Uncivil War
Island madness, the Professor called it. The Skipper just thought of it as going stir-crazy, and it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. Life on the island was an odd mixture of frustration, stress, and boredom, punctuated with the occasional bout of gut-churning terror, and no matter how you sliced it, trying to deal with the same few people, in very close quarters, day in and day out, could get real old, real fast.
Nobody was feeling all that chipper lately; that was for sure. The Howells were having one of their periodic spats, although, mercifully, neither of them had yet reached the point of moving out and inflicting themselves on their fellows. The girls were angry with each other about something arcane and female that the Skipper had absolutely no intention of exploring, especially not after what had happened to Gilligan. Who, in his defense, had been minding his own business when an argument consisting almost entirely of incomprehensible half sentences and innuendo had spilled into the common area late that afternoon. Asked to settle the question, (and without bothering to inform him what said question was,) he had refused to take sides. His attempt at diplomacy had only gotten him slapped by both of them, one on each cheek in rapid succession. He had promptly decamped for the lagoon and hadn't been seen since, and the Skipper didn't blame him.
In fact, it might have been better for all concerned if he'd left earlier. The Professor had been in a real peach of a mood to begin with, probably because he had spent two days unsuccessfully trying to patch up the transmitter with components they had salvaged from a bizarre and unidentifiable device that was, inexplicably, in one of the nearby caves, and admitting defeat never brightened anyone's day. Gilligan had not improved either the situation, the tabletop, or the Professor's temper by accidentally knocking over a beaker full of improvised battery acid, and the Professor had used a lot of words that nobody else understood. That in and of itself wasn't unusual, but these words had sounded like the sort of thing you didn't want translated.
Skipper himself had been less than a model of pleasant behavior, and was rapidly losing patience with the world in general, on a fairly regular basis, with or without provocation; he was no saint, and he was feeling just as irritable as anyone else. There was only so much togetherness a person could take, and only so much coconut, too.
In short, they were all sitting squarely atop a powder keg with a lit match in either hand, and no fake séances were going to do the trick this time.
The inevitable explosion was a humdinger. Oh, it had been an average day all around, which is to say that there had been some accidents, a trodden foot or three, the aforementioned battery acid incident, and a great deal of inane chatter, but nothing spectacular in any sense of the word. Which is to say that, in the end, it wasn't really Gilligan that started it. No, it was an argument with Mr. Howell over the dinner table, the insidious sort of argument that starts out so minute that it's hard to remember what even began it, and rises up like a tidal wave, a tsunami of cruel cuts and old scores and vicious thrusts of the kind only an old friend knows how to deliver, precisely in the most vulnerable places with surgical exactitude.
And it ended where it always did. Mr. Howell, who, as he would be the first to tell you, was far too well-bred to shout, even when he was shouting, barked out a jeering, "I don't really see where you have much of a leg to stand on, Captain—we're only here on this miserable island because of your seamanship… or, rather, lack thereof!"
The Skipper, red-faced, bellowed back, "You mean instead of drowning? It's only because of my seamanship that we made it to land at all!"
"Balderdash! Face facts, Captain; of the seven of us here, five of us were huddled in steerage, well out of the way. You could at least have the decency to own up to your mistakes and take some responsibility!"
And then the Skipper said it. "Maybe you're right, Howell, maybe I should take responsibility for my actions. Maybe I am to blame for the whole mess—is that what you want to hear?"
"Captain, the only thing I want to hear is the traffic on Fifth Avenue. And if it weren't for you and your wretched little cruise, I'd be hearing it now."
Gilligan sucked in a sharp breath, affronted. "Mr. Howell! That's not true! It wasn't Skipper's fault!" He pounded the table for emphasis, knocking over the pitcher of mango juice, most of which ended up in the Skipper's lap.
The Skipper rounded on him. "No, he's right. It must be my fault. No one forced me to hire you!"
A horrible silence fell over the table.
Gilligan put his fork neatly beside his plate of half-eaten dinner and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. And the worm turned. "That's true. No one forced you to hire me. No one forced me to take the job, either—I guess we both fouled up!"
"You were grateful enough to have any kind of job, as I recall; who else in Hawaii was dumb enough to put up with your incompetence?"
"Who else in Hawaii was dumb enough to put up with your temper? They warned me about shipping out with Captain Bligh! I should've listened to them!"
"Captain Bligh, am I? Better that than Seaman Snafu!"
"Hey, I just do what you taught me. Not my fault that you're just about as good a teacher as you are a navigator."
The fight veered off from there, and the other five castaways traded shocked glances, their own altercations forgotten. Watching the two sailors arguing—and watching Gilligan be deliberately cruel for quite possibly the first time in his life—was unsettling. There was a vague feeling that this was simply not how the world was supposed to be.
"…And another thing! If you don't get your junk out of the hut before sundown, you can look for it in the lagoon!"
"You're not throwing me out of my own hut!"
"Your hut? I'm the captain, and you bunk wherever I tell you to bunk!"
"Oh, no you don't! I did half the work building that hut, and I've got a right to half of it!"
"You're going to be missing half your teeth in a minute! I need at least a few minutes each day where I don't have to deal with you; I've practically forgotten what peace and quiet sounds like!"
"Fine! Sure! Why not? You probably do need the whole thing, 'cause you sure take up twice as much room as anyone else! And besides, the further away I can get, the less chance you'll have to crack me over the head every time things don't go your way!"
"If there was anything in your head to begin with, I wouldn't have to try pounding some sense in there. Some men just don't understand anything but the back of a hand, and let's face it—you're one of them!"
"The back of your hand is all you ever try. What's there to understand?"
"Plenty! John Paul Jones himself couldn't make you anything but what you are—the worst excuse for a sailor I've ever seen!"
"Says the guy who's never been on a ship that didn't sink. What was it, now? I know about the three in the Navy, and one here... Or were there some others I've forgotten?"
"You just watch your step, you insubordinate little rat. I ought to have you keelhauled!"
"Ha! Skipper, we haven't got a keel to haul!"
"For you, Gilligan, I'll build one!"
"If you could do that, we wouldn't still BE here!"
The Skipper's face was redder than Gilligan's shirt, and, predictably, he snatched his cap from his head and swung it hard. "Next time I won't use the hat," he said between his teeth.
Gilligan stooped to retrieve his own cap, and, without stopping to consider the consequences, returned the favor. "Next time, maybe I won't, either," he spat.
"Get out of my sight before you make me do something we'll both regret," the Skipper snarled.
"Gladly, 'sir,'" Gilligan sneered back, with a salute so insubordinate that he might as well have flipped the bird and been done with it. They stalked away from the table in opposite directions.
OoOoOoOoO
Later, they met up in the jungle, near the waterfall.
"I think the girls were about ready to cry," the Skipper said. "And the Howells went back to their hut together, so they must have forgotten all about whatever they were arguing over."
"Oh, good," Gilligan said. "I think the Professor bought it, too. Anyway, it sure fooled everyone else." He raked his hair out of his eyes—he was overdue for a haircut—and frowned. "Skipper, are you sure there wasn't anything else we could have done? I really hate lying to everyone like this."
"I don't like it either, but I couldn't think of anything else," the Skipper admitted. "Everyone's been so edgy and miserable, we had to do something to distract them."
"I guess this was better than dressing up like headhunters or anything. But I do hate it," Gilligan said with a sigh.
The Skipper raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? You're going to tell me that you weren't having fun reaming me out?"
Gilligan shook his head vehemently. "Heck, no! All I could think about, the whole time, was how sore you'd get if I said any that stuff for real… and how sore I'd end up if you did!" He mimed taking a one-two combination of punches to the jaw, complete with sound effects. "They'd ship what was left of me back home in a matchbox!"
"Oh, come on, little buddy. Don't be so dramatic. They'd need a shoebox, at the very least," the Skipper chuckled. "You were coming up with some pretty sharp zingers, there. Don't you tell me you haven't ever thought about it before."
"Nah, I've just been getting chewed out by all kinds of experts for twenty years; I ought to know some real awful insults by now. I was being Lieutenant Hoffman. Remember him?"
The Skipper shuddered. "I try not to. That guy was—twenty years?"
"Well, maybe more, but that's as far back as I remember," Gilligan said. "I thought about being Sister Evangelina, instead, but it just wouldn't have been the same without her yardstick. Let me tell you, she could have given Hank Aaron a run for his money."
The Skipper shook his head to clear it. "Right. Anyhow, let's figure this out. Remember, as far as anyone else knows, we're furious with each other. So I really will throw all your stuff out of the hut, I guess."
"No, if you do that, the Professor or the Howells will probably offer to let me bunk with one of them, and I'd spill the beans for sure. I'll go get all my stuff myself, and then hightail it to my cave," Gilligan said. "Besides, if you really did chuck me out, you'd look mean. If I leave on my own, I'll just look mad."
"Okay, that makes sense," the Skipper said. "Grab an extra blanket or two; it can get cold in those caves. We'll just glare a lot at breakfast; I don't think we need to have another fight."
"Good, I hated that. You want me to spill something on you again?"
"No, I don't want you to spill anything on me," the Skipper said, with some irony. "But that's never stopped you before. Surprise me."
What neither man knew was that Mary Ann, ever the peacemaker, had followed the Skipper to the waterfall, hoping that she could help. Neither of them saw her where she stood behind a clump of bamboo, listening to every word. And neither of them noticed when, her eyes blazing and her lips set in a determined line, she slipped away, back to camp and her shellshocked fellow castaways.
"…And that was when I left," she finished. "They planned the whole thing! Have you ever heard anything so mean and rotten?"
"Indeed! If there's anything I can't abide, it's deceit and deception," said Mr. Howell. "Those are the exclusive preserve of a Howell, and I won't stand for this encroachment on my territory!"
"Wait a moment, everyone," said the Professor. "As underhanded a plan as it indubitably was, we must be just and admit that their scheme worked. They wanted us to forget our differences, to resume working together, free from the friction that's been apparent these last few days. And would I be alone in saying that I believe that we have?"
"So you're saying we should just let them get away with it?" Ginger said.
"I'm saying that we should work together, exactly as they'd intended we should. After all, how else can we hope to exact a truly meaningful revenge?" His eyes glittered with mischief. "Now, here's what we'll do…"