Before the Fall(10)

They are spun and dragged. Down becomes up. Pressure threatens to rip them apart, man from boy, but Scott holds on. His lungs are screaming now. His eyes are burning from the salt. In his arms the boy has stopped struggling. The ocean is pure blackness, no sign of the stars or moon. Scott releases the air in his lungs and feels the bubbles cascade downward across his chin and arms. With all his strength he flips them over and kicks for the surface.

He emerges, coughing, his lungs half full of water. He screams them clear. The boy is limp in his arms, his head lying inert against Scott’s shoulder. Scott turns the boy until his back is against Scott’s chest, and then, with all his strength, compresses the boy’s lungs in rhythm until he too is coughing up salt water.

The seat cushion is gone, chewed up by the wave. Scott holds the boy with his good arm. Cold and exhaustion threaten to overwhelm him. For a time it’s all he can do just to keep them afloat.

“That was a big bad guy,” the boy says finally.

For a moment Scott doesn’t understand the words, but then it comes back to him. He told the boy that the waves were bad guys and they were the heroes.

So brave, Scott thinks, amazed.

“I could really go for a cheeseburger,” he says, in the calm between waves. “What about you?”

“Pie,” the boy says after a moment.

“What kind?”

“All of them.”

Scott laughs. He cannot believe that he is still alive. He feels giddy for a moment, his body thrumming with energy. For the second time tonight he has faced certain death and lived. He looks for the North Star.

“How much longer?” the boy wants to know.

“It’s not far,” Scott tells him, though the truth is they could still be miles from shore.

“I’m cold,” says the boy, his teeth chattering.

Scott hugs him.

“Me too. Hold on, okay?”

He maneuvers the boy onto his back, working to stay above the spray. The boy hugs Scott’s neck, his breath loud in Scott’s ear.

“Finish strong,” Scott says, as much for himself as the boy.

He gives one more look to the sky, then starts to swim. He uses a sidestroke now, scissoring his legs, one ear submerged in the salty murk. His movements are clumsier, jerky. He can’t seem to find a rhythm. Both of them are shivering, their core temperature falling with every passing second. It is just a matter of time. Soon his pulse and respiration will slow, even as his heart rate increases. Hypothermia will quicken its pace. A massive heart attack is not out of the question. The body needs warmth to operate. Without it, his major organs will start to fail.

Don’t give up.

Never give up.

He swims without pause, teeth chattering, refusing to surrender. The weight of the boy threatens to sink him, but he kicks harder with his rubbery legs. Around him the sea is bruise purple and midnight blue, the cold white of the wave caps glimmering in the moonlight. The skin of his legs has started to chafe in the spots where they rub together, the salt doing its insidious damage. His lips are cracked and dry. Above them, seagulls chatter and glide like vultures waiting for the end. They mock him with their cries, and in his mind he tells them all to go to hell. There are things in the sea that are impossibly old, astonishingly large, great undersea rivers pulling warm water up from the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic Ocean is a nexus of highways, of undersea flyovers and bypasses. And there, like a speck on a dot on a flea, is Scott Burroughs, shoulder screaming as he fights for his life.

After what feels like hours, the boy shouts a single word.

“Land.”

For a moment Scott isn’t sure the boy actually spoke. It must be a dream. But then the boy repeats the word, pointing.

“Land.”

It seems like a mistake, like the boy has mixed up the word for survival with the word for something else. Scott lifts his head, half blind with exhaustion. Behind them, the sun is starting to rise, a gentle pinkening to the sky. At first Scott thinks the landmass ahead of them is just some low-hanging clouds on the horizon, but then he realizes that he is the one who’s moving.

Land. Miles of it. Open beach curving toward a rocky point. Streets and houses. Cities.

Salvation.

Scott resists the urge to celebrate. There is still a mile to go at least, a hard mile against riptides and undertow. His legs are quivering, his left arm numb. And yet he can’t help but feel a surge of elation.

He did it. He saved them.

How is that possible?

*



Thirty minutes later a graying man in his underwear stumbles out of the surf, carrying a four-year-old boy. They collapse together onto the sand. The sun is up now, thin white clouds framed against a deep Mediterranean blue. The temperature is somewhere around sixty-eight degrees, gulls hanging weightless in the breeze. The man lies panting, a heaving torso ringed with useless rubber limbs. Now that they’re here he cannot move another inch. He is done.

Curled up against his chest, the boy is crying softly.

“It’s okay,” Scott tells him. “We’re safe now. We’re gonna be okay.”

There is an empty lifeguard station a few feet away. The sign on the back reads MONTAUK STATE BEACH.

New York. He swam all the way to New York.

Scott smiles, a smile of pure, joyous f*ck you.

Well, hell, he thinks.

It’s going to be beautiful day.