LOST: The Remains - chapter six - "That Man Was George"

LOST: The Remains
Napoleon Park
Chapter Six
“That Man Was George.”
-------------------------

Fay Dentine's wounds did not become infected and she healed quite well and surprisingly quickly. Her arm remained rough looking and her face had a jagged lightning bolt of a scar from hairline to chin, but she was alive and healthy.

If this were cheap melodrama she would have been a model or actress or a vain seductress who took her sense of self worth from her great beauty. But Fay was no great beauty and never was. She was a divorced woman living in an urban setting with her mother. She carefully tended a large window box and a dozen or so potted plants and wished she had a garden.

I hate to admit this, I know how shallow it makes me seem. I have met women in my life who I am sure would have been very good women in I had made the effort to get to know them. But because of a pea-sized wart above the eyelid or a port wine birthmark on the cheek or a large dark mole on the neck I never made that effort. I made an effort to not look, but the harder I tried, the more the insignificant flaw was the only thing I could see.

I don't know if anyone could look at Fay and not see the jagged line running down the right side of her face. The island had done it's healing magic, but Dr. Ranjimurtha was a dentist, not a plastic surgeon. He had done his best as well, and saved her life, and certainly that was enough.

She was a good woman. She helped people. She was one of the people who read books to Mr. Healey, the man who had lost his glasses. She helped look after Jenny, the disturbed "Bikini Girl". But she got tired of having people look unblinkingly at the right side of her face when they spoke with her. Or not look at her at all.

When they found the caves with the waterfall several of the people moved up there while some remained on the beach in case a ship or plane passed by. Eventually a cave collapsed and Shephard, who never seemed to get tired of living up to his name and leading people around from place to place, told everyone to move back to the beach.

Not everyone listened. There were many safe, dry, comfortable passages in the caves and people had brought cushions from the plane and parachute silk and laid down straw mats for carpeting. Fay and Healey stayed in the caves and she cleared a spot and had the garden she always wanted.

Kirby Pollock, the cartoonist, stayed at the caves as well. So did Tony Hemingway, the "botanist".

George Benton was a strong man, a construction worker. He did more than his share of the labor, fetching logs for bonfires, collecting and crushing rocks and shells for rough concrete and adobe. He helped Stuart Lloyd the architect build up our little enclave. There was the cabin, which I have mentioned. And the shack, a smaller version where George settled down with Gemma Cotton, who he had never met until they both helped save Fay Dentine's life.

There was also an outhouse - a good solid structure with a solid foundation.

Then there was the kitchen. A large open patio under a roof. A small clean room in the back where Chef Raezynski butchered animals. A stone barbeque with a metal airplane ventilation grating for a grill. And a stone lined barbeque pit large enough to roast boar.

This is what George made. This is how he spent his time on the Island. This is what he did. He built.

One day there was an attack by men with assault weapons. One of them came up behind the blond man called Sawyer and aimed his gun. His finger began to close on the trigger. And George Benton stepped in front of the man and reached up and with one hand on the back of the mans head and the other on the side of his jaw he twisted the man's head around so it faced backwards. The man's hand spasmodically clenched on the trigger of his gun and a burst of shells nearly cut George Benton in half across the chest.

Sawyer turned, startled, and saw as both men dropped to the ground. They were both dead before they landed.

"Who the hell was that?" Sawyer wondered aloud.

That man was George Benton and he died paying a debt.