Goody Celeste gets magical reviews…
"Those we love define who we are. They teach us to accept that we’re neither terrible gods nor nameless grains of ocean sand, but rather something in between, unique and irreplaceable. The slipstream of our years brings souls alongside us for a time. We cannot keep them; that’s not what souls are for. If we’re wise, we let the ones we love change us. We remember them, and we hope, as deeply as hope flows, that they remember us."
Goody Celeste combines a sense of magical realism with a feminist bent in a novel that pairs the coming-of-age experiences of three teens with the oversight of young witch Cece who, in 1969, helps these young people even while struggling with her own challenges with an absent husband missing in Vietnam.
As these characters find their lives entwined, so they acknowledge that "the summer of my witch" changes them, drawing connections between Cece and her boys that lead them all into unexpected arenas of growth and new realizations.
The magic in this story lies not in a typical growth pattern, but in a process of revelations and counterpoints that bring together and contrast disparate individuals whose wild rides through 1960s culture and attractions are tempered by their relationships.
Chris Riker's lyrical prose also produces exceptional results that defy any definition of a staid coming-of-age progression to inject poetic and magical elements into even seemingly mundane shared experiences, such as a day at the seaside:
"Determined not to be bested in the ocean, not even by a goddess, I made my way out to the sandbar and waited. Waves do funny things. Physics suggests they amplify each other when they join up. That’s all well and good, but it’s not something you comprehend when your eyes are inches above the surface and the first swell blocks your view."
Goody Celeste also embraces the atmosphere of the times so seamlessly that the contrasts of these disparate forces is compellingly attractive, as in descriptions that offer unexpected contrasts between atmospheres from Carl Orff’s 1936 masterpiece from Carmina Burana (the O Fortuna movement) with the contemporary pop group The Cowsills.
These references keep the story pulsing with possibility, perception, and the flavor of an era in which opportunities for cultural and social enlightenment came from a wide range of forces that intersected lives in a manner unique to the 1960s.
Thus, the series of events and connections that drive these three young people and the witch who oversees them makes Goody Celeste a highly recommended marvel of contrasts and unprecedented opportunities.
Readers who enjoy novels of magical realism, growth, and a unique sense of place and time will find Goody Celeste defies pat categorization. It rewards those who imbibe with a rich, lyrical "you are here" journey that will attract libraries, book clubs, and discussion groups alike with remarkable, notable celebrations of life:
"We grasped little and were infinitely better off for our ignorance. Youth was the best holiday of all, unrecognized and uncelebrated, tenuous yet remembered forever. This time neither knows nor needs purpose. It is. It is. Life may be on a joyless march to steal innocence. It did not matter. Not here, not yet. Under the sun, three stupid, carefree boys rode bikes to the beach."
--Midwest Book Review & Donovan's Literary Services
Check out Goody Celeste for yourself... https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker-ebook/dp/B0CJ3GVWTY/
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Author Chris Riker appears on Scripps News to talk about the need for human magic.
Read Goody Celeste:
https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker-ebook/dp/B0CJ3GVWTY/
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This is one of those "beach songs" that was there on the transistor radio (new invention!) when we were kids. I didn't know until years later that the Cowsills were from Rhode Island and that they were the inspiration for The Partridge Family TV show. Hope this brings back memories... or just brings you a few minutes of joy.
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I chose the triquetra pattern for Mara, my forever one. I run my fingers over its interlacing trinity knots and declare that she and I are united in eternity. There are three of these. Mine is coming. The original still lies, I suppose, painted on a granite wall deep inside our improper cave. Triads. The power of three. What you carry, what you seek, and how the weight and the journey change you.
Things used to be simpler.
Our teacher, Mrs. Flynt, took us on a field trip once to the Alton Jones campus. I was amazed there were so many acres of cedar, oak, and poplar inside West Warwick. On that spring day we hiked through the hilly woods, passing speckled red mushrooms, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and fiddlehead ferns until we came to a spot near the lake. In her singsong teachery voice, Mrs. Flynt pointed out “a cohort of igneous titans dredged and dropped in a glacial campaign fought eons ago.”
Someone said, “It’s a cave!”
Mrs. Flynt said, “No, a proper cave is formed by water chewing its way through limestone or by a lava tube or some such.” I took a closer look at the cluster of boulders forming a big hole in the ground. This must be an improper cave, I thought.
We spent an half an hour exploring that gaping hole, dropping in, climbing out, scrapping our knees raw on coarse granite, and getting generally sweaty and filthy. In those days, our ankles absorbed all abuse without complaint; we were unbreakable, I thought.
Later, we got a talk about snake bites and venereal disease–it was two talks actually; I think Mrs. Flynt used the snakes to build up her courage. My classmates and I hiked back to the school bus laughing and joking about “ssnakesss with ssyphilisss.” It was a fun day. I didn’t get many of those.
Mara wasn’t on that trip. I met her at a party months later. I don’t usually go for Goth chicks, but there was something, a presence, about the pale girl sitting all alone, intensely scoping the room. She was underdeveloped, filling out her black dress slightly more than the hangar it came on. Her bangs were comically uneven, but cute.
She caught me staring. “What?”
“Sorry,” I stammered. Indicating her dress, I asked, “Who died?” It was a stupid thing to say, an aggressive-defensive, insecure mess of an opening gambit. She was enjoying my obvious discomfort.
“Don’t make fun of the dead,” she said, her lips widening into a crooked grin. Weird, but cute.
I took a chance and sat down next to her. We talked nerd stuff. She was super smart, got straight A’s in chemistry, a subject I barely survived. I sketched a few things on napkins and bragged that one day I was going to be an artist.
She said no. “Not the hang-it-in-the-Louvre kind, anyway. These are good, but it’s more like you’re trying to tell a story. You need to write, use these to help tell stories.”
“Like kiddie books? Like Where the Wild Things Are?” I asked.
“Or, who’s the guy who wrote The Giving Tree?”
I can never remember his name; the guy who looked like a bald biker dude and wrote those gross, funny poems. “You must read a lot,” I said, trying to keep the conversation moving.
“I like books more than people.” She looked at her knees.
I wanted to change the subject. “What else do you like to do?”
“Nothing.” I thought she’d frozen me out. Then, she said, “I like to learn about the secret arts.” Cool!
We drifted outside and she told she practiced Wicca. She told me how it was all about living in harmony with nature, and how she wasn’t supposed to use her special knowledge to hurt people. “I seek to honor the Triple Moon Goddess and the Horned God.”
My mouth hung open. A horny god. I had no clue. “So, what kind of spells do you do?”
“I am learning ways to build inner strength and acquire wisdom, to provide protection.”
“I’ll protect you,” I offered and leaned in to kiss her.
“No!” She pulled away abruptly, then walked off into the night. I hadn’t meant to make fun of her beliefs. I just wanted a kiss. I headed back to the house, carrying an empty beer and a ton of questions with no answers.
The next time I saw Mara was at the homecoming game. I played bass drum in the marching band, not because I was good, but because I was tall. For our half-time show we did Copacabana and Star Wars and We Are the Champions and we sucked. Afterwards, we took a break. I spotted Mara in the concessions line. It was warm for September, but she wore a dowdy brown coat with a high collar and a wide-brimmed (witch’s?) hat pulled down over her eyes.
“Hi!” I called.
She flashed a smile. “Todd. Hi!” She sounded genuinely happy to see me, and that was electric joy to my senses. For an instant her face peeked out from under the brim. I saw that one snaggle-tooth that shows when she smiles, her big, expressive brown eyes, and the fading purplish marks along her jaw, poorly hidden by makeup.
She saw the concern in my eyes and that’s all it took. It was like watching a time-stop movie of a flower blooming, except in reverse. She closed up tight and turned her face toward the person in front of her in line. For the second time, I had blown it. I was determined to do better. I realized we had something in common.
We met a few times in the cafeteria and I made a point of saying, doing, and thinking nothing offensive. (You try it!) She warmed up to me, even suggested we enroll in an art class after school. She passed me a library book on Celtic art. The triquetra drew our attention, the perfection of a triple racetrack turning back on itself into infinity. We spent the next Saturday morning painting that design on the big rock that acts like a watchman at the entryway to EGHS. (That’s East Greenwich High School. Go, Avengers! Huzzah!) It wasn’t vandalism; everyone painted the rock. New layers obliterated the ones below, though they wound up looking the same.
This was my time, the one part of my life when everything was possible. The future lay in a perfect pattern before my eyes. I owed that wonderful feeling to Mara. We were sharing a chocolate cabinet. OK, you’re probably not from Rhode Island. A cabinet is an ice cream shake. Anyway, I blurted out that I loved her. She spoke softly. “I love you.” I heard her say those words. I can still hear her saying those words, just as I can still feel the warmth of her skin and the thrill of her kisses. Yes, it happened.
Don’t ask me why, but I felt there was something only I could give to Mara, something she needed. I knew her secret; the clues were on her like cheat notes to a test. The trick was to get her to say it. Over the course of weeks, I got it out of her in bits and pieces. Her mom’s boyfriend, Brad, liked Mara as much as he liked her mom. Maybe more. And he was a mean old drunk. I asked Mara why she didn’t tell the police, or her mom. She said she thought her mom knew. That sucked. I told her (honestly) that I knew how she felt. I told her about Barry.
Uncle Barry used to visit my room when I was little. I don’t remember much, but I know what I know. He’s gone now. Moved to Oregon and died. When I heard, I wanted to laugh, but that’s not what I did. That’s the really fucked up thing about me.
Brad sounded like another Barry. I told Mara, “The difference between men and women is that a man wants to beat the shit out of his attacker.” That wasn’t completely true, but she accepted it. I sensed she appreciated my candor. A spark went off in my mind, my heart. I was her brave knight. I promised her I would avenge her; it would be my life’s quest.
She held my hand tightly. “Together,” she said.
Being the future writer, I laid out our plan. Mara was the brainy Wiccan, so she brewed up a chemical arsenal.
Obviously, we picked Halloween, or Samhain as she called it. After her mom left for work, we put on a little performance for Brad, complete with music, magic, and Mara’s special spooky punch. He fell like a lightning-struck oak. We got him into his brand-new Cordoba with its Aztec eagle hood ornament and drove to the wilds of West Warwick. My learner’s permit meant I had to have an adult with me to drive after dark. Nobody said the adult had to be conscious.
We dragged the groggy old bastard for an hour under the gibbous moon until we found our secret place; my memory did not falter. The boulder pile offered up its intimate domain. (Halloween makes me talk like this.)
I dropped Brad down the hole, into that stony interior with its rudimentary floor of mud and leaves and muskrat turds. Mara was dressed in full regalia, with a black and red hooded cloak. By lantern light, she performed an arcane ceremony, at one point holding up a wicked cool dagger with a pentagram on the hilt. “Death to lies,” she said.
I went to work painting a nice triquetra on the wall above our semi-conscious subject. The Day-Glo green came alive in the lamp’s aura. It wasn’t paint, but a special, permanent dye, Mara’s creation. I was careful to save enough. We worked together to turn Brad’s manhood into a baby gherkin.
Pointing at the symbol that stood over our work, I said, “We should get tattoos.”
“We should cut the design into our flesh.”
I looked at the blade again. “We should get tattoos,” I repeated.
We decided to do it in henna, there being no end of surprises in Mara’s little bag of tricks. To this day I can feel the spot where the tattoo was.
Brad was still in la-la land. My heart was pounding like my bass drum; I was jazzed from what we’d done. It felt … righteous. As we sat there in our improper cave, I turned to Mara. “Let’s make love,” I said.
Familiar storm clouds filled her beautiful eyes. “I … can’t.” Everything I needed to know was in those two tortured words, if I had listened, but I was young and horny and stupid. She was trying to explain her situation. Mara said she needed me to be her friend. What I heard was rejection aimed straight at me. Poisonous pride flooded my brain. I had offered her my cock like it was some great gift. She didn’t want it.
We spoke only a little as we hoisted Brad’s fat ass out of the hole and dragged him back to his car. Pain and awareness were slowly seeping back into his mind. I told her we should have used her dagger on him, but Mara stopped me. “This is enough. It’s wrong to add more evil to the world.” So, I wrote a letter and put it in his pocket, saying next time he wouldn’t find a pickle dick; he’d find a stump.
Brad moved out of her mom’s house. I hope he died, but I really don’t know. The cops never came knocking, so to hell with him.
Mara and I saw each other often. We walked through graveyards; gawped at the lizards in the pet store; went antiquing (what teenager goes antiquing?); and ate the world’s best pizza at Two Guys from Italy on Main Street. I cherish those moments, replay them often in my mind. I called it dating, but she corrected me. She said we were best friends. So, I went to a boutique in Newport called The Operculum and bought her a friendship ring: a moonstone set in tri-color gold. Witchy chic.
Anyway, try as I might, I graduated a virgin. Mara skipped commencement. We saw each other a few times that summer, but something had changed. When we kissed, she—it was— I’ve tried a million times to figure out what I could have done differently but succeeded only in making myself ache. I have to accept my past as it is. (That’s a fucking lie in case you couldn’t tell.)
She went off to college at UC Berkeley. I guess they have more Wiccan circles out there. I got into RISD (just Google it) and focused on my art and my writing. I got pretty good. I’ve written more than a dozen children’s books over the years. Danny the Lonely Blue Dragon is mine. I like talking to kids at book signings and public readings, with their folks around, of course.
I don’t have any kids of my own. Dawn, my ex, said it was best not to. “You know how you are.” I do know. At times, I’d be all over her, but mostly I wouldn’t touch her, just sit around wishing and being moody. My compass really spins! Dawn used to say her love was worth more than that… more than me. She was right.
After the split, I’d hook up with other women, single moms. It’s no use. What I carry has become what I seek. I haven’t … but I can feel the beast getting stronger. Bourbon and a pricy shrink help, but the main thing is Mara. I feel her presence warning me against passing along this dark gift. You can believe that or not; it’s what I feel.
I wrote to her about all of it. She wrote or emailed often, telling me about her life, her Wicca buddies, her three fat cats, her career in pharmaceuticals and the difficulties she had at work, plus the gory details on why her relationships crashed and burned. Some of it hurt to read, but I was glad she trusted me with her private thoughts. She signed her letters “your enchantress.” She never wrote the word “love.” That hurt, too.
One day, I found a letter in my mailbox, written in her fine hand on parchment stationery. Mara said she might be coming back to Rhode Island soon. It was like my heart stepped out of the freezer. Maybe, I could say or do or be something different this time. I wanted to be better, to be someone who could offer her a decent future. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t happen.
The infinite track was always leading me here; it will go on even when I have ceased to be. All I have left is this task, then I’m done. I couldn’t be her protector, so I’ll be her avenger. Huzzah!
Witnesses say Jack, her junkie boyfriend, threw Mara against a wall so hard it caused bleeding in her brain. The prosecutor tried to pin it on him, but he was miles away when the aneurism killed her, so the jury gave him a pass.
The funeral was nice, I think. I was pretty drunk. I’m glad her mom brought Mara home and hope she doesn’t mind that I came back today and replaced the little bronze plaque with this big Celtic marker.
So, I stand here crying like I haven’t done since Barry died. I’ve got one hand on Mara’s stone, the other holds a fifth of Cuervo Gold and a plane ticket. Without her, I’m a bad thing waiting to happen; it’s only a question of who gets hurt. I choose Jack. I’ll do what I have to do and make the cops do the rest. I’ve made sure the matching triquetra headstone I ordered for myself will be ready when they bring me back here.
Mara, I can’t claim to understand your choices; I hope you can accept mine. I like to think you’re wearing the moonstone ring. Under this vacant October sky, I pronounce the two of us bound to eternity. I am a used and broken wreck of a man, but you, Mara, are beautiful. You are love-worthy.
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Takao felt old and bitter. His hair was thinning, his fingers refused to straighten, and cold sober he walked like a man in a storm. Worse, he couldn’t respond to the cherry blossom scented girl at the market who smiled at him despite his rheumy eyes and blood-stained clothes. He couldn’t respond because he had to go home to a wife who squandered all her affection on three lazy sons. They wanted nothing to do with the hunt. They had big dumb dreams. Such things might well embitter a man nearing forty. Takao put all the blame instead on the dolphins.
He rose alone in the dark and chill, his family sleeping, snoring, twitching. His boatmates, whose names drifted away from him, shared no jokes or stories, just the shouted orders of the job. When Takao spoke, which was seldom, he was his own audience. As he walked down to the boats under a graying sky, he muttered a vow. “I loathe these fish. Despise them. They eat my catch and leave me nothing. I have waited through three long days of rain, but before this day ends, I will kill as many as I can.”
Takao had his reasons. The dolphins had trapped him. Taiji’s cove was the last place in Japan where he could make a decent living at what he knew how to do: whaling. It was what his father had done, and his father before him. The money was good at this time of year, better than he made fishing the rest of the time, but it was never enough.
The meat was good. His wife cut it into sashimi or boiled it and served it with shoyu to the family. He used to sell the meat to government buyers, who distributed it to schools for the children. The damned Americans put a stop to that with their “make cry” movie and their lying newspapers. There were new limits everywhere. That meant even less money for his family.
The man with the glasses was not at the docks. He was one of the few to come to the hunt this year, but he slept late like all the Europeans. He’d arrive later, after the crews returned from the day’s hunt, to see whether there were any of the valuable dolphins in the mix. The crews offered the man the best dolphin steaks, cut with the right portion of blubbery rind, but he smiled and politely refused.
A boy ran up to the docks, where Takao and the rest of the crewmen were busy securing their harpoons and other gear in the aqua interiors of their white boats. He said they’d spotted a large pod, not too far out. The dolphins were not moving. It would be easy to get around them and begin a drive back toward the holding pens. The men began cheering their luck and hastily divided themselves among the white fleet.
**
Aiko looked on but could do nothing to help the mother dolphin who was nearby, still holding her silent calf. Grandmother Shimizu conducted the pod as always, winding them in a great circle. Some of the mated groups protested, “We should go and eat fish. We’re hungry. It does no good for us to stay here for –”
Grandmother silenced their chittering with a burst of clicks and shrill notes, saying, “Sink your fat bellies! This is your day. This is what you will do. Stay with Yubi. She grieves. We grieve with her.”
The pod members forgot their protest and went back to the slow procession, moving around and around the mother and calf. All were intensely aware that Yubi might make the choice. It was not something anyone spoke of aloud. Ever. Every dolphin knew it was an option: to stop. Stop breathing. Stop moving. Stop life’s vital pulsations. To use their magnificent brains to end all suffering. To stop.
Grandmother had trained Aiko to be a healer. She concentrated for a moment then sent out high manipulator sounds to scan the baby and his mother. There was no doubt. The infant had died sometime during the night. The mother, unwilling to give her calf to the eaters who lived in the water – though that must happen eventually – stayed with the calf. She held the still form behind one pectoral fin, where the calf had suckled just hours before.
From what Aiko could tell, this death tasted of mans. Mans had poisoned the water with bits of plastic, chemicals, and awful metals. Fish swallowed everything and the dolphins gobbled the fish. The mans poison remained. In all likelihood, Yubi had delivered the mans evil with her own milk to her beloved Kentaro, dooming the calf with an act of motherly love.
Aiko thought, as she did often, of the mans. They took fish by the millions. They killed the sharks, who were such fun for the dolphins to torment, also by the millions. Their boats and their nets and their blooding sticks were everywhere.
Aiko wanted to love on the mans. After all, the pod raced out to meet the fishing boats. When they emptied their nets, they threw unwanted fish (imagine such a thing!) back into the water. Their language was a mystery, simplistic and blunt. The dolphins had taken to using the mans names that filtered into their world. They used them along with the intricate musical rhapsodies that were their natural monikers. It made them laugh. Dolphins liked to laugh. Mans were silly, but mans had the most interesting music. She liked it when the mans brought singing box machines on their machine boats. The melodies varied in form, swelling high and low. She especially loved the rare times when the boxes played orchestra or opera. Many sweet twisty sounds at once, more like a dolphin’s speech. Mans music found its true expression when sung by a dolphin. This, as she soon learned, became quite the habit.
So, dolphins and mans should be playmates. They should share the fish. Instead, she felt something else for the mans because of the things they did.
“And what do you feel, little one?” asked Grandmother, who always seemed to know Aiko’s mood, as she knew the mood of every member of the pod. Aiko tried to answer but could not find the right way to share her thoughts. Grandmother said, “You must ask yourself, ‘Would I do what they do to me?’”
“Would I kill and eat them? I don’t know. I might. Everybody eats. What do mans taste like, anyway?”
Grandmother sideswam the last part of her question, saying, “You would not do it the way they do, tearing pod mates one from another, taking dolphins into their boats, killing more than they need as I have seen them do.”
“Do you hate them, Grandmother?”
“Like you, I would like to reach into their hearts, squeeze out the part that makes them think only of themselves. Do not keep hatred in your deeps, little one. It poisons everything, and we carry enough mans poisons inside us as it is.”
Grandmother swung wide and swept in, butting her rostrum rudely into Aiko’s side. “Find a better song, little one. Find a song of love no matter what. For now, feel what you can for poor Yubi and Kentaro, mostly for Yubi.
The morning sun penetrated the dappled roof of the world, cleaving the waters with warming blades of white and gold. The light iridized the scales of red sea bream flitting in a vast school nearby. A squad of Japanese flying squid took notice, changing its course accordingly. “Yom!” sang Aiko. Both were tempting meals, but she and the other dolphins focused on their sister’s grief.
Then they heard it, a rumbling that disrespected the ocean’s natural anthems. In contrast to the deep pitches larger whales crooned to one another, this was an ugly whine utterly lacking a cetacean’s musicality or joy. It took no more than a second for the dolphins to identify the sound as a harbinger of mans. These were the machine boats that swam on the surface, some of them almost as fast as a dolphin! Aiko sang a warning note to Grandmother, who called out to the entire pod, “Stay together! The pod is life!”
Aiko wanted to dash off to the deep water, away from the cove. In that late summer and through the winter, the waters here tasted of dolphin blood. She did not like this place. The machine boats were getting closer… and there were many of them. She thought for just a second to abandon the pod, but that was madness. The pod was all. “Stay together,” she said, repeating Grandmother’s words.
The machine boats were moving in several directions now, slapping their bellies on the watery peaks. Some had already swung wide, getting between the pod and the open sea.
**
Takao cursed. He had to work twice as hard as the younger fisherman around him in order to look like he was working at all. He should be running the boat, but he was only a hooker. His hands hurt and trembled when he tried to grip anything. At least the weather was clear.
The boat captains revved the engines, frothing the water while men beat on the gunwales, filling the undersea with noise to further confuse the dolphins. Streamlined bodies stitched the waves, anxiously darting in one direction and then another. The animals were fast, but the captains knew their weakness: they tried to stay together at all times. Their group bond slowed down the entire pod, allowing the boats to drive them into the cove, where the crews could go to work.
Already the dolphins were squealing like frightened babies. They knew what was coming.
**
Dolphins don’t need anyone to tell them which direction to follow. Their movements come freely; the only paradigm is to keep the clan together. Now, the screaming of the machine boats was scrambling their ability to think, to plan the graceful arcs and playful corkscrews that made up their usual movements.
The ancient strategy was sound: stay together while facing danger. It would work against any predator. Almost any predator. “The pod is life!” Grandmother sang out. Dozens of her mates and cousins took up the refrain. Their singing was off, terribly off as fear fractured the tocs and clicks, and muddied the carefully constructed chords.
Aiko looked around. The mans were dropping nets into the water between their machine boats. Her senses detected lines pulling more netting below them, drawn by other machine boats. The nets were surrounding them and coming up from underneath, like the maw of a blue whale. Her family members were no better than hapless krill feeding this hunter’s insatiable appetite.
One of her mates, a burly male named Raiden, raced toward the shallows then abruptly reversed himself, at once using his mighty peduncle to whip his flukes up and down. By the time he passed Aiko, he was moving at full speed and headed directly at the raised perimeter. He meant to break the nets, frustrating the mans trap. If anyone could, it was Raiden! Closer and closer he got until his melon struck the mesh barrier. The nets gave slightly. Aiko could see the two nearest machine boats jerk sharply. Raiden issued a rude burst of whistles and clacks and drifted back into the main pod.
The netting remained intact… and it was creeping like a predator, driving them ever closer to shore.
More than ever, Aiko wanted to make her own run at the net, not to try to snap its nasty web but to jump over it. She could. Most of them had that kind of speed. Maybe not Grandmother, who had seen over eight hundred lunas. That was the problem. To jump the net meant leaving behind the pod, certainly leaving Grandmother and many of the younger dolphins caught in the trap. No, Aiko could not do that. “The pod is life!” she called, adding to the frantic voices around her.
Aiko looked around again. The pod was bunching in close together. Now, the machine boats had driven a second pod of moon-faced Risso’s Dolphins into the trap. The two clans were not friendly and this only made things more confusing. They were moving. The mans were forcing them through a small opening in a new net wall that surrounded a secluded cove.
It was hard for Aiko to see anyone. She tried to find Yubi and Kentaro, but they were nowhere to be seen. Without warning, a group of dolphins found themselves surrounded by yet another of the mans nets. It rose from below, rolling her among four other dolphins, including Raiden. He contorted himself wildly, crushing them in even tighter. Aiko felt her slick body pressed between Raiden and another dolphin, forcing her backwards like when she bit into an urchin and wound up squeezing the tasty guts out of her mouth. She was free of the net! Before she could sing for joy, however, she saw the others pulled upward and through the rippling surface. Their screams never stopped as they transitioned from sea to air.
Not far away, Grandmother was trying to calm her relations. She had gotten close to the white hull of one of the machine boats. Above the surface, Aiko could see the mans bodies moving menacingly against the blue vault of the Great heavens. There was a sharp motion and a missile pierced the water, creating a line of bubbles. It had a fierce looking metal tip. It was a bloodstick, and before Aiko knew what was happening, the bloodstick was buried deep in Grandmother’s side. Crimson mist formed around the wound. Even as she cried out in anguish, one pale hand dipped down from above holding a shorter blooding stick with a wicked hook at the end. Aiko tried to sing out to Grandmother. The hook found the older dolphin’s side, plunging into her, releasing a second cloud of red.
**
Takao felt the blubber hook slice deeply into the big female and lodge firmly in place. He wanted this one. She’d be good eating. It looked like a Pantropical Spotted. The man in the dark glasses usually liked to keep these alive. Too bad. There were plenty more dolphins in these waters: Risso’s, Striped, even False Killer Whales. They would capture many today to add to those in the pens. This one – this one would feed the working men and their families.
One of the captains called out, “Spread the tarps!”
Damn them! Takao thought. He looked up to see if a drone camera was overhead. He couldn’t see one, but they were close to shore. A group of outsiders up in the hills had cameras pointed at them. They were trying to shame honest fishermen with videos on their computers and phones, the kind his idiot sons stared at all day. His boat mate got a line around the dolphin’s tail. Together, they hauled the animal close to the boat and secured it there. Then they wasted a quarter- hour rigging a tarp over the work areas to block the onlookers’ view. It was awkward, working in a wetsuit, plus the extra exertion hurt his back and legs. When he thought no one was looking, Takao pulled a flask from his back pocket and took a long sip of liquor.
Never having worked a single day on the water, these outsiders demanded the hunt be “humane.” So be it. Takao grabbed a T-handled metal rod with a sharp blade on the tip. He carefully positioned himself over the wounded dolphin’s front end. Pressing the tip just behind the blowhole, Takao thrust downward into the spinal cord. “Humane!” he yelled through the tarp to the hills above the cove. Men then hammered a cork into each of the dolphin’s wounds. This was supposed to reduce the bleeding and keep the cove’s water from churning into a bright red. This was another pointless chore the owners had added on to placate fools. Stupid! They would spend the next several days driving, netting, and gaffing the dolphins. Just wait till they began flensing off the blubber and meat. The cove would sparkle under the sun like cherry wine.
**
Grandmother’s body, leaking ruddy life, was pinned against the machine boat. Her tail lolled and bobbed with the motion of the surrounding water, and it was plain Grandmother no longer controlled it. She whimpered. Wanting desperately to free her, Aiko thought to chew the bonds, but they were made of the same mans rope as the nets and would not break.
“Grandmother!” she cried.
“Poison, little one. I am full of poison.” Aiko was confused. The mans had not used poison, had they? Surely, their blooding sticks were enough.
Aiko was terrified. She flipped and swam, bumping against strange dolphins to keep out of reach of the blooding sticks but she kept coming back to Grandmother’s side. The old dolphin’s eyes would not focus, and the only sound she produced was a song of misery. After a long time, she died.
**
The man in the dark glasses checked the list on his fancy phone. His fine clothes were not stained like the other men’s. “It’s been a good haul,” he said with a smile. “My clients will be pleased with these specimens.” The man’s trucks had come and gone, taking more than two dozen of the chosen survivors off to dolphinariums around the world.
Takao stood behind his boat captain, who said, “Our numbers could be higher, if we didn’t have this fucking quota limits. We had to release a lot of good animals.” It was the same excuse his captain gave Takao when he explained why his share was smaller than last year. Takao blamed the dolphins.
“In time, when the world is distracted, things may go back to the way they were. For now, play the game,” the man in the dark glasses said, drawing good-natured laughter all around. The boat captains reported the annual take. Sometimes someone checked, mostly not. Police kept the activists back, so the men usually got an extra dolphin or two. Indeed, the butcher had not sent back his usual two pallet loads, but rather three heaping pallets. The boat crews eagerly divided the bundles of meat among themselves. It made Takao’s back hurt to think about hauling the heavy load home. Stepping in close so no cameras could see, the man carefully slipped each boat captain a thick envelope and drove off in his big dark car.
**
Aiko poked her head above the crimson swells and she watched the mans on the shore. Sadness and the taste of the cove water filled her senses. Her mind was sharp. It knew these tastes. If she concentrated, she might be able to identify which blood came from which dolphin. The thought made her heart race. She was angry.
She looked on until all the mans but one had left. He stood, taking up his bundles of dolphin meat. She tried not to allow the word to form in her mind. Tried. It burst through her barriers unbidden, complex, lovely, unbearably sad: Grandmother.
The old dolphin’s words came back to Aiko. “Do not keep hatred in your deeps… It poisons everything.”
Fine, let him eat her poisoned meat! she thought. It felt good to think of the mans feeling pain. Mans had poisoned the water. Mans had murdered her grandmother. Aiko cherished the thought that mans own mistakes would…
Aiko’s insides went cold. This was the old dolphin’s warning. This was what Grandmother was saying.
At once, Aiko swam closer to where the lone mans was standing and called out. “Poison! Danger! Warn others! Not yom! Bad!” He heard her. Their eyes made contact, mans to dolphin and back. In that moment, she could almost sense his thoughts.
Yubi’s head popped up a short distance away. Her calf was nowhere to be seen. Yubi heard Aiko’s warning cries, but did not join in.
At last, the mans reacted. He dropped his wet bundles and scraped up a fist full of jagged stones, white but stained pink. These, he threw viciously towards Aiko. Most plunked harmlessly into the water, though one bounced painfully off the young dolphin’s melon.
Aiko and Yubi ducked under the surface and swam out of the cove.
**
“Hit you! Ha! Next fall, I will put my hook in you and eat you up!” Takao laughed loudly. With a grubby hand, he pulled the flask from his back pocket and swallowed the final drops inside. It dulled the pain in his hands and back. He picked up his heavy bundles again, feeling unsteady on his feet.
As walked toward home, he looked out at the sun settling into the red waters. The color would fade to blue as it did every spring after the hunt. He’d be back next time. For now, he had a little money. Maybe he could save up and buy his own boat one day. Then he could smile back at the cherry blossom scented girl at the market. At least he had good dolphin meat to feed his wife and sons. They wasted their time playing computer games and dreaming of expensive schools. Something was wrong with those boys. They were dumb. No matter. Let them smell the cherry blossoms of their free spring. When winter came, he would bring them here to the shore. They would work the cove, just as Takao and his father had done, and his father before him.
If you found this story moving, please check out Come the Eventide by Chris Riker -
https://chrisrikerauthor.com/news/novels/a-free-sample-and-a-story-unto-itself
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Hieronymus LaRoche, DDS
by
Chris Riker
Dr. LaRoche moved with purpose, using two of his six legs to pull the water pick with him as he crawled over gums and molars to reach and clean the deep crevices in his patient’s mouth. He found no new cavities, but some would certainly appear if this man failed to do a better job of brushing and flossing. There! A putrid hunk of masticated ham tucked behind a bicuspid. Dr. LaRoche reached in with one barbed appendage, skewered the morsel, and quickly jammed it into his own mouth parts. “Waste not, want not. Indeed, indeed!” he thought.
The dentist gave his patient a new toothbrush and inculcated him on the benefits of oral hygiene. The man, a sedentary-looking policeman with colorful donut sprinkles on his uniform, thanked him and hurried out the door. He’ll be back, Dr. LaRoche thought. More work for me. The thought of being useful bolstered his natural zeal.
The final patient of the day was a slender professional woman with glossy hair the color of radio wiring, which put ribald thoughts of nesting into Dr. LaRoche’s mind. The woman scanned the room, at first believing it empty. Then she noticed the diminutive dentist on the instrument tray and let out a yelp. “A roach!” she cried.
“La-Roche,” he corrected politely. “My family came from France. These days, we’re well established in Atlanta, though I have relatives all over: New York, New Jersey, indeed pretty much any city. I am Hieronymus LaRoche, DDS, just as it says on the diploma.” He used a stainless steel probe to proudly point to his bona fides, which hung on the wall next to a sign bearing the message: ‘Please don’t bite down during the exam.’
“You’re the dentist? My friend said you were good, but she didn’t mention--” Her tone seemed uncertain.
“I am fully accredited in the state of Georgia.” Standing on his hind legs, he continued, “You have magnificent teeth, Miss... Miss?”
“Constance Wainwright.”
“What a lovely name, indeed,” he responded, smiling.
Her pale blue eyes were wide. Dr. LaRoche said, “Hop in the chair and let’s take a look.”
Constance Wainwright hesitated a beat, then climbed into the dentist’s chair as instructed. Dr. LaRoche scurried over the bib covering her provocative bosom and onto her lower lip. With a bow and a wink, he stepped inside.
As he worked, Dr. LaRoche could not help but feel there was something special about this woman; perhaps it was the sweetness of her voice, or the heady vapors from a lunchtime Pinot Noir which hung in her mouth and eased him into a pleasant euphoria. Whatever the case, Dr. LaRoche found himself daydreaming through the whole check-up. Was this the kind of woman, he wondered, who would like a large family? Perhaps three or four hundred children?
Dr. LaRoche paid special attention to the cleaning, using his antennae to polish her brilliant white enamel. From deep in the throat of Constance Wainwright came a tiny song-like vocalization, rising sharply each time Dr. LaRoche scampered across her tongue. The melody escaped Dr. LaRoche, but he indeed enjoyed its child-like inflections.
He pondered whether she might enjoy dining in some dimly lit spot far away from the gaudy glare of neon. Dr. LaRoche screwed up his courage while putting his instruments into the sterilizer. As Constance Wainwright straightened her smart business attire, he asked, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”
Constance Wainwright did not acknowledge that she had heard his invitation. She took a swig of mouthwash, leaned over the tiny sink, and spat. Then she rinsed and spat again. And then twice more. Quickly thanking him, she was off and gone.
Dr. LaRoche locked up his office for the night. There was no denying it: Constance Wainwright had disappeared from his life as quickly as she had come. The loneliness of his existence weighed on him for one brief moment, but only one. Then, he brightened and thought, “Indeed, there are other fish in the sea. In a city this size, there must be some lucky lady who wants to date a dentist. Perhaps I’ll find a wine and cheese tasting club. Ah, the days ahead will be sweet. Indeed, indeed!”
Dr. Hieronymus LaRoche’s broke into a jaunty gait and whistled to himself all the way home.
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