Sharks & Boys

by Kristen Tracy

  “Do I stink too?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Landon says.

  “As bad as you?”

  “No, you still smell a little bit like a girl,” he says.

  A dull light washes over us. It must be close to morning. Looking around, I realize now that one side of the raft is too empty. With Dale still trying to hold onto his log and Wick switching turns with him, and everybody else avoiding the spots left by Skate and Burr, we’re not doing a good enough job balancing the raft.

  “Someone should sit there,” I say.

  Munny and Sov look at each other. Wick leans forward and begins to crawl toward the spot.

  “No, I’ll go,” I say. “I could use the change of scenery.”

  Landon squeezes my hand and then lets go. I inch my way to my new spot. I lean my head back a bit. My neck feels tired. I’m surprised that I never noticed how heavy my head was until now. I heard somewhere that the human head weighs ten pounds. Mine feels like it’s pushing thirty. I close my eyes. I feel somebody touching my leg, and I open my eyes and see Dale. I flinch.

  “No, don’t,” he says. “I want you to know that I’m sorry about what I said.”

  I nod. He’s said so many rude, offensive, and ridiculous things that I’m not even sure what he’s referring to.

  “About your cut and leaving a blood trail,” he adds.

  “Oh, okay,” I say. Maybe he thinks he’s going to die, and he needs to confess his sins. To be honest, I feel like confessing a few things too. Something about impending death makes you want to lighten your soul.

  He turns to Sov and Munny.

  “Dudes, I’m sorry about what I said about Cambodia. And I’m sorry about your grandparents.”

  I search Dale’s sunburned face. He looks sincere about this.

  Munny and Sov don’t respond. They’re much more stoic than I am.

  “Did you ever meet them?” Dale asks.

  “They were killed before we were born,” Sov says. “My mother was only five.”

  “Yeah, she escaped into to Thailand and then made it to California with a group of refugees,” Munny says.

  “I’m sorry,” Dale says.

  We drift for a moment in silence, but then Dale speaks again.

  “Can I ask you two something?”

  Sov and Munny shrug their shoulders.

  “So, what do your names mean?”

  “Sov means Saturday, and Munny means wise,” Munny answers. “They’re traditional Cambodian names.”

  “Oh, that’s cool. I’m named after an uncle who was a coal miner. He died in an explosion when he was really young. Twenty.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say. That means Wick’s uncle was killed in a mine explosion. I wonder why he never told me this. I glance at him. Our eyes lock, but neither of us says anything. I break his gaze and look back to Sov and Munny and Dale. All this time I’ve been so focused on the current tragedy.

  “You are going to kiss Dina Sneed. You are going to start a blog.” I point at Munny and Sov as I remind them of their wishes. “I am going to Machu Picchu.” After aiming my finger at myself I direct it toward Dale. “And you are going to toot some blow.”

  Dale’s mouth turns into a smile, stretching the skin, popping the scabs on his lips open. “Maybe I should skip the cocaine and go to Machu Picchu too.”

  I’m sure he’s kidding around, but his answer surprises me.

  “Not with me,” I say, joking and not joking at the same time.

  “I bet you change your mind,” he says. “I’ve got good endurance. I’d carry the tent.”

  I don’t think hiking Machu Picchu works that way. I think you have to go with an official tour group, and they provide the tents. But I don’t tell Dale this. I only manage to say, “Hmm.”

  “I could hike the shit out of that mountain,” Dale assures me. He rubs at the broken scabs on his lips, smearing blood on his fingers and mouth.

  Does he really want me to agree to let him join me on my life-sustaining wish? I am too tired to consider hiking a mountain with Dale.

  “I’ll carry the water too,” he says.

  I consider this. “We’re going to need a ton.”

  “As much as you want,” Dale says.

  I can’t believe I’m going along with this.

  “I’ll come too,” Landon says.

  “Yeah,” Munny says. “I like to hike.”

  “Don’t leave me out,” Sov says.

  I like that my wish is becoming a group goal.

  “I won’t leave you out,” I say. I know what that feels like.

  “Am I invited?” Wick asks.

  I don’t answer him right away. The time that I don’t speak stretches on for painful seconds. I imagine Machu Picchu in my mind. I’ve only seen pictures of the Inca foot trail a couple of times. A rocky green mountain juts out of a tropical forest. And the ruins of the ancient city are spread over hills. Stone walls. Main squares. Temples. Palaces. Stairways. Fountains. I focus so hard it’s as if the photograph is inside me. “Machu Picchu,” I mumble. I don’t really want him to come with us. Nobody says anything.

  “Can I come?” Wick asks again.

  I shake my head, but I don’t say no. “We’ll see,” I finally say. I close my eyes and the guys keep talking. About Cambodia? Machu Picchu? Cocaine? I’m not sure. I keep imagining the Inca ruins. I have a backpack. I have my friends. Everybody needs to move closer together so I can get more of the mountain behind you, I tell them. I lift my camera and take a picture of everything. Click. And I quickly drift off.

  We’re sunburned. We’re dehydrated. We’re starving. We’re screwed. It’s noon again. The sun is directly overhead, and this is our third day in the water. Sov and Munny said that a person could go without water for three days in these conditions. This is it. I honestly believe that at any moment I could die. Any of us could die. I mean, it’s already happened twice.

  My legs are flung out in front of me. It hurts to bend them. They don’t look like my legs anymore either. They resemble something you’d read about in a medical textbook in a chapter dedicated to gross diseases that rot away lower extremities. I bet dead people’s legs look better than mine. I’m so tired.

  I lean my head back on the raft’s softening side. I know this is dangerous. A shark could come along and bite my head right off. Sov and Munny have warned us that sharks are capable of jumping directly into the raft. They say that they’ve read about that sort of thing happening to sailors in open boats. I never realized that sharks could propel themselves out of the water high enough to do that. But I bet they can. From what I’ve seen thus far, they’re crazy powerful beasts.

  After this, I swear I’ll never go in the water again. No lakes, no rivers, no streams, no canals, no swamps, no oceans, no puddles, no ponds, and no Jacuzzis. I don’t even want to see a camel and its water-filled humps. They are all dead to me. I’m even going to quit the swim team. I doubt I’ll even take baths. I’ll be one of those people who only showers. When the time comes, I won’t even need to buy a home with a tub.

  Once I get out of here, I’m never going to read a thing more about sharks or the sea either. I’m never even going to watch films that feature it, not even the movie Titanic, which was a pretty good film. None of the people who were on that ship had to worry about sharks. Their biggest hurdle was the cold. I’d rather face the cold than sharks any day of the week. But I guess if I were facing freezing temperatures, by day three I’d already be dead. Though I bet freezing to death isn’t as bad as this. I think about asking Landon which he thinks is worse, freezing to death or being eaten by sharks. But I don’t. I sense he’s in a hopeful mood, and I don’t want to spoil it.

  I’m totally awake, but I keep my eyes closed. It’s so hard to look at myself or anyone else. And I don’t really want to see Wick anyway. I don’t have the energy to wonder about what’s going to happen to us. Every few minutes, Landon touches my calf. He reaches down with his pointer finger and traces the let
ters E C C. They’re my initials. I think he’s trying to remind me that I’m a person. That I have a life. That I shouldn’t throw in the towel. Speaking of towels, I wish I had one. My skirt is disintegrating. It’s the salt and the sun. I can see my orange underwear. If I were wearing pants with a crotch this wouldn’t be a problem. Why do I even own orange underwear? Why do they even manufacture it? And who came up with the word “crotch”?

  But it’s not just my skirt that’s coming undone. The exposure is wrecking my skin too. It’s messing up all of our skin. Even if we do survive, I’m convinced that we’ll all develop skin cancer. How can a person possibly absorb this much sunlight and be okay? My skin feels like it’s baking. Around all the sores, I’m browning like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. It’s awful, but not as bad as my thirst. I’d give my right foot for a drink of water. I’m surrounded by water, but I can’t drink it. It’s the sea. It’s poison. My throat and lips are so dry that I’ve quit trying to form words.

  Several times I’ve dreamed about walking into a green grassy field where I’m greeted by Rich Nixon. He wags his finger at me and surveys me with a disapproving face.

  Rich Nixon: You said you were headed home.

  Me: But if I had, I wouldn’t have saved Burr.

  Rich Nixon: Burr is gone. You didn’t save anyone.

  Me: Don’t be an asshole!

  I can hear my own hoarse, raspy voice. Sometimes the imaginary and real worlds blend.

  “Enid, what’s wrong? Who are you talking to? Who’s the asshole? Nobody’s doing anything,” Wick says.

  “Dude, relax,” Dale says.

  I don’t need Wick worrying about me. That’s not his job anymore.

  “Whose turn is it to look for ships?” I ask.

  “I’m looking,” Sov says.

  “Me too,” Landon says.

  “Good,” I say. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “Enid!” Landon says. “I’m going to wake you up in an hour. I don’t think it’s good to stay asleep too long.”

  “Whatever,” I say. All I want is to go somewhere else, somewhere there isn’t this constant pain.

  When I open my eyes, I’m looking at Nixon. Not Rich Nixon, but President Nixon. He’s dressed in colorful Bermuda shorts, a white T-shirt, and is holding a cocker spaniel in the bend of his arm. He’s got thinning gray hair and resembles very much the black-and-white rectangular photograph in my American History book. He’s even got those fat, hamlike hands. I remember them from his official portrait, because I personally never know what to do with my hands when somebody takes my picture. Nixon is much taller than I realized, and he looks deadly serious. Wearing a pair of scuffed brown sandals, President Nixon hovers over the water next to me like a hologram.

  “I’m Richard Milhous Nixon, the thirty-seventh president of the United States. This is my dog, Checkers.”

  “Oh God,” I say. “I thought when you died you’re greeted by a relative. I expected to see my Grandma Calhoun.”

  He laughs and sets the dog down in the water. But Checkers doesn’t sink; he curls up at Nixon’s feet.

  “Well, I’m dead and you’re not,” he says.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “Encouragement. I know what it’s like to be down.”

  I don’t say anything to him. In American History we’ve recently read all about Watergate and Nixon’s impeachment. But worse than that, we studied about his campaign, code-named Menu, to secretly bomb Cambodia. Lots of innocent people died.

  “I know that you’re judging me,” he says. “I’ve been judged before. I can assure you, after you get here, you’ll pay for all the wrongs you committed in your lifetime three times over.”

  “So you’re telling me to repent?” I ask.

  “Worse,” he says. “I’m telling you to forgive.”

  “You mean my father?” I ask.

  “We all make mistakes,” he says.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “The world needs more forgiveness,” he says.

  “I really can’t,” I say.

  “You’ll grow a crooked, wounded heart.” He frowns at me. Checkers sniffs at the raft and lifts his back leg to relieve himself. He does it very near Dale’s head.

  “Am I going to live or die?” I ask.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  “I want to live,” I say.

  “Well, then, make it an honorable life.” He bends down and scoops Checkers back up, tucking him under his arm.

  Checkers happily wags his tail. He squirms to get out of Nixon’s grasp. “Thank you,” I say. Why am I thanking him?

  “Do you mind if he licks your face?” he asks. “It’s something he likes to do.”

  I shake my head no. Checkers leaps into the raft and licks my cheeks and chin like we’re long lost friends. It’s painless. I guess ghost dogs don’t have real flesh tongues. When he’s done, Checkers flips around and jumps back into Nixon’s arms.

  “He’s friendly,” I say.

  “He was an excellent dog in life, and he’s proven to be a wonderful companion in death as well.”

  He looks at me and tightens his lips.

  “Remember what I said about living an honorable life. It matters. Everything you say and do matters. Trust me.”

  “Not to be rude, but you look like you’ve done okay for yourself, and you weren’t exactly the most honorable guy in the galaxy.”

  His lips loosen. He looks into the water.

  “You have no idea where I’m headed. And no understanding of where I’ve been.” He looks back at me. “And I didn’t come here to tell you to forgive your father. I came here to tell you to forgive yourself.”

  And then, without any further elaboration about where he’s headed, or where he’s come from, or when or how I’m supposed to forgive myself, Richard Milhous Nixon and his little dog, Checkers, are gone, and it’s just the blank sea stretching out into more blank sea again. I think of my parents. I look at Landon. I realize that I need to tell him what I did. I need to tell him that I called Grace. Even though he’s going to be shocked and disappointed in me, I need to tell Landon all the awful things I said to her. My father isn’t the only one who needs forgiveness.

  It’s no longer noon, but the sun is still up there, pounding us with its light. I look around the boat. Wick is asleep. He spent most of the night watching for a ship. Everyone else is wide awake, staring into the sea. I’m about to tell Landon about Grace, but Dale interrupts my plan.

  “Dude, remember that game show where they stuck a bunch of people on an island?”

  “You mean Survivor?” Landon asks.

  “Yeah,” Dale says. “Remember how they ate those rats, how they roasted them on sticks over a fire until they were pretty much charcoal?”

  “Yeah,” Landon says. “I remember that.”

  “I remember thinking they were a bunch of sick shits. But I’d eat a rat. I’m being serious. I really would.”

  I consider mentioning our earlier which-countries-eat-dogs debate, but decide it’s best not to bring it back up. I swat at my ear. I keep hearing the sound of a mosquito.

  Dale continues to talk, but not to anybody in particular. “My head is pounding. Is your head pounding? I look like a leper. I’m so hungry. And what are you swatting at?”

  Has Dale been talking to me this whole time? It’s hard to concentrate.

  “I think it’s a mosquito,” I say. “But I also think it’s just my imagination.”

  “Look!” Munny yells. “Fish! Fish!”

  Because I’m pretty much a fatalist now, I expect to look over the raft’s side and see a frenzy of hungry sharks. But when I peer over, that’s not what’s there. The water is darkened by a cluster of small, silvery fish. They’re churning on top of one another. When they’re out of the water, their bodies appear bluish black. They arch against one another, frenetically flipping their deeply forked tails. Dozens and dozens of heads pop out of the water, and some of their mouths appear to hav
e something stuck to their lower jaws. I think they’re worms. There’s so many thrashing fish that they look like one solid thing, like a floating organism of fish. My mind starts working again.

  “What are they?” I ask. “Can we eat them?”

  “It’s a shoal of menhaden,” Munny says. “People don’t eat them.”

  “Are they poisonous?” I ask.

  “They’re bony,” Munny says.

  Our raft has passed into the center of the large group of menhaden. I think if I just reached in the water, I’d be able to pick one up.

  “Are you sure these are menhaden?” I ask.

  “I’ve fished with my dad,” Munny says. “We’ve used them as bait when we’re trying to catch rockfish.”

  “If we can catch them, we can eat them,” Sov says. “I don’t care about their bones.”

  Sov and Munny are the first to thrust their hands in the fish-packed water. Landon and Dale follow. I watch the menhaden scatter out of their fingers. They are so quick. And smart. They know we want to kill them. I’m so slow. I throw my opened hands into the water. I feel them swimming across my palms, escaping out of my loose fists. Then, finally, I catch one. It’s pure luck.

  “I got one!” I say.

  “Me too,” Sov says.

  “What’s going on?” Wick asks.

  He gently shakes his head from side to side, trying to fully wake himself.

  “We’ve found menhaden,” I say. He glances at my flopping fish.

  Wick looks at me and his jaw drops. I’m surprised he’s this surprised. He looks over the side of the boat and sees the massive amount of fish. Then he looks into the sky.

  “Oh my God!” he yells, pointing his finger to the sky. “Omega Protein!”

  “What are you talking about?” Dale asks.

  “That noise. That faraway whirring sound. It’s a spotter plane from Omega Protein. They’re out looking for menhaden. We need to stay with this shoal.”

  Wick leans over the side and starts paddling us back toward the thickest part of the fish.