Reclaiming, Story 7: Orca Boy
Max Du was so obsessed with SeaWorld that his childhood friends called him Orca Boy. But when a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn was killed by an orca, his love for whales turned to shame . . . until he met Dawn’s best friend, a whale trainer named Lyndsey, who led him back to SeaWorld on a journey of reclaiming the Orca Boy that he’d thought was gone.
Transcript for Reclaiming, Story 7: Orca Boy
Introduction
Carolyn: This is State of the Human, the Podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project.
Each episode we take a common human experience, like teaching or breathing or joking, and bring you stories that deepen our understanding of that experience. My name is Carolyn, and in the next few episodes we’re looking at the theme of reclaiming.
Live long enough, and everyone has this experience: something you love changes. Your relationship with this thing or place or person becomes complicated–maybe even problematic. You might even feel the need to distance yourself from it completely.
But true loves rarely disappear without a trace.
Today’s episode is one of many in a series about reclaiming what’s been lost. This series will feature stories about reclaiming neighborhoods, music venues, childhood obsessions, sports teams, languages, and ways of seeing ourselves. It’s about holding the tension between what we were and who we’ve become. It’s about returning to our origins–but this time with a more nuanced perspective.
I want to start today’s story with a confession: I’m not an animal person.
One time I told a guy that I liked that I didn’t want any pets. He stopped talking to me after that.
I wasn’t always like this. When I was in second grade, we had an assignment to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up. While other kids drew themselves as firefighters or doctors, I drew myself as a SeaWorld trainer. I was amazed by whales when I was younger and I thought I was so cool for not wanting to be like the other kids. But then, this movie Blackfish came out that bashed SeaWorld.
I never really fell back in love with animals after that. My mom wouldn’t let me get a dog and my brothers were allergic to cats. Somewhere along the way, I grew an aversion to animals.
Even as an adult, I don’t let dogs lick me and I prefer my animals medium rare.
So needless to say, when I found myself surrounded by seven wild monkeys at a monastery in Hong Kong, I was not happy. I was at this place called 10,000 Buddhas where you walk up this path lined with golden statues and signs warning travelers about beggars pretending to be monks. But what the signs don’t say is that there are also wild monkeys that are probably smarter than you and could beat you in a fight if they wanted to.
You may be thinking, “what’s the big deal? They’re just monkeys, and you, narrator, are related to them.” To which I would respond, “Yeah, I know, listener,” and “What were you thinking, God? Monkeys? Really?”
And yet, when I look back to that moment at the monastery, what I remember isn’t the faces of each golden buddha or the beauty of the mountain trail. What I remember is being mesmerized by the monkeys sitting in the Buddhas’ laps. Staring at them, I felt something in me shift. A feeling of awe or wonder. One of them locked eyes with me like he recognized me. In that moment, a small part of me reclaimed that love for animals that I’d lost.
Today’s story is about just that. Like me, Max Du loved animals as a kid–until that love was tarnished. Here’s Max with that story.
Chapter 1: Falling in and out of love with whales
Max: As a kid, I was always trying to find my place in the world.
I was one of those childhood menaces who jumped on tables and kicked other people’s toys. Most of the other kids at school steered clear of me and said I was weird. I was the only child in an immigrant family, and at home, my parents gave me a lot of attention. In school, when I followed the rules, no one noticed me. But when I acted out, I was the center of the world.
I was intimately familiar with the time-out chair, but I actually liked sitting there because it meant that people were looking at me.
One Halloween, my mom made me a killer whale costume and I wore it to school. My arms were flippers and a floppy tail dragged behind me. I expected everyone to ignore me like usual, but to my amazement, everyone suddenly loved me. All of my classmates came up to me and wrapped their arms around my big, puffy costume. I was cute and cuddly and it felt amazing. I wanted to be that whale all the time.
Back then, all I could think about was whales. And I can point to the exact time and place where my whale obsession began: The Believe Show at SeaWorld.
[play introduction to Believe]
Max: I can still remember sitting in the stadium of SeaWorld San Diego as a six year old, getting ready to see the new whale show.
The Believe show was about a boy obsessed with whales. He thinks he’s alone in the world, until one day, as he’s standing on the beach, he sees a killer whale, he runs to the water, jumps in a kayak, and travels through the ocean with the whale by his side.
Show Narrator: For each of us, there comes a moment. A defining instant in our lives, when we are changed forever.
Max: Believe was hypnotic. I wanted to be that boy in the kayak, side-by-side with a killer whale.
[fade into splash scene]
Max: The show ended with a splash. We’d all put our hands out and touch our thumbs to make whale tails. We’d wave the tail up and down and chant the whale’s name, Shamu [scene]
[crowd noises, shamu, shamu]
Max: When the whales blasted us with water, it felt like magic. As a six-year-old I couldn’t put words to why I found Believe so powerful, but I sensed that I was experiencing something that would change me forever.
[crowd: shamu, shamu]
Max: My whale obsession wasn’t limited to SeaWorld. I talked about whales constantly to everyone I knew. Some of my friends called me Orca Boy. I didn’t mind. Secretly, I even dreamed of becoming a whale trainer.
At a science camp in eighth grade, I decided to let my campmates in on my whale dreams. I stood there, waiting to hear their amazement. But instead, they laughed at me and told me I should marry a killer whale
Looking back, we were all early teenage boys, and I shouldn’t have expected anything better. But still, it made me stop in my tracks. I’d always been a bit of a misfit–but I thought my love for whales made me more likable. For the first time, being Orca Boy made me a weirdo.
I was also worried about a movie called Blackfish. It was about a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn, who lost her life in an incident involving a killer whale named Tilikum. I didn’t know what to think when I watched Blackfish. I didn’t think I agreed that SeaWorld was abusing animals or that the orca had been psychotic–but my love for whales felt suddenly complicated.
When I came home from camp, I rolled up the whale posters that covered my bedroom walls. As I packed them in a box, I felt suddenly embarrassed that I’d spent so much of my life being obsessed with an animal. I couldn’t bring myself to throw the posters away. But if you’d asked me, I would have told you that Orca Boy was gone.
Chapter 2: New investigations
Max: When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was a few months away from graduating high school. It gave me a lot of time to reflect and also to clean the basement. One afternoon, I found an old lunchbox from middle school. It had a laughing killer whale painted on the front, and on the bottom, in large letters, it said “SeaWorld.”
And with nothing better to do, I looked up the Believe show on YouTube, just to see if it was the way I remembered it. I thought maybe I’d just watch it for a minute or two, but as soon as I heard the familiar music, I cranked up the volume and settled in for the entire twenty minute show
[Play Believe show cut]
Max: As I watched, I noticed things I’d missed as a kid: It was all a little over the top and melodramatic. It was like Preview Guy meets Jaws meets air flutes meets Christian Contemporary pop. . . and I still loved every minute of it.
I’d been distancing myself from my whale obsession for years. Watching Believe felt a little like a relapse. But at the same time, it felt good to be that curious about something again. It was like I'd finally found the key to a part of myself that I’d kept locked up.
As the pandemic raged on, I read articles about whales in captivity and animal training, about the history of marine parks, and the activists who protested them. I started taking notes. And the more I did this, the more my old curiosity and love for whales returned. It became a thing. Every night after 9pm, it was whale time.
Late one summer night, my curiosity led me to news clips about Dawn, the whale trainer who lost her life at SeaWorld. I learned that Dawn had whale dreams just like me. But unlike me, she never gave up. She became a SeaWorld trainer when she was just 25.
When I tried to read more about Dawn, I found the website for the Dawn Brancheau Charity Foundation. Before I could stop myself, I sent an email to the foundation, saying that I was doing research about orcas in captivity and I wondered if there was anyone who could tell me more about Dawn.
Now let me be clear–I wasn’t a researcher. I was an incoming college student with too much time on my hands in a pandemic. But after years of wondering what had really happened to Dawn and if I was wrong to love SeaWorld and orcas the way she did, it felt suddenly important to know more–not just about her death, but about her life.
I didn’t expect to hear back, but the next morning, I woke up to a message from one of Dawn’s sisters. She offered to put me in touch with Dawn’s best friend, a former whale trainer named Lyndsey.
Randy Roach (roach show): One on one with trainer Lyndsey Schemm. They were two best friends working together at their dream jobs, when the unstoppable happened.
Max: That’s Lyndsey on a YouTube talk show called The Roach. It was the first time, I heard about Dawn from someone who really knew her.
Randy: But you guys became good friends.
Lyndsey: Yeah.
Randy: She's your buddy.
Lyndsey: She became my person. Yeah, she became my person for a lot of different reasons
Max: I first called Lyndsey in September of 2020. Less than a minute in, we discovered something incredible.
Lyndsey: I went to Fayetteville Manlius
Max: [crosstalk] Oh, oh my god! I went to Fayetteville-Manlius too! That’s amazing. That’s wonderful.
Max: It turned out we had a lot in common. We realized that we went to the same high school. We found out that our dads are colleagues, both professors at Syracuse University.
There was something about Lyndsey that felt familiar to me.
Lyndsey: I always say that I'm an acquired personality. You kind of either like me or you're sort of kind of put off by me.
Max: Maybe it was the coincidences, or the whales, or the fact that my whale obsession also made me into an acquired taste. Whatever it was, Lyndsey reminded me of myself.
After we hung up, I opened an old photo album. There she was, in a red wetsuit, surfing a whale. Lyndsey had been a part of my story all along.
Lyndsey and I started calling once a month. At first, I called to ask her questions about Dawn. But over time, I realized that I was calling because I wanted to know about Lyndsey. And somewhere along the way, we became friends.
She gave me glimpses inside the life that I’d dreamed about as a kid. I asked her every question I could think of–what was like to get in the water with the whales? how did they learn to leap through the air? how did it feel to ride a whale?
Lyndsey: They are very intelligent, and so you have to be highly creative to enrich their lives and to get them to interact with you.
Max: I learned from Lyndsey that every good trainer is an exceptional observer.
Lyndsey: You spend so much time on the sidelines watching, observing, waiting. It takes a long time before you actually get to get in the water with the whales.
When you finally got an opportunity, we would call it like they're on you. They're with you. You can just see it in their eyes that they are watching you and you're watching them.
Max: Even when a trainer is whizzing through the water on a whale’s back, they’re still observing. They’re feeling the whale through the soles in their feet, adjusting to the whale’s movements. And the whale is feeling the trainer too, making its own adjustments.
Lyndsey: There is a certain connection between humans and animals, I believe in animals, whether you say in captivity or under the care of man, I believe in it.
Honestly, it just filled a part of my soul. it just brought something out in my heart that nothing else in this world has ever done. [MUSIC CLIMAX]
Max: Lyndsey had left SeaWorld more than a decade ago to raise her son. As she told me stories about being backstage at SeaWorld, I could tell how much she missed being there.
Lyndsey: I feel like I've lived two different lives, like I have two different identities. When I left, I realized that I didn't really know what to identify as. Was I a mom? Was I a wife? I don't know. The animal side I could never get it out of who I was.
Max: I thought about the two lives I’d lived. There was the Max all of my friends knew, the misfit who was now studying computer science and researching robotics. And then there was Orca Boy, the kid inside the Halloween costume who dreamed of riding whales, Discarded, but not forgotten.
Chapter 3: Lyndsey and Dawn
Max: During those long pandemic months when the world was still in lockdown, my friendship with Lyndsey felt like a lifeline.
Lyndsey: I mean, let's be honest, you're quirky, you're an anomaly, you're kind of weird. I mean, so am I, right?
Max: It wasn’t just the things we had in common or that we understood each other. I had the sense that in every phone call, Lyndsey was leading me back to whales
Lyndsey: it just, it just like jived and we were gelling. I felt like, you know, I felt like you were my brother
Max: Oh, it did feel like we were family. And as we became closer, Lyndsey started telling me more about Dawn.
When Lyndsey first came to SeaWorld in 2000, Dawn was her supervisor and mentor.
Lyndsey: Oh my gosh, my Donnie, our Donnie, she was crazy incredible. She was pretty much unlike anybody else I've ever known
Max: Lyndsey said that Dawn was a very intense person. To stay fit, she would sometimes get up at 6 am to run thirteen miles before starting her work day at SeaWorld.
Lyndsey: we were doing so much waterwork. I mean, we did quadruple whale waterwork. That's waterwork with four whales
And if something were not to go right exactly the way you want it to, then you have to figure out how to get back on track. Which is something she was really good at.
Max: When Lyndsey’s mom passed away in 2006, right as they were premiering the Believe show, Dawn was the person who helped her grieve. Dawn had lost her dad six years prior, and she’d learned a lot from that.
Lyndsey: After my mom passed away, I said to her at one point, uh, Donnie, does it ever get better? and she just said to me, she said, Linds, you know what? You just learned to live without.
Max: After that, they were inseparable.
Lyndsey: She was my person. She became almost like a surrogate mom. She was the one that I had around through all the hardest times in my life.
Max: Dawn had been Lyndsey’s Seaworld mentor for years, but after Lyndsey’s mom died, Dawn became her spiritual mentor too.
On rainy afternoons, they’d play with a whale named Tilikum.
Lyndsey: Oh, he's like putty in her hand. just like eyes closed, Leaning up into you, pushing his tail up into you.
She was one of the closest trainers to him at that time. I mean, probably the closest.
Max: They called him Sunboy too, because he liked to rest with his head in the sun.
Tilikum was a large male orca who had special safety protocols because he’d been involved in the death of two people already. But Dawn and Lyndsey knew how sweet he was. They’d sit at the edge of the pool beside Tilikum and talk about life and faith.
Just the three of them: Lyndsey, Dawn, and Tilikum the killer whale.
In 2008, which was eight years after Lyndsey started at SeaWorld, she had her first and only child.
Lyndsey: At about six weeks I called them and I told them that I wouldn't be returning. And it was heartbreaking.
Max: By leaving SeaWorld, Lyndsey felt like she was also leaving the chance to be close to Dawn.
Lyndsey: we used to spend every day together After I left, all of that changed. We talked pretty much twice a day, Dawny and I, after I left.
She was my lifeline. Kind of like to my old world of just something I really didn't want to let go of.
Max: Dawn kept her up to speed with everything she was missing–but Lyndsey knew she was on the outside looking in.
Lyndsey: Even though I had all my friends at SeaWorld, I kind of closed up because I had left and I didn't feel like I wanted to see anybody because it was painful.
Max: And then one day Lyndsey got a call that would change the course of her life forever. It was February 24th, 2010.
Lyndsey: I got a call from a friend and he said, have you seen the news? And I said, no. And he said, there's been an accident with Tilikum.
I had talked to Dawn earlier for about 45 minutes and I knew she was going to be working Tilikum. Um, and so I just prayed and I said, please don't, God, please don't want to be Dawn.
I got off the phone with him and I called Shamu Stadium and it rang and rang and rang, and then somebody answered and I knew who it was and they were crying.
I said, this is Lyndsey. And I said, is it true? Is it Dawn? And they said, yes,
Max: Tilikum was the whale that Dawn and Lyndsey loved to play with, the whale they called Sunboy. That afternoon, he dragged Dawn underwater. She died less than five minutes later, at 1:43 pm.
The last time Lynsey and Dawn spoke, they were talking about their friendship.
It was a little over an hour before the Dine With Shamu show. She knew Dawn would be on her way to work by now, or maybe even already there, but she was the only person Lyndsey wanted to talk to, so she called.
Lyndsey: So, I was talking to Don, I was talking to her and I just felt bad that I hadn't seen her as much. And so at 1144 on the clock, standing in this house, I said, Donnie, you know, I just want to see you more. 'cause you never know when the people you love will be taken away.
And two hours later she was dead.
Chapter 4: Lyndsey and I revisit the past
Max: Shortly after Dawn’s death, a filmmaker named Gabriela Cowperthwaite asked Dawn’s family if she could make a documentary about Dawn’s life. The family, who was still in the thick of grieving, said no.
Instead of waiting or honoring their request, Cowperthwaite told Dawn’s story with a different cast of characters, former trainers who accused SeaWorld of mistreating their whales. She called it Blackfish.
When the movie came out, Dawn’s family condemned it in a public statement: “Blackfish is not Dawn's story,” the statement read. “Dawn Brancheau believed in the ethical treatment of animals. Dawn would not have remained a trainer at SeaWorld for 15 years if she felt that the whales were not well cared for.”
But their statement didn’t make much of a difference. CNN picked up the movie, and it was seen by millions.
Lyndsey: I felt ashamed for the people that made it. It felt like I was having to defend something I should have never had to have defended. Dawn would be just so, so saddened
Dawn had once told her that In grieving the loss of someone, it never gets better. You just learn to live without. Ten years after Dawn’s death, Lyndsey was still learning to live without. She was still trying to find her way back to a version of herself that she could recognize
Lyndsey: you've probably never seen the movie Hook. It's an older movie. It's about Peter Pan. At one point he goes back as an older man and the kids that knew him when he was younger didn't recognize him at first. And then something happens and they look at him and they say, oh, there you are, Peter.
Max: I was rooting for Lyndsey. I wanted her to have that Peter Pan moment. And then…it happened.
In April of 2021, a few months into our friendship, Lyndsey called me in the middle of class.
Lyndsey 4-8-21 00:05 So what's today? Thursday, everything has changed in a week.
Max: That week, the supervisor at orca stadium had texted her.
Lyndsey 5-2-21 10:45: Lyndsey, it's Joe Sanchez. We have a position open at Shamu. Please say that you'll apply. Come back. We miss you. The whales miss you.
Max: A few weeks after she told me the news, and 13 years after she left–Lyndsey went back to SeaWorld.
Lyndsey: I swiped my little badge and I took a picture and was like, I'm back! And they escorted me up to the locker room and I stood in front of Dawn's locker and I cried.
It's just like, surreal because it looks the same, kind of smells the same. The books are the same. just felt like home.
Max: But not everything was the same. This Seaworld was very different from the SeaWorld that Lyndsey left thirteen years before. After Dawn’s death, nobody could get in the water with the whales anymore.
But in those first few months, she didn’t mind the changes. I watched Lyndsey become a whale trainer once again.
Lyndsey 5-22-21 1:40 Yesterday was my first day that I did my own interaction with one of the whales.
Max: A year passed. I looked forward to our monthly calls even more. But one day, she admitted that she’d been frustrated at work for a while.
Lyndsey: I don't really know how to build a relationship with the whales in this new environment.
Max: There are things that Lyndsey once loved to do with the whales
Lyndsey: Smooch their rostrum. Smell their face. Touch the sides of their mouth. There's so much. It's the tactile. The closeness.
Max: All of this was no longer allowed.
My spring break was coming up. Even if what Lyndsey said was true, I knew there was only one place I wanted to go. I wanted to see Lyndsey at SeaWorld.
Lyndsey offered to host me, So I bought my tickets, boarded the plane, and flew to Florida.
Pilot: 75 and overcast skies…
Max: That week, I was completely pulled into the world of Lyndsey’s family. In Lyndsey’s hallway, whale pictures covered the walls. Dawn’s handwritten letters were stuck in frames and hung like ornaments.
Every night we ate dinner together and watched TV. Lyndsey showed album after album of pictures, and as a nomadic college student, I felt a sense of home that I hadn’t in a long time.
Of course, during the day, I did the thing I came there to do. I went to SeaWorld.
It was early morning when I walked through the turnstiles, but I could already hear the kids screaming and the music that came from everywhere. I smelled the saltwater and the fried food and the raw fish.
For a while, I walked aimlessly around the park. I thought I could bring myself to enjoy this place, but I wasn’t feeling the rush of excitement that I had hoped for. I tried to find the places in the park where they still had whale branding. It was pretty much gone. In its place were more roller coasters and water rides.
This place felt so familiar, and yet it wasn’t what I remembered it to be.
I came upon the giant theater that used to be called Shamu Stadium, where I had first watched Believe. I walked through a tunnel, and then–I was there. I looked down at a giant pool filled with deep blue water, and a three-story-tall whale tail.
I was nearly a half hour early for Lyndsey’s show, but there wasn’t anywhere else I really wanted to be. So I walked right down and sat in the front row.
I thought about who I once was, Orca Boy. The old Orca Boy would have been bored in the empty stadium. But I didn’t mind watching the trainers move around backstage. I thought about all the things that Lyndsey had told me. I knew about the showboard and the fish kitchen. I knew that there was a sign in the back that read, “Who’s watching the whales?” And somewhere back there, I knew, was my friend Lyndsey.
It was beautiful in a new way. And I loved it.
At last, the crowds began to trickle in and I heard the music that meant the show was beginning.
Lyndsey: Hello everyone, My name is Lyndsey, and on behalf of our entire Killer whale training team, I'd like to welcome you to Orca Encounter.
Now more than ever, we are honored to share our relationships and what we've learned with all of you. So Seaworld now proudly presents, Orca Encounter!
[“One Song” Segment from the show]
Max: Lyndsey was just a few feet in front of me. She was dancing to the music. She looked so happy.
That week, Lyndsey told me that she had finally found closure as a whale trainer.
Lyndsey: it wasn't just about the whales at all. It was about being there, like the smell of the fish house and putting the laundry in and doing the vitamins for the whales. I was like, okay, I've done it now again, and I feel like I'm, I'm good. I can put that last load of laundry away and say, well done.
Whale done, should I say? Whale done.
[show ends]
Lyndsey: goodbye everyone!
Max: As I followed the crowd down the stadium steps, I thought about the Peter Pan moment I had been waiting for, when I’d get back that wide-eyed boy who loved the splash zone. But after Lyndsey’s show, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
I realized that I couldn’t think about whale riding without thinking about that last phone call Lyndsey had with Dawn. But I couldn’t mourn Dawn's death without remembering the meaning that Lyndsey brought into my life. Without the tragedy, we would have never met.
I couldn’t think about the Believe show without remembering how some whales were once taken from the sea. It did great harm to the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population. But I couldn’t see that damage without seeing how it connected us with the ocean. It created Orca Boy, it created me.
And for that matter, I couldn’t remember Orca Boy without hearing the laughter at science camp when they told me to marry a killer whale. But I also remember that afternoon I spent in a whale costume, when my classmates chased me down for hugs.
A long time ago, when I left Orca Boy, I was running away from the pain of being a misfit. But my journey to reclaim Orca Boy took me to Lyndsey, and I entered someone else’s grief and loneliness. I emerged with a friendship and…the real Orca Boy. This Orca Boy is an acquired taste. He’s found that there’s still magic with whales and their trainers. And he can finally hold space for grief and magic together. Not everyone will like this Orca Boy. But that’s something I can live with.
Thanks
Special thanks to Laura Joyce Davis, Jonah Willihnganz, Melissa Dyrdahl, Jackson Roach, and Megan Calfas for helping produce this episode.
Orca Boy lives on. A year after seeing Lyndsey at SeaWorld, I traveled to Seattle to document the largest anti-captivity activist meetup. At the same time, I helped a group of whale trainers fight against an effort to free an aquarium whale. And after graduating college, I got an internship working with dolphins for the U.S. Navy.
I want to thank Bonnie Swift and her story Tokitae [toki-tie] for challenging my perspectives and giving another side of the captive whale story.
I want to thank a very special friend who isn’t part of Orca Boy: Valerie Greene, a former whale trainer. Over the past year, Valerie has been fighting for a better industry for both trainers and animals. We’ve spent tens of hours on the phone together as writing partners.
I want to thank the many people from the zoo, aquarium, and marine park industry for having faith in me and my story. Marni for encouraging me to speak at a trainer conference, Megan for showing me how my work in robotics is similar to the work of animal trainers, Katie, Ale, Sam, three Kelly’s and all the other people at the International Marine Animal Trainers’ Association who made me feel so welcome. The list goes on and on
Finally, thanks to the Dawn Brancheau Foundation and a very special thanks to Lyndsey Schemm for sharing this story with me and being such a special part of my life.