Beach Music (74 page)

Jordan went over to Mike and checked his arm. Mike, too, was awake, but his broken arm hurt too much for him to either speak or move. His eyes looked unnaturally bright and Jordan put his hand to his forehead and felt the fever.

“I demand to know what happened,” Capers said. “I’m the captain of the vessel and I’ll be goddamned if we’re going to go another inch without someone telling me what went wrong. How do you expect us to go anywhere without a motor?” Capers asked no one in particular.

“Jack and I took a vote while you were asleep,” Jordan said. “We thought it’d be fun to float back to Waterford.”

I laughed, then explained to Capers and Mike what had transpired after Capers had thrown the harpoon at the manta ray. Mike remembered seeing Capers lifting the harpoon, but Capers never regained a single memory of the incident. He sat and listened to the story with utter astonishment.

“You shouldn’t’ve let me do that,” Capers said, touching the sore place on the back of his head. “One of you should’ve stopped me.”

“It was our fault, okay,” Mike said. “Good thinking, Capers.”

“Help me think of something to tell Dad,” Capers said. “A whale. We got caught in a school of humpback whales and one of their tails knocked the engine loose. I’ll work out some of the specifics.”

“You’ll have plenty of time,” I said looking out where land was supposed to be.

Mike struggled to stand up, but the pain almost brought him to his knees. Jordan sat him down and tried to make him comfortable, propping up his arm with seat cushions and life preservers.

“Later on, I want to get you in the water, Mike. Let’s make sure that wound is good and clean.”

“No way. I’m not getting in no water that got shit in it big as that manta ray.”

“I wish I could’ve seen it,” Capers said.

Jordan answered, “You saw it well enough to get us here.”

“We’re lost at sea,” Capers said.

“Thanks for that bulletin,” Jordan said.

Mike laughed and said, “No, baby. We’re just fucked. As fucked as any four humans have a right to be.”

“I’ll get us out of this,” Capers said. “I’ll think of something.”

Capers stepped up and stood looking out toward the endless
expanse of water. Putting his hands on his hips, he struck a pose of deeply aggrieved authority. For a full five minutes he stood there until Mike said, “You think of anything yet?”

Capers’ voice was grave, subdued as he said, “Do you know we have a good chance of dying out here?”

“He’s a thinker,” Mike said, nodding. “He’s got all the angles covered.”

“Thanks for shedding more light on the subject,” I said.

“We’re not going to die,” Jordan announced.

“What’s going to stop us?” Mike asked.

“My father,” Jordan said. “My asshole father.”

“He’s not here,” Capers said.

“When I was a little boy, my old man would take me out on maneuvers with him on weekends. He told my mother we were going camping. He’d take me deep into the woods of Camp Lejeune or Quantico, force-march me fifteen or twenty miles, then make me pretend we were at war. We lived off the land. We ate mushrooms and crawdads and wild asparagus. I ate frog legs and flower petals and insects. Do you know that an insect is almost pure protein?”

“I hope you never open a restaurant, man,” Mike said.

But Jordan continued: “I hated those weekends with my father and I was always afraid. He loved to test himself when there was nothing between him and nature. If one of America’s enemies landed on these shores, he would tell me, men like him would take to the forests for years. They would hunt the enemy only at night using knives and sticks and razor blades. Once he killed a baby deer and we ate it for three straight nights. All of it … liver, kidneys, heart.”

“Puke,” said Mike.

“That won’t help us out here,” Capers said.

“Yes, it will. Just do whatever I tell you,” said Jordan. “I know a lot about hunger and thirst. Before long we’re all going to know a lot about both of them. But for now I can keep us all alive.”

“Then do it,” I said.

“But I’m the president of our class,” Capers said.

The three of us studied him, suddenly dumbfounded, but Capers
explained himself by saying, “What I mean is that I’m accustomed to leadership. Tell Jordan I’ve always been the class president. Tell him, Mike. Jack.”

“We’re not talking about who’s going to set up tables for the sock hop,” Mike said.

“His father taught him survival skills, Capers,” I explained. “He’s going to use those same skills to keep us alive out here on the ocean.”

“But there’s nothing to eat or drink out here,” Capers said.

“Our first enemy is right there,” Jordan said, pointing out toward the east. “If we’re in this boat long enough, the sun’s gonna kill us.”

“Hey,” said Capers. “Fort Lauderdale at Eastertime. This’ll give us a chance to work on our tans.”

“No time for jokes, son,” Mike said. “Mike laughs less when Mike might die.”

“Get us out of this, Jordan,” I said. “You want to play leader of the pack, play leader of the pack.”

“What do we do, Jordan?” Mike asked.

“You and Capers get under the gunwale, out of the sun. Take off all your clothes. Jack and I’ll cover ourselves best we can. We’ve got a little bit of water left in the ice chest. We’ll ration it out, but only at night. Jack and I’ll spend all day fishing. Don’t move around. Conserve energy.”

“They’ll find us sometime today,” Capers said.

“Maybe. But we’re going to act like they’re never going to find us,” Jordan said.

“You’re just trying to scare us,” Capers said.

“He’s doing a damn good job too,” I said.

“Yeh, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

Mike asked, “Why, Jordan? What’s the use of scaring us half to death?”

“Because no one knows where we are,” said Jordan. “No one knows where to begin to look. We don’t have a radio, flares, or emergency equipment of any kind. We’ve got enough water to last us for two or three days. If it doesn’t rain after that, then we’ll die of thirst in five days—maybe we’ll last a week.”

“What a pretty picture,” I said.

“I’m going to be dead because Capers Middleton is an asshole,” Mike said, shaking his head.

“There’s no proof that I threw that harpoon,” Capers said, as the three of us stared at him. “For all I know, the three of you might have plotted this tale while I was unconscious.”

“Trust us, Capers,” I said. “It wasn’t no flounder or mermaid that dragged us out this far and tore our motor off.”

“My daddy’s gonna kill me when he sees what we did to this boat,” said Capers.

“We, paleface?” Mike asked. “I personally do not see where the first-person plural has any part in this conversation. You didn’t ask anyone’s permission to spear that fish. You gave in to an impulse, Capers. It was definitely freelance.”

“Look, we went fishing,” Capers said. “I was just trying to catch a fish. No one can blame me for that.”

“The fish was as big as a building,” I said. “You should’ve seen it.”

Our submission to Jordan’s discipline was complete. We followed every order he issued without argument. For a boy accustomed to solitude, he adjusted himself well to a life of scheduling and forced companionship, and command came surprisingly easily to him. We floated through still, airless days, and on the second evening at sea Jordan gave the order that each of us must jump into the ocean and wash ourselves and our clothing well. “Jack, you go in first. Capers and I’ll lower Mike into the water. Mike, you’ve got to let the salt water clean out your wound. All of us need to soak our cuts and wounds. One man’ll always stay in the boat while the others are in the water. Keep near the boat. Always, in reach.”

I dropped over the side of the boat and entered an ocean that was cold and deep and frightening. The salt stung the wound that ran along my eyebrow, but I stifled a cry of pain and waited as Capers and Jordan carefully let Mike down without causing further injury to his arm. I took his weight and guided him gently into the water. None of us liked the way Mike looked; his complexion seemed ashy and waxen below his tan. But he made not a sound as his arm entered the water and he allowed Jordan to massage and
manipulate the tightly bound splint. He moaned softly every time Jordan touched his broken arm, but he submitted to the tender ministrations because Jordan maintained his air of authority even while naked and dog-paddling in the Atlantic.

“Don’t drink any salt water,” Jordan said, “no matter how thirsty you get. The salt dehydrates you. It takes three times more urine to wash the salt out of your system than normal.”

“Who’re you?” Capers said from the boat. “My doctor?”

At night, we talked and fished and dried our clothes in the cool, clean air. We moved around freely, each of us assigned to his own separate duties. With lures and one of the baitfish that had survived the encounter with the manta ray, we began to fish in earnest, knowing that what we caught was the only thing that would keep us alive. Jordan had checked the level of water in the ice chest and realized it would not last another day, and there had been no clouds in the sky for days.

When the sun was high, Jordan made Mike and Capers get beneath the gunwale of the boat, tightly packed and uncomfortable, but away from the strongest rays of the sun. He and I would pull the boat’s tarpaulin cover over ourselves. High noon was a time of complete hibernation and stillness on the boat and we adapted our rhythms to a strict but altogether new cycle that was the exact opposite of our usual daily lives. We trained ourselves to be on the alert for any sounds of airplanes or boat engines that might be searching for us. Once we spotted a search plane flying to the north and we arose screaming and shouting as the aircraft drifted out of sight. That glimpse of possible rescue filled us with sudden, unearned hope, then plunged us downward into a sharp despair made keener by a growing hunger and thirst. Our talk of water became obsessional, then delusional, until Jordan forbade any of us to mention the subject again. Miraculously Mike’s arm, though set hastily, showed no signs of infection where the broken bone had punctured his flesh.

As we floated we learned that thirst sharpened the edge of nightmare and that hunger was the perfect entree before hallucination. The heat and sunlight made our dreaming fire-glazed and brittle. At dusk, we awoke drenched in sweat and plunged gratefully into the evening sea, naked alongside the drifting boat. The salt water teased
us as we rinsed our mouths out again and again as we swam, spitting the water back into the ocean.

As soon as we were back on board, Jordan would give the order to get all the hooks in the water, despite the rancid condition of the bait. Our patience was rewarded on the fifth night when Capers hooked a small amberjack and brought it on board with a shout. Jordan immediately killed the fish, cut it into fresh bait, insisted that all the hooks be rebaited at once.

“Five days at sea and one shitty little amberjack,” Mike said, disgusted as I pulled up his hand lines and baited them with the amberjack.

“I don’t see why we’re fishing anyway,” Capers added. “We can’t eat the fish even if we catch them.”

“Yeh, we can,” Jordan said. “And we will.”

“You can’t eat raw fish,” I said.

“We’re going to eat all the raw fish we catch and we’re going to learn to love it,” Jordan said, casting his line again and fishing deep.

“It makes me want to throw up just thinking about it,” said Capers. “I can’t do it, Jordan. No matter what you say.”

“You’ll do it when you get hungry enough. Or thirsty enough,” Jordan assured us.

“I’ve never been able to eat a raw oyster,” Mike admitted.

“Could you eat one now?” Jordan asked.

Mike thought for a moment, then said, “Yeh, I could eat a hundred of the bastards.”

“When we were stationed in Japan with my father, my parents were fanatics about raw fish. It’s Japan’s greatest delicacy; they treat their fish with utter respect, and the man who cuts the fish is considered an artist.”

But Capers would have no part of it: “You can do a lot of things, Jordan, but you can’t make a Jap out of a Middleton.”

“I bet I can,” Jordan said, “because after you chew on the raw fish, it’s going to quench your thirst. It’s the water in the fish that’s going to save our lives.”

“Sucking water out of fish kidneys,” I said. “Just what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Get your minds ready for it. We’ve been without water for over three whole days. We’ve already started to die.”

“Could you phrase it a bit differently?” Mike asked.

“We’re already weakening,” Jordan said.

“Much better,” I said. “Be careful how you use the language out here.”

“I’ll be careful about the language,” Jordan said, “but you boys prepare yourself for a banquet of raw fish.”

We put our freshly baited lines over and I was in mid-reverie when a shout came from Jordan. He had a serious bite on his line, and for ten minutes, he fought and finally landed a twenty-pound grouper in the boat. Jordan cut it up carefully and out of view of the rest of us. He waited until it was total darkness before he handed out the glistening strips of grouper to his three most reluctant diners. The flesh of the fish was translucent and held its ivory hue even under starlight.

As Jordan ate, relishing each drop of moisture before swallowing, Capers and Mike threw up twice, and I once, before we managed to keep any part of the meal down. The hurdle was psychological, but it was severe. Before the night was over, however, each of us had consumed over a pound of raw fish. Jordan was patient and kept his head. Even when we regurgitated our first pieces of fish: He saved that vomited-up fish for bait.

That night we caught fourteen other fish and the mood on the boat changed from resignation to resolve. We slept through the hot sun of the next day in the full knowledge that we had placed our trust in a captain who seemed to know what he was doing.

The next day a freighter passed within two thousand feet of our boat, but none of us heard anything until Jordan woke up when the wake of the larger ship hit us broadside and we screamed ourselves hoarse as we watched the ship disappear over the horizon. Still, we drifted south, borne by currents and winds. We talked constantly of rescue, of conversations we would have with our parents, of wrongs we would right back home, and of secrets we had always held close to the chest. Time seemed to lose all meaning as the countless waves slapped against the side of our boat. In one another’s haunted faces,
we could mark the toll our drifting was taking as we became more and more sunburned and hollow-cheeked, looking for deliverance upon an ocean whose indifference was magisterial, ineffaceable.