“Not when the bottom’s like eighteen feet thick and made of pure steel.”
Shy is staring blankly at the ocean like this, remembering his grandma, when out of the corner of his eye he sees a blur climbing the railing.
He spins around.
The comb-over man.
“Sir!” he shouts, but the guy doesn’t even look up.
Shy cups his hands around his mouth and shouts it louder this time: “Sir!”
Nothing.
The two older women now see what’s going on, too. Neither moves or says a word.
Shy rips off the cooler and sprints across the width of the deck. Gets there just as the man lowers himself over the other side of the railing and goes to jump.
Shy reaches out quick, snatches an arm. Grabs for the man’s collar with his other hand and balls the material into his fist. Holds him there, suspended against the ship.
Everything happening so fast.
No time to think.
This man dangling over the edge, twenty-something stories up from the darkness and too heavy for one person, slipping through Shy’s fingers.
He hooks his right leg through the railing for leverage so he won’t get pulled over, too, and shouts over his shoulder: “Get help!”
One of the women hurries toward the lounge, through the glass doors. The other is shouting in Shy’s ear: “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
The comb-over man locks eyes with Shy. Shifty and bugged. Up to this point his hand has been gripping Shy’s forearm. But now he lets go.
“What are you doing!” Shy shouts at him. “Grab on!”
The man only looks below him.
Shy tightens his grip. Grits his teeth and tries pulling the man up. But it’s impossible. He’s not strong enough. Their positioning is too awkward.
He looks over his shoulder again, yells: “Somebody help!”
The second woman shuffles backward, toward the lounge. Hand over her mouth. The water bottles from Shy’s cooler rolling around the deck behind her.
Shy can feel the man’s elbow starting to slip through his fingers. He has to do something. Now. But what?
Several seconds pass.
He lets go of the collar long enough to clamp on to the man’s arm with his left hand, too. Just below the elbow. Both of his hands in a circle now. Fingers linked. Shy’s whole body shaking as he holds on. Sweat running down his forehead, into his eyes.
His leg in the railing beginning to cramp.
A few more seconds and then he hears a ripping sound. The man’s suit coming undone at the arm. He watches helplessly as the seams pull apart right in front of his eyes. Slow-motion-style. Black threads breaking, dangling there like tiny worms.
Then a loud tear of material and the man drops, screaming. Eyes wild as he falls backward. Arms and legs flailing.
He disappears into the darkness below with hardly a splash.
Shy! someone calls out.
But Shy’s still staring over the railing, into the darkness. Trying to catch his breath. Trying to think.
Shy, I know you can hear me.
Other passengers moving out onto the deck now. The hum of hushed conversations. A spotlight snapping on above him, its bright beam of light creeping along the surface of the water. Revealing nothing.
Stop playing, bro. We need to hurry and get to Southside.
The ocean still whispering, same as before. Like nothing whatsoever has happened, and nothing will.
Shy glances down at his hands.
He’s still gripping the man’s empty sleeve.
Day 1
1
Rodney
“Seriously, Shy. Get up.”
Shy rolled over on his cot.
“Don’t make me smack you upside the head.”
Shy cracked open his eyes.
Big Rodney was standing over him, hands on hips.
Shy looked around their small cabin as reality came flooding back: no sleeve in his hands. This, a completely different voyage—bound for Hawaii, not Mexico. The man jumped six days ago, meaning it’d been almost a full week now.
“I know you didn’t forget, right?” Rodney said.
“Forget what?” Shy sat up and rubbed his eyes. He knew this answer would stress Rodney out, though—because everything stressed Rodney out—so he smiled and told the guy: “I’m playing, man. Of course I didn’t forget. You see I’m already dressed, right?”
“I was gonna say.” Rodney ducked into the bathroom, came back out with an electric toothbrush buzzing over his teeth, mumbling something impossible to make out.
Shy got out of bed and went to his dresser, pulled a brown paper bag from behind the safe he never bothered using.
Tonight was Rodney’s nineteenth birthday. A bunch of people were supposed to celebrate on the crew deck outside of Southside Lounge. When Shy’s shift at the pool ended at nine he’d come down to his and Rodney’s cabin to shower and change, but he wound up crashing hard. This was a minor miracle considering he’d hardly slept the night before. Or the night before that. Or the night before…
He peeped the clock: already after eleven.
Rodney ducked back into the bathroom to spit, came out wiping his mouth with a hand towel. Guy was surprisingly nimble for an offensive lineman. “I said, you were thrashing around in your sleep, bro. You dreaming about the jumper again?”
“I was dreaming about your mom,” Shy told him.
“Oh, I see how it is. We got a second comedian on the ship.”
The suicide might have happened six days ago, on a completely different voyage, but every time Shy had closed his eyes since…there was the comb-over man. Sipping from his water bottle or talking about corruption or climbing his ass over the railing—guy’s meaty arm slowly slipping through Shy’s sissy grip.
Even worse, halfway through the dream the man’s face would sometimes morph into Shy’s grandma’s face. Her eyes slowly filling with blood from her freakish disease.
Shy tossed the paper bag to Rodney.
“Bro, you got me a present?” Rodney said. “What is it?”
“What do you want it to be?”
Rodney studied the ceiling and tapped his temple, like he was thinking. Then he pointed at Shy, told him: “How about a beautiful woman in lingerie?”
Shy gave an exaggerated laugh. “What, you think I’m some kind of miracle worker?”
“I’m playing, bro,” Rodney said. “She doesn’t have to be beautiful. You know I’m not picky.”
Shy pointed at the bag. “Just open it.”
Rodney unfolded the top and pulled out the book Shy got him: Daisy Cooks! Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World.
“They had it in the gift shop,” Shy told him.
Rodney flipped it over to look at the back.
“If you’re gonna be a famous chef,” Shy added, “you need to know how to do tamales and empanadas. Me and Carmen could be like your test audience.”
Rodney looked up at Shy with glassy eyes.
The gift proved Shy remembered their first conversation on their first voyage together. When Rodney mentioned his dream of becoming a New York City chef.
But tears?
Really?
“Come on over here, bro,” Rodney said, holding out his arms.
“Nah, I’m good,” Shy told him, moving toward the door. Rodney was an enthusiastic hugger who didn’t understand his own strength. And Shy wasn’t the touchy-feely type.
“I mean it, Shy. Come give your boy some love.”
Shy went for the door handle instead, saying: “We need to hurry and get you to your party—”