the parrot fish

There is, apparently, and I have this on no good authority, a Chamorro legend about a parrot fish.

The legend goes that sometime, presumably long ago, a giant parrot fish was devouring the island. I'm not exactly sure how a parrot fish does that, but it was.

But no one could figure out exactly where the parrot fish was hiding, and daily it was consuming more and more of the island -- so much that ancient residents feared the island would break in half.

(Like that one congressman dude).

The answer to this quandary came from a spring where the culprit parrot fish was found to be hiding in between munching on rocks and trees and coral and other such tasty snacks.

Chamorro women frequented the pool -- washing their hair, or clothes with orange and lime or some kind of citrus fruit -- and cast the rinds into the water.

The rinds floated down into the cavern connecting the secret parrot fish lair to edible parts of the island, and great Chamorro warriors vanquished the fish.

And the island was saved.

This legend -- which I have loosely interpreted from no particular source -- and the promise of seeing something new on an island where all the caves and ridges and jungle and odd corners have been explored, by someone, sometime, was enough to motivate an expedition.

The problem is that neither I, nor my banged-up-truck-driving fellow expeditioner, knew where the spring was. And as we drove around in circles, up and down hills on little roads leading to jungle turnarounds and cramped flat-roofed houses with menacing garages -- it became clear that no one else did.

Half the problem was that we went around in circles in Agana Springs (the village), looking for Agana Springs (the springs) -- and everyone who warily and bemusedly gave us directions seemed to think we were looking for the village, and thus sent us down one set of hills, or up another, before we realized that we had done this before.

At last, we found a friendly middle-aged lady, and asked where "Agana Springs, the springs" was.

"Oh, you don't want to go there," she said.

She proceeded to warn us not to go in the water -- alluding to what I can only assume are unspeakable environmental horrors of days past.

Because I am like this, it also seemed to be a warning that you give to stupid non-locals (there's a Hawaiian word that is used liberally here on Guam for white people, but I don't know how to spell it) who are looking for a muddy pool haunted with the spirits of an ancient vanquished parrot fish.

Our environmentally conscious friend gave us directions anyway, which actually got us where we were going -- more specifically she pointed out the water pump station, behind which the pool is now located.

Even then, it took a little investigating behind bamboo scaffolding and down paths marred with old refrigerators and TVs to find the actual springs.

Not so much a springs anymore, it was more of a dank pool, still populated with fish, but tiny ones -- and no giant island-eating parrot fish to be found.

It was brown, and a little sad, and probably incredibly polluted.

It was also alive  -- with trees and bamboo and a sloping jungle cover that persisted despite all efforts to exorcise the beautiful.

I like it, and imagined that someday the pool will be resurrected as a home to mythical creatures, long after pumping stations have melted into jungle.

Sometimes that's good enough.