His chest was beginning to spasm with the need to breathe.
Don’t panic, he thought. Panic and you drown. You’ll drown 5 feet from the surface, you idiot. Keep swimming. Just keep going.
He broke surface just next to a capsized ship, a triangular wooden hull coated with barnacles and sea-growth. Storm waves were tossing the ship like a toy, the wind whipping water into a froth that flew into the air. His father was halfway up there, hanging on. Enraged, Jack crawled gasping up the barnacle-encrusted wood, his fingers digging in, wood under his fingernails. “You did it!”
he yelled, gasping, at his father. “You did this!”
His father was old and weak. He began to slide off into the water.
“You did this on purpose! You want to die!”
His father moaned, still sliding.
“Don’t you?”
His father was in the water now, sinking.
“Dad! Dad?”
There was the waves and the wind, and flashes of lightning.
“You’re already gone!” Jack screamed. “You’re a ghost, goddamn it! A ghost! Why don’t you stay dead!”
The storm wind howled and whistled, almost as if it were speaking.
“Jack?” a voice said.
“What?” Jack looked around, startled. It was his wife’s voice.
“Jack? Jack?”
Jack looked down at his wife. Peggy was standing on the lawn, looking up at him. He was clinging to the mossy shingles of the roof, soaking wet and shivering from the cold.
“Jack, please come down.” She was standing there in her nightgown and a robe, her arms folded across her chest against the cold. Her eyes were desperately worried, and she looked like she was fighting to remain calm.
“I’m … I’m not well, Peg.”
“I know, sweetheart. It’s okay. Please come down off the roof.”
“I’m getting crazy again, it’s worse than ever.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll work on it, just don’t fall off the roof.”
“I wrecked the car.”
“I don’t care. I want you safe in the house. When I get you safe in the house we’ll talk.”
“We’re going in the morning, Peg,” he said, edging toward the side of the house. “I don’t care what it takes, we’re going back to Florida. We’re leaving.”
“That’s fine, that’s wonderful. Please be careful.”
“I’ll go to the office tomorrow, straighten everything out, and then we’ll leave.” He had reached the edge, and was tentatively feeling for a place to put his foot on the fence.
Peggy reached up and guided his foot to a secure foothold. “Let them repossess everything. We’ll make a fresh start.”
He made it down and she hugged him, then quickly led him inside. In the bedroom she helped him off with his sopping wet clothes. They smelt of sea water. She wrapped him in his long, thick terry cloth robe and gave him a hot brandy with honey and lemon. He sat on the bed with the television on, sipping on the brandy. “Thank you, honey. Thank you. I feel a lot better now.”
The phone rang, and she went off in the next room to answer it. A moment later she came back in and turned the television volume down. “It’s for you,” she said. “It’s Neil Cromwell.”
Jack put the hot brandy down so he wouldn’t spill it; his hands had started shaking. He swallowed, looking at their beside phone. You incredible bastard, he thought.
“Want me to tell him you’re asleep?” Peggy asked.
“No,” Jack said. He was afraid of what Cromwell might say to her if she got back on the phone with him. Jack reached out and picked up the receiver. “What?” he said.
“Hi Jack. How’re you feeling?”
“What do you want?”
“I told you I had ways, Jack. The photographer was mine.”
“I’m going to turn you into the police.”
“You can’t prove anything, and you’re wife will still find out what happened.”
Jack looked up at Peggy. She was staring at him. He could say nothing more to Cromwell, he could hardly breathe let alone talk.
It was happening again.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning, Jack,” Cromwell said.
“Eight o’clock sharp, my office.” The phone clicked, and the dial tone rang in his ear.
Jack dropped the phone and sprang out of bed toward the closet, sliding open the right-side door and dragging out his diving gear. Heavy metal bottles full of air clanged and clunked as he hastily made connections. His wife sat on the floor with him, holding him and rocking as he pulled desperate breaths from the regulator. He made more connections, opened valves, and handed one to her. She took it, put it to her mouth and breathed.
#
Neil Cromwell opened the envelope and spread the color 8 X
10’s across his desk. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful woman. Jack Buchman looked like a child under her. His skin was so white in the glare of the flash pictures that he looked like a gawky little teenager who was raised underground by moles. Christie had phoned him last night when she got the room, and he’d sent the photographer right over. The photographer had developed the pictures immediately and delivered them this morning at sunrise.
In his mind Cromwell saw them scurrying about on the floor at his feet, little wind-up people, one with a camera and one with large breasts. They were pushing the anomalous, misshapen figure of Jack Buchman off of the playing board. Out of the game! he thought, and laughed.
He looked at his watch. It was 8:00 AM sharp. Any second now, he thought. Any second …
At 8:20 AM Cromwell was fuming. In his head he was kicking the misshapen balloon-like character of Jack Buchman around the room, bouncing him off walls and the furniture, but there wasn’t a sharp enough object anywhere to rupture him …
Damn it, he thought. Where are you? He’s doing this just to make me angry. He’ll show up. He’s not that big a fool.
At 8:40 AM Cromwell was getting depressed. He was concluding that Jack was not going to show up, and that he was going to have to go through with the ugly business of displaying copies of the photographs to Jack’s wife. He was scooping the photos up and dismally putting them back in the manila envelope when he heard someone in the outer offices let out a sharp exclamation, and then laughter. The laughter grated on his nerves. He got up and went to the door, opening it. His receptionist was gone. Grim-faced and in an evil temper he tramped out into the common to find everybody in the office crowded around someone in a full frogman outfit. The frogman was walking slowly toward Cromwell’s office, his every step making a flopping sound and his breathing amplified to where it sounded like a steam gate switching one way then another; keessshh-pooooo, keessshh-pooooo …
The frogman was Jack Buchman. Cromwell was dumbfounded. This is inexcusable, he thought. I must regain control of this situation.
“Okay everyone, Jack’s little joke is funny but it’s over now,” Cromwell said. “I would like you all to get back to work, and you,” he said to Jack, “I want you in my office right now!”
Jack plodded toward him, his enormous flippers making the most ridiculous noise. He entered Cromwell’s office amid child-like giggles from the secretaries and sales people. Cromwell closed the door behind him, cutting off the sound. For a moment while he stood beside Jack in the silence he considered ripping the face mask off Jack’s face. He finally decided he was above such petty gestures and, instead, walked over to his desk and sat down.
“I don’t know what you have to gain from this, this …
stunt.”
Jack remained silent except for his amplified breathing.
Cromwell tried to stare him down, but he could only see his own face reflected in the glass of the mask. Bastard, he thought.
You’re trying to unnerve me. Well it isn’t going to work. Cromwell took the envelope and dumped the pictures back onto the desk. The feeling of triumph he’d been expecting was not there. He forged on anyhow, saying, “Well, Jack, take a dive into these while you’re standing there.”
Jack made no move to look at the pictures.
“Look at them, Jack. What do you think?” Still no reply, no move to look at the photos. It doesn’t matter, Cromwell thought, he knows what they show. “How long have you been married to, er … Peggy, isn’t it? What will she think of these?”
Jack’s amplified breathing echoed through the office. He made no reply, no gesture. The man has gone insane, Cromwell thought.
He’s lost touch with reality.
“Are you ready to sell your father’s stock?”
Jack took several more breaths, then held one. He pulled the regulator out of his mouth, and said, “No.” The word was followed by what Cromwell thought was smoke. “I’m not selling the stock, I’m leaving it where it is.” Jack took another breath from the mouthpiece. “I’m here to tell you I’m leaving, which should make you happy.”