🎧 299: After Lorna and Herb ...

AFTER LORNA AND HERB were settled in their room at the River Sound, they went out for a walk. Through the rain and the dark, they walked in the direction in which Lorna supposed the ocean to be. They walked along River Sound Road, then along Bolotomy Road, until they reached the Municipal Dock. Storm-driven waves pounded the dock, and spray washed over the bulkheads. Lorna cried, “The ocean!”
     It was not — it was only Bolotomy Bay — but Lorna felt exactly the surge of excitement she had imagined she would feel when she first saw the ocean. She ran to the edge of the dock. Clinging to a piling, she leaned out over the dark water and let the spray splatter her. She licked the water from her lips and tasted the salt. She ran to Herb and hugged him.
     “Let’s go back to the hotel and see if we can burn it down,” she said.

AT THAT TIME, the economic foundation of Babbington still rested on the bottom of Bolotomy Bay, on the bay’s clam beds. The clamming industry and related industries — boat building and repair, the manufacture of clamming equipment, clam processing, clam by-products, tartar sauce preparation and packaging, and so on — employed most of the men of Babbington and nearly all of the women who worked. The Babbington Clam Council, an industry group, was a powerful force in local politics, and clamming-related fraternal orders — notably the Mercenarians, the Order of Littlenecks, and the Secret and Mystical Fraternity of Fun-Loving Baymen — were important in the social life of the town. A casual stroll along Main Street, like the casual stroll that Lorna and Herb took on their first full day in town, provided ample evidence of the importance of the bay and the clam.
     At first glance, Main Street, Babbington, looked much like Main Street in any other small town of that time; the street was lined with banks, lunch counters, a hardware store, a five-and-ten, a movie house, groceries, shoe stores, clothing shops, and such, and above the shops were offices occupied by insurance companies, the Babbington Reporter, lawyers, dentists, a gypsy reader, and other professionals — the assortment of enterprises that one would expect on Main Street just about anywhere. A closer look, however, discovered signs of the dominance of clam fishery: the clam-digging equipment displayed in the window of Babbington Diggers’ Gear, the “Stages in the Life of a Clam” exhibit in a window of the local office of Continental Clam, the “treading booties” offered in the window of the Superior Shoe Shop, the clam chowder, clam broth, clams casino, baked stuffed clams, clam fritters, clam cakes, fried clams, steamed clams, clams on the half shell, and “clamburger” on the menu at Louise’s Lunch, and so on.
     They walked the length of Main Street. They stopped across the street from Continental Clam to watch some schoolchildren on a field trip make their way from panel to panel in the stages in the life of a clam. The children seemed fascinated by one panel in particular. Lorna took Herb by the arm and pulled him across the street. They stood behind the children and looked over their heads. Large blue letters at the top of the display announced:

FERTILIZATION TAKES PLACE OUTSIDE THE SHELL!

     A diorama depicted a submarine orgy. Several female clams were discharging puffs that reminded Lorna of her father’s pipe smoke.

FEMALE RELEASES A HUNDRED MILLION EGGS AT ONCE!

     Several male clams were releasing thin whitish streams in random directions.

MORE THAN TWO BILLION SPERM PER EJACULATION!

     The children were giggling. One girl noticed Herb and Lorna’s reflection in the window. She turned and looked at Lorna and blushed. Lorna smiled and, quite aware of the implications of what she was doing, winked at the girl. She squeezed Herb’s arm tighter, and when they walked away she stopped after a couple of steps, put both arms around Herb, hugged him, and kissed him. She hoped the girl was watching, and she hoped she’d get the message Lorna meant to send: it’s a lot more fun than that.

In Topical Guide 299, Mark Dorset considers Clams: Life Cycle of; and Clams: Sex Life of from this episode.

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