And now I thought of the ailing sea life out at Birdshit Rock.
“We should do something,” Walter said.
A young woman in the crowd responded. “I already called the Marine Mammal Center. They’re on the way.”
“Okay then,” I said to Walter. “We should go back and wait for Doug.”
“He’ll see us from the parking lot.” Walter pointed.
True enough. The motel parking lot bordered the beach.
I felt like a gawker at a roadside accident standing here watching the poor animal. Tremors rippled its flanks. But Walter had folded his arms, standing guard, his protective urges in full bloom.
Five minutes later a van pulled into the motel parking lot and the rescue team emerged: two men and a woman, at this distance notable primarily by their hair, the woman with a thick blond ponytail, one of the men nearly bald, the other with buzz-cut black hair. Buzz-cut guy led, stalking onto the beach. I stared, unwilling to believe that this huge man in black — black jeans, black sneakers, black aviator shades, only his T-shirt in green — was Oscar Flynn but as he neared, scowling, I had to believe.
The team all wore green shirts with the logo Marine Mammal Research & Rescue.
The bald man and the blond woman carried a huge mesh net.
Flynn ignored us. He and his team circled the sea lion.
And then a third green-shirted man emerged from the van and followed his team and I was once again taken aback. I recognized him before he set foot on the sand, by his spiky green hair. Captain Kayak sauntered down to join the group around the sea lion.
He gave the blond woman a wink and me and Walter a nod.
If I had to predict which residents of Morro Bay would join a marine mammal rescue effort, Oscar Flynn and Jake Keasling would be far down my list.
The sea lion raised its head and made a growling noise.
The bald man and the blond woman dropped the net to the sand.
Flynn moved in. He began to speak in a low monotone, indecipherable words addressed to the creature whose head dropped back to the sand as if it had been drugged.
Walter and I drew closer. I could understand Flynn’s words now.
Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.
I was more stunned than the sea lion.
And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
The rest of the rescue team stood waiting, unsurprised, as Flynn recited his lullaby. And then the three of them unrolled the net.
And if that diamond ring turns brass, Papa’s gonna buy you a looking glass. And if that looking glass gets broke, Papa’s gonna buy you a billy goat.
The monumental absurdity of Oscar Flynn promising a billy goat to a sea lion would have made me laugh, but then the team threw the net over the mammal and it began to thrash, and Flynn raised his voice with more promises until the animal again subsided, and I was left, simply, impressed.
Flynn turned on us. “What are you doing here?”
No lullaby for us. We explained.
He glanced up the beach at the motel, scorn on his face. That’s your lab?
Jake smirked.
Walter asked, “What will you do with the animal?”
Flynn’s look came to Walter. “A truck’s coming. We’ll net it and carry it to the truck. The truck will take it a treatment center.”
“Treatment for what?” I asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not our job to diagnose.”
“Oh come on, Oscar,” the bald man said, “we know it’s domoic. What else?”
I said, “What’s domoic?”
“See, there’s this thing called a harmful algal bloom out there.” The bald man pointed out to sea. “And that made this sea lion sick.”
“How? He ate it?”
“Yeah, the bloom’s full of bacteria. He ate the bacteria and that’s full of domoic acid.”
“You’re wrong, Roger,” Flynn cut in. “Don’t talk about something when you can’t get the facts right. The algae is a genus of phytoplankton that includes diatoms that produce domoic acid, and domoic acid is a neurotoxin…” Flynn stopped himself.
“Neurotoxin?” Walter stared at the sea lion. “Is that why it’s trembling?”
Flynn squatted over the animal. I thought he was going to stroke it but he was evidently too close to that mouth full of sharp teeth. Instead he resumed the monotone. Easy, boy, easy. Easier, I thought, for Flynn to relate to this sea creature than to his fellows on the beach. And that thought softened my view of Oscar Flynn. Rude to people, kind to animals. There was heart in the man. I thought back to the cave room at Flynn’s house. All that posturing about who did and who did not have a PhD was likely just that — posturing, covering up for social insecurity.
I squatted beside him. “I think it’s great that you and your team do this work.”
He looked at me. Black shades reflecting the sun. Mouth a flat line.
Wrong approach. Too personal. I tried for more comfortable ground — the facts. “There were sick animals out at Birdshit Rock the other day. Do you think this algae…”
“I think you should leave sick animals to the professionals.”
“Okay.”
The sea lion lifted its head, bared its teeth.
“Get away. You’re scaring him.”
I scrambled to my feet, getting away from the teeth, from the man.
Roger, the bald man, jumped in. “It’s okay miss, Oscar just gets intense about this, about the blooms, what they’re doing to the ocean and the sea life and he…” Roger caught Flynn’s baleful stare. He ignored it, plunging ahead. “And he hates wrong facts. Well, that’s not quite right, I mean, can you have wrong facts? If they’re facts, they’re right. Right?” He began to sweat, not daring this time to look at Flynn. “Anyway, I meant to say diatoms, not bacteria. And sea lions get sick by eating the fish that eat the tiny animals that eat the diatoms. Like, a food chain? Anyway, these fish don’t get sick themselves but they concentrate the poison, and so when the sea lion eats them, he gets sick.”
I asked, “What kind of fish?”
“Probably anchovies.”
It took a moment for Walter to turn to me, to lift his eyebrows, to no doubt register what I’d just registered. That of all the fish in the sea — even in the near sea, off Morro Bay — it was the anchovy that kept recurring in our investigation. Robbie Donie made his living fishing for them. The Keasling parents had made their living fishing for them. Lanny Keasling had assisted his dad. Jake Keasling scorned that livelihood. Sandy Keasling was proud of her parents’ livelihood and yet chose a different path. And then a container of toxic anchovies appeared in her beach cave, poisoning the poor diver she was sheltering. Convulsing diver, sea lion wracked with tremors. Neurotoxins. So was it domoic acid that sickened the diver? Not rancid anchovies — anchovies that fed on the harmful algal bloom and concentrated the toxin?
I caught Jake watching us. Waiting, it seemed, for us to say what the hell, Jake?
When we didn’t speak, Jake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and gave an exaggerated whew. And then he mimed squeezing a lime on his forearm, licking the salty limey skin, and then lifting a bottle of beer.
I had no idea what to make of that. Of him. Letting us know that he knew the connections we were making — so obvious they could not be ignored. Letting us know that he didn’t give a shit? Or that he figured we could make connections until the cows came home and not lay anything on Jake Keasling.