Alison Lurie - Last Resort

Barbie Mumpson, however, made up for this. She cooed sentimentally and oohed indignantly over the injured dolphins. She was horrified to learn their individual histories; how they had been disentangled from fishing nets, or rescued from commercial aquariums where they had been starved into performing tricks for the public.

Wilkie, standing a little apart, wearily observed Barbie’s performance—as automatic in its way, he thought, as that of a performing dolphin. He had always had mixed feelings about places like this. Naturally he favored the preservation of species, and most of the organizations that worked to breed and reintroduce individuals into the wild had his full endorsement. But he had also seen some that were merely glorified zoos or theme parks—or worse, showcases for dubious fund-raising.

There was always a potential conflict of interest in any charity, since its director and employees depended for their livelihood on a continued supply of the unfortunate individuals it was supposed to help. Social agencies need clients; drug counselors need drug addicts, and it was the same with animal-rescue enterprises. If dolphins were banned from commercial aquariums and all nets were biodegradable, the sanctuary they had visited this morning might have to close. Meanwhile, when the supply of damaged individuals fell off, there would be a natural tendency to keep them in care as long as possible, to sentimentalize them and treat them as pets.

Wilkie had been slightly surprised to discover that Glory Green, unlike many nature guides, was apparently aware of these issues.

“Yeah,” she had said in reply to Barbie’s horrified enquiries. “It keeps happening. If it didn’t, we’d have to shut down ... Nah, essentially we can’t do anything about it. We have to wait until they’re hurt bad enough that the fish shows don’t want them anymore.” Her tone was dark but restrained, as if she had seen so much cruelty to mammals that it had worn her out, the way it had worn Wilkie out.

“But then when the dolphins get well, they go back to the sea,” Barbie proposed eagerly.

“Yeah, usually they do. All except Lady Edna.” Glory Green gestured at a large, slow-moving dolphin who was nosing the rim of the pool nearby, slowly sinking and surfacing again, as if performing some old Sea World routine. “She stayed around too long and got hooked on the free fish. Now it’s too late for her.”

“Oh gee,” Barbie said. “You mean she can’t ever live in the wild again?”

“Nah.” Glory shook her head. “She couldn’t make it there, not now.”

“Aw, that’s so sad. Do you think she minds awfully?” Barbie’s voice trembled. “Do you think she misses the sea?”

“I used to think that. But now I don’t think we ever know what animals really feel.” Glory glanced at Wilkie Walker with an expression that suggested familiarity with his early and more popular books, and possibly a critical opinion of them. “Sometimes I figure she probably doesn’t remember much what it was like out in the ocean. This is all she knows. When I lived in Southern California I saw a lot of over-the-hill actors like that. Old hams, going over their tricks one more damn time, scared shitless to leave L.A. or take a regular job. You have to feel sorry for them.” Again, casually, she glanced at Wilkie.

She has my number, even if she doesn’t know it, Wilkie thought now as he paddled through the winding shallow streams of the mangrove swamp, trying as much as possible to tune out the drone of the guide’s spiel. I probably couldn’t make it on my own in the wild anymore either. I’m an old ham like that fat old dolphin Lady Edna. That’s what I feel when I get in front of an audience now, that I’m just going through my tricks. It’s time to go back to the ocean, and past time.

“Oh, the sun’s come out!” Barbie Mumpson squealed as gold light broke through the heavy, sodden cover of cloud, flooding the shimmering aquamarine water and glossy, shining dark-green clumps of mangrove. “Isn’t it glorious!”

Wilkie did not reply. To him, the scene looked false and glaring, like a child’s picture book colored with cheap, waxy crayons. He would have preferred that the day remain cloudy, to match his mood.

Animals are lucky, he thought, not for the first time. Places like that dolphin sanctuary, at the most, maintain only a few individuals past their natural life span. But with humans, in the so-called civilized countries, the old, sick, injured, and incompetent are preserved. As a result the world is burdened with a population that in an earlier, more natural age would have ceased to exist years ago. Miserable, senile, ailing individuals are made to survive past their natural life span in some pathetic institution like the home for bony, sick old cows he had seen in India.

We are the holy animals of this world, he had thought then, worshiped and cared for even when we should be dead—would far rather be dead. That was what would happen to him, if he didn’t get out in time. But he would get out in time. It could only be a matter of a few days at the most now.

“Oh, look!” Barbie squealed from the bow of the canoe. “What’s that big thing over there by the tree, moving around just under the water?”

“Lessee.” In the other kayak, the guide reversed his stroke. “I d’know—It could be a manatee.” For the first time he spoke in a nonguide voice, with human interest.

“What’s that?”

“Well, uh, it’s a kind of big, you know, fish. Likes warm water.”

“The manatee is not a fish, it’s a mammal,” Wilkie said impatiently, shaken out of his torpor. He eased the kayak gently toward shore. “It’s related to the dugong of the Indian Ocean.”

“Oh, wow,” Barbie half whispered as they drew nearer. “Look, Aunt Dorrie, do you see it? That sort of big golden-gray thing shaped like a, a giant baking potato, under the mangrove trees.”

“I do, dear. Is it alive?”

“Oh, sure. I mean, I think so.”

Wilkie groaned silently to himself. The last day of my life, quite possibly, he thought, and I have to spend it stuck in a Florida swamp with two stupid women.

“It’s alive all right,” the guide said, lowering his voice as they approached.

“It’s awfully big, isn’t it?” Aunt Dorrie whispered nervously.

“They can get up to over three thousand pounds, some of them. But you don’t hafta worry, they’re vegetarians. Only eat seaweed and stuff.”

“Oh, wow.” Barbie breathed ecstatically.

Yes, it was definitely a manatee: a rather large one—in fact the first Wilkie had ever encountered outside of an aquarium. He could see its broad mottled gray-gold hide under the slow flow of tea-colored water, and the gentle movement of its tail fin as it burrowed among the grassy reeds.

As they drifted closer to the shore, almost silently now, something—perhaps the shadow of the kayak on the sand startled the animal. With a sudden unlikely burst of speed, it shot away, trailing bubbles and turbulence, rocking the boats heavily.

“Yeah, that was a genuine Florida manatee,” the guide said with some awe. “You don’t see too many of those fellers around here, these days. When I was a kid, they usta be all over the place.”

“Really?” Barbie said. “How come they left?”

“Wal. I guess they didn’t exactly leave. They mostly kinda died out. They’re sorta dumb, see. They kept getting snagged in nets, and cut up by boat propellers. That old feller there, you could see the scars on him.”

“Oh, that’s so sad,” Barbie wailed.

“And then, they don’t breed the way they used to. Or when they do a lotta times the pups get sick and die. Wal, anyhow, you saw one today.” A note of stupid self-satisfaction had entered the guide’s voice, as if he had planned the whole thing. “You can tell your friends back home—Hey, ma’am. You okay?” He addressed Jacko’s mother, who had slumped forward in the bow of his kayak, letting her paddle trail helplessly in the salty swell.