Apparently not. Fifteen minutes out to sea, our wily Captain spotted an enormous finback whale, a category second only to the blue whale in size, weighing a hefty 100,000 pounds and going about 68 feet in length. Of course, most of us passengers wouldn’t know a finback from a frijole, but the Captain appeared to be a man of impeccable honesty with irreproachable powers of discernment, and besides, there was a four-star whale scribe named Peter Trull aboard, a writer of books about sea creatures, a man immersed in the science of big critters who gave the Captain his imprimatur. Naturally, all the passengers ran berserkly around the boat, cameras flashing, to record for posterity this bit of good fortune. An especially wide-eyed man from Columbus, Ohio, rushed up and asked, “Isn’t this the greatest luck ever?” I told him I was just astonished. He ran off in ecstasy, loudly commanding his brood to the proper side of the boat. I wondered what ratio of port-to-starboard passengers was required for the ship to quietly tip over and dump the lot of us into the briny deep. Apparently it’s more than 100-1.
Humpback, Ho!
Every show has its star, of course, and the leading lady in Provincetown environs is clearly Scylla, the humpback whale, who delights in bringing her frisky new calf to the stage. Scylla was born back in 1981, the third of eleven known calves, and began cranking out offspring at the early age of six, much to the delight of the whale-watch fleets who promptly signed her to a long-term contract. Humpback whales are pregnant for about a year and then care for their calves for 10-12 months, which means that most humpbacks produce babies every other year. The demands of pregnancy take a huge toll on the mothers since they’re growing 10-15 foot long, 2000 pound newborns. Scylla, however, is famous for her ability to churn out calves in consecutive years, once delivering four in a five year period, elevating her to superstar status.
When the curtains parted and the band struck up Captain Beefheart’s “I’m Gonna Grow Fins,” the crowd roared as Scylla and her calf strutted their stuff, closing with their internationally-renowned Double Tail Thump. The whale-watchers applauded wildly and screamed for an encore but the girls were done for the day, diving down to King Neptune’s Plankton Palace for a well-deserved snack. The Dolphin Fleet naturalists aboard went to the microphones and told us what a lucky bunch of campers we were to see this outstanding display of humpback hijinks, and the customers left with smiles on their faces and endless displays of whalery on their iPhones. And that was just the matinee.
I Can See Clearly Now, The Rain Is Gone
Despite all the watery shenanigans extant, the national sport of Provincetown is still streetwalking. And no, not the kind you’re thinking about. Commercial Street, the main drag (tee hee), is crammed with grandmas from Appleton, Wisconsin, teenagers from Canarsie and gay visitors from the four corners of the Earth, 80% of them male. Female impersonators in full regalia are everywhere, plugging their nightly variety shows, while open convertibles and glorified jeeps bounce down the avenue filled with brazen, near-naked exhibitionists and famous stage performers like Liberace and Peggy Lee, who were promoting their reunion tour.
You can buy just about anything in Provincetown, though feed-and-seed stores are scarce and there’s not a sniff of a mall. You can even have your palm investigated or your Tarot Cards explained at Psychic Readings. It’s been way too long since I checked in with my friendly neighborhood seer, so I stopped for a quick $65 visit.
“Hi, I’m Bill and I think I’ll go with the Daily Special,” I told the smiling proprietress. “and what’s your name?”
“I’m Page,” she answered, succinctly.
“Wait a minute, Page, that won’t do at all. What kind of a fortune-teller name is Page? I need something like Madame Zelda or Foodini the Magnificent. Come on, help me out.”
“Well, my middle name is Esmeralda.”
“MUCH better. Now we’re talkin’.”
Page Esmeralda told me my departed grandmother had sent me to see her and have my Tarot read. I told Page Esmeralda that I was on a budget and palm reading would have to suffice. She peered into my left palm and saw trouble, right here in River City, and that starts with “T” and that rhymes with “C” and that stands for Cash.
“I can see you are troubled,” she fretted. “I see problems with health.”
“That’s my partner, Captain Noonan,” I confessed. “What do the Fates have in store for him.”
“I see a curtain closing soon. I see six years.”
“I think I can get a better offer down the street, Esmeralda. Maybe four more years?”
“No, the future speaks to me. Six years, tops. But I could prepare a special chart for your friend. Very detailed. Secrets to gain many more years. Only $1200.”
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
Okay, Cap’n. The expected diagnosis-to-signoff time is three years. I got you six. And I’m still looking around for a discount emporium. “Say, buddy---where’s the nearest Fortunes ‘R’ Us?”
My Kingdom For A Table
If you’re thinking of having a nice harborside meal on a Summer Saturday night in Provincetown, so are 60,000 other folks, so plan ahead. Otherwise, take what you can get and be grateful. Reservations for the top fooderies are snapped up earlier in the week and Saturday is a nightmare for malingerers. John Scanlon and I let the girls out and crawled around looking for a parking spot while they played restaurant detectives. We ended up leaving the car back near the pier for an astronomical fee while the Tres Amigas scared up a table at Bubalas (by the bay), a place which firmly believes in alliteration. For any old port in a storm, the place was okay. Good service, decent food and drinks acceptable to Kathy and Alice, who are experts at alcohol evaluation. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, well, you might find you get what you need. Mick Jagger said that.
For our Final Night’s extravaganza on the bay the following evening, we secured a fine table at Bayside Betsy’s not far from the previous night’s festivities. Bayside Betsy, it turns out, is a middle-aged native New York male with a Long Island rasp. Pretend to love the Yankees and he’ll give you anything, especially if you actually saw DiMaggio play. The food was very good, the seaside atmosphere boffo and the eastern European waiters pokey but good-humored. And ours took a tipworthy family photo, so no snickering. Besides which, Kathy and slow-footed Alice took a Romanian-propelled pedicab to the restaurant so let’s have a big round of applause for all those folks in Bucharest, Riga and points east.
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| (1) Bill, outside Bayside Betsy's; (2) The Last Cape Roundup for the fam: John Scanlon, Kathy, Alice, Siobhan and the Ancient Mariner at The Last Provincetown Supper. |
Next Week:
The last day on Cape Cod and the drive to Boston for the Red Sox game. A productive night in beautiful Fenway as the Sox slog through the end of the schedule hoping to escape reality and somehow capture a playoff berth. Did they break on through to the other side in a manner befitting the baseball champions of the world? Not so much.
That’s all, folks….
