by A. K. Smith
At seventeen, not for a minute did he imagine this would be the last time he laid eyes on his father. He struggled to replay the moment. It was getting more worn and fuzzy each time he tried to rewind the conversations in his mind. He asked himself the question a hundred times, what would have happened if he had gone on the Blue Hole dive with his father, would he be here right now? Would his father be alive?
It was a crazy accident, the probability of being struck by lightning or winning a billion-dollar lottery card would have been higher. His father was diving with two other experienced divers and a boat captain in the Blue Hole. One moment descending slowly together to 110 feet and suddenly at breakneck speed, his father plummeted.
How could his weights be so heavy? Both divers stated one minute they were descending slowly together, clearing out every ten feet, and then his dad dropped past them, as if he were a balloon full of air and someone punctured it…falling. All they could see was his bubbles, lots and lots of bubbles. One minute he was in their field of visibility, next, he was gone.
Frantically they looked for him, trying to descend slowly in their panic. When they spotted movement, both divers realized it was a group of large steel-gray sharks swimming in the hazy depth. Ryder couldn’t imagine the deep black water full of fins, and searching frantically for your partner while trying to dive at appropriate speed with the sharks swimming below you. It seemed horrific. When he dove with his father, they were always in constant sight of each other. His father was a master diver. How did it go so wrong?
They found his regulator hose, bitten off and floating. The damage on the equipment confirmed to be made by sharks, great white to be specific. The Belizean Coast Guard was called immediately for the search and rescue. They had jurisdiction over the Blue Hole and, unfortunately, this was not a unique occurrence.
The BCG continued to search for the body, Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. There had been several shark attacks in the past, in the Blue Hole, but none reported recently. Kendall and his dad’s business partner in the bar, Steve, flew down to Belize on Friday and assisted in a private search until dusk on Sunday. The BCG had the final jurisdiction and after searching and spotting a great white shark in the area, the balance of probabilities ruled “accidental death” based on the two diving companions’ matching statements and the overwhelming evidence when parts of his diving gear surfaced.
Kendall buried an empty box. Ryder had a hard time understanding the sense of the empty box, but his father’s diving gear rested inside beside his Uncle Dan in a cemetery plot not too far from Jackson’s Easy. He squinted his eyes remembering the piercing shots of the twenty-one-gun salute from the Navy and the burning smell of gunpowder.
Dive trip? Dive trip with Kendall? Kendall was crazy. He certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with it or with her. She was really losing it. Maybe he should get her some medication. Take her to the DUN playground. She needed help.
Chapter 11
It had to be around here somewhere.
Kendall’s tired arms threw the black garbage bag, heavy with clothes, against the others in the corner. A layer of fuzz filled the air, covering the floor, windowsills, and furniture.
Even with the dust, a lingering smell of Polo and musk, mixed in with a hint of cigar and wood climbed up her nostrils. Inhaling, shoulders raised and released, Kendall’s eyes moistened, and a familiar sharp pain in her stomach made her slump to the office floor.
Where was Tim’s dive bag? It was hard for her to remember what she brought back from Belize after Tim’s death. Steve had been there helping to arrange another search in the Blue Hole. It was a fuzzy time. When the Belizean government ruled the official death, she couldn’t comprehend much of anything. Everything felt wrong, and she tried to wake up from the nightmare going on in her head. What she packed, what she wore, or if she packed anything was lost in her mind. One item she remembered, Tim’s vintage leather traveler bag.
Like a child carrying a safety blanket close to her heart, Kendall would lower her nose to the clothes inside his bag and inhale his scent; she hugged his leather traveler bag like a pillow the whole way home. It was all she had left. When she packed everything up in her marathon cleaning day, she left his leather traveler in the bedroom closet, unpacked. It was the last thing with him; she liked having it in her closet.
Sitting on the floor, Kendall noticed something catching the light under the bookcase. Sticking her hand underneath the bottom shelf, she could feel a suitcase of some kind wedged in under the shelf, a tight fit. She had a sudden flash of a steel-like briefcase sitting in Tim’s office when they first started dating. She remembered making a joke about his titanium burglar-proof briefcase, “so strong even you cannot get in it.” She could not recall noticing it after they got married.
Well, maybe it was stuck under the bookcase, all this time. She tried to pull it out but it caught in the shelf’s legs. She yanked it with all her strength, bracing her body with her feet. She soon realized to get it out she would have to move all the books off the shelves and the bookcase. Must have been here a long time, she wiped her dusty fingers. It was as if the bookcase were built on top of it. She would deal with the briefcase later. Right now, her focus was on finding the dive bag, hoping something was relevant to the Puerto Morelos trip Tim had planned for Ryder.
Dive bag, where are you?
She hadn’t thought about it since the funeral, was it left in Belize?
That’s it, Steve has it. Steve is the one who put his mask and snorkel in the empty coffin.
Grabbing her phone, she touched Steve Crawford’s name and face on the iPhone screen. It went directly to an impersonal mailbox. It exasperated her most people did not have a personalized voicemail message. Most of the students on campus rarely checked voice messages. She and Tim used to laugh about technology, make jokes how the world would evolve into humanity where people lost their voice because no one talked to each other—only texted, blogged, or updated their status. Children would be forced to take classes to learn how to talk and socialize. It made her think of Ryder and how she couldn’t get him to pick up the phone and just talk to her, call her back and have an actual conversation.
Kendall mumbled out loud, “Doesn’t anyone answer their phone anymore?”
She looked at her watch. eight p.m. Steve should be behind the bar at Jackson’s Easy.
****
When she pulled into the parking lot, she had the strangest feeling. Kendall had been here hundreds of times to meet Tim, but tonight she had a sensation at the back of her neck, as if someone was watching her. Impossible. She looked around the empty parking lot.
Only a few cars were left on the street and in the small lot adjacent to Jackson’s Easy. Most folks driving by would not have given the dim lighting on the old stone blasted building a second glance. No neon bar signs, no loud music blaring out, nothing to make you think it was the local watering hole. She parked beside Steve’s black Carrera2 soft-top, the sight of it stirring up memories of happy road trips. She was glad Steve was at the bar. She decided to tell him about Tim’s birthday dive trip for Ryder. Maybe Tim had mentioned it to him; perhaps he could supply a little more information.
Staring at the door to Jackson’s Easy, she closed her eyes, biting her top lip. If only he would be here when she opened the heavy old door, as he was a thousand times before. Her heart ached. The lump reappeared in her throat and the moisture clouded her eyes. Time did not ease the pain. The want, the desire to have someone here with her was so overwhelming she wasn’t sure if she could step inside.
She thought of the night when it all began: Jackson’s Easy had been voted in the Top 10 Best Bar category of Washingtonian Magazine and she had persuaded her co-workers to come check out this historic landmark. The article stated the bar, a tribute to the 1920s, was at one time a cigar shop from 1922-1933, but it was a front. The basement had a cabinet built behind a masonry wall, rumored to be a hiding place for the Underground Railroad. It also had
a wine room with a fake wall, where ancient cupboards held the once illegal potions, now available at any 7-11.
The work group was in good spirits, it was Friday, a chance for everyone to blow off steam and de-stress. They barged in laughing, stumbling in the door, after figuring out how to enter from the not so obvious outside bar entrance. First, they had to push a button, really a buzzer, and speak the password in order to gain access. Candles, low lighting, and a mellow luminosity created an ambiance of soft conversations and privacy. A fireplace was burning in the back, casting a soft glow on all who walked in. This was not a bright, crowded, loud sports bar. No, this was historical casualness with Washington politicians who lived in the bedroom communities of DC mixing with local Gettysburg residents. Some relaxed in their T-shirts and jeans, and others with ties undone and suit coats on the chair beside them, happy to be out of the limelight. It was the spot for those who wanted a drink in a quiet, cool, and comfortable place with character.
The house rules of Jackson’s Easy were printed on the entrance wall:
Speak softly or easy—thus “speak easy”—a term coined in history to speak quietly, not draw attention to yourself, especially if you are asking for liquor…
No yelling at your bartender,
No use of cell phones,
No photography,
No loud dancing, and
No actions to call attention to yourself.
Al Jolson’s melodic voice filled the dimly lit room accented with dark wood and cozy lighting. It was impossible to know who settled in the ultra-comfortable high back chairs, quietly going unnoticed. The main floor of the bar was much bigger than it appeared, and several small cubbies tucked into the back corners.
Kendall and her colleagues congregated at an empty round pub table in the corner. Kendall read the house rules on the wall out loud, and before her burly colleague Ken could yell his typical husky voice to the bartender, she grabbed money and went up to the bar to order the table a round of drinks.
Tim was talking to someone at the bar, with a pen behind his ear and a devilish look. He looked at her, kept talking and looked again. He had smiled at his friend and said, “Excuse me, Skip, let me help this patient lady with a drink.”
His smile was contagious and confident. In the low light, his eyes grabbed her attention; they were an unusual color. Instantly she was racking her brain for whom he resembled…Rob Lowe meets George Clooney with light eyes? Is that a possible combination? Not quite, he had his own unique look, she decided, a very interesting combination. Uncomfortably handsome. Her heart raced as she ordered and he made eye contact. She went back to the table empty-handed and a little self-conscious at her physical reaction.
“He’s bringing the drinks over,” she said to the group. Her heart beat at the surface of her skin as if you could see it thumping from the outside, and she could feel the attraction, way down there. She had hoped no one noticed.
****
Ready to open the heavy old door again, she knew one moment, so long ago, changed her life forever. Hindsight, perfect all the time.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed the button and repeated her password, “bourbon,” and the door unlocked. One hundred different words would open the door during business hours; most of them names of liquor. Tim and Steve used to change them every so often just to keep the patrons guessing.
The smell caught her off guard making her dizzy. She loved that musky, earthy smell of an old place, especially one with liquor. She would catch a whiff of it on Tim’s hair or clothing when he would come home and instantly, as all smells do, her senses brought her a memory.
She remembered a Sunday helping Tim stock the bar; on most Sundays they were closed. He told her to select the music on the iPod and she had picked an old favorite of hers by the Rolling Stones, “Satisfaction.” He laughed as Mick Jagger came blaring out…and asked her, if she couldn’t get any satisfaction? She had answered, Yes, but I try, and I try…She continued to help put the rest of the case of beer in the cooler. She felt Tim grab her from behind and the music changed to Frank Sinatra’s “I’ve got you under my skin.” He moved her slowly in a circle, then a waltz-like move to the hard wood floor and slowly unbuttoned her shirt, and he whispered softly in her ear, “Dance with me naked…oh, I’ve got you under my skin, Kendall.” She had never danced naked with anyone, definitely not in a bar. She had known then he was under her skin. Later in bed, he had whispered he loved her, right before she fell into a deep sleep.
Shaking away the memories, she pushed her shoulders back and walked toward the back bar area. Steve’s face lit up and he came out around the bar to give her a hug.
Steve and Tim were polar opposites in looks. Steve had an all-American boy look even in his early forties. His blond hair darkened over the years, almost touched the low ceilings. He bent down and gave Kendall a big hug and led her to the back room.
“Hi!” He hugged her again. “Everything okay?” Steve inspected her as if he were checking a basket of fruit to see if any were bruised. “I mean it’s so good to see you…wouldn’t have expected to see you tonight. But it’s so good, really good, you look great!” His handsome looks accented by a large white smile.
“Yes, Steve, everything is fine. I just thought it was time to come in here.” She smiled, something she hadn’t done in a while. “I wanted to ask you something, are you busy?”
“Never too busy for you, never…it’s been a slow night but steady, did you read the monthly sheets from last month?”
“Yes, well…no, I didn’t read them but I got them, thanks. It’s not about the business. I know you are doing a wonderful job. Tim would be happy the way you have kept everything going so well.”
Saying his name aloud made the room shrink and grow quieter. The office had changed. This was a very organized office, no clutter, and a new oversized painting took up most of the space on the main wall. Her eyes stopped on the painting. She had never seen it before. It was a picture of the ocean, a giclée, high quality print, the color of the sea so radiant it was hard to take her eyes off the painting and her mind instantly went to diving.
“Do you know what happened to Tim’s dive bag?”
Steve turned around, his brows raised. “Tim’s dive bag, yes…it’s here somewhere.”
“Great, I looked for it everywhere; I figured it must be here. Where is it?”
“I think it’s in the storage closet, let me get you a drink while I look for it. Pinot noir? Or a beer?”
“No thanks, Steve, I’ll just take the bag, I’m a little tired.”
Steve chewed on his lip. “Seriously, Kendall, it’s so special you are here…at least have a drink with me.” He rubbed his neck. “Just you coming into the bar is a reason to celebrate.” He walked toward the wine rack. “What will it be?” he asked, reaching for a bottle. “Wine?”
True, she walked into the bar and her heart wasn’t in her throat. It would be a normal thing to do, visit with an old friend and have a glass of wine, rather than storm in for a minute to get something of Tim’s and leave. It would be normal. She was trying to change, as she flashed back to the night of the pills.
“Pinot sounds great, thanks.”
She stood by the print of the sea. “This is new, Steve, I like it, where did you get it?”
With two glasses of wine in his hand, he offered one to Kendall. “Uum, Belize.” His face turned various shades of red and he clamped his lips tight. Puzzled at his expression, it dawned on Kendall, it was a close-up photo of a section of the Blue Hole; what a beautiful place to die.
Steve turned and retreated into the closet, Kendall could see the handles of the dive bag, he unzipped a side pocket. Kendall wished she could make him more comfortable, she walked over and smiled. “He loved that bag, went all over the world with him.”
Steve extracted something shiny out of the pocket.
“What’s that?” Kendall asked.
Steve swallowed, his adams’ apple quivered. “I don’t know
, it’s some sort of old key, thought maybe it went to the bar.” He hesitated, clutching the object tightly in his hand before he opened his palm.
She took the not so typical key; it felt substantial, some type of heavy metal. She couldn’t read the imprint, the letters intricately tiny; embossed, a circle with an elaborate wing on it, maybe a bird.
She handed it back. “Well, try it out on the old doors back here, or maybe it’s an original key to one of the fake wooden doors downstairs.” Kendall focused on the dive bag. “Let me know…it looks pretty unusual.”
“I will, I spotted it when I picked it up at the police station. It was on the list of items in the bag. I just now remembered it.” He looked uncomfortable again, as if he hated bringing up Tim to Kendall.
She sympathized with Steve; he lost his best friend, college roommate, and business partner. She hoped the day would come when mentioning Tim didn’t make the air so thick. She was part of the problem. It was up to her to change and now she possessed more strength and the desire to live again.
“I got an unusual call the other day.”
Steve lifted his eyebrows, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Apparently, Tim had arranged a dive trip in the cenotes in Puerto Morelos for Ryder. An eighteenth birthday present. Did Tim tell you about the trip?”
Steve shook his head slowly. “A dive trip for Ryder’s birthday? No…I knew he wanted Ryder to go to the Blue…” Steve caught himself mentioning Belize, and stopped. “No, I didn’t know anything about a Puerto Morelos trip, how did you find out?”
“A man named Scout. Some cavern diver in Mexico, called and said Tim had prepaid and arranged for this dive trip and in November postponed the trip till May when Ryder turns nineteen.” Kendall took a breath, “I guess Ryder was filming Paradise Valley on his eighteenth birthday and couldn’t take vacations, so he postponed it to this year.”