” That would be cool. Or maybe not; if somebody read it, they’d probably call out the backhoes and the media and fucking developers and every other fucking body. His place would be ruined. And way after he was dead, after they found his papers, they would ask: “Who was he? What did he do?” Geikken picked up his spade and began filling in the hole.