The day was going to be excellent; the morning haze was already burning off. I grabbed a red canvas raft and went down to the beach. Almost immediately I found a long, used rubber at the water’s edge—a thing I’d never found at the “polluted” bay—and stashed it in my bathing suit pocket to show the boys back at home. We weren’t exactly sure how rubbers worked but we enjoyed theorizing. A huge ship was moving quickly, way out, and I wondered where it was going. Baltimore? The Caribbean? Brazil? At home I’d tell Beatriz that I’d seen a handsome green-and-yellow ship going to Brazil, flying both American and Brazilian flags, people waving from the side. I guess the leftover cocktails had fueled my imagination. The waves were perfect for surf-riding—not too big but not too small. I wasn’t allowed to go in the water alone, and the lifeguard wouldn’t be on duty until later, but if I stayed close to shore, I reasoned, what could happen?
I grabbed my raft, dragging it through the surf until the water was waist-high. I climbed on and paddled out to where the waves were swelling before breaking. Steering the raft around to face the shore, I positioned it at the top of a swell, just under its crest, and the breaking wave rocketed me to shore. I was triumphant—usually Liz or Dad had to tow me out to catch a wave, but now I’d done it myself. I caught wave after wave. I wished my dad and Liz could see how well I was doing.
The big ship had disappeared, and it was just me and the sun and water and my competent surf moves; I imagined that I was the very cute James Darren in Gidget, another movie Elena had taken us to the Hiser to see. Could I possibly stand up on my taut little raft? I paddled out and easily got to my knees and waited for the next swell. As I rode down into a deep slough, ready to stand, I suddenly realized that the approaching wave was enormous; it seemed ten times the size of the others. I quickly flopped onto my stomach and tried desperately to paddle up over its crest, but it was too late. The huge wave broke over me, thundering down and tearing my raft away from me. I went under, squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath, and was tumbled over and over, thrown against the rough bottom. I felt my bathing suit being ripped off. I struggled to right myself and reach air, but I was still being forced down. My breath gave out, and I sucked in water and sand. Finally my head broke the surface and I gasped raggedly for air. To my horror I found that I was not being pushed ashore but was now being dragged out into another slough, a wave looming over me. My feet searched frantically for the sandy bottom, and I started swimming shoreward, but the gigantic wave pounded me again. I felt like a pair of Keds in the washing machine—slam, slam, slam. The relentless waves kept coming—they became monsters hell-bent on destroying me. I inhaled more water, coughing desperately, and was terrified, knowing that I was in real trouble, alone and helpless. I fought with every bit of strength I had, but was exhausting myself. The turbulence wrenched my arms and legs—it was so painful I stopped flailing and tried to tuck into myself and float, but the water was far too rough. I felt tiny, a sand crab torn from the shore, at the mercy of the infinite ocean. I gave up, waiting with a weird calm for whatever came next.
I wasn’t thinking that I was dying—I wasn’t thinking at all—but understood that I was losing. Faces of people I loved appeared to me, most vividly my mother, and her voice, reciting the poem: “What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from you.” Then my dad’s face appeared, larger and more distinct than the others. I was lifted up from the water—was I flying?—my back being thumped. I began choking. My eyes opened to see that it was my actual father, who hoisted me to his chest and held me tightly, rushing me out of the waves. While sloshing wildly through the breaking surf, Daddy threw me upside down and kept punching me on the back with his fist. I coughed up seawater, sand, potato chips, bourbon, and cherries, which ran down Daddy’s legs into the water. I breathed, and he righted me, saying, into my face, “I got you. I got you, pal. Take it easy.” I was naked, clinging like a chimp to my father. My father. I buried my face in his freckled pink neck, tasting its saltiness and coughing. As we reached the sand, I looked out to sea and could just make out my red raft, which seemed as far away as the ship had been. Liz stood on the beach crying. I didn’t cry. Daddy wrapped me in a towel and carried me in his arms back to the cottage.
9
I spent the last day of the beach trip lying in the cottage hammock, my multitude of bloody scrapes painted with mercurochrome, nursing a hangover. I got a lot of treats and attention. Carline played my favorite 45s, and Liz and Dad played cards and Monopoly with me. I was amazed that no one was mad at me for drowning.
Back at home, I continued to recuperate. I was really sore and had a cough. I was dying to tell the boys about my drowning and about the pirate vinegaroon, and I was mad that Brickie had taken the Post to work before I could look for a photo. And, of course, I had the rubber to show off—Liz had found my bathing suit washed up on the beach but fortunately hadn’t checked the pocket. Dimma, concerned about my cough, was making me stay inside and rest and wouldn’t even let the boys come see me. I shouldn’t have told her that a sand crab or a minnow had probably gone down my windpipe. But I was still feeling rough enough that a day of incarceration didn’t seem so terrible.
Liz hadn’t teased me—yet—about what had happened, especially about losing my bathing suit, which I took to be a measure of how scared she’d been. She didn’t even tell our grandparents, because it would have gotten Daddy in trouble. Dad had immediately told Dimma that I’d “had an accident.” I guess he’d had to tell Dimma something because of what I was calling my “open wounds,” but he’d simply explained, “John got a little scragged by a wave.” Dimma seemed concerned, but thank God hadn’t wanted to give me an enema and had only said, “Well, I’m sure he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.” Daddy had let it go at that.
“If you’re still coughing tomorrow, we’re going to see Dr. Spire,” Dimma said that evening. Dr. Spire meant shots, and maybe taking off my pants. I whined, struggling to suppress a cough, “No, Dimma! If there’s a sand crab in my lungs he’s dead by now.”
“Never mind,” she said sternly. “And either you let your grandfather get that splinter out of your foot now, or Dr. Spire can do it tomorrow. It looks infected.”
“No, it’s not! It’s better and I can feel it coming out.”
“You heard me,” she said, and gave me a goodbye kiss.
“Thanks a lot, dear,” Brickie said to her sarcastically. He looked at me and shook his head.
Dimma was going out for the evening—playing bridge, I guess, although I noticed she’d forgotten her score pad, which she never was without. She looked pretty in her new dress from Claire Dratch, a pale-aqua shirtwaist with small bronze polka dots, which seemed dressed up for bridge. I don’t know where Liz was—spending the night with a friend, supposedly, but she most likely had sneaked up to the Youth Center on Wisconsin to hear a band, or make out.
Brickie and I were having what he called “Bachelor Night,” which meant that he’d make hamburgers and hash browns for dinner and we’d eat Honeymoon ice cream and watch TV together.