down. If they couldn’t see me in the light of day, what chance was there they’d spot me in the dark? None, zip, zero. I began to cry—the first time I’d cried since I was a kid. There was a hole inside of me. I was shivering nonstop, like a machine about to break down. I was dead.
“Then, just after the moon rose, this gigantic cabin cruiser—fifty feet long at least—comes cutting across the waves straight for me. It was lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmastime, they were having a party. I could see them, gray heads, cocktail glasses, two women in low-cut dresses. ’Help!’ I scream. ’Help!’ The engine was chugging away, waves slapping the bow: they couldn’t hear me. I fought my way toward the point where I thought the boat would pass and tried once more, screaming till my throat gave out. Then, like a miracle, like statues bleeding and the dead coming to life, one of the gray heads turned. ’Here!’ I shouted. One woman touched the other’s arm and pointed.”
Gesh’s voice had quavered. He sat in silence for a moment, running the tip of his tongue over his upper lip and then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They didn’t even have the radio on,” he said, waving his palm in frustration, “they didn’t even know I was out there. Luck is all it was. Blind luck. I came on board naked, racked with shivers, two miles off Palos Verdes in the most shark-infested waters on the southern coast. One of the men aboard is a doctor. He tells me I’m suffering from hypothermia and makes me get into this down jacket, wraps me in blankets and gives me hot pea soup. Which I hate.
“When we get back, Denise is waiting on the pier along with a bunch of news reporters and guys in Coast Guard uniform. She’s barefoot, still in her bathing suit, with a shawl wrappedaround her shoulders. I don’t know what came over me—I should have been filled with joy, right, glad to be alive and all that—but when I saw her there looking like the distraught heroine I just thought, You stupid bitch. You worthless piece of shit. Somebody was snapping pictures, flashbulbs bursting, she was running down the planks with her arms outstretched like it was the end of a movie or something, and I just couldn’t take it. I gave her a stiff arm like Earl Campbell—caught her right in the breastbone—and sent her sprawling over the edge of the dock, ten feet down, into the blackness. There was a scream and a splash, and suddenly everybody cleared a path for me.”
That was it. Finis. Gesh sat there, big and rumpled, something like a smile of satisfaction tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t believe it,” Phil said. “You really pushed her in?”
Gesh looked as self-righteous as a fundamentalist at a book burning. He drained his glass and flashed us a grin. “Bet your ass I did.”
Phil started it, with a snicker that gave way to a bray. Then I joined in, counterpoint, and finally Gesh, three-part harmony. We were drunk. We were alive. And for the second time that day, we were laughing. We laughed impetuously, immoderately, irreverently, wiping tears from our eyes. Late into the night.
Chapter 3
“All right. You won’t actually need to know about this for another two weeks or so, but you may as well get an idea right now.” Dowst leaned on the haft of his shovel, patting at his face with a red bandanna. Behind him, banks of mist obscured a sick pale sun, light spread across the horizon like putty. At his feet, a hole. Raw yellow earth, gouged out like a boil or canker sore. “You want to go down about two, two and a half feet, and make it wide around as a garbage can lid.” Suddenly he was grunting or wheezing in the oddest way, like a horse with a progressive lung disease. It took me a minute before I realized what it was: he was laughing. “Or a”—he wheezed again—“or a big cut-glass punchbowl.”
It was a joke. Phil, Gesh and I glanced at one another. Ha-ha.
We were standing over
“Then, just after the moon rose, this gigantic cabin cruiser—fifty feet long at least—comes cutting across the waves straight for me. It was lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmastime, they were having a party. I could see them, gray heads, cocktail glasses, two women in low-cut dresses. ’Help!’ I scream. ’Help!’ The engine was chugging away, waves slapping the bow: they couldn’t hear me. I fought my way toward the point where I thought the boat would pass and tried once more, screaming till my throat gave out. Then, like a miracle, like statues bleeding and the dead coming to life, one of the gray heads turned. ’Here!’ I shouted. One woman touched the other’s arm and pointed.”
Gesh’s voice had quavered. He sat in silence for a moment, running the tip of his tongue over his upper lip and then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They didn’t even have the radio on,” he said, waving his palm in frustration, “they didn’t even know I was out there. Luck is all it was. Blind luck. I came on board naked, racked with shivers, two miles off Palos Verdes in the most shark-infested waters on the southern coast. One of the men aboard is a doctor. He tells me I’m suffering from hypothermia and makes me get into this down jacket, wraps me in blankets and gives me hot pea soup. Which I hate.
“When we get back, Denise is waiting on the pier along with a bunch of news reporters and guys in Coast Guard uniform. She’s barefoot, still in her bathing suit, with a shawl wrappedaround her shoulders. I don’t know what came over me—I should have been filled with joy, right, glad to be alive and all that—but when I saw her there looking like the distraught heroine I just thought, You stupid bitch. You worthless piece of shit. Somebody was snapping pictures, flashbulbs bursting, she was running down the planks with her arms outstretched like it was the end of a movie or something, and I just couldn’t take it. I gave her a stiff arm like Earl Campbell—caught her right in the breastbone—and sent her sprawling over the edge of the dock, ten feet down, into the blackness. There was a scream and a splash, and suddenly everybody cleared a path for me.”
That was it. Finis. Gesh sat there, big and rumpled, something like a smile of satisfaction tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t believe it,” Phil said. “You really pushed her in?”
Gesh looked as self-righteous as a fundamentalist at a book burning. He drained his glass and flashed us a grin. “Bet your ass I did.”
Phil started it, with a snicker that gave way to a bray. Then I joined in, counterpoint, and finally Gesh, three-part harmony. We were drunk. We were alive. And for the second time that day, we were laughing. We laughed impetuously, immoderately, irreverently, wiping tears from our eyes. Late into the night.
Chapter 3
“All right. You won’t actually need to know about this for another two weeks or so, but you may as well get an idea right now.” Dowst leaned on the haft of his shovel, patting at his face with a red bandanna. Behind him, banks of mist obscured a sick pale sun, light spread across the horizon like putty. At his feet, a hole. Raw yellow earth, gouged out like a boil or canker sore. “You want to go down about two, two and a half feet, and make it wide around as a garbage can lid.” Suddenly he was grunting or wheezing in the oddest way, like a horse with a progressive lung disease. It took me a minute before I realized what it was: he was laughing. “Or a”—he wheezed again—“or a big cut-glass punchbowl.”
It was a joke. Phil, Gesh and I glanced at one another. Ha-ha.
We were standing over
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