Albatross

by Terry Fallis

  I’d brought enough food and freezer packs to last for my first four or five days before I’d need to switch to meals cobbled together from cans, dry mixes, and the lake’s still-pure water. That night, I just cooked hot dogs impaled on a sharpened green stick I’d cut from a birch tree. It was one of the most satisfying meals I’d had in recent memory. Hours of paddling always made simple food taste so much better. By the time the sun was sinking, I was just about comatose. I maintained consciousness long enough to secure my food for the night. I used enough duct tape and shock cords that I doubted even Houdini could break into my cooler, let alone escape from it. Then I stumbled into my tent, zipped the flap closed to prevent death by mosquitoes, and collapsed onto my sleeping bag. I sank into a very heavy sleep, too deep for dreams.

  The next morning, the call of a red squirrel in a nearby tree woke me up, along with every other living thing trying to sleep within a two-hundred-metre radius. It’s hard to believe that the cute and cuddly, fur-bearing, forest-dwelling, nut-hoarding, garden variety red squirrel has mastered such a loud and obnoxious noise.

  My cord-enwrapped cooler was intact and unmolested, though I suspected raccoons and other creatures were conspiring in the woods. On a whim, I launched the canoe into the lake. The surface was like glass. Not a ripple in sight. I just paddled around the inlet, protected by the peninsula of the campsite. It was so quiet and peaceful.

  A loon, male by the colouring, surfaced about a hundred feet or so away from the canoe, and I stopped paddling just to watch him. What a glorious creature. He rode low in the water, the white flashing on his neck and wings in stunning contrast to his black head and body. Beautiful. And then came his melancholy, lonely, otherworldly call in high-fidelity, stereo, Dolby surround sound. It was awesome, in the true and traditional sense of the word. I was transfixed, drifting, my paddle across the gunwales. Then the loon looked right at me before disappearing beneath the surface. I kept my eyes on the water. Suddenly, this black and white torpedo streaked right by me about a foot below the surface. If I’d reached into the lake, I could have touched him. I could see him so clearly. Only the bubbles in his submerged wake betrayed the water. I’d never seen anything like it. I was startled and knocked my paddle into the lake. Then it was over. He surfaced quite a distance away and moved around the point, out of sight. I figured nothing was going to top that experience so I retrieved the paddle and headed back to the campsite, exhilarated.

  I started a fire and cooked up eggs and bacon. I’d forgotten to bring scouring pads to clean the frying pan, so I reverted to a technique we had employed back in my canoe-tripping days. I scrubbed out the pan with moss. It actually worked quite well. I called my parents to reassure them that all was well and that I hadn’t taken leave of my senses. Then I sat at the picnic table in the morning sun with a Rhodia notebook and my beloved Miguel de Cervantes fountain pen, a beautiful limited edition in Montblanc’s Writers Series celebrating literary luminaries in history. Such a smooth writer. It had been an early indulgence after my first PGA victory.

  The idea that had taunted me the day before, darting in and out of my cerebral shadows, was back and bolder that morning. I played with it for a while, turning it over in my head and seeing how the light of day danced over it. It soon took centre stage in my mind, shouldering other thoughts aside and insisting first on prominence and eventually on dominance. I wrote some notes, the smooth, wet blue-black line of Iroshizuku Shin-Kai ink flowing so effortlessly onto the slick paper. I wrote out the idea as it came to me. It wasn’t so much an epiphany or revelation that struck without warning. It felt more like a very slow and methodical advancement of a notion rooted in logic and efficiency, designed to target at least two birds with one stone. I wrote it out again with a little more detail as I answered my own questions and filled in my own blanks.

  I didn’t let the proposition bully me into surrender. I didn’t embrace it instantly. I approached it warily, with questions of logistics, goals, and motivations. To help my thinking, perhaps even to slow it down, I launched my canoe again and paddled aimlessly around the lake near the campsite. I found that doing something physical freed up my brain. My arms, shoulders, and knees protested at being summoned again so soon, but the paddling helped.

  An hour later, I was back at the picnic table creating a list of pros and cons. There were more pros than cons. I decided to stop thinking about it for a while, worried that I was going too far, too fast. So I jumped in the lake. I swam in the cool, soft water for about half an hour. My paddle-weary muscles thanked me. I just floated around for the most part. I could actually sit and rest on a rocky shelf a ways out from the shore. It was lovely and restorative. I spent the afternoon reading. In addition to my iPad stocked with literature, I’d also brought a few old-school trade paperbacks, including a thick one by Mark Helprin set in Paris. I pulled my air mattress and sleeping bag from my tent and positioned them in the sunshine beneath the sprawling red pines. And I read. I read for a very long time. It was pure escape, and took me completely out of my own mind and matters. It helped restore balance and perspective. I needed it.

  That night I slept deeply once again and opened my eyes to the sunlight pushing through the nylon walls of the tent. I could hear the water lapping on the rocks and the breeze passing through the pines. I also discovered upon surfacing that my decision seemed to have been made sometime in the night, while I slept. It’s not that it was made without me. It just felt like the right call in the morning. Any reservations I’d had the day before had packed up and left the field. I felt serene and secure again—always a good sign.

  I revved up my laptop and went to the website. I read everything I could. It seemed tailor-made for me. It was flexible and interesting, with a broad range of offerings that would allow me to indulge my broad range of interests. I studied all the requirements and descriptions and then made a tentative wish list.

  I was excited. I hadn’t expected clarity and comfort to arrive quite so early and easily. I briefly wondered if I were rushing it and if perhaps my sudden enthusiasm might be shutting down other options I should be considering. But I didn’t think so. It didn’t feel like that. The stars seemed to be aligning so nicely—that is, until I noticed that the final application deadline had passed quite a while ago. My heart and hopes sank. It seemed like the perfect solution, a return to my first love in more ways than one. I decided to call. Perhaps the deadline wasn’t of the drop-dead, forever variety.

  I found what I needed at the bottom of the webpage. Then I had to remind myself what day of the week it was. Would they even be open? I was relieved when my iPhone confirmed it was Friday.

  “University of Toronto,” the receptionist said.

  “Hello, could I have extension 2356, please?”

  “One moment, please.”

  “English department, Melinda speaking.”

  “Hello, this is Adam Coryell…”

  “Yeah, right, and I’m Taylor Swift,” she cut in.

  “Sorry?” I said. “I mean, um, actually it really is Adam Coryell speaking.”

  “Uh oh. Are you really the Adam Coryell, you know, gold medal and all?”

  “Yes, I really am. And I was hoping to speak with Professor Moore.”

  “I’m so sorry. I really thought you were pranking me,” she said.

  “No worries,” I replied. “I get that a lot.”

  “Okay, please hold while I put you through to the department chair.”

  I waited.

  “Evelyn Moore.”

  “Yes, professor, this is Adam Coryell, and I’m calling about the application process for the M.A. in English in the Field of Creative Writing.”

  “Hello, Mr. Coryell. So you’re back in Canada?”

  “Yes, I am, but please call me Adam,” I said. “I’m actually camping on Lake Temagami right now, trying to think a few things through after a rather eventful few years.”

  “I’m so very sorry about everything that happened before the Olympics,”
she said. “And congratulations on an amazing performance in Tokyo, under the circumstances.”

  “Thanks so much. Yes, the golfer in me seemed to perform quite well, notwithstanding.”

  “So how can I possibly help the world’s most famous golfer?”

  “Well, I’d really love to apply for the M.A. program with a focus on creative writing starting this September. But I know that applications closed quite a while ago.”

  “You’re right. The deadline passed some ways back.”

  “Is there even the slightest chance of applying now and getting in for September? I know it’s very unusual and well outside the normal application procedures.”

  “It is unusual, even unprecedented, but strangely, the door may have opened a crack. First of all, we are not quite at capacity on the creative writing side of the program. Had you been interested in straight English lit, it would not be possible. Secondly, we actually just had a student defer her admission for a year.”

  I could feel my heart pounding but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “So, Adam, the rare opportunity to apply for the program at this late date is really only part of the equation. Do you have a relevant undergraduate degree and the academic achievement you would need for a master’s? I’m afraid I only know you as a golfer.”

  “Oh yes, right. Yes, I have a four-year B.A. in English and creative writing from Stanford, with distinction,” I added.

  “That’s an excellent school with a respected program,” Professor Moore said. “You’ll also need writing samples, as well as a couple of academic references. Do those requirements pose any problems?”

  “No. I have plenty of writing samples from Stanford, and I’m quite sure I can secure at least two recommendations from my professors.”

  “Well then, Adam, I’d encourage you to get started on the online application. We’d need it in the next forty-eight hours.”

  “That is just wonderful news. I’ll get it done. Thank you so much,” I gushed.

  We talked for a few more minutes, but I was eager to get moving on the application and to call Stanford for their part in the process.

  Miraculously, everything was in order by late afternoon. Stanford had sent my transcript, which I’m proud to report featured very strong marks, to U of T by noon. By 2:30, three of my ex-professors had agreed to provide academic references, including Amy Edwards. I’d finished preparing the online admissions forms by 4:15. Then I worked my way through my own pieces to select what I thought were my best writing samples.

  When I had it all assembled and ready to go, I took a break. I wanted to give myself just a bit of distance before reviewing it all again with a fresh mind and pushing the big green “submit” button.

  I was just about finished eating the steak I’d cooked up when something on the lake caught my eye. It was a black blob bobbing in the water, but clearly moving across the channel towards the campsite. When it was still quite far away, I first thought it might be a loon. But I could see no flash of white around the head and it really wasn’t moving like a loon on the water. Then I decided it was a beaver. There was a beaver lodge in the small, calm bay created by the peninsula of the campsite. But as it moved closer, it seemed too large for a beaver. Because they’re so industrious, overweight beavers are rare. I didn’t believe in lake monsters, so that left one other possibility that didn’t make me happy.

  The black blob was heading closer. It swam around the point and started crawling up on shore. That’s when I finally made a positive identification. The swimming black blob was a swimming black bear. They were quite common on Lake Temagami. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought my steak had smelled wonderful when sizzling over the open flames.

  I moved fairly quickly when I finally realized a bear was about to invade my campsite. And when I say I moved fairly quickly, I mean my feet barely touched the ground as I sprinted for the canoe, shoved it into the water and leapt aboard. Thankfully, my paddle was still rattling around in the bottom of the canoe. It certainly makes it easier to control the canoe if you have a paddle. With a few powerful strokes, I was a couple hundred feet offshore as the bear hauled himself up onto land. He shook off the water and then stood up on his hind legs, his nose aimed high. He moved quickly to the frying pan, which was by then cool and resting on the picnic table. A small piece of steak and a strip of fat I’d cut off were left in the pan. They weren’t in the pan for long. The bear then spent a few minutes licking out the frying pan. I couldn’t have cleaned the pan any better with a hot-water pressure washer. Luckily, the bear didn’t seem that interested in the cooler—but he did eat a whole pound of butter, an entire box of Multi Grain Cheerios, a full bag of all-dressed potato chips, and a Tupperware container filled with brown sugar. This took him about forty-five seconds.

  His next stop was my tent, and because I hadn’t zipped up the entrance flap when I’d last emerged, he walked right in. At one point he was lying down on my sleeping bag with his head stuck outside the tent. Eventually, with no more obvious food to eat, the bear lumbered out of the tent and back over to the picnic table. He actually placed his two front paws on the bench to give him better access to whatever was sitting on top. It finally dawned on me that the bear was now positioned very close to my laptop. Then he actually shifted to the left so that he hovered directly above my keyboard. He looked as if he might just reach out and type an email. That’s when the bear raised his right paw above his head. This looked to me like the wind-up for a devastating swipe intended to knock my precious laptop not just off the table, but quite possibly all the way into the lake.

  Naturally, I hadn’t yet formally submitted my application for admission, and the bear seemed to know this somehow. So I stood up in the canoe—rarely a good idea—and emitted the loudest, longest, and freakiest noise my lungs and vocal cords could muster. It was somewhere between bloodcurdling and inhuman. The sound scared me—and I made it. The bear stopped in mid-swipe and was clearly startled. I knelt back down and kept up my sound assault while paddling straight towards the campsite and the bear. Between strokes, I banged the paddle as hard as I could against the gunwales to add a different noise to the mix. The bear seemed a little perturbed by my performance. He slipped off the table and hustled back towards the water on the other side of the campsite from whence he’d come.

  I carried on my earsplitting scream concerto and paddle-banging. The bear was just about back to the water when I leapt ashore, grabbed the frying pan, and banged it incessantly with a steel pot. It added another horrible, deafening sound to the clamour. The bear splashed into the water and swam back across the channel. I sustained my rhythmic banging and vocal raving at the water’s edge until I saw him wade ashore on the other side and disappear into the woods. Only then did I stop my caterwauling and pot-pan percussion. I was exhausted and my throat really hurt. When I regained my faculties, I rushed back up to the picnic table. My iPhone was on the bench—the screen was cracked, but it still seemed to be functioning properly and providing the essential hotspot Internet connection. My laptop monitor was dark. But as soon as I nudged the touchpad, the screen flickered to life, the U of T application submission page still beckoning.

  Upon closer scrutiny, the computer seemed fine except for a large globule of black-bear drool on the flat metal area bordering my keyboard. A piece of paper towel dealt with that quickly enough. Before an earthquake or meteorite could interrupt my mission, I quickly reviewed my entire application again and reread my writing samples. I didn’t catch any new mistakes or make any last-minute changes. I hit the “submit” button and it was done. An “application received” message appeared on the screen, and there was a confirmation email in my inbox.

  I stayed that night to finish up another writing project I’d been avoiding. Then I cried for quite a while. I’m pretty sure it was about Bobbie. Having my immediate future sorted out seemed to liberate my mind to wrestle with other issues. Clearly, I hadn’t fully processed Dubai. It actually fe
lt good to let go emotionally. But I was on a schedule, so I pulled myself together the next morning, cleaned up the campsite, gathered dry wood for the next person, loaded the canoe, and paddled hard all the way back to civilization.

  I drove through a good part of the night and arrived home around midnight. My parents had waited up and were thrilled to see me. There’d been no word from U of T while I’d been paddling and driving all day. But I heard from them the next morning. The email was from the Office of the Registrar, and the subject line told the tale: Acceptance to the Master’s Program in English in the Field of Creative Writing. I was very glad I’d not been driving when I heard the news.

  There was a lot to get done in the short time remaining before my program started. But I was pumped. I was back. Winning the Masters was great. Being accepted into the master’s program was better.

  Chapter 13

  SEPTEMBER 2020

  “THANKS AGAIN, Professor Moore, for taking a chance on me,” I said, when I phoned her the following week. “I’m grateful.”

  “Well, you deserve to be in the program. Your application was outstanding, as were your writing samples and your references. In the end, it was a very easy decision.”

  “Wow. That’s great to hear,” I said. “Um, I know I’m pushing my luck, but I have another unorthodox request that I hope you’ll consider.”

  “That sounds interesting. Carry on.”

  “Well, there is a thriving cottage industry amongst media types devoted to figuring out exactly what I’m doing next with my life. I understand that news of my enrolment at U of T will eventually get out, but I’d really like to delay that for as long as possible. As well, I really want to be treated like any other grad student, particularly by my classmates. With that in mind, I wonder if my name on the class list might simply be Adam James, my first and middle names. That was the name I used when submitting poems and stories to publications while at Stanford to ensure I’d be judged on my writing and not on my golf.”