A Whale Tale

Abstract

A Whale Tale Allegra Hyde (bio) The whale was already dead when it washed ashore. A massive sperm whale, its skin leathery and barnacled, its narrow jaw strutted with teeth. The whole town went down to the beach to see it: mothers and firefighters and stay-at-home dads and dead-beat dads and vacuum cleaner salespeople and endometriologists and dowagers and women of the night and diamond miners and fortune tellers and personal trainers. Children were bussed in from school. Prisoners from prison. Altogether, the townspeople encircled the creature, reaching forward to touch its gray-blue skin. People wept. People waved flags. People complained about not being able to barbecue because of health ordinances. More than anything, people wondered how the whale had died. A coroner-for-whales was summoned to conduct an autopsy. She began to cut the whale open right there on the beach, excavating through layers of blubber. Because it had taken her so long to arrive, however, and because it had started drizzling—and also because the work was gruesome—almost everyone went home before the procedure was complete. Everyone except for a few diehard protesters, local news reporters, police officers, orphans, and a man named Anders. Anders did not usually attend public spectacles such as this. He had merely been driving by on his way home from his job at a nonprofit for bicycle safety. He had ventured onto the beach because of the crowds and had stayed because of the whale. Or, more truthfully: Anders had stayed because it meant he could delay going home. And if he delayed going home, then he could delay returning to his longtime lover, Florian. And if he delayed returning to Florian, he could delay doing what he had promised himself he would do—which was end their relationship. The coroner-for-whales went about her work. She used a special saw to cut into the creature’s vast flank. She was aiming for its stomach, she told onlookers. She was getting close. Like everyone in the crowd, [End Page 44] Anders drew an anticipatory breath, though the sight of the whale disturbed him. Fins motionless. Glassy eyes staring at nothing. The bigness of the animal—the deadness of it, too—put a stone in his gut. Hard and round and heavy, the stone gave Anders the sinking sensation of foreboding. Or else: the foreboding came from what he planned to do when he got home. Anders loved Florian—or had loved him, early on in their seven-year relationship. Florian, who was all sparkles and beauty. Florian, with his sandy hair and sea-glass eyes. Florian, who was the son of a local witch/naturopath, who could whistle like the wind singing through trees, and who had at one time taken Anders’s breath away, but now took all of Anders’s money and time and energy, and who refused to get a job. “And we’re in!” The coroner tossed her saw aside and extended a gloved arm into the cavernous opening of the whale’s stomach. Anders felt the stone in his gut grow heavier. He had no business watching this creature be disemboweled. But his relationship with Florian was over—needed to be over—and he couldn’t yet bear to admit this to Florian’s face. So he pushed through the crowd to see what made the others yelp with surprise. The whale’s stomach was bursting with stuff. Human stuff. A wide-screen television. A wooden bed frame. Woolen socks, both matched and unmatched. Plastic fruit. A two-slice toaster. Several doilies—or so Anders guessed. Some items were hard to identify, covered as they were with the whale’s stomach slime. Next came a corduroy-upholstered couch. A set of collectible spoons from Midwest states. A rolltop desk. A pair of roller skates—which made Anders lean closer, since the skates were similar to a pair he’d just purchased. The couch, too, reminded him of the couch he owned, which he’d believed to be one of a kind. People grabbed items, inspected them, expressed their dismay and confusion. A reporter waved aloft a photo frame containing a...