Most people think of dioramas as three-dimensional models of events like famous battles, but they’re also used for settings like the interlinkings of natural habitats: a mangrove forest, a saw grass prairie.
When I asked, he told me the rally had been hosted by something called the Albedo Society. “A very sporty group of souls who believe the earth is a single organism that regulates her own well-being. The name has something to do with the earth’s color when it’s healthy, seen from outer space.”
There were a couple thousand people, he said. Speeches, a unity march to the nuclear power plant, and lots and lots of get-naked-and-go-swimming types.
I wondered why Applebee, a respected hydrobiologist, would join something like that. If he had.
The diorama was incredible, according to Tomlinson, a work of art: underground river systems, South Florida bionetworks.
“The guy who created it had his shit together. A couple of us asked around, wanted to say howdy, but I guess he doesn’t make the public appearance scene. Doc, if you don’t stop and check on the man, I will At least call his sister back and get a few more details.”
Tomlinson seldom pressures.
I called.
Frieda told me that building dioramas was one of her brother’s recent passions.
“Obsessions,” she said. “That’s more accurate. It’s his nature, so anything less than museum quality wouldn’t be acceptable.”
I’d told her Tomlinson’s reaction.
She knew the story, although she’d yet to see his newest work. He’d been contracted to create a data model of South Florida’s subterranean aquifers, then convert the data into charts. “Aqua-geology.” Her word.
“Who’s the contractor? Tomlinson mentioned a group called the ‘Albedo Society.’” At first, I couldn’t picture an introverted scientist hanging out with Tomlinson types, but maybe it was a good thing. Healthy for both.
“Actually, I think it was one of the big sugar companies. Tropicane? I’ll ask him. Or you can ask him when you meet. Either way, Jobe wouldn’t care who hired him. He lives for his work.”
What Applebee created far exceeded specifications. Instead of charts, he built a three-dimensional model. A diorama so detailed, Frieda said, that it was more like a satellite photo-if satellites could photograph what’s beneath the ground.
A friend had told her about it, not her brother. He seldom shared personal information, even with her. She didn’t know why.
There was a lot she didn’t know about her brother, she said. For instance: Why hadn’t he returned her calls?
Using my shoulder to hold a phone to my ear, I listened to her say, “It’s just him alone in that great big house. I’d contact his neighbors if I had some names, but I don’t. And asking the police to stop by, well… that would scare him. It’d be way too much emotional trauma for someone like Jobe.”
Her inflection left the statement open-ended, maybe inviting questions, maybe not. Applebee was a brilliant recluse. She was hinting that he also had some emotional instabilities.
But then she added, “You two might hit it off, professionally. The only friend Jobe has is his laboratory. You’re both goofy that way. And you’re both obsessed with water, with what goes on among those three tricky atoms. Plus, he’s a fan. Did you know?”
I said, “Huh? I’ve got a fan?”
“Fans, sweetie. My brother’s read your papers; a lot of us have. And Jobe’s kind of a star himself. Nobody knows more about groundwater, and how it flows. If you two kooks put your collective heads together, all your knowledge about the environment, it could be a damn good connection for this screwed-up state of ours.”
That sealed it. In a subtle way, Frieda had withdrawn her request that I go on a snooping mission, and transformed it into an elevated meeting between two biologists. A professional courtesy call.
“You’re driving across the state Saturday?”
I told her no, I was driving over tomorrow-Friday-coming back Sunday.
“Excellent. Then you will be able to stop and say hello…”
I had no out. We both knew it, which is why she was laughing when I replied, “Why is it I feel like I’ve just been leveraged by a master?”
The lady had a nice laugh; lots of joy, with a hint of the devil. “It’s because you haven’t spent enough time in Tallahassee to recognize a master. Florida has an annual budget that’s creeping close to seventy billion. Bigger than lots of sovereign nations. Centralize that kind of power in a small town, and that’s where you’re going to find the real manipulators. Compared to some of the sharks here, I’m just a toothless dogfish.”
I found a notepad. “I guess this is where I write directions. You knew I’d say yes, so you’ve already figured out the best route for me to take. Correct?”
The woman thought that was hilarious. “Damn tootin’, sweetie. You’d make an awful woman, ’cause you just don’t know how to say no. Either that, or a very, very popular one.”
When I finished talking with Frieda, I let my eyes move around the lab, taking refuge in its orderliness. My lab’s one of two houses built over water on pilings, beneath a communal tin roof. I’d chosen the largest of the two as a workplace. A lucky call. The lab’s where I spend most of my time, and where visitors prefer to gather if it’s too hot or rainy on the deck outside.
I prefer functional to fancy. Not everyone does. A disapproving lady visitor once told me the place was a cross between Tom Sawyer’s raft and a castaway’s tree house. She pretended not to be offended when I thanked her.
Some people are lucky enough to find their life’s love. I’ve found my life’s home in this drafty, salt-glazed wooden vessel-which is another rare kind of luck. It’s a good place for a biologist who makes his living collecting and selling marine specimens, but who also enjoys socializing with fellow islanders with a beer or two at sunset.
I like approaching the building by boat, seeing the horizontal banding of clapboard exterior balanced on stork-legged pilings, the tin roof pitched like the bow of an Indonesian junk, all framed by deck railings.
The place also possesses a distinctive olfactory mix-which is something else not everyone appreciates. It’s a fusion of ozone from aquarium aerators, graphite from precision instruments, chemical reagents, and formalin all mixed with odors that sift through the wooden floor: the smell of barnacles, creosote, and salt water.
On the walls are shelves of books, lab instruments, paintings and pictures tacked at eye level so I can look at them if I want, chemicals in jars, and rows of tanks that hold fish, crabs, shrimp, bivalves, and mollusks-including one goat-eyed octopus that now watched me, its focus as intense as my own.
Octopi are the geniuses of their phylum. I was the entity that delivered a crab into its tank daily. To this animal, I was food. If it were larger, or if I were smaller, it would have stalked, dispatched, and eaten me with equal relish.
I stood alone for a few moments in the middle of the room, and let my attention settle on a 250-gallon aquarium into which I’d released five newly born bull sharks; genus: Carcharhinus, species: leucas. My son, Laken, visiting from Central America, had helped me build the thing, rig the filters and aerators, so the water inside was Gulf Stream clear. The finger-sized sharks were active, always moving. They seemed to be acclimating just fine.
I’ve had a long-standing interest in bull sharks; spent a lifetime traveling the same jungle rivers and remote sea places they inhabit. I find their ability to prevail in dissimilar environments fascinating. They roam tropic waters worldwide, commonly forage hundreds of miles up rivers, and can thrive in freshwater lakes.
Because the species is identified by various names-Zambezi River shark, the Lake Nicaragua shark-it’s not widely known that it’s responsible for more serious attacks on humans than great whites.
In popular literature, bull sharks are often described as “ferocious,” which is misleading because the word implies emotion. Efficient-that’s more accurate, and the way I prefer to think of them.