The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (2 page)

I sipped my Scotch and looked at the two young men.
They looked terrific. It seems, of late, that anyone under thirty
looks terrific.

Mary called me into the kitchen. I left Jack and Andy
standing in front of the fireplace, beers in hand, playing with the
dogs. Tony was due at the Breakers the next day—Saturday noon. The
sea would be kicking up like crazy in Chatham, I thought, rolling
right over the outer bar and swamping the small craft in the
shallows. It was storms like these that made me appreciate our
protected location high on a bluff on the sheltered bay side of the
Cape.

With the storm raging outside, the fire and the smell
of food in the cottage, and our sons joining us for the weekend, Mary
and I were in a warm, cozy mood. I cranked open a bottle of Chenin
blanc and put the mussels, still in their purplish-black shells, into
the steamer. I asked Mary if she wanted to hear some music, but she
said she'd rather just listen to the storm. It would be another
fifteen minutes for the mussels, so I went back and joined the young
men in the living room.

"Okay," I said, "tell me the latest
from Woods Hole. Andy, has your situation improved any?"

"You mean with my lab supervisor? Hell no; it's
coming close to trashing my whole summer."

"C'mon," said Jack, "Hartzell's not
that bad. In fact, I kinda like him. 'Course, I don't have to see him
more than a few minutes a week—"

"Hmmmmph."' Andy grunted into his beer mug.
"You're lucky. If you worked for the guy, you wouldn't be saying
that." He paused and sipped his beer. "You know, I really
and truly think the guy's a little nuts. Really. What's worst of all
are his mood swings. One minute, he's okay. Next thing you know, he's
hitting the roof. Like today, Dr. Adams—"

"Call me Doc. Everybody does; I don't even
answer to 'Dr. Adams' anymore."

"Okay, Doc. So today, we all knew there was this
big storm coming. So I ask him, can Jack and I leave early today,
since we're going up to Eastham for the weekend. Well, he blows his
stack. 'I want you in that lab until four o'clock, Cunningham! I've
got a data run that can't wait and I've been planning it, and blah,
blah,' you know. Guy's a real turkey."

"Well, what the hell, Andy," said Jack.
"You know how it is with bio labs. You get the specimens all
primed, the equipment all set up—"

"
I know, but get this: after I get in there and
start running the experiments, Hartzell leaves! I turn around and
there he is in his raincoat, saying he's got an important errand to
run. Guy's gone over an hour, with me stuck in Lillie Hall and the
sky's getting darker by the minute. Our roommate, Tom McDonnough,
says he saw his car driving past our house. So why does he get to
leave when I have to stay and worry about his goddamn tunicates?"

"Tunicates?"

"Sea squirts, Dr. Adams. I mean, Doc. Sea
squirts are Hartzell's babies. We go through 'em by the bushel. He's
working on a way for them to concentrate silver from sea water. Gonna
make himself a billion dollars—"

"What? Sea squirts? Silver? A billion dollars?
What are you—"

Mary interrupted us with some hummus and pita bread,
then sat down with her glass of white, gazing at the fire and patting
Danny, the yellow Lab, on his wide head.

"Sea squirts are marine organisms that
concentrate various elements in their tissues," Andy explained.
"They concentrate vanadium to such an extent that there's been
talk of growing sea squirts for that reason alone. Now old Hartzell,
my lab supervisor himself, is figuring out a way to get them to
concentrate silver."

"Can he do it?" I asked.

"Well, that's the tricky part," interjected
Jack. "And that's why he's so paranoid about his research data.
In fact, Hartzell thinks Andy's trying to steal his secrets, doesn't
he, Andy?"

"Yeah. Me or somebody. But he's convinced it's
somebody our age. Some 'young punk,' as he calls us. He calls me that
one more time and, so help me, I'm gonna level him."

Andy shook his balled list in anger. I was glad I
didn't have a boss. Having a lousy boss must be hell.

"Let's go back a sec," said Mary. "You
say he's training these little animals to gather silver from sea
water? I didn't know sea water had any silver in it."

"Sea water's got a lot of valuable stuff in it,"
said Andy. "They say that a cubic mile of sea water has as much
gold in it as all the bullion in Fort Knox."

"No! You're kidding!”

"Well, something like that, Mom. Problem is, how
do you commercially extract it? Well, old man Hartzell's got these
little sea squirts—"

"
Yeah, and he's watching 'em inhale that brine
and spit it out again," Andy continued, "hoping that the
concentrations of silver are going to build up in their slimy, stinky
little bodies so that he can throw 'em into a furnace and,
voila!
Silverado!"

"Problem is, he's got you doing all the shit
work," said Jack, "and accusing you of stealing on top of
it all."

"Not just me. He keeps saying it's 'all you
young, spoiled kids who never had to work.' Well, I keep saying to
him, 'Dr. Hartzell, you may not believe this, but I'm a poor kid,
too. My old man's a car salesman in Pawtucket who's worked his ass to
a nub for twenty years, sending me to prep schools and then to Yale.
Worked sixty-, eighty-hour weeks to pay the bills. My mom, too. What
do you say to that?' "

"Really?" I asked. "All of that is
true?"

"Yep. And as expensive as med school is, I'm
taking no more money from them. They've done way, way more than
enough. I told them I was getting a free ride all the way through,
based on my past performance. Of course it isn't true; I'm in hock up
to my neck. But I don't want them working like that anymore.
Especially him. He had a heart attack last year; the next one's gonna
kill him . .

He lowered his keen blue eyes briefly. "That's
what sealed Hopkins for me," he continued in a low voice.
"They're giving me more money."

"Why is Lionel Hartzell so obsessed with
somebody stealing his data?" asked Mary.

"Because he's nuts. That's what I've come to
think. Now Jack here likes the guy. But like I said, Jack isn't
working for him."

Jack got up, grabbed Danny by his big neck, and
hugged him. The Lab wagged his tail, batting it against a cabinet
door and making a sound like a bass drum in a parade: whump! whump!
whump!

"I don't really like him; I just don't hate him
the way you do, Andy. And you gotta admit, you do antagonize him."

"You keep saying that."

"Well, let's go in, the mussels are done,"
said Mary, and we followed her into the dining room.

An hour later, just as Mary took the lasagna out of
the oven, the power went out and we found ourselves in the dark
except for the fire and the candles on the mantel above. We scurried
around lighting lamps and candles, and soon were operational again.
The low light and pounding rain made the place even cozier. Andy
asked if the power outage would affect the telephone. A quick lift of
the receiver proved it had not. Then we sat down to cat.

"No wine?" asked Mary, holding the bottle
over Andy's glass, which he had covered with his hand.

"No thanks, Mary. I already had two beers, and
that's all I should have."

"Well, he's certainly not a member of this
tribe," said Mary, hoisting her glass.

"The reason is medical," Andy said softly.
Since he did not elaborate, we let the subject drop. Dinner was just
about over when Mary asked the question.

"Wel1, have either of you guys fallen in love
yet?" she said. She asked nonchalantly, as if to make
conversation. But it didn't work; a solemn hush fell over the table.

"Did I say something wrong?" she finally
asked.

"Nope," said Jack, spooning lasagna into
his mouth. More silence.

"Hey. Don't everybody talk at once," she
said.

As if following her advice, nobody did. Mary and I
took the dishes over to the sink. She endured the unexplained silence
another minute or so, then spun around.

"All right you guys," she demanded, "what
the hell's going on?”

"You tell her," said Andy.

"Me? Why should I tell her? She's you're
friend."

"Well, she was your friend, too."

"Yeah. Was. Was my friend . . ."

"Is anybody gonna tell me, or am I going to die
waiting?" said Mary.

"
Maybe it's private," I suggested. Mary
waved me away, so I excused myself, went to my chair in the living
room, and lighted a pipe, listening to the rain. I could hear them
around the corner.

"Okay, what happened was, I met this girl down
there at the beginning of the summer, in June, and was going out with
her. Then Andy comes along and, well, takes her away from me."

"Uh-uh," I said, butting in from around the
corner. "Nobody steals a woman away from you. A woman leaves
because she's unhappy, but she isn't stolen away. That's a myth."

"Thanks a lot, Dad."

Mary poked her head around the corner, frowning.
"When we want your opinion, Charlie, we'll ask for it."

Then I heard her voice: "Okay, tell me all about
it. Everything. I want to hear it all."

"Her name is Alice Henderson. She's enrolled in
the SEA program—that's an ocean-going school—and cruises on the
Westward. Her dad's one of the biggest commercial fishermen around
Buzzards Bay. She's studying liberal arts. Maybe she'll go into
biology. Who knows?"

That was Andy talking. Now Mary:

"How'd you happen to meet her, Jackie?"

"We met at the Kidd."

"Oh, we know the Kidd," said Mary,
referring to Woods Hole's best-known bar and nightspot, the Cap'n
Kidd.

"Let's get back to the lovely Alice Henderson,"
I said, walking around the corner and joining the group. "You
guys still are friends, aren't you?"

"Huh, oh, sure," said Jack. Then it was
Andy's turn to speak, looking down at the kitchen floor.

"See, when I met Alice, she'd been seeing Jack
only a couple of weeks. I met her through her brother Terry, who
works on his dad's boat, the Highlander. We were just talking one day
when she came up, and we went out to get a Coke, you know—"

"And the next thing I knew," continued
Jack, "she was seeing both of us. That was for about a week.
Then just Andy. But hey, it's no big deal." His mouth was
smiling, but his eyes weren't.

Andy continued staring at the floor. He said: "She
said maybe it was a big deal, Jack. That you were kinda like real
down about it. So, hey, what can I say, I'm sorry—"

"Well, she's lying! " shouted Jack. Then,
realizing he'd betrayed himself, he spun on his heel and stomped into
the living room.

"Come on now, you guys," Mary said. "I
hope you don't let this thing get in the way. You're both young . . .
whatever happens, you'll realize in a couple years it really isn't a
big deal. C'mere, Jackie."

Reluctantly, Jack re-entered the room. I realized how
young he still was in some ways. How sensitive, and quick tempered,
too. Mary diplomatically changed the subject. "We didn't tell
you: the DeGroots are motoring down to Wellfleet on
Whimsea
tomorrow. Then on Tuesday we're going to do some cruising with them."

"Not in this weather we're not," I said.
"Which reminds me, I better call them and see what's up."

I let the phone ring eight times with no answer.
Uh-oh, I thought, had Jim and Janice headed out despite the storm
warnings? I hung up the phone and mentioned my uneasiness to Mary.

"No, Charlie. Even Jim wouldn't do that. They're
probably out to eat, or at the club."

"Jim and I have been talking about some
cruising," I said. "Remember last year we motored up to
Portland from Cape Ann? Well, we were thinking about heading out into
the Gulf of Maine later in the summer for some whale watching. You
think
Whimsea's
big
enough?"

"Definitely," said Jack. "We've been
out there in sea skiffs—even little runabouts, smack dab in the
middle of a pod of humpbacks."

"Weren't you scared?" asked Mary.

"Well, so far nothing's happened. I think the
whales like the little boats better. They seem less afraid of them. A
guy we know at the MBL went out in a twelve-foot motorboat. Before he
knew it, he was surrounded by a whole pod of forty-footers. Three of
them were females with calves—"

"
Well what I mean is, what if the whales got
mad?" she said. "Couldn't they just smash a boat in half
with their tails?"

"Oh yeah, in a second," said Andy.

"Well . . . jeez."

"Well then, how do you know they won't get mad
and kill you?" I asked.

"You don't," said Jack. "But after a
while, you get accustomed to seeing these fifty-foot shapes gliding
along under your boat. Then you think: hey! Each one of those guys
weighs fifty tons, as much as seven bull elephants! So what do you do
about it? Nothing. You forget about it, and just enjoy it."