Diane Cook - Man V. Nature - Stories

Dan paused, finger to lips again, and again looked over his shoulder at an imagined encroaching someone or something. He continued in a whisper. “Okay, listen, the army steps in, overthrows the prime minister, strips him of the authority to give the country to the gunmen, and proceeds to battle the counterforces laying siege to all of the rebel territories. So there are no boats here right now because in the seaway that leads to the ocean, the one we’re heading for, a fantastic battle is taking place. Picture it: Underwater torpedoes! Cannons! They’re fired from the bluffs by scrappy yet handsome, thrown-together village armies. Your run-of-the-mill believe-in-able poor-people types. The kind that wear potato-sack clothes and such. Somehow a pod of government-trained beluga whales is unleashed to deliver explosives — strapped to their heads on helmets, okay — by swimming under enemy boats and blowing up themselves and the boats. Total kamikaze shit. We’re talking whale medal of honor.” Dan punched the air. “The war is on. Boom. Prime time.”

“That’s quite a show,” Ross said admiringly. “What are you going to call it?”

Dan snapped his fingers. “ Man V. Nature .”

Phil laughed. The other two looked at him. He’d thought it was a joke. “Why?” he asked.

“Everything is man versus this and man versus that. It’s so simple,” Dan said, his voice rising. “It’s man versus everything. It’s me. It’s you. It’s us. It’s in us. It’s in—”

“Okay, okay, but it’s a war story,” Phil interrupted. “It should be Man Versus Man .”

“I’m the writer. I get to call it whatever I want. And it’s Man V. Nature .” Dan crossed his arms, satisfied. He had made his point.

“Well, I’m calling it Man Versus Man . Try and stop me,” Phil said. He meant it jovially, but joviality seemed to be dead, at least where he was concerned.

“I’d watch Man V. Nature ,” Ross said to Dan. His point was not lost on Phil.

“Oh, I would too,” Phil chimed in so he’d feel included. He itched a spot on his ankle that he’d already scratched raw. Under his fingernails he smelled rot.

Dan slammed his fist down on the hot rubber side. “God, I wish I had a pen. Some paper, too.” Then a look like happiness passed over his face. “When we’re rescued, I’m going to sell that show and make you a star.”

“Me?” Phil asked.

“No, not you.”

Ross smirked. “You’re the star of Man Versus Man , remember?”

A flock of geese flew by their boat, their shit making splashes like tiny bombs in the water.

A kind of bare grief Phil saw in movies but rarely experienced himself bubbled up. He was not quick to trust it. He said, “Cool,” agreeably.

Phil dipped his beer can into the lake and splashed it around to part the sun-warmed surface water so the icy stuff below could rise up. He let the can fill and drank it in one long gulp. “Why would I sleep with your wife? I had my own wife.”

Dan and Ross chuckled and exchanged an incredulous look.

“Because your wife sucked, and my wife is awesome,” Ross explained.

“Patricia didn’t suck.”

“Um, yes, she did. She sucked. And you hated her.”

“No, I didn’t. She hated me. But I loved her. I really did. That’s the truth.” He didn’t know if that was the truth. Honestly, he probably didn’t love her specifically, but he’d loved that she was a woman, acted like a woman, and had at one point, early on, seemed to love him. Or pretended to. But it didn’t matter now. He hated her now.

Phil poured a can of water on his head. He filled it, did it again, and then again until Dan whined about water in the boat. Phil stumbled to kneel, pulled out his penis, and tried to aim over the side like they’d always done, but the stream was weak and urine pooled in the lifeboat. Instead of yelling, Ross and Dan shared a look, and again Phil was at a loss for what it meant.

Dan pulled out a strip of jerky from a secret stash in his shorts. He passed it to Ross, who held it up like evidence. It wilted in the heat. To Phil, it smelled like real meat cooking on a grill. Drool spilled down his chin.

“ This is the last one,” Ross said to Phil knowingly, and pushed the length of it into his mouth.

Dan woke screaming “Fire!” and jumped up from the sagging plastic bench. His shorts were wet, and a deep intestinal smell wafted from him. Ross yanked down Dan’s shorts to reveal an oozing patch of holey flesh covering one entire cheek. The smell forced a puke from Phil. Ross soaked his T-shirt in lake water and gingerly pressed it to Dan’s ass to clean it. Dan stood naked like a toddler in the backyard sun. A smile played at his lips as he surveyed the lake reaching in all directions. He turned to Phil, who was rinsing out his mouth. The boat shook, shivered.

“Does it look like it hurts?” he asked.

“It looks like it will kill you,” Phil said.

Dan giggled. “It doesn’t hurt one bit.” He repeated it under his breath, emphasizing each word, until the men helped him lie on his side along the bottom of the boat. There would be no more rotation of seats. Phil and Ross settled next to each other for the foreseeable future.

Phil slept poorly, fighting off annoyed elbow jabs from Ross. Phil wanted his sleep time to be an escape. He wanted to dream of a girl, of Bren. But what if he called out her name and Ross heard? What about dreams of some vacation, some cabin in snowy woods, instead? A fireplace. Some beer. Or maybe he could dream of flying. Away. From here. In the end, he dreamed of birds, their talons puncturing his arms as they pried white worms from the blisters on his neck.

“Wake up,” Dan hissed, slapping their thighs and feet, whatever was closest. He was frantic again. “Get your things together. We’ve got to go!”

Ross rubbed his eyes. “Where? Go where?”

Phil tried to get his bearings. He looked around. He touched his neck.

“Down there,” Dan shrieked. He pointed into the water. “Listen, I’ve been hearing more about this war that broke out, you know, I told you about it.” They nodded, bewildered. “Well, it’s getting worse. Common citizens are taking up arms to push the rebels out, and it’s full-on revolution all around us. You can hear it if you listen really hard.” Dan squeezed his eyes in concentration. Phil heard a trickle of water, and saw Dan pee himself.

“It’s a humanitarian nightmare. World War Three. The only safe place is under the surface. I mean, think about it.” His eyes bulged. “It’s kind of beautiful. This world collapses. But the world below this world — it flourishes. Man V. Nature. See?”

Dan propped his chin on the side of the boat and peered into the water. He marveled, “We are actually in the perfect position. Stuck out here, we are citizens of no world. And so we’re totally welcome down there.” Dan gazed at Phil with admiration. “I don’t think I could have done it. But you have guts. You knew something was happening. You kept us out here. You’re kind of a genius, man. I’m so dumb, I thought we were going to die. And soon.” Dan laughed hard. “Turns out we’re gonna live.” He briefly air-guitared.

Phil blinked. Was he serious? “I didn’t keep us here. I didn’t know anything,” he said cautiously.

Dan’s chest heaved. He sweated. “Bren and the girls are already down there. Say hi, Ross,” he said, waving at the water.

Ross’s mouth gaped, but despite himself, he looked. “I don’t see anything.”

Dan clutched at his own shirt. “You’re a terrible husband. Terrible father. You just broke their hearts. Right in two. Don’t you see?” He twirled his finger in the water, creating ripples that moved farther away from him. He leaned out, peering closely at the center spiral he’d created.