Then finally it stopped.
In the sudden silence, I could hear every man breathing. The big man groaned, like he’d be throwing up again any second.
“Is everybody all right?” I said.
“This guy’s out,” Leon said, his fingers on the driver’s neck. “But he’s alive.”
“These other guys…,” Tyler said. He sat up slowly, holding his shoulder. “I can’t believe they’re not out, too. Maybe the boat wasn’t going as fast as it looked.”
“Or maybe we’re a lot tougher than you think,” the man on his knees said. He pulled himself up and sat down slowly on the front bench. “Who are you, anyway? What the hell is going on?”
“Come on,” Tyler said. “We’ll get you to shore.”
“Did you hit us?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did you hit us with your boat? Is that what happened?”
If I could have reached him, I would have smacked him right in the face. “You hit some old bridge pilings. Now shut up and get in the other boat.”
But when I looked out, I saw Tyler’s boat drifting away from us. It had to be fifty feet away by now.
“I got it,” he said. In one smooth motion he was back over the side of the boat, swimming with his head out of the freezing water. Hippie, musician, whatever he was-he was handling everything like a pro. If I had any doubts about him being in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, they were long gone.
“You guys hit us,” the man said again. In the dim light I could see he was in his midthirties, maybe. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket. His hair was slicked back on his head, making him look like a drowned rat. The water was up to his waist now, the whole boat going under an inch at a time. “Goddamn, that’s cold.”
“Cap, what are we going to do?” It was the big man. He was apparently done puking.
“They ruined the boat, man. Look at this thing.”
“ We ruined the boat,” the big man said. “Didn’t you see those things in the water? We ran right into them.”
The man named Cap kept holding onto his head like he had the world’s worst hangover. “I can’t even see straight. God, that hurts.”
“What about Harry?”
“What about him?”
“Oh my God, look at him.”
“Holy shit,” Cap said. “Harry!”
“Is he dead?”
“Harry!”
Both men tried to climb over to the unconscious man. Leon was holding his head up out of the water.
“Be careful!” he said. “I’m trying to keep him still.”
“Harry! God damn it! Are you alive?”
“He’s alive,” Leon said. “Stop moving the boat until we can get him off.”
“We are so fucked,” the big man said. “Our lives are over. Do you realize that?”
“Just shut up,” Cap said. “Okay, Brucie? Will you just shut up?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Maybe you should both shut up,” I said. “How about that? Just keep quiet until we can get us all back to shore.”
The big man looked at me. His face was twelve inches from mine. Brucie, the other man called him. What a name for a man the size of a Coke machine. He was about to say something, but the explosion cut him short.
“What the hell is that?”
“The fireworks,” Leon said. “They’re starting again.”
There was another explosion, and a faint red glow in the air high above us. Sitting in the ruined wooden boat, it was like we were suddenly transported back to the wrong end of a nineteenth-century sea battle.
“Oh, my head,” Cap said. “God, that noise is killing me.”
The next few explosions brought a brilliant white light, then another red light, then blue. The fog itself was turning into a very loud ambient light show. It would have been beautiful if we weren’t cold and wet, and right below the target zone. One low shot and we’d catch it right in our laps.
“Here’s our ride,” Leon said, as Tyler pulled alongside us. We helped the two conscious men into the other boat, and then Leon and I took a few long minutes to carefully lift the third man and pass him over the gunwales. He was deadweight, and we were up to our waists in water now. His head was still bleeding.
“We need to get this man to the hospital,” Tyler said when we were all aboard. “Did they say they were sending an ambulance, Leon?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Okay, good. I’m sure it’ll only take them two or three days to get out here.” He spun the boat around and headed for shore. He was completely soaked from his little late-night swim. He was shivering so hard he could barely grip the steering wheel.
“You guys didn’t call the police, did you?” It was Brucie. In the dim light of the boat, I could see he was about the same age as Cap, with his hair shaved close to his scalp. He had a little gut going, but otherwise he looked as strong as an ape. Aside from the vomit all over his coat, he looked like he could step right out onto a football field.
“The Coast Guard will come around the Point to recover the boat,” Tyler said. “And the ambulance will take your friend. Hell, they’ll want to take all of you, just to be safe. I don’t know if the police will come. Does it matter?”
Brucie looked over at Cap. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Leon’s bandmates were waiting for us on the dock. We must have been some sight. We got everybody off the boat and wrapped up in towels. The unconscious man we laid out on the dock. In the dim light from the house, I could see that he was a lot younger than the other two men. He looked like he had just graduated from high school. Tyler covered him with a thick woolen blanket and pressed a clean white cloth against his head. I could see some superficial wounds to his scalp, but God knows what could have happened to him internally. The men all wanted to stay outside with him. So we all stood there on the dock while the fireworks kept exploding in the fog.
“Cap,” Brucie said, “what if he doesn’t make it?”
“He’ll make it,” Cap said. “Just stop talking.”
“What if he’s still alive but he’s like…you know, brain dead. What’s going to happen to us then?”
“If you don’t shut up,” Cap said, gritting his teeth, “I’m going to make you brain dead right here on the dock. Okay?”
Brucie kept his mouth shut after that. The time crawled by, until finally the ambulance showed up in Tyler’s driveway. I went around and led the men down to the water. A Michigan state trooper showed up a minute later. He wrote a few things down while the EMS guys got the men into the ambulance. Cap and Brucie weren’t too sure about going with them. They wanted to drive separately, even though their car must have been a half mile away, at the casino. I was starting to wonder if the trooper would have to break out his nightstick, but the men finally relented and got in the ambulance. My last sight of them was both crammed onto a single bench, squinting in the bright light, while their friend lay on the stretcher in front of them. If there was any gratitude to us for saving their lives…well, maybe they’d be sending a nice card the next day.
The trooper stayed a few more minutes. It was the driver himself who had been hurt, so there didn’t seem to be a serious crime involved, outside of being criminally stupid enough to drive an expensive wooden boat into an old bridge piling. If they found enough alcohol in the driver’s system, they’d have something to ring him up on. But beyond that the whole thing would probably go to the DA and not much else would happen.
“Those pilings,” the trooper said. “On a night like this? Those guys must not be from around here.”
“I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often,” Tyler said.
“You got that right. Hey, you don’t have any coffee, do you? It feels like November out here.”
I never saw the big orange Coast Guard boat show up. I was finally on my way home by then. Around Whitefish Bay, up the lonely dark road to Paradise. The sign in my headlights. WELCOME TO PARADISE, WE’RE GLAD YOU MADE IT! The one blinking light in the center of town.
Then the Glasgow Inn on the right side. It was still open, but I didn’t stop. I was still wet enough to be uncomfortable, and besides, I didn’t feel like hearing it from Jackie just then. Why I wasn’t there all night, what I was doing instead. He’d love the story I’d have to tell him, but it would have to wait until tomorrow.