Call Me Methuselah

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Oscar stepped out of the shower. While toweling off, he yawned and considered sleeping on the flight. Yearning for coffee, he shaved and put his hospital gown back on.

Nothing else to do while waiting for Miguel, Oscar searched for Wi-Fi on the computer. Finding none, he switched on the TV, the news, another shooting and demonstration in the States. The pandemic ground down. His eyes were closing when the knock on the door startled him.

“Come in.”

It opened. Miguel brought a brown paper bag and put it on the bed along with the COVID test. “Morning. Angela picked them out. She helped me with the packing, too.”

Oscar upturned the bag and dumped out the clothes. He picked up a pair of tighty-whities, along with blue socks, and matching cotton slacks. It pleased him that Angela had packed a favorite shirt, the red-striped button up. A brown belt complemented the slip-on leather shoes. “She always had excellent taste.”

Miguel once admitted that his wife selected what he wore every day. At that recollection, Oscar smiled inside. “You’re lucky Angela dresses you.” He waited for Miguel’s reaction.

No response came, except Miguel walking to the door and folding his arms. “You’d better hurry up. There’s traffic.”

Oscar slipped his legs through the underwear and pulled it on, taking the hospital gown up to his waist and off over his head. “Look in the hall. Is anyone coming?”

While Miguel peeked out, Oscar slid on the pants and then the shirt. He buttoned it up. “See anyone?”

“No.”

“Can I leave without being noticed?”

“Why, what’s the difference?”

“It’s simpler that way. Dr. Killington wants to put me in some clinic.” Oscar tucked the tails and slipped the belt through the loops.

“For what?”

“I didn’t ask. He seemed to know about me, that I’m not who I say I am, and he threatened he would tell the authorities.”

Miguel turned back to him. “Uh oh.” He cracked the door and peeked out. “I can’t see the desk from here.”

“Is there a way around it?”

“I don’t think so.”

Oscar took a seat to put on his socks and shoes. “Could you see it from the lobby?”

“Yes, it’s right there.”

“Then you go first and call me when the coast is clear.”

Miguel pulled two small phones from his shirt pocket and set one on the bed.

Oscar picked it up. “Are they anonymous, like we talked about?”

“Yes. You ready?”

“Wait a minute. I have to text someone.” He keyed in the number from the computer. Karen, this is Oscar Flowers. It’s happened. Call me as soon as you can and delete this message, please. Did I mention we’ll need to make a trip to Goldfield? He hoped she was home and able to pick him up.

Before sending the text, he turned to Miguel. “Will they see my number?”

“No, it’s set to private.”

Oscar added the new number to the text and sent it. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“I’ll call by the elevator.” Miguel went out and closed the door behind him. Oscar picked up his wallet and folded the test. He put them in his pocket and tucked the laptop under his arm.

The phone rang, and he clicked the screen. “Miguel?”

“It’s clear. No, wait. That nurse is coming. She’s near your door!”

Oscar hung up and set the computer on the table. He yanked the bedsheets down and slipped in, pulling them back up and over his collar and sleeves.

After a cursory tap, the nurse swung open the door and walked in with a sheet of paper. She placed it on the bed.

He’d never gotten her name. “Morning.”

“Good morning, we’ll be transferring you to the clinic soon. Please sign this.” She took a pen from her pocket and set it on the form.

He couldn’t help but notice the sharp toes on his shoes sticking straight up and pointing from under the sheet, very un-foot-like. He rolled them sideways.

She tapped the paper.

“I just woke up. I’ll read it later.” He yawned without covering his mouth.

“Don’t forget, and don’t write on it again.” She walked to the door.

“Please close that on your way out,” he asked. “I’m naked.”

She shut it too loud.

Oscar got out of bed and called Miguel.

He answered on the first ring. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I covered up before she came.”

“It’s almost clear. Okay, now. Come quick.”

Oscar grabbed the laptop and left the room. Taking no time to get to the lobby, he met Miguel, who pointed to the stairwell. Oscar followed him that way, down to the main floor and out the building, no one the wiser for his departure.

Miguel gestured across the parking lot. “It’s the green SUV. They said you can keep it until the settlement.”

Oscar jogged to the car. With arms swinging back and forth, laptop in hand, he passed Miguel, who huffed and puffed falling behind.

By the time Oscar got to the car, the nurse appeared in front of the building. He ducked and couldn’t tell if she’d spotted Miguel behind the truck parked next to them. “Get down. The nurse.”

Miguel crouched.

Oscar lifted the door handle, still locked. “Hurry up.”

Miguel fumbled on the passenger side. Oscar tried again. The door clicked open, and he got in, bending down beneath the dash. Resting the computer on his lap, he somehow managed to buckle up in his awkward position.

Miguel pulled out behind the truck and drove away along a row of palm trees that lined the lot. Past an ancient mahogany, he turned on the wipers as a sudden downpour streaked the windshield. Oscar looked forward to a drier climate for a change, but one good thing, when he sat up, he couldn’t see the nurse through the rain.

The traffic not too bad after all, they still had a way to go, so he opened the laptop. Turning it on thrilled him. Finally, he could write again, having so much more to tell…

Where I’d dragged him out, on that narrow shore between the cliff and the lake, the water lapped at his side. He barely moved. I kept an eye on him until the sun rose high. The only shade by the ledge, I leaned against its rocks.

“My name is Diver.” I said it the second time.

He didn’t respond. Might as well try again. “When I was little, I jumped in the water before I could swim, and ever since, my parents call me Diver.”

When he looked up at me sideways, he only moved his eyes. His head didn’t budge. The drowning must have taken his strength and maybe his voice. He hadn’t said a thing. It was worrisome.

While I waited for some improvement in his condition, I swatted mosquitos all around me. They swarmed that day, and while swallows swept down to catch them, he ignored both the insects and the birds, not a good sign.

My younger brother climbed down the path from the ledge. He was a skinny little thing.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

The tone he took annoyed me. For such a twig, he had an awful attitude, as if he tried puffing himself up.

“A stranger,” I said, “a crocodile stalked him, and he nearly drowned.”

“Too bad he didn’t,” my brother said. “From the look of him, better if he had.” The boy kicked gravel.

I ignored this typical behavior. “Get us some water from the spring.” It tasted better than the lake water. “Bring some food if it’s ready and my mosquito stuff.”

“Get it yourself,” the boy said. “I don’t know where you keep it.”

As disrespectful as usual, he would do what I asked regardless. I wasn’t worried. Whether he resented it or not, as his elder, I outranked him, especially since our father disappeared. I still couldn’t believe he was gone, presumed dead now.

“It’s in a dried gourd by my mat. Bring the clay, not the ash, and add some rendered fat if they’re cooking.”

The boy rolled his eyes, and without a word, he ran off, along the trail up the cliff.

While I waited for the food, the stranger sprawled with nothing to say. Little waves splashed his foot where he lay on the gravel. From time to time, his eyes glanced at me, but he had yet to lift his head.

Mosquitos and flies came and went. I passed the time shooing them in all directions. Red-tailed monkeys called from the trees up on the cliff, but nothing distracted me from this man at my feet. If he didn’t get better now, after everything that happened, I didn’t want to think about it.

Soon, the boy returned with the gourd, a coconut shell leaking water at the brim, and some roasted fish with pounded tubers wrapped in a lotus leaf. I thanked him and gestured to put it down beside me.

The handsome stranger looked at the food but didn’t move or speak, so I brought it to him, along with the drink, and set it on a rock next to his head, which still hadn’t lifted. Maybe the meal would perk him up.

He reached for the coconut cup and brought it to his lips. His head rose just enough to gulp it down. For someone so recently full of lake water, his thirst surprised me.

He pinched a piece of fish and tasted it, apparently to his liking. He sat up and ate as if neither my brother nor I were there. While he finished, I dabbed some clay from the gourd, mixed it with a little fat, and spread it over my face. The bugs were terrible that day. I rubbed the rest of the clay on my body. Against my skin, the ointment smoothed and dried to a powder.

Before he offered to share, the food was almost gone. So rude, but I didn’t take offense. Manners were different on the other islands, like words were. I’d learned this firsthand from my uncles.

In the loudest voice, as expected, I thanked Our Mother for the meal. I wasn’t the one eating, so I shouldn’t have had to say the prayer. I did it on the stranger’s behalf because he hadn’t for himself. Someone needed to do it.

He listened knowingly. “My father’s words,” he said, “his name was Tiger Fish. Mine is Arrow. Did you know him?”

I struggled with his strange enunciation and crouched next to him to hear better. He had seemed to suggest that his father came from my island.

“I don’t remember him,” I said. “Maybe the Elders do.”

The stranger stopped eating. “My father talked like you do.”

While I understood his accent and most of his words, I wondered how well he comprehended mine. “Do you know crocodile?” I asked.

A corner of his mouth turned up. “I didn’t,” he said, “but I do—now.”

It was such a dry response for someone so recently drowned. In case I’d misinterpreted his humor, I tried not to laugh, but my little brother chuckled. The man smiled at him, and the boy grinned before running off. That child was always here, there, and everywhere.

Arrow finished the last bite and furrowed his brow. “I don’t know how I got here.” He rubbed his head. “Is this where you found me?”

“I pulled you out.” It was a crazy thing to do. I shouldn’t have admitted it.

Like he was thinking about something, Arrow leaned back and c****d his head. Then he smiled, and his eyes met mine. “You saved me. Thank you.”

The kindness in his voice moved me. His tone evoked humility and gratitude, most endearing. I returned the smile. “Happy to do it.”

There was an awkward silence. We looked at each other for a while. It warmed me all over. Something about him, his strong but gentle face, the curve of his neck, the sturdy shoulders, whatever the attraction, it welcomed the eye.

I thought of something to say. “Do you come from that island in the south?”

“Yes.”

“What brings you here?”

He looked down. Mosquitos buzzed around his head. “I was banished.”

“Oh!” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“The Elders told me to go. When I wouldn’t, the Shaman cast a spell and set me adrift on a raft.”

This was worrisome. I wanted to ask what he’d done. It might be best to let him tell me on his own. I didn’t want to pry.

I was sure he would tell me. He seemed to want to talk about it, because he’d brought it up in the first place. I backed away and sat on a rock. He just looked at me, head to toe. I crossed my legs.

At least he was honest and told the truth. He could have lied if he’d wanted and might have left his home for the usual reason, to find a wife.

“Are you married?” I asked.

“No. Why do you want to know?”

From where he sat, a little more than an arm’s length away, his raised eyebrows conveyed an interest in my answer, but I had none.

“Are you?” he asked.

My heart pounded. His question puzzled me, like my feelings did.

“Am I what?” I assumed he meant married, but maybe I’d missed a word.

There was a pause. “Are you married?” he asked.

“No. My mother wants me to find a wife, but then I’ll have to leave.” I wanted to stay; then I wouldn’t have to get married. Here, on my home island, the girls were forbidden, not that I was interested. With all of us growing up together, they were like sisters to me.

The girls were lucky. They got to stay. Their suitors came to them and remained after the wedding, like Arrow’s father had done. Leaving here, he rafted to the Southern Isle, where he married Arrow’s mother. Likewise, all my uncles came from other islands. That’s why they talked funny and had bad manners.

From where we sat across from each other, our eyes were level. He stared directly in mine and smirked. “I don’t want a wife,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked. Only small talk, young men often spoke like this, and the next time you saw them they were married.

“I want a man,” he said. “I want to marry a man.”

I had not expected this and looked away. He’d said it twice, so I was sure I understood. As if he knew my mind, he’d spoken my thoughts. I tried to figure out what I’d done to reveal myself. If he were telling the truth, I never dreamed of meeting someone like this. Well, not exactly, I dreamed about it almost every night but never thought it would happen.

“A man?” I asked. “How can you do that?” A man lived with his wife’s family. That presented a problem for two men. “Where would you live?”

He smiled at me. “That’s not what they usually ask.”

I wondered what he meant.

He laughed.

Whatever was so funny, I had no idea.

He winked at me. “We’ll find an island of our own.”

All of them were occupied, I’d always heard, though I couldn’t be sure. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I thought you ought to know why I was banished.”

So that was the reason. I didn’t have to ask after all.

“Also,” he said, “I see how you look at me.” He c****d his head. “Am I wrong?”

I turned away.

“And then there’s that,” he said.

When I turned back, he pointed at my lap. I hadn’t noticed I’d uncrossed my legs. So, I put them back and folded my arms on top, too bad I’d lost my loincloth when I saved him. Anyway, I wasn’t aroused, just a little. Hardly noticeable and nothing unusual for a young man my age, it happened all the time and didn’t mean a thing.

“It’s been moving around,” he said.

His ribs shook a little, like he held a laugh inside.

I didn’t find it funny.

He pointed again. “Like it was waving at me.” A chuckle escaped.

This was stupid.

“You’re afraid.” he said. “Why?”

I ignored him, but his question surprised me as I shifted sideways and crossed my arms, hugging myself. It helped me through the awkward silence.

Finally, he spoke. “I won’t talk about it anymore. You’re afraid.”

He was right. The idea of loving a man did scare me. It hadn’t so much in my dreams as now in daylight.

We ought to go. “Can you walk?” I asked.

He stood up for the first time on those long legs, rising a little taller than I expected, maybe due to the length of his torso and the small of his back that arched like a bow. Taking a tentative step in my direction, he extended a hand, which helped me lift to my feet. Then he gestured to the cliff face.

“Show me where you live.”

I climbed the winding trail, and he followed…