In the Shadow of the Cypress (2 page)

By any definition, Mr. O’Flynn is a unique-looking individual. Roughly in his midforties, weathered and apparently used to hard labor, the man comes across as keen and observant, and considering his lack of formal education, he shows good sense in most all things. His novel appearance, despite his being born in Ireland and saddled with a brogue broad enough to occasionally make his speech almost incomprehensible, bespeaks a colorful parentage. He once volunteered that his mother’s people were of Moorish blood. “All thoroughgoing Gypsies to the bone,” he said, and “all armed to the teeth with endless batteries of the most chilling curses imaginable.” He had thus inherited his mother’s soft, dark complexion and black eyes, as
well as a moderate knowledge of European Spanish, which our local Mexican population disdains for historical reasons.

Mr. O’Flynn’s father, according to his son’s recollection, was “a large and dangerous fellow with a ruddy, moon-pocked face, and hair as red-crested as God makes a peckerwood.” As a result, the young man also inherited a prodigious mane of copper-bright curls. And though he possesses marginally pleasant features, and a muscular physique tempered by hard labor, the abiding contrast between his dark Mediterranean complexion and his vivid red crown of hair is truly a most striking sight to behold. One never quite gets used to his appearance. Every time I came across him at his duties, it was like a novelty surprise all over again.

Only once did Mr. O’Flynn reveal a portion of his history to me, and to this day, knowing his verbal habits as I do, I can’t imagine what inspired him to do so. It was on the day that he first applied to me for part-time work at Hopkins Laboratory. I suppose that, as I was the prospective employer, he felt somehow compelled to reveal that he “first drew breath overlooking the tar-blackened docks of Cork.” His father was a brawling shipyard-pipe fitter, “built like a Birmingham brickbat, but lacking all the wit and modesty God gave a cobblestone.”

Mr. O’Flynn gave me to understand that when he was fourteen years old he escaped Ireland altogether. His father, he said, had long since matriculated well beyond his amateur standing as a tavern tippler, and had gone on to become a renowned professional whiskey drinker. This all-too-common situation, with its predisposition toward physical cruelty, evidently distressed the family sorely. At last Mr. O’Flynn’s long-suffering mother
felt she had endured more than enough. Circumstances obliged her to call forth her mortal quiver of Gypsy curses. Two days
later, the senior O’Flynn was discovered facedown in a rain-filled gutter. The coroner formally declared that the notorious and unrepentant boozer had drowned in three inches of rainwater.

I record this here only in passing, because this tragic incident seems to have deeply influenced Mr. O’Flynn, for as far as I can deduce, he has always expressed a total aversion to alcohol. He impresses me as the driest Irishman I have ever encountered. He has for some years been confirmed to the Methodist faith and vehemently speaks against the use of spirits, as well as “all those misbegotten fools what do indulge.”

On the whole, I have always found Mr. O’Flynn a man of simple, if somewhat cautious, honesty. As far as I can discern, he has always spoken the truth, but only as much truth as warranted by the question. On most occasions his natural reticence induces him to say as little as possible, and with the greatest circumspection. Unlike most of his race, Mr. O’Flynn never indulges in idle conversation or even bemused observation. In fact, for an Irishman, he exhibits not the least vestige of Celtic humor. However, he is at all times a stable, capable, and dependable worker, whose efforts rarely if ever draw the slightest criticism from myself, or the laboratory staff.

When Mr. O’Flynn first applied to me for a job, he stated that he had worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad for twelve years. He said he had started as a gandy dancer and worked his way up to roadbed foreman with a crew of twenty men to supervise. Then one day a slowly passing engine accidentally ruptured a steam release valve on a piston feed line and badly scalded Mr. O’Flynn and four of his crew. Two of his Chinese workers later succumbed to their burns by way of infection, and O’Flynn almost died himself. Happily, he was pulled back from the brink through the careful ministrations of his hard-nosed
Portuguese wife. She bartered housecleaning chores for burn creams and pain medications; these were compounded for her by Charles K. Tuttle’s Pharmacy and given to her at cost. When he later asked the Southern Pacific regional manager for compensation to cover the expense of his injuries, Mr. O’Flynn was given seventy-five dollars and told that he need not come back to work, as his position had been filled in his absence.

The Chinese victims of the accident received forty-five dollars each, and the families of the dead were given thirty-five dollars to help defray burial costs. These latter particulars concerning Mr. O’Flynn I eventually learned from Mr. Tuttle, but only after I’d already engaged Mr. O’Flynn on a part-time basis. Indeed, once I understood the man’s predicament, I found myself quite pleased to be of some small assistance in his financial restitution.

I soon discovered that Mr. O’Flynn kept himself adequately solvent by working six part-time jobs every week. On Mondays and Tuesdays he worked for the county on a road maintenance crew. On Wednesdays he came to us. He was taught how to properly clean fish tanks and assisted with all the equipment maintenance at the laboratory. Thursdays O’Flynn worked making deliveries for Tuttle’s Pharmacy, or carefully dusting the hundreds of large glass-stopped medicine bottles that lined all the walls. On Fridays he ran a steam-saw for Thomas Work’s wood yard. But Saturdays were O’Flynn’s special delight, for he alternated between carting and stocking at Steiner’s grocery store and working at Mr. Hay’s ice cream parlor. He cleaned the large copper kettles in the candy kitchen and redressed and oiled the stone taffy tables. A bemused Mr. Tuttle helped him find these additional jobs when he realized that Mr. O’Flynn was in possession of a sweet tooth the size of Seal Rock. The
proprietors of both establishments proved very generous with free samples and token prices. His Sundays were just as regular. The mornings were spent worshipping at the First Methodist Church on Lighthouse Road. And, weather permitting, his Sunday afternoons were dedicated to fishing for the Sabbath table with his Portuguese father-in-law. In general, one would appraise all of Mr. O’Flynn’s habits as quite regular, sober, and disciplined. I must here record that these factors, like the man’s sobriety, are indisputable facts that should be taken into account for later consideration.

There was one additional curious facet to Mr. O’Flynn’s social intercourse within the local community. Though he seemed to possess few friends besides relatives acquired through marriage, he spent much of his free time in the company of his Chinese acquaintances. In particular, he was often seen associating with the well-to-do proprietor of a successful Chinese laundry in Pacific Grove. This rather popular fellow goes by the name of Master Ah Chung. O’Flynn has also been known to keep company with Ah Chung’s younger brother Jim Len. I have since been informed that despite all modest appearances to the contrary, both these gentlemen are alleged to be heavily involved in diverse business interests up and down the California coast. It is widely believed that they receive lucrative stipends from the Three Corporations of San Francisco. This mysterious organization represents the most powerful Chinese clans in California. It is under the auspices of these secretive and financially powerful families that ninety percent of all Chinese imports and exports are bought and sold.

The improbability of our Mr. O’Flynn enjoying social congress with the Chinese stood out as an oddity, until I recalled that he had worked for years supervising Chinese road gangs for
the Southern Pacific. And it appears that during his time in that capacity he learned to speak a fair smattering of Cantonese, which I understand is the predominant dialect spoken among our local Chinese.

I discovered these obtuse facts quite incidentally one summer day about thirteen months after Mr. O’Flynn came to work for us at Hopkins. One afternoon a Chinese fisherman and his wife came to visit the laboratory from China Point. They accompanied a rude donkey cart that had been tailored to carry a shallow wooden tub four feet in diameter. The tub had a two-sided hinged lid to keep its contents from splashing out. As they walked along, the fisherman’s wife worked a clever double-channeled hand-bellows. This device, I later learned, pumped a steady flow of air into the tub through a hose end wrapped in a sponge. They had come to our laboratory with a very rare specimen indeed. It was a small, black-skinned, deepwater shark. They had caught the ruby-eyed creature on a deep trotline over the Monterey marine canyon.

I should note that there are a good number of Chinese fishermen on the bay who specialize in hunting unusual species of marine life specifically for their use in an assortment of esoteric Chinese pharmacopoeias. I’m given to understand that the export market for these perplexing products is thriving. Commodities like preserved sea cucumbers, sea urchins, needle fish roe, basking shark eggs, and various species of small kelp crabs and azure-colored sea snails are in great demand. All these and many more are highly prized, and can easily pull their weight in gold or silver on the export tallies.

The visiting fisherman and his wife bowed and introduced themselves in thick pidgin English. The man said that Master Ah Chung had sent them along with something special.

As my negotiations for the exotic shark continued, our Mr. O’Flynn suddenly appeared. Smiling broadly, and in a torrent of pidgin Chinese, Mr. O’Flynn suddenly greeted the fisherman as an old acquaintance. They spoke together rapidly for a moment, and then O’Flynn turned to me and asked what price the fisherman asked for the shark. I told him we had settled on a price of two dollars. Mr. O’Flynn quickly confirmed this with the fisherman, and then turned back to me and said, “For two dollars he’s making you a present of the fish, and he’s delivered it more or less alive, no mean feat if you ask me, but he’s done it only at Master Ah Chung’s insistence. You can safely wager there’s some binding obligation involved. To be sure, you’re barely paying for this fellow’s time. He tells me the shark’s liver alone is worth five dollars, and the tanned skin another twelve. I’ll be begging your pardon for the impertinence, Professor, but if I were you I’d up and give this good fellow eight dollars. That way he can honorably fulfill Mr. Ah Chung’s instructions and perchance realize a pittance of profit so as to save face with his family.”

O’Flynn grinned, winked, and went on. “Mark what I say, Professor, the good word will soon race about that you’re an honest man of business, and before you can recite the saints’ names, you’ll be up to your braces in all manner of fishy God-knows-what.”

I managed the transaction just as Mr. O’Flynn had so earnestly recommended, but I did so in a confused fog of amazement at his hitherto unknown, and totally unsuspected, ability to make himself perfectly well understood in brogue-laced pidgin Chinese. I was dumbfounded to say the least, but I paid out the eight dollars all the same, and was later happy to have done so, for we managed, with constant diligence, to keep this rare specimen alive and healthy for almost fifteen weeks.

The fisherman and his wife were quite pleased with the arrangement, and a minor festival of bowing, smiling, and amicable chatter ensued. It was then I noticed that the fisherman and his wife treated Mr. O’Flynn with particular deference that entailed bowing even lower with hands clasped together as if in prayer. I found this more amusing than interesting, and didn’t reflect on its significance at the time.

After I had instructed some of my more stalwart students to transfer the exhausted shark to one of the large, bay-fed tanks, the proud fisherman and his wife happily took their leave. I recall that they departed in the company of our Mr. O’Flynn, all the while chirping a seemingly endless exchange of Cantonese salutations and polite laughter.

The discovery of O’Flynn’s hidden linguistic talents opened new and vigorous channels for acquiring specific species for our research and preservation. Mr. O’Flynn even suggested that a reasonable bounty be paid for specimens delivered alive and in reasonable health. This we did to great effect. The demand for our scientifically preserved laboratory specimens had grown fivefold in five years. We at Hopkins soon found we were servicing six other universities, as well as smaller research institutions. We even managed to set aside a complete catalog of preserved specimens to satisfy the needs of the state biologists for whom the Hopkins Marine Station is almost a second home.

Mr. O’Flynn, though he was only employed every Wednesday, made his presence felt by the ongoing delivery of marine specimens from the various Chinese fishing villages. Due to his admonitions and the bounties offered, all but the most delicate or vulnerable creatures were delivered alive. We even occasionally received (free of charge) orphaned sea otter kits, sea lion pups, and the odd storm-stressed, fledgling pelican.
In all respects, Mr. O’Flynn had quickly proved so successful acting as our purchasing agent that we soon were at liberty to offer him a decent commission on all accepted purchases, and a five percent wage increase. He expressed himself completely satisfied with this arrangement, though he insisted on an understanding that should we “find ourselves in want of anything particularly big and dangerous,” he wanted the right to renegotiate terms to compensate for the obvious increased risk all around. Personally amused by imagining what exact picture Mr. O’Flynn envisioned for such unspoken dangers, I so stipulated, and it was all agreed.

Since then, I’m pleased to recall the intervening years at Hopkins have passed most agreeably and very constructively, with Hopkins functioning well, albeit at a metered academic gait. And over time Mr. O’Flynn and I have become better acquainted, but only marginally better than I am with most of my own students. As I have previously stated, he is not a fellow who reveals much if he can help it. But after working for the laboratory for a few years, O’Flynn had come to witness a great many marine oddities; most of these specimens he never would have even suspected of existing. This novel if mostly untutored interest seems to have led him to indulge in a sincere if arcane Methodist interpretation of the Creation. In that vein Mr. O’Flynn’s interest became remarkably focused, if not fixated upon the more bizarre and seemingly pointless examples of “the Almighty’s Grand Design.” Creatures “kin” to the common flea, or the “blood-hungry” mosquito, were most assuredly of Satan’s dark creation. “And I ask you honestly, Professor, just what purpose would a caring Christian God have for a man-killing jellyfish no bigger than a nickel? It just doesn’t make sense in the great scheme of heaven’s design.”