Event Lady Rescues Seal Pup

Twice a year, I help to run a 10-day MFA in writing residency. At Orientation, I joke with students about my alter ego, a strident, bossy, no nonsense person with little time and less patience: Event Lady. It is a warning, really—before our time is through, they will meet her. She is the byproduct of too much stress and not enough sleep, and she does things I would never do, like shouting: “Pedro, I need somebody to vacuum this room IMMEDIATELY!” while stomping around in pointy black boots.

This January, a blizzard hit the day everybody was supposed to arrive. Travel delays, cancellations, more delays. Then there was a deep freeze in the Midwest accompanied by forty-five-mile-an-hour winds (the media named it Winter Storm Ion, with sci-fi flair). First-half faculty and guests could not depart, and the fresh horses traveling from the other side of the country for the second half of the residency could not arrive. Add a midnight trip to the ER with a faculty member who subsequently bid adieu to her gall bladder, and it was…a clusterfuck.

Pardon me. But I prize accuracy in certain contexts—and clusterfuck is the correct administrative term. Did I mention that my poor boss had badly sprained herself skiing and was hopping through this hellish event on one leg?

Truly, I am not the kind of person who bellows the word “IMMEDIATELY” at anyone, for any reason. I am not a clipboard toting dragon. Mine is a situational alter ego.

This is what I was telling myself as I strode along the beach at my favorite little cove in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in sub-zero weather. There is nothing wrong with ME—it was the situation that caused me to get so cranked up that my eye twitched for two weeks straight like a mad scientist’s. It wasn’t ME, I can calm down, I can relax, I…

I came to an abrupt halt, ten feet away from a seal pup, who had hauled himself upright at my approach and then, while I stared, galumphed down to the waterline and disappeared. I watched for a minute until he popped up, floating on his back. He dove under again, and I kept walking, my internal monologue momentarily halted.

Near the edge of a field that leads into a pine grove, I turned to see the seal dragging himself back out of the water. A dune buggy/golf-cart thing was bumping slowly down the beach. I wondered if the seal was hurt. The guys in the golf cart were probably park rangers, I figured—if there was something wrong with the seal, they would take care of it. I took a few more steps, and glanced over my shoulder again. The buggy/cart trundled a few feet closer, and then closer still. What park ranger would drive a vehicle that close to a possibly injured or sick animal? I stood and watched.

The two guys, in Carharts and hoodies under black barn coats, got out. From a distance, I could see that one of them had a walkie talkie, which seemed promising. The other had a cigarette. Hmm. They approached the seal, who appeared to be lying still in the sand, and I saw one of the guys bend down and snap a few photos with his cell phone. The other one stood nearby, smoking and sipping from a mug. He was smoking on the sick baby seal! Appalling!

I flagged the guys, and marched toward them.

The seal, plump and spotted, was covered in sand, and hugging its flippers close, shivering. When I got near, it rolled over and flexed its tail, opening its adorable brown eyes. The two guys stood obediently, waiting.

“I think there is something wrong with this animal,” I said, trying to keep my disapproval over the smoking and picture taking under wraps. But Event Lady was out of her corner, ready to head in to the next crisis swinging, and something about my tone caused the smoker to sheepishly stub out his cigarette.

“We should call the Maine Marine Animal Stranding Hotline,” I announced.

“Aw, man. I finally get to see one of these things, and its sick?” the smoker said, solicitously.

I tried to soften my approach. “He’s very cute,” I observed. The two guys agreed. The seal gazed at us imploringly. I took my gloves off, and tried to search for the hotline on my phone. A biting wind rendered my fingers nearly useless. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said. “Here, can you remember a number?” (I can’t. Ever.) The walkie talkie guy looked at me, and shook his head. “Can you put it in your phone, then?” I asked.

“We should let our boss know,” he said.

Great! Despite all evidence to the contrary, I had the notion their boss might be some sort of Park Ranger, or a person who knew the hotline number, which I was having a hard time finding with my frozen hands. I put my gloves back on for a moment, and looked worriedly at the seal, who had resumed the flipper hugging shiver, albeit with a very joyful expression on its little mug.

Grak grak, went the walkie talkie, and the fellow explained the situation.

“Leave it alone,” I heard their boss say. “Just leave it alone.”

“Goddammit!” I exclaimed. I removed my gloves again, and fumbled once more with the phone, while my two accomplices stood (somewhat unwillingly, I couldn’t help but note) waiting for me to find some useful information. Finally, I got it. I told walkie talkie guy the number, and he typed it into his phone. Then we stood and stared at the seal for a minute or so. It wiggled around in the sand, waving both flippers and tail and yawning. Then, like a little torpedo, it closed its eyes again.

I dialed the hotline. As soon as I got a person on the line, the two guys shuffled off down the beach and climbed back into their non-regulation Go-kart. A nice woman explained to me that the seal was a Canadian Harp seal on his winter migration, trying to rest up after a long journey.

“I’m standing eight feet away from him!” I said. “He’s all covered in sand!”

“Yes, they like to roll in the sand. They behave really differently from our harbor seals,” she assured me. “It will be fine—it just needs to rest.”

“Well,” I replied, “I guess he’ll be okay, if you say so.” I was not satisfied, but I couldn’t very well argue with the lady at the Maine Marine Animal Stranding Hotline.

There was an awkward pause.

“He’s very cute.” I said.

“They are very cute,” she agreed.

I hung up, and took a few pictures. As I look back over them now, it seems clear that the seal pup was simply trying to take a nap.