Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal (6 page)

A local druglord who Moses knew was going out of town, so he
lent me his lawyer. But, as my luck was involved, the lawyer had
been taking most of his salary in “product,” and this morning—
the morning of my trial—he couldn’t’ve told the difference
between a sperm whale and a sperm.
So Nelson, who’d been a defendant often enough that
he spoke legal pretty good, filled in. To the charge I’d libeled
the whale by writing he was a bastard, he declared to the packed
courtroom gallery (both seats were occupied, by Thesaurus):
“The defense contends the whale’s parents are unmarried, so he
is in fact a bastard!”
But the Bluepeace team (so many lawyers, they had
to bring in an extra picnic table) had some evidence to the
contrary—a videotape of a preacher in a harness being lowered
by helicopter over the Pacific then performing a whale wedding,
plus a stack of lab reports proving that the happy couple was
indeed the alleged bastard’s parents.
“Objection, your Honor,” shouted Nelson, even though
he had no specific law reason for objecting in mind.
“Sustained,” Judge Archipelago said.
It turned out that videotaped evidence was inadmissible
because the court didn’t have a video player. The only one on
the island belonged to the druglord, and like I said, he was out
of town. You had to have figured my luck was due to change for
the better. If you did, you figured wrong.
“As I see it,” Archipelago continued, “the issue is whether
Openshaw is justified in calling the whale ‘Dickhead.’”
“It’s a term reserved for someone who has behaved like
a dick,” one of the Bluepeace attorneys quoted from some law
book.
“Agreed,” said Archipelago. “We need to hear what the
whale did that was dickish.”
“Your Honor,” Nelson begged, “it would be cruel and
unusual to make my client relive the event.”
Cruel, unusual, and possibly lethal. I was worried
it’d make my heart burst—literally. I said a silent prayer to
Thesaurus’s gods on the off chance any of them existed and were
listening.
“The entire case hinges on his testimony,” was
Archipelago’s reply.
So I’ve got to go take the stand now…
P.S. Here’s Flarq’s courtroom scrimshaw of Bluepeace Lead
Counsel H.C. Mutherford, who I’m grateful to cause he makes
even me look good.

So it’ll be up to a jury to decide whether I’m justified in seeking
revenge against the whale for killing my wife and kid. Problem is,
these hardcases on the jury are of the school that if a whale does
that sort of thing, you owe him a thank you.
I knew even my most saddest recounting of the event
would get little sympathy from them. So I began my testimony by
telling of a card game many years ago, back when I was fishing
salmon in Alaska.
“I came ashore after six months of sucking nets. Wound
up in the secret back room of a bar they used for high stakes five
card. Seven hours later it was down to the final hand between
me and a slick European with waxed mustaches that stuck out
like fish hooks. All the money I’d earned over the last six, hard,
salt-caked months—which is to say every cent I had to my name—
was on the table along with his and that of the unlucky lopers
who’d already called it a night. A pile higher than you could
jump over.
“I put down my three aces.
“‘Bad luck for you, mon ami,’ the European said
graciously, ‘I have a threesome myself, plus a pair as powerful as
they come.’
“That quick, I was needing to bum change off a buddy
just to get myself some breakfast. But that’s cards, right?”
The nods in the jury box told me many of them’d been in
the same position. But they sure as sundown wouldn’t tolerate a
man whining about it.
“But then I saw his cards. Three eights plus a king and
a queen. ‘Actually, here on this side of the Atlantic,’ I said,
thinking maybe the mix-up was some European thing, ‘a king
and queen don’t got that kind of clout.’
“‘Oui, I know,’ he said. ‘I meant this pair.’ His hands
shot into his pants and returned holding a pair of big-assed
automatics, Glocks maybe. One nip from either of them
monsters and I’d be playing Go Fish with Davy Jones.”
In the jury box, revulsion wrinkled several brows. They
had no problem with armed robbery. Except when playing cards.
A gambling den’s their version of a house of worship, and a
poker game’s as holy as occasions get.
“The scourge plowed the pile into a big sack he’d had at
the ready,” I continued, “and was out the back exit and on his
way out of Dodge before any of the sods slumped at the bar up
front were the wiser. I had no choice but to get back on another
fisherman that morning for another six months’ gig. The whole
time, it took all my self-control to keep myself from decking
anyone who had a mustache.
“Reason I bring up this incident though is this: that raw
feeling of being cheated like that—that’s how I felt when the
whale took my wife and kid.”
Suddenly in the jury, there was understanding on every
hard face.
To be continued (court’s recessing for grub)…

Recess was extended, then extended some more, and finally
court was adjourned for the whole day. The reason: the tavern
next door was having a Buy-One-Flagon-Get-One-Flagon-Free
special for all trial participants.
By evening, even Mutherford was in a lighthearted mood.
I found myself standing next to him in the W.C. (the tavern’s
term for the wooden planks with holes at the ends sticking out
over the stream out back). The intimacy was kind of awkward. As
an icebreaker I challenged him to a swordfight. He was relieved
to learn I didn’t mean with actual swords but rather the kid’s
game where the winner’s the guy with the driest shoes at the
end. Then he was relieved to learn I was just yanking his anchor
chain.
I asked him something I’d been curious about: How he’d
gotten involved with Bluepeace. He said he’d first heard about
the organization at the yacht club up in Connecticut where him
and his kids go sailing, and one thing lead to another. Turns out,
outside of court, crazy old H.C. Mutherford’s actually a pretty
nice, normal family man, like I once was. Same story with most
of the other lawyers who’d come down to Guava for the trial.
This made me wonder, why the heck would all these topflight
guys take chunks out of their lives to volunteer for a fringe
marine life preservation organization and come after little old
me? So I asked Mutherford that too.
His face turned as dark as if a thunder cloud had suddenly
come overhead. “Because of your first two whales,” he muttered.
Then he zipped up abruptly and turned to go.
“Wait,” I said. “What two whales?”
“The two kills in California. What else could you have
possibly thought I meant?”
I’ve been living in Oakland for years. But I had no idea
what he meant, and told him so.
“Mr. Openshaw, it’s fortunate for you that you’re not
under oath now.” he said, flying off.
I stood out on the plank a bit longer trying to decide
whether Mutherford was in fact nuts, or getting to the bottom of
this two-whales business should be on my “To Do If Acquitted”
list.
P.S. Here’s Flarq’s scrimshaw of me on the witness stand. They
say a scrimshaw takes off twenty pounds—if you’re the captain. I
tried to get clean-shaved for court but all I had was a steak knife.
Believe it or not it made a huge improvement.

“My Uncle Walt left me his boathouse on the outskirts of
Mendocino, an old whaling village up in Northern California,” I
told the jury. “The place was no more than a shack on stilts and
that it managed not to collapse into the bay must’ve mystified
anybody with knowledge of the law of gravity.
“After Walt went to stay with Davy Jones, squatters moved
into the place. As you may know, squatters generally aren’t big
on home improvements. One of them nearly burned it down
after knocking over a bong. If he’d succeeded, he would’ve done
me a favor. By the time I got possession of the place, my only
chance of unloading it was finding termites willing to pay cash.
So I just left it.
“Then, a year after we got married, my wife saw it. She
said that ever since she was a little girl she’d dreamed of having
her own cozy little place on the sea—”
Here I paused my testimony as several members of the jury
were suddenly looking like they could use a barf bucket.
So I mentioned, “Her family had money.”
The jurors nodded clear understanding, and they showed
nothing but approval when I went on to detail how “over the
next two years I did the three-hours-and-change drive up from
Oakland every weekend to get the place ship-shape.” [I thought
it best to keep to myself that I’d’ve done this even if Lucy’s folks
had been the poorest panhandlers this side of Pluto.]
“By the time it was done, Lucy and me had had us a baby
boy,” I continued. “We went up to Mendocino on the blustery
sort of December night Lucy judged that cozy cottages by the
sea’d been invented for. The 27th December it was, 2003. When
we were all nestled up together by the wood-burning hearth for
the buttered rum and the cookies she’d baked up, it was enough
for me to forget that it’d taken sixteen trips to Fireplace City and
a maxed-out AmEx to restore the thing. In fact it was enough to
make me forget I’d ever had any problems. Except one…
“Baby Augie was fussing. Hardly unusual that time of the
evening though. And like his dad, the rhythmic patter of the
waves usually put him to sleep. So Lucy lay him, in his little
basket, on the sill of the big bay window I’d put in (there’d
previously been just rotting clapboard).
“It was right then that the biggest sperm whale I ever
saw reared out of the water, smashed through the bay window
with enough force that the house was sheared off its stilts, and
inhaled Augie and Lucy.
“I scrambled to the window—an uphill climb as the house
was canting. I tried to hold the beast’s jaws apart with the fire
poker so as to try and reach in and get my family. In short, that’s
how I lost the right arm. I still had my left though and was good
to go a round with the blubbery bastard using one of the new
roof beams that’d been knocked loose. But he just flashed me a
silly grin, turned his fat tail, and sank into the dark water. That
was the last I saw of him till I came down here.”
The jury sat there in silence. Salts all, they didn’t need
telling that sperm whales don’t attack at all, let alone like
homicidal maniacs. I wasn’t sure if they were stunned or
unmoved or simply didn’t give a seahorse’s ass.
“Also, the homeowner’s insurance didn’t kick in until
January 1st,” I threw in.
On that note, I heard a sniffle or two from the jury box.
P.S. Here’s a scrimshaw my harpooner Flarq did of jury foreman
Raymond Kelp, known, cause of his personality, as “Sting Ray.”

After three minutes of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict
and the twelve men returned to the courtroom. It seemed
everyone on Guava was stuffed into the little courthouse or
throwing elbows for position outside the windows. Folks had
come from neighboring islands too, including the Governor of
the Lower Windwards, the Admiral of the Tortolan navy and five
of his men, and regional pop idol Johnny Manta and his backup
singers, the lovely Tunettes. Money was changing hands so quick
it sounded like folks were applauding—the latest odds were 8 to 7
against me.
Judge Archipelago asked jury foreman Raymond Kelp to
read the verdict. All eyes then shot to the index card in Kelp’s
hand. He stared down at it and reddened, which I didn’t take as
too good a sign. He said nothing. For a while.
“Please, sir, what does it say?” Archipelago asked.
“What, do I look like some kind of literature perfessor?”
Kelp snapped. [Note: The literacy rate on these islands isn’t
much higher than the rate of snow plow owners.]
Per Archipelago’s nod, the bailiff took the card from Kelp
and brought it over to the bench. The judge glanced at it, then
addressed the court.
“Justice,” he declared, “has been served!” Everyone looked
at him blank, save the bookies making new odds on what the
hell he’d meant. “Court is adjourned,” Archipelago added.
“There’s a whale that needs killing!”
As you’d expect, I was a mix of jubilation and relief.
Everyone in the courthouse was more curious how Mutherford
and his phalanx of Bluepeace lawyers’d react. Even money had
it that the veins that had been popping out of Mutherford’s
forehead and neck when he made his vile pronouncements
against me would now burst altogether. But he couldn’t’ve
looked more relaxed if he’d spent all morning swinging in a
hammock with the Tunettes.
“We will not appeal,” Mutherford said, costing a lot
of Guavans a lot of money. But then Mutherford produced
a document and added, “Because we have an order for the
extradition of Mr. Gus Openshaw for trial on the island of
Tortola for violation of Chapter XXII, Article VIII of the Penal
Code there.”
Taking that as a cue, the Tortolan navy guys marched
towards me jangling with darbies (a local, painful version of
handcuffs) and leg irons.
“We got to run, Gus,” said my defense attorney, Nelson,
tugging me towards the back door.
Nelson’s got his own reasons for running. Me: I don’t
have time to sit around in another court, let alone another jail.
At least not until the blubbery bastard is dead. So I’ve got to run
now as well.
P.S. For some reason, Flarq
didn’t scrimshaw any of the
trial proceedings, choosing
instead to render one of the
Tunettes.