Deep Water Blues Read online

  Bobby’s guests are sleepy with food and drink. An older woman notices a tall black man outside, pressed against the window. He is completely naked, his genitals loose and long. Then more naked black men crowd the window. For a moment fear blazes through the room. Where did they come from? What do they want from us? No clothes. The Florida women are alarmed. The skinny men are all shivering and hungry and speaking in a strange language, tapping on the window. Let us in! The guests are drunk and paralyzed with fear. Don’t let them inside.

  Bobby walks outside to talk to the men, casual as always. One of them speaks a few words of English. They had sailed here from Haiti. Their boat hit a reef some distance southeast of the marina. These men were able to swim to shore. There are others on the boat.

  How many others? Ten? Thirty?

  They all speak at once. He can’t make out what the men are saying.

  The party night is over. The older men hobbled back down the hill to their boats with their girls lagging behind. Sadly, the festive mood was broken, the moment of love lost in unwelcome diversion.

  No dim light showing from Mike’s porthole. Too bad. He would have had his own inimitable take on the evening. He would have located the ironies, smelled death with his trademark ardor and sadness. Too bad.

  One of the captains pointed to the full moon. For marlin fishermen, the full moon presages great action in the morning and for the next several days. “It’ll be hot fishing in the corner tomorrow,” one of the captains commented. Sometimes when the fishing is hot in the southeast corner, the boats can catch three or four blue marlin in one day.

  ~

  Bobby threw two extra lines and a few life preservers into his beat-up skiff. He asked Dennis to follow in his tricked-out Boston Whaler. Bobby knew his new friend couldn’t resist. He’d want to be part of the action. Dennis coveted glory and power but mostly he wanted to be Bobby. Bobby knew this and it didn’t bother him—just another part of the circus of his life.

  They each took two of the Haitian men and jumped into their boats, cranked the engines, and headed into the night. It was exciting.

  Bobby led the way heading east, running parallel to the reef, dodging coral heads, easy going with a full moon showing the way. Bobby knew the reef like his childhood backyard in Miami—he’d been spearfishing this stretch of water for nearly forty years. He followed the broken ribbon of reef for about two miles before spotting a man in a life jacket, drifting in the current. The man was babbling to himself. They eased up to the fellow and his friends pulled him into the skiff.

  No sign of anyone else. They moved ahead, slowly following the reef that showed clearly beneath the water. Bobby stopped again. He turned off his outboard, called over to Dennis to do the same. They drifted, listening to the surf breaking on the outer reef. The man pulled from the sea was muttering and shivering. Someone threw a towel his way.

  Now clouds were shutting down the moon.

  Bobby called to the men in his boat, “Start yelling. Yell!”

  “Yell!” he called to Dennis in the other boat. Dennis had an impatient expression. He didn’t want to yell.

  The men were yelling in a mix of languages. They yelled into a building breeze. It felt hopeless. They listened to the wind. The man in the skiff mumbled to himself.

  “Let’s go back in,” Dennis called decisively to Bobby.

  Bobby started the outboard, edged his skiff ahead into the blackness. Now there was something—people chanting, like music, unless it was the wind. No, people were calling. It was pitch dark, the moon fallen behind clouds.

  He edged his skiff ahead.

  In the other boat, Dennis was nervous as a cat. He didn’t want to break up his new boat on a coral head.

  There was something in the distance rising from the mist and first spatterings of rain. Bobby drew closer, hit it with a flashlight. The ancient sailing vessel was floating upside down, her bottom splattered gaily with different colored dabs and dots and squares of blues, oranges, grays, and yellows—her waterline had thick rectangles of lighter blue, as if a street artist had created an abstraction to celebrate the triumphant escape from Haiti.

  Bobby understood in a glance. The Haitian boat had plowed into the reef and passengers panicked, ran to one side, and the old boat rolled over spilling everyone into the sea. How many people? No telling. Where were they all?

  There were several men and a woman standing on a nearby coral head, calling out. One man was floating nearby with his two palms upturned, an orange life preserver barely keeping his face above water. As Bobby edged closer, he could see the ones on the reef were torn up and bleeding from the coral. And to the east there were more clusters of reef, and he could make out dark shapes trying to hold on to the sharp coral heads. Had to get to them quickly or many would drown or be eaten by sharks.

  “One at a time, swim to me,” he called out to the people on the pinnacle of coral. They didn’t understand or care. Three of them jumped into the water reaching for the skiff that was now rising and falling in a building sea. The one wearing the life preserver remained bobbing in place. Bobby knew he was dead. One of the swimmers was pulling along a teenage girl. He tried to hand her up to Bobby, but the skiff fell away in the surge and the girl sank like a rock. She was gone.

  Watching from the other boat, Dennis was shocked. He made a gesture with his arms, nothing to do, and turned away from the Haitians trying to claw themselves into Bobby’s skiff.

  Bobby pushed men aside getting to the bow. He was wearing his flip-flops, slacks, and white shirt, and holding a mag light. He jumped over, grabbed some air and dove. Down, down, shining the light all over. It was murky. He had no mask or fins. Had to get to the bottom. Where was she? Down, down. Couldn’t find her. He turned around, swam back toward the coral head. Couldn’t see much except the light caught the shape of a few sharks, big sharks. They were looking around. Not hunting. Not yet. Then suddenly, he kicked something with his shoe. Kicked her in the head. She wasn’t moving at all. Floating near the bottom. Probably dead. He grabbed her by the hair and kicked for the surface. She was like pulling up a big dead fish. Bobby was way out of breath, but he held on and finally broke the surface with the girl. Got her head out of the water. He grabbed a breath, yelled for his boat, which eased closer. His arms across her naked chest. Finally, the boat was alongside and he pushed her up feeling her swollen belly and pubic hair slide across his face. The girl was about to give birth. She gasped. She was alive.

  Bobby was treading water, still trying to catch his breath and could feel something clawing at his back. He managed to turn around, one of the other men from the reef was trying to climb up his back. Bobby shouted at one of the Haitians in the boat to tell this guy to let go. But no one was listening. Bobby managed to twist around and he punched the guy in the face, hard as he could. Punched him again. Then he spun the man around and dragged him to the boat.

  Bobby got back to his boat, retching. Took some breaths, then he headed for the next clump of coral, collecting people. Dennis in the newer skiff began doing the same thing. By now, a bigger boat had come out of the marina and was standing by just offshore of the reef. From time to time they transferred Haitians onto the larger boat. The two skiffs pulled scores of people off the coral heads until there was no one left they could see.

  “Nothing more here,” Dennis called to Bobby.

  Bobby was deciding. Dennis wanted to get back to his big boat at the marina, have a drink.

  Bobby eased the skiff back to the Haitian sailboat. He pulled up alongside the blue hull, looked around. No one here he could see.

  Dennis gestured impatiently, “Let’s go, come on.” Dennis was finished with this adventure, wanted to tell captains at the dock what he’d done. He would have run back himself but didn’t know his way through the maze of coral heads in the dark.

  Bobby didn’t notice or care. He dove back in, swam to the capsiz
ed Haitian boat. He climbed onto the slimy bottom and began pounding on the hull. Pounded some more with his fist. Then a sound from inside. Someone signaling back. People were still alive in there. Some trapped air was keeping people alive. But not for much longer.

  Bobby called to Dennis to dive in and help. “Come on, bring a knife!”

  Dennis shook his head like a sulking kid. The Haitian boat was a mess of ruined sails, tangled ropes, clothing, floating luggage, soggy mattresses. A swimmer could easily get caught in the debris. There were sharks spinning right below the surface. Dennis shook his head. Dennis had big plans for his life.

  Bobby swam back to his skiff, grabbed a rusty filet knife, and swam back to the Haitian boat. He began cutting lines, clearing away sails, thrashing and cutting like a crazed man.

  Then back to the skiff again. He quickly rigged a bridle using a long anchor line. Hardly any time left. Again he called to Dennis. Dennis was a strong swimmer. He needed Dennis to dive in, secure two ends of the bridle to the far side of the Haitian boat. Then Bobby would push his boat into gear and try to flip the sailboat back onto her bottom. It was a delicate maneuver. If he pulled too hard with the skiff, the Haitian boat would keep rolling and end up back with her keel in the air.

  “Please, man. Just connect the lines,” he called to Dennis. “It’s easy.”

  Dennis shook his head, No.

  No time. Probably they were already dead. He needed to secure the bridle end of the line to the far side of the flipped vessel, then gun his skiff, try to flip her. He tried to explain to the Haitian captain what was necessary. “Gun her when I wave to you.”

  Did he understand?

  Bobby swam back to the Haitian boat, attached the bridle ends to wooden cleats on the far side of the hull. Then he signaled the Haitian.

  Bobby treaded water, watching. Slowly, very slowly, the boat rolled back onto her bottom. Bobby signaled with his hands, and the Haitian backed off on the throttle. Almost immediately a surge of old mattresses, clothing, suitcases, food, regurgitated from a square window at the top of the companionway. Now the sailboat was upright, but she was nearly filled with water and the window and passageway were three or four feet below the surface.

  Bobby could see sharks moving below, jerking this way and that, diving into the companionway. They were starting to feed. One of them came at Bobby’s feet and he kicked it away. Wasn’t much time left. Not with the sharks like this. Not with the boat flipped and filled with ocean. He needed to get inside and see if anyone was still alive. If the Haitian pulled the skiff with too much power, the forty-footer would flip again and roll on top of him. He’d be trapped.

  Bobby dove into the hole, squinting, couldn’t see a thing. Should have brought a mask. Almost immediately he could feel hands reaching up to him. He grabbed arms, hands, maybe it was two people. He tried to jerk them both out. But the hole was too small. The three of them were wedged into the hole along with mattresses and suitcases. It wasn’t wide enough. Out of breath. Bobby had to free one of his hands. He tried to push one of the arms back down into the hole—shoved the guy back down. A little wiggle room. Then with two hands he grabbed a head. He wrenched it up through all the debris. The two of them came bursting through that jammed up hole like a forced birth. It was a kid, terrified. Soon as they hit the surface he was on Bobby’s back like a monkey, biting Bobby on the shoulder. Madness crawling, scratching his back and head. Bobby dove back down to the companionway to grab the other person’s arm or head but the man or woman had drifted deeper into the hole and Bobby couldn’t reach him. He or she was gone. On the surface the kid was again latched on Bobby’s shoulders and no one was helping. It took him more than a minute to shake the kid and get him to the skiff.

  Bobby went back to the hole again, pulled out duffel bags and more mattresses. He dove into the cabin. Now he could feel arms, hands reaching up to him from the cabin floor, lots of people. They were all dead. They were drowned. Bobby didn’t try to pull any more of them out.

  ~

  Back at the marina there was much commotion and suffering. Seventy-six Haitian men and women meandered the dock wailing for the dead, many beseeching women with arms reaching to the cloudy sky, some wore tattered clothes, some naked. Many of the survivors were young. Most of the older ones had drowned.

  All this anguish must have wakened Mike on the old sailboat. That’s my hunch although I’m not certain about this. How could he have slept through it all? It’s my guess Mike stole a glance from his companionway and then went back to his bunk, tried to pretend it was a dream. I couldn’t have blamed him. He had his work and little else. There are catastrophes that trivialize any fictive rendering, no matter how brave or dark, no matter the investment in years or energy.

  Bobby put out a couple of hoses so the survivors could rinse off. Boat owners offered them towels and food. Bobby brought armfuls of clothing from his house on the hill, tried to get something for each of them to wear while Flo brought food from the kitchen. Many of the younger Haitians ran off and hid Bobby’s underwear or shorts in the bushes, then came back to the dock naked again, begging for clothes. The fourteen-­year-old kid he pulled out of the boat asked Bobby for his Rolex.

  Boat owners and their guests watched from the cockpits of the sportfishing boats.

  Eventually Bobby got everyone to sleep on the floor of his clubhouse dining room.

  Bobby and Dennis didn’t speak again that night. After this, their friendship became chilly and then much worse than that.

  The following morning Bobby had to go out to the reef again to recover bodies. Another diver came to help and one of the local guys ran the old skiff.

  It was a beautiful day, a pleasant southeast breeze with a two-foot chop on the ocean, perfect for trolling. Several miles to the east, Bobby could see a half dozen boats trolling the corner for marlin.

  The Haitian boat was easy to find in the morning light. She was still right side up, now gently hovering five or six feet beneath the surface. From the skiff they could see bodies littering the bottom, beginning to float with their arms reaching up.

  Bobby dove down about twenty feet to the bottom, looked around. The bodies were all naked and their skin was falling off. Some were partially eaten. They were all oozing blood from the nose, mouth, and eyes. He took one woman by the hand and began kicking for the surface. Her body was rigid, making it hard to drag her up. Bobby watched the Bahamian guy pull her into the skiff. Salt water and blood was pouring out of her everywhere. The guy became sick to his stomach.

  They worked at it for hours. When there were eight or nine in the skiff, they ran them back to the marina where the truck was waiting. Then they hosed the blood out of the skiff and went back for more bodies.

  Bobby was dragging a young boy to the surface when the other diver grabbed his shoulder. A sixteen-foot tiger shark was coming right at them, shaking its massive head and biting at the water. Bobby shoved the dead boy toward the shark and both divers swam for the skiff.

  All and all, they collected twenty-six bodies. There is no telling exactly how many died from the capsized boat. For days after, half-eaten bodies were washing up on Sandy Point.

  The local Bahamians considered Haitians inferior and wouldn’t allow the victims to be buried in the local cemetery. They considered it a desecration.

  Bobby had to bury them himself. He took his tractor to a swampy area on the north end of the island and dug a pit. He covered the bodies with lime and filled in the mass grave.

  Sometime later, I asked Bobby if this horrible event had taken a personal toll. “No, it never haunted me,” he said. “Never even dream about it. I’ve been around a lot of dead people.”

  Part II

  Time is passing in a manner I cannot grasp. Am I old or young? Is my balance still good enough to make it to the bow of the old boat in a six-foot breaking sea? Some days I feel quite young—especially when I’m troll
ing lures in a gentle ocean with my wife, son, and daughter headed for Rum Cay. But on this trip my beloved crew couldn’t make it, and I’m trolling to the island with elderly and inexperienced friends.

  What will I find in the marina Bobby spent decades hammering together with mismatched boards? Will the fancy fish boats cram his rickety docks with music blaring and trophy girls quickening the hearts of older men? Sure, the island has suffered setbacks, but Bobby promised to make it right again, soon the little marina will be better than ever—he said that to me when I dropped him a note on Facebook. And I believe him. Bobby is an unusual salesman, like my dad who had the ardor to close a big deal with his dying breaths.

  Maybe (but I’m not sure about this) I traveled to Rum Cay the first time with my father, on his boat, also called the Ebb Tide, same as my own boat. I can see Abe Waitzkin clear as day, emaciated, sickly, walking the warped docks, smiling, on his way to the little bar up the hill for a J&B on the rocks. He stops to catch his breath. He looks down into the clear shallow water beneath the sun-bleached planks and sees several bull and tiger sharks—man-eaters—milling around the pilings. He soundlessly makes the word wow with his lips. A big Lab retriever resembling Bobby Little’s dog, Marlin, ambles to the water’s edge, nearby, where the dock gives way to a tiny stretch of sand. The dog barks at the sharks in the shallow water, slaps the water with his paw. The sharks snap at his paws and one throws itself up on the sand trying to get him, but the dog is too fast. The heavy shark wriggles and heaves its way back into the tiny harbor of man-eaters. Abe Waitzkin shakes his head in awe and then continues his slow walk up the hill to the clubhouse. He needs a drink.