The Gorko Gazette

Kevin 

The thing you need to understand is that it’s impossible to talk about the 2009 Sea World Dolphin Adventures Squad without mentioning Kevin. It wasn’t just his athleticism, power, timing, or the sheer precision of his movement which made him a star. It was his presence. He was the fulcrum; the pivot-point through which all energy flowed. At least that’s how I thought of him, having always understood the world via my inclination towards the mechanical, rather than the metaphysical. But I guess others, you folks perhaps who put more stock in the abstract and expressionistic capabilities of language, you romantics and poets, you might call him the heart. 

            The 2009 Dolphin Squad was the finest ever assembled, of that I have no doubt. But the quality of the raw materials will only get you so far. A pallet-load of Brazilian Teak will not arrange itself politely into a beautiful parquet floor, just as a lump of fine Italian marble won’t coalesce into the statue of David without someone to design and execute its transformation.

            That takes craft, dedication and a lot of hard, goddamned work.

            I was a hard-ass with those guys, I admit it. Sometimes one of the team, Bruce or Jason or Rolph or whoever, they’d be jerking around not listening to instructions, minds elsewhere, and I’d have to be all like, dammit, Rolph! It’s a triple-flip out the water then back in, left-turn and a double-flip through the hoop, in formation. You went right and did a triple-flip in pike position chrissakes lord almighty get your head in the game!

            Whereupon I might’ve splashed some water or thrown a coffee cup in Rolph’s general direction to emphasise my point. I overreacted, OK? I did. But only because I knew what those guys were capable of.

            Whenever tensions ran high, that’s when I turned to Kevin. He had a way of remaining calm in any situation, the rest of the team picked up on that via osmosis (or whatever the Dolphin equivalent of osmosis is). He found the right words of encouragement whenever I couldn’t; in that way he galvanised them.

            Then one day, out of nowhere, Kevin comes to me and says, Coach, I just can’t do it any more.

            I said, do what?

            He said, the show.

            Show? I said. Kevin, what we do here is not a show. There is no pretence to what we do, no conceit. Nor is it art. Art is a biased contract in which the creator always knows something the interpreter does not. We simply present ourselves as we are, in the best possible way we can achieve. The time we take in perfecting our skills stands in beautiful testament to what two species can create together. Sure people pay to see it, it brings them great joy to watch because it’s real, you know? It matters.

            What we do is a service, Kevin. And to serve, to offer everything you have in the pursuit of elevating and enhancing the experiences of others, touching their lives, that is a truly noble porpoise, sorry, I meant purpose, goddammit.

            Kevin looked at me and said, I know — that’s why I have to go.

He retrained as a tailor, if you can believe that? Specialising in what’s known as the drape cut. It’s a classic style of suiting popularised in the mid-twentieth century and favoured by Savile Row and King Charles III of England. You’d know it by its wide lapels and generously proportioned jackets, fuller trousers which run clean down to the shoes with a proper break at the ankle, subtle flap-openings hidden along the rear seam of the coat for the dorsal fin. It was designed to give the wearer room to move while maintaining a graceful yet masculine silhouette, eschewing the skinny, strangulating cuts everyone else was wearing at the time. Gorgeous stuff. Gorgeous.

            Kevin’s studio was located at a strip mall just off the interstate, about a mile out of town, in-between a radio repair store and a sporting goods emporium. Of course my curiosity got the better of me and I went to see him. Hadn’t planned on trying to entice him back to the team but I couldn’t help it. As soon as I saw him it all came out, how it wasn’t the same without him. These new guys, Brad and Tyler and Christoph and Keyshawn, they weren’t on the same level as the ‘niners, didn’t have the same drive, the same passion. Guys were always turning up late to practice, listening to obstreperous music in their goddamned ‘Beats by Dre’ headphones, yammering on cellphones to their agents about endorsement deals and cryptocurrency.

            I needed Kevin back. OK he’d gained a couple pounds (sure carried it well) that was to be expected. He could be my Assistant Coach. OK, fine, Co-Coach, whatever it was no use. I couldn’t make him understand. He looked straight through me, like he didn’t even know who I was. I mean  my god it was like I wasn’t even speaking Dolphin anymore.

            I left the store and drove out to the ocean, found myself a bench next to a food-cart with a guy selling coffee and hot, griddled nuts. I looked out to the horizon and tried real hard to focus my mind in the hope that maybe, somewhere out in the vast, unknowable deep there was the next Kevin.

            And perhaps if I could summon the perfect combination of whistles and clicks he would hear me, and recognise in me the terrible loneliness born of having found the one thing to impart your life with meaning, the singular point of reference by which all experiences will eventually come to be understood, before losing it to the tides forever.

            But the sea owes no debts, especially not to a washed-up old coach like me. I sat there for hours, receiving nothing but the many unsolicited compliments of strangers on the fine fit and fabric of my magnificent new suit.

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