The Shark

The bump jars me awake. I pry open my salt-crusted eyes and see a blurry blue-colored sky framed in the open orange door of the life raft. Wind pours in through the opening and stirs the stale air inside the raft. The air flow feels good against my sunburned skin and helps revitalize my body. My mouth is dry but I manage to conjure up enough moisture to lick my cracked lips. The relief is short-lived.

Bump.

Goddammit to hell! He is back!

I raise my hurting body into a sitting position and stick my head outside the open doorway. The dark gray fin cuts through the water a few feet away. I drop back into the raft. I skirt over into the shade of the canopy and look around my sizable four-man life raft. I take another mental inventory of my supplies: one broken plastic oar; one liter of water; 2 Cliff bars; a faded blue tarp; a dull butter knife; a pocket compass; and two swigs of Kentucky bourbon. There is a bump from the bottom.

Goddamn shark.

Two days. Two days since the storm. Two days since I tried to end it.

Another bump.

With a strangled yell I grab the broken oar, get to my knees and thrust out of the doorway looking for that gray bastard. There is no sign of the shark, but floating just outside the door, stuck in the mesh ladder, is a fish. It is a bit mangled, but it is a whole fish and fresh.

What the hell?

The fin pops up just out of reach and begins a slow circle around the raft. I try unsuccessfully to hit it with the oar. I use the blade to scoop up the fish and drop it inside. I push back from the opening and fall back along the side. I stare at the gift. Or is it a taunt?

“Let me die,” I whisper. “Just let me die.”

I look past the fish to the orange-colored air chamber beyond and watch a small part of my life project itself like a movie screen. She was young, and beautiful, and full of life. Her smile captured my heart and I was as helpless as a baby when I was around her. I never expected her to say yes. The screen flips to the image of her lifeless body on the deck of the Coast Guard rescue boat. I had tried to fight them. I didn’t want their help. Why weren’t they helping her? She was the important one. They restrained me in handcuffs as they rushed me to the dock and the final ambulance ride to the waiting hyperbaric chamber.

A simple dive. One of many she planned for the honeymoon.

Another bump. Another. Then three erratic blows all at once from underneath.

“Goddamn it! OK!” I shout. I get up and lean outside the opening, a piece of fish in each hand. “You happy now you son of a bitch!” I bite a chunk of the piece in my left hand, then again in my right, chewing and swallowing the raw meat.

“Is this what you want?” I scream, tearing off another chunk.

The fin and tail come out of the water and do a swirl and I catch a glimpse of its hammer-like head before it disappears below.

I slide back down into the raft still chewing and munching on the fish.

“I want to die,” I whisper.

The incident, I love how it was described as an “incident.”

“My wife is fucking dead!” I wanted to scream at the rescuers, at the doctors, at the lawyers.

However, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

According to the official report my wife died due to misadventure during a recreational dive six years ago. I don’t know what happened. No one can tell me what happened. One second we were floating over the bottom of Monterey Bay and the next she was just gone. I remember looking up and watching her flippers kicking toward the surface.

They told me later, after I been moved from the chamber to a hospital bed, there were reports of a great white in the area. The story was that she had seen the shark and panicked. She made for the surface so fast the change in pressure burst both of her lungs. She was dead before they hauled her aboard the boat.

Bump.

Back to reality.

I scrape up the remaining pieces of fish and bone and toss them over the side. I grab the bladder containing the last of my water and have a short swig, just enough to wet my mouth and wash down the fish. I look down to see the shark outlined in its entirety in the doorway. It is a hammerhead, close to 12-feet long. This was my first good look at it since yesterday morning. There had been two other sharks around then, circling the raft and letting me know their intention was anything but peaceful. That is how I broke the oar, smashing one of them over the head with it. The hammerhead came out of nowhere, attacked the larger of the two, tearing him into pieces. I hadn’t seen the second shark since.

Bump.

Screw it. I stand up in the doorway and brace myself by holding the poles that stretch across the canvas top. The wind feels rough on my body. The water is calm and blue and empty. There is nothing in sight.

The shark drifts by below me, letting me see its full length. With a flick of its tail it is gone. The fin surfaces a moment later 20-feet away. I step up on the air chamber and jump into the ocean.

I surface and watch the raft slowly drift away. Either by drowning or by shark I am checking out. The mesh ladder drifts past my fingers and the raft is out of reach. I slip under the water.

It is warm, comfortable. I peer into the depths and think I can see her there, waving me down. There is a quick change in pressure and a hard whack to my side and I am moving through the water. There is no pain. In a swirl of sea water I am thrust against the raft and left hanging on the mesh ladder.

“GODDAMN IT!” I scream, when I realize what the shark has done. “Let me die! Let me fucking die!”

She had left two major surprises. First was the hefty insurance policy her parents had taken out: two million dollars’ worth. Second was the stock portfolio. Another three million. I didn’t know she invested in stocks.

I didn’t want it. I tried to give it to her parents. They didn’t want it. I tried to give it back to the insurance company. They didn’t want it. I tried to get rid of the stock. She had left written instructions with her stockbroker.

I went on a bender. I tried and did anything and everything that could kill me.

Some say the alcohol kept me alive. Others said I was cursed. I started to become convinced I couldn’t die. One hot day in July in some raggedy bar at the far end of the Bahamas I made the drunken bet that I could sail the crappiest fishing vessel they had straight into a hurricane and come out smiling on the other side. Later that day a small tropical storm upgraded to a class five hurricane and that evening I was singing at the top of my lungs as I steered a beat-up shrimper into the maw of Hurricane Irwina, my only safety net an expired four-man life raft.

Night brings another storm.

I jump off the raft twice more and both times the damn shark pushes me back to it without even a nibble. I am pissed. The sea turns nasty and the rain comes down in sheets. I leave the door open praying for a wall of water to swamp me until a gust of wind blows it tight against the opening. There are three bumps along the bottom so I get up and secure the damn thing with its hooks and buttons. Another hard bump and I am bounced over to a side where I finally tie myself in using the straps and lines designed for that purpose.

Waves send the raft tumbling. I hit my head against the oar paddle and it goes dark.

We ate hot pickle pizza, drank cold sarsaparillas and danced to the tune the old man in the corner played with his banjo. We stayed in Columbia our first night before driving on to Monterey. She loved the Gold Rush and old Gold Rush towns and you couldn’t get much better than the Fallon Hotel in Columbia. We walk hand-in-hand down the quiet nighttime street. Then blackness descends, the wind growls and she is gone, my hand holds nothing but the darkness of her ashes as they dissipate into nothingness. I drop to my knees and scream.

Back in the damn raft.

I untangle myself and push to my knees. The raft is unsteady, like it is being dragged through the water. Then I realize that the raft is moving. I tear at the hooks and buttons and throw the doorway flap open. The sky is filled with an island paradise. I look down to see what had me in tow. The shark had the mesh ladder in its mouth and is dragging me over the reef. Blood is mixed in the water and I knew it had torn its belly on the coral. I reach out to touch the dorsal fin. It is rough, like sandpaper, but oddly comforting.

Once clear of the reef the shark drops back and pushes me the rest of the way to shore. On the beach is a small crowd and I can see a red Jeep drive down a track that must have led to an upper parking lot or road.

I feel when she stops pushing and the raft turns so I am looking back out at sea. I crawl up to the doorway and drop over the side into waist deep water. The raft continues on to shore. She turns parallel to me and lets the tide push her in to me.

I place a hand under her and the other strokes her head. One of her eyes turns to look at me and I was in another place, another time.

“Jennie?”

She turns to her side allowing me to get both arms around her and I can feel hers around me. The moment is brief and I’m not sure what is happening then the tide changes and she is gone.

A voice asks if I am ok. I turn to see three young guys standing near me. None of them acts as if they had seen a shark. I look back at the reef and catch a glimpse of a gray tail giving a short wave as it slips beneath the waves.

They help me to shore. An older, white-bearded gentleman welcomes me into his Jeep and we make the drive back to civilization. The doctor is surprised at the shape I am in but wants me to spend the night in the local clinic. Above my bed hangs a sign: “To reflect is to reflect on the most subtle details of one’s action.” It is signed by Chinese philosopher Zengzi.

I don’t sleep. I stare out the window. First there is the dim glow of twilight. Then the brightness of the stars fills the night sky. Then the pink-tipped dawn exposes the coastal beach below. It is beautiful.

I thank the doctor and arrange to take the next ferry boat to Nassau.

The last six years proves I am meant for something more.

It is time to find out what.