Junior UfeMt'ing
What is the number one rule of lifesaving? Tim the Lifeguard asked. Always protect yourself first, you all said in unison. He told you, Only the most experienced lifeguards can get that close to a drowning man and not lose their own lives in the process. A drowning man, he said, will take you down with him.
• Sixty yards offshore the water eases over your heads and Adam begins a palsied sort of paddle. His hands, gray with cold, break the surface in uneven strokes. At first you don't understand why his chin is held so high, but then you realize for the first time, with nothing to cling to but the chill around you, that he does not know how to hold his breath underwater. He begins to pant. You are closer to the sailboat than to shore when you hear him sputtering as you swim ahead of him a few feet. If only you can make it to the boat, you think, he can rest. And you do make it to the boat. But there is nothing to hold on to once you get there, no ladder, no lines, no windows, no bars. You press your palms against the smooth fiberglass bottom. It arcs over where you float, and instead of stabilizing you, it glides away, your hands sinking into the darkness below. Adam wheezes beside you. Against the nearness of the boat, it is as if the volume on his throat has been turned up, the nuance of panic in each breath suddenly distinct. Reach for the deck, you say. You both reach for the deck, but miss it. You tt)' again, kicking your legs and cupping your hands for resistance. You can hear Adam gurgling beneath you as you touch the edge of the boat but slide back into the water again. You take a deep breath, cup your hands and kick again, and with one of the arms that had seemed so ungainly next to Jessica's, you reach the edge and grasp it. You dangle there, shaking too much to pull yourself up, so you hook the back of your heel over the edge, using your leg to lift you until you fall onto the deck. But when you scramble up and look over the edge, Adam is gone. The sky is darkening and the water is calm, reflecting clouds that are lit by the setting sun, which is all you can see in the water below you. It is a quiet night anyway, no wind or waves pounding the shore, line, but suddenly it is as if the world around you has frozen: the seagulls in midair, the speedboats mid-zoom, the cars on the gravel along the beach midway to their destinations. No dogs bark. No children yell. Winter 2004-05
9J