Never had Mead been so rapidly rid of doubts. Dr. Winchester seemed genuinely glad to see him here at Yale. He himself had come from a small midwestern college, never venturing toward the Ivy League until he was James’s age. From his own swivel chair behind a massive desk, Winchester bade him sit. “So you’re from New Mexico—not far south of my summer haunts. I’ve reviewed your transcripts, which look good. Do you prefer the lab or the field?”
“The field, for sure.”
“Good—right answer. Do you know anything about butterflies?”
“I collected butterflies and moths when I was younger,” Mead said. “Just locally.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Same as most kids, I guess—girls, sports—embarrassed by the net, I suppose.”
“We lose a lot that way.” Winchester sighed. “It becomes socially penalizing. Well, you may have a chance to get back into it if you are still interested. Most of my own work involves Lepidoptera.” Winchester’s large head bobbed as he spoke, and the great rack of his shoulders seemed to hold up the wall of books behind him.
“Will my research project have to deal with butterflies, then?” Mead had half expected to be ushered into an amenable PhD topic, an extension of the major professor’s work, as so often happens in graduate schools.
“Not necessarily, no,” Winchester said. “Though you’ve certainly got the name for it.”
“How so?”
“T. L. Mead was one of the best lepidopterists of the last century. He brought many western butterflies to light. But we’ll get to him later, as we tour the collection. As for selecting a dissertation question, there is plenty of time: don’t rush it. You’ll have to live with it for four or five, maybe six or seven years, depending on how it goes, so you’d better choose something right for you. The only bounds are that it must be original research with a rigorous approach. And, if I am to be useful as an adviser, it should lie somewhere in the area of population biology, genetics, or ecology. Of course, funding may be easier if it relates to any of our ongoing grants.”
“That’s a broad menu. But preferably involving insects?”
“Preferably, but not essentially. One of my students worked on warblers recently, another on human and chimpanzee sexuality. Oh, those bonobos!”
Mead raised an eyebrow at that. Then he wondered whether, when it came down to approval, it would turn out to be like a Russian menu: lots of choices, but few of them actually available. Winchester pursed his lips for a moment or two before he spoke again.
“It is true that the committee must approve the eventual topic. But it’s not likely they would veto a project that you and I agreed was worthwhile. Take your time, and take your pick—so long as we all agree on the value of the work, and funding is available, you should be able to cater to your own interests and, if you’re lucky, your passion. It does happen sometimes. I’m glad you asked, by the way; too many students expect to be led by the hand from square one, which doesn’t interest me.”
The time sneaked by like the silverfish in the corners of the room. Now and then Winchester leaned back and caught a fly with his hand without looking directly at it or breaking pace. Then, at a certain point, his shoulders, or perhaps it was his heroic eyebrows, dropped a degree relative to the bookshelf behind. By whatever subtle signal, Mead knew the interview was over. He stood, nearly all his trepidation flushed away. Dr. Winchester’s broad, high, balding brow was damp. I would hate, Mead thought later, to be on his wrong side. He’d heard too many beery tales of major professors turned into major roadblocks. As Winchester noted their next appointment in his tiny blue pocket diary, Mead remembered one more question he’d meant to ask. “Dr. Winchester, what is that peculiar odor coming from the lab down the hall?”
“Odor?” Winchester narrowed his gaze and tilted his head in puzzlement. “Oh, I suppose newcomers might detect a slight aroma. You’ll find out soon enough,” he said with a leprechaun’s grin. “As curatorial associate, not everything will be your own choice for the first year or two.” It was clear that he did not mean to elaborate, so Mead left it there and made his way from the cool bastion of Osborn Laboratories into the wet heat outside.
The next Sunday, Mead awakened amazed to be a dweller beside the Atlantic Ocean. He had rented a three-room beach cottage east of the city in Branford, on Long Island Sound. It was supposed to be winterized, but he doubted that it really was. Once he became accustomed to the crescendo of the katydids screeching from the trees each night, he slept well to the tumble of waves on little Limewood Beach.
Now he strolled the crescent sand strip, stooping to pluck slipper shells from the gray strand, and let the peaceful afternoon work its way with his mind. He lay against the grassy foreshore and napped. The air was cooler by the Sound than in the city. He awoke to raindrops, scouts for a raging Atlantic thunderstorm. The rain brought more cool air and freshness and a falling of leaves; the relief of autumn was near.
The sun came out again. Mead wandered about his new habitat, which was wreathed in a thick, sweet smell he’d already learned to associate with the heavy, late-season ripeness of New England vegetation. He walked a meadow speckled with tiny white asters and big purple asters, all against a backcloth of goldenrod. Buckeyes and sulphurs nectared, and monarchs tanked up for their impending exodus. Little blue herons stalked the margins of the salt marsh at Indian Neck. Mead felt that species of refreshment that all naturalists know in new places.
His day finished with a beer or three at the Indian Neck Tavern, an old place hanging over the salt marsh on stilts, where he drank to having landed on his feet in Connecticut. Then he said, “Apparently, anyway” and raised another schooner to that, rapping the wooden table as he did. “I guess I’ll survive.” The bartender brought him another Schaefer just to make sure.
Mead met Monday with equanimity, which was good, as it was the day scheduled for his first meeting with his committee members. After messing about with cereal and milk in his new cottage and kitchenette, he dressed and hitchhiked the eight miles in to Yale. “Good afternoon, again,” he greeted Professor Winchester as he entered the conference room and awaited introductions to the rest of his faculty committee. He noticed that Winchester’s manner, while still friendly, was a little more formal.
“Hello, James. Let me introduce Dr. Phelps, whose work with sandhill and Siberian cranes you will no doubt know . . .” Mead shook the proffered hand of the handsome, white-haired wildlife biologist. He had a skeptical cant to his eyelids that suggested way too many such meetings over the years, but his grip was firm and his blue eyes were not bored. “. . . and Dr. Scotland, James Mead.” The young forest sociologist, tall with a sheet of yellow hair that he shook or swept out of his eyes frequently, had an earnestness about him that suggested dedication or ambition, or both. Mead thought he saw generosity there as well.
“Ah, here comes Frank. Professor Griffin has journeyed across the hill from Kline Tower to join us.”
“Hello, Mead. New Mexico, eh? Ummm.” He contributed little more to the meeting, other than pipe smoke and a sermonette on the nature of “real” research. This seemed to carry a thinly veiled put-down of field studies in general and an advertisement for Kline as the proper seat of almost everything of value in biological science. Mead couldn’t tell whether these potshots were for his benefit or that of the rest of the committee, all field men connected with western institutions.
The initial meeting remained comfortably vague until the question of a dissertation topic came up. Winchester reiterated what he had told Mead about time, choice, and rigor. Phelps and Scotland nodded assent and seemed happy to leave it at that, but Griffin begged to differ.
“Gentlemen,” he began. “Research today is expensive, and so is our time. The dissertation project should be directed, effective, and parsimonious—anything but whimsical. I’m sure we can find a suitable problem for you soon enough, Mr. Mead, if your lab skills are adequate, that is.”
“Well, I haven’t framed a research question yet,” said Mead, “but my interests lie more in the field.”
“Excuse me, George, I have experiments waiting. I hope when you convene us again, we’ll have more to discuss. Good day!” Griffin rose and dissipated from the conference room like a bad fog blowing.
“Positive fellow, isn’t he?” said Scotland after the door closed. “Please let me know if I can help in sifting your thoughts, James. I enjoyed meeting you. Dick, I think the dean’s got sherry up for us next door, hasn’t he?”
“Right; faculty search reception. Pleased to know you, Mr. Mead. Come over and take some classes with us in Sage Hall, or drop in for a seminar. And don’t mind old Frank . . . he’s a bit formal and brusque, but he’s all right, and a good scientist. Glad to have you here at Yale. George, I’ll see you at the gym Wednesday dawning?”
“Of course, and this time I’ll squash your butt, so to speak.” When the others had left, Winchester asked Mead to remain behind for a moment. “James,” he said, “Frank Griffin is a rather sour man . . . different. He is abrupt, he thinks he’s the only busy person with a grant and a lab to run, and he is entirely absent of humor, as far as I can see. Plus, he bears a load of resentment. For all that, as Phelps said, he’s a fine scientist.”
“Resentment over what, sir?” Mead asked.
“No need to air dirty laundry so soon. But in the barest terms, he was passed over for department chair twice. Both times, the deciding faculty votes came from Osborn Lab. That sharpened his basic distrust of ecology and ecologists. He knows whole animal biology is in a secondary position, and he likes to whip the underdog—kick it, too.” Winchester raised one corner of his mouth. “I’m afraid he may prove a challenge for you, not to say a roadblock.”
“But the catalogue states that I can dismiss committee members if I wish . . .”
“And so you may. But the department wants a diversity of faculty interests on each advisory committee—that’s why he was appointed in the first place—and his replacement might be worse. Besides, to dismiss Frank would only alienate him, and he heads the departmental grants committee—a sop to him last time he was passed over for chairman. You might find you need that support. It may be better for now to try to work with the man.”
“Hmm,” said James.
“Who knows? His attitudes might even soften from the experience when he sees you doing good work. We can expect some pressure from him to settle on a thesis topic sooner than you might wish, and on a lab study rather than one in the field. But don’t be intimidated. It’s your PhD. Here, let’s look over your classes.”
Winchester peered over his half-glasses at Mead’s proposed course of studies for the fall semester. “That Computer Methods course can’t hurt; more and more students are using the mainframes, which are getting smaller and more approachable all the time. Saves a lot of time over a slide rule when you get to your statistics. They say personal computers might be next—imagine! And Evolution is my own favorite class to teach; I hope you’ll enjoy it too. I’m interested to see that you’ve selected Runic Lit. for an elective. I’ll look forward to glancing over your shoulder. And with Phelps’s Advanced Population Biology, you’ll have a very full term.”
“Yes, I have a bad habit of taking big bites from the smorgasbord.”
“One or two more like that, and you should be ready for full-time research. Here, let me sign that.” Once again, George Winchester had managed to banish his new grad student’s fears, at least for the time being. Then he assigned Mead a workspace of his own, an office-cum-laboratory; explained the curatorial assistantship at the museum, which was paying part of his way; and wished him good day. And by the time Mead made his way back to Limewood Beach, he almost felt as if he might make it in New Haven after all.
Mead began his coursework. At odd times he explored the wondrous Yale libraries, prowled the campus, and explored the individual colleges. Their beautiful courtyards and cloisters softened the harshness of the industrial seaboard city, with its edgeward sprawl, interior decay, and ever-present crime. The campus shone in its mellow Federal bricks and college-Gothic masonry from the 1920s. He thought the paternal gaze of the green copper weathervane, a six-foot owl perched atop Sterling Library, conveyed the intended atmosphere of Jefferson’s “academical village,” though the streets of poverty huddled just beyond. Mead’s studies prospered, and one night on his way to one of the college dining halls he realized that he was just a face, like any other. By Halloween, he felt he belonged.
When the frosts came and the katydids didn’t anymore, the nights fell strangely silent. Then a new sound took over the night—the rush of thousands of oak and maple leaves swept by wind. Never having seen a northeastern fall and its many hardwood hues, he thought of paint chips in a hardware store. The cottonwoods and aspens in the Rockies had not prepared him for an incandescent autumn in New England. When the colors faded in the shortening evenings, Mead left off tramping through the leaves and withdrew to the cellars of the museum.
His assistantship consisted of helping to curate the entomological collections in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, a resource Winchester had brought to international significance. After dinner in a nearby café, Mead worked for an hour or two, spreading, labeling, and arranging specimens, before catching a late bus to Branford. One night in late November, between mounting batches of African butterflies, he was topping up preserving fluid in glass specimen containers. More to his liking than jars full of yellowed, clenched, and bulbous-bodied spiders were trays of arthropods preserved naturally and perfectly in lumps of Baltic amber. A large body of work had been done on these gemmed sarcophagi by the great Yale spider man, Alexander Petrunkevitch. Mead saw what it had gotten him; this cozy corner in the museum’s bowel was no anonymous nook nor nameless cranny, for it bore a plaque on which he read in the gloom: the alexander petrunkevitch arachnology alcove.
“A fine tribute,” Mead announced to the general company, but no one replied, pro or con. He took down a tome on amber spiders and marveled at the many species Professor Petrunkevitch had found immured in the fossilized pitch of Baltic trees.
Reaching up to replace the book in its rank of dusty black volumes, he spied behind it a singular volume that didn’t seem to fit among the rest. He gathered it down and saw that it was a blue, clothbound record book, much stained and used, with manuscript text between the covers. He spread the crackly pages and read the title page, written in a steady hand in soft pencil: “Field Book and Journal: Volume Twelve.” And down in the corner, in smaller script, the name of the writer: “October Carson.”
It was late, so Mead put the odd volume back in its place. In so doing, he dislodged a spider book and saw that the entire shelf was double stacked. Quickly now he pulled down the first row and found a baker’s dozen of this Carson person’s journals crouching there in the pale amber light. His curiosity aroused beyond his craving for sleep, he selected the first volume of the notebooks and began to read. Outside, the first snow swirled about the museum’s tower.
6
October 31, 1969. Crossed the Columbia River into Washington State today, in a constant curtain of rain. What a very wet, green land. Conifer hills broken up by yellow maples, their leaves dropping like big floppy washcloths, ground to a brown pulp on the highway by the interminable train of logging trucks. These low hills are pretty, or would be if they weren’t chopped to hell for logs. The ships down under the high bridge from Astoria are piled high with logs bound for Japan, even though the chat in the coffee shop back in Hebo was all about the local mills shutting down—go figure. These lumpy hills look like the latest load of draftees skinned by a bad barber. My last ride was with a kind log-truck driver who pulled over in the rain, so I kept such thoughts to myself.
He asked what I did for a living, and I said I was looking around. “For work?” he asked. “Good luck!”
“No, not really,” I said.
“Then what
for?”
“Ahh, something nothing,” I replied. He stared at me strangely, and I explained. “Sorry. That’s New Guinea pidgin for ‘whatever.’ ” I thanked him for the ride when he turned off toward Longview, and I hopped down. He still looked puzzled—thought I was on something, I think. Something, nothing; whatever. Hemlock boughs and cedar bark blew off in his wake, their sweet smell mixing with the sour diesel exhaust as he pulled east through six gears or more. I put my thumb out for west.
November 12, 1969. I’ve been beachcombing the Washington shores of the Long Beach Peninsula for nearly two weeks. Not many Japanese glass floats, most of them are plastic now. But I have found enough, especially after the great honking storm on the sixth, to swap for food at a curio museum and general store on the waterfront in Ilwaco. The shorebirds are good company, but this state has a doltish law extending the public highway system to the beaches. I’ve seen pickups speed up to try to hit flocks of sanderlings and gulls, and motorbikers kick the heads of penguinlike murres, breaking their necks. My greatest satisfaction wasn’t the eight-inch green-glass float I found in a wadge of kelp, but watching a pickup marooned in the wet sand with the tide coming in way out on Leadbetter Point. The driver got out; the truck did not. I tried to help him get unstuck, but it was futile. I gave him a shot of Teacher’s and we drank silently to the sinking truck, his loss, the sanderlings’ and clams’ gain. I’m on their side, but I felt a little sorry for him in spite of myself. It was a nice truck.
My cynicism may be coming home to roost these days because other than the one glass ball, I’ve found nothing of value for three days other than the clean sea air, peace, and tranquillity when the beach traffic is at bay. Plus sunsets of lead and copper that no scrap dealer could ever afford. I think I’ll head north.
Magdalena Mountain Page 3