From a reading delivered in November in Richmond, Virginia.

We began to figure it out on day eleven or twelve of the seven-day trip, the slate and obsidian waves rolling under our stern, the crispy hoarfrost of whitecap foam seeding in our beards, the wind spitting ice in our eyes. This was before the barometer’s bottom dropped out, the other trawlers throttling hard west to any port, the last one trading us trash bags of Kool-Aid for our best porn, our fresh water gone, the cook melting hold ice to drink, crossing bows and heaving the bags across, our mad captain sucking his dentures, his Greek fisherman’s cap and bedroom slippers in the wheelhouse. We knew we’d never leave these grounds until we’d dredged the last remaining shellfish a million miles offshore, but we were going to be rich if we ever made it home. We knew that. In our nasty foul-weather gear on the rail and stern, the elevator ride of ten stories up and down in seconds, shucking, flinging the guts and shell overboard, the precious flesh meat pulsing in our gloves and buckets between the violent tons of iron dredges, dripping seabed mud and treasure and dying fish, the slippery decks, we were going to be rich. We knew that. We knew Mr. Howell, the millionaire, was fucking Ginger, the movie star. We knew the Professor was fucking Mary Ann, the farm girl. She would not give him anal. Not until they were rescued and got married. On their honeymoon, she would give the Professor anal. We knew this before day eighteen, when we were still in the money, knowing we’d be the high-money boat in the creek, so low in the water already with the catch in our hold. We knew the Skipper was fucking Gilligan in their hut. We knew that to be true. The weather, black thick cushions of clouds around us and the ocean belly thrusting us up in the sullen sky where there was never sun nor stars. We had told every joke we knew, sung all the songs we knew. Every hour brought thousands of pounds of treasure dripping on deck, our mad captain inking out the last of our fuel. Twenty-one days out. So one afternoon, when the Skipper is buggering Gilligan, Gilligan pulls the filet knife from his hammock and slides it under the Skipper’s sternum so that he can feel it ticking against the Skipper’s fading heart. Gilligan carefully removes the Skipper’s head and, blood-smeared naked, goes to the other side of the island and joins the cannibals living there and throws the Skipper’s head at their feet. On his way past the lagoon, Gilligan passes Mrs. Howell, who has been trying to drown herself but never has the nerve, always coming and standing dripping wet in the doorway to the Howells’ hut, Mr. Howell lounging in his hammock with his thoughts of Ginger. Outside, on the picnic table, the Professor tries to recharge the dead batteries to the radio with seawater and a bamboo tube. He has to get off this island.