The Last Dive

by Bernie Chowdhury

  This was too much for Chrissy. His father had baited him. He laced into his father. “Oh, yeah, right, call me a pussy and a wanna-be diver ’cause I don’t wanna dive, then pussy out yourself when you talk me into going! You’re a weenie. You’re just pretending to be a diver. If ya hadn’t gotten lucky with Mom, you’d be nowhere. You’re a pussy and a chicken.”

  Check and checkmate. With Chrissy questioning his father’s motivation, diving ability, and—most important—his manhood, Chris Rouse could not back out of the dive. Questionable conditions or not, both men would have to dive, if only to prove that they could, that they were real divers.

  Chatterton went about his business as the two Rouses argued. He had seen them do this so often that it was as ordinary as wind. After all, the Rouses were widely known as the Bicker Brothers, or Bickers for short. Though Chris and Chrissy Rouse were father and son—their identical builds and facial features left no doubt about that—they were only seventeen years apart, and they acted less like parent and child than siblings strutting on the high school parking lot. Chatterton always wondered how much of their jousting was real and how much was just for show. Each of them personified the diver as cowboy, all rugged swagger—was their bickering part of the mask? Many divers were amused by the Rouses and looked on their bickering as a polished comedy routine that kept them at the center of attention. Others thought the bickering got old fast. That October morning, Chatterton worried once again that their thrust and parry was a signal of conflict that could get them into serious trouble underwater.

  Two hours went by as the waves and wind thickened, Gatto and Packer dived, and the Rouses bickered—arguing over what they should eat for breakfast, whether Chrissy should shave, and how long a dive they should conduct. By the time Gatto and Packer returned from their dive, the waves were six to eight feet high. “The waves toss ya around like a milkshake,” Gatto remarked simply. “It’s pretty bad out there.” Chris pondered this news for a moment and then went back to putting his dive suit on.

  In full gear, the Rouses looked as if they were about to explore another planet. Chris and Chrissy were outfitted in drysuits made of watertight rubber, underneath which were outfits resembling ski suits, insulating them from the 42-degree water. Chris had attached several battery-powered lights to his plastic helmet. Their masks made them seem like otherworldly insects. Strapped to their arms was an array of gauges and knives. The two large scuba tanks each carried on his back would allow—at best—a one-hour stay on the wreck. Two other tanks, attached to their harnesses at two points and dangling under their arms, would allow their safe return. With no way to communicate with the surface, and no oral communication possible between them, they could make contact only with simple hand or light signals, or by writing brief messages with the small lead pencil attached by a thin rubber hose to a plastic slate mounted on each man’s forearm. If they bickered on the ocean bottom, they would be limited to gestures and single words.

  I spoke with the Rouses two weeks before their U-Who expedition. I knew they wanted to venture inside the wreck to recover the captain’s logbook. As a fellow cave diver who used the techniques learned in Florida’s caves and applied them to wreck diving, I would often talk with the Rouses and occasionally dive with them. We were all men who shared a passion for underwater exploration, and like aficionados of golf or cars, we discussed everything from our equipment to our dive adventures, our ambitions, and dive-scene gossip. Usual stuff for those consumed by their passion for the sport.

  Chris told me they planned to dive the wreck using compressed air as their main breathing gas. I thought of the four-and-a-half-martini buzz they would experience while exploring the wreck, and I was alarmed. As a diving instructor, I knew Chris and his son were taking a big chance. But being an effective teacher means letting divers come to the obvious conclusions themselves, so I asked, “Why aren’t you diving mix?”—“mix” being a breathing mixture that includes expensive helium gas, which lessens the narcotic, “martini” effect of breathing air at depth.

  “Well, I can’t afford mix right now. Business has been real slow.”

  Chris and I both knew the financial difference between using air and using a helium-based gas was a few hundred dollars. I could hear the shrug in his voice and was shocked. “If you can’t afford helium to make the dive safer, why risk the dive—why not leave it for later?”

  “Oh, Chrissy and I have been much deeper than two-thirty on air. We can handle it,” replied Chris dismissively.

  “Have you done any dives on U-boats other than that one trip we made to the U-853 ?” This was a U-boat that had been sunk off Rhode Island, several hundred miles east of New York City, in the waning days of World War II.

  “Well, I dived the U-Who a few weeks ago,” Chris explained. “Besides, going inside a wreck isn’t really any different than going inside a cave. And Bernie, you know how good I am at that.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “Plus, Chrissy will be going in and I’ll just wait outside as a safety diver.”

  No mix and minimal experience inside U-boats—I was more than uneasy about what my friends were up to. I knew firsthand how treacherous U-boats can be. I had repeatedly dived three off the East Coast, and had entered the cramped interiors on many dives. The U-boats I had dived all lay in much shallower waters than the U-Who—the deepest one I’d explored was the U-853, which rested in usually murky, cold, northeast water at a depth of 130 feet, whereas the others were in warm, clear, tropical water off North Carolina; these wrecks provided challenging but reasonably controlled environments for divers to build experience. I shuddered, thinking of the one dive that the Rouses had done on the U-853, as part of a trip we had taken the year before. On that trip, one experienced dive member had severed a breathing hose on the sharp metal inside the wreck, which caused massive, loud torrents of air to be released, reducing the already low visibility to practically nil as silt and rust were knocked loose. He exited the wreck and Chrissy Rouse shut off the gas supply to the leaking hose, preventing the diver from losing all his gas.

  I tried one last question. “Hey, Chris, why don’t you wait on this dive, build up your U-boat experience on the shallower wrecks like the U-853, wait until you can afford the helium, and then try for the U-Who’s logbook? It’s a hairy dive you’re planning.”

  “Nah, we’ll be okay.”

  As Barb Lander helped Chris finish gearing up, he looked at her and said, “I hope I don’t regret making this dive.”

  “Don’t dive, Chris—bag it,” Barb replied.

  “Junior’s diving. I’ve got to go with him.”

  “Let Junior dive alone.”

  “No, I’ve got to go with him” came the surprisingly somber reply.

  Tom Packer and Steve Gatto finished getting out of their diving equipment. They looked at the Rouses gearing up and could not believe that others would want to dive in these conditions. Gatto turned to Packer and quietly remarked, “These guys are nuts. They don’t know what they’re in for!” Packer agreed, “Yeah, they sure are nuts. But they’re good guys, and good divers. And they add a lot of color to the trip! Steve, we should include these two in all our expeditions.” Gatto simply nodded.

  While Barb was helping Chris with the last pieces of equipment, Chrissy lifted himself to his feet. Bearing four scuba tanks, he lumbered in his swim fins across the heaving deck to the entry point. As the boat rolled, he fell, crushing a piece of somebody else’s equipment with his knees. Gatto and Packer helped him up, and again he shuffled toward the boat’s side. Before he could make it, he fell again, this time rolling over so that his back-mounted double tanks were pinned against the deck and his feet were waving in the air. He resembled a helpless, upside-down turtle. Some of the other divers swallowed their laughter and helped Chrissy to his feet. He managed to roll over the boat’s side and into the ocean without falling on the deck a third time.

  Chris Rouse followed his son into the water with a loud splash. As Chatterton, Barb Lander, a
nd the other divers watched, father and son disappeared below the turbulent water.

  2

  Prevent Your Death!

  SPRING 1988.

  A modest, middle-class home in Coopersburg, eastern Pennsylvania.

  Twelve men and women are seated around a dinner table, their plates

  mostly emptied of food.

  DIVING IS CRAZY. You’re going to kill yourself doing it.”

  When Chris Rouse was first introduced to diving in 1988 at a dinner party with a group of sport pilots, he told his friend Ken Reinhart that plunging into the watery depths was stupid. Flying—now that was a sport for a man.

  Reinhart had taught Chris to fly at the Famous Ugly Aeroplane Company headquartered at Quakertown Airport in Pennsylvania, back in 1981. Chris had been a very conservative student, preferring not to fly in anything but tranquil weather. During his training for an instrument rating—where the pilot learns to fly the plane relying solely on instruments, as he would have to in bad weather or at night—Chris would have to fly in unpredictable, often nasty conditions, and that unnerved him. In a small, private plane, he felt completely at the mercy of the winds and turbulent weather, his stomach rising and dropping, his torso thrown from side to side as if on an amusement park ride. For some people, giving up some control is exhilarating, but for Chris it was frightening.

  Still, Chris liked the no-frills functionality of the Cessna he was learning to fly. Although its flimsy fiberglass panels made it look less sturdy than a riding lawnmower, a plane like that seemed like something a man could master. As a child, he was constantly tinkering and liked to take things apart to see how they worked, and as a teenager, he rebuilt a 1955 Chevy so that it ran perfectly. Not one for appearances, he never bothered to paint the car beyond giving it a coat of gray primer. The raw simplicity and logic of the airplane appealed to Chris immensely, just as the Chevy had.

  Ken Reinhart, Chris’s flight instructor, coached his student on the nuances of flight and watched as Chris slowly grasped the flying arts. One day, while they were flying, Reinhart instructed Chris to land. When Chris brought the plane to a halt on the tarmac, Reinhart climbed out and said, “Congratulations. You’re ready for your first solo flight. Take it up.” Reinhart closed the door behind a stunned Chris, who didn’t have time to reply. Chris now had to rely solely on his own skills. The riding mower of an airplane suddenly felt much bigger. But Chris knew he could do it; both his plane and his confidence soared.

  After several solo flights, Chris was ready for the final phase of training. Just before his check flight, the pilot’s equivalent of the driver’s road test, Chris made the fairly common mistake of walking directly into the high wing of the Cessna. In spite of the bloody dimple pattern the wing created on his forehead, he took the examination flight—holding a handkerchief to his head—and passed, getting a basic pilot’s certificate. Soon, Chris and his wife, Sue, began flying together for fun, with Sue acting as the navigator. At first the couple would take short, local trips to sightsee from the air. As Chris accumulated more flying experience and felt increasingly comfortable without an instructor present, they both developed confidence in Chris’s flying ability and in their ability to work together as pilot and navigator. It was time for a much longer excursion. Chris’s first flight instructor, Pete Miller, lent them his plane and his credit cards in case of an emergency, and sent the pair off to Florida with the words “A crash is as good as a sale!” In the air or on the ground, Chris inspired close friendship, generosity, and black humor.

  Now, after some years of flying, Chris was growing curious about going deep. Only a few days after he made his dinner party remark about the dangers of diving, Chris and Sue went over to Ken Reinhart’s house to look over his diving equipment. Chris was already familiar with compressed gas cylinders through his excavating business; he used them when he had to do welding. The single-hose regulator that delivered breathing gas to the diver seemed uncomplicated, and the various gauges for depth, dive time, and gas remaining in the cylinder were as logical to Chris as a car manifold, and less complicated than the flight panel of a Cessna. Chris and Sue went straight to Underwater World, a dive shop in Horsham, Pennsylvania, where he signed up for a class. Chris enrolled his eighteen-year-old son, Chrissy, in the class too, without asking him first. The sport-flying group was planning a family trip to the Bahamas that would combine flying with diving. For Chris, learning how to dive meant he could be better buddies with his fellow sport pilots. Just as important, diving was something he and his family could do together.

  Sue had to defer training, because she was studying business in evening college classes. But she had enjoyed flying with her husband and was now intrigued, on his behalf, with diving. Evening classes were practical because the college was conveniently close to home and the studies would enable her to get a better-paying job.

  At home, Chris excitedly told his son about the diving course they would be taking—another of the many activities father and son could do together. Chris had always enjoyed spending as much time as possible with Chrissy. The two would listen to music together, and their tastes ranged from classics like Beethoven to popular music like Frank Sinatra. Father and son would spend hours singing to the music, animatedly belting out the songs as if they were on stage. They also devoured science-fiction and action movies voraciously. Their favorite television show was Dr. Who, a British sixties sci-fi series, a forerunner of Star Trek, about a doctor who invents a time-space machine. Chris and Chrissy were both fascinated by the worlds Dr. Who managed to explore, and the strange, often hostile beings he encountered in his adventures. Father and son eventually attended Dr. Who conventions together; unlike many of the attendees, they did not dress up as one of the numerous characters that appeared in the series.

  Chris well knew how important it was for Chrissy to have a strong bond with his father and a sense of belonging. When Chrissy was eight years old, he had been diagnosed as hyperactive, with what today is called attention deficit disorder. In 1978 there were no medications to treat Chrissy’s hyperactivity. Although Chrissy was not stupid or backward, schoolteachers felt that his inability to concentrate on reading for extended periods was holding him back. The school recommended to Chris and Sue that their son be put in a few special classes each day to help him focus on reading and other learning skills. Although Chrissy took most of his classes with the other children, the special sessions made him the target of cruel teasing and jokes. Chrissy would come home from school and tearfully tell his mother that he felt like an outsider, that the special classes made it hard to fit in with his regular classmates. After one year, Chris and Sue did not see any big improvements in Chrissy’s education, and they were distressed that their son was enduring so much emotional pain from his classmates’ abuse. They came to the decision to take Chrissy out of the special classes. “We want Chrissy to be treated just like everyone else,” Sue firmly told school authorities, over their protests. “Put him back in all of the regular classes.”

  Chrissy’s school performance and his grades were not outstanding, but they were not bad, either. Throughout his schooling, he was an average student and his parents were relieved as Chrissy gradually worked his way back into his classmates’ good graces, and the teasing eventually stopped.

  Now eighteen, Chrissy, however close he was to his father, hated the idea of learning diving with him. This reaction had nothing to do with the sport and everything to do with his relationship with his father and his attitude toward himself. Old enough to vote, join the military, or go off to college if he wanted to, the Rouses’ only child was having trouble finding his own niche. Although Chrissy liked the many activities he did with his father, there were some things that he needed to do on his own. The night they were supposed to go to their first class, the two men argued. His dad could go on his own—Chrissy had better things to do, like hanging out with his best friend and picking up girls. He didn’t need his father for that.

  Chris went a
lone. He loved it. His enthusiasm about the class and the possibility it offered of enabling him to explore the alien underwater environment inspired Sue to talk Chrissy into reconsidering. Intrigued by the sport if not by his father’s participation alongside him, Chrissy joined his father. Maybe this diving thing was worth it, Dad or no Dad.

  Their instructor, Denny McLaughlin, saw that both Rouses were at ease in the water and would quickly master diving basics. It was clear they both aimed to be top dog among the many students, both in the water and the classroom. An experienced instructor, McLaughlin took care to evaluate not only the Rouses’ diving skills, but their interactions and demeanor. He noticed how the smallest provocation would have the Rouses verbally dueling. During the start of one pool training session, Chris remarked to his son, “Hey, you’ve got your tank strapped on wrong. The valve’s off-center.”

  Perplexed, Chrissy frowned and rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t. You’re just looking at it off-center.” His father was always a perfectionist, and that caused friction with Chrissy’s “close is good enough” mind-set.

  “What do you mean I’m looking at it off-center? That’s ridiculous. The opening of the valve is supposed to be pointed right at the back of your head, and it’s not!”

  “Oh, yeah? How can you tell?”

  “Well, it’s obvious. Your hoses are not coming off the tank connection properly.” Chris went at the gear. “You’re just not doing it right. God, how could I have raised such a numbskull?”

  Chrissy shrugged him off. “It’s inherited.”

  Minutes later, after some of the underwater swimming exercises, Chrissy rose to the surface, pulled off his mask, and spat out, “Gee, I know it must be tough being an old geezer and all, but do you think you can swim like you want to go somewhere?”

  McLaughlin watched as, for a second, the elder Rouse let his face betray hurt. “Well, I guess for an old geezer I did all right, ’cause I had no problem keeping up with you. But I did have half a mind to swim ahead of you ’cause you just looked so spastic.”