Ol’ Joe talked on about how the ocean had been turned into stone by microscopic life and then talked about what I had seen.
“Some slimy stuff like big blobs, kinda like jellyfish bells, been coming up from the bottom. Jellyfish is out of season and besides they is too big to be jellyfish.” So Ol’ Joe said.
“Petro waste of some chemicals that jelled and became ocean junk floating on the currents.” So John Henry said.
Ol’ Joe gave his reply. “No, ain’t that.”
“Could just be some acellular by-product or a biogenetic ocean process,” Manta said.
“Nah,” Ol’ Joe continued, “seen it happen once out there but—but—it did not and still don’t make any sense. The water itself turned into this stuff. Damn queer.”
I thought of my vision of the co-ed at Easy Chair Rock. What the—
Manta and John Henry first tried to deduce a logical solution, then tried to induce a logical solution by using the tried and true methodology of the scientific method: hypothesis development. Such a fool’s game is the scientific method. I did not tell what I had seen. The one thing that the scientific method relied on most was what I did not have, substance.
Ol’ Joe, John Henry, and Manta talked all afternoon about the ocean. I have been in Cleveland, Ohio, in February and I have been to Key West, Florida, in June and Key West in June is better than Cleveland in February by a ton. Being on Apocalypse Reef was better than being in Key West—by a ton, also.
The three of them were sunspots on the face of the setting sun. I turned to the map and into the mind of the Deacon. This I knew. I knew that he knew everything that each one of us knew and that I did not know what he knew, maybe.
The lines of the map became indelible lines in my brain.
The round fullness of the sun almost filled the flat curved horizon of the prismatic deep and it, the sun, did fill the door opening and all other openings with such abundance that the excess of light pushed mightily through every opening. The floor was tiled this way and that way in trapezoid patterns of brilliance. They, those three, sat in the axis point of the day star haloed by its perfection as if they were the nuclear center. I was just a near orbiting charge and the Deacon, the Deacon was in the deep dark of his own light.
13
The sea is the universal level. For all, the sea levels are the same. Giant beast, gigantic contrivances, solo microscopic life, or individual man—the sea has no prejudice and is without darlings. The sea knows no name. From point north to point south, from point west to point east, the plane of the sea is an unadulterated, absolute, unqualified whole and its deep lies in unknown fathoms that are unfathomable. To dive into the black at night is perverse.
There was the Deacon, who was with us but by himself; there was Manta, there was John Henry, and myself. The laws of physics obeyed the Deacon. Manta heard the song of the sea and danced to the sea’s song. John Henry had faith. I was a redundant diver. Double gauges and gear were my methodology of diving. I obeyed the hydrodynamic principles and the gas laws. I heard no song of the sea. I had no faith. Double everything and check it often and then check it twice again. The sea would always be there. I just wanted to be.
I broke the surface and the phosphorescence was upon my face and I was electric blue. A blanket of photo-phosphorescent plankton had randomly floated upon the exact spot of my exit point. Looking down I could see the expanding exhaled bubbles and the ascending lights of the others. I climbed the ladder and prepared to aid the rest.
She was first. The image was that of Electra. The sea had given life to womanhood. She was glowing a radiant blue. Her hair dropped fire as the sea water fell; her fine figure was a constellation of accented female characteristics outlined in the night and with each motion the animation became more sensual and she never realized.
Manta was next out. His image looked as if the sea had given life to a great sphere of itself. The moon volume was pushed aside by his light mass. As he went about, great dazzling blue artifacts were recorded where he had been and indeed with him about, there was no need for any other light.
The Deacon was last from the sea. His image had no glow. I looked into the sea and the sea was still aglow. He had passed through the sea in a cocoon of his own will free of the baptismal desire of the Deep.
At the LION the next morning, there was a dark stranger standing in the early light.
“May I enter?” The voice came from behind me. It was the voice of a stranger. “I know that you are not officially open yet, but I just desire to look about.”
“Sure. Make yourself at home. Feel free to just roam and look about,” I said
“Thank you, sir,” he said... Sir! Was he just being polite?
I was tired from the night-diving and just pretended to be doing some administrative work. I shuffled papers.
I should have kept the door closed.
There is random roaming about and there is apparent roaming about. As I casually observed the stranger, he was roaming but not randomly. He was not looking, rather he was searching, and it was not for aquatic specimens. I really did not care. I just wanted to rest.
He stopped and concentrated on Exhibit J-14A. There he stood peering into the exhibit—not looking at the specimen but peering at the substrate of the exhibit.
Strange, but what the heck.
He pulled a glass from his pocket and his gaze became ever more fixed. Then he had that eureka moment in full. He said not a word but the topography of his searching expression became the expression of extreme satisfaction.
He approached me. What I noticed first was a gold bob, small as it was in size. The bob dangled. It caught my attention because it had caught an intense ray of sunlight and the very bright, golden, and intense ray was burning a hole into my exhausted retinas.
The bob was one of those secret-society baubles that members wear publicly to announce that they belong to a secret society.
In a most articulate, most precise, and most concise fashion the stranger inquired about Exhibit J-14A. He was interested in the substrate and nothing more.
Should have kept the door shut but it was too perfect a South Sea day not to let the day into the LION—but now I have to pay for my lust.
I could not but ponder upon the surgical method of his inquiry and his gold bob.
As he was exiting the LION, there was Manta. As species are born to recognize that which is not their own, so it was with Manta and the golden-bob man. The body language of each was on display, the reflexive nature of the eye, the responsive nature of skin and muscle, the bolt-uprightness of the spine, and the leaking scent. There were no words exchanged. There were no words exchanged for of what value are words before such truth? The wisdom was in the silence.
Passing Manta, the stranger stopped instantaneously.
“Jeanette. I’ll be.”
Manta pivoted. I woke up.
“Jeanette,” the man said again.
John Henry was a deer in the headlights.
“Jeanette.” He repeated her name a third time.
She was now the display specimen.
“Dee, Joel Dee, what are you doing here?” John Henry began to question him.
“What are you doing here is a better question?” The stranger questioned her. “This place has not even made it into the third world, yet.” The stranger laughed at his own wit.
Manta’s body swelled reflexively.
My reflex thought was what the—
He could take his laughable and—
Light, and thusly sight, are blocked by even the thinnest of things. Sound, not as demure, has a more infusing character. Few realize conversation does not stop at the ears of the people who are in the conversation. By means of natural selection, teachers develop teachers’ ears and thus survive. I desired to hear the conversation but I did not desire to have the conversationalist know that I was a part of their conversation so I ambled to specimen K-08R.