The red Chevy pickup rattles at 50 mph through the green island valley like a fire ant across a rhododendron leaf. The perfect blue sky meets lush green grass and full pines in three brush strokes of blue, light-green and dark green—a natural geometry of color, now dotted by a single poisonous redness. A loud noxious fire engine of a truck, barreling down the road all noise and gas and burn. Exhaust fumes tainting the perfume of pine and cedar.
           WATCH FOR THE FLAMINGOS, Jackson shouts through the rear window, steering with one hand down the narrow island road. Ian and Martin sit fetal in the back, while Jackson’s St. Bernard, a 200-pound bear of a dog named Winston Churchill, sits in the cab smile-slobbering out the passenger window. They streak inland along the road, from the western half of the horseshoe-shaped island onto the straightaway that will take them through the valley to town. Orcas Island in the San Juans. A no-man’s chain of islands between the U.S. and Canada.
           WHAT’D HE SAY? Martin yells across the bed to Ian, the 65 year-old Brit squinting in the sun and clutching a 2-liter bottle of gin and tonic.
           ‘E SAID TO WOTCH FO’ FLAMINGERS, Ian yells back in his slurred alcoholic accent.
           WHAT?
           WOTCH YO ‘EAD FO’ FLAMINGERS!
           WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘FLAMINGOS’?
           Ian laughs, and unscrews the top of the bottle to take a deep inhalation of the warm gin.

          ***********************************************************************

           It was Martin’s one-week anniversary on the island, living on a wooden fishing boat with Jackson for the summer before his senior year at college. Six days a week, twelve hours a day, the bulk spent drinking and smoking in the sun while waiting for a Microsoft yacht to come around the point and into Deer Harbor. Then it’s tying up the yacht in a fancy, lassoing way over the cleats, impressing the wife and kids, and either getting a twenty dollar tip or an invitation to come aboard for a Blood Mary (before noon) or margarita (after noon). Jackson’s done this for two summers now. When a job opened up for this summer he called his old high school teammate from Viking football to join him, the ex-teammates not seeing each other much anymore since Martin opted out of college ball and left the Puyallup Valley south of Seattle to head east for school—something his football friends said they didn’t understand.
           Martin had been recruited by D-1 schools, was assured a starting spot after red-shirting his freshman year if he stayed healthy. But he never loved it, not like they did. And beyond football he was fifth in his class and the student body president, a poster-boy of scholar-athlete. The result was that half the time he was a smart kid, and half the time a jock. He hated the dualism, the split-personality. But he dealt with it. When he graduated he chose to be the smart kid and headed east for school. Coming back now, he was looking forward to a summer with a teammate. The beauty of football, he thought (and wrote, once) is that if just one of the eleven players on the field doesn’t do their job perfectly, everyone fails. Perfection times eleven equals touchdown. And when it works, and you’re a part of it, it’s the most beautiful feeling in the world.
           On this, their first day off, the ex-teammates Jackson and Martin are heading to town for groceries—a couple loaves of bread and some cold cuts for lunches, salad vegetables for the following night’s summer solstice party, chicken guts for the crab pots, herring for salmon bait, liquor store for the rest. Ian lives on the sailboat Lena, docked across the pier from Jackson and Martin’s Pearl Anne. He asked to tag along, looking to buy some weed from the produce manager at the co-op. Martin met Ian when he and Jackson first arrived, exhausted from the 7 hour trip up I-5 from Seattle, Winston Churchill having refused to ride in the bed and deciding to spend the duration slobbering on Martin’s lap. When Ian spotted his neighbors carrying coolers and duffel bags down the far pier where the employees’ boats get docked, he ran to greet them with a hearty handshake and toothy British smile. Ian doesn’t work at the marina, Jackson explained—has worked out some sort of deal with the owner, about which no one has details, but everyone knows has something to do with the septic system and the occasional hush-hush trip to Victoria that always yields a fresh supply of weed and vicodin for whomever needs it.
           Ian quickly produced a dirty white plastic pitcher from the deck of his dilapidated sailboat and took a hearty drink, purple sangria dripping down his white-bearded smile. Ian, Jackson continued, was the resident drunk and unofficial mayor of Deer Harbor. At this, Ian bowed regally, rising up and taking another deep drink from the pitcher as if to say ‘cheers’. With the bushy beard and bald head he looked like an Alaskan crab fisherman. Now, he asked, who wants a drinkie drink? Beer in the cooler—give it a good kick and help yourself. Martin would learn over the next few days that no one but Ian was allowed to drink from the white pitcher.

          ***********************************************************************

           The drive from Deer Harbor to town takes approximately thirty to forty minutes, or closer to an hour in the marina’s sixteen-passenger van. Martin made the trip a couple times over the first week, taking boaters to the grocery store and town restaurants.
           The record in this truck’s twenty-one minutes flat, Jackson tells Martin as they get ready to go the morning of their first day off. Jackson grunts as he thrusts his 350-pound Montanan frame into the cab of the truck. And that’s including having to stop because I hit a fucking deer.
           Jackson sticks his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and whistles for Winston Churchill, who comes bounding up the dock from the Pearl Anne like a small horse, a grizzly stomping on spawning salmon in a river. Fuckin’ deer, Jackson grumbles, remembering. He retrieves a canister of chewing tobacco from the glove box. I had to pull over, get out, drag the fucking thing to the side of the road, get back in, and get going again. Probably took three minutes. If we don’t hit a deer we’re golden—under twenty. Just hang on. You fall out, I’m not stopping. He laughs, tucks a pinch of the black stuff under his lower lip.
           I dijit’n seventeen minutes once, Ian chimes in, already having climbed into the bed of the truck. He holds a 2-liter plastic bottle of tonic water in one hand, and a 750mL bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin in the other.
           What’s with the bottles? Martin asks, jumping over the side and into the bed next to Ian.
           We’re gonna make ourselves a full glugger, boyeeeee-e-e-e-e, he announces with a cackling laugh.
           A full glugger?
           FULL GLUGGER! YA HA! He laughs again, and begins to measurably pour tonic water out the yellow-labeled bottle onto the side of the road. Jackson whistles for Winston Churchill again, who has stopped running to the truck in order to investigate the smells under the pier. Dammit Winston get out of there! To Ian: He’s smelling your fucking septic system. I hope there’s not a leak in that again.
           There ain’t no fockin leak, Ian replies. Dog is just better at smellin’ shit than the rest of us. One would think ‘e’d be immune living with you two.
           Martin laughs; Jackson gives Ian the finger.
           At Jackson’s third whistle Winston emerges, leaping up the ramp past two children building a sand castle. They immediately abandon their work, running and screaming down the beach.
           So what’s the full glugger then? Martin asks settling into the cab. Ian has poured out what he seems to deem the adequate amount of tonic water. Jackson explains: Ian measures his gin and tonics by the number of “glugs” the bottle makes when you pour it. Normally it’s a four glugger. Four glugs of gin into any size of container, the rest filled with tonic. The size of the glass doesn’t matter—if a glass is only big enough to hold four glugs of gin, then it doesn’t need any tonic. If the only available glass holds a gallon, four glugs of gin’s gonna take a lotta tonic. A full glugger’s for special occasions. A boater tipped me that bottle of Sapphire. So you combine one-and-a-quarter liters of tonic with a full bottle of gin, and you’ve got a two liter gin and tonic. A full glugger. It’s fucking disgusting if you don’t keep it on ice. Ian, what the fuck man? That’s gonna taste like shit by the time we get to town.
           FULL GLUGGER! Ian shouts, and Jackson laughs as Winston runs past Martin to jump into the cab ahead of him.
           Get in the fucking truck, man, Jackson says, starting the truck while Martin stands awkwardly next to the cab, confused at the dog getting preference. He jumps over the side, fumbling slightly, into the bed next to Ian.
           Jackson shifts into gear. Martin leans against the back of the cab beside Ian, Winston Churchill barking out the open window at a terrier being taken out for a walk. The tires spray gravel as they shoot out the parking lot and onto the narrow road that runs along the edge of the island. Ian passes the bottle to Martin, who takes a deep drink and passes it back.
           HAND IT HERE! Jackson yells from within the cab, grabbing the bottle with a huge pawlike hand and holding it away from Winston Churchill’s sniffing nose. He spits brown tobacco juice out the window and chugs great gulps before handing it back. He downshifts, accelerating into a corner so hard it throws Martin against the side of the truck. Jackson laughs maniacally. Winston slobbers. As they rise up the hill from the marina, Martin looks out at the boats at full sail in the harbor, the distant Strait of Juan de Fuca, the green against blue beauty of the islands. Amazing, what the Spanish explorer must have thought upon discovering this place, all pine tree islands and killer whales and bald eagles and salmon. So untouched and pure it must have been. He says as much to Ian.
           ‘E PROBABLY THOUGHT THAT POINT OUT THERE BE’D A FINE PLACE FOR A BUNCH OF CANONS, Ian replies.
           Martin leans his back against the cab and grips hard one of the cleats on the inside of the bed. His knuckles scrape against the metal as the truck roars along the poorly-maintained road. He wonders if he’s bleeding. Likely, but not much concern. He’ll dip his hand in saltwater when they get to town. He looks over at Ian, who seems unphased by the 70mph erratic driving, taking drinks out of the bottle lackadaisically and looking out at the ocean as they continue the climb up the ridge along the side of the island. Martin reaches out for the bottle and takes another pull. Already getting warm, the outside of the plastic bottle wet with condensation, the yellow label peeling grossly. He pulls again. Then just as he’s handing the bottle back Jackson swerves to avoid a deer—three voices shouting “SHHHHHIIIIIIIITTTTTT!”’ echo out and one dog howling—and the full glugger slips from his hand and falls to the bed of the truck. Ian shrieks and dives for the bottle, glugs and glugs escaping from the mouth and spilling onto Martin’s jeans. By the time he retrieves the warm cocktail half has spilled onto the truck bed and blood is flowing freely from Martin’s hand.
           YE ‘ER FOCKING DONE! he shouts at Martin.
           I DIDN’T KNOW WE’D SWERVE! I’M SORRY!
           BE FOCKING CAREFUL YE FOCKING WANKER!
           Jackson is laughing his ass off.
           Martin leans back again. Wraps his bleeding hand in the folds of his t-shirt. GIVE ME SOME OF THAT, he shouts across to Ian. I NEED TO CLEAN THIS SHIT—I’M FUCKING BLEEDING.
           FOCKING RETARD, he mutters, just loud enough that Martin can hear over the wind whipping and Jackson changing gears all the time as they climb the hill. Ian hands him the bottle, pissed off and hurt himself from the swerve. He rubs his elbow. Martin takes a drink and pours a bit on his bleeding hand to clean it. He hands it back.
           THANKS, he says.
           Ian shakes his head at the waste of drink and turns toward his side of the road, watches the trees and sky.
           It’s been a week already and still Martin feels like he doesn’t quite belong. Jackson laughing in the cab, one hand on the steering wheel and the other massaging Winston Churchill’s floppy neckskin. He belongs, Martin thinks. Jackson’s accepted—he and his dog. Martin wants that too, loves it here and wants to be part of it. A member. Not the guy who spills the first full glugger of the year. He’s embarrassed around these people, nervous at making a good impression. He still can’t catch a boat as well as everyone else, can’t whip the rope around the cleats as well as Jackson or even the high school kids who live on the island and work in the restaurant. He knows he shouldn’t be worried: they grew up on the island, he didn’t. No one expects him to be a great sailor when he grew up over twenty miles from Puget Sound. But still: he hates the feeling of being an apprentice, of being “green.” He’ll never hear the end of being the guy who spilt the full glugger. He can still feel the alcohol soaking his jeans, his shorts beneath. Then he remembers the book in his back pocket and curses to himself, reaching for it quick, hoping it’s not ruined. It’s a little wet, not terrible. He shakes the paperback in the wind with his free hand and wipes the cover on the dry portion of his jeans.
           WHAT ARE YOU READING? Ian shouts, still hugging the bottle that’s now half-empty and capped.
           WHAT?
           WHAT ARE YOU READING?!
           OH, UMM, CARLOS FUENTES. THE HYDRA HEAD. Martin shows him the cover. WHY? YOU KNOW FUENTES?
           Ian looks at him funny. YOU THENK AHM A FOCKING DERELICT? OF COURSE I HAVE. D’YOU READ IT IN SPANISH?
           Martin shakes his head no, and Ian chuckles and shrugs, as if to say, “That’s okay.” Despite being a roguish band of alcoholics and, for the most part, non-tax-paying illegal immigrant hippies, the locals around Deer Harbor are incredibly well-read. Martin forgot that before he said what he said. Jackson had told him on the drive up that he would find a lot of people to talk with about “books and that English major shit you like.” (Jackson took a business major after football ended, setting himself up to run his father’s pallet and shipping company after graduation, and he took no small joy in mocking Martin’s playwrighting ambitions and fancy east coast college.) Ian claimed to still be AWOL from the British Navy, having jumped ship in New York in 1965, hitchhiked across the country, and finally landing in Bellingham in the early-70’s. In Bellingham he worked at a used bookstore, attended classes at the university (although never actually enrolled) and he loved Borges with a fury. Martin noticed this latter part when, that first day on the island, he saw next to the pitcher of sangria on Ian’s sailboat a stack of worn library books, among which he noticed the huge stack of Borges, a water-damaged Swann’s Way, and a spattering of Kierkegaard. Should have remembered the Borges before doubting he’d heard of Fuentes.

          ***********************************************************************

           Martin asked Jackson about the books the day after they arrived.
           They were sitting and smoking, waiting for a 90-footer that may or may not have Johnny Carson on board.
           Eight months of the year is rainy and really, really cold, Jackson told him. The population of the island drops from forty thousand to four thousand after Labor Day. All you can do is drink and read. So that’s what they do. Some guy who never graduated high school knows more about Shakespeare then the best professor at your fancy school.
           Martin laughed, then pointed at a white bow coming around the point to the harbor. That it? he asked.
           Probably, Jackson groaned, leaning to put out his cigarette in the ocean, getting up. He dropped the wet butt into his shorts’ pocket—filters are non-biodegradable; Martin learned that with his first cigarette on the dock—and spoke into the radio clipped to his belt: Late Show this is Deer Harbor, come in please. Late Show this is Deer Harbor come in please.

          ***********************************************************************

           Ian scoots closer to Martin and takes a hand off the full glugger to look at the book. He reads the quotes on the back, then asks, Do you know Roberto Bolano? Slouching low behind the cab now they almost don’t have to shout to hear each other, but now Jackson is blaring a Waylon Jennings/Willie Nelson compilation they bought at Costco on the drive up last week. MOMMA’S, DON’T LECHYER BABIES GROW UP TO BE COWBOYS! he’s singing, off key and horrible but with such enthusiasm it’s almost admirable. He’s apparently found an empty Budweiser can in the cab and is using it as a spittoon. COME ON WINSTON, JOIN IN! MOMMA’S DON’T LETCHER BAYBIEEEESSS GRRRROOOOOWWWW! He spits and Winston howls along and Martin closes the small dividing window so he and Ian can hear what they’re saying. Jackson taps the can to the window in a ‘cheers’ movement. The speedometer is somewhere between 60 and 70, and the truck is barreling down the hill they just climbed, Jackson accelerating into the decline, trying to make good time. It occurs to Martin that he is just as likely to die today as on some random day fifty years from now. He decides not to think about it. He would just get made fun of if he seemed nervous.
           What did you ask?
           Roberto Bolano. D’you know him?
           No.
           Roberto Bolano, Ian says again. Good Chilean writer. Dead now, I think. Few years ago. Not shor. Book eh ‘is you should read, The Savage Detectives, Los Detectives Salvajes.
           Haven’t heard of him.
           Not surprised. Not a lot have, I don’t—(he burps)—I don’t think.
           What’s he like?
           Not important. ‘E’s just someone people should read. You said you write plays, then?
           Yeah. Well, I try. I’m in a workshop when I get back and my thesis is in drama so I’m working on a bunch of one-acts. A longer piece for the thesis.
           ‘Ats good. Something they need to start teaching you kids is the difference between lit’shure that asks questions, and lit’shure that gives answers. Bolano asks questions, Fuentes too, but not as good. The important thing I mean to tell you is to make shore your plays always, ALWAYS!, ask questions. People don’t go to great lit’shure for answers. Or at least they shouldn’t. Bolano says you should never write for readers who are desperate for answers, because then only desperate people will come read. And they’ll only want answers, and you won’t be able to give them the answers to their own life. No writer can do that—the writer asks questions so that the reader then can answer them on their own, for their own self. People go to something like the Bible, and they won’t let discovery happen, they won’t let LEARNING happen. They just look to it for answers, and then next thing you know everyone thinks homosexuals are evil, thinks God is so fockin great and all that—but He’ll fock you up if you fock up, forgets about the love part. Then you get a calm reader, a Gandhi type, a master, and they look at the book and see the questions it asks—how do I love in my own life? How do I love others? And it’s the questions that make it great. The questions. If you look for it, that’s what all great art does, it gives you questions, or makes you ask questions.
           He takes a swig of the full glugger, looking ahead at the road flowing out behind them.
           Desperate readers, Ian goes on. The desperate reader wants answers. He’s desperate for answers. I think Bolano says they’re the sort that can’t read all the way through In Search of Lost Time.
           Ian laughs and then looks at Martin. You’ve read Proust, eh? Have yeh?
           Not all of it.
           I have it. I’ll lend it to you.
           What do you mean, “it”?
           Proust. I have it.
           All of it?
           Yep. Ian takes another drink, the glugger getting down to the bottom now. Martin’s already halfway drunk but Ian seems to be fine. So what do they teach you college kids nowadays? Just how to fuck and do coke? Not useless skills, I s’pose. But they should make you all read Proust. Then you can actually enjoy fucking and coke! Ha!
           He takes another deep suck off the bottle. Martin reaches for it and Ian holds it away. Ian almost falls over in the keeping-away of it, losing his balance as the truck roars along. He waves the bottle in the air.
           Yer just gonna drop it again, he says laughing, but then hands it to Martin. Martin drinks again, thinking he’s maybe a bit drunker than halfway, and maybe Ian isn’t as all right as he thought he was, or maybe it’s just the bumping and swaying as the truck plunges along the road. His thoughts seemed coherent, although Martin’s not so sure he understood everything. Jackson is still singing in the cab, Winston howling along. SING IT, MR. PRIME MINISTER! Jackson shouts, before launching into the chorus again.
           Martin looks over at Ian, his head drifting to rest on his chest like a drunk sitting against the side of a saloon in a Clint Eastwood movie. He’s a strange person. Does Ian write, too? He must, having done what he’s done and read what he’s read. Apparently reading Fuentes in Spanish. How could he not write? The wisdom of age, Martin thinks. He probably has a lot of regrets. Has probably written them down. Looking at him, Martin starts to think of his own future. Could Martin end up like this? Like this old drunk? Wouldn’t be so bad. Living on an island, writing, just getting by in terms of money. Having so little and needing so little that capitalism almost seems to dissolve, sink away. Live entirely in a society of generalized reciprocity, where your rent is paid in trips to Victoria, where spending money comes from selling crab on the dock and offering your services to dive into the cold water to retrieve a dropped watch for twenty dollars and dinner. Is this the good life? Being a Manhattan playwright is a dream, a hypothetical-self Martin would like to become, or at least thinks he would like to become. How can anyone really know what their dreams are until they come true? You don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and you don’t know what you want until you have it.
           There’s a paradox to chew on.
           He searches for something to offer to the conversation. Tries to think of something interesting to say about Proust or Fuentes. To be truthful, he wasn’t really “getting” The Hydra Head. Was reading it because a professor of his had studied with Fuentes and he enjoyed the professor’s class. He thinks he understands it, but isn’t sure. So many times in class he thinks he knows what the text is saying only to have someone give their take on the text and it turns out Martin’s not really sure at all. He’s one of the most easily swayed when it comes to debates over gender interpretations and Lacanian theory or whatever. There’s a feeling everyone knows a secret they won’t share, either because they don’t want Martin to know or because Martin just simply isn’t allowed. Even here, on an island populated for the most part by expatriates and outcasts, people who don’t fit in anywhere else but in this tiny melting pot of a community, Martin realize he still doesn’t feel worthy. The worst part is that he knows he has these adequacy issues—he’s analyzing himself, trying to figure himself out in terms of the Freud and Derrida he’s read, but he never understood them so he can’t understand now why he feels so fucking alone all the time. He wishes Ian would just leave him alone. Just let him sit and enjoy the view. It’s a beautiful day. He tries to light a cigarette but with the wind it’s hard to get the lighter to work.
           Listen to me Marty, Ian says, now obviously drunk and spitting on the hard consonants like a parody of a Sherlock Holmes policeman. The best (spit) writing lets the reader answer questions the writer knows he’s going to answer. Look at Kafka for Chrissake! (spit) The man didn’t explain anything, just expected you to accept that Samsa turned into a bug and that was that. Don’t you see? The point of reading is (now he burps) to be taken on a journey to a place where you find answers to questions you didn’t realize you were even looking for. To get taken somewhere to feel something, or learn something, or love something. That’s what Mann does, that’s what Fuentes does. That’s what Shakespeare did be’er than anyone. Tell me ‘is: what was the question Shakespeare was asking with Hamlet?
           How do I kill my uncle? Martin jokes, proud of himself for what he deems a quick, pithy response.
           Ian makes a loud noise like a buzzer. Errrrrnnnkkk! Wrong answer! What’s death mean? What’s life mean? What’s betrayal feel like? It asks all that!
           Martin’s fading. But maybe he’s starting to gain a hold on what Ian’s been saying. Ian’s a hell of a lot smarter than he looks, Martin thinks, but being lectured to about writing by someone who hasn’t read a word of Martin’s is frustrating. The spiral he knows so well is beginning. From loneliness to depression, from depression to anger, from anger to rage, from rage to violence. After violence there are the consequences—and those distract from the loneliness. This wasn’t something he learned reading Lacan. This is just hard evidence from every drunken night in the city to every drunken night alone in his dorm punching the concrete wall, sometimes his hand bleeding, sometimes not. Lonliness makes him want to hit, to put on a football uniform and go out and kill the opponent with greater strength and strategy. Be a part of something greater.
           Ian’s waiting for a response. So…then…what are the answers I’m supposed to find within myself? He says this somewhat sarcastically.
           They’re what you feel when you read! They’re what you learn, what you love! Marty, listen boy. When you start writing, you need to write from the heart—anything that’s not from the heart is from somewhere else, and nowhere else matters. You need to write about the things you love, and the questions you need to make readers answer is, Why is this beautiful? Why is this worth loving? The best poetry asks you to feel something else. I used to write poetry. I know. The poet asks: Have you felt like this too? Have you been focked over too? Have you been focked in the arse too? HA HA!
           The truck dips into the side of the road spraying dirt and pine needles. Martin and Ian clutch the metal cleats along the side truck bed. FOCKING SLOW DOWN! Ian yells. Over his shoulder Martin sees Jackson has been trying to open a beer and fumbled it to the ground, where Winston Churchill is lapping it up. Jackson’s cursing. Martin looks back at Ian, who’s laughing and clutching the now empty bottle under his arm like a running back might. This fucking drunk. Who does he think he is? He hasn’t even read anything of mine. And why the fuck isn’t Winston back here instead of me?
           You look confused, Ian says, shaking the bottle as though like a genie more of the drink could magically appear.
           No, I’m not. I get it. But I think you’re full of shit. I don’t need a poem to tell me I’m sad, or I’ve been fuck over, or….
           Focked in the arse?
           Hey, go fuck yourself, Ian.
           Ian unscrews the bottle and peers into it. He tips it back and actually gets a few drops, although most get lost in the wind. The suddenly Jackson punches the rear window with the back of his fist. FLAMINGOS! he shouts, tobacco juice on his chin, and points ahead. Winston Churchill stands on his seat and barks.
           They round a corner at the far side of the valley and Martin sees a dilapidated white shack rising out of the flatness of the hilltop, a house he hadn’t seen before on his drives in the marina van. Jackson must be taking a different route, trying to beat his record. The square house stands out white against the homogeneity of the yellow-green valley grass, and surrounding the white-on-green square a diamond pattern of plastic pink garden flamingoes form neat rows, near-symmetrical in a leaning plaid, making of the hillside a design like an enormous polka-dotted kite.
           Shit, Martin says. There must be hundreds of them.
           One thousand exactly, Ian says, not looking but back to nursing his bottle. Old Man Barry up there, he moves ‘em, twenty a day, from one side to the other. They migrate all summer—come Labor Day he’ll bring em inside, put em back out Memorial Day. Been doing it for something like twenty-one years now. WHAT’S IT BEEN JACKY? TWENTY OR TWENTY-ONE?
           FUCK IF I KNOW! MY FIRST SUMMER PEOPLE WERE SAYING TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!
           Why? Martin asks, but neither hear, or they just don’t answer. He keeps staring, wondering at this new level of island eccentricity. Where did this guy get the idea for this? Is there a room in that house that in winter holds a thousand pink plastic flamingoes, all piled up together? Or are they kept in boxes? Martin’s never actually seen a plastic flamingo up close. Has driven by houses with them in their gardens, sure, but never actually examined one. This should be a tourist attraction, he thinks, as they drive by, row after row perfectly aligned. Old Man Barry has way too much time on his hands.

          ***********************************************************************

           Don’t get desperate to figure out the secrets or life at twenty-two years old, Marty. Don’t get desperate for answers, because then you’re just gonna find the wrong ones, you’ll find someone else’s answers. Look at Barry—I don’t know what the hell kind of question he got asked but whatever it was, the answer was flamingos. Hahaha!
           This is what Ian tells Martin later, sitting at a bar in town.
           I guess what I mean, Martin says, is I just don’t know what I want to do. I mean, I don’t want anything. I think I want to write plays, but how do I know that until I do it? And you can’t do something well unless you really want it. That’s why I never was as good a football player as Jackson; he wanted it more. But that’s not life. I mean—fuck it, I don’t know what I mean.
           He examines his beer against the light in the bar, studies the reflection of the lights in the amber, the ribbons of blue smoke intertwining with the soft bulb. Pool balls crash against each other, and Jackson can be heard behind him singing along to Soundgarden on the jukebox. Black Hole Sun.
           My father, Ian says, he used to tell me to be the best version of myself I could think of. Be the best Ian I could think of. Problem was I was usually too focked to think so it didn’t wuhk so well.
           Ian laughs and reaches over to take one of Martin’s cigarettes out of the yellow pack on the bar in front of him, lights it with a candle.
           Fathers have good advice, Ian nods, running his cracked hands over the flame slowly.
           Yeah. Martin crosses his arms and leans against the bar, thinking. A few minutes pass. Ian smokes his cigarette. Martin stays quiet.
           Well, Ian announces, slapping his palms on the bar and getting up. I’m gonna go outside and get myself a bit higher than I am just sitting here. You chaps ‘eaded back tonight?
           Yeah, I guess.
           Well, I’d hate to tell you, but Jackyboy did a bit a blow with me an Eric downstairs bout an hour ago. You ought to drive.
           Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow.
           Def’nitely! We’ll drink and be merry! It’s a beautiful life!
           He slaps Martin on the back as he exits, tossing a couple crumpled five dollar bills on the table, whistling an improvised tune.
           Night Ian, Martin calls after him.

          ***********************************************************************

           Martin goes through the pack of cigarettes and seven or eight pints of Labatt Blue before Jackson finally agrees it’s time to leave. Winston Churchill is asleep in the corner behind the bar on a pile of lost-and-found coveralls and jackets. Jackson whistles in a spitting drunken way and Winston stretches and follows them out the door. Before Martin can ask for the keys Jackson has thrown them at him, saying, I’m out of commission. Make it happen. Twenty minutes or less.
           I don’t think it can be done, Jack.
           The fuck it can’t! We would have made it if it weren’t for me getting fucking distracted by the flamingos.
           Yeah, sure.
           Just fucking drive.
           They get in the truck, Jackson up front, Winston in the bed—which pisses Martin off since it only seems right that Jackson should have to ride in the back this time—and Jackson reaches under the seat where he pulls out a can of Bud. Always keep a stash for long trips, he says to no one in particular. Martin pulls out of the parking lot and onto the unlit road back to the west side of the island.
           The stars and moon are the only illumination on the winding route back to the marina. The windows down, cold air streams in across Martin and Jackson, just listening to the truck tires on the road, the squeak of the bad suspension, and the sound of passing trees, black like garbage bags even when the headlamps catch them briefly. Martin stares into the tunnel of light blanketed ahead of him, into the calming effect that without the cold air streaming in and the nicotine in his blood would induce immediate sleep. He thinks about the future. His graduation next year, the rest of the summer at the marina, where to go from here. New York, maybe. It’s what his parents would have wanted, what his father would have told him to do, if his father were here. Maybe. He died when Martin was four, his father and his mother, in the same car on the same rainy night with the same tires meant to be changed. Such is the fucked-upedness of life. So it fucking goes. In truth he doesn’t know what his father would say. He knows what his grandfather would say, which is only “just be happy,” with no further instruction. But the idea, Martin’s decided, the idea of his father’s advice would be different. It might be the same words but he’d mean to be happiest. To find what could make him most happy. Not to settle. Trying to do that, to make his father proud, maybe that will offer enough insight to bring him happiness.
           This summer will be good. That too, he’s decided. Ian’s a drunk but he’s someone to look up to intellectually. Not in terms of drugs and alcohol, but someone that can be the father figure of sorts. Can teach Martin things. He’s older, wiser. And Jackson can be the older brother, can make sure he enjoys himself, take care of him if he gets too drunk. This can be a family here. It’s not perfect, but it could work. Martin looks over at Jackson.
           Any more beer down there?
           Jackson reaches under the seat and tosses it to Martin, who fumbles it trying to keep his hands on the wheel. It’s surprisingly cold.
           What, you have a cooler down there?
           Naw, just one of those picnic bag things and a couple of those ice bags from football.
           Nice.
           Yeah.
           Jackson has his head back against the seat, smoking out the window and watching the trees stream by.
           Ian’s kind of a talker, Martin says, taking a sip of the Bud.
           Yeah, he’s pretty full of himself.
           Why do you say that?
           Thinks he knows all this shit, man. Like, what was he doing? Lecturing you on fucking life? That’s all he ever does. You need to do this, you need to do that. I mean, take a look at your fucking self you alcoholic fuck. I can’t stand him. What’d you guys talk about?
           Writing. These Spanish authors. He seems to know his shit.
           Are you kidding? The guy’s a fucking moron. I already told Mark we want to move the boat so we don’t have to be docked near him. He annoys the shit out of me.
           I want to read his poetry. I bet it’s good—he actually had some interesting things to say.
           Dude, listen to me. He was fucking with you. He was calling you a fag. Ever hear him talk about working in Bellingham and “all those fucking faggots who came into his bookstore to read poetry”? He’s a total fucking homophobe. He probably thinks you’re gay. Wait till next week—he makes runs out to Bellingham to go to the bookstore for most of the locals. That’s why there’s all those fucking books lying around his shithouse of a boat. There’s like a lending library deal between the marina residents and the bookstore or something, I don’t really know how it works.
           So wait. He was just fucking with me?
           Dude, you’re the dumbest smart kid I know. The guy’s been talking shit about the whole time you’ve been here! “That fag living with Jackson.” I mean, I don’t care if you are or whatever, but…
           I’m not!
           Alright, whatever. I told him I thought you had a girlfriend now, but you didn’t at Puyallup so how the fuck do I know?
           Martin’s stomach is in his throat. Breath short and heavy. What the fuck? What the fuck? Just as he’s getting accepted, just as he’s feeling wanted by this fucked up place and thinks he’s found a friend. Just then, it collapses. I want to go home, he thinks. I want to go fucking home. Gay? Who the fuck even cares? Why do I care, even? I’m a good fucking person! I’m not the type of person that cares about that! Quit. Quit this all. Just fucking go sit alone somewhere and wait for this to pass. Martin’s head gets tense with pressure at his temples. He could cry if he wanted to, and instead just pounds his beer and throws it out the window with a grunt. He downshifts and accelerates, the truck roaring. The can disappears past the taillights into black.
           What the fuck man? Jackson says. That’s not cool. You get arrested for that here. And take it fucking easy on the truck.
           Oh yeah, that makes sense. I get arrested for littering? Not drinking and driving?
           Naw, no one gives a shit about that.
           This place is really, really, really fucked up.
           A deer comes up fast in headlights just as Martin reaches for another beer and Jackson is deflecting him with his meaty calf, laughing and pushing him away with his free hand, his beer in the other. Martin looks up and there’s a deer ten feet in front of him, its eyes reflecting the headlamps like stars and boom. He slams the brakes and they feel the collision and hear the screeching tires and they see the deer ricochet off the front bumper like a sack of flour. It falls in the middle of the road a surprising distance from the truck. It twitches, lying on its side, spotlit in the blackness by the truck.
           Jackson is outside the truck all curses and shouting, stumbling in his high and drunk state. MY FUCKING TRUCK! Martin stays in the cab until he sees Jackson white like a ghost up close to the grill, the deer bleeding in the background, twitching, trying to get up. It rises onto a single leg and falls again. Winston is barking in the back, running in circles in the bed looking for a way out. Martin cuts the engine and can hear a horrible wooden screeching sound coming from the deer, like a cow but higher in pitch.
           Martin gets out of the truck and walks around front. Fuck man, I’m sorry. How is it?
           Jackson looks up at him. It’s alright, don’t worry about it. It’s a big truck. But you better believe you’re cleaning it tomorrow.
           They look at it together for a moment and then Jackson walks back around to the passenger side.
           Martin keeps looking at the amber pieces of fur stuck to the grill, bits of red.
           Shit, he mutters. He hears Jackson digging in the cab. What are you doing?
           He doesn’t answer. Martin reaches out to touch the fur in the grill. Winston switches from barking to howling, accompanying the horrible noise of the deer.
           Shut up, Winston! Jackson yells. Then to Martin. How’s the deer doing?
           Huh?
           The deer! How’s the deer?
           Martin turns and looks. It’s twitching less and less, and there’s blood on the pavement near it’s forehead. Its eyes are black glassy marbles, devoid of emotion, and its mouth is still making the high-pitched, awful wooden whine. There’s a compound fracture in one of its hind legs, white bone protruding out of the fur and skin like a fish hook a Native would use. He could swear he’d seen the same thing at the tribal museum at the reservation in Anacortes.
           I don’t know, man. Who do we call? He has his cell phone out.
           We don’t call, Jackson says from the cab. Martin turns and Jackson has a .22 rifle in his hands. He makes adjustments, checks the chamber. You want to do it? he asks.
           What the fuck, Jackson.
           What else do you want to do? Leave it here? It’s fucking cruel. And we can’t call the animal rescue people because here the animal rescue people are the fucking cops, and I’m not about to let you get a DD and me get my truck impounded. And if we call and just leave some other guy’s gonna come driving around the corner, see a deer in the road, swerve, and either really fuck up his car or go off the road and slam into Barry’s flamingos and fucking die. You want that?
           Martin hadn’t gotten his bearings in the dark, hadn’t realized where exactly they were along the route from town to the marina. Now in the moonlight he can make out the silhouettes of a thousand flamingos standing solemnly on the hillside. He looks back at Jackson.
           I don’t want to kill a deer, man.
           Well then move, Jackson answers. He clicks a bullet into the chamber.
           Well, wait, just hold on. Can’t we, I don’t know, drag it to the side of the road or something? It’s almost dead anyways. Martin feels tears run down his cheeks. Jackson can’t see the tears against the beams of the headlights. Let’s just, I don’t know, like, fucking drag it to the side and call the animal people to come and get it. I don’t want to shoot a deer, man!
           Martin is drunk and hysterical. This isn’t what he signed up for when he came here. For some reason he starts praying in his head. God, just, like, fucking kill me. Or save me. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to be here anymore.
           Yeah, okay, Jackson says. You try and drag a 150-pound deer with a compound fracture into the ditch. Have fun with that.
           Fuck you, Martin says, and he walks directly the deer and just reaches down and grabs the unbroken hind leg. The deer makes a loud barking sound and kicks, catching Martin in the shin and knocking him down. The deer keeps screeching and tries to drag itself away, kicking and smearing blood and fur on the pavement.
           Fucking hell, Jackson says, walking over quickly. Martin reaches out a hand to be helped up, but has to just watch Jackson march up to the deer, aim two feet from its head and shoot it through the eye. The deer head explodes, unexpected sorts of blood and matter splattering both he and Jackson.
           There. Get up. Jackson sets the gun on the ground and starts dragging the deer by both front legs into the far ditch. He turns his head away from the broken face of the deer. The body leaves a trail like a slug on the asphalt.
           I think I’m hurt, man, Martin says. His leg throbs. He has tears in his eyes.
           Well get the fuck up or I’m gonna leave you. Somebody probably heard that. Jackson strains at the body.
           Martin lets himself cry. Sitting there, his shin throbbing, he wraps his arms around his legs and weeps into his shorts, smelling some unknown smell of the deer’s brains splattered over his lower body. He cries. He wants to go home, that’s all. He wants a home to go to. A purpose, a place where he can stand in the center and scream, THIS IS WHERE I BELONG! THIS PLACE REPRESENTS WHO I AM! Where is that? Not just a football team but that feeling he had out there. That feeling of greatness, of loyalty and love. Where do people find that? That house he drives by sometimes with his grandparents, the house where he and his parents lived for the four years they were alive with him? Is that a home? Not his grandparents’, no. He loves them, but they don’t love him the same way they loved their own children. He knows that. And he wonders if perhaps he doesn’t love them as much as he would have his own parents. This island, this should be the place for him. For people like Ian who have nowhere to go. A place of no parents, no home, no real concept of what that feels like. Maybe home is just the feeling of being loved by and loving your parents, and maybe that’s impossible for him. Or maybe it’s just being taught your place in the world by your parents. Maybe it’s in the teaching of it yourself, like Barry and his flamingos. A thousand children, all in their perfect places.
           Martin gets up, his leg throbbing but probably not broken. He limps over to the gun, speckles of blood on the barrel. Jackson walks back from the woods where he’s dumped the deer. Let’s get the move on then, Jackson says. There’s a couple more beers under the seat I found. But we’re fucked on getting back in under twenty.
           Jackson.
           What?
           Move. I’ve never shot a gun before.
           Martin raises the rifle to his shoulder. WHOA MAN!—and Jackson’s silenced by the shot. On the hill a single flamingo shudders with the bullet that passes through it, and the report of the gunfire echoes out, and out, and out—diffusing in the trees, and then it rests.

Joseph Riippi