Not Without Hope (7 page)

She still didn’t think they were in big trouble. She knew they had taken beer. Maybe they had been cited for drinking or maybe they had caught an illegal fish. The more Paula thought about it, she knew that didn’t feel right. She kept trying Nick’s cell phone. By three thirty or four, she cried as she left her message, “Babe, please call.”

N
ow I could see that Corey had developed some of the same symptoms as Marquis. It was about five on Sunday morning. He was floating in the water at the back of the boat. He started rambling a lot, making moaning sounds. Will and I would call his name, but he wouldn’t answer until we had yelled out four or five times.

Then all of a sudden, Corey got this desperate energy. It was like he had awakened and realized he needed to get on the boat right away. I was still sitting on the hull, straddling the motor as Marquis lay across my lap. Corey pulled on Marquis’s legs, grabbing for whatever he could to get himself out of the water. He had this look on his face. He looked mad and mean. I knew something was going on. Maybe this was a last-ditch effort to save himself. I guess the cold was starting to take hold. We had been in the water twelve hours.

Mentally, Corey wasn’t there. That was clear to me now. It wasn’t him, just like it wasn’t Marquis in my arms. Corey was the nicest guy—the easiest guy to get along with. Now he was getting nasty and physical and trying to get on the boat. He’d try for ten
or fifteen seconds, go lifeless, and then try again to get out of the water.

“No, no, stop, there’s no place to go!” Will and I began yelling at Corey. “Stop, stop!”

It seemed like it went on for about a half hour. And it kept getting worse. “You can’t, there’s no room, stop,” we told Corey, but we weren’t getting through to him. He was pulling on Marquis, at first not really saying anything, then shouting, “Bitch, bitch!” He was really getting aggressive, just random actions. I had never seen Corey mad or heard him say anything mean about anybody. He was a jokester. This wasn’t him, not the real Corey.

Around this time, we heard a noise, then saw a light. I thought it was a helicopter. Later, I would learn that the first Coast Guard helicopter did not reach the search area until after sunrise. And my sister would say I told her that I saw a light that turned away, as if it came from a boat. Could my timing be off? Could the Coast Guard report be wrong by an hour or so? Could a helicopter have come and not been included in the official report? Could it have been the forty-seven-foot motor lifeboat that I saw? A plane? Was I hallucinating? Did I imagine it after being in the water, freezing, for half a day? I don’t think so. I know I saw something.

The helicopter or boat or plane—I’m certain it was a helicopter, it seemed so vivid, you could see the shape of it—probably got within five hundred yards of us. There was a spotlight, much bigger than what you’d see in a theater. It seemed so close. This was our shot to get out of this. There was definitely someone moving the light around. You could see the waves now, a lot of white crashing down—it seemed like waves came from every single angle possible. You would get pounded from the back, your body slamming against the motor, and then another wave would come and hurl you the other way.

Will and I were telling Corey, “They’re here. Be quiet, they’re here!”

Marquis was completely out of it. He was fighting a little bit, but not nearly like before.

“They’re here!” I told him. “You’re going to see your family. The families are waiting at home. Your little girl is waiting for you.”

I envisioned it the way you see it on TV, the helicopter dropping a basket and saving us on a stormy night. “Thank you, God, thank you!”

The light got closer. The beam passed over us, a sliver of white boat in a sea of white. “Oh my God, oh my God!” we yelled. We screamed and waved, “Help, we’re down here! Help!”

Will still had that cushion strapped to his back, the one he found under the boat. It was white and a faded brown. He took it off and waved it like a towel. You could hear the waves crashing so loud, the waves and the wind. Just to hear one another speak, we had to yell twice as loud. It was like the beach, one wave finishes and another comes crashing in—relentless, unending.

Corey seemed to revive himself for a minute. “They see us?” he asked. He took his watch and tried to press the dial, hoping it would light up and someone could see the dim flash. But the battery must have been dying. The dial would flash for a millisecond and go dark.

We had the two flares that Will had found under the boat in the canopy over the center console. The ones we stashed in Marquis’s swimsuit. They were like Roman candles. We had tried to read the directions earlier by the light of a cell phone. Will ripped the top off of them and pounded the bottom of the flares on his hand or on the hull. He couldn’t get them lit.

“Are you doing it right?” I asked.

“Yeah, they’re soaked,” he said.

We thought the flares were supposed to be waterproof.

Will screamed “Fuck!” as loud as he could.

We watched the light as it moved away. At one point it seemed to be barely moving, just hovering, and then it started moving faster. We could see it, but it was not near us now. The light had come across the boat, then moved a few yards away from us; then it was a mile away, and then we couldn’t see it. And we couldn’t hear the sound of whatever brought the light.

We let out a lot of F-bombs.

“Are you kidding me? How can they not see us?!”

S
HORTLY AFTER WE
saw the light, Marquis became lifeless. He had gone from being completely restless—fighting and squirming and wriggling and trying to turn, grabbing my head and my neck and trying to flip himself—to not resisting at all. He was completely slack.

Will and I didn’t think much about it at first. We thought, okay, he’s calming down now. But he hadn’t fought at all for about ten minutes. Then I realized that he seemed unconscious. There was no final moan or scream, nothing.

I called his name. “Coop? Coop? You there? Marquis?”

I squeezed him with my arms, an even bigger bear hug than before. Nothing happened. No movement. I shook him, slapped his face.

“You don’t want your daughter to grow up without a father,” I told him.

Corey kept pulling and tugging on Marquis from the back of the boat. Sometimes he reached over and grabbed Will, who stood at the stern on the other side of the motor. Or Corey lifted his waist or his hips out of the water and seized my life jacket and try to pull at me. Then he would fall back in.

Two of us were now in trouble. I said to Will, “Please tell me you’re all right.”

I looked right at him.

“I’m okay, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

There was no sarcasm in his voice. I would ask guys when we worked out at the gym if they were okay and they would give you that sarcastic, “Yeah, I’m great!” but through the whole night when I asked Will and Marquis and Corey the same thing, they were not cynical.

I sat on the hull with my right hand on Corey’s jacket, trying to keep him tight against the boat so he wouldn’t tug at me and Will and Marquis. Working so hard seemed to make me forget about the cold. I had more clothes on than the other guys. Maybe all this work created more body heat and kept my blood flowing. There wasn’t time to sit and think about how cold I was and how my muscles were burning. My stomach hurt. I didn’t know if it was because I had been sick and was hungry or because I was so afraid.

I told Will that we had to flip Marquis over, turn his face upward. Water might be getting in his mouth.

“I’m not sure if he’s conscious,” I said. “He’s not fighting anymore.”

Will and I managed to turn Marquis until he was laying flat on his back, facing the sky. Before, he was facing the front of the boat across my lap. I held Corey with my right hand and held Marquis like a baby now. There was no more need to bear hug him with the same strength. He wasn’t fighting me. My left hand was underneath him, kind of underneath his neck. He was sitting on my legs, his left hip against the motor, his right hip against my belly button. My right leg was up, and I folded his legs into my stomach. I was holding deadweight now. That’s a terrible thing to say.

Marquis wasn’t there. His eyes were shut, he was foaming at the mouth. I slapped his face lightly, telling him, “Keep holding on—we’ll be home before you know it.”

His neck would droop and his jaw would fall open. I noticed he
was getting a little water in his mouth. I told Will, “We’ve got to shut it.” Bracing himself against the motor, his left hand holding Corey’s life jacket, Will used his right hand to keep Marquis’s head up and his mouth closed. I was holding him like an infant. Randomly, Corey would let go of the boat, and we yelled at him, “Chill, chill—relax—help’s here—just a little longer—relax—they’re here!”

At one point I got his attention and told Corey to give me his watch so we could keep track of time. I latched it to my life jacket, at my sternum. He started putting his feet on the stern and pulling on my jacket and pushing off the back of the boat. He was showing his teeth now, angry. I could see the look in his eyes—there were like Marquis’s eyes. They were going every which way, rolling in the back of his head, like he had some kind of dementia. He was swearing random “Fuck yous!” I had never heard him swear in the couple of months that I had known him. Not angry cursing. Now he was being mean. It wasn’t Corey. It was like evil Corey, like Corey’s demon.

Corey would bend his legs like a frog against the back of the boat, and then he would push away, jumping backward. He was tearing and yanking at Marquis, grabbing and pulling on me, my jacket, and then he would let go completely.

“Grab on!” I told him. “Hold on to the boat!”

About ten minutes after we flipped Marquis over, I told Will to check his pulse. He was limp in my arms, and I feared the worst.

Will leaned his ear down and tried to hear Marquis’s breathing. The water and the wind were so loud. It was a whistling wind, a consistent blow with random strong gusts. The water was flying in and smashing us. I wore a cross on a chain around my neck, and I put the cross in my mouth. I sat there and prayed. “Please God, please God.”

Will said, “I can’t hear him breathing.”

Marquis did seem to have a pulse, though. Will felt his neck.
He must have checked him for a good minute. Waves were crashing, Marquis’s feet were sliding down. I was losing my grip on his head. We kept having to pull him up into my lap.

Meanwhile, Corey continued yanking on me and Marquis. Eventually, he started pulling on Will. “You got him?” I asked Will.

My left hand was still under Marquis’s neck. Will had Corey, so I took my right hand and pumped Marquis’s chest to make sure his heart was still beating. Corey really started fighting. He would struggle for about ten seconds, then he would go lifeless. Then he’d fight for a minute and go lifeless again. Then he would really fight—“Bitch, come on bitch!” Will was holding on to him, and he went at Will with both hands. He almost jumped on his neck, like a headlock, knocking Will off the boat. In the water, Will was able to get away from Corey for a minute.

“Stop, no!” I yelled at Corey.

I stayed on the hull, my legs around the motor, holding Marquis, praying that he was alive. Will grabbed Corey and held on to him in the crashing waves, about five feet from the boat. They got near the stern, and I reached and grasped Corey’s life jacket with my right hand. He was kind of sagging now, not holding on to anything. I tried to prop Marquis’s head up with my left hand, doing what I could to wipe the foam off his mouth. “They’re going to be here soon,” I told Marquis again. “They’re already looking for us. It’s a matter of time.”

Will returned to the boat and helped me take hold of Corey. “Don’t let go of him,” I said.

Corey tugged at me, trying to pull himself up. I said, “Corey, stop, you’re hurting me.” He was choking me, grabbing my life jacket. My neck felt like it had rug burn. Corey kept yanking and jerking, trying to hoist himself up, a 265-pound man having a delirious temper tantrum. He probably did that twenty times.

“The sun is going to come up soon,” I said, trying to calm him. “It’ll be daylight. They’ll see us.”

I asked Will to check Marquis’s pulse again.

He put his finger on his neck. He leaned in to listen.

“I don’t know,” Will said. “I can’t find it.”

I tried to stay positive, even though I feared the inevitable.

“He’s alive, he’s fine,” I said.

My right hand was burning now, holding on to Corey. He began flinging himself again, squatting against the boat and trying to jump away. Over and over. I was getting jolted. A couple of times Corey pulled on Will’s jacket, or whatever he could get ahold of. Then he would grab my jacket.

Will would let go of Corey and try to stay out of reach for a few moments so Corey couldn’t tug or choke him. Meanwhile, I kept holding Corey, while keeping Marquis balanced in my lap. I asked Will a couple times, “You all right?”

His answer was short, serious.

“Yeah, yeah,” he would say.

“Good,” I told him once, “because I can’t do this without you.”

Not only had we taken care of ourselves, but now two of us were helping four people. I got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t hold on to both Marquis and Corey for another second. Marquis was completely inert, and I didn’t think I could keep holding a 215-pound guy, using one arm and one leg, while I also restrained an even heavier man who was trying to pogo-stick himself away from me.

Every muscle I had was burning—my shoulders, upper back, lower back. The rug burn on my neck was getting bad. My hands were so pruned and battered. I still had my cotton gloves on, but at that point all but two or three fingers were torn from banging into the boat and the motor and trying to hold on to those two guys. Blood seeped through the gashes in my gloves. The motor had plenty of solid, hard edges. The sharp propeller was nearly in my face. I was sitting on the keel, and I kept trying to shift my weight because the ridge of the keel ran right up the crack of my ass.
Both of my legs were uncomfortable. My right hip flexor was gone. I was cramping in my hip, my groin, my feet. I kept trying to move my toes. I was in so much frickin’ pain. I was pumping my chest, shrugging my shoulders, squeezing my abs. I kept telling Will to do the same thing. Whether he did or not, I don’t know.

I think it was close to six now. Marquis had been unconscious for a while. Corey was thrashing. I kept telling him, “They’ll be here in ten minutes.” I said anything to try to calm him down.