Neon Whale
Anna Gorman
The actual sailors had warned him not to go out today. Storm on the horizon. Choppy waters. Strong winds. They stayed on the dock as he boarded the rental sailboat that had cost him the single twenty dollars that had been in his back jean pocket for as long as he could remember. It went through every wash spin cycle since the beginning of the year, and was torn to pieces, held together only by the Scotch tape he had used to put it back together. A twenty-dollar bill was a twenty-dollar bill, no matter how ruined.
That twenty had bought him forty-eight hours with License to Krill, an old sailboat with more holes in its hull than he could count. But the boat rental salesman had sworn by it. “She attracts fish.” “Fish are naturally drawn to her.”
Must’ve been the mold.
“But she’s good,” the salesman said. “Real easy to steer, and stuff.” He pushed his thick black cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and cleared his throat wetly. “What are you looking to see? Got some sharks, sea lions, mantas, few whales. Sperm whales this time of year.”
“Vaquita,” John Ferguson said. It felt weird to say the creature’s name, to put what exactly he was doing into words.
“Vaquita?” The salesman barked a bitter laugh. “You’d have better luck hooking a lost wedding ring than finding one of those.”
John Ferguson hopped into License to Krill. The wooden starboard moaned under his weight.
The salesman did a quick Google search on his cracked phone, and said, “No offense, Mr. Ferguson, but I don’t think you’ll see any out there. Chasing a dream.”
Oh, he really wasn’t. The vaquita was out there. That was no dream. He was done having dreams, those little fantasies that went nowhere. As a child, he was his parents’ little Johnny. John, the dreamer of the family. And not much else. Pattie and Thomas Ferguson, both successful doctors—one a gynecologist, one a cardiologist, respectively—and then there was John, the only child, the wannabe firefighter, police officer, soldier, actor, astronaut. But he was just the local 7-Eleven clerk, stuck restocking to-go snack packs and cans of Monster Energy, accepting cash or card. And there were the suggestions after every shift from his parents: Maybe look at an internship. A second job wouldn’t hurt. My office is looking for volunteers to help clean…
That was no life. What was the point of restocking snacks and energy drinks, of staying in a limbo between working at 7-Eleven and dreaming of something more?
The vaquita—that one little Google search out of pure curiosity—was a calling. He’d help them. Repopulate them. Care for them. Those little porpoises— “little cows,” their name translated to—were what he was missing. What the world was missing. John Ferguson would save the vaquitas. He’d educate others on them. He’d show the world the mysticality of the vaquita.
Steve Irwin had his crocodiles. Jane Goodall had her chimpanzees. And John Ferguson would have his vaquitas.
License to Krill sputtered to a start, and the “low fuel” light on the dashboard started pulsing at him.
“Best of luck, Mr. Ferguson,” the salesman barked from the dock, as John eased License to Krill towards the open blue expanse of the Gulf of California. “Don’t forget to fill her up closer to the next port.”
John gave him a thumbs-up, and he was off to find the vaquita.
[ ]
The vaquita lived in the northern cap of the Gulf of California. At least, that was what Google said.
License to Krill chugged along the waves at a decent pace, the wind tugging at its salmon-colored, sun-faded sail. It leaned to one side a bit, and John’s things in the tight cabin leaned too. But still, they went along.
Until an hour into the trip. She slowed down. John felt the wind thrashing against him, pulling his hair this way and that, and suddenly he didn’t.
No. Nononono. The port. He forgot to fill up at the port.
John sprinted to the back of the boat and pulled at the engine’s ignition chain. All the fuel did was gurgle somewhere deep in the engine’s stomach, and License to Krill stopped completely.
Okay. Okay. He could fix this. There was a workaround. Surely.
He fumbled for his phone. Police. Coastguard. Call someone, anyone.
His phone was hot to the touch, and the screen stuttered and darkened in the sunlight. He forgot that he had left it out. It turned on, and the screen froze, unresponsive.
He went back to the engine. Now, without the wind against his skin and in his hair, pulling on License to Krill’s sail, the sun beat down on him. It burned his exposed arms and face and sweat began to seep through his T-shirt and shorts.
Thankfully, clouds were coming over the horizon. They glided over at once, a shelf of them, a battalion of grey and dark blue.
Help was on the way after all.
[ ]
Was 7-Eleven really that bad? Was he going anywhere? Where would that job take him?
A drifting License to Krill was taking him further than 7-Eleven ever had. He had to be miles from shore, easily over 10 now. He was hungry. He was thirsty. His skin reddened in the relentless sunlight. But he was too far to turn back now. He knew it, that he was close.
It wasn’t like he could just turn around anyway. He was stuck on a boat. Almost as stuck as he was working at 7-Eleven.
[ ]
It was evening when the clouds finally drifted over to him (or maybe License to Krill drifted over to them), and John’s skin relished the thick layer of cover from the sun they awarded him. The heat’s absence made his anxieties calm a bit. That was enough.
He managed to get his phone past the home screen and called the police.
Or, tried. An abrupt “no signal” warning flashed on the screen. And he felt a raindrop plunk against his burned scalp. Lightning flashed in the corner of his eye.
[ ]
“Johnny, you’re gonna be late for work.”
John barely heard his mother’s soft voice. It was nothing but a slight buzz in his ear, a fly he tried to swat away but couldn’t quite hit.
He put his headphones back on and went back to his vaquita research. A whole minute went by, and he still felt his mother’s eyes on him. In the reflection of his monitor screen, his father came into the doorway, and he and his mother exchanged worried glances.
“John, get off the computer,” his father quipped, voice sharp.
John threw off his headphones and spun around to face them.
“I’m not going,” John said, shaking his head. “7-Eleven will do just fine without me. I quit.”
“I thought you liked working at 7-Eleven,” his mother piped up.
John hesitated, biting his tongue. He worked at 7-Eleven. Did he enjoy it? Sure, he liked it sometimes. The people. The music. The late nights. But what was he doing, exactly? Restocking products. Cleaning the mildew-scented bathrooms. Checking the IDs of younger kids trying to buy alcohol for their homecoming and prom parties and turning them away. All of that was important, yes, but what was he doing? Contributing? He was just John. Another cog in 7-Eleven’s machine. His manager never noticed nor cared about him plucking bags of barbecue chips off the shelf or disappearing into the back storage room for just an inkling of alone time. John could stop showing up for his shifts and his manager would just hire the next guy in line. And they’d do the same things John did on his shifts. They’d restock, clean, check IDs, swipe bags of chips, hide in the storage room for five minutes’ peace.
So, to answer his mother’s question of if he enjoyed working at 7-Eleven: He did. Sometimes he didn’t. Did it even matter if he enjoyed it or not? That job wasn’t going anywhere. John wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m not going,” John said again. “I quit.”
Because this search was going somewhere. He’d always loved animals. Especially the aquatic kind. Every year, they’d go to the local aquarium. The sharks, the dolphins—they all enamored him.
And the vaquita enamored him, too. The large dark eyes. The black lips. The pudgy body. The name. Vaquita. Little cow. The smallest porpoise in the world.
He hadn’t even noticed that both his parents had left and shut the door behind them.
[ ]
License to Krill was dead
The engine,
the lights,
the siren. The whole boat was a floating corpse, water invading its nooks and crannies. It drifted. It drifted for days. The only sign of life was the pulsing “low fuel” light on the dashboard, which slowed with every third blink, powered only by the last inkling of power onboard. It was an occasional flash of orange in the darkness, a rhythmic pounding against John’s heavy eyelids, the ship’s
dying
heartbeat.
[ ]
Dehydration was tearing at him
And the boat’s moldy wood was drinking the ocean, absorbing it, bloating itself
And it was moving, drifting drift drift
And John was so thirsty and hungry and tired and he closed his eyes
And there was a pulse of orange light against his eyelids. Orange, then dark. Orange, then dark.
The surface broke
And then there was a whale
(John thought he saw a whale
Maybe it wasn’t a whale
Whatever)
There was a whale and it was pushing him, nudging him closerclosercloser to shore
And oh god
there it was
7-Eleven.
“Nodon’tdothat.” His voice was so far away, an absentminded slur, and the linoleum sign was creeping closer and closer. 7-Eleven, 24/7, 365 days a year, gas station and convenience store.
The whale was glowing, bright bright orange. How many Monster Energies do you need to restock to see glowing whales?
“Hi whale how are you doing whale”
He could have sworn the whale was WHISPERING in his ear like his mom.
“Johnny, wake up. You’re gonna be late for work.”
“Five more minutes mom. I need water.”
Back fridge, next to the Gatorade. Smart Water, Dasani, Aquafina – pick your poison.
“Where are the vaquita?”
We don’t sell vaquita
Would you like a sperm whale?
Call me Ishmael because we have Moby Dick in stock.
“Don’t take me back to 7-Eleven.”
But it’s STABLE and there’s WATER and MOM and DAD and LAND.
He read somewhere that sperm whales are never stationary because they just
Follow
The
Squid.
Fun fact did you know that sperm whales just follow the squid? They have the whole ocean, they just go where the squid go isn’t that cool John? Isn’t it cool? Say it’s cool!!!
Google spitting whale facts in his face because he googled “vaquita porpoise.”
That’s nice, Google,
But vaquita—
Aren’t here. He was never going to find the vaquita.
But they are out there
Just not for YOU to find.
“ME?”
Follow your squid, John.
Follow your squid.
Follow your squid.
—what am I supposed to do with
7-Eleven?
Idk john but you don’t belong in the middle of the Gulf of California I’ll tell you that much.
True but like vaquita are out there I need to find them.
And what will you DO once you FIND them john?
“idk”
you need water john
you’re not thinking john
follow your squid john
it’s GLOWING it’s RIGHT THERE and it is ENOUGH.
7-Eleven 7-Eleven 7-Eleven so perfect it rhymes.
The 7-Eleven sign always blinded him on the highways at night.
Little Kid John with his sticky child hands pressed to the Honda window.
“Mom can I work at 7-Eleven? I wanna work at 7-Eleven.”
“If you think it’d make you happy, of course you can.”
It was tedium but it was enough. It made him happy. He was John of 7-Eleven, son of Pattie and Thomas, two loving parents who loved him no matter what he was so lucky so so so lucky.
John began to cry and licked his tears.
The whale was still glowing and then it dove miles and miles and miles down
And land was coming up and—
He snapped out of it. It was dawn, and the orange beacon light of a circling coastguard response ship throbbed against his eyes. Then there was the hospital. And his parents and
“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!”
And tears tears tears so many tears were shed when John held his parents tight, afraid to let go, afraid to lose them, afraid to never have this familiarity again.
“Mom dad imsosorry I don’t want to quit Iloveyousomuch im so dumb—”
“That’s enough, Johnny,” his mother whispered, kissing his forehead. His father squeezed him until his sides ached. “That’s more than enough.”
[ ]
“Are you sure this is safe?” John’s mother clung to Vaquita’s refurbished railing with each jump of wave. The sun beamed down on her, and she held her sunhat to her head with one hand. “We’re far from shore. Let’s turn around.”
“You’re gonna love this, Mom,” John said, killing the engine. Vaquita—formerly known as License to Krill, as the “20 dollars for 48 hours” business practice just wasn’t enough to keep the rental salesman in business, and he wasn’t about to trash “the fish magnet”—sputtered to a stop, until all was quiet. All was still. There was not a cloud in the sky or ripple in the surface. The clear water underneath held no fish, no sharks, no vaquita. Never a vaquita. John had made his peace with them. They were out there, his heart knew it to be true, but they were not what he was after today.
“Johnny, you’re gonna be late for work,” John’s mother said. “Let’s just go back to shore—”
“There!” John’s father cried from the bow. In front of them, a broad, dark grey fluke came into sight, and a scratched-up forehead breached the surface. They gasped as it glided past them, a protector of the Gulf.
“Told you he was here,” John said, pulling his parents close. His arms ached from the movement, a result of several IV drips to cure the ruthless dehydration that came over him those however many days at sea. He didn’t know what he heard, saw, experienced that day, and he didn’t know if it was the glowing whale that guided him to shore or just pure luck that he was drifting in the right direction and the coastguard found him in time. But he remembered the whale. The squid. The open expanse of ocean that lay before them.
A faint breeze pulled at his 7-Eleven cashier cap, and his hand shot up to hold it in place.
“I didn’t know sperm whales lived in the Gulf,” his father said.
“They don’t,” John said, as his whale friend disappeared into the crystal gulf water below. “They just follow the squid.”
Fall 2024