Ship of Fools - Chapter 27
A Weird Intellectual Cul-de-Sac
[Start at the beginning of the novel: Prologue.]
[Go to the Table of Contents.]
Welcome back to Ship of Fools, my satire about a science journalist trying to make sense of conspiracy theorists, flat-earthers, moon-landing deniers, New Agers, and more.
Clive tags along with Penny to San Diego, where she tries to show him the curve of the Earth — at Black’s Beach. He doesn’t know what that is, and gets more of a view than he bargained for.
“WATCH your step here, it’s steep,” Penny said, starting down the crumbling path.
Steep — with understatements like that, Penny was in the running for honorary British citizenship. The “path” was hardly better than a goat track, slightly more horizontal sections of crumbling sandstone cliff held in place by railroad ties and concrete blocks. But the other people using the trail didn’t seem to mind, all headed down to the beach — Black’s Beach, Penny had called it.
“Isn’t there another way down? Or another beach?”
“No, this one has the tallest bluffs. And remember, keep your eye on that boat. That’s the whole point.”
“’Ow can I? ’Ave to keep an eye on me footing, don’t I?”
She meant the fishing boat that was cruising south, an unknown number of miles off-shore, but far enough that it looked like a toy on the blue horizon. She’d exclaimed in delight when she’d spotted it after parking the camper van at the trailhead. “That looks perfect. I bet we won’t be able to see it from the beach.” She’d scanned it for long moments with her high-powered binoculars, then handed them to Clive, encouraging him to memorize the markings, especially how far they were above the waterline.
“We’ll stop every so often so you can check on it. Come on!” With that, she turned and stepped through the gate with its warnings of the dangerous trail and cliffs ahead, her strong, bare legs glowing in the sun beneath her short dress, her footing secure in her all-terrain sandals. Clive only had the deck shoes he’d brought for the cruise, so he’d have to step more carefully.
He paused to take in his surroundings, having to ask himself, is this life? Here it was, early December, the temperature was 24 degrees, or what the Yanks would call 75, and he was wearing shorts and a polo shirt, and even a sunhat Penny had insisted he wear. “Don’t want to damage your fragile Anglo-Saxon skin,” she’d said. The deep blue ocean stretched out before him, arcing from La Jolla Cove in the south to some unnamed beach community in the north, with mountains behind it. Down in the water, surfers caught waves, sharing them with dolphins, as Penny had pointed out to him, while overhead, mad fools soared on things that looked like parachutes, launching from the nearby glider port, running toward the cliff edge and leaping into space as if gravity didn’t exist.
And he could stay here if he wanted to, given that for the first time ever, he didn’t need to worry about money. The biggest reason to stay being right in front of him, this beautiful woman who seemed to like him as much as he liked her. Turned out, giving up his invention and his belief in the flat earth wasn’t half bad.
True, he wasn’t actually ready to give up on the flat earth, but he had been willing to keep quiet about it if it meant he could get into Penny’s knickers. Not that there’d been much “getting into,” more the other way around.
They’d driven back from the desert the day before, any thought Clive might have had about taking the train into LA and flying home long forgotten. Penny had looked over at him as they passed San Bernardino. “You sure you’re up for coming with me to San Diego?”
“Totally,” he said, gazing at her as she drove.
“Uh oh, you’re giving me that dreamy look.”
“Wha’?”
“You’re looking at me with that expression guys sometimes get. I’m not your manic pixie dreamgirl, if that’s what you were thinking. And I suppose…I suppose you’re not my manic pixie dream John Lennon, either. But we can still have some fun, see where this goes, right?”
That sounded fine to Clive. He didn’t really want to think about the future or the past right now. Be in the moment, as these New Agers were always saying.
They’d arrived at her bungalow in Leucadia, a little beach town north of San Diego, and then she’d turned around and hopped on a bike for the ride to her studio in Rancho Santa Fe.
“’ow far’s that?”
“About ten miles.”
“Each way?”
“Sure. Some good hills too. I’ve been cooped up driving too long, it’ll be good to work my legs.”
“And then you’re going to teach yoga and Pilates?”
“Two classes each.”
“And that’s how you make a living?”
“Yeah, the rich ladies in RSF love me.”
“So California isn’t the post-boom ’ellscape I’d ’eard abou’?”
“Well, for a lot of people it is, but the wealthy can still afford to live here, and those of us who cater to their more expensive tastes do okay.” He looked around at her bungalow, which wasn’t much bigger than a typical Manchester rowhouse, except that it had a tiny back yard. He supposed that was some version of doing okay, if not quite the American dream. “As long as I get to live near the beach, it’s all good.”
He’d spent the rest of the day kicking around the little beach town, buying her an expensive and tacky gift — a porcelain mermaid — and looking out at the ocean, no curve in sight.
She returned late in the afternoon and went straight inside to change into her wetsuit. “Come on, there’s still time for a sunset surf,” she said, pulling two more bikes out of the garage, a beach cruiser for him and a cargo bike with a surfboard already attached for her. No wonder her legs were so strong, he thought, remembering with a tingle in his balls the way she’d wrapped them around him the night before.
He hopped on his bike and followed her through the back streets, over the railroad tracks and across the busy coast highway, then down to the beach. She seemed as natural in the water as she did on her bike or in bed — a woman completely at home in her own body, comfortable, even pleased with its capabilities and desires. He wiggled his toes in the sand, watching her catch wave after wave. Between sets, she’d sit on her board chatting with other surfers, all of whom seemed to know her, as they waited for the next good wave. He felt out of place, wishing he could ever be that present in each moment, but neither wanting to be anywhere else.
And now here he was, following her down a steep trail toward a different beach.
She stopped. “Let’s take a look.” She gestured to the binoculars she’d made him carry, high-powered wildlife field glasses. “What do you see? Is that stripe near the waterline still there?”
He had to admit it wasn’t. It looked like half the boat was somehow submerged.
“Good! I bet it’s gone completely by the time we get down.”
Sure enough, by the time they reached the firm, wet sand at the high tide line, the only part of the ship still fully visible was the antenna array rising from the wheelhouse, the blocky decks disappearing in and out behind the rolling swells.
“See?” Penny said, turning and grinning at him. “Explain that, Mr. Flat Earth.”
“Maybe it sailed farther out?”
“Was it pointing away? Besides, I thought we’re supposed to be able to see forever on the flat earth.”
“Law of perspective, righ’? The vanishing point is closer from nearly sea level.”
“But that’s where the binos come in, right? Bringing back objects that are supposed to be too far to see, like they’re always doing in those flat-earth videos? Go ahead, try it.”
He tried looking through the field glasses and it took him some time to spot the ship. Still he could only see its superstructure, but magnified. “The ocean is bulging somehow,” and then he realized what he’d just said. Water seeking its own level — and therefore always being flat, never curved — was a core tenet of the Flat Earth theory. But what else could explain it? He may not have been ready to give up his belief in the Flat Earth, but even he had to admit that the evidence was stacking up against it. It looked like FE was just another model, like the ones he’d rejected back at uni.
He groaned in frustration and lowered the glasses. Penny was still grinning at him, while unbuttoning her dress.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting undressed. You’d better too, or people will think you’re a perv.”
“But I didn’t bring…” He stopped short as he looked around him. He’d been so focused on the ship, he hadn’t noticed what should have been obvious — Black’s was a nude beach. Everyone, except for the surfers going to and from the waves, was naked, mostly men and mostly middle-aged, but also a few college students of all genders. A short way up the beach, a group was playing volleyball, breasts and penises bouncing as they lunged and jumped.
“We can go a little way up the beach where it’s less crowded if you’re feeling modest,” Penny said, seeming to sense his distress.
Suddenly it was all too much. He felt exposed in more ways than one. What the hell was he doing here? He just wanted to be at home, sitting in his flat with a cup of tea. He turned and walked back toward the trail without a word.
“Clive, wait!” Penny called. She caught up to him and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I pushed you too hard, didn’t I?”
She was looking at him with what seemed genuine concern. Damn those beautiful eyes and that beautiful body. He wished he could just forget everything and lose himself in them. “Let’s not leave,” she said. “We can go south, beyond the nude beach. The sun will be setting in an hour, maybe we’ll even see the green flash.”
She was so apologetic — and beautiful — and sexy — but he was so angry with her — but he still wanted her — he thought he’d never get tired of having sex with her — but that was a stupid reason to stay — but she really did seem sorry.
He let her lead him down the beach, beyond the sign for walkers coming the other direction warning of nude people ahead. She stopped at a spot she must have liked, not too crowded, and started unpacking the daypack: beach towels, folding backpacker’s chairs, a bottle of wine, and titanium mugs.
When they were settled, looking out at the sinking sun, mugs of wine in hand, he said, “Sorry abou’ tha’. It’s just a lot. Ten years of me life…”
“And I’m sorry I challenged your beliefs like that. I know it must be hard.”
“Nah, I should ’ave the courage o’ me convictions, shouldn’t I?”
She took a sip of wine and squinted toward the sun, still a hand’s width above the horizon. “How did you get into it? Did you meet someone who believed it? You were in college, right? Not many flat-earthers there, I don’t imagine.”
“But it were all online, weren’t it, the ’ole uni.”
“So, 2020?”
“Yeah, me second year.”
“Fucking COVID. It fucked up everything for a lot of people. Tons of crazy shit spread around the Internet that year, especially here. I can see how it would happen, stuck at home. If I hadn’t been able to get outside to surf or hike, I probably would have lost my mind.” She stopped abruptly, as if she’d been about to say “too.” “So what was it that pulled you in?”
“A 3-D model showing ’ow light would ’ave to bend if the Earth were flat. I looked at it and thought, ‘I can work out the maphs for tha’.’ And I did.”
“And that convinced you it must be true?”
“It did.”
“So you never spent much time with other flat-earthers? Never noticed what they were like?”
“Too busy building me ’morphoscope, weren’t I? I did notice some stray comments on me Kickstarter, but I always deleted ’em, sent back their money.”
“Well that’s good. But you never thought the two were connected?”
“No. Why should they be?”
“If the Earth really is flat, it requires a global — or worldwide — conspiracy to keep it secret, right? And once you start believing in global conspiracies, it’s not long before you believe the rich Jews, the Rothschilds or whoever, are behind it all. Sort of like your friends in St. George.”
“They’re not me friends.”
“But that’s why they were surprised at your reaction to their anti-Semitism. They just assumed you were an anti-Semite because you’re a flat-earther.”
“So you’re saying I’m well out of it.”
“I am. You’re obviously brilliant — way more than I can comprehend, since I’m not into all that head stuff. You just got led into a weird intellectual cul-de-sac because of the Internet, and because COVID kept you away from anyone who could have talked you out of it.”
“And what about you and this anti-vax stuff?”
She looked taken aback for a moment, then became pensive. “It was the opposite, really. So many people I knew, and the parents of the kids I grew up with, were all anti-vax. The year I graduated high school was the year Purdue Pharma paid billions because of Oxycontin, and that didn’t help the other drug companies’ reputations. But the more I argued with Oppa Ben about having to take the COVID vaccine, and the more he told me about his friends with polio, the more I saw that wanting better regulation of vaccines is different than being against vaccines entirely. But you really can’t tell either side that, everything is so polarized now. You either have to be anti-vax all the way, or else you can never say a word against them for fear of being labeled a kook.”
She hesitated, and he thought he saw her lower lip tremble.
“What is it?”
“It’s only…well, all my friends either do some sort of bodywork, spiritual counseling, meditation retreats, even Tarot reading — you know, the whole New Age enchilada — and most of them are anti-vax — extremely. If they heard me talking this way, they’d never speak to me again, they’d say I’d sold out to the death merchants. And a lot of my clients, too. I’ve even written some mildly anti-vax things on my studio’s website — not too extreme, because my clients seem about fifty-fifty. A lot of them made their fortunes in biotech. But if I go back on it now, I don’t know what will happen.”
“You’re righ’, you might lose some friends — but you’ll gain one, at least.” He took her hand and looked her in the eye.
“There you go with that dreamy look again,” she said with a sniffle. “But maybe you are my manic pixie dream John Lennon after all.” She leaned over and kissed him, then jumped to her feet. “You know, the sunset is probably going to be just the same as last night. Are you up for a bit of a hike? I’ve got something to show you.”
“Sure, but wha’ is it?”
“It’s a surprise!” She stuffed the things back into her daypack, then they set off along the beach.
After awhile they turned onto a paved road heading back up onto the cliffs above, surrounded by young surfers heading to and from the beach. Clive was panting by the time they reached the top, and Penny was waiting at the gate where the road intersected a city street, not breathing hard at all, despite the pack she was carrying.
The street took them through a neighborhood of houses with red tile roofs, a wealthier community than Penny’s, if the size of the houses and all the BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes parked in the drives meant anything.
“You wanted to show me a rich neighborhood?”
“Just wait.”
The street wound around to a larger thoroughfare. Across it was a college campus, judging by the buildings and the large grassy areas crisscrossed by pathways. They crossed the wide avenue and entered the grounds, passing between a football — American soccer — pitch and what seemed like dorms. Eucalyptus trees grew everywhere. They smelled sweet, which he’d noticed while walking around Leucadia. But the students didn’t seem to notice, as they walked about with dazed or worried expressions.
“This is what you wanted to show me?”
She nodded. “UCSD. Next week is finals, so it’s a little more subdued than usual.”
“Ah, I’ve heard of it.”
“Not really a surprise, I guess, but I thought you should see it.”
They passed the Muir Biology building and came to Applied Physics and Mathematics, a concrete and glass modernist monolith. He was beginning to get the idea.
“Well?” Penny asked, pausing to look at him. “Can you see yourself here?”
“Oh, sure, luvleh weather, beau’iful scenery, pleasant company — course I could. But would they ’ave me?”
“How’d you do in school the first time?”
“Aced all me courses — until they booted me out.”
“See, it’s the perfect place for a brainiac like you. And they’ll love charging you the international rate. You can stay with me until you find a place of your own. Maybe International House. Or we could… well, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, should we?”
They continued north, crossing a wide lawn under the watchful eye of a colorful, and gigantic, bird-like creature — the Sun God statue, Penny said. It was easy to imagine hundreds of adherents kneeling at its feet, waiting for some blessing or doom to fall upon them, or maybe the offering of a sacrifice on the flat stone set before the deity. Beyond, through more forest, they came to a building that looked like a space ship that had just landed. Only humans, no ETs, scurrying in and out. Passing beneath its inverted structure, they descended a rattlesnake’s back — a tile mosaic path, fortunately — through the shrubs Penny called sage scrub. Then back — more hiking uphill! — past the Super Computer Center and a stop for coffees at a place called the Tec Cafe. Crossing the wide boulevard once more, they passed the Salk Institute, Penny with an enigmatic grin. By the time they got back to the van, the sun was setting. Penny opened the side doors so they could sit and watch while they sipped their coffee.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Penny said.
“Mm-hmm,” he agreed, looking at her.
“And don’t try and tell me it’s not where I think it is.”
“Well, it’s not.”
She turned to him. “I thought you were giving that up!”
“Oh, I am. But everyone knows you can still see the sun after it’s gone behind the ocean ’orizon. Refraction, right?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what causes the green flash.”
It felt strange to be stating a simple scientific fact everyone agreed on. As if he was trying it on for size.
“But no green flash tonight.” She turned back to him. “You’re not even looking.”
“Nuffink more beau’iful than wha’ I’m lookin’ at right now, is there?”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I really want you to stay.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “I believe I will do.”
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please give it a like, a share, a restack, or a comment. And if you really enjoyed it, I hope you’ll buy me a coffee or upgrade to a paid subscription.
What do you think? Has Clive given up his flat-earth beliefs for good?
Next up: Chapter 28, “A Bitter Parting,” in which Slim and Shorty face a fateful decision.