Harlan's Race

SEE YOU RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU . .. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE YOUR LIFE GOING NOWHERE ... LIKE YOU HAD MINE DO. Where he had me was celibate and alone. What had I done to make him feel like that?
    Suddenly my self-control snapped. I cut the engine, flung my anchor overboard and started raving at the sky.
    “Fuck you,” I was screaming like a lunatic. “Fuck you, God. Fuck you, Billy. Fuck you, LEV. I’ve had it. Come on — it’s you or me. Let’s get it over with!”
    Startled, a couple of gulls flew up off the water.
    I was striding back and forth in my boat, tipping her gently.
    “Come on, God — get your ass down here!”
    On another boat, a couple hundred feet away, a clammer was staring in my direction. Then he started his engine and drove hurriedly off.
    Part of my mind stood aside, coldly, and watched me walk off the edge. Hard to believe that poor stupid piece of shit was going bonkers. He was supposed to be the perfect Marine standing guard at the White House.
    Then slowly my rage and grief blew itself out.
    Feeling empty, I sat slumped on the prow. There were sea birds, and cloud shadows dappling the bay, and sea grass drifting past on the current. Into my emptiness came a deep quiet of prayer. Not praying to anyone — no words, just a being there. Hot sun beat down, penetrating to my icy bones. I wanted to soak all that radiant life into me. I wanted to make love to that life, and be loved by it.
    Suddenly the water roiled around the boat.
    Puffs of breath exploded. Dolphins — six of them. They played with the boat, making little squealing and clicking sounds. Filled with tenderness, I lay prone on the prow, trailing a hand into the water. One mother dolphin actually brushed her slick rubbery back under my fingers. A thrill jarred me, hotter than anything I’d ever felt during sex. Then her young one lingered under my hand, blow-hole working, rolling his eye up at me. It felt like Billy was there among them — his life so at one with the universe, that I could touch it again. His voice echoed in my mind, like it did now and then, saying, Hey, Harlan, it’s simple. We’re alive. We love being alive. The water loves to be alive. The Earth and the whole universe are alive, alive. Our Deity is Love of Life. And you’re still alive ... barely. The question is, how much do you love life?
    Now the water filled with fish, glancing light off their mass like a vast sheet of silver foil. The fish said, Alive, alive, as the dolphins ate them.
    Suddenly I felt dreamy, heavy-limbed. The bottom of the boat, a pile of burlap bags there, looked eminently comfortable. So I stretched out and nodded off, floating in prayer and dolphin squeals. For the first time, I wasn’t afraid to dream. Let’s go, Deity. Hit me with your worst.
    A breeze woke me, nudging the boat against the end of her anchor rope. I hadn’t dreamed.
    The sun was directly overhead, so warm that I was wet and glowing inside my clothes. The clam-rake handle against my arm was stove-hot. Blinking, I sat up and looked around. The dolphins were gone. Colors were intense
    —    rainbows wavering on the ripples, in the boat’s shadow on the water. The bay smelled strong — like composting seaweed and pure iodine. I felt better than I had in years
    —    strong, and really well. A good meal was in order — take care of myself better, put on a little weight. Somehow I needed to take action — find some way to end LEV.’s control over my life. To do that, I needed to write. And what I needed to write was about Billy.
    Throwing the rake over, I dug a grab of clams for my dinner. Ravenous, opening a few with a clam-knife, I swallowed them. Alive, they said as they slid down my throat.
    Back home, scooping Striper out of the desk-chair, I rolled a sheet into the typewriter.
    The first lines that came into my head were:
    I can be precise about the day it began. It was
    December 10, 1974. That was the day I met Billy
    Sive, and he asked me to coach him.
    The thud of typewriter keys felt like it traveled through the desk, down into the pilings, and into the dunes. It deafened the ears of whoever might be listening on the bug.
    As the days passed, I pulled out Steve’s writing secrets. “If I don’t feel it, the reader doesn’t feel it,” he’d said to me. Now I started where he’d started, and found that his secret had wings.
    What bird was I? Maybe the albatross, riding out a thousand gales. This book would finally teach me how to