Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  5. Have your agent make contact.

  “I don’t have an agent.”

  6. Get one. If you’re good enough for us, then you’re good enough to get an agent. We can’t possibly respond to individual inquiries or sort through all the material we get every week. Thank you. We wish you the best of luck with your search elsewhere. Good-bye.

  Well, at least he wouldn’t need to hear his mother’s assessment on continuing failure and fading prospects. But he would be required to hear the growing voice within, asking why, what for, and when. It was no use spending time and money packing up his best work for shipment to New York in search of an agent. He knew this by other instincts and proved it anyway by soliciting fifteen agents. All of them said no in one of three stock forms:

  1. You’re very talented indeed, but I’m not sure how I would market your skills.

  2. Your skills are most apparent, but we don’t accept unsolicited clients, and we’re not taking on new clients at this point in time.

  3. You’re very good to send us your pictures, but your approach does not seem to fit our current needs. Please feel free to stay in touch, and best of luck on your search elsewhere.

  Here, too, a healthy dose of low expectation helped soften the impact, which would be tough enough if the photos showed visible defect. Something seemed amiss. What could warrant rejection over and over on flawless photos? Oh, sure, a blemish or speck might show up here and there under microscopic scrutiny, or maybe the highbrows in New York didn’t know that larvaceans are a type of pelagic tunicate and not digital noise, though they look the same to the untrained eye. Of course the difference could not be explained to anyone east of the Mississippi, because everything was already known there, leaving a world-class photog reeling on the ropes with rejection coming quick and often as a lightning left jab and right hook every time he looked up.

  Rejection takes a toll on the artistic process — take away hope, and fatigue will gain the upper hand every time. Knocking it out of the park all day is less draining than a swing and a miss times three. So a hard working dive instructor still felt physical fatigue at the end of the day and still found it good. As it should be, for a young man in peak condition who can relax over a beer and the occasional herb, who can feel his muscles let go of their constant vigil at last. Adding emotional disappointment to the mix, however, could test a young man’s resolve, could measure his legs in the middle rounds, so to speak, in the thickening transit between youth and middle age. Not that thirty-something was middle. It was not. But those years were heavy enough without constant reminders about tough topics, like mortality, waning vigor, incremental system failure, value to society, self-esteem and the end of youth. Unlike success and recognition, rejection brought on the doubts. They began most often in a trickle that didn’t douse the fire but made it sputter.

  Then came the real test, in which an enterprising, independent film producer called on Ravid at his beach shack one evening to say that he was most impressed with Ravid’s reef photography — that nobody had so meticulously captured pelagic tunicates in a casual reef context.

  At last!

  Ravid felt the surge in his heart with this obscure praise that was nonetheless informed and well placed. The producer, Albert Huffman, lived in one of the Carolinas but worked out of New York and spent considerable time there but couldn’t actually afford to live there, which hardly mattered with the surroundings available in the Carolinas. Besides, things would change soon enough with only a few more successes like those of the last three years, which included an in-depth analysis of three Civil War skirmishes and a scathing look at health care in the Piedmont.

  But never mind all that — he was on to reefs, because they were in the news, dying quick. Highlighting their accelerated demise could get the media’s attention, all right, and with media attention, the world would tune in. “Okay, what do you have in mind?” Albert Huffman asked.

  Ravid laughed. “I’m sitting here drinking a beer.”

  And having the last inch of a skinny joint.

  “I don’t have anything in mind. I can probably think of something. What did you have in mind?”

  “I can tell you this, Ravid...” Albert Huffman rhymed it with “David,” so the name suggested an animal unhinged. But Ravid let it go; better to bag the big game than swat the gnats; better to get this project off square one and onto square two than begin the arduous task of teaching an American the fundamentals of proper accent, beginning with “eed”: No, not RAVE-id but Rov-EED! Eed!...

  Let it go.

  “It’s danger. Danger gets their attention. So this should be easy. You’re out there every day in the ocean, in a world of danger. All we need is to focus on a few threats you face every day with your camera skills and me producing. We’ll ring the bell. Guaranteed. Putting the ingredients together happens to be my specialty.”

  “I don’t sense the ocean as threatening.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’s why you’ll be the hero of this thing, because you look death in the eye and go on about your business, as if death is like a...like a water cooler or a coffeemaker to you.”

  “I’m actually as afraid as the next guy. If I think death — or threat or danger — is anywhere nearby, I leave.”

  “You know what I mean. Take, uh, sharks, for example. You see sharks every day, right?”

  “No. Not every day. But I see them.”

  “Bingo! Sharks. There it is: death and danger. We’ll open with something everyone can relate to — something everyone is afraid of...in their worst nightmares! Eaten by sharks! Perfect.”

  “But they’re nearly all whitetip reef sharks.”

  “How big?”

  “Some get up to ten or twelve feet, but — ”

  “Perfect! Can you get close to them?”

  “They’re whitetips, like puppy dogs. You can put your arm around them. We had one born out at Molokini, so we named him Oliver and put him in a little cubbyhole in the coral, and he lived there. We fed him, and he got bigger than the hole, and he’s still out there. He checks us out every time to see if we brought him any snacks. No death. No danger.”

  “He’s a shark, right? He’s got teeth, right? In fact, he’s got shark teeth in rows, right? I already got the working title: Vicious Killers of the Deep. But I’ll tell you what, bubby, I think that working title is going to make it all the way to rolling credits, if you catch my drift.”

  “Pshh. Oliver? Vicious? Anybody who knows anything will know he’s friendly. Wait! I got it! I was afraid! In fact, deathly afraid! In fact, I almost walked on water!”

  “What! What is it? Better than sharks? More teeth? Bigger?”

  “Shit!”

  “No, what? It’s okay. Tell me!”

  “Shit! I’m telling you! I saw shit! And it’s a big problem here, with so many people flushing number two twice a day, and the sewage treatment plant is too small, so it overflows into the ocean, and then three months later they post a notice in the newspaper to tell you that back in April you swam in shit. And the charter boats dump their shit in the water too. I’m telling you, no tiger shark or white shark or any shark scares me more than turds. You know they’re dirty and can make you very sick!”

  “Oh... Man...”

  “What? You want danger? I’m telling you: turds! They’re the most dangerous things in our water now, and they’re showing up in shoals. You can be out there in the middle of so much beauty, and next thing you know, you’re surrounded. This is a terrific idea! Hey, Turdfish Killers of the Deep! Yes?”

  “Look. You want to do the vicious killers thing or not?”

  “Yes! Blind mullet! Turdfish killers! Of the deep!”

  “God.” The silence ensuing was difficult to assess. Was it in fact a religious moment, a moment of epiphany and gratitude? Or did the independent producer call upon the deity to assuage exasperation? Then came Albert Huffman’s mumble, “What a waste.” Then came the last exchange ever with A. Huffman: “I’ll run it
by the execs. I’ll call you.”

  “Who are the execs?”

  “You know. The producers.”

  “I thought you were the producer.”

  “These are the money guys. The guys who have to answer to the sponsors.”

  So it was that Ravid learned about being strung along, finessed so quick and easy that it felt like nothing, or next to nothing, unless he counted the wispy smoke trickling up from his shorts. In short order he also learned that when hope is engendered but not fulfilled, it’s worse than rejection — that rejection is in fact an act of mercy — a mercy killing, as it were, designed to shorten the agony as perfected in New York.

  The days still ended as they had for years with a couple of beers or a doobie. Refreshments made more sense to a man at a fork in the road, with the doobie providing significant health benefits in those days of questionable purpose — those days of doubt and wondering if “water schlep” was more than a casual label. The marijuana had served at one time as a sledgehammer in the sundown gandy dance, laying track to oblivia. Yet in the way station days of middle age coming on, the legumba was both more and less. In a measured, moderate dose it allowed a cutback on beer and the deletion of tequila altogether. The recent ingredient in the sundown mix, media hype about vicious killing ocean creatures, seemed overly dosed. Any given reef could be safer than any given shopping mall on any given day. The media stuff smelled foul and tasted worse. Showing the ocean as a threat felt like a stubborn stain. Albert Huffman took things beyond rejection to dismissal. Ravid’s breakthrough at National Geographic had come on like a sparkling champagne with a touch of crème de fraise, but then had lost its head and fizzled into gray brown scuz that looked chronic. He’d been discovered, such as it was, then he’d been shunned, as if an artist far from Manhattan was without resources, unavailable for lunch.

  Ravid Rockulz never thought life would remain unchanged. He could stay physically fit into the future, and that was pivotal — and he’d believed that someday he’d know when and what to change. He’d have money to make the change. The details weren’t important yet; it was so far off.

  But where Basha Rivka often said that a person has nothing without her health, Ravid knew that a healthy, unhappy man had less than everything. Why would he feel unhappy, living la vie en rose? The tropics, friends, adventure and beautiful women — what was the problem? Well, this sorting process was complex, because he had no problem, like a sailboat downwind in following seas has no problem — which doesn’t absolve the skipper from watching the barometer and horizon. Squalls can appear at any time, no problem. A squall can race across the sky and vanish, or rush in to dump a deluge, neither of which should present a problem. But a squall line bunching into a system with the barometer dropping a millibar or two will require a skipper to weigh options. He could reduce sail or change course. The situation hardly called for bare poles, battened hatches, sea drogues and hove-to survival mode, yet. It was simply time for assessment — make that reassessment.

  Most dive instructors are seasoned veterans by age thirty, spending their years of peak physical strength on the steep learning curve and second nature. With water wisdom from experience, an instructor can lead and control more by presence than physical force — he can see most situations as they develop. But the best watermen also learn the hard way, by physical force. Ravid had been a diver with natural aptitude seeking a job. He’d found a career by default. We are what we do. He’d come late to the game at twenty-three, an age when many nitrogen junkies have stopped counting their dives, because thousands of dives don’t prove experience. They count repetitions of the same old dives at the same old spots, with a hazardous dive or crazy tourist thrown in. The hardcore elite with the most dives, highest income and few casualties claim that they breathed compressed air first, then learned to walk and talk as necessary for getting along in society. The end.

  The industry was macho; the worst of the hardheads got bent or lost clients or failed in business. The decompression tables cut no slack, and every tourist has the potential to process nitrogen off the charts. The tables got adjusted conservatively, because disregarding the tables could change a life or end it. Even the worst macho idiots knew this, so errors tended to be honest, leaving ample room for macho expression elsewhere.

  For example, dives were counted to about a thousand, then not counted. They became countless — an appendage of a seasoned diver. Most instructors stopped counting in the second year or so, or wouldn’t admit to counting. Counting was for novices who hadn’t yet accepted life at depth.

  Ravid Rockulz was pleased to reach six hundred dives by his second year, knowing he could break a thousand soon. No, wait: two tanks daily would be seven hundred and thirty if he didn’t miss a day, which he would, because you need a day off to do something else every now and then. But still, in about eight months, if he threw in, say, three night dives a week, or two — well, he’d break a thousand by his third year. He’d have been an instructor for a year and a half by then, which was very fast. But who’s counting?

  Nobody is who, because a raw number indicated repetition and tedium on the same routine with six tourists daily, who soon looked the same. Ravid stared at familiar faces. Weren’t you here last week, or year? Do I remember you? He stopped staring because he couldn’t remember. Repeat customers greeted him heartily, saying it was truly great to see him again, hoping that today’s dive would be as unbelievably, incredibly spectacular as last year’s dive. Remember? We went to...

  He went along with equal zest, “Yes! It’s wonderful to see you again.” Most repeats laughed short, so apparent was the memory lapse. Then came the reverie, when he glazed over in awe and wonder at what was different today from a year ago, or three years ago, except for another circle round the sun, gone up in bubbles.

  So a seasoned veteran did not count dives, because it was pointless after several thousand dives. Oh, I have thirteen thousand dives. What? Are you nuts? Thirteen thousand? Did you count them? Would you rather dive than fuck? Will your bones turn to ash? The macho elite easily dismissed bone necrosis from excess nitrogen in the bloodstream with a baseball cap that said:

  Nitrogen Junkie.

  Ha!

  Counting dives became so faux pas that the exact count gave way to a new expression of expertise: We run six, seven hundred dives a year each, so the gear has to be tough. We don’t have time for breakdowns. Get it? Six or seven hundred dives a year was the pro standard. If you wanted to stay in, stay down, stay wet for five years or ten, there was your count. Twenty years? It happened once or twice, but reality took its toll sooner or later. Age happens to everyone, if they make it. Even your top dive instructors in collective denial get stooped and leathery with sinewy muscles wrinkled as the rest from so much flexing. Why would they flaunt their measure of exposure to the elements? They wouldn’t; suffice it to say they were in for the long haul.

  Besides, a raw number didn’t count for squat next to the tall tale. Any physical pursuit will engender lore — the big one that got away, or the summit beyond reach — so too, deep dives daily made danger a regular presence. Dive adventures had bigger stakes than more pedestrian pursuits. If a climber failed to summit, he could likely climb down. If a fisherman lost a big one, he could have another beer and two more hotdogs. Big deal. Even a sailor whose boat sank could tread water. But a scuba professional at depth with six strangers, mostly novices with little instinct on any given day, knew the price of error. People died — not often, but then how many drownings, bends or embolization victims do you need to gain attention?

  Ravid could spin yarns with the best, and the boys did sit and spin over a few beers and the latest dope and a cigarette or two, because of the strange appetite for nicotine after breathing a couple of tanks compressed. But the yarns could turn against the teller, could tangle a reputation in dark language, like unsafe, bent again, embolism, decompression, no safety stop, ran empty at depth, panicked on emergency free ascent, narced at 110 feet, and in
to the nightmare medley of things gone wrong. Too many stories could generate the knee-jerk — a short laugh, a scoff or scorn or furrowed forehead. Kill a tourist, and the details would be audited ad nauseam, till diver error could be accepted. Kill two tourists, or three, and the tourists for many seasons would see the dark shadow on the dive leader in question — or hear about it.

  Cheerfully dumb but not as dumb as they seemed, the tourists were often successful shirts back in civilization. Most could read subtle signs. Body language was a memo. A chronic fuckup could face years of trying to forget, of compensating by exemplary diligence, as if the job wasn’t tough enough.

  Some stories of things gone wrong were common, not to be taken lightly but accepted as having humorous potential. The most common event was nitrogen narcosis, caused by nitrogen on-gassing at seventy feet or deeper. With air compressed to half its former volume, or twice its former density, at every atmosphere — every thirty-three feet — of descent, a diver at seventy feet will breathe twice as much nitrogen. Or is that three times? It gets tricky, and getting it wrong can bend a diver or make her sick and unstable. Narcosis is a lesser risk but still a risk. It brings on euphoria, in which the sea makes ultimate sense, answers all questions and opens its arms seductively. It speaks with the voice of God, who can be a mermaid of perfect proportions. Ravid Rockulz advised many a six-pack — industry slang for six tourists — of the risk of narcosis, particularly on one of his boat’s more popular dives. Standard procedure was to gather round on entry, treading calmly and signaling okay, going from snorkel to regulator. The exchange continued on descent, okay on ear clearing, okay on feeling, okay, okay and okay. The dive plan called for drifting for twenty-five minutes at 110 feet along the back wall of a crater, an advanced dive, but an easy one with proper care — a certain favorite for drastic views: no bottom, big creatures and a current to move divers through the water with ease. Then the boat would pick them up at the end of the wall.

  Except that on one particular day the tourists were Japanese, an oddity in those days, when most Japanese tourists traveled in tight-knit groups of twenty or thirty that never separated. If they got in the water at all, each would put a hand on the boat, hold onto their mask with the other hand, look down briefly and then come up chattering like a chorus of tape recorders in reverse.