Grayson

by Lynne Cox

  Psyching myself up, I stood up on the hard cold sand just as another wave crashed on me, shooting saltwater up my nose. I stumbled to my feet, slid them along the bottom as fast as they would move and, when I reached waist-deep water, dove under the wave. I didn’t like touching the bottom near the San Gabriel River jetty. It was dangerous.

  There was an Edison power plant a couple of miles up the river. Water used to cool the turbines was dumped into the river. This warm water flowed down the river, swung around the jetty, and spread out along the shore. Here, the water was as much as ten degrees warmer. In winter you could see steam rising off the ocean. Stingrays loved the warm water. They congregated here, and it was a place where they had lovefests and multiplied to a point that the river jetty became a stingray city. This wasn’t a thinly populated city like Cincinnati where there was plenty of room to spread out, room for spacious homes, porches, and big backyards. It was more like a stingray Manhattan, where the stingrays lived inches apart in the fine soft sand, and others lived right on top of one another in their own form of underwater apartments and condos.

  Usually stingrays are docile. At the local aquariums they lie in the touching tanks looking for humans. They push themselves up out of the water to have people pet them like puppies. Stingrays are flat fish that feel like a wet grape. They are light gray on top, white on the bottom, and they measure roughly two feet in diameter. Normally they bury themselves in the soft sand to hide from predators and look up at the world with two eyes on the top of their head. They have long tails that they use to propel themselves through the water.

  At the end of those tails is a barb encased in a sheath. If a swimmer or wader inadvertently steps on a stingray, it will, in an effort to protect itself, whip its tail around and inject the barb and the sheath into the person’s foot. The sheath has a protein substance on it that is very irritating, causing the foot to swell up two to three times larger than normal. Just as dangerous is the barb, which looks like an arrowhead with two spines pointing backward on either side. When the barb is injected into the foot, it locks into the skin; the only way to get it out is to have it surgically removed.

  I was careful as I reentered the water, but I stepped on the edge of something. I felt it wiggle under my toes. It squirmed and I couldn’t help myself: I screamed. I screamed really loudly. I never scream. And I jumped high out of the water. I wasn’t thinking. Definitely wasn’t thinking.

  My feet were coming up off the bottom and before I knew it, I could feel them falling down. I wanted to stop them, but I wasn’t thinking fast enough, wasn’t able to get my mind to pull my feet back up. Even in the water, gravity was rapidly pulling them down.

  My feet touched and I sank rapidly up to my calves in the fine mucky sand.

  Things violently rammed into my legs. They were swarming and fluttering all around me like giant bats. I held my breath wondering if I would be stung.

  Whatever I had stepped on had upset the entire colony of stingrays, and their neighbors too: guitar-fish, shovel-nosed sharks, and halibut that had been sleeping or hiding in the soft sand. The stingrays set off a chain reaction. The whole ocean floor was suddenly swimming with fish. On high alert, they were frantically trying to escape, bumping into one another and into me.

  I wanted to jump, to pull my feet off the bottom as badly as if I’d been standing on red-hot coals. But I fought to keep my feet planted in the mushy silt, knowing that I wouldn’t be stung if I didn’t lift my feet and step down on anything. But when something swam right between my legs and I felt the upward push of its wings, I screamed louder than before.

  It took all my focus to stand still and wait forever for a wave to break. It did, lifting me off the bottom: I kicked my feet up behind me and swam like mad through the surf.

  When I made it beyond the waves, I noticed that my purple-and-white nylon suit was so filled with sand that it felt like I was carrying half of the beach with me.

  This was one of the worst workouts I had ever had. But I told myself to deal with it, because when I did another channel swim, like attempting to break the world record for the Catalina Channel, I would need to be mentally prepared for anything. And this was preparing me for anything: That’s why it was practice.

  Bending over I pulled the bottom of my swimsuit to one side and let the large clumps of sand roll out of each leg hole. I started to swim again, but there was sand at the top of my suit too. And it was abrasive.

  I was irritated that I had to stop again and get the sand out. If I didn’t stop now it would soon be worse than running with a pebble in my shoe. The sand in my swimsuit combined with the motion of my arms would act like sandpaper rubbing my skin raw, but I didn’t stop and remove it. Instead I pulled the front of my swimsuit open, kicked my legs rapidly, and let the saltwater wash the chunks of sand out of my suit.

  Even though I knew it was important to stop and fix my suit at that moment, to take care of it so it wouldn’t affect me in a bigger way later, I was annoyed with myself for stopping for so long. I needed to stay on my pace, to train the way I would do a channel swim.

  Each day in the ocean was different. Each day I watched the wind move across the sea with giant brushstrokes and I’d anticipate that moment when the sun would slide above the horizon and I would watch the sunlight spread across the constantly changing surface of the sea. The intensity of the colors, of the reds, oranges, and yellows, would be magnified if it was a clear morning; on foggy mornings, the light would be soft pastel and fuzzy.

  I took a deep breath, released the tension, and stopped to gaze into the sky. The earth was spinning closer to the sun.

  The light was softening. The sky was changing from a shiny black to smoky granite gray and the sea was reflecting the change, a giant mirror to the heavens. It too was shifting from glossy black to wavery platinum. Taking in a very long deep breath, I relaxed a little more.

  The promise of light made me feel a little more cozy and confident. At least now I would be able to see what was swimming under me—knowing was usually better than not knowing.

  I lifted my head, checking for a fin. If the fin was sharp and angular, and if it was moving from side to side, it was a shark. If the dorsal fin was slightly curved and moving up and down, it was a dolphin.

  Whatever had been swimming under me had seemed enormous. But my fear might have magnified the size of it.

  Blue sharks, the non-human-eating species of sharks, rarely grew to more than ten feet long. White sharks were much larger, up to twenty-five or even thirty feet.

  Local fishermen occasionally sighted great whites off Catalina Island, primarily on the west coast or what’s known as the backside of the island—the place where the island is wide open to the Pacific Ocean and there’s nothing but water until you reach Hawaii. I had never heard of a white shark sighting off Seal Beach, but there were no borders or barriers off Seal Beach to keep sharks out. They swam wherever they wanted to go. There was a large seal population offshore that rested on the large navigational buoys there, rolling with the tide and waves, their furry brown heads swaying from side to side. They slept on the rocks along the breakwater off Seal Beach and sometimes hauled out near the San Gabriel River jetty, north of the pier, just where I was heading. Seals were white sharks’ favorite food. The Farallone Islands off the shore of San Francisco were known as In and Out Seal Burgers for white sharks, which could jump out of the water and snatch seals off the rocks. It could have been a white shark cruising underneath me. It felt big enough.

  three

  The San Gabriel River jetty was only two hundred yards from me now. Once I reached it, I could turn around and swim back to the pier. I couldn’t wait to finish this workout.

  The sun was taking forever to rise. I was stuck in perpetual darkness. All I wanted was to get home, take a very long hot shower, and have something warm and delicious for breakfast.

  Usually I loved swimming in the open ocean, but I was having a tough morning. And I couldn’t shake the feel
ing that something really big was swimming nearby. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept lifting my head to look for fins. I knew this was slowing me down; lifting my head was causing my hips to drop and that created more drag. But I wanted to know what was swimming with me.

  The urge to get out of the water became stronger. I wanted to get out, but I knew I had to make myself stay in and continue swimming: I reminded myself that I had to control my fear, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to accomplish bigger goals later. I would have felt differently if I was certain there was an immediate danger.

  Taking another deep breath, I swam with my head up and looked at the sky.

  There were soft blue and yellow lights on top of the oil rigs on the islands off the shore of Long Beach, about three miles away. The oil islands were built to make the oil rigs more aesthetically appealing. The metal oil rigs were hidden behind walls, and waterfalls were constructed to diminish the sounds of drilling. At night the structures and waterfalls were illuminated with blue, green, pink, and yellow lights and they looked magical. I used these lights as reference points to help keep me swimming in a straight line. I gazed deeper into the blurry gray sky.

  Turning my head to take a breath, I looked back under my arm at the eastern sky, hoping for sunlight.

  Beyond the pier, the horizon was a thick black line where the sea and sky were pressed together like a giant eyelid, but high above a tiny yellow light flickered. There the horizon grew lighter, brighter, and softened. I rolled onto my back and slowly backstroked.

  A wedge of red light parted the horizon.

  The rose-colored sun moved slowly and majestically above the horizon. The giant eye was opening.

  There was a discernible pause, a stunning peace, as if the sun and earth were silently shifting into sync. Then the sun climbed smoothly into the sky, casting a river of wavery rose light upon the water’s surface. A long warm breath of wind ruffled the gray sea.

  Seagulls stretched their wings, flapped them quickly, and cried loudly as they chased other gulls off the beach before lifting into flight and flying in a sweeping circle, squawking loudly as they headed toward a fishing boat. Tiny sanderlings raced in a big flock to the water’s edge, hopping on one foot like they were jumping on pogo sticks. As they neared the water’s edge, they dropped the other foot and scurried across the sand like wind-up toys, their tiny gray wings tucked against their backs. They chased the receding waves, whose long white lacy manes were glowing pink. The sanderlings poked holes in the sand with their short beaks, searching for sand crabs, while sandpipers trotted down from the high-tide line and stood on tall legs in knee-deep water, plunging their bills into softer sand in search of larger sand crabs. Seven pelicans flew overhead in single file, surfing the air currents created by the long rolling waves. Their wings were stretched out five feet wide, and they were underlit with rosy gold.

  As the sun rose higher it turned tangerine and pushed the band of ruby red higher into the sky. The ocean resonated with color and warmth as I rolled back onto my stomach and swam across converging pools of red, orange, yellow, and gold.

  Energy and warmth flowed across my back and shoulders. I was moving fast and free, feeling the power and lift of my arms and the strength deep within my body. My breathing was back to normal and finally this was fun again.

  Pulling my hands directly under my body, I increased my lift in the water so that more of my back and legs was exposed to the sun’s warmth. It would bake the chill out of my cold muscles.

  On a breath, I swiveled my head around and looked over my right shoulder. Two strokes later, I breathed to my right side and watched the homes along Ocean Avenue slide behind me. My arm strokes were long and fluid. I slid on my stomach past the large pink Spanish-style house with the dark terra-cotta tiles, which marked the quarter-mile point. Just a quarter mile more to swim. I reached, pulled, pushed, reached pulled pushed, with each arm stroke past the streets perpendicular to Ocean Avenue, counting them off, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, as I approached the Seal Beach pier, breathing every three strokes, listening to my bubbles roll into the water and to the rush of the waves like the breath of the sea. In and out we breathed together.

  Glancing to my left, I watched the gray thirty-foot-tall wind-bent trunks of the palm trees that lined Eighth Street sway in the morning breeze; the clusters of dark green leaves on top of the trees were waving like a dozen hands, applauding the start of the day. And I wanted to applaud, too. It was almost over. I was almost there, almost finished with this long, cold, and difficult three-hour workout. I felt a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment. I had been able to push myself, and stay focused, and complete the workout. And I was beginning to realize that I needed to not only prepare physically for something, but mentally as well.

  The white clock tower with the bright orange tile roof atop City Hall read eight o’clock. With the morning’s distraction, I was way off my pace: three minutes late. I was annoyed with myself. I told myself: Put your head down and sprint the last two hundred yards. Go. Go. Go. Pick up your pace. Pull stronger. Grab more water. Faster. Faster. Burn. Set the water on fire. Go. Go. Go. Reach for the stars. Go. Harder. You can do it. Ahh. Bring it home now. Go. Almost there. Yes, you’ve got it!

  Reaching the pier, I rolled over on my back, sucking air. I swam backstroke slowly, trying to catch my breath. I was spent, cooling down, sore, tired, hungry, and eager to get home and finish my homework. I saw Steve standing outside the bait shop. He was an old friend, a man in his sixties who ran the bait shop. He had worked there for as long as I could remember. He knew just about everybody and just about everybody knew and loved him.

  Steve made a point of checking on me while I was swimming, especially in the darkness of early morning. He always tried to look nonchalant, as if he weren’t watching out for me, but I could sense he was there. More than that: His silhouette beneath the soft white lights on the pier was easy to recognize. Steve always wore a short navy blue jacket that his broad shoulders filled out. He walked with an easy gait, even though his back was slightly bent with arthritis, and he was a little hard of hearing.

  Whenever Steve saw me working out, he radioed the local commercial fishermen and the captain of the large boat that transported workers to the oil rigs that lay a mile and a half to nine miles offshore; Steve wanted to make sure they didn’t run over me.

  Usually I swam near “zero tower,” the lifeguard station about halfway down the pier. That way I stayed well out of the way of boat traffic. My normal course was a half-mile stretch from the pier to the jetty and a half mile back again to the pier. Sometimes my workouts were three miles long and sometimes I swam as many as twelve miles. It depended on what I was training for. No matter how long the workout, I would always stop at the pier for at least ten seconds to catch my breath and check my lap time. And I always checked to see if Steve was outside.

  I looked forward to seeing him. It made me feel like I had someone out there with me. It made me realize how much I appreciated him and how much I missed him when he had a day off.

  Sometimes he’d be busy and just wave and sometimes I’d swim over to see him and talk. It slowed my workouts down a little, but I looked at it as a way to get a slightly longer rest, which gave me the motivation to swim faster on the next mile. We often joked. I loved to make him laugh. And I loved watching his silver gray head bob up and down, and seeing his mustache curl under his nose.

  Steve knew more about the ocean than anyone I had ever met. He studied it every day, not out of a sense of duty, but out of curiosity and joy. He always wanted to learn something new and share whatever he discovered.

  He spent a lot of his day swapping stories with local fishermen, with researchers and lifeguards. He saw the life, the seasonal changes, the natural signs and changing conditions within the ocean that no one else seemed to notice. He had a sixth sense about the sea.

  Even in the blackness of early morning, Steve knew where I was in the ocean. He could spot me up to half a mile away. He s
aw through the darkness and across still or rough black water. He stood on the pier watching for the tiny neon blue sparks my hands made when they hit the water. There were zillions and zillions of light-emitting zooplankton and phytoplankton in the ocean.

  When anything swam through the water—fish, seals, other marine mammals, or human beings—they left trails of bright shimmering light. The brightness of the light changed with the warmth of the water and the amount of plankton in the area. Sometimes the phosphorescence was so bright it was like looking deep into the Milky Way on a clear crisp winter’s night, like swimming through a sky full of dazzling stars shooting across the black sky. And when there were fewer plankton in the water it was like swimming through the soft luminous light cast by Japanese lanterns. And sometimes, when the water was colder and the plankton was scarce, the trails were like the soft glow of candles in the distance.

  Steve could tell how far I was from the pier by the size of the sparks my hands made when they hit the water; he knew my pace and when to expect my arrival.

  When I looked at the pier, he wasn’t where he normally stood. He was farther out. I knew something was wrong.

  four

  Steve was jumping up and down, rapidly waving his dark blue baseball cap and shouting. The morning breeze was tearing his words apart and carrying them away from me.

  Cupping my ear, I gestured I couldn’t hear him.

  Quickly he pointed to something behind me.

  Spinning halfway around I felt the water. Something was swimming under me. Was it a white shark?

  Without hesitating, I sprinted for shore. Glancing over my right shoulder, I saw that Steve was vigorously shaking his head.