Reefdog

by Robert Wintner

  Numbness filled the afternoon, and a terribly long day felt like days in passing. The awful series of events had been a collision—make that a pileup, into the aftershock… shock, shock, clanging like the trashcan lid they put over Tom the cat’s head and banged it with a sledgehammer because Tom was the cat, and people love the underdog, who was Jerry, the mouse. But that was a cartoon and over in minutes.

  Fuck.

  Bleak and foreboding, at least the events of the last few days felt fixed—beyond control of the players, especially the main guy, absolving him more or less from responsibility, relieving him for that matter from the clutches of assessment and decision. Be reasonable—what else could a stand-up man, a mensch among tourists, do in these situations? Cave in to tourist whim? No. Not now or ever.

  The heavy wind and squalls whipping and slashing on the home stretch had felt fucking perfect, like the denouement in a tragedy with an overture composed by a German, taking the man down to remnants: breath, tactile sensation of salt, sweat and weight, and of course, the ultimate burden—pride, not in sinful measure but in fortitude, in asserting what was right, drawing the line on the wrong.

  I win. It doesn’t feel so good. If death is the ultimate depression, this must be the threshold.

  Mates and friends passed by Ravi in his beater. They passed on foot or rolling out of the gravel parking area, slowing for their friend sitting dumbfounded in his piece o’ junk car. They mumbled, See you.

  Or, A hui hou.

  Or, Later, man.

  Hey, it’s beer thirty!

  Pau hana, brudda. Time for suck ’em up.

  Ravi!

  He looked beat, without resources, without hope, solitary and done. Maybe later that evening those friends truly concerned and not too buzzed up would stop around at Ravi’s place for solace and to review the options. And remember the great good times they’d had.

  Twenty minutes of catatonia seemed to do it, maybe providing adequate rest for the bunched muscles that clamored to move lest they stiffen with the wreckage. It was time to hobble home. So he got out, pausing with gratitude for the hunk of junk and the great good times they’d had. He set a hand on the roof to feel the energy. He got none. Hey, what do you expect? It’s a car. But still, it’s hard to think so many miles and such good fun could not be felt by the vehicle of his youth, what was left of it.

  He began the struggle of peeling off his wetsuit for a change into his shorts but fell short once the shoulders and arms were wrenched free. The reserves felt tapped out, and the wind, gray sky, and fatigue chilled him anyway. So he looped the sleeves around his waist and wore the damn thing, stuffing his street clothes into a net bag for the long walk home, or rather the long walk back to the crummy little hovel that would give shelter till the end of the month, next week.

  Passing the Kiawekapu General Store, he recalled his plan to save money on groceries as an exit strategy. That seemed like a long time ago, and he headed in for two beers—the liter bottles that stay cold long enough to drink them if you hurry—and some cat food. Fumbling with his net bag, digging for a pocket in his balled-up shorts to find the money, he stopped when Gene, the big woman behind the counter, said, “Hey. Forget it, Sugar. I got this one.”

  He looked up, more curious than grateful. Then came the flood of comprehension—of gratitude and regret. She knew. The word was out. The coconut wireless had buzzed with the speed of light. All the words were out. Ravi Rockulz was out of here.

  Which felt like perfect timing, but then timing was also the biggest challenge. Gene gave such a small gift on such a hard day that no sooner did Ravi smile halfway and try to say thank you then he cried. He turned to cover his face, to get past his weakness, as she walked around and pulled him to her massive bosom, assuring him that we all have tough days, and he had more friends than he could ever imagine. “Don’t think about anything. You’ll know what to do tomorrow. Just drink these and take the day off. Take the night off, anyway. Take it easy, Honey. Take a break.”

  Just as a knotted muscle can let go by the touch of a caring hand, so can simple guidance be a godsend, a loosening agent to reveal what can be known. Relieved by the outflow of pent-up emotion, Ravi walked out and down the sidewalk fifty yards, where he stuffed the can of cat food into his net bag and sat on the curb to drink the first beer. He must have been having fun; the sun was so much lower than usual at this point of his journey home. He pondered destinations briefly, what waited where, what he would leave behind, where he would go… and opened the second beer. It went down quicker than a second beer usually does, but the day called for stronger dosage of available antidotes.

  He looked up to a twinkling star and looked left and right to affirm its firstness in the evening sky. He could make no wish because of the futility of wishing. But he watched it, as it seemed to ask, What are you staring at? He had no answer but felt refuge in its singular twinkle, hardly a wish come true, but a reasonable destination for a wayward soul stuck in life. Soon came a few more twinklers, till any more refuge would have brought on the nausea.

  So he stood slowly, carefully, too late to avoid the stiffening, too full of beer to walk farther than the nearest hedge, which would be okay that late in the day with so little light because it would have to be because a man can’t very well walk home with a two-liter piss sloshing around inside. So he squirmed to peel his wetsuit down below his pee-pee and to make sure he didn’t dribble on it. He could have pissed in it and rinsed in the shower down the beach walk where the tourists rinsed. Except that pissing in your wetsuit smells like piss and marks you as a tourist. Besides, a two-liter piss once begun is harder to stop than a mountain stream, which this piss was, except for the missing mountain.

  Recovery can gain momentum on basic relief. No matter what was happening in the world, it was a better place after a major piss. The day still seemed endless in its onslaught, but that was mostly the onslaught of bad events replaying. He’d endured the worst and had only a few more hours till sleep. Then he could start over, in faith.

  In the act of rearranging his essential self back into his Speedos and pulling his wetsuit back up to waist level from where it had slipped down to his knees, Ravi knew that the pickup truck passing slowly behind him was local—and way undersized, on way oversized tires, in a compensatory display, way overplayed and entirely tedious.

  Then he knew it was slowing and would stop, just as he knew who was inside.

  Of course he reacted to the duct tape covering his mouth, but only with nominal resistance to so many hands. Jarred, confused and fatigued, he gave in to what nature had in store because he had nothing else to give and because it wouldn’t make a difference, no matter what he gave. So the rough boys who seemed like Cousin Darryl’s other cousins muscled Ravi to submission, binding his knees with more duct tape and so on around his ankles. They taped his wrists behind his back and finally heaved him into the truck bed, where he landed like dead weight, no bounce.

  Ravi searched for the first star, to wish belatedly for a little cyanide ampoule to crush between his molars for an express ride to the sweetest sleep a man could have. But the truck bounced so badly he couldn’t focus on any single star. The giant piss had been just in the nick of time. That was lucky, or not, possibly depriving the best thanks to show these abductors. But then Darryl’s cousins wouldn’t notice a pissy smell.

  What smell?

  Oh. The truck.

  What, you?

  Born & Raised assured from the rear window that no matter what, it didn’t mean shit if you weren’t born or raised. But he was, but never mind because the miserable ride was brief as the backtrack route to the boat launch. The place was empty at dusk, except for a little aluminum boat with a single outboard idling at the dock and another cousin standing by, waiting officiously for the unsavory task at hand. With the truck backed down to the last inches of traction, all four cousins dragged Ravi from the bed to the dock, where he got propped near the boat. He noted no kicker motor in case of prim
ary motor failure and no anchor to hook the bottom in case of power failure on a lee shore or strong current in shoal water. And no deck or scuppers—this little sardine can could sink on the first wave over the rail. Then again, practical safeguards are incidental to superior seamen.

  Besides, no safeguards or practicalities would matter to the fucking haole on board, with the scene shaping up as one more spot on the evening news, taking a minute for the who and the what, with the when and where as yet to be determined. On a nudge, Ravi toppled the last four feet of the boarding process, also noting on his way to one more impact that this little bucket was Opala brand, notorious for bad behavior in heavy seas and for its singular flotation mechanism: hollow seat wells. In front of the biggest hollow seat in the center was a plug for easy drainage once the little boat was back on the trailer.

  Ravi’s head banged the same center seat athwart the little boat, so he passed out, not quite with the same relief of the cyanide ampoule of his recent wish on the little star he could no longer find, but it was a reprieve in any event.

  He came to when they were underway. Rolling onto his back on roly-poly waves he wiggled into place. The little drain plug jabbed his back, inches from the figurative jabbing of the last few hours—never mind because the drain plug was also in his hands. Nobody minded when he sat up to see because what he saw made no difference: McGregor Point to starboard, Makena to port with Molokini just forward of that. Kahoolawe loomed ahead, Lanai a faint shape to starboard, so it didn’t take an ace navigator to know the plan. They were bound for the aggregation buoy, around which aggregated the complete ocean food chain. Algae and plankton clung to the buoy and to the chains and netting. Little crustaceans and fry made a home there, and so on to the top of the hierarchy. Tigers and oceanic white tips would feed as soon as not. So he lay back down, grasping the drain plug, twisting to test for movement, assured that his escorts craved a satisfaction more complex than brother shark ever did.

  The cousins spoke of the old etiquette, by which a hated enemy was sunk with a black rock so family and friends searching wouldn’t see the body. A respected enemy was sunk with a white rock, so the corpse could be more easily spotted. The other three cousins laughed at the brutal simplicity of the code and sighed for its honest brutality. Darryl called them stupid, telling them to look over and count the rocks. “Foa hunned feet already. Fockeen lolo heads. Fock.”

  Darryl had a point, and with wind and seas mounting, the other cousins had other concerns. The five-mile rule delineated the proper distance from shore for bad people to go over the side. They agreed to forget the white-rock/black-rock rule this far out, and the five-mile rule seemed equally moot. They didn’t call it moot but reached consensus on the key question: “Da fuck?” Why go the full five in these conditions? Hey, three and a half already. Four miles was way da fuck out—no more land already down in the trough, between crests. Four miles would do it, or even three. With anxiety showing and practicality gaining momentum, they claimed their right to be scared shitless in a little boat out so far in the dark. They agreed on da kine, four miles, but Darryl steered and restated the full five miles. Nobody else could make the call, on account of da kine.

  Ravi had wondered how he might face imminence, not as grist for the masculinity mill but as part of his job. Dive leaders must respect the hazards of a daily adventure, must think and act and repeat as necessary to the bitter end. A dive leader lives in the risky suburbs of tourist instability at depth.

  Complacency never happened in stealth commando action with explosives and mortal enemies, but leading tourists was a walk in the basil—and that was the hazard. Nobody knew what calmness he would find at death’s table. Posing questions at this difficult juncture, he wondered: Why would I cry over the gift of beer but stay tearless in the face of death? How could love come to this? Could these guys be so stupid? Images drifted in and got shooed away, like flies on wounded carrion. Should he taunt Darryl on sexual perversion with Minna? Darryl was a brush fire in need of water, not gasoline, but developments warranted drastic measures. At any rate, another strategy was firmly in hand—one that would take the final play to extreme satisfaction. That made sense, with odds so low.

  A wave broke, its lip sloshing water on board, alarming the seafaring cousins. Two sawed-off Clorox bottles floated among them, so they bailed. Darryl said, “Cross sea. No worry. No scared. Hey, you.” He nudged Ravi. “You scared?”

  Yes, Ravi was scared, but a man with sea time and a few thousand dives knows the game is on till the last bubbles rise. A blunt-tipped dive knife snugged his ankle inside his booty, hidden because some tourists wore calf-wrap dive daggers, as if to kill Jaws VI. A dive leader with a knife only encouraged their folly. Pointed knives could stab flesh or a hose, so he hid his stubby knife until pulling it to cut fishing line from reefs or himself free of invisible net fragments.

  But a knife at his ankle was worthless with his hands behind his back. So another idea emerged on a ray of hope that maybe, just maybe: “Darryl,” he croaked.

  Darryl would not answer the man who had caused such pain.

  “Darryl, I want you to know that… in private times, Minna spoke your name. She called me Darryl. I asked, ‘Who is Darryl?’ She said, ‘Darryl is a man I love. I mean, used to love.’ Darryl, she’s young. We meant no harm. If you…”

  Wait, wait, wait. Do you really think this half-baked psychopath will see the light and turn back? Will ease up on a haole suck, coming in here and taking everything? No, you don’t. So don’t blow this chance to survive, maybe not for long but for long enough.

  “Can I… have a cigarette?”

  Darryl called cousin Kevin by name, but Kevin shrugged, da kine all wet. With the wind and waves, they never get one lit. Never mind. Ravi didn’t smoke and bumpy seas are best for cutting back. Still, it was a test, showing mercy in small doses.

  “One last wish.” Nobody turned. “Can I scratch my nuts? Please? I’ve had this wetsuit on all day. I’m getting a boil. Please.”

  That was ridiculous in a little tin boat on boiling seas, with all hands bailing, steering, or hanging on. Itchy nuts? Go fish…

  And a big moon peeked over Haleakala, lighting the froth. In a minute, Darryl hove to and put the engine in neutral, so the little boat turned sideways and another load of water sloshed aboard. The engine sputtered and died.

  Sliding down the face of the next swell, Darryl gained steerage using the outboard as a rudder, pulling the starter rope to no avail. Winded, he kept the stern to the swell, cursing the motor like it was another thieving haole. He pulled and pulled for nary a sputter. Fuck it; let the execution begin—better to ditch ballast to work da kine.

  The cousins pulled Ravi to his knees. How could he resist? By grasping the drain plug—that’s how. So they jerked him free, and nobody noticed the easy flow in. Ravi gripped the plug. Darryl handed a knife forward. A cousin cut the tape from Ravi’s mouth. “No need scratch your nuts, haole. They stop itching pretty soon. You like sing one star tangle banner? Have at. I no like you sink wit da kine air hole tape up. Make you float too soon. I like you stay sink.” Darryl nodded again. They lifted Ravi’s ankles, yelling to keep from going kapa kai and maki—from turning over and going dead. With knees grinding and belly banging the rail, Ravi Rockulz was over and into Kealaikahiki Channel. He’d never felt quite so old.

  But this was no time for reflection. He sorely wanted to call out a friendly suggestion that the born and raised among them could take turns sticking their dicks in the drain hole. Maybe they’d figure that one on their own. Meanwhile, a waterman could dead man’s float, face down, turning up to breathe as necessary, easing the drain plug into a working grasp and hoping the metal tab was sharp enough to cut the tape on his wrists. He couldn’t feel his wrists and didn’t want to feel them, and he laughed at the paradox facing a depressed survivalist. He’d hold off for now on cutting his wrists because bleeding to death would take far longer than Mano and that gang if they got wind of the ho
edown at the aggregation buoy. But a feeding frenzy was a source of fear, so he set it aside and followed directions as written in the manual.

  Drifting beyond recapture or hoping they would try it, he breathed. The cousins watched, enjoying sweet revenge at last. Then the tape on his wrists was cut. Should he toss the drain plug at them? No, a pissing contest at that point could have no winner. So he reached into a breaststroke and pulled away as the engine sputtered on another indictment: “Fockeen suck! Stole a drain plug!”

  How strange life seemed, awash in a rowdy sea at night, smiling at revenge, evenly served. Was this sweet? The engine died again. The odds on two beaters dying the same day were actually good because beaters die every day, and one of these was doused with seawater. So he retrieved his knife and cut the tape from his knees and ankles to begin the next struggle, pulling the top of his wetsuit back onto his arms and zipping the front.

  Another passing image crawled up his spine to snuggle with his brain, the one where George Orwell wanted to know his prisoner’s greatest fear. It was rats, so a cage door got pressed onto the man’s face, and the rat got him—it was scary and unfair to rats. Ravi Rockulz could set fear aside on the technical level if he had to surface swim at night. But he knew who worked this beat and what would trigger a feeding. The big signal was fear itself, a unique frequency in water, like a tiny dinner gong. He couldn’t stop the fear, but few people were better trained or prepared for these dire straits.