rescuing us and bringing me tiny barrels of brandy while we wait.
In the evenings, Plymouth wakes up and sticks his head through the guardrails, barking from time to time at something below us neither Gideon or I can see. Phantom sea-mailmen? I have suspicions otherwise and it makes the hair on the back of my neck rise like the first touch from something deep-water-cold and deliberate.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 14
I have come to suspect two things about Gideon. First, I suspect that Gideon is not his real name. It’s a terribly inappropriate handle for someone so gawky, so freckled, so sullen. Even when he was in the womb, his parents must have known better. I broached this subject delicately this morning while we were sunning ourselves topside, or as he likes to call it, “Keeping lookout for rescue parties.”
“Was Plymouth always called Plymouth?” I asked.
Upon hearing his name, the dog moved his tongue back into his heat-addled mouth and wagged his tail.
“What do you mean?” Gideon asked.
“What I said. Has this animal, now or prior, in this state or any other, been known by a different name?”
“Yeah. When I got him from the shelter he had another name,” Gideon said.
“And you elected to change it on his behalf? Did you consult with him first?”
“He’s my dog, I can call him what I want.”
I conceded this was fair.
“Besides,” Gideon said, “some names are just stupid names.”
“Such as?”
Gideon tousled the dog’s too-long ears.
“Andrew, for one,” he said.
“That is indeed a terrible name for a dog,” I agreed.
I asked him how he’d settled on the new title instead.
“It’s from the Bible,” Gideon said. He said it the way little boys state facts they believe ought to be obvious to everyone everywhere and how could you be so dumb?
This is the other thing I suspect of Gideon, that he is not of age. What age he isn’t of, I can’t be sure. Certainly not of drinking age. Voting age, maybe. That he is not yet of shaving-regularly age doesn’t help his case. We’ve been rationing water for ten days and the best he’s managed in that time is some chin scruff.
But the point I’m trying to make is that Gideon is a very private individual. Not one to talk about his personal life. Then, who is? But I have this amazing ability—a super power if you will. It turns out, when I am trapped at sea on a trimaran for two weeks with just one other person, I can see into that person’s inner-most being.
What do I know about Gideon? Somewhere, a sunny antiseptic suburb is missing a punk kid. A black-jeans-wearing, Dead-Kennedys-listening, establishment-dissing, animal rights-espousing cliché with a skateboard.
Too much of a boy for the pirating life. But oh, these “oceanic activists,” they’ll take anyone with a student ID card, slap a life jacket on them, and call them an “intern.” When I first came to this conclusion, I was horrified for Gideon, taken advantage of like that.
“Do your parents know where you are?” I asked.
“No one knows where I am!” he shouted.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 15
A trimaran, in case you don’t know, is a kind of sailboat with three hulls. There’s one big hull in the middle where all the stuff goes—the rooms, the pipes, the wires, the food, the maps, the spoons, the salad forks, the people, etc. On either side are two smaller hulls. They are like little hull training wheels. When the boat is floating along straight up and down, they barely touch the water. Only when we tip sharply to one side or the other, does an auxiliary hull make itself useful. I keep thinking there is a metaphor to be drawn from this. But I can’t decide what for.
My earlier notes indicate that this particular trimaran was a gift to SOSM from a generous leftist entrepreneur who once used it to sail around the world in some manner of record time. It should be noted that he was assisted by a crew of six for this task, none of whom were journalists, teenagers, or dogs.
To keep the craft light, and the sport of racing pure, the Artemis does not have a motor. There is an engraving at the helm to remind us this (as if we could forget). In narrow calligraphy, it says “At the mercy of the winds and our wits. Godspeed.” Or, that’s what it used to say. Gideon has since destroyed the offending inscription, jabbing at it one night with a Bic pen until the letters began to chip away, the pen fell apart, and his own hands could do no more good. Now it is only a jagged wooden scar, streaked with black ink and knuckle blood. Our new motto. Our epitaph.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 17
My knowledge of oceanography is limited. Ditto for cartography, marine biology, maritime law, and even basic geography. Never before have I regretted my liberal arts education with such immediacy. Sailboats cannot be piloted by rigorous discourse on Kant or Wittgenstein.
Foucault would have loved this predicament, I like to think.
My fourth grade science book was called The Oceans and had a picture of a coral reef on the front with a single tropical fish. The fish was peeking out from behind the reef, like he’d just been caught in the act of something embarrassing. If only I could remember what was inside that tome so clearly.
What’s the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise? What makes phosphorescents light up? Is a shark a mammal or a fish? The Polynesians invented the sailboat. Somewhere near here is the world’s deepest ocean trench. Squid can hear through their eyes. Yes, that’s right, I know about the way you watch and listen at the same time.
From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 18
As a practical measure, Gideon and I have divided the Artemis in half. He gets the front with the crew’s quarters, galley, and navigation suite. I get the back with the captain’s berth, the head, and a room filled with various important-looking boat parts.
Plymouth is free to roam where he wants. Despite my threats, I wish him no harm. In fact, I like having him sleep in my cabin at night. He is pleasant company. And his breathing covers up other sounds—wave-lapping and ship-creaking and tentacle-suctioning and such.
Gideon and I are both guilty of trespassing, however. Early on after the storm, I snuck into the galley and took all of the Crystal Light lemonade packets in hopes of warding off scurvy. They are stashed beneath my (formerly C.J. Wyle’s) mattress. I’ve also gone through most of the crew’s footlockers and pilfered the items I like. Gideon appeared yesterday wearing a Panama hat I’d already taken from either Erica or Nelson, so clearly he’s been in here too. But I didn’t say anything about it. Thieves make terrible police.
Then, today, I caught Gideon in my own quarters. He was riffling about in the captain’s shelves. I grabbed him by his studded belt and threatened him with Court Martial.
“This is high treason, sailor,” I said.
He apologized and explained
