I had to improve to become a very good diver and, to my deliverance, excellence could not be exceeded, but excellence could be achieved. I became an excellent diver.
We collected in haste, but discarded at leisure. The LION was coming to life.
John Henry, Manta, and I collected in the shallows of the reef but always, in the black of the wall in the deep of the reef, was the silhouette of the Deacon there in the deep and dark past-blue color of the Abyss. He was always, always down there in the deepest water.
The Deacon was always in the solo Deep—solo.
The Deacon was, when seen, just a dark dot far below in the ill-illuminated bleak. All around the Deacon was an undefined cloud that oozed and quivered. The Deacon appeared to be a nucleus in a primitive protoplasmic cell. In the Deep, no life could be detected from the Deacon except for the energetic dynamism that radiated electrically through the density of the sea.
I would float in neutral buoyancy above him in awe of his unity with the water. As he swam, the water apparently flowed through his body and not around his body. The efficiency of his mixed-gas “air” caused my imagination to hold its breath. The slow-pulsed regularity of the expanding jellyfish gas bubbles—one at a time—were as regular as a slow motion pendulum.
I asked Manta about him. “What does the Deacon collect? He seemingly brings nothing to the surface but he is way too good a diver to break the surface empty-handed even once.”
“The fruit seeds of the ghost,” Manta replied to the question.
I looked at John Henry. She looked away.
Fruit seeds of the ghost was the answer.
What the— was my answer.
“Plant or animal? Genus and species, please,” I asked.
“Can’t, Bro, for it ain’t so.” Manta answered me.
I looked at John Henry.
John Henry looked away.
John Henry, Manta, and I collected. The sea was abundant with colorful life: plant, animal, and such stuff that falls between animal and plant. In an overflowing ocean, most of the life was neither animal nor plant because the dynamic motion of the ocean life was unable to be bound by the boundaries of texts. Between Manta’s natural man’s knowledge, John Henry’s instinct for correctness, and my catalogue-like comprehension, the stuff of ocean life was put in its place in the LION.
The LION was coming to life except for the tank at the back. There it was waiting— empty. There I was. With each day, with each dive, with each sight, I was becoming ever more filled with the emptiness of the filled tank. “The fruit seeds of the ghost”—that was what Manta said and Manta was no fool. And, John Henry was trying to hide the truth in daylight.
I kept thinking about that “Don’t” from the Deacon and evermore there seemed to be a force acting through a distance that was attracting me to the filled empty tank. The steel and the glass of the tank were inert in will but the water pulsed with a greater life force than all the combined life in all the tanks in the LION.
It, the tank, was empty but it was filled to ever-flowing with the bare nature of life. There was an immeasurable and unclassifiable protoplasmic entity of life in the tank. I felt it in my primitive brain but my rational brain knew nothing of the sort—and that was that.
10
Manta entered the LION. John Henry and I were running some lines from the air compressor to a few of the exhibits.
“The Deacon is not happy.” Manta announced the fact.
“How many?”John Henry questioned him.
“Captain and crew are four, a ship’s master who is a professor, and less than a dozen mates—students. Rich kids taking some inter-semester study class, doing a sail for credit. Good way to get through college without reading a book. They showed the papers so I guess all is cool. It is called ‘Sea Study Survey.’” Manta answered her.
“My God, did the Deacon go volcanic?” John Henry wanted to know.
“Krakatoa would be a sky rocket compared to his reaction,” Manta said.
“Oh, boy. I’ll help you some other time, Vaughnie. I have to go.”
With that response I thought about the situation.
“Manta, what’s up?”
Manta was seldom silent. He was often still but seldom silent. After a bit he answered.
“Oh, she has gone to her shop. They will probably begin there and that is the most likely place where they will come face to face with the Deacon. She will act as sort of a tsunami barrier.”
“I cannot imagine the Deacon engaged in or enraged by anything or any person,” I said.
“Let’s just say the Deacon is an acquired taste.” Manta was diplomatic.
“That’s for sure.” My reply was sincere.
“But mostly he does not like visitors or strangers.” Manta explained needlessly.
“That’s for sure,” I said.
“Did you ever see his door number?” Manta asked me.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s the number he has determined is the right number of people for this island and you, Vaughnie, made it one over.”
“If I was the one that made it one too many in the Deacon’s census count and I was treated that way, then these people are in for a world of pain,” I said.
Manta grabbed me in a big hug and squeezed me as if I was a wet sponge and forced from me a pitiful “ugh.”
11
Quo diabolus ago was the name of the ship.
“John Henry, who would be so pretentious as to name their boat that?”
“Not my ship. Not my life. Not my problem, Vaughnie. Their money spends. Be careful of your judgments,” was her reply.
I looked at her and just thought, What the—
I went to Easy Chair Rock to let the sun work its magic upon my soul, mind, and body. The iced tea was perfectly chilled and perfectly sweet. I began my religious slouch with my butt in the rock, my face to the sun, and my feet in the teasing foam.
In the intertidal zone, the students were going about their tide work. The logo on their brightly colored surf shirts was ‘SS.’ I gasped. I dropped my sunglasses down over my eyes – it was ‘SSS.’
Out a little way they appeared to be a pod of marine mammals just grazing in a lazy fashion. There was one co-ed off and about on her own—the one nearest to me. Through the iced tea and sunglasses I observed her motions as I had observed so many other sea mammals with a solely clinical curiosity.
“Do you know what this is?” The co-ed inquired with one of those please-tell-me girly voices.
I did not reply. I did not think she was talking to me.
“I’m not very good at this invertebrate classification stuff. I try but I just am not that good.” She was talking to me and, yeah, I did know the common name, genus, and species of what was in her hand.
“It’s a Magnificent Sea Anemone or Actinia Magnifica.”
I yelled the answer back to her. I was not going to tell her but for some reason I did.
As I was looking toward her through the lenses of my sunglasses and iced tea, the water changed in appearance. The water morphed from colorless fluid to gray gel.
I lowered the iced tea and dropped my sunglasses and the water was colorless again. Was it a refraction and reflecting light effect?
The co-ed was about chest-deep in the water bobbing up and down for specimens as if she were at a party bobbing for apples. A shrieking cry raced over the rolling surf. It was the co-ed. Instantaneously, she was standing in a chest-deep pool of bloody water and soon she was face-down in the water, then under the surface of the water—gone. She had been attacked. As I and everyone prepared to rush to her aid and rescue, she surfaced on her back in the arms of the Deacon. Dripping blood from his face and body, he carried the girl ashore. The salt-water blood falling from his dreadlocks and his cut figure of pure muscle gave him the look of a sea demi-god or demon. By the force of his silence and bearing, everyone understood that he was her savior and not her attacker.