Between Friends (13 page)

It was time to go up. In the final minutes Alex used his light to signal Ross. His heart lurched and he knew that, once again, he’d pushed it far enough. It was going to be hard to make it to the surface. Not in the physical sense. He wasn’t that deep and this was easy. But in the psychic sense. He hadn’t for one moment gotten rid of the nightmares. He’d only learned how to control them and fight back.

Alex gritted his teeth so tightly on the mouthpiece to stay focused that his jaw started to ache and cramp. He sculled in place, waiting for Ross to catch up to him. Then he began to rise and head for the light above him, pacing his partner. He broke the surface and there was a sudden rush of city sounds: lapping of water, engines and motors on the river, aircraft, traffic, birds, horns, and sirens. Ross was helped aboard the waiting converted crew boat. Alex reached the entry platform from the craft, and got a hold. With a free hand he pulled off his mask and breather. He took off the fins and tossed them onto the deck. A pair of hands braced the side of the boat just above his head.

“You okay?” Ross asked, water dripping from his face.

“Yeah,” Alex responded and then hoisted himself aboard. He said no more, not wanting to sound breathless. It was poor form. Only neophytes felt that way surfacing.

But he’d just made it. His heart had began to thud and his adrenaline was pumping hard, ready to flood his system. He took deep breaths.

“How much time?” he asked, releasing the buckles on the weight jacket, removing the protective booties.

“We got little more than an hour before the scuba team arrives. I think everything’s ready for the demo,” Ross said, beginning to remove his equipment.

“Good,” Alex muttered.

He pulled the hooded rubber headpiece off, and his hair, matted and wet, spiked up and out in all directions. It looked like silver in the sunlight, a startling contrast to the black outfit he wore.

“You’re doing good, buddy,” Ross said casually, slapping Alex on the shoulder as he passed him. “I’ll take the group down. You can do the talk through and answer questions.”

“No. I want to go down again,” Alex said firmly. He stood up, gathering the hood and boots, the buoyancy compensator, and headed for the hole below.

The boat rocked with the current, but he held his balance free-hand, finally grabbing a hold of the door frame before stepping through and out of sight.

“Come on, man. You’re pushing too hard …”

“I’m going back down,” Alex shouted up.

Ross Manning, two years Alex’s senior and at least two more inches in height, and stockier, stopped what he was doing to wobble his way to the door and stare down.

“What for? You’re not the one being tested. You’re up to a full hour on your dives. It took you two months to get there. What’s the deal today?”

“I want to,” Alex informed him.

“Let this go until next time, Alex,” Ross suggested.

“Where’s the other tank?” came back the response.

“Alex, lighten up. Give yourself a break. Some guys never would have bothered at this point. You’ve been off the team for six fucking years already …”

Alex came back up. He was stripping almost down to his skin, wrapped in a thermal blanket and sipping from a mug. The breeze off the water quickly dried his hair. He gestured with the cup, ignoring the wisdom of his friend.

“… I want you to tell the unit about some of the new search techniques. I got one or two surprises for them. I want to see how they respond.” Alex turned away from the silent exasperation in Ross’s expression and then quickly turned back again. “Another thing. I want to set a time limit. Let’s pretend this is critical. We’ll tell them when they get here.”

Ross Manning frowned and shook his head. “You’re making it too hard, man. It could take a while to find all the tracks down there. This isn’t war. This is only a demonstration.”

Alex drank from the cup, staring out to the harbor. “Here they come,” he said, indicating the slowly approaching boat.

The air temperature was barely fifty degrees. The water was closer to freezing. But as Alex stood, the blanket falling from his bare shoulders, he didn’t notice.

“I want to go down again.”

After a moment Ross nodded, giving in. “Goddamn, fucking …” he muttered under his breath. Not cursing Alex, but the something else that made Alex want to do this. “Okay. Okay. We’ll do it your way. Just remember where the limit is, Alex. I
don’t
want to fish your ass outta there.” He pointed to the choppy waters.

Alex nodded, but he wasn’t listening. “How much did you say one of those boxes down there weighed?”

“I don’t know. ’Bout one twenty-five or so.”

“We should have made it heavier.”

Ross kept his patience. “Alex, you don’t need it any heavier. There’s no one keeping a score on this. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. I want to make it about one eighty …”

“No way, man. I won’t agree to that. What the hell do you think you’re going to do?”

Alex tossed the rest of the contents of his mug over the side and turned back to the cabin below. “I want it carried up this time.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Probably,” Alex conceded.

“Alex …” Ross began, ready to argue and yet knowing he didn’t have any argument that Alex was going to accept. This was one time when knowing someone really well was a disadvantage. You understood
exactly
why they did what they did. “Alex, that’s a hell of a lot of dead weight.”

Alex’s head appeared briefly through the doorway. He was already half suited up again. The police crew cut its engines and glided into a parallel position. Alex waved to the team. “No different than a dead man,” he responded flatly.

Ross stared at him for a moment and had no response. He seriously doubted that if he’d found himself in similar circumstances he’d do any differently. He wouldn’t want to be stopped, either.

They were not trained to give up.

Ross stood with his hands on his hips, swaying with the momentum of the rocking. He had firm footing, too, even though he’d given up long ago maintaining optimum weight and conditioning. He no longer cared. He had done his job and done it well, and was proud he’d been there. And he hadn’t forgotten that it wasn’t about being perfect and infallible. It was about being persistent. Ross relaxed and began to grin. He shook his head as if to say,
What am I going to do with you?

“Hoo yah …” he murmured.

Alex nodded. “Hoo yah,” he returned.

He finished dressing as Ross shouted over the noise to the men getting ready on the other boat. “Okay, ladies … anybody here afraid to open their eyes underwater?” he teased dryly.

“Valerie, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Ross Manning. Ross, Valerie Holland.”

“Hi,” she murmured with the right amount of feminine reserve.

“It’s a pleasure,” Ross responded with a big smile and an appreciative sparkle in his eyes.

Valerie was friendly and gracious, smiling at Ross in a way that acknowledged him as a friend of Alex’s. Ross Manning was a big man, good-looking in a rugged way. This was a man who spent time outdoors. Very physical. And Valerie noticed that his movements were easy and graceful. His presence had the peculiar affect of making her feel uncharacteristically vulnerable. The way he was smiling at her made her uncomfortable.

Valerie turned to Alex. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing a chaperone. Or that we were double dating,” Valerie tried to joke.

“You’re not,” Ross reassured her. “I’m on my way up to the north shore. I wanted to see who Alex has been spending his time with. Besides, you don’t need a chaperone. Alex can take care of himself.”

“So can I,” Valerie parried sweetly.

“I’m ready … hi, Alex …”

Megan ran down the hallway toward them, stopping by Alex to hug him briefly. She was dressed in the full but parentally approved regalia of a preteen. Earrings but no lipstick. Blue nail polish on her stubby tips instead of the currently fashionable glue-on plastic extensions.

“My daughter, Megan Marie,” Valerie said to Ross.

He held out his hand, giving the same smiling attention to her. “Hey, Megan.” He raised his brows at Alex. “You’re going to be escorting two good-looking women, buddy.”

“I’m not going,” Megan said, blushing at the compliment. “I’m going to my girlfriend’s house for dinner.”

“Why can’t she come with us?” Alex asked Valerie.

She stared blankly at him, then shrugged. “Well, I thought … when you said let’s go out together …”

“I meant all of us. Megan, too,” Alex corrected easily.

“Really?” Megan asked, delighted by the idea.

“Unless you don’t want to come along,” Alex said.

Megan glanced covertly at her mother, uncertain. “Well …”

“What would you like to do, Megan?” her mother asked lightly.

Megan shrugged. “I want to come with you and Alex.”

Ross winked at Valerie. “Looks like you get that chaperone after all.”

“Sure you won’t join us?” Alex asked Ross.

Ross took a long moment to consider the invitation, but he shook his head. “I don’t think so. Three’s still a crowd. And I’m not counting Megan. Some other time, maybe,” Ross said, backing away toward the door.

Alex put out his hand to Ross. “Thanks, man. It was a good exercise today.”

“No need for any thanks. You know that.”

“Bye,” Megan said shyly. She’d pulled her hand up into the cuff of her oversized denim jacket, and merely waved the empty end of the sleeve at him.

Ross waved at her, and turned his attention once more to Valerie. “Have a good evening.”

“Yes. It was nice meeting you,” she said politely.

“Same here … I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

I sat next to a young black woman on the crosstown bus the other day. We got to talking and she asked me my name. First names are okay to give in New York for chance encounters. A full disclosure is an invitation you might not have intended. I told her my name was Dallas. “Like the football team?” she asked. Then she told me her name was Clinique … like the cosmetics. She was serious. I started making a list: Corolla, Toyota, Keisha, T’Keisha … Modisha. All actual names of women or young girls I’ve met. I can’t help but wonder, what does it mean when, in an effort to have an identity—unique, historic, individual, ours—black folks resort to total invention? Ultraviolet, Sahara, Tiffany, Ebony, Kenya. We invent ourselves by going down a list of consumer products and picking one from column A, two from column B. Dallas … because my mother was sentimental about her hometown. Why not Deborah or Diane? Is it because they are of European origins? Too white? Which is still better than being called a “Ho,” a bitch, a
black
bitch, zebra, oreo, pinky, high yellow … nigger. What’s in a name?

“I
THINK WE’RE ALMOST
done …” Letty Daniels said absently as she once more leafed through her agenda and checked off items already discussed.

“I’d like to know if anyone has any other ideas for future leads. And I’m telling you all up front I’m not interested in another ‘what’s wrong with black men’ thing,” the assistant editor, Peggy Rice, said.

“Damned if we know, anyway,” came back the caustic response of Nona Talbot.

There were knowing cackles from the twelve people crowded around the conference table for the Monday morning editorial meeting.

Letty, the managing editor, shook her head and glanced around the table. “I agree with Peggy. I’m serious. It always comes off as an indictment against them, no matter how objective we try to be.”

“Then to me that just means they don’t want to listen to the truth,” the ad exec commented.

“Let’s not bring the truth into this …”

Everyone laughed in amusement.

Dallas smiled. Around the table there was a healthy level of teasing and bantering, made possible by acceptance of one another.

“Well, as the only man here, I feel I should put my two cents in and say something …” Matthew Curtis, the staff photographer, spoke up.

Nona snorted. “Don’t even go there. You’re one of
us
and you know it.”

“Better-looking …” Matthew murmured.

When the ensuing laughter threatened to disrupt the rest of the meeting, Letty calmly rang a little bell she kept at hand. “We love you, Matty, but you’re not an example of what we would have in mind of black manhood,” she said.

“We can come up with a better idea than another article about men,” Brenda, the styles editor, said.

“You just say that ’cause you got a man.”

Brenda merely smiled complacently as a few of her coworkers again chuckled. “At least I’m doing something right.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s not throw down right here and start pulling hair. We’re getting off the track,” Letty said, regaining control of the meeting with the firm tone of her voice. “We’ll table that one. Dallas, do you have any thoughts?”

Several of them glanced thoughtfully at her, and she was aware that there were people she worked with who were waiting for her to fall flat on her face. To make a fool of herself. But Dallas had learned the hard way not to give anyone the chance. It had happened before, including the very first time she’d come for an interview as a staff writer at
Soul of the City.
She’d overheard someone say, “What does
she
know about being black?”

She’d had to prove that she knew quite a lot. But first she’d had to learn.

“I have a few,” Dallas responded. “If we’re talking about the July issue, how about something about freedom …”

There was a groan from the other side of the table. Several people shifted restlessly.

“… and how we keep reinventing ourselves.”

Dallas could tell by the polite stares that no one was following her line of thought. But she was not unprepared. She’d already given this subject some thought.

“For example, blacks opting to develop their
own
businesses as an economic base and keeping their money in their communities, rather than working for someone else. How there’s a trend toward more ethnic sensibilities, from Afro-Centric styles and accessories in clothing, to how we do our hair …”