Bev Beaver and the Havenport Pier

The most successful of Beverly Beaver’s old high school classmates from one of Havenport’s five public high schools were eager to leave the city for New York, Philly, Boston or DC in search of a fresh start; a recovery from Havenport drama. Havenport often felt like a small town in a big city, and Bev had certainly been adjacent to teen hijinx. Drinking on the pier, a boy Bev knew cheated on his boyfriend with his rival for the valedictorian position. This was a fatal blow to the girls’ friendship and resulted in a refreshed hatred, culminating in a physical fight right before graduation, revoking both girls’ eligibility for the coveted position which was not open to students with significant disciplinary infractions. There was something about that pier that encouraged chaos. Havenport had a large Irish population, Bev included, and as part of yearly heritage day at school, some kids in Bev’s class did a presentation about Celtic mythology, and the idea that some places where the border between reality and the spiritual world was thin, where magic could enter the world. If there was one of those places in Havenport, it would absolutely be the pier, particularly after dark. 

 However, this was not a concern for Bev, who had not been a key player in any particular dramas, and did not have much on her slate to wipe clean, frankly. It was this nondescript neutrality that allowed her to remain in Havenport, not beloved nor hated, simply there, Bev Beaver, the quiet girl with the funny name. Coffee conversation with visiting friends highlighted this truth. 

“I got into the Havenport Herald three times in high school,” Gabrielle said with a grin. “Not exactly hard to be notable here in Havenport.” She was talking about her science project blue ribbons - small potatoes now that she was at MIT. Bev was a mediocre student compared to the other kids she’d hung out with back then, but her good behavior had gotten her on the teachers’ good side anyway. She couldn’t believe the casualness with which they were talking about something as …. permanent as a photo in a real newspaper. She thought about explaining that it was not about how many people saw it, that being etched so permanently into the face of a published piece of paper would change her whole relationship with reality, but she simply sipped her coffee and asked Gabrielle politely about last semester’s research. 

    Bev had moved out of her parents’ house the previous year and got a teaching job in the suburbs. Her job’s separation from Havenport proper, again, maintained her neutral status within the city, and that was how she liked it. However, she could never settle in the suburb where she worked - it lacked, among other things, the salty sea air and the morning soundtrack of gull’s song. 

    She taught social studies, and it was Friday - time for current events. Bev liked feeling separate from history; a story that she and her students could open up and look back on. The current events part of the curriculum stressed her out. Today’s issue was global warming, the words on the lips of anyone with an interest in nature or the environment. It was one line that changed everything - 

    “Rising sea levels are projected to destroy coastal cities.” Bev thought back to her beloved salty sea air and felt her chest tighten. “Places like Long Island, Havenport…” 

    As the narrator said the name of her little city, something in Bev flipped over for the last time. Twenty-five and humming along in life, which had felt like a video game until then, her prefrontal cortex connected some very important dots. For the first time, Bev felt a connection between the car she drove to work and the smoke trailing up into the sky - that that sky was everyone’s sky, Havenport’s sky. Bev had never felt "especially" anything, but today she felt it in two acute, precise ways: Havenport was especially important to her, and Havenport was so especially close to destruction.  

    While the bored teenagers perked up and murmured to each other about the mention of their nearby city, the place many of their parents’ worked and, if they were lucky, Linkin Park or the Black Eyed Peas would pay a weekend visit, and then quieted down to continue watching the documentary, Bev felt very twenty-five. It sounded so stupid—of course, she was aware of environmental issues—littering was wrong, the rainforest was important, and only she could prevent forest fires. But twenty-five years of life feeling like practice all bumped up against each other in her newly developed mind that day, and that night, she looked out the window of her apartment to a world that felt real and fragile, of which she was unquestionably part and undoubtably dependent on. 

    Bev’s roommate was a woman named Susan. They didn’t usually talk much, but Susan could tell Bev had a lot on her mind that evening. She paused the Shrek DVD they were watching. “What’s up?” 

    “Oh, nothing, I just had to show this documentary in class today about global warming. It talked a lot about what’s going to happen to the coast and I’m kind of freaking out about it.” 

    Susan smirked a bit. “Oh yeah - some people at my job think that companies’ environmental impact should be more tightly regulated. It’s a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.” 

    Bev felt her chest tighten again, and she squirmed in her seat. “Oh?” 

    Susan continued. “Yeah, just personally I think people just freak out about this shit to look like a good person. I’ve never been a tree hugger. I like things the way they are - I like my plastic and my car and all the other trappings of American consumerism” -she said this last part with the air of mocking an imaginary opponent. “I just don’t think people should have to change the way they do things to appease some hippies.” 

Susan’s at-ease, confident nature held a steadier paintbrush than Bev’s inarticulate, anxious lament, and it painted a picture of Bev’s position that she yearned to correct. Bev wasn’t trying to change Havenport because she idealized some kind of far-flung, radical difference in society. She was trying to keep Havenport the same, and prevent the biggest change she could think of -  being underwater, uninhabitable, and dead.

    Leaving her apartment the next morning for a walk to clear her head, she ran into Gabrielle, still in town between semesters. As the two women chatted, Bev mentioned the documentary. "I feel weird," she said lamely, unable to articulate her emotional experience. 

    “Global warming is the single biggest threat to huamnity. You’re right to be concerned." 

    Bev reflected on the difference between her speech and Gabrielle’s, so certain, filled with bluntly stated facts of reality and free from I-statements and explanations of feelings. Gabrielle had always been front and center of another kind of action, not hormone-driven drama but activism. 

“Come to the protest tonight!” Gabrielle suggested. “It will be great to have you there. We’re going to meet at the pier.” 

The idea of etching herself into Havenport’s surface like that felt strange, especially knowing that people felt like Susan did. 

That night, Bev found herself at that very protest, almost as if she had been compelled there by the very forces of the universe, the documentary narrator’s voice echoing in her head and pulling her towards the pier. She remembers Gabrielle's encouraging smile, the mic waving in her face. Bev took the mic, and words tumbled out of her mouth that she was not sure were her own. To her horror, cameras flashed and journalists scribbled. 

    Bev woke up to notifications on her mostly-dead social media accounts, and a stomachache-inducing voicemail from her employer. Local news was alight with the photo and video of the young woman who spoke so passionately about Havenport’s climate fate - and against the corporate greed that would guarantee it. “Young woman speaks out for sustainability”, a headline read.

Sustainable. A lot of things felt unsustainable - the planet, and this character she now found herself playing, one for whom she did not know all her lines. Here she was, Bev Beaver, the quiet lady with the funny name, etched into Havenport’s story, whether she liked it or not.