The Support Ship
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During the last week of June 2023, as the academic year was winding down, my B2 level English class of two students started a new unit. The B2 is an upper-intermediate level, also called an independent level, and passing the exam for certification attests that you can interact fluidly and spontaneously with a native speaker without strain for either person. In Spain, as in other European countries, many study programs and many employers require B2 certification in English. My students, both young women, were signed up to take the B2 exam in July, and I wasn’t sure they’d pass. They would need to make the most of the time left before the exam: two more classes, then almost a month on their own to review the grammar and vocabulary we’d hit during the time they’d been enrolled at the language school. If they passed the exam, I would likely never see them again. If they didn’t, they might return in the fall for more classes and another stab at the exam. But they might decide that studying at the school hadn’t worked for them, and, instead, look for a different approach to learning English. Neither student was studying English for love of the language but because having the B2 would make it easier to find a job—a first job for one and a new job for the other. Both were thinking of their future prospects. One was 19, the other in her early 20s.
The new unit was titled “Nothing but the Truth,” a phrase that rang no bells for either student. I explained the use of the words in U.S. courtrooms, and asked what they could recall of courtroom dramas they might have watched, but neither of the two was a fan of detective shows, police procedurals, or true crime. I asked if they had heard about any recent crimes. Again, the answer was no.
I had one story to tell, though it didn’t quite fit the bill. Rather than a crime, it was the tale of a recent terrible accident: the loss of the submersible Titan, which had been launched into the North Atlantic from a support ship a week earlier, on June 18, en route to the wreck of the Titanic. Within two hours, it had lost communication with the waiting support ship, and then, later that day, failed to resurface as scheduled. A search began. Four days later, debris was found on the ocean bottom, proof that the submersible had imploded and all five occupants were dead. “Did you hear about the accident?” I asked. The students had heard nothing.
The rest of my information was sketchy, but I shared it, mentioning some particulars about the construction and operation of the craft, some safety concerns, and who was on board: the pilot, a father and son paying for the ride at $250,000 per ticket, another paying passenger, and a Titanic expert who would serve as a guide to the wreck. I wasn’t sure how we would incorporate our new vocabulary, related to truth and justice, in talking about the accident, but maybe my students would see a way.
Of the five people in the submersible, it was the son who got my sympathy. He had been terrified to go on the dive, according to some sources, but because the launch was on Father’s Day, he had gone as a present to his dad. I asked my students if they thought the father had coerced the son. Both said no. Unless a threat was issued, it was just one person trying to influence another, nothing criminal about it.
“A father will have power, emotional influence. Trying to get a particular outcome—isn’t that coercive?”
“No, not if the son was an adult,” said the older student. She had long dark hair almost down to her waist and a habit of shifting her eyes that I had learned was from shyness, not caginess.
The other student was a competitive swimmer with strawberry-blond hair and freckled skin. She had an exuberant manner when speaking that quickly faded into blankness when her classmate was talking, as if she couldn’t be bothered to listen to the other student. But what looked like boredom might have been her way of stepping away from the spotlight to leave space for her classmate. “How old was he?” she asked, returning to the conversation.
“Nineteen, like you.”
In Spain, at 19 you are an adult. Chances are, you are still living with your parents because for young people, leaving home is not so strong an urge as it is in the States, and economically it’s often not feasible.
The young man had a seat on the Titan because his mother gave up hers. Had he refused to go, he’d be a wealthy man today, instead of a dead one. Wealthy, saddened to have lost his father, and amazed he’d so narrowly avoided death. Instead, it was his mother who escaped. Did she send him to his death? Criminal, we say about such outcomes, but they aren’t really—just deplorable and shocking, as bad luck often is.
Then I asked about Stockton Rush, the pilot for that excursion and the CEO of OceanGate, the company that produced and owned the Titan. About Rush’s demise, one feels differently than about the others: he had been warned by several people about the possibility of implosion, and he had apparently sought to mitigate the legal ramifications of any potential mishap by calling his paying passengers participants and the fee they paid an investment. The trouble was the material he used for the Titan: carbon fiber, which weakens and breaks down under repeated stress. Each test dive to prove the submersible seaworthy actually made it less so. Of carbon, you cannot say, as is true of steel and perhaps of people, that what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. Yet, though Rush put his passengers and crew at risk, he joined them. One wants to imagine him thinking until the last second that whatever might go wrong on this dive, he would emerge stronger, his mettle tested.
Nevertheless, in his eagerness to corner the market of underwater tourism, he had cut corners and ignored concerns from experts about the safety of the submersible. Could he be accused of criminal negligence?
“But the paying guests wanted to go?” the first student asked.
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
I confided to my students that I would have never climbed into the submersible for any dive, much less one to a depth of 4,000 feet, the limit of the craft. Onboard, there was no location system, and the vessel was dependent on text messages from the support ship to know where it was and where it should go. Even the hatch of the submersible could not be opened from inside. The support ship was everything, and launch was the equivalent of being cut free, bringing to my mind an infant birthed into water, exposed and set loose in a sometimes harsh environment. But cut free also suggests a balloon released into the atmosphere, sailing up, up, and away. My students, as young adults, were sawing through the ropes binding them to the support system of their parents. The older was already living with her boyfriend, though still dependent on her mother for lots of logistical help. The younger, still at home, was a swimmer and would be lifeguarding at the beach that summer, her first job, earning enough to pay some of her expenses. With a happy grin she said she planned to spend part of her earnings on clothes because she liked fashion. She liked shopping, too: the array of choices, the colors, the different materials, the feel of fabric between her fingers.
When I last saw them, more than a year ago, my two students were about to launch from the school, prepared with years of English study. How did it turn out for them? The older passed her exam. She was safely on her way. The younger did not. Did the outcome make her stronger and more determined? I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since I wished them both luck at the close of our final class. At least, unlike Rush, she gets another chance if she chooses.
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