A long time ago, I wrote this piece. Initially planned in 4 Parts, I formatted this short story in 2 Parts for this blog. Don't you think it works better?)
Confounded Beginnings & Endings
By Justin Dowling
(Part 1 of 2)
The water behind the reef was less than three feet deep as I swam out to the cave. This is how the reptiles must have done it, I thought. I imagined how I looked in my black rubber suit, yellow tank, and gleaming regulator; a crocodile-looking creature, fore-claws scratching the bottom, webbed feet flailing in the water. I reached the cave's small opening before Harry Dahlman and had to wait. When he arrived, I signaled him to follow and ducked into the black hole, following the slight shafts of sunlight that disappeared beneath me. The entrance was like a manhole in the floor of the reef, but the cave beneath was a dazzling world of forms too dreamily beautiful to be real. I was wonderstruck.
I took a sharp breath on the regulator and plunged, belly down, to the golden sand that shimmered--lightly suspended by the turbulence about two inches off the bottom. Somehow the few sunbeams I had seen outside the manhole in the roof had become diffused inside, caught and sifted by each water molecule, scattering the light so evenly within that the walls seemed to glow and bathe the water atmosphere in a soft green tone. The walls themselves were a coral pink, rubbed fine by the circulation of tons of water. The floor was littered with orange-golden sawdust-sand. Only a heavy, green, pirate's chest lying, half buried, over in the shade at the back of the cavern could enhance the wonder of the scene. Open, it would spill its contents onto the sand, mixing the heavy copper and gold with the lighter tones of the gleaming carpet. Something clutched my shoulder. I shrank back, an icicle through my heart, and turned to see Harry, who had just followed me in. Relieved, I swam to him and signaled. His eyes seemed to bulge; he looked a little haunted behind the heavy glass faceplate of his mask. I began to doubt the wisdom of bringing him through a submerged cave. But he returned my OK sign so we started off along the cavern that would take us safely under the treacherously crashing surf and deposit us outside the reef. Swimming through the cave was effortless, like running with a gale wind at my back. A few fluttering kicks and I was propelled into the darkening middle distance and on out to the tunnel-mouthed exit. It was too easy. The tidal water was surging out to sea through the cave as if the reef was a giant tub, and we had just swum down the drain.
As soon as we entered deep water Dahlman began stringing his spear gun. I jerked my thumb in front of his faceplate and he followed me as we headed for the surface twenty feet above.
"What's up?" he sputtered, spitting his mouthpiece out, arching his back, and tossing his head skyward to keep his mouth and nose clear of the rolling waves.
"I don't feel right about the surge in that cave. We came out too easy. I'm afraid of trouble going back."
"Eric, I don't like the cave anyway," he said to the sky, "I think I'll go back over the reef."
"You're crazy," I shouted. "You'll be smashed like a bug if you try going through that surf." Twenty yards away the waves were crashing against the reef. Giant spumes of white water were flying skyward, falling behind the reef and running out again in rivulets, brimming over into our shattered blue sea. "It's too risky," I said, kicking violently to keep my weighted body above water. "I'm going back through the cave right now."
"What's your hurry? We just got here."
"I don't want to run out of air…inside the cave…I expect…it might be slow going."
We dived back down and split up at the mouth of the cave--Dahlman heading back on the outside while I went within.
I was right about the surge, but I didn't realize it immediately. Halfway into the cave I was kicking as hard as I could without making any progress forward. I was stalled. You can't make it. Yes I can, I have enough air, I'll crawl. But there's nothing to grab but sand. I clutched the dimpled wall. I was close to panic; I could feel my mind trying to slip away, trying to abandon out of fear the problem of returning to the world above. I clung to the wall, hung there sucking the cold, dry air across the tender base of my throat. It hurt. My heart swelled, crowded my laboring lungs. I was sweating .
Think. I was working too hard, losing control of my breathing rate in the effort to swim against the current. I turned onto my left side, holding fast to a coral knob in the wall. This trick, I knew, would relieve my sucking lungs by making the air in my tank flow freely; the difference in pressure between the water at my mouthpiece and the water around the pressure-sensing diaphragm on the regulator attached to the tank on my back was enough to cause free-flowing air to fill my lungs like balloons. Air backed up in my mouth, flowed out my nose and bubbled, reassuringly, out around the edges of my facemask.
Soon my heartbeat slowed to normal and I resumed swimming. Again I had to breathe through my mouth, and, under the circumstances, the discomfort was almost enough to make me tear off my mask and breathe water by the quart until I gave up my life to the dreamy atmosphere in there and floated off into humming darkness. With a growing sense of fear I imagined the soft grass and the warm sand of the shore I had left. I tried not to think of how close I had already come to mindless panic. I knew that I was in no danger yet, that I must control my mind and force it to think me through the present situation. Already I had eased the breathing problem to where I had overcome my sense of urgency and was breathing uncomfortably but with more assurance. I relaxed my aching legs and simply began to crawl using my knife to maintain my forward progress. I stabbed the sand while groping ahead for another handhold in the wall to which I could haul myself.
The surge became worse as I crawled deeper into the cave. The dark shadows of doubt began to creep over my brain again, the worry that my progress was too slow, that I would run out of air in there, hung on the edge of my consciousness yelling: give up! give up! I yelled back, screaming into my mouthpiece. It felt good. The dark doubts stayed back, scurrying around in the dim, wordless distance. I screamed on.
As I crawled, I felt the rhythm of the pounding tide with increasing effect. The crash of waves above was like a heartbeat that grew stronger and stronger as I progressed. The force of this beat was being transmitted to me through the water. If on the flow, the surge became too strong and threatened to uproot me, tear me away from the wall and wash me back out, this outward surge was somewhat abated by the ebb of the tide and I was able to flutter a few kicks forward during the moments of calm, hurriedly find a new handhold, and hang on for the next blow. With timing, my progress became steady and mechanical; I began to sense relief.
Finally, I reached the manhole that now glowed in the roof. Like a newly risen sun it shone on my dark world. To my surprise I realized I was still screaming. I stopped and climbed out to safety. I found I could sit on the edge of the hole with my legs dangling in the cave. I tore off my mask and breathed the sweet air. Across the reef I could see Dahlman standing up. He looked my way, waved his speargun, and started to wade toward me. The gun was sharply bent, but he looked all right. I was calming down, trying to order my experience. The time has come for a change, I reflected.
He stood back from his writing desk, hung his head, and sighed. He glimpsed his image just then, and strolled over to the mirror to inspect his features. He often relaxed this way, combing his fine blond hair with the comb and brush set he kept near the mirror. Now he inspected the damage age and booze had done to his face. He gave his cheeks a pinch; the color made him look angelic. He smiled. He strolled back to the desk, threw his pen on the stack of papers, the morning's work. Another chapter of the ballsy adventures of the famous Eric Borges, he thought. Now all I have to do is get him shacked up, laid, and I'll be finished. He thought of Ella's bulging belly and winced. It was growing stale, their marriage. It had been a glamorous affair once: Ella Gault, the bright young abstract painter, and Jason Richards, creator of the famous Eric Borges series. But lately he had begun to get restless. Bored with his series, bored with his life, he had begun to realize, perhaps too late, that his attraction to Ella was somehow confused in his mind with his own self-image. She had been a beautiful accessory to a popular author, and now she was proving to be a tremendous responsibility. Goodbye town house and parties; here comes Jason the family man.
Just then, Ella came bursting into the room. "Hello darling, good news!" she hailed, steering straight to him, her head canted to receive his kiss on her clear cheek. Without her makeup, he thought, her features are no more classic than a baby's ass. He remembered the first time he ever watched her take off her stockings; it was then that he realized those beautifully shaped legs were, underneath the perfection of a synthetic weave, flesh and some blood flowing through a lagging network of veins and arteries. How he loved her.
"Doctor Connors says that Sean could come at any moment, isn't that wonderful?
"
"Your enthusiasm for making babies isn't catching, I'm afraid."
"Oh…what a grouch…besides, it's a baby, the singular, not babies. Some writer you are. And I thought you'd be happy about this baby; after all, he's my first. Up 'till now the only things I've ever made have been a few dreary old abstractions--'monuments to the artful intricacy of the human mind,'" she recited. "Bullshit!" Now she put on her concerned, quizzical look. "What's the matter," she inquired, "trouble with the series?"
"No."
"Well I wish you'd perk up and stop talking to the floor. I'm going into my studio. Would you be a dear and put the water on? I'd like to have some tea before I begin work."
He went into the kitchen and, taking a match from the box in the dispenser on the wall, he lit the gas under the battered old kettle that came with this old house. Glancing out the window over the stove he could see the bare branches of the trees; the browns and golds of last autumn were being blown about by the late April winds. He only frowned. Jason wished he had never moved to the country. Harry, his agent, had found him this house as a favor to Ella. He wished Harry had to live here instead. He felt like going to a bar, getting roaring drunk. He wished he were in the city.
Jason entered Ella's studio through the adjoining door and found her standing before a lively splash of warm color, her back arched, her hands resting on her kidneys.
"Something new?" he asked.
"I'm giving representational subjects another chance. That abstract business was getting out of control. All those Chinese-locking puzzles were just so many designs. That's it, they were just designs: artifice, not art."
"So you want to do representational art, like me?"
"Is that what you call your series? Well, a picture is worth a thousand words. If it weren't, I wouldn't try to paint one."
"You did well in the galleries with that 'abstract business'."
"I wonder if that story about John D. Rockefeller losing his sense of taste isn't just a metaphor. Is it just a metaphor? You know about metaphors."
"Very clever."
"Money isn't everything," she sneered, turning to her canvas.
"Fish gotta swim; birds gotta fly; man gotta make money, an' he don' know why," Jason serenaded.
"I feel like painting something with a subject, with warm, gay, alive colors," she murmured to the canvas, "I feel so…organic."
"I feel like cutting my throat."
"Oh…my…you are down in spirits. What is the matter?"
"Harry says the series is lagging. Says the publisher's complaining the stories are getting too formulaic, that there's hardly any complication in the plotting. Can you imagine that? No complication!"
"Yes, the stories are getting a bit dreary dear."
"Of course they're dreary, life is dreary. There's no complication in life, how about that?" Jason had become strident.
"You're the artist Jason, use your imagination. Anyway, you needn't shout. You'll disturb Sean. Do you want some tea? I'm going to make a cup." She swung her belly around and followed it out of the room, leaving him standing before a summer scene. "I left the hospital's number by the phone," she called from the kitchen, "you're to ring them when it's time." He thought he heard the doorbell ring at the front of the house.
"I'll get it," he called over his shoulder. He opened the door to a slight man in his early thirties with fine blond hair. "Hello there," and he leaned across the threshold, took a pinch of Jason's cheek between his thumb and forefinger, gave it a tweak that brought color to his face. He looked angelic.
"Who the hell are you?" Jason asked.
"I'm your fairy godbrother," he said and smiled. "May I come in?"
"Hell no you can't come in," Jason tried to boom, taking a stand in the threshold. But he had hardly folded his arms before he brushed, elf-like, between his legs.
"Oh, what a lovely place," he gasped, doing a little turn in the center of the room. "My, what I could do with this. Some lavender drapes on those west windows to keep out the nasty old sun. Oh, and we could make a darling little cocktail cove in this corner: with a little throw rug…1 have just the one in mind, a white fluff…"
"Who the hell are you?" Jason shouted, incredulous.
"My, my," he said, pausing in mid-stride on his way across the room to the imaginary cocktail cove, twisting, abruptly, letting his gaze fall on Jason--who had managed to stumble about, awe-struck, poleaxed, and now stood, still, framed by the door, guarding the outdoors from the extrusion of this strange elfin caricature.
"You're repeating yourself," he said to Jason. "That's so dreary; please don't be dreary." He muttered something under his breath about Jason's life.
"What was that?"
"I said, my good sir, I am your complication."
"My complication?"
"Oh dear."
"My complication!"
"Tsk, tsk."
"I must be losing my mind."
"Yes, that's much better. Now, my wish is your command. What can I do for you? Advise you about your story? Tell your wife about us?"
"About us?"
"You know, before this baby business."
"Baby business?"
"Yesss. I'll tell her we're one. She'll have to give you a divorce. Then we can go back to putting out a Series."
"A series."
"A series, yes. Your series is lagging, I'm afraid."
"That's right…What's wrong?"
"I don't think you put enough of yourself into it. You'll need more facts, new facts from actual experience. Get a divorce; get back in circulation; we miss you."
"And Ella? The baby? I'll be needed by my son."
"You'll be needed by the people. Forget Ella. You have to think of yourself. It's a dog eat dog world. And right now you're about as tasty as lukewarm horsemeat!"
"Ugh! I hate your images. And I don't like your advice. I put entirely too much of myself in my series. That's the problem. Ella is right. I have to use my imagination, think up my own complications. I don't need you. In fact, I could have a perfectly happy life without you."
"You can't have any life without me, Mr. Smarty."
"I can have a life with my family and you can write the goddam series--you're so good at advice. I like you and your advice so much I'm going to switch to the scenic narrative. In my next chapter I'm going to get outside Eric Borges."
"My dear, self-effacing authors strike such a nothing pose."
"That's the point. Now why don't you efface yourself? I have to get back to work."
"What are you doing sitting there Eric? Don't you feel well? Have trouble in the cave?"
"I'm OK Harry. Bend your spear gun coming over the top?"
"What? Yeah, oh yeah... You sure you're alright?"
"I was just thinking of an idea for a new chapter. Something about the cave flashed like the mirror of a birth image. It was as if my life were connected to the earth by an umbilical cord as insubstantial as the air we breathe. And down there, coming back through the cave, was like hauling myself, on my own cord, back through the womb of Mother Nature Herself."
"You writers with your imagery. How are you going to use that on a self-centered bastard like Jason Richards?"
"The timing on the tides was wrong; if I hadn't been able to haul myself back to shore I would have been born fish-food. Jason Richards is like me; his conceit is sterile, fruitless; his life is a stillbirth. It's time for a change; I'll give him something to get outside himself. Are you with me Harry? You have to use a little imagination."
"This is a new one for you Eric, you're getting philosophical all of a sudden. Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Good, 'cause it's all set for tonight."
"Tonight?"
"The Gallery opening. I got the invitations.You're supposed to meet that artist broad, Ella."
"The abstract painter? I've seen her work. Weird forms that blend into one another. She'll take what looks like two different shapes and blend them together so you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It's cute."
"So's she. You two will make a great couple. Just leave the publicity to me. Your fans will love it; it won't hurt her career either."
"No Harry, this time I don't want you to publicize my love life; I don't want to use Ms. Gault outside my fiction."
"Look who's getting scruples? Are you sure you didn't meet your fairy godmother down there?"
"I almost drowned."
"Does this mean the Gallery opening for tonight is off?"
"For you it does Harry."
"Who's going to cover the show?"
"I'll take a few notes for you Harry. C'mon, let's get back to shore."
"I was just talking to myself hon."
"Jason? I think it's time."
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