The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [36]
He responded with a knowing laugh that I didn’t like.
“What?” I demanded.
“Oh, what refreshing naïveté to think that this is the isolated work of a couple of Dos Equis–swilling punks with Freudian hangups,” said Benjamin.
“Er … what else would it be?”
He looked out across the sea, a troubled cast settling over his bewhiskered face. “I’ve long suspected their existence. But I never thought I’d see evidence like this.”
“Evidence of what?!”
Benjamin paused before answering, his eyes narrowing and his fists curling. “FLAME,” he finally intoned. “Our dark inverse.”
I looked to the sign again, but I found no guidance there. “All right,” I said, “I give up. I’ll bite. What does FLAME mean?”
“The Fiendish League for Advancing Mistakes in English,” he replied, shaking his head at my astonishing ignorance. “Or, as they would have it, Feindish Leege 4 Addvancen Missteaks n Englesh. Even as we roam the nation performing good grammatical deeds, my dear Deck, I fear these villains are doing the same with acts of absolute evil.”
After a significant pause, he added, “And … Great Scott, I just realized …” I sighed in exasperation as I waited for him to continue. “I didn’t pack any swim trunks,” he said. “I can’t go for a swim when we get there.”
Leaving the perverse (and probably wholly imaginary) world of FLAME behind for the time being, we returned to the drive, watching the stilt houses go by. Eventually we came to the end of the road, or at least the end for cars lacking amphibian outfitting. I had seen the (belated) warning from Authority several miles back that there would be a ferry involved. I hadn’t forgotten the off-season ferry debacle back in North Carolina, but I figured this time, since we were headed for an island, and a touristy one at that, the ferry had to be running. To my delight, we saw a queue of cars, and a boat hove into view on distant waters. Here the ferry ran year-round, and was free, what a bonus!
We drove Callie onto the ferry and then stood at the rail, watching the Gulf, as the vessel chugged on toward the island. Earlier in the day, I had booked us a room at a hostel that promised easy access to the beach. When we arrived at the place, we saw that they hadn’t been kidding; we were steps away from white sands. It was a dive hotel with a few rooms converted to hostel space, somewhat dingy, but hey, we were men of humble tastes. We gulped down the last of Abby’s scones and then pulled on our trunks (or, in Benjamin’s case, changed from jeans into shorts) for a late-afternoon dip in the ocean and some relaxation—er, I mean, a trip to ensure that the beach was free of typos. Though we did find and fix an error on the entrance sign, the excursion was more for a moment of rest for these weary travelers. I called Jane, stuck in frozen and miserable New England, from my beach towel. Benjamin, absorbed in his Frank Herbert book, didn’t even go into the water.
Evening fell, and we realized that we still needed to do more typo hunting to justify our earlier lounging. We took off on foot and found a couple of typos in touristy locales reminiscent of Myrtle Beach, but the most memorable (and notorious) discovery of the night took place in an abandoned miniature golf course off Seawall Boulevard. We were walking back to the hostel, since Benjamin and I had thought our search to be over, but then I spied the shack with its dubious legend. From the look I caught on Benjamin’s face, he must have seen it at the same time. Together we clambered down the incline and walked over turf and concrete.
“Arr,” I mused at the sight of the little wooden structure astride the green. DAVY JONES LOCKER, it said in painted white letters. Surely someone possessed this locker, and it was not merely named Davy Jones. A crucial mark was missing. Benjamin inquired, Watson-like, as to my implement of correction. We didn’t have a white marker of any sort. I had already fumbled for the elixir that would grant Davy Jones the soundest sleep, and I held it up for my friend. “Could be a lot of Wite-Out,” he said, hesitating,