I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore on this dismal, unfortunate island, which I called “The Island of Despair,” but which had a far more sinister name, as I would later learn.
After five and twenty years alone, I encountered a soul on the beach, naked save for a gold wristwatch, tight breeches, and dark spectacles he called his ’Ray-Rays.” I named him Friday, after the day I first saw him, which he later abridged to FDay. (In his language, he called himself “Zaden R.,” a name I deemed unsuitable.)
FDay was a comely, handsome fellow, with straight strong limbs and abdominal muscles in the shape of a washboard, which I longed to employ to scour my waistcoat, a washboard not being one of the items I had salvaged from the shipwreck. His rudimentary English consisted of phrases like, “You party?,” “Holla,” and “You up?” “Yes, I am up, FDay,” I would reply. “Why do you keep asking me that?” I sensed that this phrase had great meaning among his people.
I read FDay the Bible daily, hoping to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind, but the only story that interested him was King David’s, specifically the part about sending Uriah to die in battle so he could fornicate with Bathsheba. “Sweet move,” FDay would say, nodding seriously. “King David sounds like an FBoy.” I learned that FDay came from a people called the FBoys, who were constantly feuding with their enemies: the “nice guys” and the “women.”
A powerful man, FDay would lift heavy weights over his head and then put them down again, repeating this process many times. He called this a “rep,” and steadfastly refused to apply his brute force to anything productive, despite my gentle prodding. He did express interest in building a “hot tub,” some sort of giant cooking pot for humans, but I was against this morally. I inquired of his profession, hoping he might say smith or shipbuilder, skills sorely needed in this remote place. “Influencer,” he replied, an occupation that I had no use for on this island, and neither did anyone else anywhere, as far as I could tell.
One day, scouring my tunic on his abdomen, I asked FDay how he had come to this isle. “FBoy Island?” he said. It was then that I learned the diabolical name of this place. “We came in from Miami a few weeks ago. We’re staying at a sweet mansion just over the hill.”
“There are others on this island!” I exclaimed, scaling the tall hill and training my perspective glass on a mass of near-naked simpletons drinking what FDay called “Red Bull and vodka” around a pool. “Do you know how to get off the island?”
“You see those three babes? You need to convince one of them to date you, which is unlikely because you’re old and gross.”
To his credit, FDay styled my beard into an attractive cut, helped me develop a tooth-whitening regimen, and convinced me to exchange the crude hat I had fashioned out of a goat hide for a white straw fedora. Thus prepared, I wandered over and scored a date with a social media manager, whereupon we rode a shallow canoe called a “paddleboard.” In the middle of our outing, I speared a turtle through the neck, thinking this would impress her and also unwilling to let such a toothsome quarry escape. To my surprise, she described it as “a total deal breaker.”
After the date, a Bitcoin merchant with a “man bun” and I were excommunicated by the tribe at a solemn gathering of men in unbuttoned shirts. Before heading back to my side of the island, I extended my hand to FDay.
“Come with me and be saved, FDay,” I said. “Though my side of the island lacks Instagram and bottle service, you will find a refuge for your soul.”
“Don’t lecture me, RC. You tried to make me, some random guy on the beach, your servant. Also, you got shipwrecked here while on a slaving mission.”
“Well,” I thought, as I scrambled over the rocks and back to my home, “he does have a point there.”