I did not understand how or why the Deacon was at that spot out of all the spots in the Pacific at that given moment but I did know that if any person could have saved the co-ed, it would be the Deacon.
The co-ed was transported to the local medical center. She survived.
What had happened? I could not make sense of it as I walked along the road, refusing lifts from the family buses. John Henry was out in front of her place and I ambled over. I did not have to report what had happened, for news travels at the speed of sound on small islands. Strange, in Cleveland, Ohio, gossip traveled at the speed of light.
“Either Tangaroa or Tawhiri, they have been at it a long time.”
I closed my eyes and asked myself –Is God talking to me?
It might as well have been the voice of God but it was a voice just slightly less imposing—it was Manta. Manta was a techno man in mind, but in his heart Manta was a natural man. He explained Tangaroa and Tawhiri to me. They were the gods of the island. He explained how Tangaroa and Tawhiri came into shallow water and drew blood when the peace of the waters was disturbed and that the peace of death was the methodology that restored harmony to the sea. So, the sea was in confusion till the peace of death was collected in tribute.
And, he was serious.
The only thing that has more life than combined oceans is the imagination of man.
“I do not know if it was Tangaroa or Tawhiri but I do know that it was a Rhizodontida, a supposedly extinct predatory lobefin lungfish.” It was a second God-like voice but unlike the kinder voice of Manta’s New Testament, this voice was the serious Old Testament tone of the Deacon.
God, sea creature, or morphed mutant, we four stood there—betwixt and between what we believed.
“This is the deal. It broke the contract. It drew human blood, spilled blood sugar into the sea water, and now it has to die.” The Deacon spoke in the cold judgmental voice of a hanging judge.
“What? You are going to take vengeance out upon a dumb sea creature?” John Henry questioned the Deacon in a disbelieving voice.
The Deacon spoke in a voice even slower and more merciless than before—if that was possible, “It broke the contract and so it must die.”“Manta, say something,” John Henry pleaded with him.
“Man, beast, or god, each lifetime is a life space. It was what it was, it is what it is, and it will be what it will be.” Manta gave his answer.
“What the—” Those words were my confession.
Here was a man who was going to prosecute justice upon a sea creature. Here was a woman who was defending a sea creature. And, here was a man who saw the human drama in the mythos.
John Henry did not understand stupidity and she was stupefied. Manta understood and he never got mad. The Deacon was clinical and he placed no judgment on an action of penance.
The moral vacuity of the sea had come ashore and had exposed the bedrock of our collective mental plasticity and inelastic fathoming.
I did not tell anyone what I had seen just prior to the bloodbath.
12
Time passed and inertia once again gained control of our lives. John Henry was doing inventory and re-supply. I had opened the LION. The Deacon had passed his judgment upon the creature. Manta had become ever more the complete man.
Manta suggested that we go off-island to Apocalypse Reef. Apocalypse Reef was a spit of coral-head that on the best day at the lowest tide was still underwater except for Ol’ Joe’s. Apocalypse Reef was without government. It had never been under any flag. Ol’ Joe placed his claim on this last bit of claimless land on Earth. All there was on the reef was Ol’ Joe’s which was a place for the coldest beers and juiciest hamburgers—in fact the only hamburgers—on the island.
Ol’ Joe in his decades-old tee shirt, beat-up old lava-lava, old torn flip-flops, and ancient greasy apron seemed a vision dreamed up by an old hippie on old LSD. But Ol’ Joe was a sight for old or new eyes and was a good and fine person.
Ol’ Joe’s was simple with no formality and just as few words. It was elementary. Come into Ol’ Joe’s and in a few minutes dinner would be served. There was no need to order, for all Ol’ Joe served was beans, burgers, and beer. Manta would request multiple orders, John Henry would not finish hers, and mine did not stay that long on the plate.
Ol’ Joe had a hand-drawn map on his wall and while the burgers were cooking—as was my custom—I went over simply to take in the beauty of the dead art of map-drawing. The map was one of the maps from the H.M.S. Challenger.
Ol’ Joe peered out from his kitchen and made his remarks. “The Deacon is becoming ever more interested in that map. I am going to will it to him. It’s the only map in the world that charts the waters between The Last Island and this reef.”
"Are you serious?”
I couldn’t believe it.
“Know for a fact it is so. Oh, there is some maps that mark distance and some that even marks surface current but this is the only map that shows anything underwater. There was and is no need for anyone to go to all the expense and time, I guess.” Ol’ Joe explained the deal.
“This must be worth mucho dinero,” I said.
“What?” Ol’ Joe questioned me.
“Sell this thing and get big bucks.”
“Cannot spend it here, and besides, I have one more dollar than I need so I’m as rich as J.D. Rockefeller. Burgers up.”
He chattered on about some other stuff as he began to serve the meal.
I asked him my question. “Did the Deacon put these fine marks on the map?”
“Yeah, he was doing some work and I said sure. If you are going to complain that he marked up an old map, don’t. It is just an old map.”
Yes, the Deacon had nerve to write on an antique map but it was what he was computing that fascinated me. All maps are incorrect, however the Deacon had not made corrections to the surface waters or to the reef or island but with the fine line of an ultra-sharp stylus had made corrections to the deep water and had noted demarcations and markings about the bottom. The data was coded but in plain sight.
“You and the Deacon sure must have something in common because he would rather be in front of that map than be eating.”
Ol’ Joe continued his cooking.
The scent, the food, and the art of the map were this and that but the mind of the Deacon was an intellectual pheromone that held me captive here and now. I pressed my eyes upon the map and focused my sight into the old black markings that the H.M.S. map-maker had marked and impressed my insight into the near-invisible code of the Deacon.
Was the question a what question, a where question, a how question, a why question, or was the question a who question?
The answer was before me but I did not know what to ask.
“That map is not correct because it is not the original reef.” Ol’ Joe gave me the key in passing.
That was it. I knew what Ol’ Joe was going to say and I understood what the markings of the Deacon meant. The Deacon had made three sets of calculations and was triangulating the deep. Why?
“This reef is not the reef it was and not the reef it is gonna be. It is a walking reef—as one side of the reef erodes, the other side grows. Not magic, but a lot of reefs just walk across the ocean as if’n they is walkin’ on the water.”