As the year raced toward Christmas and New Years, no one spoke of Clay's pending summer away and both Clay and Bill were busy with their work that was never done. Neither of them were thinking about a summer of research in the Pacific yet.
Clay picked Dylan up at school each afternoon. They either went diving together or Dylan went to the Conservancy with his father. Dylan wanted to dive every afternoon. They went diving together once or twice a week. As fall raced towards its end, weather became a factor in where Dylan went after school. Dives came less often.
While the Conservancy wasn't as good as going diving, it created its own possibilities. If he got tired of reading the dozens of biology book in his father's marine biology library, his grandfather's workshop was a few dozen feet away and if he tired of being with his grandfather and dad, the Dive Shop and his other father was a few hundred yards away once he walked out to the road.
It was less than a hundred yards through the thicket next to the Conservancy building. When he was at the Conservancy, he was usually in his school clothes. That meant walking out to the road and taking the long way around.
If Dylan really didn't want to be at the Conservancy or the cove, he could walk home to sit in the kitchen eating cookies and drinking milk while Mama fixed supper. This was one of his best options when Aunt Lucy was home, because she always brought a pile of books she'd read while in Tallahassee running the state government.
Dylan was in 8th grade and the books at the junior high school were better than what was at the elementary school, but the books Aunt Lucy brought home to him were the best. He often curled up with one and didn't come up for air for the entire day.
Tag working for his dad at the Dive Shop made the dive shop a favorite option. Twila's son Tag was his friend for as far back as Dylan's memory went. He liked visiting Twila at her house on weekends and when his dad father left him there for an afternoon, Tag kept him entertained as his mom spoiled him and his appetite with edible delights hat were in demand around the cove.
These days he left the 16mm camera on a shelf at his father's shop. If he was there he was free to grab it and run out to film something he needed to put in his latest movie. There were a few people he liked catching unaware. If he kept his eyes open, he might catch Captain Popov, Captain Tito, or JK without being seen.
When they saw him, they put their hands in front of their face. As big as Captain Popov and Captain Tito were, there was no doubt who it was, but they didn't like having their pictures taken. They'd both been behind the Iron Curtain as young men and having you picture taken wasn't a good idea if you lived there.
He took pictures of his Uncle Boris and Grandfather Aleksa, but always being on their boats, you couldn't sneak up on them and catch them by surprise. Once your feet hit the pier, the families living there immediately knew you were there. How they knew was a mystery.
If he went to Grandaddy Nick's boat, by the time he stood at the back of his boat, Nick greeted him with a smile and a root beer. Ivan's father knew when someone was on the pier who didn't live there. There were few secrets at the marina.
Uncle Boris and his Cambodian family were always asking him to step on board to take tea with them. Tea was fine but coffee and milk were way better. Dylan tried to be as polite as they were while he was on his Uncle's boat.
A new boat had come to the marina to stay late in the fall. Dylan was fascinated by the new arrivals, ten Vietnamese from two families came from Galveston, Texas. Dylan looked up Galveston in Ivan's atlas at the Dive Shop. They left Texas because people weren't friendly. They'd heard about the cove and the fishing fleet there and it sounded good to them.
A few minutes after they rented a slip at the marina and left the Dive shop, Captain Popov knew they were fishermen and that they'd come to the cove to fish and live.
Captain Popov knew everything worth knowing at the cove, but how he knew what he knew was also a mystery.
Captain Popov's fishing fleet was as representative as the United Nation's. The fishing fleet was composed of Russians, Lithuanians, Serbs, Uncle Boris, American, and his Cambodian family. Boris fished with his Lithuanian father, Nick.
Boris was Ivan's brother and he was the reason Ivan was absent from Dylan's life for the first ten years. He'd heard what Ivan wanted him to know, which wasn't much. It didn't explain the ten years he was gone. When Dylan asked Clay, Clay said, “Ask your father.”
He'd never asked Uncle Boris his version of the story. Uncle Boris had little to say but he smiled a lot and the tea was nice.
The Vietnamese rented the slip across the pier from Boris and his family. They were always back and forth more like family than strangers. It was a nice fit from day one. As quick as the Vietnamese parked their boat, Captain Popov's launch he used to come and go from the shore parked at the end of the marina's pier. He went to meet the Vietnamese fishermen and invite them to fish in his fishing fleet, because together they'd do better than separately.
Dylan was able to get pictures of the huge Captain Popov squatting among the diminutive new arrivals crowding around to see the man who was in charge. After agreeing to fish together, t, Captain Popov stayed to take lunch with them.
Any time Dylan got near the Vietnamese boat, they'd invite him on board and give him that tea and some of the neatest snacks he'd ever had. He didn't want to know what they were, but they were great and he did get some snacks on film but the Vietnamese were shy and ducked any time he put the camera up to his eye.
Most of his filming was still done at the cove because it's where Ivan and his camera were. He no longer took it on dives, because he had hours of film of the cove and the Gulf. Now he was taking pictures that told the story about his life.
Ivan now knew and was on casual speaking terms with Bill Payne. Clay invited Ivan to go along on a dive shortly after he met Bill. Ivan remembered the man that became Clay's teacher. This made it easier when he called Bill to arrange to get more film and to have film developed for Dylan. Bill's willingness to help Dylan made it easier on Ivan.
After using up some of Ivan's stash of film, Dylan went with Clay to Harry's house and they were escorted into Harry's theater and watched the footage Clay had seen the week before.
It was a week after the discussion about Dylan's film making and Harry was making a speech in Orlando and Algie had driven him in the limo, which gave Harry a chance to catch up on his reading of the latest proposed legislation in the senate.
An hour after they arrived, Dylan and Clay left the theater and Harry's house. Dylan was shaking his head in disbelief.
“How could I shot pictures of my big feet? And the sky? It wouldn't have been so bad if I was making a sci-fi movie. You'd expect a few shots of the sky to figure in to it, but ....”
“Harry wanted you to see what you were shooting. Now you know. Motion pictures are about movement. When you take a still, what you see in the viewfinder is how the picture will look, Things in motion tend to be on the move. There is a time to shoot film and a time when you need to stop filming,” Clay said.
“Now that you've seen it you know a lot more about taking motion pictures. It isn't pick on Dylan day. You learn from your mistakes. There was some good footage that told the story you were trying to tell. Eliminate the shots that don't contribute anything to the narrative and you have a movie about the cove.”
“I took pictures of my feet. I hate my feet,” Dylan said.
“Ivan said you repeated what you shot with the 8mm.” Clay said, trying to use reason.
Dylan listened but he'd gone into silent mode as he thought.
“I'll have to throw all that away, Dad,” Dylan finally said. “It's awful. It's nothing like I thought I was doing.”
“Bill, my teacher from when I was not much older than you, was talking about having an editor. I can't explain it but it allows you to take out what you don't like and splice together the good stuff. Ivan's going to talk to him about getting a hand operated editor.”
“Good stuff? It was awful,” Dylan repeated. “I spent forever filming that and it's awful.”
“Have it your way. There are ways film makers cut out shots they don't like and splice in shots they like. You need to learn about how actual movies are made. You don't walk around shooting random shots and call it a movie,” Clay said. “An entire industry is involved in making movies. Shooting film is part of it but there's a lot more to it.”
Clay knew what he was doing and it was contrary to what he said he wanted to do. He wanted Dylan to keep his options open for what he might do in the future but Clay didn't want his son discouraged. He was trying to make a movie and Clay wanted to encourage everything his son tried. He wasn't sure how to help Dylan put it into perspective. He'd do his best to offer his son hope for the movie he was making.
“I'm not the one you should talk to. Ivan is making arrangements to get you an editor. You don't need to start over. You need to take out what you don't like,” Clay said.
“You can do that?” Dylan asked, finally hearing what he was telling him.
“You can do that and I'm not the one to tell you. Ask Daddy-O to tell you about it. He's been talking to Bill about it.”
“The guy who taught you? The old guy at Harry's at Christmas. He used to come to the company picnics in the summer?”
“Yes, that's Bill.”
“Kewl,” Dylan said before going silent again.
Nothing was resolved. “Kewl,” meant it wasn't absolutely terrible.
*****
No one was surprised at the rate Dylan used film. Bill arranged to have five canisters of film delivered to Ivan's shop each week. It came from the manufacturer. The film deliveries would continue until Ivan told the manufacturer to alter what he was sending.
On a call with Bill a few days after the movie showing at Harry's, Ivan agreed to pay fifty dollars for a hand operated editor. Bill told Ivan he was also sending books that would interest Dylan and Ivan told Clay what was coming.
It sounded like a good outcome to Clay.
Bill sent four books in all and Dylan let the film pile up while he read, Editing Your Motion Picture. He spent another week reading, How To Get Your Shot, Taking Candid Shot, and Making Your Movie Look Professional.
Dylan went to school and did little else but read for a week. By the time he taught himself how to operate the hand operated editor, he was back into movie making mode. It was like the movies of his feet never happened and Dylan was working on a new plan. His enthusiasm shifted into high gear.
Dylan had a desk in his room where he put the editor.
“Late at night,” Clay told Ivan, “I wake up on the nights I sleep at the Conservancy house, and I hear him turning the reels on that editor. Then I hear a snip, snip. There's silence for a couple of minutes, and then he is turning those reels again.
Their son was working.
Dylan had begun to perfect his ability to get candid shots of the people at the cove. He caught Captain Popov going in to JK's and coming out. He caught JK as he emptied garbage into the cans behind JK's Kitchen. He caught workers coming to work at the Fish Warehouse, and he filmed his father driving the trash wagon and Tag emptying the trash into the wagon with his eyes closed.
Tag was not an early riser.
He filmed Clay going to the Sea Lab and coming back down the pier from Sea Lab. He filmed Clay on the bridge of Sea Lab, There were clips of his father getting into his SCUBA gear and going into the water and disappearing below the surface. He caught Clay coming up from a dive and swimming to Sea Lab, climbing up to the deck, and removing the SCUBA gear and leaving it on deck to dry.
He was careful to catch his father's roll backward into the Gulf. Clay was the only one who employed this method to start a dive. It was too awkward for Dylan. Once he saw Bill doing it the same way, Dylan understood, like teacher like, student.
Dylan was particularly interested in the things his father brought up from the depths of the Gulf. Each specimen Clay brought on board Sea Lab got photographed.
Clay removed each item, one at a time, from the netting he carried to keep the specimens pristine. As Dylan saw them for the first time, the camera was rolling and a record of them was made.
Half the film he took was of Clay, Se Lab, and the Gulf of Mexico. Dylan became expert at moving out to the bow and back with the camera in one hand. He did it the same way when going on and off Sea Lab. If Clay didn't know better, he might have thought the 16mm camera was part of Dylan's anatomy.
After many weeks, the camera was no longer always in his hand. Dylan stopped filming except for when a shot he wanted didn't please him and he took the camera down from the shelf in the Dive Shop where Ivan kept it safe and out of the way.
The film was called, My Life At The Cove, and except for the houses and the people closest to him, most of the footage was taken in and around the cove and in and around Sea Lab.
Late at night, Clay would wake from a sound sleep on nights he slept at the Conservancy house and he'd see the glow from the screen lighting Dylan's room. He'd hear the reels slowly turning. Snip, snip, and then the silence. The reels began turning again, and Clay smiled, his son was working, and he went back to sleep.
For some reason Dylan's dedication to the things he decided he'd do reminded Clay of when his little sister would sit for hours reading to Dylan. She'd always been into literature from way back when. Dylan sat beside her and he was mesmerized by his sister's voice that told the story. One day as he listened at Lucy's door, she said, “Your turn, Dylan. You read.”
Clay laughed at the thought of a four and five-year-old Dylan struggling and stuttering over words he didn't know. Lucy softly and patiently told him each word he didn't know, which were most of the words. Lucy told him almost every word. He repeated each word.
There was a day when Clay came home and he heard Dylan's voice. He stood at the door of Lucy's room and listened to Dylan reading from one of Lucy's favorite novels. Dylan was going on eight.
The first book he heard Dylan actually reading from, Jane Austin. Clay was no longer laughing. Lucy was a teacher. Dylan was a willing student. Any time he had nothing to do, Dylan read the books Lucy was careful to leave lying around the Conservancy house. He no longer needed anyone to tell him what the words were.
Clay thought Dylan was smarter than he was. Why wouldn't he be? Ivan was the smartest person Clay knew. Clay never liked Gothic literature and never read any of Lucy's books. Dylan devoured them and now, late at night, the editor gave Dylan a new skill to master.
Clay understood why Dylan wanted to master movie making. What Dylan really wanted to do was document everything his father did. He'd been going with his father on speaking engagements for years. He listened to his father telling audiences how important it was to take care of and properly manage waterways to keep them healthy.
Dylan wanted to take the pictures of his father at work to show the audiences what he was doing. If there were pictures that accompanied his father's talks, the audience would see what he was telling them about. That's what Dylan decided to do with his life.
His father was trying to save the earth and the things on it. That was the best thing anyone could hope to do. It was also the reason Clay didn't want Dylan to lock himself into a career that tied him so closely to the man that raised him. Did Dylan really want to take movies of what Clay did, or was Dylan unable to separate himself from the father who devoted his life to raising his beautiful son?
Clay wasn't sure and Dylan was ready with a camera at all times, especially when they went out on Sea Lab. He couldn't take the 16mm camera into the water. As quick as he got footage of his father going into the water, he transitioned to one of the underwater Nikons and followed his father to the bottom of the Gulf to photograph him collecting specimens and samples of the water.
Dylan ended his dive a few minutes before Clay was ready to surface, and he'd be waiting on deck with the 16mm camera to record the specimens his father took out of the netting he carried to store them safely for the trip back to Sea Lab.
Back at the cove, Dylan made a point to stop to talk to each camper. He asked for permission to film them. This created gossip about what Dylan was doing as he caught most campers unaware. He understood that candid shots often got the best results. He filmed campers after asking to film them but he was very good at returning at inopportune times to get the shots he was really after.
Maybe Dylan got too fascinated by taking candid shots. For some reason these shots were more fun than the mundane things most campers did.
How many times could you film a guy making coffee on the stone fire pit created for meal preparation and coffee making?
The hand operated editor Ivan got from Bill made it possible for Dylan to fit pieces together in a fashion he liked. He wasn't a mischief maker by design and when questioned about the content of his movie, he'd say, 'The devil made me do it.' He was a kid after all.
“Bill, did you get the film developed I sent over last week?”
“Ivan, I've been thinking about you all morning. Yes, it's developed and I've been watching it. Dylan has quite the sense of humor. I've never seen so many derriere on film. Do you people do something besides bend over in front of his camera?”
“That's my boy,” Ivan said with a laugh. “Are they in focus?”
“Yeah, they are. There is a theme present in the footage. Good thing your campers don't know he sees them as mostly a series of large butts.”
“I suppose teenage boys see the world differently than we do. Clay says he's up using the editor most nights.”
“He figured out how to use the editor?”
“Clay says he hears the reels turning when he rolls over in bed. He hasn't shown us what he's doing, but he says it's his life, Bill.”
“Does he do anything but shoot film? I must have two to three hours in this batch. I am watching it in small doses.”
“Yeah, he goes to school. Clay absolutely forbids him to take the camera into the school but he takes it everywhere else. When he comes into the shop, he always has it with him.”
“I have received the equipment from the film lab on the Horizon. As I suspected, it will all be sold to defray the cost of the new equipment.”
“Cut to the chase, Bill. What do you have in a poor man's price range?” Ivan asked.
“Underwater cameras, which I imagine will be your next purchase. We're talking thousands not hundreds. The automated editor isn't that much. It is four years old and few photographers are going to want a four year old editor. That might go cheap. Light bars, tripods, the odds and ends will go cheap. On the Horizon we have underwater lights that we set up. Way better than a light bar and they're separate from the camera. Cuts the camera's weight.”
“You know what I want, Bill. I can't afford thousands of dollars for a camera. If I was sure the campground was going to continue making money at its current pace, I'd buy my kid one of those nifty underwater 16mm cameras you have there. I don't have that much money to spare at the moment.”
“Half of everything Dylan films is of Clay. He films him in his lab at the Conservancy. He takes pictures of going and coming from the Sea Lab. He films him going into the water. He films him coming out of the water. He films everything he brings up from the Gulf of Mexico. There's only one part of what Clay does he can't film,” Bill said.
“I know. You know. Asking Clay to spring a few thousand for another camera isn't happening. I don't want to go round and round with him. We're doing fine but we don't see Dylan's interest in photography in the same light. You and I see the next step in the progression. Clay doesn't want to see it, and you're aware of what Clay's like once he makes up his mind.”
“Clay is a practical man, Ivan. He worries too much time is going into photography when there are a lot of things to be learned. How many people do you know who make a living as a photographer?”
“Give me your opinion, Bill. Am I sending my kid down a dead end road? I'm a dreamer. I think Dylan is a dreamer too.”
“Ordinarily, as a outsider, I wouldn't answer that question. I've seen what Dylan has done with stills and I'm seeing what he is doing now. Maybe I'm just thinking of my own ambition, but when you look at what Dylan films, big butts putt to one side, he films Clay coming and going from Sea Lab. He photographs him on the Sea Lab. He photographs him going on a dive and coming back. He photographs the specimens Clay brings up off the bottom. There is only one thing he hasn't filmed in motion with the 16mm camera,” Bill said.
“Clay underwater,” Ivan said. “Which brings us back to where we started. I don't have that kind of money. If I did I'd be banging on your door to get my hands on one of those underwater beauties.”
“Everything is documented in motion until Clay goes underwater.”
“He's dying to get underwater to finish the picture,” Ivan said.
“The movie of Dylan's life is a movie about his father's work. If I were Clay, I wouldn't let anyone tell his story but Dylan. He's doing his best to tell it,” Bill said.
“My kid does adore his father. Dylan is like he is because Clay saw to it he never felt alone or suffered because Sunshine wasn't there to raise him. He was a far better father than I could ever be. I don't have Clay's patience. My mind moves too fast and I don't think things through before I'm off and running.”
“We all have our strong suits. Clay's patience is his. It's patience that made him the best marine biologist I know and those patience had him staying as close to Dylan as he could as much as he could. Don't sell yourself short Ivan. I don't know another man who could have done what you did. Senator Harry McCallister says the same thing. Sure, you bit off a hell of a lot more than anyone could chew, but you chewed and you came out on the other side,” Bill said.
“Yeah, I did. I often wonder if Boris wasn't better off staying over there. He's almost Cambodian. I brought him home for what it's worth. The cost was immense. I almost lost Clay. I did lose ten years of my son's life and Boris thinks like a Cambodian and he acts like one. It's all he knows for sure. By all rights my brother should be dead. He somehow survived and I dragged him back here for him to wonder why he isn't in Cambodia where he belongs. He isn't sure who I am. I've explained it a dozen times. He doesn't know his own father. I upset everyone's life and my brother Boris, who went over there to fight for his country, never came home. That Boris doesn't exist.”
“There's a cost to everything we do. It's best to pay it and move on. We live and learn, Ivan. You've lived more than most. You did what you thought was best at the time. At least Boris is with the people who love him and he's with his family. He doesn't know how close he came to death. Maybe he's better off not remembering.”
“I know what you're saying is true and I appreciate you taking the time to want to help. Don't think I'm not grateful for what you do for me with the film, Bill. You're saving me a pile of money. I appreciate it and I'll be looking for a way to move forward. I might ask Popov to lend me the money. He's financing the Cove project. I hate asking him for more.”
“These aren't the only underwater cameras, Ivan. When you're in better shape financially, you'll find a way and it isn't like Dylan doesn't have plenty of time to get where he wants to go.”
“Yeah, that's a good way to look at it,” Ivan said. “Harry called yesterday. He'll be home at the end of the week. Says he'll be seeing you while he's home. He'll pick up any film you have ready for me.”
“We're due to touch base. Our senator is the best thing we have going on the environmental front. I better get off here. I'm supposed to be working,” Bill said, ending the call.
Ivan didn't know Bill very well but he treated him like an old friend and he seemed to care about what Dylan was doing. How many men would take the time to watch a film a thirteen-year-old made? But Dylan was Clay's son. Few people knew Clay better than Bill did.