CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO
My childhood, a blur of delights and dilemmas, was the same
as that of other children. I worked through special schools for
the deaf and persevered my way through college. Painstakingly,
I learned to read lips and, by over articulating my own speech, to
make others understand me. I signed to those who understood that
beautiful language; and to those who did not, I appeared the loner,
locked in a cage of silence. Through determination alone, I man-
aged to achieve my PhD, a doctorate in marine biology.
After graduation, I petitioned school after school for a teach-
ing position, but few wanted to risk hiring a deaf professor. In des-
peration and with a passionate desire to put my love for the sea to
some application, I interviewed for the position of staff biologist
with a small aquarium and water park called Water Whirled on the
coast near Los Angeles. My folks tagged along to help translate my
signing and to buffer the first shock felt by most people when they
interview someone who is deaf.
Other than my childhood memories of marine parks, I was
somewhat ambivalent about the entertainment value of the creatures
of the sea. My childhood memory of the Beluga and the other de-
lightful creatures at the aquarium was overshadowed by a sense of
melancholy as I followed a teenage guide to the management offices
of the open exhibit aquarium sitting on an old pier that thrust out
into the bay. Sad-eyed dolphins watched doleful from tiny concrete
pools as we clattered our way through this hodge-podge collection
from the sea. In the largest pond at the center of it all, surrounded
by carnival pennants and bunting, was a glass-paneled tank where a
Beluga, not unlike my whale from years gone by, gently floated. As
his winking, gleeful eye peeked at me through the viewing window, I
knew that no matter which job was available, it was here I would stay.
The heat of this hot summer’s day reflected blindly off the
artificial blue waters in tank after concrete tank. My parents and
I were led into the office of the owner and manager of this ocean
carnival, Dr. Melvin Lambert. His office was cool and dim in con-
trast with the grounds and smelled of stale cigars, sweat, and cloy-
ing cologne. In the middle of the room was a cluttered desk with a
gooseneck lamp that spilled light over a paper mountain of receipts,
other applications, and candy wrappers.
Behind the desk sat Dr. Lambert himself in an overstuffed
chair. His tousled hair framed a walrus-looking face, complete with a
bushy mustache that wrapped about his mouth. He gave the im-
pression of being eccentric but harmless–harmless, that is, until he
opened his mouth.
My father explained to Lambert that although I was deaf I
could read lips as well as most people could hear, as long as the
person speaking enunciated clearly. Lambert instantly began to
over-enunciate every word, patronizing me from the start. I had
promised myself that I would maintain a sense of professionalism
throughout the proceedings, but Lambert’s first question clearly
shook my resolve, “Well, little girl, why do you want to work at a
sea life park?”
I signed and my father interpreted my slightly idealistic and
overly prepared answer, “Every since I was a child I wanted to work
with marine mammals. It has always been my desire because I love
all creatures of the sea. Through research, I feel I can add some-
thing, at least my understanding, to the world around me. When I
was four I …”
The little walrus rolled his beady eyes heavenward and threw
his chubby arms up. “Enough, enough!” he mouthed. “Stop before
you get cramps in your hands, girlie.” He sat there for a moment
shaking his head. “Oh, lord!” he laughed, “as I live and breathe . . .
another whale-saving environmentalist!”
Shortest job interview and rejection I had to date. I stood up
and started for the door but my father grabbed my arm. “He’s not
done,” he signed.
I took a deep breath to control my temper. Calmed, I asked if
I could write my answers to his questions rather than signing them
through my father. Lambert reluctantly agreed, and a performance
slate used to train dolphins was brought into his office My father
went outside to wait with my mother, and I was left alone with this
pudgy barracuda. For the rest of the interview, I scribbled in re-
sponse to his interrogation. I am sure it was only by accident that
my nails raked across the board as I answered some of his more
asinine questions. It was fun to watch him grimace.
At the conclusion of the nearly two-hour interview, Dr. Lam-
bert leaned back in his chair and smiled a little oil-slick smile. “You
know, Shar-oon,” he mouthed, “I really don’t like environmentalists.
I hate the Sierra club and don’t get me started on Green Peace or
any of the others. For the most part, they are nothing more than
pests that stand in the way of progress. Worse yet, they want to be
paid for being pests. If I hire you, I imagine you will bemoan the
plight of our whale or the old dolphins. But, and there is a big butt
and it ain’t mine… if I don’t hire you, then I am a heartless old fart
who hates the handicapped.”
The chalk fairly danced across the slate as I angrily and
boldly wrote, “I AM NOT HANDICAPPED!” and my fingernails once
again screeched along the slate.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he muttered his eyes squinted in pain
as he raised his hands as if to surrender. “There are several things
in your favor. Because you are handicapped—‘scuse me, because
you are not handicapped rather hearing impaired—the park will
qualify for some major federal grants and money from the Feds is
found money and found money is good. I like money. It keeps me
company in my old age. Furthermore, your being on staff would add
a bright pity angle to our public relations. Hmm, I like that . . . a
handicapped employee that will help draw in the handicapped. Their
money is good enough for me.”
He paused as he noticed my angry expression. “Don’t look
so shocked! This is the real world, kid, and deaf, dumb, or both,
people are going to use you. The reality of life is making money,
and that’s what this is all about,” he said, waving his pudgy little
hands in a grand sweeping gesture about the room. “It would be
a lot simpler just to keep the little fishies, cause they don’t need
much upkeep, and they kind of feed on themselves . . . but the pay-
ing public wants a circus: they want a show. So, I give them whales
and dolphins and sometimes a pretty deaf girl to feel sorry for. They
get what they want, and I get what I want. They get to be close to
that fat, floating chunk of blubber called a Beluga, and I get bigger
gate receipts. Well, what do you say, Shar-oon?” he over enunciat-
ed. “Do we have a deal?” He extended his greasy right hand with
its plump, sausage fingers.
I didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, I wanted to grind
him up as shark bait, and, on the other, I had a begrudging respect
for his blunt honesty. I took the job, but I didn’t take Lambert’s
hand. I slowly wrote the word YES, my fingernails grating the
slate with every stroke.
“And,” he muttered through a clenched jaw, “you have
a cell phone, I presume?”
I nodded.
“Use it to text me. From now on that’s how we’ll communi-
cate. No more writing on slates.”
I fished my cell phone from my pocket and then paused. Us-
ing the slate, the stub of chalk and my fingernails, I wrote, “I don’t
have your number.”
He grabbed the slate and the chalk from my hands and
scrawled his phone number on the board.
With facades firmly back in place, we went out into the wait-
ing room to tell my parents the news.
My title was staff marine biologist, but my job was simply to
care for the whale and dolphins. Mine was a basic task–to make
sure that they were ready for the hourly shows, period . . . nothing
else. Any research or study I wanted to do had to be done on my
own time, which suited me fine. My office/lab was an old bait shack
near the end of the pier now turned Water Whirled, which was good
and bad. The good was being on the water the bad was that until a
day or two ago the shack was used for the storage of raw bait.
My parents helped me find a small, furnished duplex to rent
only a couple of blocks from Water Whirled, and, after moving my
clothes and few personal items, they left me alone in my new sur-
roundings. Through college and graduate schools, I had still felt
like a child, but now, for the first time, I was truly on my own.
So began my daily routine as a professional but a profession-
al what? The first few weeks were focused on cleaning and painting
the bait shack. I slathered on so many layers of paint to mask the
cloying odor of decayed sardines and other bait fish. Once bear-
able inside, I set up all the medical and examination equipment the
park had which was little. Lambert allowed me a modest budget for
a surgery which consisted of a small wheedled gurney and enough
surgical tools and supplies to provide health care to the whale and
the dolphins.
For the most part, I steered clear of Lambert for both our
sakes and concentrated on the care of the fish, dolphins, and the
whale. Helping me was a Native American by the name of Peter
Twofin. Peter was a Haida Indian from Alaska who, with his natural
abilities, intuition, and rugged strength, was a great help. He had
worked at the park for a couple of years while he attended a local
college part time. Better than best, his mother and father were also
deaf and he had learned to sign at a young age.
Peter bothered me, though, because often I would find him
staring at me and he wouldn’t look away. He’d grin. I’d scowl. He’d
grin again, infectiously. And every time, I would smile back, feeling
like an idiot, and then I would turn away, cheeks flaming. He was a
great help but a bit odd.
Nighttime at the marina was a gentle time when the whale and
dolphins quietly swam about their pools and cast longing glances
as I sat watching. “What are you all about?” I often thought as I
sat there, watching the water lap softly on the backs of these gentle
creatures. “Do you think? Do you worry? Do you laugh? Can you
read my mind?”
I privately named the beluga Pillsbury, and in my nighttime
rounds he was my clown prince. Pillsbury was an absolute delight,
even if a bit rambunctious. He seemed to know when everyone
had left and we were all alone. Then his games would begin, and
he would race about the pool in gleeful abandon. But he was old,
and, other than simple non-performance appearances at the Water
Whirled Revues, he did nothing more than swim idly in his tank
and wait for me. It was odd, but there was always a perception of a
greater intelligence and soul within the eyes of this Beluga. Since
I had been a child, whales’ eyes had always danced with a seeming
desire to communicate. Now that I was working at the marina, that
reaching out–that staring into the soul through the eye–was a daily
occurrence.
During my second month at the marina, I began to take note
of the harsh training techniques of the infamous Dr. Lambert. If a
particular dolphin did not perform to the good doctor’s expectations
or didn’t finish a routine correctly, the animal’s food ration was cut
in half, Lambert’s theory being that a hungry dolphin was a coop-
erative dolphin. Late at night I would slip into the tank with fish
for the delinquent dolphin, though not enough that Lambert could
know anything was amiss.
The punishments inflicted on the dolphins were nothing in
comparison to the techniques used on poor Pillsbury. The doctor
was obsessed with the Beluga’s failure to do nothing more than
swim around the performance tank and occasionally breach on
command. Lambert had been to the famous marinas like Sea World.
There he had seen all that he wished his marina could become. He
would return from a conference in San Diego filled with envy for
Sea World’s gate receipts. “What we need,” he railed after one trip,
“is an Orca–a killer whale–a crowd pleaser. Then we could pull in
the dough. Big bucks! But can I buy an Orca? Why? Because I
ain’t got enough room. No, I have only one big tank, and I can’t
afford to build any others. That one big tank is filled with a gigantic
marshmallow that can’t even burp on command.” With hate in his
eyes, he glared at the beluga’s tank. Poor Pillsbury, sensing the
mood of his captor, swam quietly to the other side of the tank.
Shortly after one of these tirades, I began to notice odd,
round welts on Pillsbury’s skin. At first, they were only on his dor-
sal fin, but, as weeks went by, they began to appear on his great
snout and around his eyes. He also began to act listless even at
nighttime, which was when he would play for me in the water. Now
when the park was closed and I was tending to my rounds he would
float quietly on the surface of the water, staring glassy-eyed at noth-
ing in particular. I texted note after note to the other staff members,
asking if they knew the cause of the round welts or the lethargy, but
Peter and the others seemed as mystified as I.
Even Lambert appeared almost sympathetic about the mys-
terious lesions. “Tsk, tsk,” he would mutter as he shook his head,
“poor old whale must be butting his head against the tank at night
after everybody is gone. Damn! I sure hope he’s not getting that
beaching virus.”
The so-called beaching virus, or whatever it was, caused en-
tire pods of whales to beach themselves–to rush full-speed from the
sea to the shore, there to lie until they died. I, too, prayed fervently
that it was not this mysterious malady–for the end result was always
the same . . . death.
Peter and I spent hours checking the inside of the tank for
any odd protuberance that could be causing the wounds, but we
could find nothing. Nightly I would sit in my kitchen with a cup of
coffee and scour the internet, but no amount of research solved the
mystery. I would fall asleep at night and wake in the morning worry-
ing about Pillsbury. No matter what I tried, from food supplements
to shots of megavitamins, nothing seemed to work. Pillsbury was
getting worse and worse. It came to the point where he refused to
eat and seemed to give up on life itself. Peter and I began to force-
feed him–fish at first, then mixtures of ground protein.
Nearly six weeks after the mystery began, it abruptly ended.
I arrived at the marina early, and somehow even to my deaf ears, it
seemed muffled, wrapped in a cotton blanket. All the tanks, which
normally sloshed and splashed about with the movements of the
great creatures inside, were still. I looked first in the dolphin tank.
The five creatures, which normally darted about in great anticipation
of the morning feedings, lay quiet upon the water. I could feel the
quiet–this pervasive stillness.
“Oh, my God!” I thought. “Pillsbury.”
I raced down the concrete aisles and up the ramp that wound
around the Beluga’s tank. The fact that Pillsbury was also motion-
less in the water didn’t frighten me as much as the slackness of his
skin and the odd way he was floating. Without hesitation, I leaped
fully clothed into the tank. He didn’t move. I swam to his side,
stroking his long flank in the desperate hope that my worst fears
wouldn’t be realized. I reached his head, and, for a moment, there
was a flutter of life. His great eye opened, scrunched together in
that merry wink of his, then grew wide, and with a great exhaust of
air from his blowhole–he died.
Never in my life have I felt such grief, such anguish. My
bones seemed to vibrate, and my body began to ache. I tried in
vain to keep his head above water, but his dead bulk was finally too
much. He slowly sank to the bottom. I dove repeatedly, trying to
pull him up, but it was all to no avail. How long I stayed in the tank
I don’t know. V aguely, I remember Peter pulling me from the water
and holding me in consolation.
Even Dr. Lambert seemed to be mellowed by the event.
Grief-stricken as I was, I allowed him to wrap a spongy arm around
me in sympathy. I finally took a deep breath and, with a shudder,
accepted the reality of my beloved creature’s mortality. After all,
Pillsbury had been in captivity for more than fifteen years, and it
was only by sheer luck that he had lived as long as he had.
As I composed myself, Lambert began organizing efforts to
remove Pillsbury from the tank. We had an old lift truck that had
been modified with slings that I used to raise the dolphins from the
water for examinations. It was moved into position and the sling
was lowered into the water and, carefully, as if to honor the memory
of this whale’s past delights, it was slipped beneath the great bulk.
He was finally free of his tiny sea, his prison. As they lifted him,
I noted new series of welts concentrated on one side of his head.
The odd thing was that there didn’t seem to be a pattern. Part of
one welt overlapped his eye, and the lid itself appeared to be burned.
I rushed into Dr. Lambert’s office texting him as I walked. He
looked up and smiled. “What’s up Sharoon?”
Quickly, I texted, “I want to perform an autopsy.”
“No,” he said, over enunciating his words in his usual way,
thinking it helped me read his lips. “That won’t be necessary, Shar-
oon. You’ve been through a lot, and I know how much the whale
meant to you. Let’s just say he died quietly of old age.”
I began to text furiously, “But I want to find out what caused
his death. What caused the great welts?”
His fat cheeks reddened as he came around the desk, “Read
my lips, little girl! I said, no and I meant no! Now if you will excuse
I have things to do, like put out the trash. I want that marshmallow
carcass out of here!” He blustered out the door leaving me alone in
his office.
I stood there, leaning forward on his desk trying to com-
pose myself. It was then that I noticed an odd, narrow tube lean-
ing against Lambert’s desk. It was about two and a half feet long
and nearly an inch in diameter. I carefully picked it up to examine
it further. One end had a handlebar like grip, and the other end
was smooth. I idly touched it to my arm, and the resulting shock
knocked me to the floor. I lay there dazed and then looked at my
arm. A perfectly formed, round welt swelled from the burning of deli-
cate flesh and nerves.
Now I knew the cause of the mysterious disease that had
plagued the gentle Beluga . . . greed!
I vowed to bring full revenge to bear on the person responsi-
ble for the horrible death of Pillsbury. And obviously, that person
was Lambert himself.
I moved quickly, taking whatever measures I felt necessary at
the time. Then I waited, for there was nothing more I could do. As
the days passed I would arrive at the marina early in the morning,
and I could feel the hollow echoes of my footsteps against Pills-
bury’s tank. Everything seemed dank, as the fog-shrouded late
days of summer reflected the mourning I felt. But revenge would
come in its own sweet time. I waited patiently for the fat fish to take
the baited hook.
Nearly two weeks later, as I was working in the bait shack
that had been converted to lab, office, and operating room, Lam-
bert appeared. Leaning against the doorjamb, he watched me
awhile in that affected, bemused style of his. In turn, I stared at
him blankly. When I refused to comment on his presence, he stiffly
mouthed, “The staff says that you continue to question the death
of the Beluga. They say you took a lot of pictures of the carcass
and, even against my wishes, took biopsy samples of the round
welts. In addition, there seems to be a special training tool missing
from my office. Well, little girl, I want the pictures, the biopsy sam-
ples, and the training tool–now. When I have those in hand, I just
might not call the police and have you arrested for petty larceny.
Instead, you are to pack up and get off the grounds of this marina
before I have you thrown off!”
“Doctor,” texting I smiled, attempting to soothe the anxieties
I felt, “I will not turn over the pictures of Pillsbury to you, nor will
I give you the biopsies. For you see, Dr. Lambert, all the tests are
completed, and the results, along with the pictures of the injuries
themselves, are stored in a safe place. As for the training device,
tests have already proven that it was the cause of the mysterious
welts and the ultimate death. Now that the tests are finished, you
can have it back.” I reached into my desk drawer and removed the
cattle prod. It must have been accidentally turned on, for as I re-
moved it from the desk and slapped it into Lambert’s fleshy hand,
it snapped with renewed vigor from the freshly charged batteries.
Lambert’s eyes opened wide, perhaps in shock of the discovery of
the truth: maybe the cattle prod really does hurt.
Lambert stood there, his mouth open, a bit of spittle foamed
on his lower lip. “What are you going to do?” He paused, and then
blustered, “It was an accident. I was training that oversized marsh-
mallow and there was an accident. I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“That, my dear doctor, is a moral argument I don’t wish to be
involved in. The point is that if the press found out about this, you
would get all the free publicity you could ever want to have. If you
wish, I will turn the materials over right now.”
Lambert began to sweat profusely. “But the report of an
accident could bankrupt me!” he wailed. After a long, shuddering
breath, he asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“You, Dr. Lambert,” I continued texting, freezing him in his
tracks, “are going to do a lot. I know you had the Beluga insured
for more than a million dollars. With that money, you will build a
new clinic and add to my staff. You will improve the holding pens,
and, Dr. Lambert, if I ever discover that you are using that so-called
training device again; the photographs and the test results will go to
the press immediately. Do we understand one another?”
Gingerly holding his blistered right hand palm up in his left he
nodded, smiled a greasy little smile and silently walked away. Three
days later, work began on the new clinic and holding pens.
I didn’t like having to resort to coercion, lowering myself to
Lambert’s rock-bottom level but work continued on the new building
and holding tank. I have always felt that we are today what we were
yesterday, and yesterday I cast a die that maybe was no better than
the one Lambert had thrown. At least, from my actions, some good
would come. A compromise of ethics is sometimes needed.
The old tank had been destroyed, and, with it, the last ves-
tige of the Beluga’s domain. There truly was a fading of memory
as older, smaller tanks were torn down and replaced with bigger,
deeper tanks, new modern tanks that interconnected were quick-
ly constructed. Lambert even rebuilt the grandstands to seat the
larger audiences he anticipated. When the new tanks were finished,
they were quickly filled with fresh seawater and massive circulation
pumps fired up.
Whenever Lambert tried to cut short on quality that would
put any of the creatures at risk, I simply reminded him of our “little
deal”–a deal, I might add, that wore heavily on my conscience. His
guilt, or rather his fear of complicity, always caused him to capitu-
late. Fortunately we avoided each other as much as possible. Sev-
eral weeks later, greatly agitated, Lambert rushed to me and spun
me around as I stood near the shark exhibit. He began to puff his
lips in his odd, exaggerated way, assuming somehow that this con-
torted speech would help me read his lips.
“Shar-oon, the greatest of great news for sure!” he mouthed.
“We’ve got an Orca!”
There were times throughout my life, for whatever reason,
that I pretended to misunderstand what I knew people had said. I
like to think I did this to give myself more time to answer complex
questions. However, on the devilish side, carefully done, I could get
Lambert to repeat himself as many as five or six times. I shook my
head, incredulous, and texted, “You’re excited because you’ve got
an orchid? We don’t have room for what we got. Why would you
waste money on a greenhouse?”
“Orca, not orchid, you idiot,” he sprayed again, “a big old
male Orca from Ocean Villa. A killer whale that will bring us mucho
dinero–big bucks. The greatest draw any marina could ask for. The
ghost of that old, fat Beluga can leave now–we got ourselves an
Orca.” With that, he waddled away to pass on the news to the rest
of the staff.
Though nothing could take the place of my Pillsbury, I, too,
was caught up in the excitement of the new captive. The Orca Lam-
bert acquired was purchased from another marina that found itself
with too many captives and not enough cash. Lambert had been
able to buy this older, trained Orca at far below its market value, if
indeed a market value could be placed on such a magnificent crea-
ture. Although the whale was coming from just down the coast, I
still feared for its adjustment to unfamiliar surroundings. Construc-
tion was geared up to a fever pitch, and crews worked night and day
to finalize the new facilities.
By this time, my personal staff had increased, as I was able
to add two additional interns, which, counting Peter and myself,
brought my staff to four. We all rushed about, moving equipment
and supplies into the new clinic, much to the chagrin of the work-
men who were still trying to finish the structure itself.
Peter continued his odd, smiling routine, and often I would
look up and catch him staring at me with that silly grin on his face.
I’d frown, shake my head, and turn away before the twinkle in his
eye became too infectious. Peter Twofin aside, all the preparations
went well. It was my plan to give the Orca at least sixty days to
acclimate himself to his new surroundings before submitting him to
the rigors of training for performances. Lambert and I locked horns
repeatedly about this issue, and only after a bit of compromise on
my part did he relent to give me thirty days to settle my new charge.
The whale, wrapped in water-saturated material to keep his
skin moist and prevent dehydration, arrived by truck on a forty-foot
flatbed trailer. Its dorsal, the great sail-fin, was drooped over his
back nearly to the deck of the trailer. With the aid of a rented crane,
he was lifted carefully up and lowered into a small holding pen where
I waited.
The water level rose as his great bulk was lowered into the
tank. Although older, he was a beautiful specimen. Because of the
afternoon heat and the debilitating journey, Peter ran hoses into the
tank and sprayed cooling waters over the Orca’s back. With hands
on rubbery skin, we massaged, more, it seemed, to console our-
selves than for any aid we could give this behemoth. Slowly, we felt
his body begin to undulate as he twisted and began to move. He
slowly swam around the narrow confines of the holding pen, and I
was amazed at his ability to turn in tight circles.
After four hours of constant observation, with no apparent
injuries from the transport I felt that he could safely be shifted to
the larger tank, the concrete pen that was to be his home for a long
time to come. The gates were opened, and, alone, I maneuvered
him into the larger pen. Purposely I had placed two of our four
dolphins in the pen for companionship and to act as a buffer to
the shock of transfer. Oddly, I could feel the sound of the dolphins
as they chattered excitedly. As we moved into the tank the Orca
seemed to respond in kind with a low vibration that gave me goose
bumps on my arms and legs.
I ducked my head beneath the water, and, to my surprise, I
felt the vibrations again, only stronger. It wasn’t just a vibrating
sensation on my skin, but a rhythmic, tonal buzzing in my head. In
all my life, I had never heard a sound but had often felt its low-rum-
bling vibration. But this was different. This buzzing continued in
organized patterns. This seemed intelligent. This was a form of
communication but communication of what?
The old Orca’s eye scrunched as if to smile, and, with one
more buzz, he swam to his new companions. I popped from the
water and signed to Peter, “Did you hear that?”
He looked at me oddly, “No, I didn’t hear a thing. Besides,”
he laughed, “you can’t hear anyway.”
“I know I can’t hear,” I signed sheepishly, “but I felt a strong
vibration. You’re sure you heard nothing?”
At the edge of the pen, I could see Lambert asking some-
body what I said. Then he laughed, and, moving his lips slowly, he
contorted, “Maybe the whale was passing gas.”
Still perplexed, I slipped again beneath the water, staring at
my new charge. I waited for the sensation to occur again, but noth-
ing happened. Then, a moment later, came a short, intense vibra-
tion. Then all was still. Although I stayed in the water for more than
an hour, there were no more vibrations.
What was the feeling–the buzzing in my inner ear?