There It Is
by Burt Rashbaum
His parents and sisters were thrilled to have him home. When he couldn’t sleep, he’d walk the neighborhood for hours. One day he got in his car and headed west. He drove until he had nowhere else to go because he’d hit the coast and found himself in San Francisco.
He slept in his car for a while. He begged for change. He remembered hunger.
One time he was by the water, watching the boats, when some older dude tried to chat him up. He had no interest, but the guy wouldn’t leave him alone and eventually hired him for his little boat repair shop. The dude didn’t ask him his name, just said, “You good with your hands?” and he said sure, so the dude said, “I could use a good pair of hands in my shop.”
His boss left him alone during work. He didn’t do drugs, barely tolerated alcohol, and had no desire to talk about his problems. His best friend had died in his arms, half his body blown to bits. He’d tried to save another, it’d been too late. He worked hard, ate fast food, and slept without dreaming, which was better than all the nights with the horrors exploding in his brain. But every day he thought, this isn’t working, this isn’t right.
He couldn’t remember how to have a conversation. What could he say to anyone that made any sense?
That’s when he’d come up with his plan. His boss had asked him what he was working on. He said he had a small side project, he’d pay for the materials, and his boss had said, “Let me know if you need any help.”
He’d built a small dinghy with a sail, but he’d bring some oars, and a hatchet. He planned to wait for a slightly windy day, take the boat out, head into the Pacific, and when he got enough distance between him and the city, he’d bust it up. Sink into the ocean. Finally be done.
Today was the day. Already hours out into the ocean, he tried not to think too much, because he’d seen death too often and much too close, and he knew there was no time to hesitate. Once he chopped into his boat—he had no life jacket—he was committed.
The water was calm but his boat started rocking. He saw a huge dark mass under the water. He thought it was an algae bloom, dark as death under the waves, then it rose to the surface and it was a fucking whale. He expected it to upturn his boat and do his work for him. It broke the surface and he thought, okay, he’s gonna ram me, flip me over. But it glided alongside him and he saw its eye and it looked right at him.
“Get outta here!” he yelled, tried to slap at the creature with an oar, and then he laughed to himself. Yeah, right.
He continued west, hoping the beast would just head off into some other direction. He wanted to be left alone to carry out his plan.
But it didn’t.
At some point it disappeared but before he could think another thought it appeared again—it had just gone under his boat, deep, and then came back to his port side. He ignored it, and kept going, but it stayed with him.
He saw it head way out ahead—it breached, and he saw how huge it was. His boat felt like a teacup. He was sure it was taking off but it circled back and came up alongside him again. He couldn’t sink with this whale here. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he couldn’t.
He started talking to it. Listen, he said, I have a plan, I put a lot of work into this, this is how it has to go, understand?
Not that he thought the whale would answer. He talked and talked, but the damn thing wouldn’t leave him alone.
Maybe he was delirious, because at some point he thought, this isn’t normal. He swore the whale was trying to tell him something.
Yeah, this is nuts. The big cow-like eye looked at him, then it took off and breached again, then doubled back, circled his boat, went under, came to the surface, eyed him again. Then he thought, this is more than nuts, because he was getting a message that he didn’t ask for and had no desire to respond to.
This is my world, it was telling him. I’m loving this, I belong here. I was born here, I live here, I’ll die here. You have to go back. No matter what happens. That’s where you belong, where you were born, where you’ve lived, where you’ll die.
Once he thought this is what the whale was telling him, the message didn’t stop. When the beast met his eyes, he was convinced it was telling him this again, and again.
Then he was crying. He screamed. He argued with the whale, then he put the oars in the skiff and sat. He bobbed and floated while the whale patiently drifted with him under gray skies on this cold cold day.
He thought maybe it was protecting him.
You have to go back, he thought it said. I belong here. You don’t.
He took an oar, slowly turned the skiff around, took the other oar, put it in place, started rowing. The whale stayed with him for a while, but then the sail caught a breeze and he picked up speed. The whale veered off, lifted its huge tail, and slapped the water, spraying him, soaking him.
Then it was gone.
It would take hours to get back, but once he started he knew he’d make it.
When he saw the city in the distance he thought, there it is. There’s my life.
“I work part-time, post-retirement, at a rare wonder: a hand-carved carousel called ‘The Carousel of Happiness’ in my small town of Nederland. This carousel was carved by a Vietnam vet who I am honored to call a friend. It took him 26 years to carve. There’ve been countless articles about him, a documentary (Carving Joy), newspaper stories, interviews, TV news features, and two books, one mine (Of the Carousel), the other a history of the carousel (Don’t Delay Joy). He’s told the story of his carving, and of his life, many times. But only once, in an article in the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine, did he ever talk about the whale, and how it sort of saved his life. He never mentioned it again. I asked his permission, when I was writing a collection of flash fiction that I called a novel, if I could write that story, since it was his, not mine. He said yes.” —Burt Rashbaum
Burt Rashbaum’s publications are Of the Carousel (The Poet’s Press, 2019), and Blue Pedals (Editura Pim, 2015). His writing has appeared in XY Files (Sherman Asher Publishing, 1997), The Cento (Red Hen Press, 2011), Art in the Time of Covid-19 (San Fedele Press, 2020), Meet Cute Press #2, Caesura (2021), A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic (University Professors Press, 2021), Typeslash Review (2021), American Writers Review: Turmoil and Recovery (San Fedele Press, 2021), and The Antonym (2022).