But search and spy as we may, we didn’t see anything that could be deemed suspicious, weird perhaps (our fault for looking!), but certainly no sightings of anyone resembling a crazed finger-chopping suspect, or a jaywalker, for that matter.
Clearly, this caper would be hard to solve, so the next day, a particularly steamy midsummer one without the island’s customary breeze building intensity as the day progressed, Stevie, The Stick, Tommy, me, and today Brian joined in, set out to search Mashnee’s outer circumference of shorelines, looking for anything that might resemble a clue.
Stevie, being Stevie, even thought to bring, in addition to four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, being the direct product of a good Jewish mom, his brand-new Polaroid camera which we added to our growing arsenal of that day’s supplies, including a few of our makeshift weapons, just in case. Whoever was doing bad stuff, wouldn’t be doing it to us! Who’d thought we’d ever have to worry?
HOG ISLAND –
The Stick thought we should start our day’s exploration at Hog Island, a fairly logical place considering its close proximity and eerie potential to hide secrets. Hog Island was home to jagged boulders, sharp rocks, thorns, thickets, poison ivy, skunks, and who knows what else.
The small, rugged “island,” is composed of what remained after the actual island was bisected during construction of the causeway which leads to Mashnee.
On the one-mile causeway leading to Mashnee from the mainland, Hog Island sits about halfway on the right. It’s much smaller and uninhabited, with a channel marker equipped with a flashing light on top. That one end of Hog Island terminates bluntly, with a treacherously steep cliff overlooking the canal channel below.
Thick knotted metal cables led to the marker but also down the cliff into the water. When they chopped the island in half, they left a ragged mess of a cliff which was by that point mostly used only by fishermen. The cables were exposed during the excavation process and were never reburied. Hence those cables have been subjected to further erosion over the years.
Although plenty of people pass Hog Island every day, obviously a ton more drive past as summer approaches. The spot is certainly well known to any local fisherman willing to rise at the crack of dawn to secure a prime spot on its rather limited fishable boundary, which consists of jagged rocks, and larger sea-blistered boulders.
But in reality, relatively few Mashneeites had the gumption and intestinal fortitude required to bypass the badly weathered “No Trespassing Per Order U.S. Corps. of Engineers” sign with its corresponding chain barricade. We had no such problem doing so.
So, the island remained something of a mystery to most, but very familiar to us.
The area was most often accessed by bikes, but believe me, we figured out how to get cars up there as well. Often accidentally carved up by the sharp dense thicket lining the narrow dirt path we called a road. The deep scratches the penalty paid for a late-night rendezvous, or with any luck, a sexual encounter.
In essence, Hog Island was Mashnee’s alter ego: the red-headed stepchild forced to live next door to the blonde bombshell. The former’s shoreline enduring a disintegrating pounding from canal-driven currents meant for a bolder habitat, the latter nestled gently in a safe harbor. Opposites.
Our motto was simple:
Anything goes on Hog Island.
Anything at all.
If Mashnee was inviting,
Hog Island was exclusionary.
If Mashnee had soft beaches,
Hog Island had deadly cliffs.
If Mashnee had calm waters to swim with roped–off areas of safety,
Jump into the tumultuous tidal flow off Hog Island,
And die.
If Mashnee featured good clean living and old-fashioned family fun, Hog Island countered with the lore of decadence and shrouded mystery.
Nobody ever saw a cop or God-forbid a parent up there, and the Army Corps of Engineers security patrols were infrequent and easy to spot. Once in a while there’d be a maintenance crew working detail on the channel marker with its finicky lights, but those guys could care less about teenagers.
So, naturally we liked to hang out there. It also wasn’t unusual for me to run up there from time to time adding the off-pavement training to my daily running repertoire. Occasionally I’d stop to chat with the fishermen, watching them cast their lines for stripers and bluefish as the diving seagulls mercilessly complained about the theft of their rightful prey.
The one thing I really noticed about fishermen, perhaps because they blend so seamlessly into any coastal landscape, certainly including Hog Island, was that they see a lot and what’s more, they know a lot.
After riding our bikes the short distance up the dike then heading around the sign forbidding entry, we rode down the well-worn, narrow path that cut through the center of the island.
The path’s bumpy, root-swollen terrain was bordered tightly on both sides by wind-angled trees along with dense thickets filled with thorns and poison ivy as deterrents to unauthorized visitors. But we spent hours climbing over rocks, jumping over stumps, peering behind trees, picking over wind-blown trash, and generally looking everywhere for we’re-not-sure-what, before resigning ourselves to failure and wolfing down all four sandwiches.
Hog Island would relinquish no clues today. The guys wanted to walk down along the dike beaches, traditionally frequented by offislanders, mostly from Gray Gables, but I was adamant that we start on the Mashnee Beach side, just beyond the shuffleboard courts and work our way toward the much rockier terrain along Captains Row. For once I wasn’t overruled, so we biked over, haphazardly tossing our current modes of transport toward the bike rack, situated right alongside the amazingly adaptable Rugosa Beach rose bushes. Then, barefoot as always, we’d head down the beach to explore, although perhaps hunt would be more accurate.
Despite our best attempts to take this expedition seriously, I gotta admit we were spending most of the investigation horsing around and
Skipping Stones;
Finding perfection.
Particular about,
Our selections.
Counting on their thin, rounded edges to,
Barely make
Contact with the hopefully accommodating lull,
In the ocean’s flow.
