Exposure

  

Tom told me that first night on the boat, after the hard run to Port Hardy ahead of the blow, that he had never been so tired and so happy, that he never felt more deserving of being alive, and I thought about being dumped on top of him in the paddy wagon with the others at the occupation and being disgusted at his unwashed smell, and then wondering what I smelled like, and then wanting to find out who he was.  That was back in the good times.  But the good times came back the first day and night on the boat.   First the struggle, and then the laughs, the secrets, the listening, the noticing that each other was alive, and the sure knowledge that we were winners, at least that he was a winner and I was on the winning side.    "Sarah, I don't like whales" Tom said as we sat together at the wheel on the third day, after the blow, watching the sails flap in the light gusts and the grey water go up and down.   I was having a difficult time with the tuna sandwiches I had for lunch.    "And I don't like the charlatans I have to work with."    "Tom" was all I said, though what I meant was how could you let me down like this, giving up such a cushy job, a job which actually meant something to other people: you've even been on the National once.  And I remembered how I admitted with mock embarrassment to Linda that, yes, the bearded scientist she saw on last night's news, who could name every whale in Johnston Strait, was my Tom.    "The fools pretend they give a damn about something other than themselves and their latest student lover."    "But I think they care about their work too, about the animals."    "One or Two."    "There's a cruise ship just coming around Village Island."    He didn't say much to me after that, though it was three months before I moved away, and six more months before he stopped answering my letters.                                                          ...Philip Manders