Warren Fahy: Fragment

Andy fidgeted with the wireless mike pinned to his skinny yellow leather tie. He wore a Lacoste blue-white-orange-yellow-purple-and-green-striped shirt, which resembled Fruit Stripe gum. Paired with the vertically striped shirt, he wore Tommy Hilfiger boardshorts with horizontal blue, green, pink, red, orange, and yellow stripes. To set it all off, he wore green size-11 high-top sneakers.

Andy’s teaching props, a number of latex hand puppets of various sea creatures, lay scattered on the white deck before him. Beside him sat a panting, broad-nosed bull terrier with a miniature life vest strapped on his square chest.

Zero Monroe, the lead cameraman, changed the memory stick in his digital video camera. The previous one had blinked FULL in the middle of Andy’s lesson, something that had been planned, much to Zero’s chagrin, in order to start rattling Andy and get him primed for an eruption.

“Are we ready yet?” Andy asked, flustered but still trying to smile.

Zero raised the camera to his right eye and opened the other eye at Andy. “Yup,” he replied. The rangy cameraman used words sparingly, especially when he was unhappy. This job was making him unhappy.

His lean physique, wide aquamarine eyes, and deadpan humor lent Zero a vaguely Buster Keaton-like quality, though he was six-two and broad at the shoulders. He wore a gray Boston Marathon T-shirt that he had earned three times over, and battered blue New Balance RXTerrain running shoes with orange laces and gel-injected soles. His faded brown Orvis cargo pants had fourteen pockets stuffed with memory sticks, lenses, lens filters, lens cleaners, mike filters, and a lot of batteries.

Zero had made his living and reputation photographing wildlife. He had mastered his trade in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world, taking assignments from the infested mangrove swamps of Panama (filming fiddler crabs) to the corrosive alkaline lakes in the Rift Valley of East Africa (filming flamingos). After the last three weeks, Zero was wondering which assignment was worse-this one, or standing in mud that ate through his wading boots while his blood was drained by swarming black flies.

“Let’s go, Gus,” Zero growled.

A grip clacked a plastic clapper in front of Andy’s face, startling him. “SeaLife , day fifty-two, camera three, stick two!”

“And…ACTION!” Jesse Jones shouted.

Jesse was the obligatory obnoxious member of the on-camera “crew.” The real crew wore uniforms and tried to stay off-camera as much as possible. Universally hated by both his shipmates and the viewers at home, Jesse Jones was delighted to play a starring role. Reality shows needed at least one cast member everyone could loathe with full enjoyment, one who caused crisis and conflict, one whom sailors in olden days would have called a “Jonah” and heaved overboard at the first opportunity.

Tanned and muscular, with heavily tattooed upper arms, Jesse wore his hair short, spiked, and bleached white. No one had taken advantage of the show’s legion of sponsors quite so much as he had. He was decked out in black thigh-low, ribs-high Bodyform wetsuit trunks, complete with a stitched-in blue codpiece, and over them a muscle Y-shirt printed with palms and flowers. On his feet were silver Nikes and on his nose rested five-hundred dollar silver-framed Matsuda sunglasses with pale turquoise lenses.

“Where were we, Zero?” Andy said, cranking up a smile.

“Copepods,” Zero prompted.

“Oh yes,” Andy said. “That’s right-Jesse?”

Jesse threw a rubber hand-puppet at Andy, who ducked too late. It bounced off his face.

Everyone laughed as Andy replaced his imitation tortoise-shell glasses and gave a crooked smile to the camera. He slipped his hand into the puppet and wiggled its single google-eye and two long antennae with his fingers. “So Copepod, here, gets his name from this microscopic sea creature.”

The banana-snouted dog barked once and resumed panting next to Andy’s leg.

“Poor Copey!” Dawn Kipke, the crew’s surf-punk siren, crooned. “Why would anyone name a dog after that ugly freaking thing?”

“Yeah, that’s uncool, dude,” Jesse shouted.

Andy lowered the puppet and frowned at Zero, who zoomed in on his face.

Andy’s face turned red and his eyes bulged as he threw the puppet down. “How can I teach anything if nobody ever LISTENS TO ME?” he raged.

He stormed off the deck and down the hatchway.

The crew turned to Zero.

“Hey, I’m not in charge, man,” Zero said, walking backwards as he shot. “Ask the guys upstairs!” He panned up to the bridge, where Nell stood looking down at them. She made hand-antlers at them in the window and stuck out her tongue.

“Looks like mutiny, Captain. I think we’re going to have to land at the first opportunity.”

Captain Sol gave Nell a sly look over his shoulder. A trim white beard framed his tanned face and sea-blue eyes. “Nice try, Nell.”

“I’m serious!”

Glyn Fields, the show’s biologist, stepped next to Nell to look through the window. “She’s right, Captain. I really think the crew’s getting ready to storm the Bastille.”

Nell had met Glyn during her second year as an assistant professor teaching first-year botany at NYU. Glyn was teaching first-year biology, and his looks had caused quite a stir among the faculty when he arrived. It was Glyn who had persuaded her to try out for SeaLife.

Tall, pale, thin, and very British, Glyn had sharp, handsome features, nearly black eyes, and his mother’s thick Welsh crown of black hair. The biologist was a tad too vain for Nell’s taste, but she may have felt that way simply because he never seemed to notice her (like that , anyway). He wore the stereotypical clothing of an English academic: Oxford shirts, corduroys, plain leather shoes, and even blue blazers on occasion. He now wore a blue Oxford shirt, khaki slacks, and Top-Siders without socks-about as casual as he was capable of dressing, even in the tropics. Nell suspected the Englishman would never be caught dead wearing shorts, a T-shirt, or, heaven forbid, sneakers.

She remembered how she had protested to Glyn a year ago that SeaLife would create a yearlong detour in her studies. When Glyn had mentioned that the expedition might come across the obscure little island she was always talking about, Nell knew instantly she might never get this chance again. Surprising herself, she tried out for the show and was actually chosen, along with Glyn.

Now, as he saw Nell’s hopes dashed, Glyn obviously felt a twinge of guilt. “Maybe a quick landing would be good for morale, Captain.”

Second Mate Samir El-Ashwah entered through the starboard hatchway, dressed in the full Love Boat -style white uniform inflicted on the Trident’s professional staff. A wiry man of Egyptian extraction, Samir’s Australian accent surprised at first. “Holy Dooley the Turbosails are in the groove, eh, Captain? What are we making, just outta curiosity?”

“Fourteen knots, Sam,” Captain Sol said.

“That’s getting it done, I reckon!”

“I’d say.” Captain Sol laughed, scratching the coral atoll of white hair around his bald head.

Nell peered up toward the skylight at the ninety-three foot Turbosail, one of two that towered over the bridge like a cruise-ship’s smokestacks grafted onto the research vessel. The massive cylindrical shaft passed through the center of the bridge, housed inside a wide column that was smothered in notices and photos. Nell heard motors whirring inside the column as the sail turned above.

Turbosails were pioneered by Jacques Cousteau in the eighties for scientific exploration vessels, including his own Calypso II. Ideal for long-range research vessels, the tubular sail used small fans to draw air inside a vertical seam, as wind passing around it produced a much higher leeward surface speed than any traditional sail. Now that the storm had passed, the crew had raised both of the Trident’s Turbosails and rotated the seams to catch the nor’easter.