The Surf Guru

by Doug Dorst

  The former Mrs. Quilcock always professed respect and admiration for the constipated Frenchman, which I always found baffling, but then, she makes it a practice to search for the best in people. A rare quality indeed, especially in this line of work.

  Profile #179

  Earl Godfrey Orr

  Even at his advanced age, E. G. Orr persists at inflicting his imbecilic work upon us. His “contributions” to systematic botany in general—and to the study of the family Proboscaceae in particular—can only be described as pestilential. An indefatigable supporter of Kingslee, he is also said to be a pederast. 23

  Profile #222

  Percival Pickwick

  Pickwick was Scottwell-Scott’s nemesis and an enemy of science itself. Of his many offenses, the most grievous was his assault on my mentor’s reputation with allegations of academic perfidy (not true), clumsy passes at the wives of colleagues (unverified and unlikely), sadistic treatment of assistants (never), and excessive ingestion of both spirits and the various plants sacred to southwestern cave-dwelling tribes (exaggerated, and none of Pickwick’s damned business, regardless). I shall not discuss any of his accusations further, as they belong in the ash heaps of history and not to works of academic integrity such as this.

  Proof is still being gathered, but I believe that Pickwick sent minions out to infiltrate various herbaria to destroy the type specimens of many species described by Scottwell-Scott so that these species could be recollected, redescribed, and renamed by the dastard himself (e.g.: Involvulus pickwickii, Zosum pickwickii, Pflugeria pickwickii). Also, like that villain Gjetost,24 Pickwick used his connections to money and power shamelessly. He obstructed Scottwell-Scott’s funding, added my mentor and me to the secret blacklist at Stamen, and arranged for the publication (in Stamen, of course) of Kingslee’s traitorous review of Scottwell-Scott’s magnum opus, An Omnibus Guide to the Western Flora, in which he made great sport of pointing out minor errors in the manuscript.

  One of these, the manual’s confusion of Claemium bakerii and C. minor, was, in all candor, a result of my own carelessness as I helped Scottwell-Scott prepare the manuscript. I am not above admitting my mistakes, and in any event, Scottwell-Scott delivered to me a reprimand that has served me well in all of my work since, emphasizing as it did the importance of meticulousness. It should be noted that the mistake is a common one; as I demonstrated in Flora of Coahuila,25 these two species never should have been separated to begin with. In that volume, I proposed that the proper “lumped” species be named S. aeneii, by way of honoring my ailing mentor, but my suggestion (like most of my work) has been studiously ignored by the despots in our field and the henchmen on their payrolls.

  But I digress. In the wake of Pickwick’s and Kingslee’s calumnious campaign of mockery and destruction, An Omnibus Guide to the Western Flora was pulled from publication. Scottwell-Scott was never the same, withdrawing into seclusion, keeping even his allies at a great distance, and sitting idle as his mind and body deteriorated. He had always said he wanted to die while still doing his work—“in the harness,” as it were—but these villains robbed him of the ability to do so. I have vowed not to let them grind me down in the same way.

  Profile #298

  Axel Prim and Per-Fridtjof Gjetost

  Together, these photographs of Prim and Gjetost make a diptych of thievery, mendacity, and manipulation: Prim, an unrepentant thief and a festering wen on the nether parts of honest botany; Gjetost, a monied but morally bankrupt fool and four-flusher. These two Norsemen worked together so closely that one wonders how they could tell whose trouser pockets were whose.

  For decades they perpetuated their slander of me by repeating ad nauseam all the hoary falsehoods about my part in the Cates debacle and my claim of primacy with respect to the species of Ptimorus discovered on that expedition. No doubt they did so at the direction of that other botanical criminal, Kingslee.26 (If only any of these men had put a tenth as much effort into their scholarship as they have done in maligning me!) Their damnable fictions have obstructed the funding of my work, which has caused me much anguish and gastrointestinal misfortune.

  Prim, at least, has gone and relieved us from his presence. On a visit to Bergen last autumn, he strode into the path of an onrushing taxicab. (No doubt he believed that people and machines alike were obligated to keep clear as he strolled importantly through the city.) Gjetost, the now-hostless parasite, was last seen crying in his lutefisk and writing the inevitable obituary-cum-hagiography for Prim in Stamen. The sooner he, too, strides in front of a heavy conveyance moving at great velocity, the better. We shall all release a long-held sigh.

  It cannot fail to dawn on one that Norwegians, who preserve their fish with lye, preserve their careers with lies. (I customarily leave punning to less serious scribes, but here I cannot resist.)

  Profile #315

  Mrs. O. O. Beard, née Miss Helen Fair

  I cannot think of a single female botanist who possesses any of the conniving, mean-spirited, and destructive impulses that we male botanists have “in spades” (as the young people say). Of course, many botanically inclined women have produced embarrassingly half-witted work (e.g., Mrs. Beatrice Hilpert of Modesto, Calif., in her treatment of the genus Catherwoodia [Stamen, 9:1 33-36] and Mrs. C. P. Grüntz of Fredericksburg, Texas, in her Flora of Gillespie County [1924]), but incompetence alone is no sin, merely an irremediable condition. Incompetence twinned with treachery, however, is responsible for much of what is so damnably wrong with American botanical study today.

  Miss Helen Fair is no incompetent. She is without doubt one of the most talented and dedicated herborizers around, with a vast knowledge of flora from Adastra to Zyxum. I have known her since she was in her early twenties, a bright spark of a girl who had not much interest in the mundane business of woo and courtship—not as long as there were Rynesia blooming in the desert! Not when the world lacked a definitive dichotomous key for the vast and complicated Modicaceae family!

  Miss Fair has gone ahead and gotten herself married, to my heart’s sorrow, taking the vows with Mr. O. O. Beard, the genial (if rather epicene) scion of a zinc-mining family and also a passionate lover of ferns. (I was unable to attend the wedding due to my rigorous botanizing schedule, but the former Mrs. Quilcock attended and reported that a spirited time was had by all.) This marriage will produce no issue, obviously, but their wealth has allowed Mrs. Beard to pursue her scientific inquiries free from interference. Brava, I say.27

  Profile #331

  C. B. Hoyt

  C. B. Hoyt was referred to by his colleagues and students at Easterbrook College, Baltimore, as “Ol’ Beans and Tape.” Though the origins of the sobriquet are obscure, common sense suggests that “tape” derived from his insistence on proper techniques (i.e., no glue!) for specimen preservation on herbarium sheets. (Compare, at your peril, Petitfour’s likely choice of adhesive.) As for “beans,” I do not know; I shall limit myself to pointing out that Scottwell-Scott and I must not have been alone in thinking him a “windy” old gasbag.

  Indeed, Hoyt was a past master in the use of hot air, as he demonstrated ceaselessly while chairing the North American Botanical Fellowship star-chamber proceedings against me, which were held in early 1916 in the aftermath of the Cates outrage. In the same proceeding, Hoyt and his footmen denied my claim against Prim in re primacy in re the discovery of Ptimorus “catesii.” (Of course, in my writings I have referred to the species by its rightful name, i.e., the one I had chosen for it: P. annasophii.)28 Scottwell-Scott, in his pained and miserable last days, roused himself from his sickbed to appear on my behalf, but he was in too compromised a state to make his points forcefully. I remain to this day convinced that I heard back-row snickers from Pickwick, Unterdorf, Prim, and Gjetost while Scottwell-Scott—frail, toothless, tubercular, and aphasic—valiantly defended my character and honesty. Reader, you should understand that a man does not easily forget such vile mistreatment of his mentor.

  After the sham pr
oceedings, I pursued remedies against Kingslee, Prim, Hoyt, and the Fellowship in the American civil court system—a Sisyphean endeavor if ever there was one. I served as my own attorney and, with a year or two of study, mastered tort law, in particular the case law regarding defamation, fraud, conversion, trespass to chattels, intentional infliction of emotional distress (and, in a later action, loss of consortium). Sadly, the legal system is also full to the brim with lickspittles, cowards, and toadies, and my efforts were fruitless.

  In botanical matters, I find little fault with C. B. Hoyt’s work. He would have ranked among the field’s finest if he had not styled himself a gray-flanneled despot, lording over the world of plant taxonomy from his Baltimore throne. Power corrupts, yes, but it is only the corrupt who seek power in the first place.

  Profile #367

  Timothy Edward “Ted” Conklin

  Conklin is a well-meaning and eager young pup, but to call him even a mediocre botanist would be a colossal act of charity. He is also a damnably persistent writer of missives to men of science whom he imagines to be his mentors.

  I allowed him to accompany me into the field once, to my great disadvantage, because my contracted assistant had quit on the eve of the trek, citing the revelations in the Cates fiasco (which, again, will not be dignified with comment herein). I warned young Conklin as we prepared for our explorations on the rocky outcroppings of Lower California’s San Renaldo Bay that the terrain would be difficult, the weather unpredictable, the fauna hostile to our presence. He reassured me he was man enough for work, bouncing about on his toes and fluttering about the room and incessantly chirping gramercies, all in a mode of behavior unrecognizable to me as having any connection to masculinity.

  In any event, off to the rocks of San Renaldo were we, and all was promising, as the area had recently enjoyed many steady, nourishing rains. We were crossing the first of many ridges when the boy suddenly cried out in pain, hopping ineffectually on one leg while a copperhead (known in the local jabber as “la vibora”) dangled from the other, its fangs firmly implanted in the meat of his ankle. I cried out myself (in exasperation), plucked the snake from his leg, decapitated it with my shovel, made a prompt and neat incision at the site of Conklin’s injury, sucked the poison out, applied a clean bandage firmly to the wound, and carried the hysterical child on my shoulders to the nearest malodorous pueblo, where I was forced to wait as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  When little Teddy finally could speak again, he said, “Professor Quilcock, you saved my life!”

  “Quite so,” I said, “and you ruined a perfectly good day for herborizing.”

  Despite such incontrovertible evidence that he lacks the tenacity and fortitude required for serious field botany, Conklin has persisted in his pipe dream of joining the ranks of credible plant taxonomists. I recently received word that he had described a new species and named it in my honor: Yuthremides quilcockii. This is unfortunate, as I can see no rational basis for distinguishing this from Y. pubescens, which was ably described by Scottwell-Scott while I was by his side at Cinco Fuentes in 1903.

  Well, at least Conklin has successfully joined one group—that of the infernal splitters. Foul company, to be sure, but company nonetheless.

  Profile #400

  Anna Sophia Parker,

  formerly Anna Sophia Kingslee,

  formerly Anna Sophia Quilcock,

  née Anna Sophia Parker

  While prone to both hard-heartedness and questionable judgment in re her personal affairs, the former Mrs. Quilcock is an excellent botanist, and I have always had great respect for her intellect, field technique, taxonomic restraint, native-Texan “can-do” spirit, wavy chestnut locks, and graceful stride. Her career at Mulholland advanced nicely over the last decade,29 as she was amply rewarded for playing second fid-dle to her second husband. I have recently received word, though, that she has left academia, ended her marriage, and taken up residence in the wilds of the Sierra. No doubt speculation abounds as to which of her husband’s perfidies has driven her to take such dramatic action; propriety forbids me from making my guess publicly. (I will observe, though, that their son, the aspiring botanist Jonathan Parker Kingslee,30 has received his doctorate from Mulholland and begun his career promisingly with his excellent dissertation on the genus Ataraxidopsis, and that his mother need no longer worry about maintaining the appearances of the nefarious elder Kingslee’s career for the boy’s sake.)31

  Further the affiant saith not.

  Profile #418

  Slade Cates

  Slade Cates was a reprobate, a grafter, a thug, and an even bigger fraud than his father, the infamous Colton Cates. Young Cates’s career in plant study was inexplicably encouraged by some who ought to have had more respect for the sanctity of our efforts (i.e., Prim, Gjetost, Kingslee), but it was cut short by his fittingly pathetic demise in a Wenatchee snowbank at the age of twenty-six. The barkeep who tossed him outside at closing time made a great contribution to science in doing so.

  I was introduced to Cates fils—then a gawky, fuzz-faced stripling of nineteen—in San Diego in May 1915 by those subarctic scoundrels Prim and Gjetost, who had hired him (without my consent, and at my shared expense) to drive the wagon, cook, and manage the gear on the ill-fated trip expedition to Valle de Panza. I was told that the boy had a desire to follow in his late father’s footsteps; I suspect, too, that Prim, who had been offering comfort (so to speak) to the recently widowed Mrs. Cates, was doing her a favor by taking the brat out of her hair for a few weeks.

  No doubt you have heard this story, reader, but you have heard it only from people with “axes to grind.” I shall attempt to clarify the record once again.

  From the outset of the expedition, it was clear that Cates had no intention of performing his duties with any degree of effort, fairness, or respect. He was a ceaseless jabberer and a prolific user of the youthful vernacular that sets an educated man’s teeth on edge. He ignored my needs utterly, preferring to follow Prim like a puppy, practically drenching the tall Norseman’s field tweeds with sycophantic slobber.32 I finally pulled him aside and told him that since I was paying a third of his wages, I expected a full third’s worth of his efforts, and I would be happy to whip him with my own fists if he did not “shape up.” The chastened scapegrace made no further argument for the moment, and afterward, he toned down his toadying mildly—although he made great sport of mispronouncing my surname (sophomorically using a short “o” in-stead of the Anglophilic schwa, such a rapier wit was his) throughout the rest of the trip and, indeed, the rest of his blessedly brief career.

  We were five miles west of Lago Romesco, traipsing through the foothills, when I spotted a striking indigo Ptimorus growing in the brush. I did not recognize it, even though I had quite recently made an exhaustive study of the entire Hobaceae family. A closer look revealed that it was, in fact, a new species—the first such discovery that was truly my own. I called a halt to the team so I could collect it. The plant (about 16 cm high, branched at the base, with a 14mm corolla, widely bell-shaped) was in plain view twenty yards off the trail. In my excitement, I made the grave error of calling their attention to the specimen. Their suspiciously muted response should have alerted me to the conspiracy that was then forming between them.

  On our way home, we stopped in Tia Juana on a Saturday night and managed to find a respectable inn managed by a white couple. I slept soundly, well pleased with all of my finds, particularly the Ptimorus. We all had agreed to stay over until Monday so as to avoid botanizing or traveling on the Sabbath, but in the morning, Prim was rushing around, saying he had urgent business in San Diego. He would take Cates and the wagon, he proposed, and Gjetost would wait with me until the boy returned for us the next day, if I did not object. As I have always been a man who is respectful of others’ needs, I agreed. I passed the day playing some senseless Scandinavian card came with Gjetost while he prattled on about fjords and ski and warm woolen undergarments. Only later, back in Ventu
ra, did I realize what Prim’s urgent business in San Diego had been: stealing my discovery by sending the plant to Pickwick to have it published before I could attend to it.33

  Cates did not return until Wednesday, and he showed up with his older brother, “Archie Boy,” who was ugly, ill mannered, and of staggeringly subnormal intelligence. They passed by me in the hotel café without saying a word—just giving me the ojo malo, as it were—and went straight up to Gjetost’s room. I knew trouble was brewing, so I went to my room, fetched my six-shooter, oiled it, and loaded it with fresh ammunition. I went down to the street and hitched up the team, hoping to ensure my safety with a quick getaway. My three companions emerged from the hotel, though, all shouts and threats—Gjetost, oddly, still wearing some sheeny night garment, though it was noon—and Archie Boy jumped in front of the horses, took them by the bits, and drawled semi-coherently that I would not be going anywhere until I paid my bill in full. I informed him that the bill was not due until we reached San Diego, and in any event, his impertinent and slack-jawed brother had failed to earn even a fraction of my share of his pay. I leveled the gun at the thick-necked dolt. He foolishly tried to climb into the wagon to get at me, so I shot him in the leg and he fell into the Mexican dirt. Slade shouted at me, so I shot him in the leg, too, then gained control of the spooked horses and left the three of them to “hoof it” across the border, limping like the cloven-footed devils that they were. (Gjetost, cowardly fop that he is, fled at the mere sight of my weapon. Ever since I discovered the theft that Prim and he had orchestrated, I have wished that I had put some lead into his legs, too.) I am proud to say that neither the Cates boys nor the treacherous Vikings ever succeeded in extracting a cent from me.