//Knock knock,// says Perry.\n\n//Who's there?//\n\n//Jason.//\n\n//[[Jason]] who?//
I squint my eyes shut against the morning sun. A moment of silence, water filtering through gravel, and then then that [[raggedy voice]] intruding again.
//Beware?// Mrs. Finneran again. //Who invited you here, Cassandra? What?// says Bobby. //Who? Um,// says [[Eli Boulle]], //Cassandra, the foresight, Trojan War -- an imperfect metaphor but I'll let it slide this time.//\n \n//Right on, man,// says Jack; //I like how these guys are always two steps ahead of me all the time! Like how Mrs. Finneran I guess meant one thing (Cassandra = psychic) but Bobby didn't know, then Eli put the smack down because he somehow knew what she meant even though I was and still am sort of confused because... and... uh... I [[lost my train of thought]] there.\n\nDo you smell brimstone?//
We clutch at the crate, grabbing at the splintery sodden wood, which rips apart at the seams like cheese. //Dude,// says Perry, my freshman-year roommate, //[[it's full of]]... are those...?// Some people are laughing, some are turning away in embarrassment. I am discouraged. Not one of our more useful finds.\n\nA [[raggedy voice]] back on shore grabs our attention away from the crate of adult novelties.
#snapback { display: none }
Baseball cards, all soaked in [[brine]] and worthless, personalized pens that all say Gregory, baby t-shirts that say Troublemaker, golf balls, a whole crate of can-openers which is kind of sad because there's no canned food up here, printer cartridges, which sucks too because I needed those back home, always running out and getting the little blankness in the middle of each line of text, dustbrooms, high heeled shoes, and chapsticks (okay, those babies have actually been pretty handy).
!!Jason's Hike to the Top of Mount Fuji\n!!!by <<pop 'caleb' 'Caleb Wilson'>>\n<<display 'Jason'>>
I once heard that drinking it will make you go crazy before too long.\n\n//So true,// says [[Eli Boulle]]. //Haven't you already noticed that?//
Jack stands among us, blood glittering in his precocious stubble. //You,// he says, pointing to [[Eliza Sinclair]], come here! She sulks up to Jack and they start making out with excessive tongue. //Dude,// says Perry, //that's messed up.// Mrs. Finneran starts whacking Jack with her gigantic purse that has those big knobbly handles, the one she used to carry when shoplifting candy bars from my dad's store. Begone, crone, speaks Jack, his hands running up and down Eliza's back inside her shirt. That's gross, says Bobby, and the mushroom man [[babbles something]], agreeing I think.
We glance significantly at Myra Cho, to whom I lost my virginity in college down at the Corn Lab beside her racks of baby corn plants; under the arctic glow of the UV lamps, rich dirt dripped beneath us; and at Laura Zimmerman, who dated me even during my pretentious phase when I walked nowhere without [[Nietzsche]] tucked under my arm.
//Dude, fine,// says Perry, knock knock. //[[Who's there?]]// asks Mrs. Finneran.
//Don't cry,// says [[Perry]], //it's only a joke.//
Jason's Hike to the Top of Mount Fuji
Little packages in crinkly cellophane, bright colored plastic inside, smooth curves, cartoony sexy naked women on the labels -- //Bobby, [[close your eyes]]!// yells Mrs. Hall, my grade school librarian.
Mushroom man yodels some wacky gibberish, dancing and howling. He walks over to the stack of [[flotsam]] we've collected since being stranded up here, babbling and cackling like a total loon. Then in an instant his voice becomes normal and he says, //It's not me, it's you, Jason, your head's gone mushy, my lad, you need some FRESH WATER; this [[brine]] rots your brain!// Jerry says, //I told you that we should wear the sun hat I made, keeps out the sun, keeps away the sunstroke, yeah?//\n\n[[Someone new]] pops out my nose.
A girl I dated in high school who loved vampire movies and sometimes wore black nail polish and a tiny silver bauble around her neck that she acted all mysterious about and refused to tell anybody what it was.\n\nThe mushroom man [[babbles something]] more about Eliza and Jack. //Eww,// says Bobby.
Or someone even worse.\n\n[[Jack Wilbur]] snickers.
//Boo. [[Boo who?]]//
A broad nose and gaping mouth craggy with teeth surges from the waves and bites Jack's leg off at the knee. He stands there for a second balanced on one leg, his stump spraying blood, then falls backward and vanishes into the frothing [[brine]].
//Friends,// he chortles, //friends, neighbors, colleagues, buddies, enemies, [[lovers]], I think// -- Jack was using my fingertips to drum on my knee like he was back in assembly not listening to Mr. Mock talk about school spirit day -- //I think we need, before any more time has passed, and before the brain on which we all rely and depend has further slipped into [[inevitable delirium]], into which we are ceaselessly sliding, unstoppably toppling, pitifully plunging, indubitably dropping// -- Who is this guy? I whisper to Bobby -- //It is time, now, now before it is too late and we are washed to our watery collective doom, sucked under the sea from this mountaintop refuge, we must [[garghhhh]].//
All around us is the [[water]], brown as iron filings, nibbling away our little haven pebble by pebble.
Guy Minor
Bobby Packer, the kid who was my neighbor when we lived in Paoli (and who died, hit by a Coke truck at age ten, but why should that matter now?) points to the froth-capped waves. //Look guys!// he pipes up, //a [[crate]]! Something's drifting toward us!// We pile into the water, stumbling over soggy teddy-bears that had washed up en masse a few days before.
//That's okay, Jason,// says Clyde. He shoots a poisonous glare at Jerry. //You're doing all you can, unlike one lazy bastard I know who, despite being the guy who lived down the block from you in Scranton and could fix freaking anything, can't repair a simple boombox radio? Mr. Barrett,// says Jerry, way patiently, //like I said before, it's a cheap radio: those sorts of things are not meant to be repaired, they just want you to buy a new one! It's called [[planned obsolescence]], sir.//
Blood is fountaining from a hole in his neck, and Jack Wilbur is standing beside him, hands bent into bloody claws. //Revenge!// cries the mushroom man. //Jason,// whispers the guy who was giving the speech, crumpling to his knees, //don't you remember tagging along with your dad to that rotary club meeting and being bored to tears by the guy giving a speech about, uh, you don't remember and so of course neither can I? That man... was me.// And he expires.\n\n//Jack Wilbur has gone [[psycho]],// mutters Mrs. Finneran, //and you pathetic lot didn't even suspect anything because you totally ignored the nice mushroom man's warning.//
//Okay, this has to stop,// I say. //Jack, I hate you, you are the biggest jackass I've ever known, and you're going to get [[eaten by a shark]] now.// //Dude,// says Perry, and Mrs. Finneran turns on him and says //Shut your mouth, you little brat, you're only here because of your endless supply of [[knock knock jokes]] that were supposed to lighten the mood, and you haven't even told one yet!//
The captain of the high-school lacrosse team who once stole my car from the school parking lot and took a joyride into a telephone pole that caused the Kenny G tape he was listening to to be forever jammed in the tape deck.\n\n//Beware,// shouts the mushroom man, //[[beware]]!//
//Ahoy there!// says some old guy. //Who the hell are you?// asks [[Jack Wilbur]]. //You don't know my name,// says the old man. I feel his face, scrabbly with a beard that must be white if it's a day. (//Dude,// says Perry, that made no sense. //Sorry, Perry, I'm doing the best that I can.//) The old man says: //but you may call me the mushroom man. I ran into young Jason when he was a lad, on a long car trip with his parents, at a rest stop in New Jersey along the Garden State Parkway, where I told him all about hunting mushrooms? Oh yeah,// I say, //that guy: cool. Anyway,// says the mushroom man, //beware: [[beware]]!//
//Okay, Jerry,// I say, as Clyde Barrett. //So you can't get any of the radios working, not in any useful capacity, not without a radioshackfull of wires and resistors and all that junk, am I right?// Jerry answers, //Clyde, that's it in a nutshell, Mr. Barrett. There is no way, come hell or high water, that I or anyone else can fix one of these cheap boomboxes into a broadcast radio so we can see if there's anyone else out there to come rescue us -- without batteries, we can't even listen to them.// [[Mrs. Finneran]] bends my mouth to a frown, hmmphs. (I hate that old lady, why does she have to be [[here]]?)
//You deviants got us stranded here,// she says, pointing mainly at me. //If you hadn't just had to do this one last hike on your last day in Japan, we'd be sleeping under the [[water]], playing fish tag with all the other sinners where we belong. And the damp is affecting my arthritis.// //Hey,// says Clyde, //you feel it, we all do -- why don't you just keep quiet?// She rubs the bridge of her nose like she has on those massive goggle-eyed sunglasses she always wore and ignores him.
This freaking smart guy I knew at camp who always wanted to play dungeons and dragons during the afternoon elective hour, and once when I did play he was the dungeonmaster and killed my elf within five minutes.\n\nHe smirked. //Some people call it cannon fodder,// he said. I called it [[planned obsolescence]].
//Hear hear!// shouts mushroom man from the back of the auditorium, //and [[beware]] the betrayal!//