! ! Travelogues: WET EXIT Part Two: The Place of Enchantment ! Mars Radcon ! ! ! ! ! ! ! a marlow[films], inc. travelogue #3 This story is dedicated to Doug Whittaker, who forgave me, I hope. ! Copyright © Peregrinator Press and Binding 2019 WET EXIT is a work of un-fiction -- as the author likes to call it -- and hopefully a work of art. Because the story is based upon events which actually occurred and people who actually exist, or did exist, there may be some resemblance between the story's characters and people still living or deceased. The names of all the central characters have been changed and, for the most part, only first names are used. By no means, even if the person upon whom a character is based can be deduced, should it be assumed that the character's fictionalized background or anything they are depicted as saying or doing within the story is any reflection of behavior or speech that ever pertained to the actual person. The illustrations accompanying the text are pencil drawings executed by eye and based upon photographs either captured by the author, discovered in magazines, or downloaded from photo aggregating web sites. In each case, the pencil drawing, al- ready an approximation and typically only a portion of the original image, was scanned and modified using a variety of photo editing software. Ultimately, the illus- trations used in this book are assumed to bear scant, if any, resemblance to the orig- inal photographs. If the owner of any photo, upon perusal, discovers an image too obviously based upon their work and objects to it being used in this way, they only have to contact the author by email and it will be switched out with a different image in all future editions. The same goes for anyone who finds, and objects to the fact, that their actual first name was used (unlikely) for a minor character in the story !which might come across as too evidently based upon them. The author would appreciate readers alerting him to any typos, misspellings, inac- curacies or other screw-ups. Every effort will be made to correct same in future edi- !tions. ! ! ! ! ! Published by Peregrinator Press & Binding WET EXIT Copyright © Peregrinator Press and Binding 2019 ISBN 978-1-7323121-0-4 c/o M. Mewborn 970 W. Broadway #265 Jackson Hole WY 83001 307.713.2745 [email protected] ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! PERSONAE In Order of Appearance: ! Marlow - unreliable narrator Dinah Orbeck - former librarian Dodi - Course Leader Beth - all around helpful person Cheryl - a girl from "The Valley" Thad Houston - Apprentice Instructor Burl - Second Instructor Tyler - medical student Pat - sailor and wife of congressman Cord - big wave surfer Will - culinary school grad Crandall - biology teacher Todd - Cord’s paddling partner Sean - collegiate male Mike - the third Mike Ben - undifferentiated male #1 Brian - undifferentiated male #2 ! Adam - undifferentiated male #3 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! WET EXIT ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #1: The Illusion of Depth We crawl up the arm in a ragged vee formation, Tyler on point, Dinah and I lagging slightly back from Cord and Pat's position on the opposite flank. Following our launch from the spit a malaise has crept in. There hasn't been a single instance of conversation between the boats since we returned to the water and that was over thirty minutes ago. I'd swear even our paddle cadence has slowed. It's hard to tell if we're making any forward progress at all. There's an optical illusion involving the wavelets that cause it to appear as if we might be tending backwards. The sky has completely rid itself of clouds, which doesn't help the prospect. We are truncated forms, submerged to our waists in the element, each gripping a paddle with both hands, arms cycling automatically as if connected to an invisible crank. We seem to be scraping against glass, the blades skittering upon a hard surface without purchase, an utterly ineffec- tual enterprise pursued against a backdrop of vast processes: the distant glaciated peaks, the glittering water, the limitless blue sky. It's a world divided precisely into thirds, as Tyler would say, and we don't comprise a minute fraction of it. Ever since our return to the water I've been experiencing moments of acute intestinal cramping followed by release of gas. I've always considered myself to possess a robust digestive tract but that Wayfarer's Loaf of Pat's is really something. Not to mention the quantity of cheese we've been eating these past few days, plus bag after polybag of partially hydrated dried fruit. Now, there's a recipe guaranteed to bind you up. And no doubt there's been too much coffee and not enough water. I gave it a good try this morning, sitting for fifteen minutes against a rock down near the tideline, failing to produce any result. There's no cure but to give the mass more time to force its way through. In the meantime, I've vented my sprayskirt hoping it'll be enough to prevent the odor of my distress from overtopping the hull of the kayak. I don't want Dinah getting any hint of what's go- ing on back here. "What is that murk?" she might ask. Or, better yet, "What is that noisome murk?" Nossir, I don't want to give the librar- ian cause to ask anything of that sort. Naturally, she chooses this very moment to turn in her cock- [2] Travelogues : WET EXIT ! pit and mumble that she needs to add a layer, a process that will involve removing her sprayskirt from its seal around the coaming. I want to tell her this isn't a good time to be exposing herself to the atmosphere within the hullspace, but I don't see any way to explain it that'll make sense without using terms guaranteed to be offen- sive. I almost go ahead and warn her, figuring anything I say won't be as bad as the fumes she's going to be breathing once that seal is off, but ultimately think better of it. I give the stop signal to the group. We can certainly stop. Student Group Number Three may not be able to get itself on the water at the agreed upon start time but we can stop with the best of 'em. To stop and delay is what this outfit's designed for, what we were born to. No one will mind if we stop, or if we ever start again. Once paddles are shipped, before Dinah has a chance to pull off her sprayskirt, I quickly detach my own skirt and flap it up and down a couple of times as a way of ventilating the bilge. At the same time, I breathe in deeply through my nose to see if I can detect any taint from under deck. I can't smell anything but it could be that my nose, its smelling apparatus, has grown exhausted from the con- stant exposure. Dinah strips the sprayskirt from her cockpit, removes her PFD and paddling jacket and begins to reinstall the layers she took off back at the spit. There's no indication she detects anything amiss. If she smells anything, we'll never know. Noisome boots not- withstanding, here's a woman who can sit all day in the stifling at- mosphere of a downtown library, breathing in a recycled indoor air punctuated by the vinegary emissions of the urban homeless, everyone horribly constipated from bad food and dehydration, from weeks of sitting and inaction, and never give a hint she smells any- thing improper, or that she breathes air, or even needs oxygen. To witness Dinah adding a clothing layer while waterborne is a first. Until today, I've never observed her to board a kayak with- out putting on every article of gear in her possession. In the old days, she might request a halt in the paddling to remove a layer, but adding a layer, now that's a change. Dinah should've anticipated it was going to be cooler out here away from shore and saved us the delay. Nonetheless, I'm impressed to see she's beginning to experi- ment with her layers. It's an evolution from the early days of the course when she and I first paddled together, the period I now think of as The First Go-Around, the first ten days of the trip which came to an end the afternoon we dragged (sorry, Instructor Houston) our kayaks onto the Columbia moraine. The Second Go-Around, which I mark as beginning the morn- ing we formed new camping groups and shoved off from the Colum- Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [3] ! bia moraine, was barely forty-eight hours old when Cord, who was amongst the collection of young collegiates that comprised Dinah's second tent group, approached me beneath a kitchen tarp. "You camped with her the whole first part of the course," he put forth. "That's correct." "You cooked meals with her, slept in the same tent, helped her load her boat, paddled with her most days." "Yep. All that." "Yet, you always kept your cool." "That may've been the impression I gave." I was beginning to see what he was getting at. "All I can say is," he continued, "you must be one of the most patient people who ever lived." "Don't be fooled," I told him. "There was a moment just before we reached Columbia when I was thinking of putting in a request for immediate air evac." "For her, or for you?" "Either way.