Clairvoyance, however, was not one of his identifying characteristics.
Chapter Two
Big Head or Passing Bottles
A couple of months before it would have been about the time to have a mid-life crisis, had he ever gotten married, Frank got a farewell email from the head of biology, a sixty-nine year old Marlon Anthony Alabaster who was finally hanging up the towel and was retiring. Then, mere few days later, he got an email from the Dean about ‘them’ making decisions about who to recommend to take over his duties.
Although it was not done in the traditional way, it was not out of the blue. He was still the second best biology professor on campus and was not easily replaceable, but more importantly, the University was protecting their investment. When word passed around that University would indefinitely suspend research on Marine Biology, Monterey Bay welcomed him with open arms and agreed to sponsor his research by making their proprietary equipment available. The data collected would have to remain proprietary to Monterey Oceanic Research, subsidiary of ‘NERD’,
the National Ecologic Research & Development, unless tagged with one of the few tags from the University inventory.
He was being being baited elsewhere.
With the grant for his main field of research being cut, Frank had to make a choice, which the University has decided to make easier to avoid the loss of one of the best teachers on campus. With the few tags that the University had, they were allowed to tag squid while on Monterey trips to use as a teaching aid. The last of the equipment came from the last grant came in, along with a lead-lined jacket Frank requested months ago as replacement, but started wearing it downtown instead.
Frank, along with two professors from the university, glorified drinking buddies, Allen and Steve, went out to drink to courage.
He already had tenure, but becoming Head of Biology is a very important thing. Perhaps even a frightening thing.
That evening, the fall air around the University campus was uncharacteristically heavy and humid.
Leaves fell from the trees simply out of thirst.
On this atypical warm fall Friday night,
not a Thursday night for student’s sake,
(though it would’ve been timelier)
the three friends went out to celebrate.
Allen Page was a year older than Frank. They’d known each other since high school, and never really got along with Steve Fassen.
Perhaps it was because Allen kept writing Steve’s last name with a sharp ß, despite being told about it several times over, or that both Frank and Allen made fun of him for no other reason than his German accent, which to them was un-admittedly endearing.
Steve busied himself with algae and underwater flora. He might’ve been three years younger than either of them as far as Allen and Frank guessed. They never failed to cut through the ‘niceties’. As someone who busied himself with studying algae and underwater flora,
Steve was a guy who didn’t need to be told twice.
And he never minded any of the abuse.
He was never able to take it seriously from either of them. Frank was a drunk and Allen was a guzzled mumbling fool.
But they were good people.
Friends on a leash.
Like-it-or-not co-workers.
The first attempt that night took them to their go-to bar, Jack’s, but it was overcrowded. They looked into several other still bars on Telegraph avenue before settling on buying a bottle of scotch and some weird looking bourbon and hiding on the University campus to conduct their festivities. Even though drinking on campus was strictly forbidden, it was one of those rules that was enforced by teachers, aimed at students and disrespected by everyone.
Sipping from brown paper bags along the way, the three went up the stairs of the north biology building up to Frank’s office. After viewing Frank’s new certificate and deciding they can barely stand in place among the towering paper stacks, the room being far too crowded with numerous books and documents, they proceeded to classroom B and sat on counters.
The plan was simply to loiter.
“There are no cameras here, right?” Allen queried, taking the small pint bottle out of the brown paper bag to raise a toast; asking a little late.
Frank shot him a befuddled look, which may have come off to them both as jovially devil-may-care. Drinking commenced in full swing. Within twenty minutes the alcohol ate at their empty stomachs. Soon they laughed at the rather large specimen of a Humboldt squid pickled in formaldehyde in a large jar with a rounded top. Its appendages were swirled in their final position and looked like folded arms, as though the squid has been anxiously attempting to get out. Frank was suddenly overcome with a brilliant excuse to prolong their celebration.
“What are you guys doin’ this weekend?”
Allen and Steve talked over him, so he continued conversing about the rum they were drinking.
Come out with me to check out the squids. It’s on Monterey’s tab now, and this time of year there’s going to be hundreds of them floating around.
His words slurred.
This was the excuse both Frank and Allen were looking for and they didn’t need to stop to think about it. They would keep the weekend afloat, both figuratively and literally and go on a first Monterey-sponsored expedition. Steve, the youngest of the three and the one not attached to that special someone joined in. “I’ll bring some of this brew I got last time I was coming up here from Europe. The bottles are over three liters and they’re 85 proof.”
Both Frank and Allen always pegged Steve for having a knack for exaggeration on anything he’d say. To them, he was younger, therefore he must have never learned responsibility, nor has he ever had any interest or need for doing so. A rebel without a cause.
He was a loyal friend, and his search for common ground with them usually ended up being alcohol.
They thought of Steve as their pupil. The drinking provided another excuse for them to continually hang out, for in his company, Frank could drink his troubles and memories away, and Allen would just be ‘partying’.
Steve never treated either of them as mentors, but rather as equals, in the hope that one day it would be reciprocated. This in turn made Frank feel a little younger, more vital.
Steve always had this energy about him.
He was well aware this was just an illusion and only treated him this way when Allen was not around. Allen had a wife and two kids in high school. Frank was jealous; not having had any family for years himself, and unintentionally sabotaging every single relationship that came along, friendly or otherwise.
In return, Allen looked up to Frank and often wished he hadn’t rushed into having a family himself.
It made Frank particularly nauseous when Allen used the phrase “sowing wild oats” when referring to Frank’s single status as an item of fortune.
His father established Frank’s last name at the university years prior as a well-respected, but evil paleobotanist and a professor you don’t want to have. Frank’s younger brother Lyle, who was always his dad’s favorite, studied archeology in his father’s footsteps. They both went missing one spring in the early nineties on a dig in southern Peru.
Only his brother returned,
and with zero recollection.
Trauma from head injury, they said.
The authorities theorized that they were probably attacked by bandits, because Frank’s dad, Walter, was too cheap to get a guide to show them through the safe parts of the land and thus stuck out like sore thumbs.
Frank took another swig from the now two-thirds empty bottle.
“Guys, I have been thinking about it, and I’ve concluded that in order to prevent us from throwing up all over this lab, and making the cleaning lady’s hair stand on end, we should hit the streets to obtain some nutrition.” Whenever they were drunk together, they continuously driveled like a pack of pompous idiots.
There was only one choice that could guarantee a shield from student�
��s eyes, and besides, it was friday night and Telegraph avenue will be crowded as hell.
Within half hour a walking cliche of a pimply twenty-something in a red baseball hat arrived at the bottom of the biology building. Steve volunteered to go get the pizza. The pizza boy left with a generous tip, confused about why Steve said anything about Boston. When he asked the pizza guy about his cap because he noticed the Boston “B” emblem on his cap, the kid was puzzled. The kid delivered a large hawaiian pizza and left with a generous tip, justified only until the unwarranted discovery of jalapeños several minutes later.
Thankfully Frank was quick-witted enough to advise against leaving the building until they sobered up more for fear of being seen by faculty, or worse, students. Students nowadays were entwined in online social networking and anything remotely incriminating would burn its way online and spread like wildfire.
They could all lose their jobs.
After losing so much in his life, healthy amount of paranoia became a part of Frank’s outlandish lifestyle.
But not really.
Both Allen and Frank were already tenured, so Steve was really at their mercy, but in the safe.
The squid-in-the-bottle wasn’t doing any favors to their appetite, so they agreed to take the pizza to the top of the southern campus media building.
They technically weren’t supposed to be there, as they had nothing of UC business to be doing here, but it was a popular student hangout with a great view and some of the teachers and students mingled here on friday nights.
Steve made right for the stairs. Fortunately the building had an elevator which saved Frank and Allen from a heart-attack; for Steve it was a mere brisk climb up the stairs. Steve ran up the stairs, and got there faster than the lift took to come down and go back up.
They looked at the night sky and rid themselves of the jalapeños, which only Steve ate, by seeing who can throw them the farthest. Melted mozzarella then started sliding down their neck-pipes, clogging up their arteries by the minute. Seeing the whole bay at once,
even Oakland,
which they made the point of avoiding, with all its commotion, looked only peaceful from high up here. Airplanes took off from both Oakland and San Francisco airpots, cutting across the cloudless fall night sky.
Frank was reminded of the time they saw the strange light up in Berkeley Hills, when he was a kid, but that was well over three decades ago, long before he was alone.
He downed the last few ounces in the scotch bottle. That memory had to be drowned out at this moment, for he had his promotion to Head of Biology, a great academic achievement, to celebrate. He wondered whether he had ever told either Allen or Steve, though they had been friends long, about the incident with the light. He didn’t want to bring up his family with them, because, well, it was always a bummer, and Allen always got the look of a constipated-puppy on his face, as if he felt that Frank might have though they were all shot in front of him just yesterday. It’s been a long time.
Within minutes, with Berkeley fall weather being what it was, fog rolled in rapidly and visibility plummeted to zero. Fall had indeed fallen like a sack of coal, and they couldn’t see as far as the closed hotdog stand covered in jalapeños, hundred feet below.
“Allen, can you come pick me up at 5?” asked Frank. Although he was thoroughly drunk, he was also well aware of the morning’s advantages.
“PM? A little late to start, don’t you think?” Allen asked with fake hope.
Frank answered Allen only with a look.
He’d need to get home soon to tell his wife what the plan was. After brief goodnights, Allen shared a cab with Steve, both going to turn in early to anticipate tomorrow’s ‘field trip’.
Frank started for the hills on foot, as his house was a mere 20 minute walk from the campus.
It was a straight shot across the campus and then uphill. Back in the 80’s, when the criminality wasn’t as high as it was now, they never used to lock the doors. The worst thing that had happened back then was when Frank was still a kid.
He awoke one night hearing noises from downstairs.
He crept downstairs expecting to find one of his parents down there brewing coffee or something. But the noises were strange. They sounded soft and quick, and there were many of them. When he got to the bottom floor and saw through the opened kitchen door, there was nothing, but few small wet spots on the ground and a few scratches here and there. Frank had trouble with sleeping since, and though he knew why, he’d never share.
In the morning Walter and GraceGrace decided their fridge was left at the mercy of neighborhood raccoons, and ‘that criminality has indeed risen’, so since then the front door was always locked and preferably never used.
In the time it took Frank to get up to the house,
the steep hill and frosty night fog sobered him up considerably.
As soon as he got home and took a shower, he went straight to bed, but was unable to rest.
The orange street lamps’ dim haze kept his mind from resting, as it still had something on which to focus.
So for the sake of falling into sleep and dreams,
he got up again just to draw the blinds,
and fall into a black feverish sleep.
Chapter Three
Asea
Saturday early morning, Allen pulled up to what he once knew as Frank's parent’s house. He loved it almost dearer than his own. It was probably the only house he’d ever seen that had a kitchen both downstairs and upstairs. The bottom one was for storing all their groceries and cooking complex dishes and the top was for sandwiches and snacks. It was connected to a living room, so it's always just been the floor on which the family used to entertain guests.
Pleasant room to be in.
Whenever he and his wife were invited over for dinner, and it had been more than once, the house was as important a place to him as to Frank, though for different reasons. The furniture inside breathed whiskey soaked leather and wood, and after dinner the mandatory cigar on the balcony was the only time Allen could smoke without Jen, his freckled redheaded wife, throwing up a fuss about it. Her mother died of cancer,
and even though it was not lung cancer,
she did not like Allen smoking.
Now he was hung over fiercely, which was a fact Jen had entirely missed when she got up to see him off.
Entirely due to his late night arrival, Allen could and had to look remarkably sober when the situation required.
The low rumble of Allen’s vintage engine signaled his arrival from around the corner.
He walked up and knocked on the front door,
behind which Frank was already waiting, ready to go.
After they loaded all of their equipment and bags of snacks, meaning mostly booze and cigars, they made for Steve’s house, down in lower Albany.
Steve too was ready to leave the house, but not yet.
First he had intended to invite them in for eggs and bacon to greet the fading effects of last night’s binge drinking. It was soon decided that they best make their way down to Monterey sooner rather than later, save the 45 minutes of eating breakfast for being already on the boat before it gets busy in the harbor.
Afterall, they had planned to sail quite far out, and not unlike on freeways, ship-traffic was better avoided with a head-start. On the way down they would stop at the first drive-through hamburger place, to divert their stomach’s attention from yesterday’s liquored sorrows.
They drove down 880 across the San Mateo bridge to CA-1 through Half-Moon Bay. On the way they noted a string of deserted beaches, far enough from civilization.
“We should stop here.” noted Steve,
as they passed a beach with a relatively large parking lot. “That would be a good place to prep the squid,
right Frank?” Steve asked, snickering.
Frank had no idea he was being mocked.
“Right. Let’s do that.” Frank hadn’t felt too much up to talking on most of such mornings. S
o much so that most of his classes started in the afternoon.
The drive was spent in mostly grunts and self pity of their self abuse. The greasy hamburgers were beginning to do their job and their heads felt less like they were being stretched far and wide. Their strength was yet to return. Though both Frank and Allen were professors, neither of them were exactly ‘morning people’, which went double for the weekends. Steve, who was more of a heavy social drinker, was used to getting up at 6 to go for a jog, followed by the choking down of a protein shake. The day hadn’t been much of a departure for him in terms of getting up.
“Okay,” started Frank, then with a significant pause he exhaled.
“Let’s find the boat.
It’s in the north harbor near Carmel.”
They had a boat dedicated just for such expeditions, and it had all the research equipment locked up on board safely already.
These trips were really mostly led by the three of them, and sometimes a volunteer student.
When they did have a student, they made him carry all the equipment and mocked him, even Steve joined in.
“Hey, we still need to get some supplies.” Said Allen, as they all rendezvoused ashore before going out.
They really didn’t.
Everything they needed was already packed in the car.
It was almost a ritual, in that it was never talked about. They just did it.
“Good Morning,” Steve said in his silly sounding german accent as they entered the bait and tackle shop, certainly not the only one in the neighborhood, but this was the only place around that actually sold squid jigs.
The three of them left the shore briskly, preceding many fishing boats and beating them to the punch.
They got ‘top pick’. It was an unwritten rule the Bay Research made with the fishing boats. Research.
The intent was to get a head start on what would essentially be extreme squid fishing,
for science.
It took nearly hour and half of getting far enough away from the shore, for the radar to pick up large quantities of bleeping dots, slowly moving north.
Frankentown Page 2