WORK IN PROGRESS (Island)

 

 

The island and its one-lane bridge leading to and from, a guard house of sorts iron gate on the shore side. Thirty-something rainy miles south of Manacord Island, thin road slipping like a garter snake along the coast—here, no sign, no GPS marker, pine trees jagged along edges of the bay. Misty drizzle near dusk a grayish cast to the view. Rental car parked on gravel shoulder, we stand at the gate full knowing from window’s view from one of the island’s far houses we might be mistaken for ominous: two figures hooded in parkas. Unzip those silhouettes, anyone underneath? Flipped hoods off to dispel any chance of misunderstanding; no, two visitors, women, girls really, think of us as girls if that allows anyone up in those houses to take us less threatening.

              Guard house empty. A speaker on a stand—step towards it. Crunch of gravel, motion-sensitive security light shocks shadows awake on ground beside us. Heads of both wobbly and stippled in muddy puddle on drier days a pothole.

              Button pressed, static hiss. Hello? Finger off button, listen. About to press again when a woman’s voice—brittle, soft, a contradiction rendered natural by human voice, brittle-soft—sounded from the speaker. Evening. Can I help you? We say yes, we’re here to visit on recommendation of a friend a mutual acquaintance of someone we’ve been told lives on the island, Julia Branch. The voice woman’s voice old maybe age perhaps the reason for its brittleness, replies: Julia’s gone for the weekend unfortunately, is in Seattle, won’t be back until Tuesday at the earliest. It’s late and rainy we say and from the drive that led here there didn’t seem many lodgings nearby, would it be possible for us to stay the evening? We hate to impose but we’d been under the impression Julia would be expecting us. Our mutual friend was her oldest and closest friend so perhaps it was unintended, her absence? The woman in the speaker asked for patience, one second, she would call Julia to ask after us, her apologies, but best to be certain, often there are random people who stop by with stories fabricated to gain access to the island. It was a closed community so she was sure we understood, best to be careful. We were fine by it and so waited a few cold rainy minutes while in a room in one of the houses across the bridge a phone call was made. Our hair was damp, necks chilly; poor timing to pull parka hoods back on, so stood and bore with the wait. Hello? the woman came back to us through the speakers. Are you still there? Tone of the question suggested voice knew its answer, eyes tracking them on a video feed somewhere. We just spoke with Julia. She says hello and that she’s very sorry—she forgot the dates of your visit. She thought it was next week not this one. She’d like you to stay at her house the next few days if you like until she gets back from Seattle. I’ll buzz you in. Button pressed we thanked the speaker and the woman within it, sliding gate retracting for first headlights then rental car following. No lights along the bridge, bay dark but hung with bright rectangles at various heights, windows where once clearly there’d been houses.

 

Bridge in rear-view, headlights pulled car from level concrete to gravel. Five houses built close taller than they were wide, crowding each other from lack of ground. Cars parked along edge of boulders fused by what appeared poured concrete, a messy makeshift sea wall. Houses angling atop part of a shared hill, a one hill island, as if one by one the hill grew them. One large fir tree across lot left of the bridge crossed and given back to drizzle-darkness.

We parked the car flicked on the interior and gathered our things, porch light of the nearest house casting a moving map of stairs leading to a door, the door open and woman with umbrella in hand. The woman came down steps approached the passenger’s door, hand extended for a hello shake or handle of a bag. We offered hands but thanked away offer of help. The woman’s name the woman said was Nancy. We introduced ourselves by our names and the woman’s head took a conjectural tilt as if listening for some other bit of truth, some questionable thing to come crawling out from beneath our names. How to convince someone first flush you’re harmless without arousing suspicion? Trunk popped bags gathered, stairs and stairs, door open, bright foyer and Nancy closing the door behind us. Per instructions wrench galoshes off, leave them in the foyer with umbrellas belly-up on the floor to dry.

Inside finally bright enough for faces. Nancy saw ours, young women somewhere in their twenties and tone duly changed motherly. Here the kitchen (remodeled not a year old), here downstairs bathroom (small as an airplane's); up stairs the guest bedroom up another floor the main bedroom Julia’s, if we felt comfortable one of us should stay there. Nancy looked youngish but hair was long soft gray, calm manner organized in how it described where we might sleep, brush teeth, put our things. Unzipped jacket we spied what we’d expected, a name tag left of sternum, the kind you could buy a dozen to a sheet at a dollar store. On the tag written in black marker, Nancy. Julia had mentioned name-tags so we were half-looking. On counter in kitchen Nancy touched a sheet of sticker tags waiting for names to be written, peeled off, pressed to chest, explained following morning there would be late breakfast everyone on the island welcome, so should we come if first we might write out our names and wear tags for proper introduction and keep them the rest of the stay as reminders, that would be appreciated. It was common custom on the island, as she was sure we knew, being guests invited by Julia. Everyone here as we knew was face-blind. Not a description anyone on the island quite favored, but for sake of clarity here will say so. Appreciated if this would be first and last mention of that during our stay. Wearing tags would be a courtesy, saying it now at the top of our visit so we know.

We walked her to the door and after it closed then we noticed: no lock. No lock on the door, not something Julia had mentioned. Everything to be known about the house every single possible amenity described by this half-hour hostess just left except the most pertinent: turn of a handle night or day, front door opens.

In kitchen one of us hunted for a glass in cupboards, water from the tap. The other of us came from a rangier hunt in living room cabinets with fancy bottle of limoncello. Ice in tumbler and sippy-sip. You have a look at those photos? our liquor half asked our water half. When she was leading us through the hall and up the stairs, water half said, I noticed a bunch; but no—didn’t have a chance to really look at them. Liquor half told us: Well then follow me, because it’s something. In hall between living room and bathroom either side both walls dozens of photos framed and shiny with reflection. In some here and there Julia at various ages, in company of what might be best guess cousins brothers sisters a mother a father someone clearly family. College friends or co-workers we’d guess in some. Nothing common among the lot other than these were photos and on each, pressed to glass, artfully placed beneath each person depicted, frozen for all time in photo-developed color, a thin strip label with a name written in printed block letters in a hand most likely we assumed Julia’s.

              One in particular, a summer day and group portrait, women scattered in age and gathered around Julia. Arm around her the very hostess who’d left, Nancy, and beneath both labels and on the labels names, even one for Julia. Wondered: did she not recognize her own face in photos? And what was it like mornings when groggy she brought herself to a bathroom mirror? Who else would it be looking back at her?

Julia had explained two winters before when we met in Boston. It’s kind of uncanny, there’s a sort of split consciousness involved. You know technically the face you’ve brought to the mirror is your own, and by technically I mean cognitively. But there’s another part, deeper pre-cognitive part of your looking that doesn’t connect with what’s seen, doesn’t recognize the lived experience of its own resemblance. That’s what’s so disorienting about it: what you feel and what you know go off in two completely different directions and you have to talk yourself carefully through it, which to trust, how to follow. Bizarre. Closest we’d ever come to a comparable dissociation would be with psychedelics. Acid, hash, mushrooms. Neither of us had thought then, our first meeting with Julia, to ask what directions her prosopagnosia took when she was high. She didn’t seem type to take offense. A friend of Dr. Spraeger, old colleague at B.U. hospital, not a neurologist herself, worked admin through early retirement. Dr. Spraeger we’d interviewed along with others on the research staff, legwork for potential book proposal. Non-fiction science writing for the laymen curious. Prospective title The Five Senses but more an investigation of sight taste hearing touch smell through testimonies of people who suffer from lack of them. Anosmia (loss of smell), Ageusia (loss to taste), medical terms readymade chapter titles. Through Dr. Spraeger we met Julia, who visited B.U. on a layover in Boston from a flight back from vacation somewhere European. Lunch with old coworkers in staff cafeteria but afterwards up in Spraeger’s office would introduce us. Were we interested?

Normal and wry around the edges and casual with her knowledge. Spraeger explained who we were, these two young women, past several months off and on they’d met with him when time was available and asked him some surprisingly astute questions, some of which he had to outsource to more knowledgeable parties. A bit of good fortune, Julia, you’d stop by to visit. One subject in particular he felt he’d be talking out of turn given Julia was not only of the profession but someone with lived experience of the matter. They’re curious to know everything there is to know about your condition. And I thought, best ask you. Dark hair straight gray slivers long and tucked behind the left ear, right ear hidden, the subtler half of listening. Boots still wet from melted snow. Lower half of her looking calm poker-faced, upper half eyes bemused bright alert. Dr. Julia Branch, but when we called her such she waved away the “doctor”. I’m not one for honorifics, she said. She had at most a half-hour to spare, if we’d like. If we wanted more she’d be happy to pass along her email, should we ever find ourselves on the West Coast, maybe we could arrange a visit? Usually wouldn’t extend such an offer but anyone who passes muster in Spraeger’s estimation must be worth the time. Eight months later found us flying to Seattle renting a car for an hours-long drive north along the coast. The island wasn’t featured on any map but she assured us, keep driving and we’d find it. We could stay for a week as her guest, we could meet other people like her with lifetimes of experience with this our subject under study. We said yes. And here we were drying off glass of water in one hand glass of limoncello in another, sipping and squinting to memorize each name and face of each of the island’s residents in this framed photo. Julia was property manager and establisher of the gated community. Everyone else arrived after the place had been built seven years ago. No locks on doors, this she hadn’t mentioned. 

First night we shared the upstairs bed, dragged chair from the kitchen to place under handle of the front door, same for bedroom. Luckily a bathroom adjoining so neither of us had to risk unfastening the door to pee. From the room’s one window we watched the lights of the other houses flick off, their reflections on the dark of the water. Rainy gentle taps on pane as we lay there, no WiFi on phones, nor roaming connection. Slow soft descent of sleep like a ceiling.

 

A knock. Pause. Another. Morning we woke to faint knocks downstairs. One of us pulled away chair from front door rushed to take it to kitchen while the other stood and said good mornings to the knockers, Nancy and another woman. The door was locked? Nancy asked mock-confused so we told her. We were city girls used to locks, sleep impossible otherwise, sorry. Well hopefully you can be more at ease after you’ve met everyone today. There’s no need really. We’re harmless—promise! The woman beside Nancy watched us with odd relaxed scrutiny, as if there was a fly crawling about each our faces and with her eyes was tracking progress of the flies, nose to eyebrow to cheek lips forehead. Nice to meet you, this new woman smiled, I’m Philomena, call me Mena. Julia’d mentioned before she left you’d be coming. Boston guests, welcome! Sorry we couldn’t offer hospitality last night but if you’re interested in coffee and breakfast please come over. Two houses over, the door with a red ribbon on the knob. We apologized again for obstructing the door and promised to get ourselves together to walk over. Didn’t invite them in, hope they didn’t notice. Mark it up to privacy and city paranoia.

              Julia during last video chat before the trip: Just fair warning, might take some getting used to. We’re a bit hippie, we share everything, even our privacy. At the time took that figuratively.

              Outside rain had stopped or rather had stayed but ceased falling. Dampness so thick a deep inhale would be enough to hydrate us for the day. Hyperbole. Nothing like the flamboyance of good dumb hyperbole in the morning. We pulled on boots jeans hoods stepped out into clear glistening green surroundings, the bowl of the bay in the forest, soggy parking lot, cars parked at the edge near the boulder wall. Five gray-white houses built close enough almost touching. Looked, one of us noted, like winners standing on an Olympic podium, five instead of three. Gold silver bronze and what fourth and fifth place? Copper, iron? Julia’s house was iron, furthest left along the water. How far down could these go with so little room for foundation?

              The red ribbon door was half-open but we knocked. Voices down the entry hall called us in. Same layout as Julia’s, front door and hallway opening to kitchen on the left, dining nook beyond, what looked like airplane-sized bathroom on right before staircase. Seven women at a table not on chairs but sharing seat on long benches. Mena with carafe and two mugs on counter, asking what we want with our coffee. Nancy calling us over for introductions and the rest turned to wave and greet.

              At table each pointed at name tags while telling us their names. Jerica and Shay, Barbara and Rominique and Dayshia. Each on the ebb downturn of middle age but none tired-looking or frail. Outdoors types, Pacific Northwest types, or at least according to cliché. Women who could chop wood and kill and clean a chicken. Women who fished. It’s in the hands, one of us said to the other later that afternoon away from the rest, theirs were weathered, boss-bitch-knuckled, capable of fixing things.

              Sit they said, eat! First if we wouldn’t mind though, name tags. Write our names on them, slap them somewhere on our chests where the rest could read them. It was the whole reason we came, so surely we understood. Not many requirements for etiquette on the island but this. Took turns with a Sharpie given us, wrote ourselves on adhesive paper, pressed ourselves to chest. Some leaning in to read names to go with the faces though in a few minutes faces would be forgotten, foreign.

              Eggs bacon toast, fried potatoes. We ate and spoke between chews and swallows. Where’d we hail from originally? What was our book about? Did we know much about how Julia got everything started here on the island? Each had come separately one at a time. Each had heard through word-of-mouth among The Community. The Community being people with their condition, neuro-atypical. There were retreats and online support groups for the prosopagnosia-afflicted (“Prosopagnites” one called them) and some read Julia’s proposal for an “intentional gated community” and wrote her, asking would it be possible to join? These were monied women we assumed but this turned out not the case for all. Two were given houses without rent or mortgage; as payment Julia provided them responsibilities to manage: maintenance work, grocery runs, groundskeeping. Construction had been completed seven years before and everyone had arrived and settled two years after. It had been life-changing, having Julia as den mother. She was truly incredible if we didn’t know already. Considering we’d flown across country to spend time with her, assumed we more than agreed. So if there was anything we were curious about or wanted to know, they were open to any queries. If Julia wanted mention of the island in a book, they’d provide the words. Over next few days, ask anything. They’d tell their life stories or at least their own current versions of them.

              Tour of the grounds after breakfast. Nancy and a woman with camouflage rainslicker, Jerica. Three houses shared the two on the edges occupied by Julia and Nancy. Right of the bridge by Nancy’s house a wooden dock built along seawall, aluminum fishing boat and larger pontoon either side. These they’d take to Manacord for provisions when needed. Bay opened to channel and channel ran north and west until it widened to the Pacific. Good fishing and not much traffic. Forests around area spotted with freshwater lakes. Steelhead trout flounder halibut rockfish. On the island they could live eight nine months out of the year on fish alone. Best among them with a line? Initially Julia of course who taught each as they arrived and settled but in recent years Jerica gained a real feel for it. Branched out to fly fishing past summer caught ten in one day, one bass snagged that day still filleted frozen in her house freezer.

              Westernmost edge of the island, in the houses’ collective backyard a fenced garden. Nancy and Rominque and Dayshia resident gardeners. There were plans for a greenhouse but there had been delays, notice the cinderblocks laid around its perimeter, dimensions marked and plans drawn difficulty getting contractors to drive out to build. Maybe a portable greenhouse until then. And what grown there? Tomatoes squash, lettuce corn and herbs like basil. None before they’d arrived on the island had tended a garden so Julia had taught each and here they were years later standing before us, amateur agronomists. Fish from lakes and sea, vegetables from the garden. And during winters? Winters live off bulk foods brought back in one go late fall from Manacord. Probably only occasion all eight travelled off island together. You garden? Jerica asked. Closest we ever got to gardening, we admitted, was eating the occasional salad.

              A shed. Southwest corner. Top of the seawall running around the island a wire fence and pushed against it along the southwest corner an aluminum shed. First thing built, Nancy explained. First there was the shed then Julia’s house then the others, these built even before the bridge. Shed locked we asked what was kept there. Gas-powered transformer, they said. Garden tools. Bags of fertilizer. They lived in separate houses but everything here, they stressed, everything was shared. Locals were aware of them, afforded them respect through privacy. One had vacationed in the Yucatan once and returned with a nickname for the place which had spread become popular enough even they gained eventual knowledge of it. Isla Mujeres (“Island of the Women”). Most knew women lived there not entirely sure how many. None aware it seemed what else they might have in common. “Face-Blind Island”, “Prosopagnosia Island”, what’re those in Spanish? We knew Spanish but opted not to say, improvise translation. Didn’t want to risk offence in either language.

              Who was last to arrive? we asked. Barbara. How long ago was that? Three four years ago. It’s only been these eight we asked and Jerica looked to Nancy, hair exploding off their heads from a strong gust of wind. We both wore sock caps so no explosions of hair to obscure this look given between them. There’d been someone else, a resident who’d arrived second after Nancy in the early days. Someone Nancy had known prior to moving and who’d followed, shared a house. My girlfriend, Nancy said, putting an end to Jerica’s unspooling of euphemism. We’d been together a few years before and I’d said I wanted to move here and badly enough to leave ahead of her. She followed and stayed a year and gave it a try. Too far from civilization for her, not much besides me keeping her here. She left and I stayed and both are fine now because I’d say we’re both happier. Jerica turned head and spat towards the seawall. Was there salt in spit? Saltwater to saltwater. Later that evening one of us would ask the other: How many spits would it take to gradually accumulate an ocean? How many little relationships were afoot around the place? Did they all acknowledge or try to keep private? Jerica and Nancy too maybe we speculated. The way they walked shoulder-to-shoulder. The way they finished one another’s sentences and looked to the other.

 

Cold stung our cheeks in droplets, spray kicked from water. It was first time either of us had ridden a boat so small, one up front one in the middle, Jerica in the rear with the engine steering. Each of us gripped sides to keep from capsizing. Engine chainsaw loud but didn’t stop Jerica from hollering names of coves creeks and rivers as they passed slow-motion port or starboard. On the Naselle River currently on our way to Willapa, over there a marsh, see it, near those rushes always reliable fishing. We looked in the direction of Jerica’s talking but only took in more shore and more forest beyond it, sun clear of cloud and extra wattage glistening off everything.

              Where water broadened to a level blue, Jerica cut the engine. This was Stanley Channel she explained, to the left Long Island and up further Diamond Point. Turn look right and you’ll find Needle Point. Welcome to Wallapa Bay. Only thing between this boat and open Pacific was a lean strip of land, Long Beach Peninsula, look yonder. Seemed soon as Jerica pointed to places they became names, slow drift across some living map she carried within. It was nice out here, quiet we said. Other boats drifted within sight, fishermen casting lines. We waved.

              What brought you here, one of us asked, the other of us surprised by the directness. Jerica opened a hand palm up extended it, as if offering land and water around us on a platter. Did we need to ask? It was somewhere without excess troubles or distractions but mostly it was a place where undramatic but large-scale matters of life and death just kind of happened. Before she’d moved to the island, she’d never seen one in person, believe it. Before she’d met Julia she’d never been in the company of people who saw others for the first time almost always, as she did. Not out of special ability but from disability actually. Gone most of her early life not knowing—imagine that, what that’d been like. Back then as a kid a teenager being out in nature was usually a comfort because interacting with people was often so confusing. Reading faces was like guessing the weather. Among Julia’s people there was none of the usual pressure: they each told the other what they were thinking and feeling. At first took some getting used to. Jerica tended toward reserve and observation. Imagine having to talk about your feelings when for years you’d mistakenly believed you could get along without having any!

              The water rose and fell and we nodded with it. One of us mentioned rain, hate to get caught out in it. Jerica judged there’d be none through the afternoon, evening maybe. How could she tell? No internet, T.V., where’d she catch news of world or weather? A number, she said.

There was a number one could call for twenty-four-hour weather reports, called so often entered it in her phone as one of her contacts. Old habit. Before move to the island had lived in a town whose name she would not disclose, out of respect for its residents, a bunghole of a place in Mississippi where her brother had died in car wreck years earlier on drive up to Tunica. Impulsively moved there knowing no one and stayed a full year thinking that would bring end to missing her brother, a year of boredom to kill the grief. Took a factory job and spoke hardly much to anyone and rented a hovel apartment a step below what you might expect from Econolodge. Evenings so lonesome she’d call the twenty-four-hour weather report number just to hear a human voice, often a youngish woman with thick accent. Strong itch to talk to her, ask after her day, but held to etiquette and listened. One thing she allowed herself to say ran deeper than any weather-report-person might rightly suspect: Thank you. Those voices and that woman’s especially, voice minus the whole woman, got her through twelve bleak months of surviving a town that took her brother and left her an only child without parents even. An orphan, she said, orphan until Julia. The rest, how she met her, how she got here, hardly worth explaining. Why worry details? Want details, look around you. These are really the ones that matter.