Swim That Rock (8 page)

Get the cut above his heart. That’s what they said in first-aid class.
I shove a pile of onion bags beneath his back and head and try to get him to sit up, but it’s almost impossible. He’s deadweight, and the boat is running around in circles while the blood mixes with the salt water and mud. I’m trying to yell for help, but all that’s coming from my mouth is a dry squeal.

I finally manage to get Gene upright, and as the Hawkline makes another wide arc, I suddenly see Captain, sorting out his catch on the deck of his boat.

Unexpectedly, Gene reaches over with his good arm and grabs hold of my hand, the one still holding the knife. He’s squinting and looking at the pearl skull. He looks like he’s passing out and his eyes look half-dead.

“Where’d you get this?” Gene mumbles. “You’re not supposed to . . .” Gene’s eyes roll around in their sockets, and his arm goes limp.

“What?” I’m leaning right down into Gene’s face so I can hear him, but he’s passed out.

I bury the throttle and bounce us over to Captain’s boat, turning at the last minute, making a wake and bumping into his port side.

“Easy, kid, what ya —” He stops midsentence when he sees Gene amidst the mud, quahogs, and blood. Captain jumps aboard, lifts Gene up onto his shoulder, and climbs back into his boat. I throw the anchor to the Hawkline, and just as I make the jump to Captain’s boat, four hundred and seventy horsepower slams into gear, shifting everything on deck, including me, Gene, and the quahogs, all into a pile at the stern.

I’m up against Gene’s chest, and I can feel his heart still beating. He’s like a rag doll, resting among the shells and mud. I want to just lie here with him, be with him if he’s going to die.

“You can’t die, Gene, you can’t die.” I continue to press my hand into the soaked bandage to try and stop the flow of blood. I feel his hand move to cover mine. It’s cold, but at least I know he’s not dead.
He’s looking out for me. He’s holding my hand, and I know he’s going to be all right. He’s got to be all right.

It seems like only a minute has passed, and we’re already flying up the Providence River. The roar of the engines winds down as Captain pulls the boat up to a dock near the seawall. The cops are waiting, and there is an ambulance kicking up dust on the gravel road. Captain must have called on his radio because, like magic, they are all there. I’m all bloody now, keeping Gene’s body warm with my own and gripping his hand, and all I’m saying is, “Hold on, Gene, hold on.”

They get him on a stretcher, and I’m still holding his hand when the paramedics say, “You gotta let go, but you can come with him.”

I slowly open my hand, all sticky with Gene’s blood, and climb into the ambulance. I can see Captain, looking up at us from his boat at the dock. He’s got the hose out, and he’s washing his deck and quahogs and everything, engines shaking and smoking at the stern. He looks nervous with all the cops around, and he lets the lines loose from the dock and moves slowly out of the harbor, unnoticed, as they work on Gene. Before the doors shut, I catch one last glimpse of Captain’s boat flying back out toward the bay.

The paramedics work quickly, putting an oxygen mask over Gene’s face and sticking a needle into the vein in his arm. They attach a long hose to the needle that ends in a bag of clear liquid that they clip to a bar above Gene’s head.

“What’s that?” I ask

“Saline. Got to get his blood pressure up,” the paramedic says.

“What’s saline?”

“Salt water,” the guy says.

I can’t believe it. I start to snicker, but then I can’t hold back and a laugh bursts out of my mouth. The guy is looking at me as if I’m crazy, and I probably look crazy too, with blood all over me, laughing my head off in the back of an ambulance. But I can’t help thinking of what my dad always says about quahoggers.
They got salt water in their veins and barnacles on their backs.

At the hospital, they rush Gene into surgery while I wait on a bench in the hallway. Because I’m not wearing a shirt and I’m covered in deep purple blotches of dried blood, nurses keep coming to me to ask if I’m okay.

Two hours later a doctor comes out and says, “Missed his carotid artery by inches. You did the right thing or your dad would have died.” I don’t respond. I too am getting Gene and my dad all mixed up in my head. It’s a nice feeling, and I sit down on the floor and collapse because I’m so happy he isn’t dead.

I slept right through the morning.

The sun is blazing, and it feels like a thousand degrees in my room.

“You okay?” My mom is standing in the doorway with her eyebrows all twisted together. I sit up and cover myself with a sheet.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“He’s going to survive, thanks to you, Jake,” my mom says. “You never did tell me how you got him to the hospital,” she says, pressing me.

“I got some help from another quahogger. I don’t know him. Look, I don’t really want to talk about it right now. What time is it?”

“It’s ten thirty.”

“Oh, damn. I gotta go.” I scramble out of bed and start grabbing clothes, suddenly remembering Gene’s boat.
Did the anchor hold? Are the quahogs rotting in this heat?
Did it get salvaged?

“Just because you work on a fishing boat doesn’t mean you can talk like a sailor. Not in this house, young man.”

“Sorry, Mom.” I try squeezing past her, but she’s blocking my way, holding out a thick manila envelope wrapped in duct tape. “Before you go running off again, do you want to explain this?”

I grab the envelope and turn it over. On the back, in thick black marker, it says 
J. C.

I know who left it.

“Someone slipped it through the mail slot sometime last night. It was there this morning when we were setting up,” she says.

“It’s from Tommy, just some tapes he borrowed.” Not a very good lie, but I’m not waiting around to see if it works. I shoot out the door and down the back stairs as the screen door slams behind me.

Once I’m out of sight, down by the seawall, I pull out my knife and cut open the envelope. The silver tape is thick, but the blade glides through it to reveal a stack of twenty-dollar bills and a note.

A wave of guilt washes over me when I remember thinking that Captain may have
salvaged
the Hawkline. I stuff the bills and the note in my pocket and head over to the bus stop on Main Street.

I climb onto the 11:03 bus to Providence. The air inside is stale and everyone looks tired. I find my way toward the back, slump down in the last seat, and before we leave Warren, I’m asleep.

I awaken and look outside and see Rhode Island Hospital. I jump out of my seat and bound toward the front of the bus.

“Excuse me! I need to get off. This is my stop. I need to get off !”

The bus squeaks and with a great hiss of air comes to a halt.

“All right, all right.” The bus driver grins down at me from the big wide mirror above him. “Watch your step.”

“What time does this bus go back to Warren?”

The driver hands me a small paper schedule. “You want to catch the Newport bus. Every hour on the half hour till six.”

“Thanks.” I walk up the hill toward the hospital.

Inside, the sharp smell of cleaning products and the bright fluorescent lights immediately remind me of yesterday, of coming in with Gene on the stretcher, with people sticking things in his arms, and the blood and the plastic mask over his mouth. I get chills thinking about it.

I don’t know what room he’s in, and I just stare at all the signs on the walls. Multicolored lines on the floor zip off in all directions, and I’m standing there, trying to figure out which line will lead me to Gene.

“Can I help you?”

I look up from the floor, and standing in front of me is a young woman with blond hair tied up on top of her head and held in place by two ballpoint pens. She’s wearing a blue cotton V-neck shirt covered with pins that have cartoon characters on them. “Are you visiting someone?” She says this all smiley, like she works at a theme park or something.

“Yeah, I’m here to see Gene,” I say. She motions to a tall desk and slips behind it.

“Let’s see, when was he brought in?” she asks while flipping through a metal binder.

“Last night. He was cut here,” I say, pointing to the same spot on my own shoulder.

“What’s his last name, sweetie?”

“Hassard,” I say. “Gene Hassard.”

“Yes, here it is.
Hassard, Gene.
He is in room four-fourteen.” She points to the floor. “Follow the yellow line to the elevators and go up to the fourth floor.”

“Yellow line,” I repeat, staring down at the floor.

“Just like the yellow brick road,” she says, rocking her head back and forth.

“Thanks.”

Standing outside room 414, I can see the end of a metal bed and two lumps under a blanket that must be Gene’s feet. I walk in and sit down in a chair next to him. Machines surround his bed, and they all have plastic tubes that snake their way into Gene. I’m surprised to see that his head is almost completely bandaged except for his eyes and his mouth, and his arm is in a cast up to his shoulder, with metal rods sticking out to hold his arm upright. He looks totally messed up. His eyes are closed. I just sit there for a minute, listening to the steady beeps coming from the machine to my left. I watch the lines that are tracing his heartbeat and think,
Just keep going. Don’t you stop, you stupid line, don’t stop.

“Gene,” I say softly, “It’s me, Jake. I know you can’t hear me, but I’m telling you, you can’t die on me.” I put both hands on the metal railing on the side of his bed. “You can’t die, Gene.”

“Who said anything about dying?” Gene says, but I can’t even see his lips move. I stand up, looking around.

“Gene?”

“Over here, Jake.” I look up to see the curtain on the other side of the bed move slightly. I dart around the curtain, and there’s Gene smiling at me.

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything. You were the one over there, professing your undying love to a perfect stranger.” Gene is laughing now, but it’s making him wince.

“Gimme a break. I thought you were on your deathbed. You had me totally freaked.” I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m thinking about the beach. “So when are you getting out? What did the doctors say? You’re going to be healed up enough to work Barrington Beach, right?”

“Slow down, Jake. The doctors say I should be out in a couple days, but I don’t know about pulling that rake. The muscles in my neck and shoulder need to heal. They have to make sure there’s no infection. They think it will be a few months if everything goes well.”

“A few months? What are we going to do? The beach opens a week from tomorrow!” I’m totally freaking out. Gene and I making a huge score at the beach is all part of the plan. That’s how it’s supposed to work. That’s how we were going to save the diner.

Gene puts his good hand on mine. “I’ll make a couple of calls when I get out. Get you on Jay Miller’s boat, or Dave Becker’s. They’re good guys, and they can catch a lot of quahogs. It’ll be all right, Jake.”

“But that’s not it. They’re not going to give me more than ten percent. They’re not in on the plan.” My voice is cracking, and I move away from the bed and look out the window at the Providence River. Gene must have forgotten. Maybe his brain is screwed up with all the drugs they’re giving him.
What am I going to do?

“Look, Jake, I’ll be out in a couple days. We can get our heads straight and figure this thing out.” I turn around, and Gene is pointing to the chair next to his bed. I go over and sit down.

“How did I get here, anyway?” Gene asks, and I don’t know what to say. My mind starts racing. I don’t want to tell Gene about Captain.

“Oh, yeah, well . . . I saw this really fast boat nearby, and I drove the Hawkline over, almost rammed into him, and he took us up the Providence River to where an ambulance was waiting and everything. He must have used a radio — I didn’t see.”

“Who was it?” Gene asks, and he’s looking right at me now. I’m wondering if he remembers the knife. It’s still in my pocket.

“I don’t know who it was. Never saw him before. Everything moved so fast once you got hurt.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the pile of twenties and lay them on the tray that is suspended above Gene’s legs.

Gene picks up the twenties with his good hand and looks it over. “You sold out? Where’s the boat?”

“It’s docked at Stanley’s. I’ll get it back to your dock this afternoon.” I want to leave. I can’t handle Gene’s questions. “I gotta go, Gene. I have to help my mom with something. Call us when you get out, and we’ll come pick you up.” Shoving my hands in my pockets, I head toward the door as a nurse comes in, tapping her pen against the clipboard.

“And how are we feeling today?” she says in a singsong way.

“Fine, fine.” Gene responds dismissively, and just as I enter the hallway he calls me back.
Uh-oh, more questions.
I look back in the room and Gene is holding out his hand toward me. “Take this, Jake. I don’t need it. You and your mom do.”