The Creature That Lurks In Cape Cod Bay

Recently Bob and I bought wet suits for safer winter kayaking. They’re like spray painting every billowing nook and cranny of your body with rubber. I look like the Michelin tire man with a bosom.

Wearing these, we launched our tandem kayak in Barnstable and paddled toward the Sandy Neck lighthouse.

“What is that?” Bob said from behind me, pointing to something in the bay. Never a good question to hear about anything either on the water, or growing (or crawling) on your skin or on the side of the road.

It was a fin. A big shark-sized fin. I panicked. “Let’s get away!” I screamed. Bob got annoyed. “OK,” I said, turning toward him. “We’ll stay and watch it.”

Suddenly his face got really red. “It’s coming at us!”

We couldn’t paddle away fast enough. “Geez – Bob. This is the death do us part stuff!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Figure something out!” The fin was getting closer.

“Like what?” he shouted back.

“Some sort of male thing!”

“Like what?” The spray from our flailing paddles soaked us.

“Protect me! Scare it off!”

He turned toward the fin. “Boo!”

“Very funny,” I said. “You’re the man. Fix it! Do something!”

“I don’t want to.”

“This won’t get better by itself!”

“You don’t know that for sure. It might.”

In 2 seconds, we were standing in front of the lighthouse. I have no memory of getting there. But now we were faced with paddling home. That didn’t appeal. “Let’s just live here, Bob. We’ll start a new life.”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting dark.” We got back in the kayak, bickering.

And then, as with most arguments, all our marital issues came out.

“You’re a lunatic.” (Guess who said that?)

“That thing could kill us,” I said.

“You think the cat will turn on the toaster oven and start a fire. To you, everything could kill us.”

“You always assume things will be fine,” I said.

“It’s a better way of living.”

In a huff I said, “We’ll paddle near shore so we can jump out if we see the fin.” By now, it was dark. New to winter kayaking, we had foolishly timed this trip terribly. We slammed into a rock.

“We’re too close to shore,” Bob said.

“If you want to go further out, you can leave me here.”

He thought about that  . . .  seriously.

We couldn’t see. We kept hitting rocks and bottoming out so we needed to get out of the kayak and pull it across the shallows. We were cold and soaked and scared. I knew it was time to put our bickering aside and be there for each other.

“Apologize and say I’m right,” I said.

“No.”

The next day I called the Audubon Society and spoke with Bob Prescott. I was my eloquent, calm, controlled self. “FIN!!!!” I screamed into the receiver.

“An Ocean Sunfish,” he said, after hearing my description of the fin swaying side to side. “They won’t hurt you. They eat jellyfish.”

At any rate, we made it home that night and peeled off our wet suits. We put on our flannel PJs and laid down in front of the fireplace.

“A beautiful day,” Bob said, snuggling next to me under the comforter.

“A nightmare,” I said, cuddling back.

“You remember the darkness and the creature. I remember you and Cape Cod Bay.” He fell asleep. I kept cuddling.

As I watched my husband in serene sleep, I thought about his approach to life and vowed that I’d try to be more like him. Frankly I don’t find it easy, but I think it is a better way of living.

I fell asleep too, after I got up, tiptoed into the kitchen, and unplugged the toaster oven.

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The Most Beautiful Picture of Me

“I’d like to arrange a photo shoot,” my editor, Bill, said recently. I had written an article on tandem kayaking and he wanted to include pictures of Bob and me in the boat.

With cool professionalism, I set a date. Then, in my ever-so-sophisticated fashion, I raced to the bedroom and tore through my closet, flinging shirts, shoes and shorts over my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Bob asked when a tee shirt landed on his head.

“They’re taking our pictures Friday!” I screamed. “You have to tell me which outfit doesn’t make me look fat!”

He left the room. I could hear him muttering down the hallway, “Oooh noooo  . . .   ”

Early on Friday we kayaked to the lighthouse at Sandy Neck and scavenged for mussels. We were covered in black sea mud and caked-on sand. But we had allowed enough time to go back home so I could shower, change, obsess about my hair and decide on earrings before we went back to the landing for our photo shoot.

As we slowly paddled back in the dwindling afternoon light, we saw the beautiful silhouettes of a woman and her dog on a distant sand bar. Then we saw the dog lay down. And he didn’t get up. He looked to be a very old golden retriever. We watched as the woman coaxed him and then supported his hips so he could stand. They ambled on.

“Do you think they need help?” Bob asked.

“Would we be too late for the pictures?”

“I don’t know, but there’s no way we’d have time to go home first.”

After a few labored steps, the dog laid down again. I looked down at my muddy clothes. I hesitated, hoping he’d get up. But when I saw that he couldn’t, we turned the kayak towards them and began the long paddle to the sand bar. “Can we help?” I asked, as we beached the boat.

“We’re fine,” the woman said, in a way that showed she was used to caring for her old friend. “I’m Joan,” she said, extending her hand. She told us she lived in one of the cottages in the Sandy Neck colony. “And this is Dexter.”

Dexter got up and took a few steps towards me, then he fell. I carefully put my arms under his belly and lifted him. “I went through this with my last dog,” I said to Joan. She looked away and shook her head. I knew then, that anytime we kayaked past her house, I’d never ask, “Where’s Dexter?”

The sweet dog stood comfortably in the water for a while, which took some weight off of his basically useless hips. His panting turned into what looked like a big goofy grin and we all laughed. It was a brief moment of bliss in the late day sun. And I knew I was lucky to be there for it, as I watched the shadows cast their lengthening fingers over the dunes of Sandy Neck.

Eventually we headed back in the kayak, arriving at the landing just as Ron, the photographer, showed up. “How do I look?” I asked Bob.

He put his paddle down and assessed me. I stood in front of him, smiling. There was mud on my sunglasses and my left knee. My water shoes were encased with sea muck. My clothes were soaked. My hair had coagulated into several masses of knots held together with glue-like bug spray.

He didn’t see any of those grimy remnants of the day on me. He just saw, in his mind, that we tried to help an old dog on a sand bar. “You look beautiful,” he said. And in my heart, I know he meant it.

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A Nurturing Man Who's Gone Nuts

“Whooooooo,” went the screech owl near dawn. He was perched on a branch with lots of birds swarming around. I woke up my husband Bob to see. 

He looked, then raced out of bed and ran naked into the yard. “Owls eat small birds!” he yelled over his shoulder. With his arms flailing he shouted, “Go home!” to the owl. But owls never listen.

He came back in, fretting. He fed our dog and cats. Then he went out and opened the coop so our pet ducks could play in their fenced-in area. Bob is very paternal.

Gracie, the dog, soon began barking like crazy outside the back door. This always means, “Come quick!” in dog. At her feet was a tiny bunny. Bob carefully picked it up. Gracie, though, was still obviously upset. Like Lassie, she herded us about 20 feet away where there was a nest and another bunny.

“Put your bunny in the nest, Bob.” He was cradling the baby. “Go ahead, sweetheart. It’s not yours to keep.” He protectively held the little rabbit to his chest and sang softly, “And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” I gently pried it from his arms and put it in the nest.

I called the local wildlife center. “Leave them alone and let the mother take care of them,” the director of the center said.

I could hardly hear her because Bob was beside me, crying. I held the phone away. “What is the matter with you?” I whispered.

“The babies need me,” he said, whimpering.

“How do we know if the mother is around?” I asked the wildlife expert.

“Have you seen an adult rabbit?”

I said to Bob, “Have you seen a rabbit?”

He looked away. “I’m not sure,” he said, sniffling.

“You have to tell the truth, Bob. If there’s a mother, it’s best for her to tend to them.”

He refused to answer.

“Just tell me.” I said, trying to be patient. “Have you seen something hopping around with really big ears and a cotton tail?”   

“Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t.”

“Yes,” I said to the director. “The mother’s around.”

We let nature take its course, which wasn’t easy for Bob. Soon, he went into a postpartum thing. “I’m a terrible father,” he said one morning, while bingeing on chocolate. His moods shifted to extremes. One day, he was standing with his hands on his hips about 10 feet from the mother rabbit and saying, “I cook. I clean. I do everything around here! You could show a little appreciation.”

“Honey?” I called out. “You’re arguing with a rabbit.” 

And so, when I saw Bob holding the baby bunny with such tenderness that day, I wanted to promise him that all the nestlings in our yard will always be safe from harm. But I couldn’t. I wanted to tell him that because of the love in his heart, he can protect all the little ones. But he can’t.

Instead, I told him I was blessed to be married to someone who rushes out in the night when he hears an animal crying, who never forgets to give our arthritic old duck her aspirin or put salve on our cat’s raw chin.

And who truly believes that by chasing away the screech owl, he’ll save a little bird. 

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Gender Mishmash in My House

I won’t express myself on gay marriage because someone might disagree with me. (Nobody would disagree with me on Janet Jackson’s tsitskeh display. Back to that later.)

I’m aware it says at the bottom of this column I’m a retired psychotherapist. And that implies psychological intactness. But although I’m 53, I haven’t mastered the ability to handle conflict. When I do, I’ll let you know, that is if you don’t get angry at me.

So marriage, sexual identity and breasts have been floating around my brain, so to speak. And I’d like to tell you how this has affected my little life in Marstons Mills.

First is the duck mating issue. When our pet duck Spike was alive, he and Grant mated a lot. (Grant is a female. You can’t tell the sex of a duckling until they grow up and strike passionate poses.) Duck mating is brutal. The male holds the female’s head either under water or smushed against the ground. This had deadly consequences with past ducks we’ve had, so when Spike died from old age, I declared, “No more mating!” Of course Bob didn’t know the context in which I shouted that and wouldn’t talk to me for a week.

So to keep Grant company and prevent mating, we got a female duck named Becky. Here’s the weirdest thing: since Becky’s been around, Grant has developed male characteristics. For example, only male mallards, which resemble Grant’s breed, have shiny iridescent green necks and curly tails. Grant never did, but she does now. And we’re mating again. And I don’t mean just Bob and me.

Grant now tackles Becky like a male duck would. There was a recent letter to the editor about the animal kingdom being cut and dried concerning males, females and mating. But that isn’t so clear around my house. Especially after dinner, when my female dog Gracie trots to her toy box and picks out Mr. Giant Bear and gives it more than a bear hug, if you get my drift, just like a male dog would do. This, as all pet owners know, is particularly hard to ignore when company is around and especially when a human leg is used instead of Mr. Giant Bear.

Bob took our male cat, Eddie, to be neutered. The odd thing, though, is all he thinks about now is sex (Eddie, not Bob  . . .  well). He attacks our other male cat ferociously to mate. Poor Murphy cries when Eddie does this, so I spend all day stopping him (Eddie, not  . . .  ) from having sex.

So, I’ve seen my pets mating in violent ways that would be shameful for humans to duplicate - in the same manner that sexuality, in many disgraceful ways, was displayed at the Superbowl. (FYI: if anyone ever pulled off my top, my breast would drop to somewhere below my knees.)

Gender doesn’t count here, when it comes to mating. It also doesn’t count here when it comes to love. Although our ducks are females, they stay near one another like love birds. Grant would be lost without Becky.

Eddie cries when his pal’s at the vet. He’d be lost without Murphy.

I would be lost without Bob.

And Gracie, of course, would be lost without Mr. Giant Bear.  

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