by Stephen Biro
“There’s one they never found. And they say it still is half-wrecked and floats on the surface.”
“Crawley, I think you’re half-wrecked and barely floating on the surface.”
He paused and stared at me. Then cracked a crazy, appreciative smile and we laughed.
“Charlie, that’s why I love you. Donkey dicks, I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”
“Crawley, same here. I’m going to miss me when I’m gone.”
Miss me? He was older than me by a mile. Miles and miles.
At that moment, a vision of loveliness walked in from the other side of the Crawley’s dive shop. It was a woman who looked as if she was dipped in black paint. She was walking toward us. The dropping sun outlined her as the rays wrapped around her.
“Charlie, doesn’t that just fit her dandy?” Crawley was referring to his 23 year old daughter, a devilish beauty. Cassandra. Aka Cassie. She was wearing a brand new, super-skin wetsuit. It was down-right sexual, or sexy. Or I better watch myself type-thing sexy.
She cruised up. “How are you Mr. Delgado?”
“Great. How are you, Cassie?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Delgado.” I always got a kick out of being called ‘Mr.’ Mr. Delgado. But Crawley wouldn’t get a kick of out the little dalliance his daughter and I got into one night, after a brush-up diving seminar.
It was really more like a ‘brush-up’ high school make out session. Not good. I definitely needed more than my scuba tank hydro’d. I probably needed my brain. Pop the top of my skull and have an expert look around. It’s funny, because my mom would tell me at times that I ‘needed my brain examined.’ Words from forty years ago, words of truth.
“See you next week, Charlie. We got to inspect your tanks.”
“Monday or Tuesday.”
“Or if you hit it – maybe never. Donkey dicks! See you next week, Mr. Delgado.”
As I walked out, I liked that sound of that, or maybe not. It’s what Cassie would say…during our ‘supposed’ dalliance. ‘Mr. Delgado’...
I put the two tanks in the trunk and drove back home through the darkness.
There were so many myths about the General. Christ, I don’t believe any of them. I don’t even know if the General really exits. And now those damned old U-boats. The Gulf had plenty of wrecks; every single one had been located, looted or at least dove. In fact, I even did one. It had a sad beauty, it is history spread out on the seafloor. It lay on its side like a broken beast, its sections empty; large gaps suggesting some piece of technology fit there, but instead was wreckage lying strewn all over. Wrecks tended to unfold like that. And one thing - a coffin for the crew. They never had a chance.
Never forget.
When I got back to the house, it was dark. I left the tanks in the trunk. Inside, no lights were on. I turned one on in the living room.
“Karen?”
Maybe she got mad and split with her girlfriends. I undressed and slipped into bed and found her. I wrapped my arms around her body and she took my hands and pressed them up against her breasts. Home.
Next thing I knew, it was dawn.
The sea was picking up as we moved closer to the oil platform. It was really taking it out of us not having the convenience of swim fins.
“Sun’s going to go down in a few hours.”
“There is no way we are spending another night out here.”
I thought about it. We had been in the water over 24 hours. Karen would have called the Coast Guard. But we were very clandestine about our dive trip. And would have Otis noticed? And if so would he say anything? What we were doing wasn’t quite so legal. And would more than likely cost Otis his job.
“Charlie, somebody’s had to have called the Coast Guard.”
“Karen or maybe Otis?”
“You told Karen about the DEA boatyard?”
“You mean Homeland Security?”
“Charlie, I don’t care who owns it. Did you tell Karen?”
Skip had a point. I didn’t give her any details. But if I didn’t return last night, she would have for sure called…somebody.
“So she doesn’t even know that Otis is involved?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? Either she knows or she doesn’t.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Shit.”
“We got bigger problems.” I shouldn’t of opened my pie hole, but I did and now the bad news. But before I could speak..
“Charlie, if Otis calls the Coast Guard—“
“They’ll find out that we took the boat.”
“Not only will we be rescued, we will be arrested, too.”
“And regardless of, if we die, he’ll lose his job.”
“We’re not going to die. Skip, so we didn’t give him our trip plans, he knew we were looking for the General.”
“But this location is or was…top secret.”
Shit, our asses were in a sling. Karen would end up going to Otis. Who else in Pass Christian would handle this emergency? Then if he talks…the yelling might begin. She might go to higher authorities.
And no Crab Shack review favor… or maybe the Crab Shack would cater our memorial?
“I could use some water.”
“Want a drink?”
Skip had the bottle he took off the boat. But when he tested it, it was determined that is was full of whiskey. Not emergency water. Everything on the Dead or Alive was an illusion. As was the General, and now more than likely us.
“We shouldn’t drink alcohol. Might burn more water than we consume.”
“Doesn’t matter to me. When we reach that platform, there’ll be plenty.”
Skip had a point. So we shared a cocktail, straight whiskey after no food or water for 24 hours. It was a party.
I pulled the sheets back on the bed. I stared at my sleeping wife. I often did this when I had to get up early for work. I liked to stare at her nude body, totally relaxed and natural. She had beautiful skin. Smooth. My eyes glided over her curves, breasts, thighs and her ass. I was a lucky guy. Dawn had broken, so I had to get moving. I pulled the sheet back over her, scooped up my clothes and tiptoed out.
The Saturday morning neighborhood was still asleep, so I tried not to make any noise until Skip dropped his two tanks next to mine in the trunk. They made a loud ‘clunk’. He climbed in and I drove off.
“I guess now everyone knows what we’re up to.”
We stood next to it as Benny handed us the key. Benny was Otis’s right hand man, I guess you could call him the ‘assistant mayor’ of Pass Christian.
“Otis wants her back before sunset. Dead or Alive.”
“What?”
“The boat. Dead or Alive.”
“Benny, we’re just taking her for a spin around the block.”
“She’s got enough fuel to get you 100 miles south and back. So she should get you to the General.”
The General? How did Benny know?
“But keep an eye on her. This is the first time she’s been out in ages.”
He put his hand out and just kept it there until one of us dug in our pockets and gave him a five. The hand stayed there. I dug out another five, and slapped it down.
“Thanks. Cost of living raise.”
It struck me while we were twenty miles out at sea. DEA had nabbed her, so what was the Dead or Alive doing sneaking across international waters? Coke? Pot? Meth? Then it struck me.
“Hey, Skip. You think there’s any…contraband left on her?”
“Oh, shit. I never thought of that. You’d think she would’ve been stripped clean. Son of a bitch!”
“What if we get pulled over? We’re going to have some serious problems.”
Not happy. I took a deep breath. “We have to go through her and toss anything over.”
Skip shook his head, he was pissed.
“And I don’t care what the quality is.” We laughed.
Skip searched the small wh
eelhouse as I went below and checked everything I could without physically tearing the boat apart. Then I started pulling the boat apart. I found lose panels, pulled rugs, busted cabinets, things of that nature indicating a thorough search had proceeded us.
Skip yelled down, “Charlie. There’s no radio on board. We better not have any problems.”
“This thing will never sink. It’s practically new.”
No radio. Not good. But this was a quick dive trip.
“How close are we to the wreck?”
“The ‘supposed’ location is about 5 miles ahead. Let’s suit up.”
I was standing in the wheelhouse when I looked over to a chart case. It looked loose. “Did you check behind this?” I pulled it back and there was a radio.
“Why is it hidden?”
“They were dealers. Everything’s secret. It’s a communications device, but disguised as low tech.”
For some reason, that struck me as funny. Skip glanced at it closer. There was a foreign language on it.
“Hey, it’s German. The damned thing looks like it’s from World War Two.”
“Anything for the drug runners to make it work.”
We laughed. We were doing a lot of laughing. Too much laughter can equal a red flag. Next to the radio were sealed bottles marked EMERGENCY WATER.
“Check this out, it looks like it’s from World War Two, also.”
“Open it. Make sure it’s not liquid PCP.” We laughed. “I read about that shit in the news.”
I unscrewed the lid. It was water, or appeared to be a liquid.
“Water?”
Then I smelled it. “It’s whiskey.”
We roared with laughter. This trip was turning in a comedy act.
“Try the radio. It’s probably got a CD player built in. This is crazy.”
“This crew was high.”
“Let’s suit up.”
I moved to on deck and opened my ditty bag, and as I was pulling out my gear, I heard German. I looked over to the wheelhouse and there was Skip, staring straight at me. A very energized speech was spewing from the speaker. It sounded familiar.
“That’s Hitler.”
“It sure is.” This started to leave funny and shift over to weird.
Skip banged on the radio. “Charlie, this is one of those weird items that your grandfather orders from the little catalogues he gets in the mail every day?”
“One problem! My grandfather isn’t on the Third Reich’s mailing list.”
The chop had picked up and the two little black dots were starting to get tossed around. Skip and I were closer to the platform, but we were nearer to exhaustion.
Putting on a wetsuit can be like a lady pulling on a pair of too small of leggings. It can be a struggle and a bit of a fight. Now swimming in the wetsuit, without fins, is like being in a jar of peanut butter. Not impossible, but it is work. See, we didn’t have our swim fins.
My life lesson was this trip: I will never take my fins off ever again.
And I started to feel cold. That wasn’t good. But I knew we were going to get picked up by somebody, something. There’s no way we’d be left out here.
“I’m beat. Let’s rest”, Skip protested.
“Not too long, it’s going to get dark.”
I felt queasy, and kind of loose.
“Skip, I think that whiskey hit me.”
“Me, too. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Not only are we lost. We’re drunk.”
Then I saw something in the distance. Way off. “Look.”
Skip looked over and we both focused.
“It looks like a broken stick.”
Sticking straight up out of the ocean, at least a quarter mile away, was a dark thick stick, broken on top. Parts were dangling off.
“Seems to be moving. I bet it’s a buoy.”
“Looks like a burlap bag is tied to it.”
Strange.
“We better get moving to the platform.”
We chopped through the water again, exhausted, but knowing that rescue was near.
“Maybe we should head to the buoy instead. We’ll sunbath on it. Like seals.”
“The platform is right here. It has food, water and a hot shower. We’re doing the platform.”
I gave an order. Skip needed to focus. My voice commanded him. It worked, he slowly but surely started swimming again.
The sun began to set. But the great thing – the oil platforms are lit up like Christmas trees or the Galveston Pleasure Pier at night. My spirits picked up. No matter how dark; we would get there. Even if the lights on the platform weren’t on yet, they soon would be.
Or so I thought.
Once the DEAD or ALIVE reached the estimated wreck location, I flipped on the echo sounder. It indicated the seabed was about 165 feet below. That’s a pretty deep dive, but not out of the reach of seasoned divers. We drop down, look around for a few minutes, and maybe have to do some minor decompression. No cheating on that. The bends were vicious. That was the plan.
Skip slowed the engines down, the diesels groaning low as we found the perfect spot. Lots of parking available in this lonely ocean.
I dropped anchor. The sounder was showing a shadowy outline under us. We had no proof that it was the mythological GENERAL; Skip had actually got the info from an elderly fisherman. How? Fishermen get their nets caught in wrecks. That’s how one of the last U-Boats sank off the Atlantic coast was located.
But there were no guarantees. The treasure hunting game is a tremendous gamble, it can be very dangerous and most have lost at it. And some have paid the ultimate price.
“If we strikeout, we’ll finish the emergency water.”
“Either way, we’re drinking the whiskey.”
The stupid German radio was still blasting Adolf Hitler. We traded looks and Skip went over and turned it down. We pulled our masks down, adjusted our regulators and hit the water.
The Gulf has fair visibility. But the deeper you go, the less sunlight makes it through. So as we pass 60 feet…it starts to get dark. This is where experience comes in. Stay cool. Every move thought out. The sound of the air regulators amplified our breathing. Listening to your own breathing can be weird; the inhale of compressed gas…then the exhale with a rush of bubbles flying to the surface. After a while, you don’t hear it anymore. We keep heading down when out of the darkness appeared a very large piece of jagged steel. Skip and I moved cautiously, slowly around it, floating like two astronauts in space. Cool, calculated moves; an accident as this depth can be very quick and very deadly.
This wreckage would usually be something to celebrate, but it didn’t seem ship-like. Skip and I hovered around it, giving it a careful inspection. We traded looks at 80 feet under – this was not looking good.
I pushed my mask into his, “This thing is supposed to be an old minesweeper.” Talking underwater was kind of yelling through your regulator while touching masks. Your mask was a default speaker, and you could actually communicate. But it was limited.
Skip shook his head doubtfully. “This might be one of the missing platforms that went down with Katrina. There’s hundreds. If oil didn’t leak out, they left it alone. Unmanned, of course.”
It’s great getting a history lesson from your fellow diver at 80 feet. I pointed down and we and we went deeper. Each foot deeper caused more pressure to be exerted on us. I had just read that there were 27,000 or so abandoned underwater oil and gas heads, and about 1200 above water platforms – all not in use.
And every foot lower, the feeling got more intense that this dive, and trip, was done. But I knew we had to go all the way to the bottom to be sure. We were pros, and that’s what pros do.
We glided along the steel structure. Then we saw -- a placard bolted to the twisted beam. It read ‘Bogalusa Gas & Oil’ in the salty, milky waters.
So it was a rig, an oil platform blown down by the mighty Katrina. Twisted drilling pipes and cables, pipes running everywhere and no living quarters. So it was probably
unmanned and now just a write off for a corporation, and a gift to the ocean.
“We we’re done,” I yelled through the water. Skip turned to me – touched his mask to mine – “Whiskey.”
I started to laugh, but a low roar, maybe a ship engine, stopped our laughter. A noise was approaching.
We both looked up and then heard an extremely loud sound, like something hitting something that shocked through us. We had to get to the surface.
Then a huge, gigantic shadow glided over us. First thought is a whale; but we knew the odds were zero. Made one feel really insignificant in a sickening way, 80 feet underwater. Oddly, and I know Skip had the same thought, our worse fear was on the way up to the surface watching our boat sink past us.
Not under long enough to warrant any decompression, we came up about 50 yards off the Dead or Alive. The perspective of the Dead or Alive looked off, like a painting that was hung tilted on a wall. Then it hit me.
She was sinking.
“Oh, shit.” Skip and I made a mad dash to get to her. She was taking on water, but it wasn’t over yet. But my thought was, we’re going to loose her. Skip climbed on board, tore his tanks off, threw his mask and fins aside and immediately went below.
As I started to pull myself on board, I stopped. “I’m going to look underneath.”
I jumped back over the side and glided under the boat. Now, being raised around boats, water skiing, huge in the South, or fishing, bigger…well, you end up seeing the underneath of your boat. One could never guess how the bottom of their boat would look. I’m not saying it’s the same as looking up the skirt of Mary Rosestone’s in 8th grade – but there was always that grinding mystery until you actually looked. The good thing is I wouldn’t get busted and detention for this. Ah, the weird thoughts the come out of nowhere in a crisis.
I immediately came upon the problem. (I’ve seen dolphins attacked by sharks; the sharks take bites of flesh from the dolphin like you rip chunks out of sour dough bread. Gross. The sharks have killed their prey; the dolphin is history. This had the same sickening feel.)
A 7 foot gash, maybe 16 inches wide, ripped laterally through her hull. Like dolphin flesh. She was minutes away from the end. I could see into the hull and see a blurry view looking up into her now exposed lower cabins. I think I could see a bunk floating next to a small vanity. Issues of ‘Yachting International’, ‘High Times’ and ‘Barely Legal’, were all floating face down on top of the rising water, bouncing like a GIF.
