was hard to imagine that he was a truant, like me, given that he tossed around words like “virion.” So instead I decided that he was brilliant but cripplingly shy, this was his only social outlet, and I was helping him to cope with his handicap while he helped me to survive Poppu’s chemotherapy rounds.
His family must have liked nature as much as we did, because he seemed to have visited every one of our favorite nature haunts. Once, the Monight after the principal had made me scrub our last creation clean from the desk during lunch, I started a new drawing with this single word: Quiz . Below that, I wrote a number 1 and drew giant cedars as viewed from below in a forest, with ropy ridges of bark, and impossibly thick trunks triangulating to meet in the sky.
On Tuesnight he had written, “Muir Woods National Monument?” He had drawn an anatomically detailed brain next to that, with comical sweat droplets flinging from it at every angle. But I had never been out of the Midwest, so I crossed out his guess and gave him the hint “Not redwoods, giant cedars.” And then I wrote a number 2 and drew a lighthouse above a rocky beach—the way I remembered it, bathed in the moonlight—towering over the little fog-signaling shack below it, and a cistern of fresh water in the foreground that was a garish fire-engine red if you shone a flashlight on it, so I filled it in with a colored pencil.
On Wednesnight he had written, “Gah! So many lighthouses in the world!” and he had drawn a picture of himself hanging by the neck, with x’s in place of his eyes. Totally gruesome, but it made me laugh out loud when I sat down, causing everyone to stare at me, so I set my books on top of it until they turned away. I smiled every time I looked at that cartoonish self-portrait, and I spent the rest of the week trying to figure out which boy he might have been. I could only rule out the blondest ones, but that probably left something close to five hundred guys, none of whom would have tossed a crust at me if I had been starving to death in front of him in the cafeteria. Toward the end of class I wrote the number 3 and drew a sketch of a tent and a campsite. “I know, I know,” I wrote. “This is not helpful.”
On Thursnight, I wrote the number 4 and drew—as best I could from memory—the half-sunken hull of the Francisco Morazan as seen from the beach.
The Morazan was a Liberian steel freighter with cargo destined for Holland through the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It was the end of November 1960, and the sailors were a multinational Smudge crew plus the captain—a Greek who was only twenty-four and commanding for the first time. He wanted to complete his run before the lock system in the Seaway froze up for the winter. The forecast was for strong winds in the next few days, but being assigned to a Night dock meant the captain couldn’t leave until after dusk. Once a ship was in open water, there was no Day/Night jurisdiction, but the curfew laws applied in every harbor in the country. So he waited, hoping the winds would hold off until he had passed through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Huron.
The first night and day of sailing were smooth, but as the Morazan passed the Point Betsie light at Frankfort, Michigan, the winds picked up and waves washed over the deck. Snow, fog, and darkness blinded the crew, and the ship ran aground one hundred meters from shore, in less than five meters of water. Everyone had to be evacuated by helicopter and taken by icebreaker to Traverse City.
The Morazan became the nesting site of hundreds of cormorants, which I drew as black, goosenecked forms, totally out of scale with the ship. I was no Audubon. Night visitors were allowed one fifteen-minute period of viewing, during which bright floodlights illuminated the ship and the cormorants grunted and croaked like walruses at the disturbance. Poppu had taken us out by dinghy, anticipating the light show. I was so small, I had to peek out over
His family must have liked nature as much as we did, because he seemed to have visited every one of our favorite nature haunts. Once, the Monight after the principal had made me scrub our last creation clean from the desk during lunch, I started a new drawing with this single word: Quiz . Below that, I wrote a number 1 and drew giant cedars as viewed from below in a forest, with ropy ridges of bark, and impossibly thick trunks triangulating to meet in the sky.
On Tuesnight he had written, “Muir Woods National Monument?” He had drawn an anatomically detailed brain next to that, with comical sweat droplets flinging from it at every angle. But I had never been out of the Midwest, so I crossed out his guess and gave him the hint “Not redwoods, giant cedars.” And then I wrote a number 2 and drew a lighthouse above a rocky beach—the way I remembered it, bathed in the moonlight—towering over the little fog-signaling shack below it, and a cistern of fresh water in the foreground that was a garish fire-engine red if you shone a flashlight on it, so I filled it in with a colored pencil.
On Wednesnight he had written, “Gah! So many lighthouses in the world!” and he had drawn a picture of himself hanging by the neck, with x’s in place of his eyes. Totally gruesome, but it made me laugh out loud when I sat down, causing everyone to stare at me, so I set my books on top of it until they turned away. I smiled every time I looked at that cartoonish self-portrait, and I spent the rest of the week trying to figure out which boy he might have been. I could only rule out the blondest ones, but that probably left something close to five hundred guys, none of whom would have tossed a crust at me if I had been starving to death in front of him in the cafeteria. Toward the end of class I wrote the number 3 and drew a sketch of a tent and a campsite. “I know, I know,” I wrote. “This is not helpful.”
On Thursnight, I wrote the number 4 and drew—as best I could from memory—the half-sunken hull of the Francisco Morazan as seen from the beach.
The Morazan was a Liberian steel freighter with cargo destined for Holland through the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It was the end of November 1960, and the sailors were a multinational Smudge crew plus the captain—a Greek who was only twenty-four and commanding for the first time. He wanted to complete his run before the lock system in the Seaway froze up for the winter. The forecast was for strong winds in the next few days, but being assigned to a Night dock meant the captain couldn’t leave until after dusk. Once a ship was in open water, there was no Day/Night jurisdiction, but the curfew laws applied in every harbor in the country. So he waited, hoping the winds would hold off until he had passed through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Huron.
The first night and day of sailing were smooth, but as the Morazan passed the Point Betsie light at Frankfort, Michigan, the winds picked up and waves washed over the deck. Snow, fog, and darkness blinded the crew, and the ship ran aground one hundred meters from shore, in less than five meters of water. Everyone had to be evacuated by helicopter and taken by icebreaker to Traverse City.
The Morazan became the nesting site of hundreds of cormorants, which I drew as black, goosenecked forms, totally out of scale with the ship. I was no Audubon. Night visitors were allowed one fifteen-minute period of viewing, during which bright floodlights illuminated the ship and the cormorants grunted and croaked like walruses at the disturbance. Poppu had taken us out by dinghy, anticipating the light show. I was so small, I had to peek out over
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