A/N: The given names of Gilligan's friends are from "Special Delivery" by callensensei, with the first name of Skinny Mulligan added from "Reminiscence" By TereseLucy384.
Disclaimer: Gilligan's Island is the creative property of Sherwood Schwartz. I claim no rights or license for use of the characters.
The Things We Keep
by ceschwartz
The young man stood on the deck of the boat. He was beaming. Not so brightly as the tropic sun that glinted off the sapphire water like a million tiny diamonds. Nor as brightly as the shimmering silver skin of the colossal fish he was holding. But he was beaming never-the-less.
His dark brown hair was gently tousled by the Pacific breezes. A pair of dark sunglasses shielded his eyes from the incandescent rays of sun reflecting off of every smooth surface. His head was cocked upward and slightly to the left. A dimpled smile was spread across his boyish face. His white teeth shown like pearls, and his expression communicated the simple joy of the moment and the pride of success.
He was standing next to the side rail with his feet apart for balance, his bare arms and shoulders straining to hold up the prize he had caught. He held up the head of the fish with his left hand, the shiny gold treble hook and multi-colored lure still embedded in its open mouth, while his right hand cradled his catch just behind its large dorsal fin.
His white trousers were clearly damp with water from the fight that had ensued, and it was evident that the belt holding them snuggly against his trim frame was indeed necessary to keep them aloft. A crumpled white tee shirt protruded from his back pocket and was just visible along the side of his right leg. His torso, chest and arms were, in contrast to the white of his pants, quite tan. Water was beaded on his skin too, reflecting the sunlight like tiny opalescent scales.
She held the photograph gingerly with both hands, lightly gripping it between her thumb and index fingers, touching only the white part around the border. She thought about him every day, the young man on the boat, looking so youthful and exuberant. So in his element. How was it that one year later everything had changed?
How she longed to hold him now – to feel him wrap his lanky arms around her like an overgrown puppy dog. To hear his lilting voice calling for her to come see some wonder of nature he had discovered, or teasing her with a silly joke that made them both laugh at the caprice of it. His laugh. How she longed to hear the melody of his mischievous giggle, which could always lift her mood, no matter the trials of the day. She wiped a fugitive tear from her cheek.
He was the third of her three children. In comparison to his older sister and brother, he always seemed to get into the most trouble. Not intentionally. He was good boy. He just had a harder time with social graces and practicing restraint, which usually lead to an inordinate number of missteps, mishaps and generally foolish mistakes. Not that she minded so much. She was his mother after all and she loved him, but others in their circle were not as forgiving. She knew the cruel names and derogatory remarks all too well. Maybe that's why she always felt most protective of her youngest son. She also knew that he thought her extra measure of concern was wholly unnecessary. "Don't worry about me, Mom," she could hear him say.
Not worry? How could she not worry? She worried when he went to school. (He wasn't the most academically inclined boy either.) She worried when he almost didn't graduate (his chemistry teacher refusing to allow him into the classroom to finish his lab assignments). She worried when he got his first job, and his second, and his third. She worried when he announced he had joined the Navy and was off to see the world (a bold move for a small-town boy from eastern Pennsylvania who had rarely traveled beyond a 100-mile radius of home).
The only time she didn't worry was when this picture was taken. He was living in Hawaii and working for his former Navy Chief Petty Officer who was now the captain of his own charter business. He was doing well, having been hired on as the First Mate. And he had found a real friend in his boss and benefactor, Captain Grumby. This she knew from the way he constantly prattled on about "the Skipper" when he had an occasion to call. With a veteran seaman willing to look after and, yes, even get after her son when he needed it, her worries were largely allayed.
Perhaps it was because she let her guard down, neglected her maternal instincts a bit too hastily. Not five months after this picture was taken, her son was taken too. "Lost at sea," she was told.
The S.S. Minnow, a pleasure boat that sailed from Honolulu, Hawaii was lost in a storm with five passengers and two crew members aboard.
She remembered the sobering phone call from the U.S. Coast Guard like it was yesterday, and the turmoil in their lives that followed. The unplanned trip to Hawaii. Returning with their son's remaining possessions. And the memorial service, held after the Coast Guard had given up all hope of finding any survivors.
Despite the permeating warmth of the spring afternoon, a brisk chill ran through her bones as she imagined what it was like to go down to a watery grave. She had seen with her own eyes the sunken remains of the USS Arizona resting silently on the bottom of Pear Harbor, a grim testimony to the fiery battle and the capacity of the sea to entomb all who would venture out over her waves. Three dreaded words taunted her:
Davy.
Jones'.
Locker.
She shook off the chilling thought like a dog expelling water from its coat. This was not the fate of her charming, happy-go-lucky boy. At least she couldn't bear to think of it. In fact, he always had been incredibly lucky – he was Irish after all. She couldn't even count the number of accidents ("scrapes" she liked to call them) he'd come through without any real injury.
She remembered the many Sunday afternoons they would go out as a family to picnic, or stay home to relax in the shade of their own backyard. It was always like him to find a four-leaf clover hidden in the emerald expanse of the lawn.
He even had a good-luck charm in the shape of a four-leaf clover. It wasn't anything fancy, just a small piece of pressed steel on a chain as she remembered it. But he thought it was magical—until he lost it.
She had found it quite by accident one day, tucked away in his dresser drawer after he had left for basic training. She put it in a box and gave it to him before he shipped out. She could still see the surprise and shear happiness on his face when he opened that box.
"My good luck charm!" he exclaimed. "Where did you ever find it!?" Without waiting for answer, he exhaled an audible breath of delight as he took it from the box, and with a smug grin put it around his neck. Then he leaned over and kissed her.
She savored that moment.
Her son was the most caring person she knew. He was loyal as the day was long. He was welcoming to friend and stranger alike. But demonstrative he was not. Family or no, by his way of thinking, kissing and hugging and holding hands in public was a lovey-dovey extravagance he could do without.
She knew he was the boy who covered his eyes during all the love scenes at the movies. She smiled to herself because she knew too that he always secretly peeked. Just like his on-screen heroes, he demonstrated his love for his animals far more freely than he did for the people he most cared about.
His reluctance in showing affection was frustrating to her as his mother, but it hindered his relationships with the opposite sex as well. It was fair to say he was more than a little nervous around girls, especially those girls who gave him reason to believe that they were interested in being more than just friends. He usually fled when pressed to reciprocate a young woman's romantic notions. Just like his first reaction to run from danger.
She knew he thought girls were nice. She heard him say so on more than one occasion. But he developed a shyness that persisted even into adulthood.
If his shyness around girls was cute, it was not so insignificant that he had also become set in his ways at a relatively young age, insisting when asked about love and marriage that he had made up his mind to stay single. This hint of cynicism bothered her, but it was his life. Pressing him further on the matter was to no avail, for he would always change the subject or conveniently remove himself from the conversation.
He held his cards close to his chest. She was his mother, so of course she wouldn't know his desires, his insecurities, his fears, when it came to love. But she did know his good-hearted and trusting nature made him vulnerable, and an easy target for the self-serving motives of others. She suspected that he had been used and discarded by one too many immature or thoughtless girls, but she didn't really know because he never told her (although she did hear a few things from his siblings).
She shook her head in disappointment. She had always hoped he would marry an Irish-Catholic girl, settle down nearby, and raise a nice family of his own. He was so good with children, especially the little ones. Little children loved him and would follow him everywhere if they could. She imagined it was because he hadn't forgotten how to speak their language. He spoke directly to their heart, making them laugh, and feel bigger than they were in an intimidating adult world.
That the neighborhood children missed him since he had left for the Navy, she was certain. But she saw how their sadness deepened when they understood that he would never be coming home again, not even for a visit. Her own heart ached at the finality of it.
She took a tissue she had tucked in her cleavage and dabbed her eyes and her nose. It wasn't that long ago she held her own small child on her lap, singing Nursery Rhymes to him, like "Jack and Jill," and reading him Fairy Tales like "Jack and the Beanstalk." This memory made her smile because she always thought he was a lot like Jack in the stories—a foolish boy, but with good intentions, and always falling down a lot.
Regardless of these foibles, he had a close group of friends. They were always doing something together after school or on weekends. She thought about Kevin and Brian, two of his closest friends, who had gone out of their way to visit or call every week the first couple of months after hearing about the tragedy at sea. She glanced at what he had written on the back of the photograph, and mused.
Kevin Mulligan and Brian Flannigan never went by their real first names, and neither did her youngest son. Even as adults, they still called each other by their grade-school nicknames: Skinny and Fatso. Not very flattering!
She could see how Seamus Kevin Mulligan, could become "Skinny" Mulligan, especially since his father, a robust Irishman, was fond of calling his boy by that name. But if anyone should have been given the nickname "Skinny" it was her son, since he was the slightest built of the three, despite a voracious appetite. She always marveled at how much food he could put away and never gain an ounce of fat on his wiry frame. Presumably, this is why they called Brian Flannigan "Fatso," since he had the misfortune of being comparatively huskier than the other two.
Unlike Skinny Mulligan and Fatso Flannigan, her son did not go by a nickname descriptive of the size of his middle. Instead, her son went by his last name. She had named him William, after her grandfather. She called him Willy. Everyone else called him Gilligan.
She imagined it started in kindergarten, when there were three Williams in his class. Only the Maguire boy went by Billy, so that left Willy Gallagher and Willy Gilligan. Over the course of the school year, "Willy Gilligan" became just plain "Gilligan."
Even in the Navy, his shipmates never had a cause to use his first name. He was formally addressed as Seaman Gilligan, and informally addressed as Gilligan by the other sailors and noncommissioned officers. By that point in his life it was well established. His last name had become his first name. And that's the way he preferred it.
She thought back to all his school papers and Boy Scout projects, signed simply with "Gilligan." She still had the bird house he made in scouts. In contrast to all the other bird houses, his bird house had two holes. As he explained it, "A front door and a back door in case of a fire." She wondered if the birds who resided there ever appreciated his concern for their safety.
She remembered how much he enjoyed hiking the backcountry trails of New Jersey with his Boy Scout troop when they went on their weekend campouts, and how proud he was when he earned his merit badge in orienteering, always finding his way back to the rest of the troop just in time to help his scout master, who never seemed to come back from these trips without a major sprain, scratch, bump, bruise or break. She had her suspicions about this. She knew her son was a deer in the woods, a fish in the water, but he could also be a menace when he was trying to help. And as luck would have it, it was his nature to be helpful.
His abrupt expulsion from the eighth grade camera club came to mind. It was funny how a delicate instrument was destined for destruction in his hands, yet he could coddle a delicate animal with the utmost of care in those same hands. When he was alone and not distracted, he could construct a project, or execute a detailed task with precision. But put him in a group of people, particularly with any high-strung individuals, and he would invariable upset the apple cart.
She was certain that most of his accidents were purely unintentional. He spoke and reacted quickly and often without really thinking. She was always admonishing him to be careful, but with his impulsive tendencies—things happen.
Another one of his tendencies (that always amused her) was how he took things quite literally and at face value. A figure of speech or ulterior motive would often escape him. While she looked upon his simplicity through a mother's eyes, patiently explaining to him an underlying intent, she wasn't so certain that sometimes he didn't deliberately feign ignorance if it served his purpose, or use absurdity as a way to cope with those situations in life he found too difficult to confront directly.
She thought of how difficult it was for him to get people to listen to him. She surmised that since he could not get people to take him seriously, he would get their attention with his own brand of humor, even if it was largely childish. She couldn't fault him for that. She also knew he was smarter than he sometimes let on.
He also liked to toy with people, when he thought he could get away with it. She was well aware he often got back at his older brother who liked to punch him and make sure his little brother knew who was boss. She smiled inwardly because oftentimes his older more dignified brother didn't know he was being played by his unsophisticated kid brother.
Intentional or not, there was no doubt that he could frost the most unflappable person. She often gauged a person by how long it took them to lose their temper around her son.
He had to be used to the fallout. He was surprisingly resilient under fire. But he wasn't entirely impervious to insult, particularly when it was directed at his self worth. He was often disappointed in himself as it was. It bothered him deeply if he knew he had let a friend or family member down, or saw the people he cared about suffering over something he felt should be within his power to fix.
She could always tell when he was hurting because he would hide in his bedroom and sulk. He rarely discussed the cause of his self-imposed isolation, and relied on himself to come to terms with whatever it was he needed to work out. Cajoling was useless at those times for he had a stubborn streak she was sure he inherited from his father. When he set his mind to something, even the urging of his older sister (who he would do anything for) wouldn't budge him.
Most days though, he was just happy being Gilligan, her mildly annoying, playful and whimsical boy.
She remembered clearly the day he came home with an old battered trumpet, given to him by Skinny Mulligan who could no longer play it on account of his new braces. After weeks of practicing his new instrument with no discernable improvement, his father had to finally sit him down and ask him, desperately, to please consider taking up a different hobby—he didn't care what it was. That was the winter their youngest son took up the drums.
His principal hobby by far, however, was collecting. His collections were legendary around the school yard—everything from bottle caps to bubble-gum cards, comic books to cat's-eye marbles. Unfortunately for her, he also collected things that were alive. She recalled the time she went looking for her canning jars in the garage, and the measure of her horror upon opening the box to find them all in use, filled with rubbing alcohol and preserving an assortment of floating spiny-legged creatures sporting pincers, wings and antennae. She had uncovered his insect collection. After that scolding, the only insects he collected were butterflies.
Her mind wandered to the obscure little things she remembered about him. How he always wore his wrist watch with the face on the inside of his wrist. How he could stand up from a sitting position on the ground without using his hands. How he always wore a white tee under his shirt even in the middle of the summer.
She recalled the children's poem he recited in fourth grade. "The owl and the pussycat went to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat . . ." She could hear his calming voice rising and falling as he spoke each syllable.
She missed the sound of his voice. The way it softened when letting someone know he cared. The way it escalated in pitch when he was excited or afraid. She even missed hearing the ire in his tone when he yelled back at his brother if he felt wronged. But she missed hearing him yell, "M-o-o-o-mmy!" when he needed her most of all.
She breathed a sigh as she let these memories wash over her. It wasn't like her to while-away a Sunday afternoon becoming maudlin and self-absorbed. Her children would be there in a short while and she had a meal that needed preparing before they arrived.
Despite admonishing herself for shirking her duties, she found herself still stuck in that place where time stood still; where for a prolonged moment her memories were her world. Her thoughts drifted back to her youngest son, her sailor, who would not be joining the rest of the family that day.
She sat down on the bed and allowed herself a good cry. Tears came in a flood.
When she finally opened her eyes enough to focus, she noticed sunlight diffused through the sun catcher hanging in her bedroom window had cast a rainbow across the opposite wall. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box by the bed to blow her nose and dry her face. She always enjoyed seeing the splash of colors, and it reminded her of all the summers they spent as a family at the Jersey Shore. She had bought the sun catcher there one summer because she wanted to bring back a small slice of the happiness she felt when they vacationed as a family near the seashore.
The sea. Her thoughts had come full circle. She was back to thinking about the sea. It was a mysterious force steeped in superstition and lore, beckoning and beautiful, but a tempestuous Siren when stirred.
She wondered how much of an influence their seaside vacations, and the stories his father told around the campfire about the grand exploits of the Gilligan clan, had on her youngest son as he imagined his own grand adventures. And he did have quite an imagination.
He was the little boy who announced one summer he was going to build an Ark like Noah did. He had a serious collection of driftwood to prove it. He had plans to take all of his animals with him on his boat. Just like Noah. Oh, and his family could come too.
Just. Like. Noah.
Those last three words gave her pause. What if her son was just like Noah – he had sailed through the wind and the rain and come through safely, his boat resting on dry land amid the vastness of the ocean. She sniffled tentatively as she considered this possibility. No conclusive evidence had ever been found to the contrary, and sure 'n begorrah there was a rainbow glowing like a messenger of God before her very eyes.
She reached out her hand and touched the place on the wall where a band of ruby red light transitioned through the spectrum into a ribbon of deep violet.
If her mothers' intuition was telling her anything at this moment, it was that her son had somehow come through another scrape unharmed and with his Irish luck intact. It was possible that somewhere, her son, Gilligan, was still upsetting apple carts, still collecting butterflies, and probably doing his best to help his Skipper and their passengers find their way home.
Suppressing a sniffle, she whispered a prayer for him. She would keep the faith, believing that what she hoped for with all her heart was true, although it didn't make missing him any easier.
The doorbell rang. She knew she had to pull herself together. Her family had arrived and she was the guest of honor. She heard her husband get up from his chair in the living room to answer the door. He called for her to come.
She picked up the color Polaroid she had previously laid on the nightstand by the bed. Looking into the face of her son standing on deck with his prize catch, she forced a wavering smile. Under the picture he had written: It's a keeper!
"Indeed it is," she said aloud to his picture.
Lightly kissing her forefinger, she pressed it to his face. She then stood up and walked over to the open jewelry box on the dresser. Before returning the photo to its place inside her jewel case, she turned it over and read once more what he had written on the back:
1964
Happy Mother's Day Mom! Wish you were here. Or I was there.
Love you –
Willy
XXOO
THE END