A 52-Hertz Whale (17 page)

Hey there Jamestin Turnerlake,

I reviewed some of today's footage, and as I understand it, Sophia was trying to tell you that it had in fact been her who'd been posting on Salt's FB page as Herman Whaleville, and that she had in fact penned the poster inviting you to Turnabout. Coxson only laughed when he saw it because he thought one of his buddies had made the entire thing, not just the “slap my tail” part. I had to listen a couple of times to put this together, because she was obviously really nervous about being on camera and was talking a mile a minute. I'll definitely have to include subtitles during that part. It's a great moment, though, for you and for the film. I'll interview you about it tomorrow, and then we can include voice-over of you talking about how you felt at that moment. A great second-act climax.

You were right in intuiting that I was down. Even the sight of you flippy-flopping around the ocean smacking your butt against the waves couldn't cheer me up now. My life is in that Dark Night of the Soul–type moment, where all has been lost, and the main character's hope is extinguished. This was brought about by the news that Corinne is moving in with her boyfriend. She wrote me a letter to let me know. She said she didn't want me to hear it from someone else, but I did anyway because I'm an idiot and had my roommate read it to me over the phone. Which was especially horrible because he tried to read it in a girl voice, like a movie or something where when someone reads a letter, the audience hears a voice-over of the character who wrote the letter. My roommate's really weird.

Anyway, let's now look at this rationally:

We haven't spoken in months.

I've been thinking about her less and less. (Really, I swear!)

She is happy. Good for her.

Now let's look at it entirely
irrationally
, which is how I'm actually looking at it:

EFF ME!!! Sure, I've been thinking about her less—less than ALL THE TIME! That's not because I miss her any less or want her back any less, it's out of sheer exhaustion, sheer self-preservation. My mind simply overloaded on thoughts about her. At a certain point, my body couldn't handle lying awake all night thinking about her, so I began to sleep again. My body couldn't handle not eating any longer, so it gave me an appetite. My brain couldn't handle the constant flood of images and thoughts about her, so it came up with some crazy distractions like flying across the country to film a documentary and try out experimental karate moves on teenage jerks. In other words, I never got over her; I just lost the ability to be as obsessed as I was.

Well, I just got it all back. Because you know what I realized? That despite all the evidence—the boyfriend, the trip to Spain, the expressing no desire at all to see me, the brief period where there was a
legally enforced buffer between us
, which I'll get to in a moment—I actually still believed, deep down, that we'd just hit a bump in the road. Not that I ever would have admitted that. I secretly figured that eventually she'd realize the error of her ways and come back to me. And to speed up the process, I planned on fixing the errors of
my
ways.

All of them.

Thus turning myself into an absolutely perfect human being. This perfection would cause her to, quite logically, want to get back together with me. Because who would turn down perfect? I got that crappy job at Testy Snobbin, I started lifting weights and stopped eating gluten, I started reading all the winners of the National Book Award in order. Out of some sense of charity I even started returning the emails of a weird kid who was obsessed with humpback whales.

CHARITY, James. Can you believe the effing arrogance of this? Exchanging emails with you, giving you advice, because I thought helping you out would make me a better person, make me more attractive to Corinne. You were going to be a bullet point on my imaginary perfect-boyfriend resume.

And I just want to promise you that that's no longer the case, and it hasn't been for a long time. Now I just think of you as my friend who's a lot younger. It's like one of those crappy romantic comedies, where the guy asks out the nerdy girl on a date as part of a bet (sorry, you're a nerdy girl in this analogy) and ends up falling in love with her. Wait, I'm not in love with you, I just want to make that clear. It was just for comparison's sake. I just think you're a cool dude. A very cool dude.

Anyway, the point is that—guess what?—I DIDN'T become perfect. I'm STILL not a god; I still have problems like everyone else, only probably way more. I'm still the same guy who Corinne got a 90-day restraining order against because I climbed in through her window to spread six dozen roses all through her house in an effort to try to get her back and then refused to leave when she arrived home with her grandfather, who she'd been out to dinner with. Old dude was snarling at me like a bulldog, and Corinne was near tears (the only time I ever saw her cry was when she was overcome with joy at a David Grisman concert—who can blame her? His version of “Shady Grove” is amazing ), but I wasn't going to leave until I'd finished reading my list of seventy-two reasons we should be together (one for each rose). The cops showed up at #52 and dragged me out the door right as I was finishing #64. She said several times that she'd have to call the cops if I didn't leave, and I had HEARD her, but I hadn't actually LISTENED to her, which was why she'd broken up with me in the first place. Not listening seems to be a recurring theme in my life (see: my lone attempt at television writing).

I'm still the same guy who violated the order after 89 days because I just had to see if the new dude she was seeing was leaving her place on a weekend morning. I was sitting there in my car peering over a newspaper I was pretending to read, like I was on a stakeout in a cop movie, and she came out of her apartment—alone, fortunately, or things could have been much worse. She saw me before I could hide my face, and that's how I ended up in court again.

I'm still the same guy who got a killer lawyer (that my dad paid for) who worked closely with a lenient judge who was nice enough to sentence me to community service because I quoted a Billy Collins poem he liked during my hearing (my bestie from high school, Sash, who I'm staying with, is a poet and got me into Collins). That's how I ended up in the Resource Room at your school for a semester. Amazing that they let a guy who was practically a stalker work with kids. But my crime was truly a crime of passion, and at the time I really thought I was acting in both of our best interests. I'm lucky they were easy on me.

Anyway, at this point, I don't know what to do. I'm utterly clueless. And I ask you, James, humbly, because you're my friend and I honestly look up to you: How do I learn to feel okay about all this?

D

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: March 15, 2013 at 12:57 AM
Subject: Symbiosis

Dear Da-Best:

It's past lights-out and I've already gone over my allotted screen time for today, but I had to respond to your last email posthaste. I have to admit—I didn't know what to make of what you wrote in your correspondence at first, especially the part about me being the nerdy girl.

Hence, I begin my analysis. At first blush, my gut reaction to your email is that our relationship is symbiotic. In case it has been a while since you've been in Bio, basically symbiosis is a relationship between two species where one species benefits at another's expense, where neither species benefits, or where both benefit. At first, I wondered if our relationship was a type of symbiosis called commensalism where one species benefits and the other is essentially unharmed or receives a bit of protection from the first species. An example of commensalism would be whale lice (also known as cyamid amphipods). These little crabs hitch a ride to feast on the algae slime greasing a right whale's skin. The lice benefit from a free meal, and the whale is generally no worse for the wear— just a tad bit of damage to the skin (which helps researchers identify one right whale from another). My thought was that if our relationship was commensal, then I, of course, would be the right whale and you, well, you'd be the lice. But that didn't seem quite right to me.

Why?

Well, first off, we're not two separate species. Second, you're better-looking than these tiny crabs. Third, I'm not harmed by our relationship. Not even in the slightest bit.

In fact, the opposite.

Since we started emailing one another, I began healing from Salt's death, became arguably the most famous yeti in the tri-county area, waged a campaign to educate my fellow Carlsburg students about the plight of an endangered species, and got asked to Turnabout by the sweetest girl in the school.

Therefore, I've come to the realization that our relationship is one of mutualism, which is another type of symbiosis. A good example of mutualism is the boxer crab, which holds sea anemones (a kind of stinging coral that looks like a flower) in its claws to ward away predators. The crab receives protection because its enemies are afraid of getting stung, but in this case, the anemone benefits from the relationship too by getting first dibs at the crab's leftovers. This seems like our type of symbiosis because you helped me find my way in this aquarium called high school. Also, mutualism resembles friendship.

Which brings me to my next point. In order for our relationship to be considered mutualistic, I must do something for you other than be the nerdy girl or the Robin to your Batman. Thus, I want to provide some kind of advice to you now—how helpful it will be, I don't know. But it occurs to me that there is another interesting piece to symbiosis: mimicry.

Mimicry is where one animal mimics another for protection. The Indonesian mimic octopus, for example, can copy the color and shape of a lionfish, sea snake, or sole to avoid predators. This is a clever evolutionary adaptation because the octopus basically avoids certain harm from its predators that won't touch these other fish with a ten-foot pole. (I see your eyes getting heavy. Stay with me now.) In other words, the mimic octopus spends a lot of time being someone or something he really isn't.

Most people live their lives like the mimic octopus—because being more like others is just easier. Being yourself makes you vulnerable. And here's the thing that I most admire about you, Darren. You're not a mimic octopus. How do I know? Let's look at the evidence:

Exhibit A: You could have gone the easier road and coached ball like your dad or taken some boring desk job like your college friends, but instead you followed your interests and entered the film industry.

Exhibit B: You could have easily stayed at Testy Snobbin, unhappily fetching coffee and enduring boring sitcom plots until retirement. Instead, you decided to forge your own path, which meant making a documentary about a whale-obsessed guy.

Exhibit C: Even though making a documentary about me (of all people) to try to impress a girl seems a little crazy to me, I have to say, it is a pretty original idea!

I'm sure it makes no difference to you that this fifteen-year-old charity case thinks you're the kind of guy he'd like to be someday—blazing a life path without a second thought as to what anyone else thinks. And I can see how blazing said path could be lonely. Very. But that's why we animals need one another—whether we're the boxer crab or anemone, right whale or lice.

Sleep well, man. I'll see you tomorrow at the Arcade.

Your fan,

Jay

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: March 15, 2013 at 7:25 PM
Subject: Albert

Hey Sara,

So I come home from school today and no one's in the house, but I hear voices in the backyard. Outside, there's Albert, wearing Dad's old work gloves, yanking yellowing weeds from the flower beds and throwing them into a pile. Mom snips at our hydrangea bushes with these ridiculously huge pruning shears. Nonna Rita stands with her hands on her hips, chaperoning. It's cold and almost dark.

I'm like: “What are you doing out here?”

“Cutting back,” Mom goes as though she is suddenly an expert gardener.

Me: “Since when do we do that?”

Albert: “It's healthy to do every spring. Clear out some of the junk so we have a clean slate to work with.”

Mom: “This summer, we might plant some roses.” And her face is all shiny with sweat and happiness.

I shiver and go: “You're already thinking about summer?”

Mom: “Just dreaming about it, really. Albert's got a nursery catalog and we were looking through trying to plan things out.”

Albert: “We were thinking some classic tea roses, like Pink Promise or Change of Heart, here. And your mom likes yellow. So maybe a bush of Monkey Business over there. We could even do some basil and tomatoes for your grandmother's famous cooking. What do you think, Sophia?”

After it becomes clear that I'm not going to respond to his question, Albert goes, “Getting cold out here. Why don't I take Rita inside?”

Nonna takes the arm Albert offers. She leans towards him as they walk toward the house.

“Nuh-ting gonna grow in dis soil,” Nonna says. “Too many rocks.”

Mom calls after them, saying she'll be in once she finishes with the last bush. I linger and that's when I notice the patch of earth where Papa and I once grew strawberries. The dirt is newly turned. Even though the wind is stinging my eyes, I wait a couple more seconds to see if Mom will remember. She continues to clip the bushes.

So anyway, what Nonna told me about the past and moving on and stuff . . . That's easier said than done.

Love,

Soph

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: March 15, 2013 at 9:16 PM
Subject: RE: Symbiosis

Hey there Semaj,

I know I told you in person already, but let me reiterate how moved I was by your last email. It really gave me the warm fuzzies all over. I would never have thought I could be so flattered at being told I'm not like an octopus. The way you framed all that stuff about how I've chosen to live my life made me feel like, “Yeah, I'm not just stumbling through life as if blindfolded and wearing one roller skate—I'm doing things my way! I'm like Frank Sinatra, baby!”