March 11: Bulkington, My Father, Keeping the Trains Running

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

Bulkington is a minor character.  Melville doesn't waste a whole lot of ink on him as compared to Ahab or Queequeg.  In this short chapter, Ishmael waxes philosophic on men like Bulkington, who steer the Pequod, go down on landing missions with Captain Kirk and Spock, sing in the chorus in Le Mis, or fill the seats at the Oscars when Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep have to go to the bathroom.  Graduate students don't write doctoral dissertations about Bulkington.  Fans at Star Trek conventions don't line up to get Bulkington's autograph.  If Bulkington misses a perfomance, Jean Valjean will still get a standing ovation at the curtain call.  And Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep will still empty their bladders if Bulkington isn't sitting in their seats.

The Bulkingtons of the world do their jobs and don't complain or call attention to themselves.  They aren't there for glory or accolades.  They are there simply to keep the trains running on time.  My father was a Bulkington.  He worked his whole life, keeping faucets running, furnaces heating, toilets flushing.  In the weeks since he's been gone, I can't count the number of times that a person has come up to me with a story of how he helped them in a difficult time.

That's one thing I learned from my father.  I never wanted to be a plumber.  He knew that.  But he did teach me about the necessity of hard work.  He taught me never to turn my back on a person in need.  We might not have seen eye-to-eye on a whole lot of things, politically or socially or spiritually, but I knew that, if my sewer backed up or my sink drain was leaking, he would be there to help me.  Up until two years ago, he was still driving his riding lawnmower up to my house in the middle of the day to cut my grass.  I didn't ask him to do it.  He just knew it needed to be done.

I'm sitting in the dining room of my parents' house right now.  My mother, whose memory isn't good, just asked, "Is your father in bed?"  One of my sisters is reminding her that he died about a month ago.  It's difficult to listen to.  It's almost as if he's dying all over again for her.  Each day, the loss is new for her.

Despite my father's faults, he always took care of my mother.  I guess he was a Bulkington husband, as well.  He worked hard, stayed faithful, and made sure, even to the end, that Mom was taken care of.  In fact, I think that's why he fought so hard at the end.  He was worried that there wouldn't be somebody there to steer the ship, accompany the landing party, sing the finale, or fill the empty seats.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for being taught the worth of being a Bulkington.