Reefdog

by Robert Wintner

  “I thought you were the producer.”

  “The money guys. The guys who pitch the sponsors.”

  So Ravi learned the game, that rejection can be an act of mercy, can shorten the agony of New York and sponsors for danger.

  The day ended on two beers, a doobie, and a downer. The buzz made more sense at a fork in the road, but the downer gave “water schlep” new meaning. Marijuana was the sledgehammer of choice in the sundown gandy dance, laying track to oblivia. But with the way station of middle age coming on, the weed amplified the wrong stuff. Maybe it was all wrong stuff, like hyping ocean threats. Albert Huffman was a pimp. National Geographic came on like champagne but fizzled to scuz. A talented photographer got discovered then shunned, as if art so far from Manhattan was no basis for lunch.

  Ravi Rockulz could stay physically fit and ready, but he couldn’t tell what for. Details seemed elusive, but the future drew nigh, and a man needed more. More than la vie en rose? More than tropical adventure with friends? What was the problem? Depression? Too much dope? Not enough dope? Like a sailor, downwind in following seas—he watched the barometer and horizon. Squalls come up, no problem. A squall can race across and vanish, or rush in to dump a deluge, no problem. But squall lines bunching up with the barometer dropping? That was a problem. He could reduce sail or change course. Bare poles, battened hatches, sea drogues and hove-to survival mode seemed premature. But he kept an eye to windward.

  Most dive leaders gain water wisdom by thirty, leading more by presence, sensing situations. Ravi had aptitude and found a career at nineteen. How many dives ago was that? Most dive leaders don’t count dives. They count income and years because age happens.

  The industry was macho; hardheads got bent or failed in business. Any tourist may process nitrogen off the charts because the tables are conservative, but ignoring the tables can change a life or end it. Even the idiots knew this, so errors tended to be honest, leaving ample room for macho expression elsewhere. For example, dives got counted, then not counted. Not counting showed seasoning. Most instructors stopped counting in year two or counted to themselves. Counting was for those who hadn’t accepted life at depth.

  Ravi Rockulz reached six hundred dives in his second year and would break a thousand soon. No, wait: two tanks daily would be seven thirty a year if he didn’t miss a day, but he would on days off. Still, in eight months, with three night dives a week, or two—he’d break a thousand by year three. That was fast. But who’s counting?

  A raw number indicated repetition on the drill, with six tourists daily. Ravi saw familiar faces and wondered: Weren’t you here last week, or year? Do I remember you? Repeat customers said it was great to see him again, hoping today’s dive would be as incredibly spectacular as last year’s dive. Remember? We went to…

  He went along: “Yes! It’s wonderful to see you again.” Some repeat customers laughed short. Then he glazed at the gap from then to now and the years, up in bubbles.

  A seasoned veteran did not count dives because it was pointless after several thousand dives. Oh, I have thirteen thousand dives. What? Are you nuts? Thirteen thousand? Did you count them? Would you rather dive than fuck? Will your bones turn to ash? The macho elite easily dismissed bone necrosis with a baseball cap that said: Nitrogen Junkie!

  Ha!

  Counting dives became so faux pas that it gave way to new expressions of expertise: We run six, seven hundred dives a year each, so the gear has to be tough. We don’t have time for breakdowns. Get it? Six or seven hundred dives a year was the pro standard. If you wanted to stay in, stay down for five years or ten, there was your count. Twenty years? It happened, but reality took its toll. Even top dive instructors get stooped and leathery. Why would they measure exposure? They were obviously long haulers.

  Besides, numbers didn’t count for squat next to tall tales. Any adventure has its lore—the big one that got away or the summit unreached—so, too, deep dives daily made danger an old familiar, maybe more so. A climber failing to summit can likely climb down. A fisherman losing a big one can have another beer and two more hotdogs. Big deal. Even a sailor can tread water. But a scuba pro at depth with six strangers, mostly novices with little instinct, knows the price of error. People died—not often, but then how much of the bends, or drowning, or embolism do you need to gain attention?

  Ravi could spin yarns with the best, and the boys did sit and spin over a few beers and the latest dope and a cigarette or two because nothing felt better than war stories and nicotine after breathing a couple of tanks compressed. But the yarns could turn against the teller, could tangle a reputation in dark language, like unsafe, bent again, embolism, decompression, no safety stop, ran empty at depth, panicked on an emergency free ascent, narced at 110 feet, and into the nightmare medley of things gone wrong. Some stories could trigger the knee-jerk—a laugh, a scoff, scorn or worry. Kill a tourist, and the details would be audited ad nauseam, till diver error was accepted. Kill two tourists, or three, and tourists would see the shadow on the dive leader in question—or hear about it.

  Cheerful but not so dumb as they seemed, the tourists were often successful suits back home. Most could sense things. A dive leader with a bad rep could wonder who knew, compensating with exemplary diligence, as if the job wasn’t tough enough.

  Stories of things gone wrong were not casual but shared for humor and insight. The most common foible was nitrogen narcosis, caused by nitrogen on-gassing at seventy feet or deeper. With air compressed to half its former volume, or twice its former density, at every atmosphere—every thirty-three feet—of descent, a diver at seventy feet breathes twice the nitrogen. Or is it three times? It gets tricky, and getting it wrong can bend a diver or make her sick and unstable. Narcosis is a lesser risk but still a risk. It brings on euphoria, in which the sea makes ultimate sense, answers all questions, and opens its arms seductively. In narcosis, the depths can speak with the voice of God, who can be a mermaid of perfect proportion. Ravi Rockulz warned many a six-pack—industry slang for six tourists—of narcosis. Standard procedure was to gather round on entry, treading and signaling okay, going from snorkel to regulator. The exchange continued on descent, okay on ear clearing, okay on feeling, okay, okay and okay—down to narcosis depth and deeper on the all okay. The dive plan was a twenty-five-minute drift at 110 feet along the back wall, an advanced dive, but an easy one with proper care—a favorite for drastic views: no bottom, big creatures and a current to do the work. The boat would pick them up at the end of the wall.

  Except that one day the tourists were Japanese, an oddity back then when most Japanese tourists traveled in tight-knit groups of twenty or thirty. If they got in the water at all, each would put a hand on the hull, grasp the mask, look down, and come up chattering like tape recorders in reverse.

  But this group was young, six fit divers doing fine to seventy feet, where one went limp. Ravi swam around to ask if he was okay, and the guy beamed, peeling off his mask and ditching his regulator to grin. Then he dropped into full speed to pursue perfection. Maybe he saw the stark difference between ultimate beauty and life in Tokyo. The guy torpedoed a hundred feet, till Ravi caught his ankle, jerked him to a stop and manhandled him into a cross-chest carry, reaching around to stick a spare regulator into the guy’s mouth. The guy didn’t resist or struggle but breathed hard. No wonder, as Ravi checked his depth gauge: 180 and sinking. Then it got worse: five more obedient Japanese tourists had followed to 180 feet and awaited further guidance from management.

  Ravi would shrug at that point in the telling: “I called it a bounce—no decompression necessary if you touch your depth for a few seconds and then bounce back up.”

  It was a great story to tell because nobody died or embolized or got bent, but they could have, and he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t tell the story locally anymore; they’d heard it so many times, but the tourists still loved it in the interim, between the deep dive and the shallow dive, when a body needs to hang out for an hour or so to ditc
h excess nitrogen. When someone asked if he ever got narced he would reply, “I got a slight case once. I saw a mermaid, but she was a little bit chunky.” Not the stuff for prime time, but a boatload of tourists on reprieve from the dull commute loved to laugh. Soon came the fond farewells, the gratitude and tips.

  A man in his prime is not proud of working for tips, but the gratitude felt different than, say, for a meal well served or a beer properly poured or a car efficiently retrieved from the valet lot. These tips showed respect and tribute to a dive leader who had safeguarded against so many things taught in certification training but not discussed on board because risk is far-ranging and can never be eliminated. Diving offers fun and fulfillment, and it came to pass as the tourists felt the watchful eye, keen mind, experience, and wisdom.

  Still, a nagging mother would say, “It’s tips. You want to call it professional fees? Go ahead. Make yourself happy.”

  As if a man could be wrong by making himself happy.

  •

  Suffice to say that every day was a full delivery of what Carl Geizen, aka Crusty Geezer, called “the package.” The package opened with first impressions on hygiene and mechanical soundness and went on through the niggling details, from the gooey squish and sugar factor of the Danish to towel-dried seats to confidence conveyed. The dive team donned wetsuits and booties, rigged regulators to tanks and slid into buoyancy compensators like Degas ballerinas prepping for a show. Checking computers, fastening clips, zipping zippers, staging cameras, defogging and, oh, yeah, opening air valves and reminding guests that this will be fun.

  Descent in warm, clear water to the grottos, ledges, walls, and currents revealed the magic.

  Back on board, enriched for life, guests got more of the package with entertainment in the interval between dives or on the lovely cruise back. The package got fatter and sweeter with a bit of narrative at each juncture. Crusty called the anecdotal component critical and best served with some twenty-four-karat bullshit in the mix.

  Crusty favored wild tales; they fit his worldview so well. With a male crowd, the crew would dummy up to prep Crusty’s favorite entrée. He’d clear his throat and lob a goober to leeward—no dangles, no wipe, showing integrity and know-how with no doubts. Grumbling like an elder down from the mountain, he would venture into polite company, “You know… I reached a point in life where a perfect day for me is four hours of work, nice charter like this. Then I take in a round of golf. Then I go home for a blowjob.”

  Eyebrows rose on that note, with laughs of approval or envy, till one of the crew asked, “How’s that working out for you, Crusty?”

  “Oh, not too bad, really. I got a couple more weeks of yoga to get my neck stretched out, you know. But I’m getting there.”

  Most groups strained momentarily before cutting loose the male bonding guffaw. This too, pumped tips.

  Stories were neither idle nor random but tried and true; a story could be tested, once. Heavy tales were reserved for reef addicts, and even then got a long warm-up. That crowd dove two tanks daily for three days in a row, or a week, showing a commitment that would warrant service and tips of magnitude.

  Ravi told his 180-bounce story for a few days till Crusty told him to shit-can the near-death experience stuff because it scared the bejesus out of the tourons. Even the heavies winced and worried. You want your passengers relaxed, Crusty said, not anxious or thinking about their lives, jobs, debts, and all the crap they came this far to get away from. You tell jokes, not how a goofy crowd nearly died.

  Ravi disagreed, saying most of these people were eager to cheat death. They couldn’t get that action in the office unless you counted financial death, which had zilch to do with life in the real lane. Besides that, a story about diver error makes people more alert. Ravi insisted, but he deferred to his captain, after all.

  He shared another slice of the dicey side, recalling the routine off Lahaina Roads on the sunken submarine—sunk for good—with its deck at 110 feet. The sunken sub was advanced, a deep dive in anyone’s book, at nearly twice the sport-diving safe limit of sixty feet. But what could you do, hang out at sixty feet in the water column? A wreck dive is often deep and advanced, with more rigorous safety measures. But people want to take it on because any dive is cake if you don’t choke, and they’d heard how great it was, which it wasn’t, given the effort, but every diver suffers a bit of machismo. The deck was flat, so nobody could dip twenty feet below the dive plan unless they went off the deck, which was easy to avoid, though six tourists could resist common sense on any given day.

  The submarine was good for twenty-five minutes if nobody sucked a tank down in fifteen. That was if you made slack tide, about an hour window twice a day. Otherwise, it was a rip-snort current. But most days a sensible group treaded near the anchor rode, holding hands or grasping the rode, descending to sixty feet for a check and okay. The scene could get comical with six divers strung out like pennants in the current—till one let go, and the dive leader chased him down then blew half a tank getting back to the anchor rode. Even with viz at a hundred feet, it was a wing and a prayer that nobody would get any stupider than absolutely necessary.

  What could a dive leader do but chase down the guy who let go? Nothing is the correct answer, but the chronic mishap went to dive leader failure on banging the procedural mallet. When the submarine dive went wrong too often, Crusty spliced a quick release into the anchor rode to free it from the Samson post on deck. Securing the quick release to a spare buoy, the rode went over so the boat could chase the wayward bubbles. Crusty damned his crew to hell for taxing his water wisdom, as he saved the day most days, asking what worthless piece of bilge scum would let things get so out of hand.

  One day the anchor snagged on the sub deck, so Crusty went down to free it because you can’t leave a fucking four-hundred-dollar anchor stuck there. He only needed a minute. That’s where Ravi learned about the bounce and no safety stop required. Crusty could fix most things in a minute and rise with his slowest bubbles, or his medium bubbles, anyway. He couldn’t very well hang out: “I can’t babysit an anchor and keep this show going at the same time, can I?”

  Ravi learned a great deal from Crusty but frankly felt better leaving the Westside for a better boat off the Southside. Crusty’s chiding was mostly justified, but doubt stacked up and hindered instincts. Ravi wished the Westside crew all the best and felt free at last of chasing down tourist divers. Ravi and Crusty parted with good cheer. “Take care, brother,” Ravi offered, to which Crusty grasped his hand and drew him near for a half hug with his own parting wish:

  “Aloha, waterman.”

  It was the ultimate compliment, indicating matriculation to the unspoken rank bestowed by consensus or, on occasion, by the saltiest veterans. A waterman had achieved intuition and skill in seas of all depths, all weather, all conditions and circumstance, buoyant or not. Crusty’s mumbled praise filled Ravi’s heart and made things right, securing their time as good time, as time for making a living with nobody dying, and their friendship strong. Still, Ravi wondered when the day would come for Crusty to quick release himself from sanity and a last view of tropical blue sky.

  The very worst stories got shared strictly in confidence among local divers because a story could spread like brushfire but never beyond the working crews. Some stories seemed indelible as tattoos and never went away, even if the principals left.

  Like the instructor who let a guy die in the Room. A capable diver and journeyman photographer known for macro work showing ciliary structure and attitude, the instructor captured and promoted a rare scene of plankton that looked choreographed by Busby Berkeley—all legs and bodices, top hats and tails in tiers, and a grand finale fit for Neptune’s ball. It was a great shot but got old on too much bragging about superior skills and expertise in species, dive table discrepancies, composition, and light, until people wondered: Why the browbeating? Tolerated, more or less, he called out any vessel or person violating his code of conduct. If a boat served car
bonated drinks in the dive interval, he yelled across the water that CO2 in the system will show up just peachy in the autopsy when some poor tourist gets bent and embolized from such a dumb fucking error. The fleet avoided him. Nobody pointed out that CO2 is quickly absorbed and offed—or that he could stick a Coke up his ass, diet or classic.

  His comeuppance seemed inevitable. He found a cave opening on an eighty-foot bottom and went in. Nobody doubted the drive or skill at hand. Sure enough, the opening proved big enough for another hundred feet at a forty-five-degree angle. Then it narrowed to a manageable bend. At that point, the depth gauge showed 130 feet from the surface. From there, the opening widened and came up at another forty-five degrees to a chamber where six divers could surface without banging each other or the lava walls—yes, surface.

  By a quirk, the chamber roof was watertight, or else the chamber was fed by bubbles of some kind at a greater rate than the rate of leakage. So the divers were back to ninety feet below the surface but were actually much farther away. They could remove their masks and regulators to grin and say hello. They could tell a joke or a story. They couldn’t exactly breathe the gas in the room, a mildly noxious mix of CO2 and something astringent. Lungs constricted.

  Never mind. Anyone could short gasp a breath or two on a story or a punch line, notching a unique groove on the old adventure belt, on a scuba klatch in a private room at ninety feet—make that 170 feet to the real world. Machismo motivation led to a destination rich in overview and retelling; what happened when we were in the Room.

  The Room became the new big thing for those seeking extreme thrills—for those needing to demonstrate an inner self as yet unshared. A few took cameras. Photos from the Room were in greater demand than spondylidae—thorny oyster shells with intricate spines and flutes in a flat, pastel finish, formerly found at thirty feet but now unfound till 180 feet because the shallower thorny oysters got plucked then set on shelves to catch dust. The shells proved something, even for the guys who got bent, fetching too deep. Some survived, till thorny oysters were associated with instability, idiocy, and danger. What a relief.