Jaws

by Peter Benchley

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “That’s good,” said the man with the earphones.

  “Okay,” said Middleton. “We’ll start tight, Walter, then go to a two-shot, okay? Give me speed when you’re ready.”

  The cameraman peered into the eyepiece, raised a finger, and pointed it at Middleton. “Speed,” he said.

  Middleton looked at the camera and said, “We have been here on the Amity beach since early this morning, and as far as we know, no one has yet dared venture into the water. There has been no sign of the shark, but the threat still lingers. I’m standing here with Jim Prescott, a young man who has just decided to take a swim. Tell me, Jim, do you have any worries about what might be swimming out there with you?”

  “No,” said the boy. “I don’t think there’s anything out there.”

  “So you’re not scared.”

  “No.”

  “Are you a good swimmer?”

  “Pretty good.”

  Middleton held out his hand. “Well, good luck, Jim. Thanks for talking to us.”

  The boy shook Middleton’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “What do you want me to do now?”

  “Cut!” said Middleton. “We’ll take it from the top, Walter. Just a sec.” He turned to the boy. “Don’t ask that, Jim, okay? After I thank you, just turn around and head for the water.”

  “Okay,” said the boy. He was shivering, and he rubbed his arms.

  “Hey, Bob,” said the cameraman. “The kid ought to dry off. He can’t look wet if he isn’t supposed to have been in the water yet.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Middleton. “Can you dry off, Jim?”

  “Sure.” The boy jogged up to his friends and dried himself with a towel.

  A voice beside Brody said, “What’s goin’ on?” It was the man from Queens.

  “Television,” said Brody. “They want to film somebody swimming.”

  “Oh yeah? I should of brought my suit.”

  The interview was repeated, and after Middleton had thanked the boy, the boy ran into the water and began to swim.

  Middleton walked back to the cameraman and said, “Keep it going, Walter. Irv, you can kill the sound. We’ll probably use this for B-roll.”

  “How much do you want of this?” said the cameraman, tracking the boy as he swam.

  “A hundred feet or so,” said Middleton. “But let’s stay here till he comes out. Be ready, just in case.”

  Brody had become so accustomed to the far-off, barely audible hum of the Flicka’s engine that his mind no longer registered it as a sound. It was as integral a part of the beach as the wave sound. Suddenly the engine’s pitch changed from a low murmur to an urgent growl. Brody looked beyond the swimming boy and saw the boat in a tight, fast turn—nothing like the slow, ambling sweeps Hooper made in his normal patrol. He put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “You see something, Hooper?” Brody saw the boat slow, then stop.

  Middleton heard Brody speak. “Give me sound, Irv,” he said. “Get this, Walter.” He walked to Brody and said, “Something going on, Chief?”

  “I don’t know,” said Brody. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He said into the walkie-talkie, “Hooper?”

  “Yes,” said Hooper’s voice, “but I still don’t know what it is. It was that shadow again. I can’t see it now. Maybe my eyes are getting tired.”

  “You get that, Irv?” said Middleton. The sound man shook his head: no.

  “There’s a kid swimming out there,” said Brody.

  “Where?” said Hooper.

  Middleton shoved the microphone at Brody’s face, sliding it between his mouth and the mouthpiece of the walkie-talkie. Brody brushed it aside, but Middleton quickly jammed it back to within an inch of Brody’s mouth.

  “Thirty, maybe forty yards out. I think I better tell him to come in.” Brody tucked the walkie-talkie into the towel at his waist, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called, “Hey out there! Come on in!”

  “Jesus!” said the sound man. “You damn near blew my ears out.”

  The boy did not hear the call. He was swimming straight away from the beach.

  The boy who had offered the ten dollars heard Brody’s call, and he walked down to the water’s edge. “What’s the trouble now?” he said.

  “Nothing,” said Brody. “I just think he’d better come in.”

  “Who are you?”

  Middleton stood between Brody and the boy, flipping the microphone back and forth between the two.

  “I’m the police chief,” Brody said. “Now get your ass out of here!” He turned to Middleton. “And you keep that fucking microphone out of my face, will you?”

  “Don’t worry, Irv,” said Middleton. “We can edit that out.”

  Brody said into the walkie-talkie, “Hooper, he doesn’t hear me. You want to toot in here and tell him to come ashore?”

  “Sure,” said Hooper. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The fish had sounded now, and was meandering a few feet above the sandy bottom, eighty feet below the Flicka. For hours, its sensory system had been tracking the strange sound above. Twice the fish had risen to within a yard or two of the surface, allowing sight and smell and nerve canals to assess the creature passing noisily overhead. Twice it had sounded, compelled neither to attack nor move away.

  Brody saw the boat, which had been facing westward, swing toward shore and kick up a shower of spray from the bouncing bow.

  “Get the boat, Walter,” said Middleton.

  Below, the fish sensed a change in the noise. It grew louder, then faded as the boat moved away. The fish turned, banking as smoothly as an airplane, and followed the receding sound.

  The boy stopped swimming, raised his head, and looked toward shore, treading water. Brody waved his arms and yelled, “Come in!” The boy waved back and started for shore. He swam well, rolling his head to the left to catch a breath, kicking in rhythm with his arm strokes. Brody guessed he was sixty yards from shore and that it would take him a minute or more to reach the beach.

  “What’s goin’ on?” said a voice next to Brody. It was the man from Queens. His two sons stood behind him, smiling eagerly.

  “Nothing,” said Brody. “I just don’t want the boy to get out too far.”

  “Is it the shark?” asked the father of the two boys.

  “Hey, neat,” said the other boy.

  “Never mind!” said Brody. “Just get back up the beach.”

  “Come on, Chief,” said the man. “We drove all the way out here.”

  “Beat it!” said Brody.

  At fifteen knots, it took Hooper only thirty seconds to cover the couple of hundred yards and draw near the boy. He stopped a few yards away, letting the engine idle in neutral. He was just beyond the surf line, and he didn’t dare go closer for fear of being caught in the waves.

  The boy heard the engine, and he raised his head. “What’s the matter?” he said.

  “Nothing,” said Hooper. “Keep swimming.”

  The boy lowered his head and swam. A swell caught him and moved him faster, and with two or three more strokes he was able to stand. The water was up to his shoulders, and he began to plod toward shore.

  “Come on!” said Brody.

  “I am,” said the boy. “What’s the problem, anyway?”

  A few yards behind Brody, Middleton stood with the microphone in his hand. “What are you on, Walter?” he said.

  “The kid,” said the cameraman, “and the cop. Both. A two-shot.”

  “Okay. You running, Irv?”

  The sound man nodded.

  Middleton spoke into the microphone: “Something is going on, ladies and gentlemen, but we don’t know exactly what. All we know for sure is that Jim Prescott went swimming, and then suddenly a man on a boat out there saw something. Now Police Chief Brody is trying to get the boy to come ashore as fast as possible. It could be the shark, but we just don’t know.”

  Hooper put the boat in re
verse, to back away from the waves. As he looked off the stern, he saw a silver streak moving in the gray-blue water. It seemed part of the wave-motion, but it moved independently. For a second, Hooper did not realize what he was seeing. And even when the realization struck, he did not see the fish clearly. He cried, “Lookout!”

  “What is it?” yelled Brody.

  “The fish! Get the kid out! Quick!”

  The boy heard Hooper, and he tried to run. But in the chest-deep water his movements were slow and labored. A swell knocked him sideways. He stumbled, then stood and leaned forward.

  Brody ran into the water and reached out. A wave hit him in the knees and pushed him back.

  Middleton said into the microphone, “The man on the boat just said something about a fish. I don’t know if he means a shark.”

  “Is it the shark?” said the man from Queens, standing next to Middleton. “I don’t see it.”

  Middleton said, “Who are you?”

  “Name’s Lester Kraslow. You want to interview me?”

  “Go away.”

  The boy was moving faster now, pushing through the water with his chest and arms. He did not see the fin rise behind him, a sharp blade of brownish gray that hovered in the water.

  “There it is!” said Kraslow. “See it, Benny? Davey? It’s right there.”

  “I don’t see nothin’,” said one of his sons.

  “There it is, Walter!” said Middleton. “See it?”

  “I’m zooming,” said the cameraman. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

  “Hurry!” said Brody. He reached for the boy. The boy’s eyes were wide and panicked. His nostrils flared, bubbling mucus and water. Brody’s hand touched the boy’s, and he pulled. He grabbed the boy around the chest, and together they staggered out of the water.

  The fin dropped beneath the surface, and following the slope of the ocean floor, the fish moved into the deep.

  Brody stood in the sand with his arm around the boy. “Are you okay?” he said.

  “I want to go home.” The boy shivered.

  “I bet you do.” Brody started to walk the boy to where his friends were standing, but Middleton intercepted them.

  “Can you repeat that for me?” said Middleton.

  “Repeat what?”

  “Whatever you said to the boy. Can we do that again?”

  “Get out of my way!” Brody snapped. He took the boy to his friends, and said to the one who had offered the money, “Take him home. And give him his ten dollars.” The boy nodded, pale and scared.

  Brody saw his walkie-talkie wallowing in the wavewash. He retrieved it, wiped it free of water, pushed the “talk” button, and said, “Leonard, can you hear me?”

  “I read you, Chief. Over.”

  “The fish has been here. If you’ve got anybody in the water down there, get them out. Right away. And stay there till we get relief for you. Nobody goes near the water. The beach is officially closed.”

  “Okay, Chief. Was anybody hurt? Over.”

  “No, thank God. But almost.”

  “Okay, Chief. Over and out.”

  As Brody walked back to where he had left his beach bag, Middleton called to him, “Hey, Chief, can we do that interview now?”

  Brody stopped, tempted to tell Middleton to go fuck himself. Instead, he said, “What do you want to know? You saw it as well as I did.”

  “Just a couple of questions.”

  Brody sighed and returned to where Middleton stood with his camera crew. “All right,” he said, “go ahead.”

  “How much have you got left on your roll, Walter?” said Middleton.

  “About fifty feet. Make it brief.”

  “Okay. Give me speed.”

  “Speed.”

  “Well, Chief Brody,” said Middleton, “that was a lucky break, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It was very lucky. The boy might have died.”

  “Would you say that’s the same shark that killed the people?”

  “I don’t know,” said Brody. “I guess it must be.”

  “So where do you go from here?”

  “The beaches are closed. For the time being, that’s all I can do.”

  “I guess you’d have to say that it isn’t yet safe to swim here in Amity.”

  “I’d have to say that, that’s right.”

  “What does that mean for Amity?”

  “Trouble, Mr. Middleton. We are in big trouble.”

  “In retrospect, Chief, how do you feel about having opened the beaches today?”

  “How do I feel? What kind of question is that? Angry, annoyed, confused. Thankful that nobody got hurt. Is that enough?”

  “That’s just fine, Chief,” Middleton said with a smile. “Thank you, Chief Brody.” He paused, then said, “Okay, Walter, that’ll wrap it. Let’s get home and start editing this mess.”

  “What about a close?” said the cameraman. “I’ve got about twenty-five feet left.”

  “Okay,” said Middleton. “Wait’ll I think of something profound to say.”

  Brody gathered up his towel and his beach bag and walked over the dune toward his car. When he got to Scotch Road, he saw the family from Queens standing beside their camper.

  “Was that the shark that killed the people?” asked the father.

  “Who knows?” said Brody. “What’s the difference?”

  “Didn’t look like much to me, just a fin. The boys was kind of disappointed.”

  “Listen you jerk,” Brody said. “A boy almost got killed just now. Are you disappointed that didn’t happen?”

  “Don’t give me that,” said the man. “That thing wasn’t even close to him. I bet the whole thing was a put-on for them TV guys.”

  “Mister, get out of here. You and your whole goddam brood. Get ’em out of here. Now!”

  Brody waited while the man loaded his family and their gear into the camper. As he walked away, he heard the man say to his wife, “I figured all the people would be snot-noses out here. I was right. Even the cops.”

  At six o’clock, Brody sat in his office with Hooper and Meadows. He had already talked to Larry Vaughan, who called—drunk and in tears—and muttered wildly about the ruination of his life. The buzzer on Brody’s desk rang, and he picked up the phone.

  “Fellow named Bill Whitman to see you, Chief,” said Bixby. “Says he’s from the New York Times.”

  “Oh, for … Okay, what the hell. Send him in.”

  The door opened, and Whitman stood in the doorway. He said, “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Nothing much,” said Brody. “Come on in. You remember Harry Meadows. This is Matt Hooper, from Woods Hole.”

  “I remember Harry Meadows, all right,” said Whitman. “It was thanks to him that I got my ass chewed from one end of Forty-third Street to the other by my boss.”

  “Why was that?” said Brody.

  “Mr. Meadows conveniently forgot to tell me about the attack on Christine Watkins. But he didn’t forget to tell his readers.”

  “Must have slipped my mind,” said Meadows.

  “What can we do for you?” said Brody.

  “I was wondering,” said Whitman, “if you’re sure this is the same fish that killed the others.”

  Brody gestured toward Hooper, who said, “I can’t be positive. I never saw the fish that killed the others, and I didn’t really get a look at the one today. All I saw was a flash, sort of silvery gray. I know what it was, but I couldn’t compare it to anything else. All I have to go on is probability, and in all probability it’s the same fish. It’s too farfetched—for me, anyway—to believe that there are two big man-eating sharks off southern Long Island at the same time.”

  Whitman said to Brody, “What are you going to do, Chief? I mean, beyond closing the beaches, which I gather has already been done.”

  “I don’t know. What can we do? Christ, I’d rather have a hurricane. Or even an earthquake. At least after they happen, they’re over and done with. You can look around and se
e what’s been done and what has to be done. They’re events, something you can handle. They have beginnings and ends. This is crazy. It’s as if there was a maniac running around loose, killing people whenever he felt like it. You know who he is, but you can’t catch him and you can’t stop him. And what makes it worse, you don’t know why he’s doing it.”

  Meadows said, “Remember Minnie Eldridge.”

  “Yeah,” said Brody. “I’m beginning to think she may have something, after all.”

  “Who’s that?” said Whitman.

  “Nobody. Just some nut.”

  For a moment there was silence, an exhausted silence, as if everything that needed to be said had been said. Then Whitman said, “Well?”

  “Well what?” said Brody.

  “There must be someplace to go from here, something to do.”

  “I’d be happy to hear any suggestions. Personally, I think we’re fucked. We’re going to be lucky if there’s a town left after this summer.”

  “Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?”

  “I don’t think so. Do you, Harry?”

  “Not really,” said Meadows. “The town survives on its summer people, Mr. Whitman. Call it parasitic, if you will, but that’s the way it is. The host animal comes every summer, and Amity feeds on it furiously, pulling every bit of sustenance it can before the host leaves again after Labor Day. Take away the host animal, and we’re like dog ticks with no dog to feed on. We starve. At the least—the very least—next winter is going to be the worst in the history of this town. We’re going to have so many people on the dole that Amity will look like Harlem.” He chuckled. “Harlem-by-the-Sea.”

  “What I’d give my ass to know,” said Brody, “is why us? Why Amity? Why not East Hampton or Southampton or Quogue?”

  “That,” said Hooper, “is something we’ll never know.”

  “Why?” said Whitman.

  “I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses for misjudging that fish,” said Hooper, “but the line between the natural and the preternatural is very cloudy. Natural things occur, and for most of them there’s a logical explanation. But for a whole lot of things there’s just no good or sensible answer. Say two people are swimming, one in front of the other, and a shark comes up from behind, passes right beside the guy in the rear and attacks the guy in front. Why? Maybe they smelled different. Maybe the one in front was swimming in a more provocative way. Say the guy in back, the one who wasn’t attacked, goes to help the one who was attacked. The shark may not touch him—may actually avoid him—while he keeps banging away at the guy he did hit. White sharks are supposed to prefer colder water. So why does one turn up off the coast of Mexico, strangled by a human corpse that he couldn’t quite swallow? In a way, sharks are like tornadoes. They touch down here, but not there. They wipe out this house but suddenly veer away and miss the house next door. The guy in the house that’s wiped out says, ‘Why me?’ The guy in the house that’s missed says, ‘Thank God.’ ”