Friday's Harbor: A Novel

by Diane Hammond

  “We were worried he’d hurt himself,” said Libertine.

  “If he wanted to do that, he’d be slamming into the rock work, not the windows. Have either of you told Truman what’s going on?”

  “Yes,” Neva said. “I thought he should know.”

  “Absolutely. Why don’t you call him and ask him to come over when he gets a chance?” Gabriel said to Neva; and then, to both the women, “Go to opposite ends of the windows in the gallery and see if you can see anything different from over there.”

  With that, Gabriel leaned his elbows on the windowsill and spent fifteen minutes watching—until Friday slammed into one of the windows across the pool again, exactly as Neva had described it. Truman arrived at the office just in time to see it. “I gather we have a problem,” he said to Gabriel, looking shaken.

  “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t say it’s a problem, necessarily, but it’s certainly a new behavior.”

  “Frankly, I’m a little worried about the windows,” Truman said. “They weren’t engineered to take that kind of lateral force.”

  They exchanged looks. “Well, that’s not good,” Gabriel said dryly.

  “No. I’ve got a call in to see if we can find out what their tolerance is. I have to tell you I’m considering closing the gallery and asking you to put him in the medical pool.”

  Both men paused as Friday made another pass around the pool and slammed into the windows again. Truman winced at the impact. “Can you tell me some things that might cause this?”

  Gabriel frowned thoughtfully, saying, “It could be a lot of things. He could be having stomach pain or some other kind of discomfort, though I don’t think that’s it. He could be bored. He could like the sound the window makes when he hits it. He could be seeing his own reflection in the window and thinking it’s a second killer whale challenging him. His equilibrium or eyesight could be impaired by some kind of infection or virus. I want to take a blood sample and watch him for a while before I start narrowing it down.”

  “All right,” said Truman. “Well, keep me posted.”

  Once Truman was gone, Gabriel asked Libertine and Neva to bring a bucket of fish upstairs while he put on a wet suit. By the time he got there, Friday was at the slide-out area with his mouth wide open, as usual. Gabriel moved the bucket back and squatted down, scratching Friday’s head and tongue and talking to him congenially.

  “Hey, bud. The girls tell me you’re being a dick. What’s up with that? You hungry?” While he was talking he inspected and wiggled all of Friday’s forty-eight teeth. Only one was damaged, an old vertical crack that would need attention at some point, though right now the whale didn’t flinch or show any other pain response when Gabriel moved it, convincing him that this wasn’t the source of the trouble. When he was done he stood up and said, “Come on. Let’s see you do your stuff.”

  He put Friday through a standard set of breaches, bows, and spy hops, rewarding each one with fish and a blast on his whistle. Throughout, Friday was attentive, energetic, and in a seemingly excellent humor. When the half-hour session was over, Gabriel took a blood sample for Libertine to run to the hospital lab for a rush analysis, and then got into the water. Over the next hour, in an attempt to harness any excess nervous energy, Gabriel tried to wear him out by playing high-energy tag using the yellow scooter, by letting the whale pitch him off his back, by doing rocket rides, where Gabriel stood on Friday’s nose as Friday shot out of the water in a high spy hop, and by playing games incorporating the blue ball.

  After all that, Friday bodychecked the gallery window before Gabriel had even reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Neva, back from the viewing gallery, told him, “He’s hitting pretty hard—you can actually see the window flex, and it makes a kind of booming sound. And he’s definitely doing it deliberately. I mean, he’s not swimming into the walls of the pool or the rock work, which I’d think he would be if it were a vision or parasite problem. Frankly, it’s a little creepy. I hope the windows hold.”

  The hospital lab called to report that nothing had shown up in the blood work.

  Gabriel called Truman to say he was convinced that whatever was going on with Friday was behavioral, not medical; but to be sure, he suggested that Truman contact the local utility and ask if they would bring their buried line detector to the pool.

  “Why?” Truman asked.

  “It’s possible there’s something in his gut that hasn’t come up or out. I called down to Bogotá and they said there’d always been a story about his swallowing a brass hose nozzle, though there isn’t anyone down there anymore who actually saw him do it. I’ve never taken it too seriously, but we might as well rule it out.”

  “I’m on it,” said Truman.

  THE NEXT MORNING dawned mercifully clear, the third straight day after a week of rain and wind. Libertine came to work even earlier than usual so she could finish fish house in time to watch as a technician from the power company carried a sophisticated metal detector onto the pool top. He wore earphones and didn’t smile: he was clearly aware of the seriousness of his mission. As she watched, along with Neva and Truman, Gabriel directed Friday to roll over on his back, stretch out along the side of the pool, and hold still. Gabriel tugged his flukes until they lay partially in the wet walk so he couldn’t drift, and then he beckoned to the technician. The man approached cautiously—“He’s not going to eat me, right?”—and swept his wand over Friday’s exposed thirty-two-foot-long undercarriage. Up and back, up and back, up and back. Then he gave Gabriel a thumbs-up signal and removed his earphones. There was no metal in Friday’s body.

  At Gabriel’s request, Libertine scampered down the stairs and brought back the fanny pack Gabriel kept his supplies in, and Gabriel drew a fresh blood sample. “It’s hard to know what to hope for, isn’t it?” she said as she took the vial from him, labeled it with the day’s date and time, and handed it off to Neva so she could rush it to the hospital lab.

  The body slams continued.

  The lab reported that the day’s blood values were as normal as yesterday’s had been.

  Once the zoo opened, Truman asked Gabriel, Libertine, and Neva to do everything possible to keep Friday from swimming into the windows during visitors’ hours. They did innovative sessions, high-energy sessions, play sessions, scooter sessions, and put every toy they had into the pool.

  By half an hour before the zoo closed, they were exhausted and Friday was once again slamming into the viewing windows. Gabriel sent Neva back to the gallery to observe him and then asked Libertine to stay behind in the office for a quick chat. Her heart began beating faster as he turned to face her, and she clasped her hands together. “Look,” he said, standing beside her at the office window, “I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but is there anything you can tell me about Friday’s state of mind?”

  She smiled. “I didn’t think you believed in that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t. But at this point any input might help.”

  Across the pool they could see Friday hit the windows once more, feel the concussion through the acrylic office window.

  “Crap,” said Gabriel.

  “I’m sorry,” Libertine said with sincere regret. “I haven’t sensed a thing. Still. There hasn’t been anything since he got here.”

  He turned to face her. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I thought you knew that.”

  “And you’ve stayed anyway?” he said incredulously. “Why?”

  She could feel herself blush. “At first I just wanted to be here in case he needed me. He’d found me in the first place, so I assumed he’d wanted my help. And then you let me work here, and who’s going to turn that down?”

  “Yeah—for free.”

  “Not anymore,” she pointed out.

  He just shook his head and turned back to the window. Friday was making a first and then a second fast underwater circuit around the pool, setting himself up, and then he slammed the window again. Libertine winced.


  Gabriel pointed up. Raindrops pocked the water’s surface. “Crap.”

  “What?”

  “I really thought he was charging his reflection in the window. It all started the day the sun came out. But he isn’t seeing a reflection now.”

  Libertine mustered her convictions and spoke. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s trying to see what he can get away with.”

  “Okay,” he said, waiting for her to go on.

  “Neva’s been having trouble getting him to cooperate during her sessions.”

  “Yeah, because he’s a brat,” said Gabriel.

  Libertine smiled. “Exactly!”

  “So okay, riddle me this,” he said. “He’s healthy for the first time in forever, he doesn’t have any dolphins beating him up, he’s got great food, plenty of room, and clean, cold water. Why act up now? Why not in Bogotá? His life there was pure crap.”

  “Was he ever encouraged to act independently down there?”

  “Probably not.”

  Libertine tapped the tip of her nose with her finger. “You’ve given him the ability to make choices, to use his mind, to decide for himself. Innovative sessions, toys to play with, visitors to watch—for most of the day, he does exactly as he pleases. You’ve given him power. Well, he’s using it. And here’s the corollary: by and large, people—and I assume, by extension, killer whales—only act out when they know they’re safe.”

  Gabriel regarded her for a long beat. She flushed. “For a wing nut you actually make a lot of sense,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  And with that, he left the office. Moments later, she heard the heavy steel door to the outside open and close and she was alone.

  She was surprised that Gabriel hadn’t come up with her analysis himself; after all, it was basic adolescent psychology. He was shrewd, and obviously extremely seasoned and skillful, but she realized that that didn’t mean he was particularly insightful. She was struck, not for the first time, by how underdeveloped he was. She’d never heard him mention aging parents or siblings or any other close family members—or even friends, outside of his colleagues. Here was a man on whom no one had ever depended, whose best life relationships had probably always been with his animals.

  He was a lot like her.

  And thus, she thought sadly but with a measure of relief, infatuations die.

  WHEN NEVA CAME back from the gallery, Truman was with her. He looked pale.

  “It’s not pretty over there,” she told Gabriel. “He’s just ramming those windows. And it could be my imagination, but it seems like he’s picking the window that has the most people watching. Plus there’s something else.” She looked at Truman. “You want to tell him?”

  “No, you can go ahead.”

  Neva drew a breath. “Somebody’s started a rumor that he’s trying to commit suicide because we won’t release him. They’re saying it’s why his dorsal fin is curled over—that it’s a sign of despair.”

  For a beat there was silence, and then Gabriel said grimly, “Welcome to the dark side.”

  AFTER THE ZOO closed, Truman called Sam and Ivy, who hadn’t been at the zoo that day, and asked them to come in for a meeting. Once everyone was together in the office, he asked Gabriel to bring them up to speed.

  “None of the labs came back positive and there isn’t any metal in his body that might be hurting him,” Gabriel reviewed. “Which tells me it’s behavioral.” Then he summarized Libertine’s explanation for the whale’s behavior, giving her the credit. “I have to say, it makes perfect sense,” he concluded.

  “He’s certainly been giving me a hard time the last few days,” Neva concurred.

  “But if Libertine’s right—and it feels right—that’s actually good news,” said Ivy. “Isn’t it?”

  “That depends on your point of view,” said Truman carefully. “It’s good news for him, but not necessarily for the zoo. It’s very upsetting to the visitors, and there’s still the structural problem of the windows. According to the specs, the contractors are pretty sure the windows are strong enough to withstand the impact, but obviously the sooner we get him to stop ramming them, the better.” To Gabriel he said, “If I close the exhibit and give you a full day to work with him, do you think you can get this turned around?”

  “I hope so. I’ve actually just put in a call to an old friend of mine,” Gabriel said. “Monty Jergensen in San Diego. He’s an ex-SeaWorld veterinarian—we visited Friday in Bogotá together a few times, so he already knows him. He’s willing to fly up tomorrow and work on his tooth. I don’t think that’s what’s causing the behavior, but it’ll need to be fixed at some point anyway, so we might as well do it now, to be sure. He’ll give Friday a good look-over and go through the lab work while he’s here, in case we missed something.”

  Truman nodded; Gabriel had already run this by him. He said, “In the meantime, let’s be proactive about this and prepare a statement for the media that will explain the closure. I’d like your input in drafting it.”

  At the end of half an hour of vigorous and sometimes heated discussion over how forthcoming they wanted to be about Friday’s health in general (not at all, as far as Gabriel was concerned; very, thought Neva), Truman decided that more disclosure was safer than less. Thus:

  On Saturday (tomorrow), the Max L. Biedelman Zoo will close its killer whale pool to the public so that Friday can undergo a routine dental procedure. We regret any inconvenience this may cause our visitors and will gladly provide rain checks for anyone who would like to return when Friday is once again on exhibit.

  But once it was down in black-and-white Truman equivocated, thinking it was probably naïve to offer up medical information that might raise more questions than it answered. How had the tooth been broken in the first place? How long ago? Why wasn’t it treated before this? How much pain had he been in, and for how long? What were the signs that he was in pain? Etc. After another thirty minutes of discussion, they decided that a safer tack would be to focus the statement on nonhealth issues, and how the visitors’ experience would be affected.

  On Saturday (tomorrow), the Max L. Biedelman Zoo will close its killer whale pool to visitors for twenty-four hours, in order to take care of routine pool maintenance. The exhibit will be open to the public as usual on Sunday morning. We regret any inconvenience this may cause our visitors and will gladly provide rain checks to anyone who’d like to return to the zoo when Friday is once again on exhibit.

  Truman asked Brenda to prepare the press statement before she left for the day and distribute it via an e-mail blast to media outlets within a three-hour drive, so the visitors most likely to be affected were the ones informed.

  In the coming months, as Truman thought back on it—and he often thought back on it—they couldn’t have fueled the fire any better if they’d poured gasoline all over it and lit a match.

  THE NEXT MORNING, while Truman watched, Gabriel directed Friday into the medical pool and gave Neva the word to lower the watertight gates that separated it from the main pool. Truman could see Friday eyeing Gabriel nervously, but Gabriel stayed at his head in the water and reassured him as the water level began to drop. Neva and Monty Jergensen, an affable, plainspoken, rumpled man in his early seventies who’d pioneered many of the procedures and protocols still being used in marine mammal care and rehabilitation, waited to climb into the pool until the water was shallow enough to keep Friday floating just a foot off the bottom. Then Truman saw them raise Friday’s transport sling beneath him both to suspend him and hold him in place. The vet gave Friday a reassuring pat or two just behind the blowhole.

  Gabriel signaled Friday to open his mouth, and the veterinarian examined the offending tooth. “See this?” he said to Gabriel. “It’s fractured all the way through—you can see the crack.” Directing himself up to Truman, who was squatting on the pool deck overhead, he said, “It’s too badly split to fix. Let’s go ahead and take it out.”

  Truman looked down at Gabriel, who no
dded: let’s do it. Truman gave the go-ahead.

  Gabriel fed Friday several herring and then gave the signal for the whale to open his mouth again. The vet injected a numbing agent into the gum, and though Friday shuddered momentarily as the shot was administered, he continued to hold still and open wide. Gabriel scratched his head and pectoral flipper, murmuring encouraging things Friday couldn’t hear. Once the numbing agent had taken effect the veterinarian applied a dental chisel and hammer and in four deft taps broke the tooth cleanly, extracted the pieces, swabbed the socket, and packed it with an antibiotic dressing. For the next three weeks, he directed Gabriel, they’d need to irrigate the area and cleanse it with hydrogen peroxide.

  From beginning to end, the procedure took less than ten minutes. Jergensen wanted Friday confined to the medical pool for the next two hours, to make sure that he’d metabolized the Novocain without any adverse reactions. Downstairs, Truman paced in the food prep area while the vet read through a sheaf of lab results, starting with the last year’s records from Bogotá and working forward to the sample they’d taken just the day before. Then he called for Truman to come into the office.

  “I’m not seeing any red flags in the blood work—he was in crappy shape when he got here, obviously, and probably seriously immunodeficient, which is why his skin was so bad, but I’m seeing steady improvement. There are no signs of infection or injury. I guarantee you he’s in better shape today than he’s been in years.”

  “And the body slams?” Truman asked.

  “Strictly behavioral,” said the vet.

  Truman nodded, relieved. “Any advice on how to get him to stop?”

  The vet indicated Gabriel. “Not a clue, but you’ve got the best guy in the world right here—he’ll get it figured out. The whale isn’t hurting himself, so keep that in mind. It looks worse than it is. He’s probably having a field day.”

  Truman asked carefully, “So you don’t think it’s a sign of deep-seated rage, say, or depression?”